Ord Casto - High Prophet of Truth
I looked at the video feed as the inquisitor's voice played.
"If you are listening to this then I am dead and the prophet of Disdain is a traitor. He is feeding information to the enemy, he has been feeding them information since the begining of the war."
I found it hard to believe but another Inquisitor had found the one in question murdered. I played another record and we watched as the prophet of Disdain walked into a place of ill repute, one he was known to visit. The camera changed to a window and we saw a figure in armor.
"Humanity thanks you for your information about Harvest."
"Just remember this when you take out the council. Remember who you need to keep alive to run the empire."
"Humanity never forgets their friends."
We looked down at him, in chains, and I felt hate and loathing.
"It's a forgery."
The greatest, the largest, fleet in our empire's history, a fleet composed of races from throughout the empire and it had been obliterated. It was the single worst defeat in our history. It however explained things, explained so many of our losses, how the enemy always seemed to know where we were.
"Kill him."
I don't remember who said it, only that every single one of us agreed with it.
"Purge the entire line."
An example would be set, the traitor would be killed publicly. At the time I thought it to be the correct choice as we just had a major disaster and practically everyone knew of someone who died during the event we were calling the Black Harvest. Finding the traitor and killing him was, in my mind, enough to show that we were working upon victory.
After killing him we swore revenge, and in the moment it felt good. We would avenge the fallen, we would destroy humanity no matter what the cost, and the empire would be preserved. Thing was that, while the public execution of the traitor felt good at the time, it instilled thoughts and doubts. If a member of the council could betray the empire... who else was a traitor?
Our inquisitors started becoming more rough with people, started seeing human intelligence agents everywhere, started chasing ghosts. Many species, who before had seen the council as holy, became doubtful: if one of us could be a traitor, how holy could we be? I didn't know it at the time but the disaster and the execution had created cracks in our empire. But in that moment we were completely unified, in a way we hadn't been for centuries.
The moment, however, did not last.