Butz Background

"Our heavenly Emperor wants to help each and every one of you!" the lanky man cried before his congregation. He wore robes of the finest silks with gold leaf woven in that glimmered in the hot spotlights on the stage. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and every so often he would pat his silken handkerchief to his forehead. He didn't want it to cause his makeup to start to run. He needed to look his best before his congregation. His daily bread and then some required it. There was a certain image he had to fit in order for the con to work. Recording devices were rolling and he was being broadcast throughout the station, well beyond the hundreds in the audience.
"Now I know many of you are at your limit. You live on the few thrones you can gather at the end of the work week, and by the Emperor do they seem to buy you less and less with each passing day. Times for many of you are tough and it seems that there is no one you can turn to. But my children I am here to tell you that the Emperor does not forget his children, nor does he want you to live this way!" Members of the audience shouted "No!" in agreement. He knew he had them now.
"My brothers and sisters it is time for you to take control again, time for you to make the change and give yourself over to the infinite love and power of the Emperor! Now all you have to do is give. Give as much as you can. You need to dig deep and give to the Emperor all that you can spare! The Emperor will see your giving spirit!He will see your contribution to his glory! And his will return and repay your generosity tenfold! If you give a throne today you will receive ten! If you give ten you will receive one hundred! If you give one hundred you will get one thousand thrones. If you give one thousand you will get ten thousand thrones! Ten thousand thrones! Just think of what you could do with ten thousand thrones. Ten thousand thrones could change your life. It could change the life of your family. It could change the life of your friends. And all you have to do is give. Give what you can and then reach deeper and give even more. The Emperor is watching and he will not forget what you are willing to sacrifice in his name today. All you have to do is give. Give to the number you are seeing on your devices right now. And for those of you here in person you can flag down one of my representatives working their way through the pews and your donation can be handled right away.
The preacher walked as the cameras followed, sitting down on the leather antique chair. “But the Emperor is not only interested in helping your financial situation. By the Emperor, no! He knows there are those of you who need help beyond the limitless thrones the Emperor is ready to provide. There are those of you watching me right now whose lives are threatened by some malady of the body, but I am here to tell you that the Emperor is ready to lend you his power and revitalize your soul, and heal whatever it is that is ailing you. Emperor lend me your strength, yes, yes, I can feel it now. I can feel that there is someone watching with Cancer of the brain, and things are looking bleak. But do not dare to give up hope! The Emperor is watching and he is ready to give you what you need to heal yourself. Do not waste your time with surgery or medicines that will do nothing but rot and burn away your insides. Do not waste your time or your thrones on the false words of doctors. It is only through the Emperor that you can truly be healed! You are not suffering from a sickness of your body but one of the soul! And it can only be cleansed by the infinite power of the Emperor Almighty. Now all you have to do is show The Emperor that you are willing to place your faith in him and him alone. You need to give! Give all that you can! The Emperor is ready to help and so am I, by providing you with the ability to borrow as much money as you need in order to show The Emperor just how much you care. It is though him and only through him that you will find your way to salvation, and only through him that your soul and your body can truly be healed. Members of this congregation are standing by in order to help you show the Emperor just how much you are willing to put your faith in him. Just use the number on your device right now. Do not delay!”
“And we are done,” the preacher heard through his ear piece. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was done for the week and would be able to watch as the thrones rolled in. He walked off the stage as members of the audience lined up to hand over their thrones to his associates. He made his way to his dressing room where he threw off his robe. It was horrible stuffy and always ended up drenched in sweat after the days filming. Still, one day of work a week and he was able to buy almost anything he wanted.
As he opened a bottle of Amasec he carefully selected from his personal stock, he sniffed deeply and took in the bitter and sweet aroma as a smile crept onto his face.

“No man is free from the threat of heresy and evil,” The preacher said to the congregation. “The forces against the Emperor are insidious, they surround us always, oozing over us and saturating us in their filth. Even a good man can falter under the weight of the world around us. A good man can be made to do bad things.” His voice faltered. He thought about himself. He thought he could hear a faint hiss, though he knew that it was unlikely. He wondered if anyone else could hear it, if they could notice the faint piercing shriek of air. Even if they could hear it, there was no way they could guess what the noise could possibly signal. They would be far more likely to attribute the noise to some simple system of the ship, than to the addition he made to the air system of the church.
He had always been fascinated with chymystry and how they interact with the human body. He had grown up surrounded by the poorest of the poor, the lowest of the low. People were barely able to survive, and most didn't. People didn't even care about thrones, and most wouldn't even know what the fuck one even looked like. People could only barter, scraping whatever they could, hoping they could keep the solar arrays that gave them power and the oxygen converters that let them breathe. Gravity could fail at any moment, leaving you to helplessly float, and the Emperor forbid a breach occurs and you simply get sucked out into the void, if you even end up in space. There were stories of horrors untold being glimpsed as a soul was ripped out into the maw of the beyond and below. No one could say they had seen such a thing, but they heard whispers in the dark. Life was nasty,brutish, and short, and if you were lucky it would end from something banal like cancer from the failing radiation shielding. Needless to say, drug use was rampant. Everyone had their vice, and if you could provide it to them, everyone could be bought. As he gained more power he was able to secure more expensive materials, which in turn allowed for more complicated concoctions, which allowed for bigger returns.
Then came his biggest breakthrough, his conversion. The rich loved to hear stories of one of the downtrodden picking themselves up and making something respectable of themselves. His plan was simple, using whatever contacts he had made, he began to sell himself as a new man, embracing the love of the Emperor and becoming a man of the Ecclesiarchy, a preacher who decided he would dedicate his life to bringing hope and light to the darkness. He made it through his training with a reputation of devotion and a passion for goodness. He knew that a life of selling drugs was one of danger and death, but the life of a preacher could be lived in luxury if he was able to sell his product well enough.
“But with hope, and the love of The Emperor, one can overcome the cruelty of the world that engulfs us.” The hiss was louder now. It was practically all he could hear. His preaching worked well to begin with. It turns out hope is an easy product to sell. Everyone who heard his story felt sorry for him, pitied him and listened to his honeyed words. All he needed was money to help the poor like him, to help keep them happy, and content, and complacent. Donations came in from all the big families, and before long he was able to set up a ministry in the most financially exploitable section of the station. Then he really started pushing his product. If they were to just prove their love, they could end up with everything they wanted. It was good that they did not know a single thing about economics. But he knew that they could just give more, that he could have everything he could ever dream of. That is when he began his experiments. His past life came in useful, as he began to try to synthesize the perfect cocktail of drugs in order to maximize the giving spirit of his congregation. The precise blend of chemicals could cause a rush of dopamine and adrenaline that could be mistaken for religious ecstasy by the ignorant. Their fearlessness caused by their unknowing intoxication  lead them to be willing to give everything without any sort of thought for the repercussions their generosity would have on their financial security. But they didn't care, so why should he? The only problem was that as time crept forward, more and more of the drug was needed to keep them content, and more and more found themselves unable to do anything but spend their lives within the cloistered walls of the church.
“So it is up to you to show that love and that hope that you have for the Emperor, by donating as much as you can-” A cry broke out from the audience. Such outbursts were not uncommon, but this one reeked more of panic than delight. He could barely hear it over the hiss of the gas canisters that propelled his miracle drug into the air vents for his congregation to unknowingly breath in. Suddenly the shriek began to be amplified by others joining in on a chorus of despair. A body had crumpled to the ground, heart stopped. Though his congregation would attribute the old man's death to the Emperor bringing his child home, the preacher knew the true cause. His body couldn't take the latest dose of the perfect drug, and his heart simply did what all hearts are destined to do. So the preacher determined after performing an autopsy which he held in secrecy. It did not take much for him to abscond with the body for enough time, and no one questioned any markings on the body, as they were obscured after he dressed the corpse, a wonderful kindness in the eyes of the congregation.
Something about the old man haunted him, perhaps his bulging pale blue eyes. Being old was a curse for those who had never known the feeling of wind or sunshine. Their bodies were gaunt and unnatural, as though they had been stretched and bent by some unseen force. The preacher watched as the old man left the world as he had known it, being released into space and the great beyond. Though the congregation wept, he stood in silence. He didn't know what he felt, or if he felt anything at all, and that terrified him. He knew he was not a good man, he knew he had done bad things, but deep down in the depths of his soul he hoped that maybe he was wrong. But now he knew that we wasn't a good man, and had done bad things, because there was a darkness inside him that drove him to consume everything in his path, a holocaust of burning greed that threatened  to incinerate everyone he came in contact with. That night cycle, he stayed at the church, sitting in the front pew in quiet contemplation. He couldn't take the burden of thought, he couldn't take the burden of choice. For once he wanted to just give in to the burning, to light a fire and watch it devour everything in its path. With a purposeful motion he removed the filtration plugs that protected him from his own creation. Inhaling deeply he began to feel the effects of his drug. As he sat he began to feel as though he could sense every part of the ship. Every mechanism moved to a beautiful beat, as every inhabitant marched along. Suddenly his universe expanded as his tendrils spread to the star system beyond. He could feel everything as he finally found his oneness with all. Soon he could feel the heartbeat of the universe and it was his own. As he lost himself to his boundless joy, he drifted away from reality. He was lost in an ocean of consciousness, his body nothing but driftwood.
That night his body would sit in the darkness of his church, his mind everywhere else. He was not alone. A fresh young member of the Adepta Sororitas had joined his church in order to audit his actions. Fortunately for him, he had found her to be too kind for her own good, to the detriment of her ability to comprehend the corruption that had taken hold in the congregation. Perhaps without the copious amount of illegal substances coursing through her blood when she first had heard him speak, she might have seen though his golden exterior, to the black malignancy inside him. Instead, she found him kind and a bringer of hope to those who have nothing. She was taken in by his calls for devotion, to give up everything, to shed themselves and become nothing in the vastness of The Almighty. As she listened to his honeyed words in the ensuing months she became enraptured with the preacher, as it seemed he exuded an aura of transcendence and of pleasure. She became addicted to him. She began to silently worship him, praying for him to finally know her. On that night of the old man's funeral she found him burning, and she was consumed like a moth striking a flame. That night they met in amorous congress, and everything the preacher built turned to ash.