Personal Diary: December 7th, year 114

Today I’ve been boarded by one of the Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris’ recruitment Liuteneant, willing to reply to all my doubts. He was very helpful indeed, and the path remains clear to join either PIE or CVA, unless something unexpected comes up. But that’s not what I want to write about tonight, nothing changed there so it’s not interesting.

What’s interesting was a simple exchange. I asked him something like “and, if I asked you about the officers and pilots, I imagine you would have all praises”. And he replied an appropriate “if you are faithful and work you should find it very pleasant”. And that got me thinking.

I am not faithful, not in the sense they mean it. I don’t make a secret of it, but my father was a small heretic of a peaceful variation of the orthodox faith, and I probably could be considered an atheist. An atheist in a theocracy, ironic isn’t it?

And yet, I love the Empire. Imperial Major Uriel Kador, my first commander in chief, told to all of us cadets (after all, by then I was just a number): “pilots, you are going to war. You better be sure why you fight it: what you want to protect, what you want to expand, why you will risk it all. Or else, you will doom yourselves and maybe many more with you”. I spoke to many of them along the years, and in their insides, they had cried “God!” or “my family!” or “my planet!” or many similar notions.

Not me. I only thought: because it’s my duty. So no, I don’t believe in our common God, he’s just a convenient idea that the Theology Council uses to keep order. I don’t have faith in it, or any of the sermons, saints or sacred books. I used to have that faith, or so I remember, but I lost it during my three years in the monastery. Ironic, isn't it? But God was no solace there, and his existance became increasingly unbelievable between the stone walls.

But I do believe in the Empire: in its institutions, its peoples, on what it stands for in a chaotic universe, for it is the center of order and the only origin for peace. I guess that is some sort of faith, even if not the common one in the Empire. 

And yet, I must keep silent. Voicing out my atheism would probably only bring me problems with the Theology Council. I'm not good at laws, but maybe I can even be enslaved to enlighten me or something like that. So no, caution is the best way to confront it.