In a not so distant future, in examination room D-2931, within the bowels of the Inquisition for Community Errors, New Collective Union:
Prisoner T329: What new and wonderful “lessons” do you have for me this time?
Inquisitor 3204: I must admit, your obtuse tenacity is admirable.
P: I find nothing admirable about you, the inquisition, or your god-emperor.
I: You prefer the past degenerate, entitlement obsessed, money-driven society of narcissists and their ludicrous rule by popularity, indecision, interminable factional squabbles, and perpetual deferment.
P: According to your lot, men ought to live in perpetual gratitude to your delusional god-emperor for the privilege of breathing . . . arg!
I: Temper, temper. Your humanism has devolved you into a temperamental beast.
P: Ugh . . . beasts are what you are. You deny the rights and dignity of men. When men defy your vapid, baseless claims of ownership over them, you threaten them with physical harm. Do you think your crude weapons, shiny badges, and clever titles give you authority over free men? You and your god-emperor’s claims to rulership are without merit. I do not recognise your authority over me, or any other human being.
I: Your rants are becoming tiresome. Repeating delusions and heresies do not make them valid.
P: You are the one under delusions and speaking in falsehoods. All men are born free and equal. Just because you impose your arbitrary opinions on others does not give you authority over them, nor legitimacy to your thievery and parasitism.
I: Such pride undeserving, when your entire being derives from the generosity of the God-Emperor. Do you ever tire of chasing after your selfish, myopic desires? The grateful subjects of His Holy Majesty, from the GEWs to the Transcendi desire nothing except to perform their duties to their community, their society, the New Collective Union, and the God-Emperor. Man’s purpose is obtained through fulfilling his obligations, befitting his station, towards his God-Emperor, not by wallowing in base desires and humanist perversions. What purpose does your life serve, and what meaning will your death bring, Prisoner T329?
P: I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. I have no need of your false god to inform me of my purpose.
I: Congratulations. You can recite verses from prohibited texts.
P: Ha! The Index of Prohibited Books exists as but a monument to your false ideology and your deluded god . . . arg!
I: You humanists would allow unfettered access to information ranging from construction of atomic explosives to child pornography, but rational societies do not permit such thoughtless information dissemination. “Free flow of information” is the surest path to social disintegration and anarchy.
P: Ugh . . . and censorship is the only safeguard against profligacy and chaos.
I: Quite correct. From the Golden Sayings of the Ashavan.
P: More like classical conditioning of Pavlov. Though I may repeat your insipid doctrines mindlessly, I do not believe them nor hold them to be true. The truths of this world cannot be obscured, even with a million falsehoods and compulsory indoctrination.
I: What truth? Truth according to your whims? I suppose, you believe that truth, like “rights,” is something scattered about the wild, upon which men stub their toes during their daily commute to their work stations.
P: Whether you deny or mock the truths of our world, you are bound by their laws. You can deny the truth of gravity and leap from the tallest towers, but the truths of nature care not for your denials. Similarly, human rights and freedom exist, regardless of the self-serving decrees of your deluded god . . . arg!
I: And to think that the Talents are trained in the ways of critical thinking . . . Your blasphemies against the God-Emperor are not only banal, but repetitive. I am not certain which is more offensive.
P: Ugh . . . ha ha ha . . . if I am such a disappointment, why do you continue with this charade? I will tell you why. Because I pose a danger. Humans are in danger from your inquisition and your god-emperor because they, and they alone, pose a danger to your monolithic utopia. Your god will have us be reduced to the intellectual capacity of the “genetically enhanced worker,” but human nature itself rejects your god’s deluded conception of utopia . . . arg!
I: The God-Emperor organised the scattered remnants of past failed civilisations into the New Collective Union. He rules over two billion souls, from the GEWs to the Transcendi, with absolute authority. His Word brings truth and life to a world once devoid of meaning and value. What have you accomplished, prisoner T329, in the little time granted you by His will, that He should fear you? Do not flatter yourself. You are not the Angra Mainyu; you are not even a leader of some insignificant rebellion. You are merely some malcontent who knows how to spell.
P: . . . there will come a time, when the oppressed masses pushed too far will overthrow your god and his utopia. You live on borrowed time, lord inquisitor. Human rights and freedom can not be denied for long. All those who imagined themselves our masters, ignoring the unalienable rights of all human beings, eventually find themselves on the executioner’s block after populist revolutions.
I: Oppressed masses? How are the subjects of the God-Emperor oppressed? The New Collective Union provides all the basic necessities of life. Loyal subjects are even granted additional privileges commensurate to their station and purpose. In our New Collective Union, the strong and capable shield and protect the many, while even the weak are allowed to contribute to the collective well-being of our great society proportionate to their abilities. Our Holy God-Emperor allows us to live from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
P: Ha! You rob free men of their freedom, dignity, and even their property. Just because you allow your slaves to subsist on crumbs off your table does not make you benevolent. The very feasts, in which you and your god-emperor partake daily, were the products from the sweat of your slaves. They, not you, deserve the efforts of their labor. It matters not how much sophistry you conjure, the truth can not be denied.
I: Again with the truth nonsense. Your problem is that you think the divine commands what is good.
P: I believe in reason and probability, not superstition and prophesy.
I: Yes, you are an atheist because of your belief in humanist heresy regarding the existence of some eternal, universal truth. What need would be there for the divine, if all divine commands are to conform to pre-existing truth? Logically, a man, who believes in the existence of universal truth, can dispense with the variable of the divine and directly access the truth itself.
P: What are you getting at?
I: The failed atheist humanist societies of the past operated on the premise that god commands what is good. Their god, of course, was money; thus, the ridiculous perspective that “free market” - whatever that is - corrects all wrongs and establishes all rights. Furthermore, this belief in universal truth led to the curious, but highly detrimental, tendency of these humanists to engage in endless “debates” regarding all social and political problems. Since they believed in the nonsense of universal truth, these fools assumed that rational discussion will eventually lead all men to the correct conclusion, in accordance with their ridiculous universal truth. In other words, decisions no longer need to be made by anyone because all rational and educated men will arrive at the same conclusion. Even as their societies were crumbling around them, those in power, as well as the “free” men of the electorate, expended all their resources debating, rather than using their ever-diminishing resources to fix their sociopolitical problems. In order to fix something, someone must decide. These humanist “free” men, so accustomed to perpetually deferring the responsibility of decision making, failed to act and allowed their civilisation to die.
P: Only if they voluntarily became slaves to petty tyrants and sadistic dictators, then they would be thriving right now.
I: Men all serve someone. Your “free” men merely chose to serve their base desires and pathological phobias regarding obligation and duty. Your “free” men chose to serve their hubris and their whims, consequently becoming slaves to everyone and everything. Merely trying to remain afloat in the “sink or swim” notions the “free market” system, your “free” men had to sell their bodies and their souls. Learn the lesson they failed to understand: what the God-Emperor commands is good; and all men are born to serve.
P: Your god-emperor does not stand above . . . arg!
I: The God-Emperor is the law giver. He is above all written law and beyond all social customs. A social construct without the exceptional being is nothing more than fantasy rusting away into anarchy. Contemplate this, while listening to the music of the spheres.
P: Music of the spheres?
I: You have a wife and . . . a son. Let not your heart be troubled, the God-Emperor is ever merciful towards children.
P: ! My wife has done nothing wrong . . . arg!
I: You still fail to learn the painful lessons life is trying to teach you. What the God-Emperor commands is good. Decisions regarding good and evil are the sole purview of His Holy Majesty. A reprobate in the wardship of the Inquisition has no qualification to utter judgments regarding right and wrong. Contemplate this fact and the reality that you do not exist alone in this universe. Your actions have consequences for your community, society, and the New Collective Union.
P: No, please . . .
I: Such a shame . . . it is as the Ashavan say: the heedful do not die, but the heedless are as if dead already.