Happy to sir... * pauses for a moment, almost as if to say "sure you want to hear this?", then continues. * First undeniable truth is that the vast majority of sentient beings live out their lives primarily focused on themselves. They study, work hard, hunt for romantic partners, all with a goal to improve their own lives. Nothing wrong with this. Entire governments and economic systems are based on this truth. Every "policy", every advertisement, all of it aimed to appeal to people's desire to preserve and improve their own lives. I guess you could say that's the first truth - folks are self centered. Second undeniable truth is that despite this, no matter how hard folks work, or how hard they study, how much money they earn, how many females they bed, it all becomes nothing for us when we die. People build their life like a little house of cards in blissful denial of the indisputable fact that in an instant it will all come crashing down and amount to nothing. Build their little sand castles as if the waves won't wash it all out to sea. They're either in denial when it comes to their own mortality or they rage against it in vain. Not even the Ancients, if you actually believe in them, managed to figure out how to live forever. The undeniable truth of it is that our lives have value to use for as long as we are alive. If we honor the value of life we need to keep it going for as long as possible. So these two truths, that folks care mainly for themselves, and that we are all going to die, lead into the third and - for me - the most important indisputable truth. The vast majority of people enjoy their ability to improve and live out their own lives mainly because there are people who have laid that aside. There are selfless people who value something else as being more important than their own lives. They understand the first two truths, and break out of the first truth while fully embracing the second . The Imperium has existed for more than a thousand years. It has managed to strike a balance between personal freedom and and security, and will continue to exist forever as long as there are people within it who embrace that third truth . Folks can go on fulfilling the first truth and living in denial of the second only because of the third. I think every Imperial citizen has a choice. It doesn't matter how big your pile of money is or how shiny your crown is. In the end we're ants. You can get fat off the sacrifice of others or you can become a part of something that's bigger than you are. Something that is actually significant. That's what I mean about the Colonel's "mistake". For a while there I guess he had embraced that third truth, but toward the end ... Truth is once you embrace it ... once you witness the horror of that third truth ... you can't go back. Nice little villa outside the Imperium, shacked up with a Zho. Didn't exactly work out for him.
