With a civilization over a millennium old, the sathar have proven that they are survivors.  Yet, like any nation, they have challenges facing them that are as much within as without.

Perhaps uniquely among the space-faring races, the sathar don't really want to be one.  The sciences have never held any great appeal to them.  Such fields are treated more with suspicion, than recognition or reverance.  Even their reptilian masters noted that while their slaves were great technicians, they could fix almost anything if given enough time, they made terrible scientists.

This deficiency has cost the sects dearly over the centuries.  While they have always managed to overcome or undermine their foes, before the cost became too great, in the past.  That is hardly a guarantee that it will always be this way.  Of course the sects are aware of this shortcoming and so always keep two pupils open for new technology.  The sects have tried expanding their anemic scientist castes.  However, such efforts are often seen as signs of taint, and tend to be judged poorly by the disciples.

Having faced resilient enemies before, the satharian sects were not very impressed with the collection of races in the space they were calling a "Frontier."  Of course with multiple races involved, the disciples required far more evidence than usual to pass judgement.  Even the sects were perplexed over how, overall, peacefully such a diverse collection was reaching outward.  The disciples kept requesting more and more evidence, unable to reach consensus.  The debate dragged on for years, then decades, and finally centuries.

Several sects tired of waiting and resolved to handle this Frontier themselves.  The result was so disastrous that even the often cautious disciples were jolted into action.  Declaring all four races, and any who aided them, as tainted in the eyes of the Great Worm.  More sects lent their aid to those already facing this Frontier.  When they were ready, the results were even worse the second time.  Not only worse, but the four races were now being aided by several more.

It occurred to the more insightful sects and disciples that while the sathar had faced enemies as tactically strong as this "Frontier" before.  They had never faced one as strategically deep.  The battlefield stretched across hundreds of light years and the enemy had reliable interstellar communications technology that were used to great effect.  Now, with even more sects being drawn to this Frontier, some disciples are debating whether their judgement was too hasty

A select few, quietly, even ponder that perhaps it was not the "Frontier" that the Great Worm was declaring tainted, but the sects themselves instead.

The sects found their purpose in the Messenger's call to crusade.  For centuries it had been a divine mandate that not only justified their existence, but also gave them a valued place in satharian society.  However the disciples' thinking, regarding the sects, has been gradually shifting.  Does the Great Worm really want the crusade to be eternal?  Did the Messenger really mean the entire universe?

In the early centuries, the tribes felt vulnerable and the disciples saw their best defense? Was a good offense.  The sects performed above and beyond, as the disciples restored the birth-world and terraformed a few near it.  The sects harnessed the machine with skill and precision, both within the satharian worlds and without.  However, as the centuries passed by, the tribes frowned more and more on displays of the machine. Especially by the sects.

The disciples' templars, however, kept their machines hidden, or disguised.  So the tribes felt more at ease around them.  The templars began to be seen as the tribes' defenders, instead of just the disciples' servants.  As the sects were seen more and more as just crusaders.  Just aggressors.  This shift in attitudes is becoming widespread enough that some tribes are even letting their young choose, whether they want to take their pilgrimage to a monastery? Or to a temple.  This is threatening to choke off the sects' most precious resource, young sathar.

The more suspicious sects even whisper that while their scientist castes are considered suspicious of taint?  The templars secretly expand theirs, with the disciples' blessing.  Darker whispers tell that some sects are having those who choose to stay, after their calling would normally end, not sterilize themselves.  That in sterile ships and stations, far beyond the homeworlds, nurseries are being built, and filled.  Filled with those who will never know the belonging of a tribal hearth.  Never feel the peace of a satharian world under their belly.

The darkest tales whisper that the sathar in those nurseries did not even come from cocoons.  But crawled out from machines instead.

For the first few hundred years, after the uprising, there were hundreds of sects.  Some did not even have a monastery to recruit from, using less conventional methods instead.  The tribes they recruited from were taught about the Great Worm from their elders and the disciples.  The sects, on the other hand, focus on a few gospels more than the rest.  Which, depending on the gospels involved, can lead them down strange paths indeed.

Exposing young sathar to a different version of their faith was originally considered good for them.  It showed the young that there was more than one way to worship the Great Worm.  And with so many variations, even those who returned converted, had little impact on the Followers.  However, as the weak sects were absorbed by the strong, not only did their variance from the orthodoxy become more and more distinct.  The returning converted had a larger and larger impact on the Followers.

With more converted, of the same sects, among the tribes.  They began finding converts within the tribes themselves.  Alarming many tribes and the disciples.  There are even rumors of the converted leaving, and forming their own tribes in remote parts of the homeworlds.  Openly practicing and teaching their heresies beyond the monastery walls.  Some believing that a new Messenger will come, and make the sects and their heresies the true faith instead.