The Emperor should have understood the crisis facing the Imperium today.
Yet he had not prevented the Cadian incident from occurring.
Or rather—
Even he had been unable to prevent it.
That was the most despairing part.
The Emperor knew what would happen afterward, and he knew he could delay it for a time.
But every delay was only a delay. It could not truly stop it.
That was also the situation the Imperium now faced.
Enemies were everywhere, and internal strife ran rampant. With every kind of interest intertwined, saving the entire Imperium was even harder than leading a dynasty back to prosperity in its final days. Even someone with exceptional personal ability and the strength of a leader would be constrained by countless hands within the Imperium, unable to use their talents. They could only watch helplessly as the Imperium declined and perished through war after war.
This was one of the reasons the Emperor was powerless.
The Warp required him to maintain its balance.
And in the real universe, he was also needed to protect critical points.
The only thing he could do was delay the arrival of it all.
But the outcome of that arrival would not necessarily be what he wished for. The result he wanted might not truly come to pass, and the outcome he did not wish for was drawing near.
Cadia.
It was the key point in the Imperium of Man's war against the armies of Chaos.
The importance of this planet surpassed that of any other place.
Because Cadia existed, the Imperium of Man had a buffer in its battle against Chaos. The planet stood at the most stable point of a Warp route; controlling this place meant seizing Chaos by the throat.
On this planet—
Every citizen was a soldier.