Deep in the heart of the Imperium of Man, a skeleton sat upon a throne of gold. Bereft of all but skin, the entity guided humanity across the stars, endlessly drawn apart and fractured. Thousands of millions of tiny fragments of its mind scattered themselves to the furthest corners of the galaxy to give guidance to those who so desperately sought its guidance.
Soldiers of undying will drew upon it for strength. Average men in underhives who toiled endlessly to keep the Imperium alive asked it for fortune to visit them. Men and women who died on battlefields they had hoped to never see pled for it to forgive their multitudinous sins as they lay dying.
But this being, this Emperor, did not hear them. For it could not. Its mind, or what was left of it, had long been bereft of any such thing as a consciousness. All that was left was a single, absolute purpose: to protect mankind and further its interests.
And yet, despite this singular purpose, it was somehow capable of thought. Of emotion. It would, occasionally, speak to those who asked it for guidance. These people would proclaim the light it showed them to all who would listen, but oftentimes they would go unheeded.
Such lack of devotion to its cause by the very people it sought to protect saddened it, and it fractured that tiniest bit more. Millions of billions of people called on it for aid, none ever listening for when it truly spoke to them.
And so, it laid fractured on that golden throne. For ten millennia it remained this way. Shattered. Broken. Distraught. It watched all that it hoped to love and guide into the future decay into rust and rot.
And somewhere, deep within the recesses of its devastated soul, it saw a single burning memory. A memory that it wished so greatly it had heeded upon hearing for the first time. A memory of a man, alone on a hill, confronted by the futility of which he had dedicated his life to.
A man named Uriah.
"I hope you have foreseen the consequences of a world bereft of religion." Uriah had spoken as they watched the end of mankind begin. It, from its position on the throne, knew that Uriah had been right so long ago.
"I have." It had foolishly replied. It had been so young, so arrogant and sure of itself. So…determined to see humanity prosper away from the creatures of anarchy and death that roamed the immaterium.
Not seeing that the very thing that fed them was what it was creating. It had created a world of belief-less logic. Foolishly thinking that to deprive Chaos was sustenance was to deprive them of worship.
No. It saw that now. Depriving them of worship did not starve them. Blaise Pascal had been right all those eons ago. Mankind would fill their hearts with some god in response to a lack of one. And the chaos gods, even despite the lack of worship, would fill that hole all too willingly.
No. Uriah had been right.
To starve chaos was not to take away its worship. It was to direct its worship at something noble. At something good. To show humanity that a paragon of virtue and goodness did exist, and that they had every right and ability to strive towards it.
How it missed Uriah. A simple man on an unmarked hill standing before a burning church had been possessed of the greatest wisdom that it had ever encountered in any man. Something it should have seen at the time. It should have known.
But it had been so self-assured in its own righteousness that it had instead taken away his only belief, robbed him of purpose, and then asked him to join that which was inimical to his very existence.
And so, it mourned. Great psychic wails echoed away from Terra, screaming their way across the galaxy, and filling any psyker who listened with intense sorrow. Sorrow unlike anything that had been felt by a being in the materium since the fall of the eldar.
How it missed Uriah. He had been so absolute, so unwavering in his belief of the goodness of man guided by a being composed of all things that were good. That should have been the very purpose it strove for.
To be human. To be that which every man was supposed to be. To be good.
"The difference is that I know I am right."
"Spoken like a true autocrat." Uriah had said. It wished so dearly that it could cry, that it could hold Uriah like a brother and apologize for that which it had wrought upon his species. It had created the very thing that Uriah had known it would.
How it mourned his wisdom. How it wished that it had listened. How…
The being screamed once again, this time of fury and self-hatred as Uriah's words continued to take hold. How it could still have all its sons if it had simply listened to his ideals of compassion and understanding.
Konrad. Mortarion.
Lorgar. Horus.
Magnus. Angron.
Perturabo and Fulgrim, Alpharius and Omegon.
Sanguinius, Ferrus, Jaghatai.
Corvus, Vulkan, and Leman.
Malal. Fiorius.
It screamed and raged against the heartless universe that cared not for its fate. It wailed in agony as its children tore apart its mind and fed it innocent children to keep it alive.
It fumed and bucked against the universe which dared to deprive it of that which it loved. And most of all, it raged against its past self which had not seen the truth of Uriah's words.
"I hope in the name of all that is holy that you are right. But I dread the future you are forging for humanity."
He had been right. It had been wrong.
And that, more than anything in the universe that could possibly torment it, ground against its very essence. It laid a thousand curses upon its younger self.
And then, like always, the skeleton returned to its lifeless state, deprived of all but singular purpose. But this time, there was a single mote of difference.
None were in the room to witness it, but the slightest corner of the being's dried and decaying lips had twisted up, and a single word was mouthed.
Uriah.
This realization, this turning of the mind, though, did nothing for its state. And despite this, the Imperium around it continued to decay.
But the Emperor of Man took solace in the belief that mankind, as it always had, would persevere through this time of hardship. Just like Uriah had seen it would.
All it needed to do was prove to man that there was one thing, one being worth following.
And so, forty thousand years of planning for mankind's glorious ascension suddenly took an instantaneous turn.
Deep within the halls of the Imperial Tarot, dozens of psykers that constantly tried to divine the Emperor's will were suddenly filled with a single phrase.
"For Uriah."