Within one of the many hallways of the Speranza, one of the 12 Disciples of Fabricator General Tri2 walked alone, patrolling the massive ship for any signs of enemies no matter how unlikely. Clad in one of their iconic red armored suits with yellow scarf was the Disciple known as Joe. The hallway was decorated with many wax purity seals, scrolls, and incense holders as done by the locally stationed tech priests that maintained this part of the ship. The priesthood being even more prolific and devoted with their religion after his master had proved that their faith and prayers did have a tangible effect on reality around them even if he did also espouse the need for the Scientific Method of learning and development to properly venerate the Machine God with more knowledge.
Even as his various augmented senses and integrated sensor suites swept the area around him; his mind was whirring with thoughts of his master's recent actions within the recent decades. After the take over and teleportation of the planet of Nostramo the Speranza had made two further trips where unlike Nostromo, master did not proceed to conquer the planet and instead left behind some automated cloaked stations with robotic forces in high orbit. He did not understand, why? The planet's were obviously human planets suffering under the rule of oppressive rulers, why did they not descend upon them like they did for the planet of Nostramo and proceed to save and enlighten the people? They had more than enough forces and power to do it easily so why?
Even after half a century spent learning and serving under his master he still did not really understand him. Other than teaching and commanding Master Tri2 did not interact with them in any other way. Not that it was not enough, his skills in combat and as a magos was a match even for more senior magi despite the decades they had on him. Still....his master was basically unknown to him and his fellow disciples. The only ones he can think of to know of his master as a individual were Disciple Mettaton and Hygieia. He was grateful for master taking him as a disciple and would gladly give his life for him, but he had to wonder...was what his master doing right? There was no doubt that master was the chosen of the Machine God, maybe even the Omnissiah as some of other tech priests have been whispering, based solely on how the fact that every machine around or worked on at some point by his master vastly outperformed their counterparts. However, his master never did share his goal with anyone as far as he knew. He never bothered to ask as it just did not feel proper for him to ask his master as he would most likely reveal it in his own time, but the actions in the recent decades have shaken that decision.
What was master's goal? Shouldn't he tell his Disciples at least so they could assist him? Wasn't that their duty? Did he not trust them? No, he should not doubt master so easily, he should be rational, logical, there is probably a good reason. He could try to ask if the other Disciples know first. That was something he could do.
He accessed the shipboard noosphere through his implant and proceeded to set up a private noosphere chat room and sent a request to Disciple Hygieia for a conversation. In a few dozen milliseconds Hygieia accepted and appeared in her mental avatar within the room. He felt his plasma conduit flows quicken as he beheld his senior whose physical and mental forms were widely acknowledge by many in the priesthood as very aesthetically pleasing along with her personality.
"Joe? Is everything alright?" Hygieia asked with concern in her voice, which was only fair as he did not typically do social calls.
"Yes, everything is fine, no problems detected on my patrol senior Hygieia. I called you here because I had some questions and doubts on my mind and was hoping you could enlighten me on them."
"Oh? Please ask your questions and I will try to answer them if I can Joe." Hygieia said warmly as she constructed a digital chair to sit on. She was always like that, always so willing to help out with a smile, even though he did notice she did tend to have an odd expression whenever she went past areas that were heavily blessed by her fellow priests. No doubt she found them of a lesser quality compared to her or master's own level of work and was trying to prevent herself from improving it and getting delayed from her original business.
"Well first, what is master like?" He asked quickly before his nerves failed him, life or death battle against the enemies of the Machine God? No problem, but merely asking his senior questions had his data flows stutter with hesitation.
"What?"
"I mean, despite being under master's service and tutelage for over half a century. I find myself realizing that I and my fellow Disciples do not actually know all that much about him. We do not actually converse outside of lessons and operations and all that we really learn about master is through what is recorded in the data archives. Which does not truly record anything besides the results of master's actions. What does he like, or dislike, what is his goal? His dream? We are suppose to be his Disciples, to assist him in his endeavors, but we have no idea on what it is he even wants. I am asking you because I have noticed that master seems to speak to you and senior disciple Mettaton."
Hygieia remained silent for silent for a brief moment before seemingly deciding to come to a decision.
"Ok, I will tell you some of what I know about Tri2, though I do have to warn you, even I do not know everything about him as he is quite paranoid about his own personal information, for good reason, besides that, he does not particularly socialize with anyone despite my efforts. There are some things about him I cannot tell you as they are sensitive information you understand, so I will only reveal to you some basic information."
"That is more than I had before, thank you senior." Joe said with gratitude in his cybernetic heart.
"You are welcome Joe, well to start off, despite his seemingly no nonsense attitude and lack of emotions he likes to show to you and the rest of the galaxy; Tri2 is actually really into entertainment in all forms, videos, music, novels, games, anything and everything really. He also likes to work, most of his time is spent training or working usually while consuming his entertainment slates at the same time. He does not really do anything else." Hygieia said with a tired sigh, a indication of this being a recurring nagging issue that was constantly brought up.
"As for his dislikes he hates...the Warp. The main reason being it caused the downfall of Humanity after the Men of Iron were defeated and the general lack of reliability despite its uses. His goal is restore the Golden Age of Humanity and to end all hostile alien lifeforms like the Orks and Eldar that exist in this galaxy." Hygieia began explaining, saying something that was both obvious and confusing to him.
"Wait if master's goal is to restore Humanity, then I have to ask, why did master not free the two worlds that had tyrants ruling over the people? Why did he only leave two stealth stations behind when we could have easily liberated the planets like we did Nostramo and the dozen other planets? We " He asked the question that was plaguing his mind and started his train of self doubt.
"That...that is a bit difficult to explain." Hygieia said as she turned her head away from him with guilt on her face.
"While Tri2 does hate the Warp for being unreliable, it does still have its uses, and one of those uses is precognition. Tri2 has some information in regards to very powerful assets that require certain conditions to appear. For Nostramo he took a gamble with the information and made changes to the planet based on its extreme mineral wealth which was necessary for the expansion, even if it did risk losing the asset. However, there are entities that have access to the same precognitive information that most likely noticed the disturbances caused by his actions and would likely try to interfere if he did something on that scale again to alter things based on the precognitive data. So despite him wishing to liberate the two worlds immediately, he instead decided to merely station hidden forces to acquire the assets, with intent to return later in the future, if possible. The assets are not something I can reveal to you exactly what they are, yet, but know that they have the potential to affect galaxy changing events in regards to Humanity. So despite my feelings regarding Tri2's decision, I myself believed that it....was for the best for those worlds to be left in their current state." Hygieia explained with guilt and shame on her face at her admittance.
Joe felt his physical body's fist clench as his mental body stood stock still while processing the recent revelation. In order to acquire some important assets his master was going to leave two world's population to suffer. Despite himself, despite how the logic gnawed at him, he could see it. He could see where his master was coming from, if whatever he wanted were powerful enough to affect the galaxy for the better, was two world's suffering really that important in the long run? According to the cold hard math of his logis implant, it was not, but according to his Humanity, it....only kind of was. He could only partly muster up the will to feel anger on behalf of the people on those planets, it was just really hard to, because besides being Human what other ties did he have with those people? Nothing.
He had no real obligation or investment to those population and there was no real reason why they could not wait, there were plenty of other worlds that needed to be liberated and had been without the need to hold back. His mind whirred as his processor fans activated to mitigate the heat generated from his intense thinking.
"Thank you senior Hygieia, I know the master much better now, and understand the reasoning behind his actions. I am glad to know that it was the curse of pragmatism that forced him to hold his hand and not some other less palatable reason in regards to those worlds. I will need some more time to process this however and will be in the forge chapel should you need me after my patrol senior Hygieia. Perhaps we can speak again at some later date about you and the other 2 senior Disciples?" He asked politely to his senior who looked at him with slight concern.
"You are welcome Joe, if you ever need someone to talk to, know that I am always available to lend a ear and I look forward to our next conversation." She said warmly before everything dissolved into data strings and scattered back into the noosphere network.
Joe was now once again left focusing solely in his physical body with a thread of attention on the noosphere for any messages or warnings. His body not having gotten far from when he started the conversation with Hygieia. The benefits of mental communication via the noosphere. He double checked his patrol route and added a destination marker for the closest forge temple and booked a private shrine for his use.
He had answers now to some of his questions, but it did not bring him the satisfaction he thought it would. His mind was still in turmoil if only for different reasons.
Perhaps praying the Machine God could grant him the knowledge he seek and bring him solace.
And maybe the self reflection could ease the guilt he felt throughout his very being.
He could only hope.