There are those within our culture who believe the universe is inherently good, that it has a natural path or "Dao" which cannot be contradicted. For these people, "goodness" can only be attained in the annihilation of one's self, erasing the feeble ego of mankind so we can allow nature to wash herself over us and return the cosmos to its inherent state of harmony and balance. As I have learned from my intimate study and contact with the barbarians, this is little different from the Cassian's superstitious concept of the Holy Stars. They, secular and religious Cassians alike, believe that they are part of a cosmic destiny, not separate from it, and so must use their human agency to render that universal goodness onto the cosmos.

Both views are utter nonsense, however, for they rely on some exterior, objective point of goodness that can never be proven, quantified, or rendered authoritative in any convincing way. Even if nature is ultimately good, who can arbitrate what is natural and what is not? Even if Heaven has a plan, how can lowly man enlighten himself to the divine will? The Cassians were given prophets, and the Daoists conjured up philosopher-poets, but they are both just as lost as the other, ultimately deriving their arguments from the same sources: tradition, accidents of history, assumptions they do not realize they are assuming, and, at the very worse, in the case of the divinely inspired, pure hallucination.

How could the Daoist monks and Cassian prophets possibly be depicting the true form of cosmic good when they are all constantly in disagreement? Should not the universal good be universal? It is in the name, no? Let them explain, then, how it is that different people can see the same nature and come to different conclusions about natural good?

The answer is clear; the good is remains only within themselves, not within nature. It is man who determines right from ill, not some transcendent Heaven that wishes for our nurturing and prosperity. Heaven is indifferent to us. By all accounts, it is outrightly hostile! Floods, famines, plagues, novae, meteor showers; if there truly is a cosmic plan then the cosmos clearly has no beneficent designs for our pathetic species. The most extreme of the Daoists admit this openly, not caring that their beloved nature would destroy us if given just the tiniest smidgeon of a chance; I doubt any of you fine men before me, erudite and well versed as you all are, would dare concur, however.

No, perhaps there are some unquestionable goods, but they are only unquestionable because we as human beings - us, our parents, our grandparents, our forebears all the way to our ancients - refused to question them. They are right because they worked, not because they are "good", and if they stopped working, they would be no longer be right.

There is no natural path for us to follow. No matter the complexity and idealism of our plans, our choices, our dreams, even the most outlandish of our fantasies will be inevitably be constrained by reality, by circumstance, by time itself. Through the very construction of a finite universe and even more finite life within it, Heaven will always present humanity with a series of increasingly complex decisions, and no choice can ever yield a clear outcome either purely good or wholly evil. We can only choose which is right for us of the options we have available.

Ergo, righteousness if not a product of the universe, it is a product of us. Just as the Haruspex always demands a human host, morality requires a vehicle to be realized, and that vehicle is us: homo impericus, the imperial man. If there is no Empire, there is no good, for no other culture or force is consciously endeavouring to better our collective universe.

This is an understanding I cannot claim to have reached entirely on my own. Instead it was through a sumptuously rigorous and lengthy discourse with the most gifted of my pupils, the hero Pan Quentin of whom I am sure you have all heard much, that I discovered the truly despicable depths of Cassian so-called "ethic". Where Pan erred, unfortunately, and where the heart of our discord lay, was in her overly rigid belief that the barbarians could not be adequately reformed, that they would be forever trapped in their morally decadent ways and so must be expunged from our plane of existence. This is an error, I believe, for which Pan accounted with her life.

True, I do not doubt there is an evidently apparent moral difference between the Cassians and ourselves (I have observed as such), but this moral divide, like all moral divides, is a symptom of mankind, not a creation of nature. Change the culture, and we can change the man. The goal then, cannot be to simply eliminate the Cassian, but to remove the Hamite while preserving the human underneath.

I will not pretend that this is without its challenges. Though I have tried with all my heart to chart a middle path between the pacifists, who would prefer to do nothing, and those like Pan, whom I think would undertake far too much, these primitives are ones who will at every opportunity beg for a much more hostile approach. As we all witnessed in our brief conflict with the All-Cassian Party, these are a people who would rather destroy an entire planet (and nearly a billion of its inhabitants) than allow it to be civilized by our benevolent hand.

This is the sort of profound, ugly jealousy I have attempted to curb in negotiating the Treaty of Vespasus, ending the war between our race and theirs. First, and foremost, we must, and we have been granted the right to colonize the various moons of Baetica, spreading our culture more formally to a people that, until now, have only enjoyed the most cursory of contact with us. Second, with our new proposed Legion bases on Vespasus and Cassia Luna, as well as numerous mining and military outposts in the Cassian asteroid belt, we will keep a watchful eye on these barbarians and prevent any coherent reorganizing into a third Order.

Though there are those among us still demanding a revival of our conflict until the Hamites are fully rid of this universe, I must urge us all to caution. The terms of this treaty can be safely ratified, while our Emperor rests assured the threat on His frontier now lays dormant. The All-Cassian Party is no more, and although these barbarians will roil in anarchy for some time as they recover from the twin shocks of a devastating military loss and the mysterious viral epidemic, once they do reconstitute themselves, it will be under imperial moral leadership and nothing else.

The barbarian is a force of nature, they just do as nature does; there is no morality to its path of least resistance. The Emperor is attempting something higher, and therefore, without Him, there will be no goodness in the universe, only cosmic apathy. The goal, then, is to enlarge and protect His domains. To preserve goodness, we must preserve the Empire, and so, to be good we must be good to ourselves.

If we let nature's only vehicle for progress wither and die, there will be no replacement. We must prosper so that the cosmos can prosper with us. Let it be with his signature on this treaty, that our beloved Emperor comes one step further to ruling all under Heaven.

-The Lady Ci Xiao,

Addressing the Central Imperial Committee