PIUS DEA
The Era of War.
As the goddess' words of heavens spread, all shall be pious under her loving gaze. Violence embedded, wrought like steel, with a crucible; made it undivided. A sword formed in her faith, telling all of her unchallenged enlightenments. Oceans and stars bear witness to all that are sacrificed in her name. Fire asunder and blades were drawn, as the blood of the deemed unworthy colored the stars.
Humanity marches into the veneer of progress, casting aside all compassion for the unknown and the unfamiliar. The bellicose of war, chants of blood, and chants of love are all the same, as their eyes filled with zeal to kill, to pray, to maim, to kneel! The unworthy cries for compassion, knowing well the futility of their actions. No mercy, one spared is a threat to her teaching. Let their way be forgotten, let their people die a quick death in her name.
For millennia; they ruled the galaxy, for her teaching to be spread, and in an instant within the galactic view; their teaching was cast aside. When the scream of righteousness turned into the roar of demons; their image of utopia morphed into hell themselves. Shame, such shame, as in their twilight, a hope was forged within their people, as their previous hearts made of steel were slowly becoming malleable, as they witnessed the horror they had created. Those they do not deem pure, slowly over decades or even centuries were looked at to be more loved. The unworthy turned into the lost, and the lost turned into their duty to shepherd by their side into a new era of a kinder galaxy, slowly but surely the unworthy were regarded as equal. No more concepts of the chosen race, only the all-loving without condition.
That hopeful future was being forged not by the screams of the damned, the blood of the innocent, not the ignorance of old, but by kindness, and love for all, even for the unworthy non-humans.
They are changing; shame, such shame that changes are not fast enough. As the reformers of the goddess's enlightenment can barely crawl to tell their new teachings; their past atrocities and the current ones still being committed wholesale were too much for the galaxy to bear, forcing for their return. The Jedi order, Knights of The True Republic.
The Twilight of Eras
They have hidden themselves for millennia, seeing the republic they once served with disgust, retreating to their ancient worlds, ignoring the cries of their duties, the cries of their former people they once served. The republic they once made an oath to is now a monster they don't want to see. Seeing their order failures paid in the blood of their family and loved one; the very thing swore to protect now destroying itself with pervier glee.
They thought that their order had been long forgotten, and their stories turned into legends as mythicized beings that no longer exist; that the galaxy had condemned their cowardice of inactions and had destroyed any sway they had on their people. How can they want them back now, for so long they have ignored their cries for help, their wish to be free from suffering that had been long met by deaf ear for a thousand years, they had thought that their rights to be the guardians of the galaxy the order that to maintain peace has long been unworthy for them to take.
And yet they fought
And they have won
It all went so fast, once her teachings were all known across the known galaxy, once their power unchallenged, their fleets mighty, their armies power incarnate, once they had it all; their dreams almost completed, and in a blink of an eye all of that was snatched right before their eyes. It happened so fast that it became a footnote in galactic history.
The reformers, those who had claimed to reclaim their goddess true vision, not muddled by the taint of men, went into hiding. Their belief of human supremacy in the galaxy still holds true not as it's sole inheritor but as a gardener.
Are they persecuted? No, not in the slightest, instead their survival as the sole sect of their goddess religion that had survived emboldened their followers, deeming that their fall is the goddess wrath directed at them. They did not face obscurity for thousands of years, no, instead, they have become the cornerstone, the basic building block of what will come in the dark times.
Human high culture.
A product of their new effort. The promise of unrelenting progress for the galaxy with humanity at its Helm. A promise made, a dream forged where humanity once more becomes the galaxy's true ruler. And the fact that the goddess true follower was in the center of it all became the new face of human superiority, despite the countless recording and evidence of atrocities their fellow followers have done in the past. Romanticism often makes even the smartest forget reality.
Progress the goddesses followers promised a vision of progress, until that vision; that future they so yearn and sing to the rest of humanity have left them.
They were the one that had given humanity that utopia of a vision where their people ruled the stars but progress doesn't discriminate what should be removed, and even their founders with the march of time became irrelevant.
Gone was faith
Gone was zeal to a higher power
Machine and logic will replace those childish things.
…….
This ones a bit tricky to explain.
The pre-reformed goddess's followers are based on how violent it is in the old testament, while the reformed one is based on you know Christianity and how it basically became the basis of western civilization: the good and the bad with the eventuality, in Europe at least, those religion was abandoned in favor of science and logic etc.
And a bit on how the shadows of Empires long past will always be glorified as the perfect system even though when you think about it, living there as the average person will suck. So yeah romanticism, even by reading all my works in Ffn, Ao3, and spacebattles, you'll see that I have some reservation with the concept. I'm not saying the thing should be removed, it has some uses, it just can become so dangerous.
Also this side story explains the empire's relationship with religion, even the one that is "aligned" (daddy Palpatine is selfish) with their view.