What makes a good man turn evil?Ambition? Greed? Intoxicating power? Real and perceived wrongs, and an all-consuming desire for revenge?
All of those "motivations" are used and re-used in primitive yarns and voluminous novels alike, but they are wrong. No trully good man is ever corrupted by something like that. Ambition and greed motivate the ambitious and the greedy; and power does not corrupt, but rather attracts those already corrupt. Petty grudges fade if a man is truly and honestly commited to good; only the petty-minded can be consumed by revenge.
What, then, makes a good man turn evil? A grand plan. A theory. An idea. A truly good man pursues good; but there are sure and tried paths he should follow in this pursuit, for otherwise, he can become the polar opposite of what he once was. No-one is more evil than a good man taken too far by a dangerous, wrong idea; give me your crooks, your murderers, your cowards, your wretches, your traitors, your daemons even - none of them are more evil than the fanatics.
Trust me on this one; I know evil well. Nobody studies the nature of evil as thoroughly as heretics and inquisitors; both dedicate their lives to this one subject. Ofcourse, they study it differently, with different goals and from different perspectives. The heretic adulates evil, he seeks to grasp its mysteries, he aspires to become at one with it; the inquisitor, meanwhile, seeks out its strenghts and weaknesses, as a physician studies a disease prior to taking measures against it. And I? I have been - and in a way still am - both; therefore few people in the universe understand evil as well as I do.
Yes, indeed. I like to think that nobody, or at least only a few people around here know it, but I was raised and educated on a Black Ship, and was tested and trained, and ultimately became an Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus. I have travelled far and wide in the Segmentum Ultima; I have infiltrated, studied and eradicated heresies, sometimes by myself, sometimes by organising planet-wide campaigns, and twice I even ordered an Exterminatus, eradicating entire worlds. Thus sometimes I purged populations and sometimes I trialed single corrupted individuals; on other occassions I merely burned some books. One tends to learn a lot about the nature of evil when facing it so often, and in so many guises.
But indeed I have understated the significance of books; those can be more dangerous than people sometimes, for they tend to give immortality to ideas and theories, which can then move and incite an already agitated mind further... I know when I fell to one ancient idea; I do not remember the date, but I do remember that it was after the Purge of Salofkos, in which I took an active part. I was tired and shaken after days of endless, restless fighting against hordes of deranged heretics and daemons, from whom we had barely escaped in time to initiate the Exterminatus; but worse still was the confrontation with another Inquisitor, a Xanthite whom I have barely managed to subdue and execute after learning of his part in the rebellion. In my addled state, I did not get rid of the books and scrolls I confiscated from him as quickly as I should have; instead, I kept them for further examination after he was executed. I have read them, and was caught by an idea.
Evil was - is - mighty, and the heretics were - are - a mighty force, while still remaining but a tip of the iceberg. Chaos, taught Zaranchek Xanthus, is the mightiest of nature's elements; it too must be turned to serve Mankind, like all the other elements, lest it destroy Mankind instead. But, claim the Recongregationists, the Imperium of Man had stagnated; it was incapable of making the necessary adjustments to integrate and assimilate Chaos, and attempts to reform it were innate folly; instead, it needed to be swept aside, like the fractitious empires of old were swept aside by the Emperor - only then could His vision be trully fulfilled.
And an idea of my own then emerged, a wonderful plan to steal Chaos from evil and put it in the service of good. After burning the books, I have set out to study the Chaos cults. I infiltrated them, and learned as much as possible from the greatest heresiarchs; I myself became a heretic then, though remaining an inquisitor inasmuch as I still ended every investigation, every course in my training as a heretic by wiping out the cult involved. I studied their organisation and their philosophy, their methods and their goals; I learned to understand them perfectly, and joined the chorus of those who cried "Destroy the weak!" - and then did just that, for they were weak. Some of them were too disorganised and undisciplined; others were small and incapable of expanding; a few had inspired, skilled leadership and perfect organisation, and expanded quickly, but they were, in a way, the weakest of them all, being as inflexible and useless as the Imperium itself.
So I went on, until I found this cult. It was perfect. After a few months of steadily severing my ties with the Imperium and the Inquisition, and faking my death, I moved in to take over. Their leaders were just weak enough for me to take over, and just strong enough to make the transfer smooth after the initial few massacres.
Which pretty much brings me to where I am now, details aside. That said, those were some major details...
To be continued; will probably repost in the main thread when it appears.
