Stellaris 42,000: The Imperium Reformatus - As Ever in the Grim Dark Future, There is Only War

[Arithmetician]

(Hi! It’s Arithmetician again!)

(This AAR documents my current campaign in Stellaris. It’s based on an idea that I had in my head for a while - to play in a galaxy where almost all nations are hostile to me. Then, I saw on YouTube, the “Hostile Galaxy Challenge” independently proposed by another user. While I am sticking to my own version of the challenge, rather than strictly following theirs, I set any AI empires to spawn as Fanatic Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, Driven Assimilators, Devouring Swarms, Terravores, Barbaric Despoilers, or Subversive Cults. After the fact, I think I messed up slightly in the settings upon generating my galaxy, as there ultimately emerged a few nations that didn’t conform to those settings, though I think most of them can be accounted for as Primitives that achieved FTL technology, with perhaps only one major nation that didn’t fit with the personality types above. Either way, it is still an EXTREMELY hostile galaxy.)

(To make it even more hostile, most AIs are set to Advanced Starts, and Aggressiveness is High, with the difficulty being Grand Admiral. Crisis Strength is set to 25X and ALL THREE vanilla crises e.g. Unbidden, Contingency, and Prethoryn are set to appear if the game goes on for long enough. No Katzen, Aeternum, or Blokkats from Gigastructures though... those are specifically disabled).

(This game is significantly modded, including but not limited to Warhammer 40K ship mods for the Imperium and Chaos, Real Space, Gulli’s Planet Modifiers, Expanded Stellaris Traditions, Dynamic Political Events, Technology Repeated, Gigastructural Engineering, and “Wild Space” to represent areas of space that can’t be claimed by any empire due to raging Warp Storms. At the cost of performance, which I am already starting to notice, the pop growth scaling penalty has been removed, to allow for a representation of the extremely populated Imperial Hive Worlds from 40K (Hive as in “Hive of Humanity”, not as in “Hive Mind”). This also means the AI will have more pops and powerful economies as well, on top of the general AI improvements made in 3.2, which I am also noticing very much throughout this play through. Gigastructures also was included because it generally fits in with the utter insanity that is Warhammer 40K.)

(Despite the fact that this game is not ironman compatible, I will be refraining from using any cheats via console commands, except if needed to correct the occasional minor bug that I encounter, and only insomuch as necessary to produce the proper intended behavior. So, for example, that means I have not previewed the galaxy with the “observe” command, and thus have no idea where my enemies are at the start. That, paired with the abundant nebulas added from “Wild Space”, will add to an air of mystery and threat in the galaxy).

(While I did a bit of research into 40K’s lore before starting this campaign, I am far from an expert on it myself. That is one of the reasons that I had the campaign start in the 43rd millennium, and had the Old Imperium of Man collapse. It both justifies the standard one-planet Stellaris start, and it allows me far more narrative freedom to play the Imperium Reformatus, without being overly constrained by the canon Imperium. And really, developing an empire, researching technology, and all of those routine activities in Stellaris are very much things that the canon Imperium of Man doesn’t really do BECAUSE it’s stagnant.)

(I hope you will all enjoy reading!)

 

[Arithmetician]

Within the dormitories of the Schola Progenium on Holy Terra, Sethano Horst dreamed.

It was a dream that had come to her before.

A man sat unmoving upon an enormous throne, inextricably connected to its arcane mechanisms. By all outward appearances, he was more of a corpse than a man, mummified, and with much of his body decayed. His face had been reduced to a skull, and his ribcage was exposed.

Anyone in the Imperium would instantly recognize who the man was.

He was none other than the immortal Master of Mankind, the God-Emperor who had guided and protected humanity for millennia.

All but the most privileged few would never see the Emperor with their own eyes, secluded as He was within the Sanctum Imperialis, within the Imperial Palace, here on Holy Terra.

Yet for some reason, the Emperor’s skeletal visage frequented Sethano’s dreams.

The Emperor never spoke in her dreams. It would be hard for anyone in His condition to do so, though many had claimed to speak for the Emperor over the millennia. Sethano didn’t think it was very nice to put words into the mouth of someone who couldn’t do so himself anymore. And those who perverted the Emperor’s will, while believing only in themselves, were to be considered heretics, or so she had been taught.

Sethano did not speak either. It felt like it would be presumptuous for her to do so without being spoken to first.

She felt no fear at being within the Emperor’s presence, mighty and terrible as He still was, writhing invisibly with power. She couldn’t remember exactly when she had first seen the Emperor in her dreams, but she felt like she had known Him for all her life, insignificant as her eleven, nearly twelve, years were next to an existence as ancient as His own. Yet it also seemed that the Emperor had known of her long before she knew of Him.

The Emperor’s uncompromising gaze, filled with a vast intelligence encompassing countless lifetimes, bored into Sethano, penetrating to her very soul. It filled her with agony, but she could not cry out, and nor would the Emperor’s overpowering presence permit her to waken from her dream.

Sethano was no stranger to pain. The Drill Abbots who served as instructors at the Schola Progenium were brutal in their methods, treating her and the other Progena in their care much as they would soldiers, constantly demanding that they push themselves to their limits in the service of the Emperor. They had no tolerance for weakness in body or mind. But the pain that the Drill Abbots regularly inflicted upon her was nothing compared to what she felt now. And instinctively, she understood that even this was just the barest fraction of the torment that the Emperor suffered for every instant of His existence on the Golden Throne, so that humanity might endure.

Her only choice now was to also endure as best she could that which no child should have to bear.

A flurry of images rushed through her awareness. Still no words were said, but she understood what they were, as if she had always known them. Holy Terra, when it was once called “Earth”, at the dawn of human civilization. A wandering man, born in a land called “Anatolia”, observing and then guiding humanity as best He could, appearing through the ages time and again in any number of personas. Always, He looked to further the advancement of humanity and ensure its survival, even from itself if necessary.

But far from the infallible god that the Drill Abbots taught her to worship, she saw a deeply flawed man, who had made many terrible mistakes, so self-assured in the absolute rightness of His actions that in His hubris, He could not see that he was planting the seeds of His own downfall until it was too late.

The Emperor’s thunderous presence roiled as if in sudden umbrage, but the storm relented after a moment. In spite of all of his flaws, Sethano had nothing but the utmost respect for the Emperor of Mankind. In the end, he had sacrificed himself for humanity in the fateful battle against his most beloved but corrupted son, Horus, fully aware of what the cost to himself would be. Ever since then, the Emperor had been interred in an unceasing vigil on the Golden Throne, and if not for that, she would have never been born at all. Humanity would have long since gone extinct under the relentless assault of the forces of Chaos, and those xenos who would have preyed upon it in its weakened state.

Progena always had to grow up fast, if they were to stand a chance of surviving the cruel halls of the Schola Progenium, itself a microcosm of an even more remorseless and hostile galaxy. But even among her fellow Progena, Sethano had been noticed by the Drill Abbots as being remarkably mature for her age, and an exceptional student, always diligent in her studies and mastering her lessons with ease, while never complaining about the harsh discipline.

Even Sethano wasn’t sure if she could still call herself a child anymore. More than anything, she felt as if she was a grown woman in a child’s body. Fragmentary as they often were, her dream encounters with the Emperor had left her with memories that were not her own, and knowledge that she shouldn’t have, that had been lost for millennia. In moments such as this, it was difficult to tell where her own psyche ended, and where the Emperor’s began, as it threatened to encompass her. Yet she held onto her sense of self as best she could.

Then again “Sethano Horst” was as much a fabricated identity as anything else. She knew she was an orphan, as were all the Progena, but she had no recollection of her parents, nor of her time before arriving at the Schola Progenium, and in any case, the Progena were routinely cut off from their pasts, so they could be molded into loyal and single-minded servants of the Emperor. Whatever names they might have had were discarded, replaced with those drawn from lists of Imperial heroes of ages past, so as to inspire them to achieve similar greatness. She, for instance, had been named after a Canoness of the Adepta Sororitas, and a prominent Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus from the 41st Millennium.

Needless to say, she never spoke of her visions to the Drill Abbots, nor any of her classmates, much less the more complex understanding of the Emperor that they had given her, rather the one that they were taught in accordance with the Imperial Creed, the official doctrine of the Adeptus Ministorum, the state church of the Imperium. She had no desire to be immediately branded a heretic and executed by such small-minded individuals.

And so she prayed, fasted, and contemplated the lives of the Imperial Saints as she was instructed alongside her classmates. To others, she appeared to be perfectly devout, and indeed, there was much to admire in the examples of heroism and acts of self-sacrifice of many of the Saints, to say nothing of that of the Emperor, whom they had given their lives in service of. She knew that her life had to be important in some way, for her to be regularly visited by the Emperor as she had, and she so she strove her hardest to live up to the expectations that He clearly had for her. Difficult as it was at times, and frustratingly cryptic as the Emperor’s designs for her were, she knew she was destined to dedicate her life, and every fiber of her being, to the defense, advancement, and service of humanity.

The enormous pressure upon her mind lifted. The Emperor’s expression remained as unchanging as ever, yet Sethano though she could sense... satisfaction? It seemed that she had passed some sort of test, and in any case, she was still alive, which was cause enough for hope. The memory of the agony the Emperor had shared with her would linger, a phantom pain indelibly etched upon her consciousness, but if it momentarily helped ease His suffering, even if only in the slightest degree, then she was glad for it. As for herself, it would continue to serve her as a source of strength and determination, a constant reminder that no matter what troubles she faced in the Schola Progenium, she had already survived far worse.

The vision faded, and Sethano fell deeply into a mercifully dreamless sleep once more, too exhausted by the encounter to do anything else.

 

[Arithmetician]

Sethano awoke several hours later. It was still dark out, but it was morning, on the first Terran day of 200.M43.

Sethano realized that meant it was her birthday, or at least the date chosen to represent it. Just as she didn’t know her parents, she didn’t know exactly which day she had really been born on, just that she had the physical condition of an eleven-year old girl... well, now twelve-year old girl. But as ever, she felt far older than that mentally, and in any case, the Schola Progenium was hardly a place for something as sentimental as a birthday party.

Some would have called her precocious, or a young prodigy. Others, if they discovered how different she truly was, would certainly call her an abomination. But even she didn’t fully understand what she was herself.

The other Progena in her dormitory looked up to her, she knew that. And she, in turn, cared deeply for them. They were the closest thing she had ever had to a family.

She couldn’t view the Drill Abbots as being any sort of father-figure to her though. Strange as it seemed, if there was anyone she saw as being like her father, it was the Emperor. He was a detached father, offering her no words of comfort, or words at all for that matter, and cruel, with the pain he regularly made her endure, but his recurring presence in her dreams had strengthened her, and made her what she was, whatever she was.

Many of the girls in her dormitory were destined to serve in the all-female Adepta Sororitas, whose Militant Orders were the only armed forces permitted to the Adeptus Ministorum, better known in Low Gothic as the Ecclesiarchy. No doubt they assumed the same would be true of her, befitting one named after a Canoness of the Sisterhood.

There were of course other Orders within the Sororitas outside of the Militant ones. Though ultimately no Progena could actually choose what their vocation would be following graduation, as it would be selected for them, Sethano thought that if she was going to end up in the Sororitas, she would prefer one of its more scholarly orders. The Orders Dialogous were experts in the study of linguistics and information-processing, while the Orders Famulous were diplomats and counselors serving the noble houses of the Imperium, managing trade and bringing them greater prosperity so that they might strengthen the Imperium in turn. Then the was the Orders Hospitaller, known for their compassion, who served the Imperium as medics, though their knowledge of how to heal could also be turned to allow them to act as fearsome torturers of the Imperium’s foes.

But Sethano sensed that she could never truly fit in with the blind zeal of the Sororitas, which was common to all of its Orders.

She didn’t have any more time to wander in her own thoughts though, as the barking voice of a Drill Abbot was ordering them to assemble.

The Schola Progenium had an important visitor.

​

Gotthard Neumann, one of the twelve reigning High Lords of Terra, and currently the most influential among them, had come to inspect the Progena, among them future leaders of the Imperium, on the day that it once again returned to the stars.

Lord Neumann was known as a charismatic leader, a skill that had helped in his maneuvering to become the preeminent High Lord, and delivered a powerful speech, about how it was humanity’s sacred duty to reconquer the galaxy by the force of arms, and to be prepared to defend itself against any perfidious xenos that it might encounter. It would be by the Progena’s efforts, sacrifice, and faith in the Emperor that the Imperium’s destiny would realized.

A vast, uncaring galaxy awaited Sethano and the other Progena, filled with both wonders and terrors. Yet as the High Lord spoke, another vision flashed through Sethano’s mind, far more vivd than than the imagery that Lord Neumann's oratory alone could conjure.

A new Great Crusade... and a momentary glimpse of a terrible purpose set before her, a narrow path that she must walk. The path was treacherous, and she could not see fully to its end, but she sensed to falter or wander from it was more than just to invite damnation upon herself.

It was to see the extinction of humanity.

 

[Arithmetician]

Holy Terra, the birthplace of humanity and Throneworld of the Imperium. Though the planet-wide city and most of the temples had been ruined during the Sack, the Palace still stood proud, built atop and deep into the loftiest peaks of the Himalayas.

Around Holy Terra orbits Luna, now once again just a Dead World, its underground cities also destroyed during the Sack.

The devastation of Mars was even more complete, all traces of the Ring of Iron that had once surrounded it and the Adeptus Mechanicus’ sprawling foundries having been scoured from it by the forces of Chaos.

That, plus a few orbital mining and research outposts scattered throughout the Sol System, was the state of the Imperium of Man on that day when High Lord of Terra Gotthard Neumann delivered his address to the Schola Progenium.

In spite of the strong influence of the vanished Lord Commander Guilliman upon those who had reformed the Imperium after the sack, and the purges of the most inflexible hardliners, who would have kept humanity stagnant and with no hope of recovery, the Ecclesiarchy remained too entrenched into the fabric of the Imperium for it to be done away with, and there would have been rebellion against any who tried to abolish it outright.

Theoretically, the Ecclesiarchy’s religious power was balanced against the day-to-day bureaucracy of the Administratum. However, with the Imperium reduced to only a single planet, the Administratum’s size had been downsized accordingly, their Administrative Offices occupying only a fraction of the space in the Palace that they had used to. But the militant zeal that would drive humanity to reconquer the galaxy.

(I heavily edited this Civic from the mod I originally got it from, as it was far too powerful at first compared to other Civics. But the idea of it fit too well for the Imperium of Man for me not to include it in this run. Templars do not provide Amenities, unlike Priests, but add naval capacity and defense armies to their planet, allowing one to use Temples as an alternative to Strongholds/Fortresses with specialist-tier jobs. The Inquisitor jobs are also modified from a different mod that originally added them, and integrated into the Militant Zealots civic, because they also tied into it very nicely).

While the influence of the Adeptus Mechanicus had declined with the loss of their Forge Worlds, which it had once operated as its own effectively semi-independent empire within the Imperium, their technical expertise and accumulated knowledge could not be overlooked. Its now-dominant Cawlite faction now worked furiously both to recover the technology that the Imperium had lost since the sack. Moreover, they sought innovations that their more conservative predecessors would have branded as Tech-Heresy, so that the Imperium Reformatus would rise to become more advanced than before the fall of the original Imperium of Man.

(This was the most vanilla-friendly version of a Machine Cult civic that I could find, and has an interesting interaction with Militant Zealots above. Templars and Inquisitors both count as Priests, so the more Templars and Inquisitors I have, the more it cuts into my Society research, since Templars and Inquisitors don’t actually produce any society research to begin with. Flavor-wise, I found it very fitting that Templars and Inquisitors actively impede societal progress, so I kept it that way. Additionally, since Engineering Research is generally considered more valuable than Society Research, this will further incentivize me to build lots of Temples. It is a locked civic, and thus cannot be added or removed after game start.)

Battlefleet Solar, reduced to a mere three Corvettes, as classified under the Imperium Reformatus’ revised naval doctrines, was docked at the Sol Starbase, part fortress and secondary administrative center, part monastery. The Imperium’s Gothic architecture had persisted through the sack, a reminder of the glories of ages past and inspiring faith in the Emperor. It was adorned with skulls, long a symbol of the Imperium, both serving as a reminder of the cruelty of the galaxy beyond and a reminder of the highest examples of martyrdom that servants of the Emperor could aspire to.

And it was from the Sol Starbase that Tech-Priest and Explorator, Katya Dymetrin, departed to begin the first surveys of the surrounding Star Systems in Segmentum Solar. Much astronavigational and planetary data had been lost since the sack, and the hyperlanes beyond still needed to be charted. And if Dymetrin could rediscover ancient amidst ancient ruins for the glory of the Machine God, or Omnissiah, then that would be all the better. Officially, the Adeptus Mechanicus held that the Emperor was the Omnissiah’s avatar in the physical world, and following the example of their founder, the Cawlites, which Dymetrin was a member of, truly believed this. Other, now minority-factions in the Mechanicus viewed this compromise as blasphemous to the true Machine God, but they were wise enough not to say so in the presence of members of the Adeptus Ministorum, so as to keep the peace between their faiths for the good of the Imperium.

As for Sethano Horst though, she remained in the Schola Progenium on Holy Terra for now, looking up at the stars, where, no matter what form it took, her destiny would inevitably take her.

 

[Arithmetician]

Nearly eight months after departing from the Sol Starbase, Explorator Dymetrin discovered artifacts from an ancient xenos civilization that had called itself the Grunur. That they had once inhabited space so close to Holy Terra, and that evidence of their existence had never been discovered until now was disturbing, but fortunately the Grunur appeared to have been dead for over seven million years.

The artifacts would of course be carefully quarantined to minimize the risk of xenos contamination as they were studied.

In spite of the inherent risks of a previous xenos presence on Tau Ceti III, Dymetrin also reported that the planet had extensive reefs from which rare crystals grew, promising a great source of wealth for the Imperium if the planet could be successfully colonized. Dymetrin also believed the crystals could have military applications, perhaps one day improving the efficiency of laser-based weaponry.

To the unwary eye, the Alpha Centauri System was a stunning spectacle to behold, with an earth-like moon orbiting a ringed blue gas giant.

The moon was rich in mineral wealth too - but that came from being periodically bombarded with impacts from the rings, and the eggs of murderous xenos creatures were discovered on the surface. They would have to be exterminated to make the moon relatively safe for human habitation.

Also disconcerting was an ancient xenos atomic clock discovered around Eta Cassiopaeiae B, steadily counting down to a date 42 years and 3 days in the future, as of the time of its discovery. Some were convinced that it was a bomb, but the Tech-Priest assigned to lead the Explorator mission urged caution. If it truly was a bomb, then the device was obviously sophisticated enough that any attempts to tamper with it were likely to set it off early. Keeping an eye on it and ensuring that no other subjects of the Imperium interacted with it was the safest course for now.

The system was also found to have a large, if bitterly cold habitable planet. Its natural resources were sparse for its size, but some members of the Adeptus Mechanicus saw potential in eventually converting it into a major Forge World, once the Imperium had relearned enough of its lost technology to make colonizing the planet economically viable.

As for Sethano Horst, the past few years had been eventful indeed....

The first several, had, at first, been spent within the halls of the Schola Progenium on Holy Terra, as she continued her studies and brutal training. But instead of being selected for the Adepta Sororitas, as she had long assumed that she would be, the leading High Lord of Terra, Gotthard Neumann, had returned to the Schola Progenium, and, following a personal examination of several candidates, handpicked her to serve in the Logos Historica Verita.

The Logos Historica Verita was an agency of the Adeptus Terra, itself an umbrella organization for the different departments of the Imperium's government, outside of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Adeptus Ministorum, and the Holy Orders of the Emperor’s Inquisition. The Logos Historica Verita had been founded in early M42 by the last Imperial Regent, Lord Commander Guilliman, himself, and while Guilliman had since disappeared, his loyalists had seen to the continuation of the organization’s work, to produce as complete and objective of a history of mankind as possible, free from historical revisionism or bias.

This of course, even in M42, had been a practically impossible task, as so much had already been lost or deliberately altered beyond recognition, and even more history had been lost in the years following the Sack, in spite of the agency’s best efforts. It had only survived against the distrust or outright hostility of the other agencies of the Imperium, through the continued support of powerful backers, such as Lord Neumann, who was very much reform-minded and interested in knowing the galaxy’s history, so that the Imperium could avoid its mistakes from the past.

Bearing the High Lord’s seal, Sethano had access to all sorts of records on Holy Terra that were denied to others, and she spent much time poring through them, working to produce a treatise detailing the findings of her research, a task she took well to, despite being only 16 when she joined the Logos Historica Verita. In doing so, she showed superb organizational skills, and was able to work through and collate accounts at a rate far exceeding that of her more experienced colleagues, while uncovering patterns that others had missed.

But there was only so much that one could learn about the history of the Imperium through reading, no matter how many records one went through, and so Sethano first traveled off Holy Terra at the age of 17, as a Historitor-Investigatus taking a more hands-on approach.

Some in the Adeptus Mechanicus resented that agents of Logos Historica Verita were being dispatched to the archaeological sites being discovered, as they considered themselves to have exclusive claim to any artifacts, data, or archaeotech discovered, for the glory of the Machine God. But Explorators like Dymetrin were already of a more inquisitive and free-spirited streak than most of their fellow Tech-Priests, and more flexible in their approach to the unknown. Dymetrin welcomed Historitor-Investigatus Horst to join her expeditions, appreciating her keen intellect and intuitive grasp of technology.

It was a shame, Dymetrin thought, that Horst hadn’t been brought up by the Mechanicus, as she would have had the makings of a great Tech-Priest.

Dymetrin gradually entrusted Sethano with more and more of the daily administrative tasks of their expeditions as well, finding that everything went far smoother with the highly capable Historitor-Investigatus in charge of the details.

And then, about a week before Sethano’s 19th birthday, the two of them discovered logs pointing to the existence of a valuable piece of archaeotech called 'the Rubricator’.

The Rubricator lay in a previously uncharted system, on the outer edge of the Galactic Core in Segmentum Ultima, to the galactic east of Segmentum Solar.

With their destination locked in, Dymetrin and Horst began charting the systems that lay between them and the Rubricator.

What they would find there would forever alter the Imperium’s destiny.

 

[Arithmetician]

While Explorator Dymetrin and Historitor-Investigatus Horst made their way toward the site of the fabled Rubricator, other Explorators of the Adeptus Mechanicus were busy making other discoveries.

One was the rediscovery an Earth-like planet in the Sirius System that had significant infrastructure surviving from before the fall of the Old Imperium. The name of this colony was lost to the scribes of the Adeptus Administratum, so the planet was renamed “Sothis”, after an ancient Terran name for the star that it orbited.

It was with alarm that the Explorators encountered what appeared to be organic starships. While most of the details had been lost to history, stories of ‘the Great Devourer” that had once ravaged the Milky Way were still known, usually spoken of only in whispers. Fortunately, it soon became clear that the “Beta Menace” was instead a docile, migratory species, dubbed Tiyanki, that gathered over gas giants to graze.

Archaeological studies into the Grunur revealed that they had been a particularly belligerent xenos species, and had employed their own method of Exterminatus, the total destruction of a planetary biosphere, against their enemies through extensive firebombing campaigns.

And then, finally, after two years and ten months, Katya Dymetrin and Sethano Horst reached the distant Tien Kwan system, resting place of the Rubricator. The world was a ruined ecumenopolis, much like Holy Terra itself, though its surface was littered with tall, pile-like towers, some so large as to be visible from space. On closer inspection, the towers were haphazard in construction, as if the thieves who had taken the Rubricator from its original owners had been in the habit of just dumping whatever loose materials or loot they could find in ever-growing, until, over centuries, they had built the structures the Explorator and the Historitor-Investigatus saw now.

Searching for the Rubricator among all the junk would take some time.

But as it happened, the Rubricator was far from the greatest treasure to be found there...

Following a strange sense of intuition, Sethano had discovered a secret passage hidden in the ruins, leading deep underground. Before long, they found themselves in a vast archaeotech laboratory complex, still largely functional in spite of the petrified dust that covered much of it.

And at the center of it all, there was a fully-functional Standard Template Construct system, a lost relic of the Dark Age of Technology, which had apparently been stolen away by the xenos rats as well.

While it had been the height of mankind’s technological progress, it was called the “Dark Age of Technology” because of the subsequent horrors that those advancements had unleashed upon the galaxy, ushering in the Age of Strife that had in turn led the Emperor to assume leadership over and unite humanity, lest it perish divided. At twenty-one years of age, Sethano had witnessed those eras many times, when she dreamed of the Emperor, knowing both of their glories and of their mistakes, never to be repeated.

During the Dark Age of Technology, a Standard Template Construct system (STC) was considered an essential piece of equipment for any new human colony, containing a vast array of designs for any tools or technologies that they might plausibly need, and possessed the ability to fabricate these designs on command, given sufficient raw materials. And since the old Adeptus Mechanicus had essentially banned innovation as Tech-Heresy for millennia, until its Cawlite Reformation, STCs had provided one of the few ways in which the Imperium of old could have improved its technological base. After all, rediscovering human technologies from ages past didn’t count as “innovation”.

Most STCs did not contain plans for particularly sophisticated technologies, as they would be far beyond the needs of most colonists, but it was said that a full STC Library would represent the total technical knowledge of humanity from the Dark Age of Technology.

The STC in the archaeotech laboratories of Tien Kwan V was such a full STC Library.

To a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, both past and present, discovering a full STC Library was akin to discovering the Holy Grail.

“Praise the Omnissiah!” Explorator Dymetrin murmured in awe. Slowly, she turned to Sethano. “You’re... not a Psyker, are you? It’s almost as if you could sense that the STC was here, somehow.” But before Sethano could answer, Dymetrin shook her head. “No. That was a foolish question on my part, for the answer is clear. You were chosen, Sethano. You were chosen by the Omnissiah, and unconsciously imbued with a measure of His Divine will, so that you might lead us here, in accordance with his plans for humanity’s future. And all the seeming coincidences along the way, from Lord Neumann choosing you as a Historitor-Investigatus, to you feeling the need to leave Holy Terra to continue your research, to you ending up joining my crew out of all of the Explorators... they were all invisibly guided by the Omnisiah’s design. It also explains why you have such a ready grasp on technology, when it should be a complete mystery to any outside of the Mechanicus. As one guided by the Omnissiah’s will, you have been granted a portion of His brilliance, so that you might carry out His mission."

Was that why she kept dreaming of the Emperor?

“I do not deserve such high praise,” Sethano replied cautiously. “And I’d be careful about saying that in front of your fellow Tech-Priests, or members of the Inquisition. They’re all too quick to label people heretics."

“That’s a sentiment that many in the Inquisition would label to be heretical itself,” Dymetrin said wryly.

“I just try to serve the Emperor as best as I can,” Sethano said. “But are many others whose talents could otherwise serve Him, but are wasted, because they were unfortunate enough to cross paths with an overzealous Inquisitor, and didn’t have anyone to protect them. I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones there. But other than that, I’m just an ordinary woman."

Sethano knew that she was lying to herself there. Ordinary women were not frequented with visions of the Emperor, as such an occurrence was extraordinary in of itself. But she dared not give into the temptation of indulging in delusions of grandeur. She was humbled next to the Emperor’s incredible power and ancient intellect, so far beyond her own meager abilities. To behave in any other manner was to risk inviting the corruption of Chaos within herself.

“No,” Dymetrin said. “You may not be of noble blood, but there is an undeniable air of nobility about you. You are a natural leader, and a prodigy in equal measure. And as one clearly favored by the Omnissiah, that also makes you a holy woman. Of that, I have no doubt."

 

[Arithmetician]

During further surveys of the Tien Kwan System, where the Archaeotech Laboratories and the STC within had been found, Explorator Dymetrin discovered an aerosol of exotic particles, that she named “Zro”. It appeared to brim with psychic power, and as such would bolster the abilities of any psykers who ingested it, though it was also likely to be highly addictive as well.

The STC was too large to be effectively moved from the archaeotech laboratories without damaging it, so the Imperium would need to wait until it could establish a permanent presence in the Tien Kwan System before it could fully exploit the discovery. But needless to say, Sethano Horst and Katya Dymetrin were hailed as heroes for their discovery, which would immeasurably accelerate the technological redevelopment of the Imperium Reformatus.

Yet that attention also invited scrutiny, and while Sethano found she had an increasing number of influential “friends”, each seeking to use her for their own advantage, there were now also those who saw her discovery and work in the Logos Historica Verita as threats to their interests. Some sent assassins after her, though they were thankfully not the disciples of the Officio Assassinorum, as that would mean that a 2/3 majority of the High Lords of Terra had voted for her termination.

After she had personally killed several of these assassins, putting her combat training from the Schola Progenium to work, Sethano did have to wonder if Dymetrin might have had a point about her having some sort of latent talent as a Psyker, even if the Explorator had settled upon another explanation in the end. Sethano found it was as almost if she had a sixth sense, a gut feeling that she was increasingly starting to suspect was actually a form of limited precognition, especially since it had been acting up more after she had been accidentally exposed to a bit of Zro while helping the Explorator analyze it.

The assassination attempts slowed considerably after that, as her enemies clearly saw that, for a scholar, she was not as easy of a target as they had initially believed.

Other enemies were far more devious though. In the guise of supporters, they argued that her talents, which were clearly considerable, were being wasted in such a minor agency of the Adeptus Terra as the Logos Historica Verita. They argued that she should be transferred into the Adeptus Administratum, and given the rank of Curator, normally a hereditary position, tasked with maintaining the most ancient of the Imperium’s ledgers and other records, demanding significant historical and linguistic knowledge. To be a Curator was considered something of a prestigious posting, but Sethano clearly saw that it was meant to keep her on Holy Terra.

While she was stuck in the bowels of the Administratum, Dymetrin was still exploring and discovering new wonders.

At the same time, political factions in the upper echelons of the Imperium were organizing around new leaders, each with an eye on assuming a leading role among the High Lords of Terra.

While Lord Neumann, her original patron, was now leading the March of the Brave, Sethano gravitated toward the Obedience, Loyalty, and Duty Vanguard. She was, after all, a servant of the Imperium, and a servant of humanity first and foremost, and could especially appreciate the values of loyalty and duty, when far too many in the Imperium’s leadership were only interested in their own power and wealth.

But if there was anything that could unite the squabbling factions of the Imperium, it was the threat of hostile xenos...

And on 04.29.212M43, the xenos codenamed the ‘Delta Menace’ were sited in the Capella System, traveling in ships of ancient Chaos design.

One thing was clear.

The Imperium had to shift its focus from exploration and recolonization, to readying its defenses posthaste.

 

[Arithmetician]

Recognizing that the Delta Menace would be far from the only danger that it would face, the Imperium Reformatus revived traditions of establishing an unyielding defense against any foes, and began drawing up plans for mighty bastions and Fortress Worlds.

Danger did not only come from without - even ancient xenos infrastructure left behind on the moon Chiron, in the Alpha Centauri System, proved treacherous, with traps that ensnared and killed many unsuspecting workers before they could be disabled.

Investigations continued into the Delta Menace, and members of the Ordos Xenos, the branch of the Inquisition tasked with containing and countering the spread of alien influences, accompanied Explorators to capture an enemy vessel. In doing so, the Delta Menace was revealed to be mechanical monstrosities... that had once been human.

The Delta Menace was a rogue offshoot of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Dark Mechanicum, that had betrayed their former allegiance to the Emperor of Mankind and given their service to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, so that they might carry out their research unrestricted by dogma or morality, gaining access to forbidden knowledge in the process. Over time, it appeared they had created an Abominable Intelligence (AI), one of the severest forms of Tech-Heresy, which they had become fully integrated into, while still serving the Chaos Gods. Most members of the Adeptus Mechanicus engaged in varying degrees of cybernetic modification, to better reflect the glory of the Machine God, but it appeared that these Hereteks had completely replaced their original organic bodies with machinery, and turned to an absolute hatred of the flesh, which was to be cast into and consumed by their Hell-Forges, which would then churn out all manners of unholy mechanical monstrosities.

(I know the emblem doesn’t quite match the Dark Mechanicum’s actual emblem in 40K, and is actually the emblem of the Adeptus Mechanicus, but I had to work with what was available to me in my mods).

The Heretek Hell-Forges appeared to be located in a cluster of star systems to the southwest edge of Segmentum Solar and the northern edge of Segmentum Tempestus. In such close proximity to the Imperium, war was inevitable, and there was little doubt that it would break out before long.

The discovery of an derelict Imperial cruiser in orbit of a gas giant was a much-needed find, with the war looming ever closer. It would be dispatched to the bastion guarding the sole path from the Hereteks to Imperial space, which most of the Imperium’s alloy production was being dedicated to.

As war preparations went on, Sethano Horst had risen to the occasion, and turned her enemies sidelining her into the Adeptus Administratum into an opportunity to better serve the Imperium. In the seven years since the discovery of the Delta Menace, Sethano, now 31 years of age, had quickly learned to master the political game, while delivering results that had led to a series of promotions. In a meteoric rise, she had maneuvered herself into leading one of the four Senior Offices of the Departmento Munitorum, which saw to the supply and logistical administration of the Imperium’s armed forces. Namely, she now headed the Office of Records, and was directly subordinate to the Master of the Administratum.

She had killed a few people along the way, yes. But each of them had tried to kill her first, and their incompetence would be the death of humanity if it was allowed to persist. Under her leadership, the Office of Records had become a model of efficiency in processing requests for information, something that was unheard of in the broader Administratum. And by actually caring about the conditions in which the scribes and other bureaucrats under her worked, she had further managed to increase their productivity, though as ever she had no tolerance for obstruction or corruption among their ranks.

At the same time though, her resources in the Administratum were increasingly overtaxed as the Imperium continued to expand, a fact that frustrated her to no end, when a delay in paperwork could literally be a matter of life or death for those who depended on supplies from the Departmento Munitorum.

In 219.M43, another xenos empire was rediscovered, the Drukhari Kabal. To stave off the consumption of their souls by the Chaos God Slaanesh, they turned to the sadistic toture of others, literally feeding upon the agony of their victims to extend their own wretched lives.

The Drukhari looked at the Imperium with cruel, covetous eyes, seeing new worlds to enslave and torment.

The Drukhari capital, the Dark City of Commorragh, was hidden among the ancient Aeldari Webway, constructed by the Eldar empire that the Druharki were themselves a corrupted offshoot of. However, it appeared that they had colonized a number of systems in both Segmentum Obscurus and Segmentum Ultima, and were already disturbingly close to the Imperium’s frontier.

Faced with imminent invasion by not one but two hostile xenos empires, a new High Lady of Terra rose to prominence, Natalia Marques, who urged the necessity of expediting the construction of defense platforms at each of of the Imperium’s bastions, and modernizing their weaponry to meet the threat.

And just two years later, the Drukhari attacked.

It was only another few months before the Hereteks decided that the time was right to finally launch their own assault against the Imperium Reformatus.

It would be a war of extermination.

If the Imperium’s defenses failed to hold, humanity would have no future.

 

[Arithmetician]

As initial skirmishes started with the Drukhari and the Hereteks, another vessel of Chaos design, though emblazoned in vivid blue and gold, was sighted in the Beta Caeli system, to the Imperium’s north. They were codenamed the “Kappa Menace” for now.

Explorators also discovered a massive ruined Sentry Array, though navigating the system was made treacherous, as there was a powerful entity lurking there, calling itself “VLUUR”, whose mere presence triggered dangerous Warp Storms around it.

In 03.225M43, the Hereteks attacked and seized the outlying Arcturus station with a small flotilla of Chaos warships.

The Hereteks then moved on to attack the Imperial bastion at Beta Comae Bernices. Unlike Arcturus station, the Imperium had invested heavily into fortifying Beta Comae Bernices, installing multiple hangar bays into the starbase, from which several squadrons of Starhawk Bombers emerged to engage the enemy corvettes.

With crews of 15 each, the Starhawks were heavily armed, tearing into the hulls of the Heretek ships, while still being fast enough to evade much of their fire.

The Starhawks inflicted heavy losses on the Heretek’s fleets. Realizing that the battle was lost, the Hereteks initiated an emergency jump out of the system. But while the Imperium had beaten back the initial assault, there was little doubt among the High Lords of Terra that it wouldn’t be long until the enemy’s Hell-Forges had produced new fleets to replace their losses. And so Sethano, in the Departmento Munitorum, had to work all the more urgently to make sure that the Beta Comae Bernices Bastion received fresh supplies, Starhawk parts for repairs, and new materiel for constructing additional defense platforms.

In the aftermath of the battle, Explorators cautiously studied the wrecks of the Heretek vessels. While any technology on board carried the risk of Chaos corruption, the Explorators were nonetheless able to gain a number of insights into how the Imperium could improve its own ships.

Closer to home, investigators of a mysterious moon in the Tau Ceti system led to tantalizing clues of an extremely advanced FTL system that could be used to instantaneously “Jump” between star systems. However, the technology was still far beyond the Imperium’s means to reproduce in any reasonable length of time for now, especially as the ongoing wars called for the development of technologies that could deliver more immediate results.

The Kappa Menace was soon revealed to be the Tzeentchian Sorcerers, servants of the Chaos God Tzeentch, the "Changer of Ways”, though it appeared that in the past centuries, Tzeentch had begun deceiving mortals under a new title, the “Whisperer in the Void”.

(I forgot to change the emblem to Tzeentch’s canonical one, but it still has a sort of “eye” design here. Also, the actual city appearance for Tzeentch is Necroids. I have no idea why it showed up as the mammalian city set here.)

With the Tzeentchians to the Galactic northwest, the Hereteks to the southwest, and the Drukhari to the northeast, the situation was appearing increasingly dire. Empowered by the Ruinous Powers of the Chaos Gods, or ancient but twisted Aeldari technology, it was estimated that each of the Imperium’s foes could produce war resources at roughly twice the rate of comparable industries back in the Imperium.

The Tzeentchians, with their devotion to intricate plots and planning, were at least likely to wait until they felt they had all of their pieces in place before attacking, but there was no question that they would attack the Imperium eventually.

And with the Imperium’s potential routes of expansion being increasingly cut off on all sides, the resources of Segmentum Solar, and what colonies it had managed to establish in the closest part of Segmentum Ultima, would have to sustain the Imperium for now.

And that was assuming that the Imperium could hold on to its colonies in Segmentum Ultima. Given the distance that the Drukhari had to travel from their shipyards to the Imperial frontier, their main attack had not arrived yet. But it too would eventually assail the Imperium, and sooner, rather than later...

 

[Arithmetician]

Explorators at long last tracked down the home system of the Grunur, where they found the last surviving fully sapient Baol, kept on automated life support for who knew how long by the Grunur, who themselves had perished long ago. The Last Baol expired shortly after its discovery, but the life-seeding secrets of its kind was now firmly in the hands of the Imperium.

The ancient Grunur capital complex was also another important find, with plenty of surviving and remarkably well-preserved infrastructure, much of it ideally suited for the needs of efficiently administering an empire. As such, Sethano Horst made a proposal directly to the Master of the Administratum and the other High Lords of Terra.

In recent years, faced with the necessity of producing large amounts of alloys to construct defenses against both the Hereteks and the Drukhari, increasingly wide swathes of Holy Terra had been given over to the Adeptus Mechanicus. By agreement with the Imperial government, they would use those portions of Holy Terra as their “Provisional Forge World Principal” until such a time as Mars could be made habitable again. The Ecclesiarchy had also been busy constructing new temples on Holy Terra, but the Administratum’s offices were increasingly cramped, and most of the infrastructure supporting its duties was in advanced states of disrepair.

As such, Sethano petitioned that certain offices of the Administratum should relocate to Grunur, once the system could be properly secured, establishing it as a secondary capital for the Imperium Reformatus. Grunur was well-positioned to respond to the growing needs of the systems on the Imperial Frontier, while still being deep enough within Segmentum Solar so as to not immediately risk attack by the Drukhari.

While the debate among the High Lords of Terra was contentious, it quickly found the support of Lady Marques and Lord Neumann, the two most influential members of the council, and ultimately, the measure passed.

The Drukhari finally made their attack. Many of their ships were armed with point-defense guns, allowing them to shred the Starhawks launched to intercept them, and in turn they seized one of the outer bastions meant to stop their advance. Many of the High Lords feared that the Drukhari would proceed to invade the outlying colonies, or press onward to Segmentum Solar itself.

But as time went on, it became clear that the Drukhari invasion force was not particularly well-led or organized. It marauded through several systems, raiding mining and research outposts, capturing and horrifically torturing their crews, but planetary invasion forces showed no sign of materializing, at least for the moment.

The Imperium, needing another victory after the stinging loss to the Drukhari, decided to reclaim the outlying systems to the Galactic southwest that the Hereteks had earlier taken. A small battlefleet, consisting of the derelict, now restored cruiser, five corvettes, and a recovered ancient warform, were dispatched and encountered a small Heretek fleet.

The Warform was itself an Abominable Intelligence, but its weaponry made it too dangerous for the Imperium’s limited navy to risk engaging it. Fortunately, a quick-thinking Tech-Priest had managed to convince it to serve the Imperium instead. While this, strictly speaking, was Tech-Heresy, desperate times called for desperate measures. The Abominable Intelligence of the Warform provided badly needed firepower to the Imperial Battlefleet, and could be pitted against the Abominable Intelligence of the Hereteks, kept safely on the front away from Holy Terra. If the Warform was destroyed in battle, the threat of its own Abominable Intelligence would be ended, but with any luck it would terminate many Heretek vessels first.

Battlefleet Solar engaged the Heretek vessels.

The firepower of the Cruiser and the Warform both greatly outclassed anything the Hereteks had in the system, allowing for a decisive victory.

However, a second Heretek fleet was already on the way, larger and more advanced than the one that Battlefleet Solar had just destroyed, with several destroyers among its number. Battlefleet Solar was forced to retreat to conserve its strength for another day as the Hereteks quickly retook the system and advanced on Beta Comae Bernices once again. They nearly managed to take the beleaguered bastion, closing in on it after destroying its outer defense platforms.

But once again, the Starhawks launching from the bastion’s main hangars managed to beat back the Heretek vessels, launching punishing bombing runs on their destroyers.

Some time after the battle, a vessel belonging to an unidentified empire, codenamed the Rho Menace, was detected, exploring systems to the Galactic north, between Imperial and Tzeentchian space.

Cautiously, the Imperium began efforts to decipher communications from the unknown vessel.

While Holy Terra was increasingly covered with foundries, Sothis was set aside to become the Imperium’s main producer of the goods needed to sustain its civilian industries. It was also chosen to be the site of the first trial of the Baol’s ancient life-seeding technology, turning it into a paradisiacal world. Unexpectedly, a number of “Nu-Baol” xenos appeared on the planet as well.

The Imperial colonists were startled and alarmed by the presence of the xenos in their midst, but it was quickly realized by more pragmatic minds that the Nu-Baol were not aggressive in nature. Faced with two powerful foes and ballooning food and energy deficits throughout the Imperium, the High Lords decreed that the Nu-Baol would be sentenced to death... by a lifetime of involuntary servitude to the Imperium. Needless to say, a number of Inquisitors were unhappy with this decision, but if the Nu-Baol’s labor could make the difference between humanity’s survival and extinction, then the High Lords would tolerate their existence for now.

But few could appreciate at the time just how much this decision would end up redefining the Imperium’s approach toward xenos, or at least, the xenos that weren’t servants of Chaos.

Following the passing of the former Master of the Administratum, Sethano Horst had advanced into the position, becoming one of the twelve High Lords of Terra herself in the process. She was also bestowed with noble status, in recognition of her long and exemplary record of service to the Imperium, and given the planet where she had discovered the STC with Explorator Dymetrin as a personal fief, in vassalage to the greater Imperium. The planet had been named “Draconith”, after an ancient Old Imperial colony, though it was not the same planet, and after the draconic imagery that was found among several of the ruins. And even more curiously, there was discovered to be a Dimensional Portal on Draconith, connecting to an alternate version of the Imperium of Man in another universe.

After initial fear and suspicion of some sort of xenos or Chaos trick had been allayed on both sides, and much theological debate, a thriving trade had begun between the two Imperiums through the portal, meaning that Sethano found herself ruling over one of the most technologically advanced and prosperous colonies of the Imperium, even as she balanced that with her newfound duties as the Master of the Administratum, and prepared her agencies for the move to Grunur.

While the Master of the Administratum had historically been a position so far above the ordinary Imperial citizen to be indifferent to their plights as the cogs of the bureaucracy kept glacially turning, Sethano took it upon herself to spend any time that she could spare looking after the common people of Draconith, overseeing charitable work, establishing schools, and personally hearing their concerns. After all, was it not the people that she strove to protect?

It was this deep compassion for her people, tireless work on behalf of the Imperium, and the aura of a noble spirit that people instinctively felt around her, something rare, that most nobles would never possess themselves, that fueled an growing conviction that Sethano Horst was an Imperial Saint, walking among them.

Such a following of course attracted the attention of the Inquisition, especially its Thorian faction, named after the charismatic preacher, Sebastian Thor, who had successfully reformed the Imperium millennia ago after leading a rebellion against the tyrannical reign of Lord Vandire, who had perverted the Imperium to serve his own megalomaniacal whims. The Thorians believed that Thor had been a vessel for the Emperor’s will, and that the Emperor’s spirit had inhabited many such vessels over the millennia since his physical body was interred upon the Golden Throne.

More evidence was needed to be sure, but with her astonishing rise to prominence in Imperium, saintly disposition, and miraculous discovery of the STC, many of the Thorians were also increasingly convinced that Sethano Horst was the Emperor’s latest chosen vessel.

Could she, acting as the living expression of the Emperor’s will, be the one destined to lead humanity to salvation against the xenos that besieged it? Or was she a false saint, and those who believed her to be one heretics?

Only time would tell.

 

[Arithmetician]

Contact with the T’au Empire was re-established on 08.26.231M43. Like the Old Imperium, the T’au Empire had seen an almost complete collapse following the Warp Storms that had ravaged the galaxy centuries before.

The T’au had once been ruled by the Ethereal Caste, which had introduced the T’au to the philosophy of “The Greater Good”, putting an end to millennia of tribal warfare between them. However, the Greater Good had not survived the galaxy’s long night. There had been an uprising against the Ethereals, who were now claimed to have long been brainwashing their people. Free of the Ethereals’ rule, the T’au had, in many respects, reverted to their old ways, with their government now representing an alliance of powerful warlords, who had only recently united in defense of their shared interests.

One thing that hadn’t changed about the T’au though was their commitment to technological progress. The Warlords each maintained a legion of technocrats to ensure that the T’au Empire was run smoothly, and in accordance with scientific principles.

It soon became clear that part of the reason for the sudden collapse of Ethereal-led T’au society was the appearance of a large-scale spatial anomaly, brought on by the Warp Storms, which had transported the T’au homeworld from its original position in the Eastern Fringe to a new star system in Segmentum Obscurus. That, and the horrors from the Warp that had descended upon the T’au when they were already reeling from that, had eroded their people’s faith in the Greater Good, paving the way for the uprising that had deposed the Ethereals.

The Imperium could not afford another enemy at the moment, and the T’au, while warlike and scheming, were still the friendliest xenos empire that had been encountered thus far, and much more technologically advanced. Thus, diplomatic overtures were made with the T’au, with the aim of securing a non-aggression pact from them... and building a spy network in their midst, to steal the secrets of their technology. The Imperium would not outright copy profane xenos technology... but it could certainly use T'au technology to inspire innovations of its own.

(The basic challenge of a hostile galaxy would not permit me to have the T’au as their ‘Greater Good’ selves, so they are Barbaric Despoilers in this play through, which as noted above, loosely reflects what their society may have been like before the arrival of the Ethereals. As for their new location, that’s just where the game spawned them.)

The T’au had also reunited to protect themselves against the predations of the Arachnids, or as they quickly became known in the Imperium, the “Bugs”, though some Imperial scholars questioned if the Arachnids were actually the offshoots of a lost Tyranid Hive Fleet. What was certain was that the Arachnids, like the Tyranids, were bent on consuming all life in their path.

The Arachnid Hive was located near the northernmost edge of Segmentum Obscurus, near the Halo Stars.

The Bug homeworld was Klendathu, in a binary system, from which they had allegedly launched a series of devastating meteor attacks against the T’au, which escalated to an all-out war between them in 233.M43.

(Yes, the Arachnids/Bugs are very much a shout-out to Starship Troopers, which was an influence upon canon 40K... plus, it lets me have a Devouring Swarm without having a full Tyranid Hive Fleet to deal with at the moment, which could only be adequately represented in-game by the Prethoryn Scourge.)

There soon was a temporary cessation of open hostilities between the Imperium and the Heretek Fell-Forges, also starting in 233.M43. The Hereteks had decided to pull back and regroup following their repeated failures to breach the Beta Comae Bernices bastions, saving their computational power for more productive uses, while still swearing to exterminate the Imperium one day. As for the Imperium, it still lacked the naval power necessary to penetrate past the Heretek’s own outer bastion, so a stalemate was the best possible conclusion for the war, given the circumstances.

Many in the Imperium became increasingly wary around the Servitors that the Adeptus Mechanicus had created to supplement its workforce, seeing them as being similar to the Heretek drones that the Imperium had recently been waging war against. Of course, Servitors were not true robots, as creating robots would be a crime punishable by death. Instead, Servitors were either sub-human clones, or replicae, as they were properly called, or criminals who were mind-wiped, installed with cybernetic protheses, and reprogrammed to carry out simple manual tasks. In such a manner, even the condemned were granted a chance to serve the Imperium once more, as nearly mindless Servitors.

To Sethano Horst, it was a distinction without difference between Servitors and Robots. From the ancient memories within her, acquired over the course of her many dream encounters with the Emperor, she knew that “Robot” came from a word in an ancient Terran language called ‘Czech', translating as “slave” or “forced labor”. And was that not exactly what Servitors were used for? Servitors only existed so that the Adeptus Mechanicus could have a loophole around the provisions that banned robots and Abominable Intellgiences throughout the Imperium, as their labor was far too valuable to forego.

But there was no rest for the Imperium, or the wicked, for the Drukhari were still marauding through the outlying systems of Ultima Segmentum.

And on 03.24.235M43, as the war with the Drukhari was finally starting to wind down, the Tzeentchian Sorcerers declared war on the Imperium, at last ready to enact their own scheme for the extermination of humanity.

 

[Arithmetician]

As the war against the Tzeentchians began, the enemy swiftly moved to take over several uninhabited star systems on the northern fringe of Imperial space, which could not be adequately defended, including the Magi System, home of the Ruined Sentry Array.

The Imperial Navy, unable to meet the Tzeentchian fleet out there, lest it be wiped out entirely, instead made a strategic withdrawal behind the Algorab Bastion, while the Astra Militarum mobilized in 40 Eridani, which now assumed enormous importance to the Imperium. It guarded the only hyperlane route between the Tzeentchians and the Imperium’s core colonies of Sector Solar. Work on fortifying the Imperium’s colony in 40 Eridani began at once, and eventually it would be renamed “New Cadia”, for how it served as the gateway to the rest of the Imperium. However, priority for orbital defenses continued to go to the Algorab Bastion, as the Tzeentchians would have to take that Bastion and disable its FTL inhibitor before they could move on to 40 Eriadani.

Peace with the Drukhari Kabal was finally signed in 12.18.235, but it was clear that the war was over only because they were satisfied with their plunder from the Imperium’s mining and research stations for now, and had found more promising targets elsewhere. Like the Hereteks, it was a near certainty that the Drukhari would declare war on the Imperium again one day.

The Drukhari’s prospective target turned out to be the Federal Planets of Rho Pictoris, the small but intensely militaristic civilization of the Pasathians, a previously unknown xenos race of lanky and leafy plantoids. They were poorly adapted for any environments other than the dilapidated urban one in which they had evolved, but they were intelligent enough to serve as slaves, and were far closer to the Drukhari’s core territories than the Imperium was.

In the meantime, the Tzeentchians’ advance on the Imperium was slow but methodical, with several probing attacks against the Algorab Bastion of varying intensity. However, it was clear that the Tzeentchians were gathering information, in preparation for their true offensive.

With the territorial losses already suffered under Lady Marques’ reign as the first among the High Lords, and the main Tzeentchian fleet still on its way, it was clear that the Imperium needed new leadership. From among the High Lords, Lady Sethano Horst emerged as their leading voice. This was in part due to the strong ties she had developed with the Adeptus Mechanicus through her past archaeological work with Explorator Dyemetrin, time in the Departmento Munitorum, overseeing the transport of the weapons they produced to the front, and administration of Draconith, home of the coveted STC Library, leading the Mechanicus’ Fabricator-General to throw their support behind her. Her ascension was also supported by the Inquisitorial Representative on the Council. While some factions of the Inquisition remained wary of her, the Representative at the time was a Thorian, and if Sethano Horst had truly been chosen as a vessel to enact the Emperor’s will, as some speculated, it would be heretical to oppose the Emperor’s designs.

Besides the imminent Tzeentchian invasion, the Imperium was faced with a dire economic crisis, which Sethano had to tackle shortly after taking power over the Imperium. Simply put, the Imperium was facing the prospect of starvation in the near future. With its expansion constrained by its enemies, and most of its worlds either poorly suited to large-scale agriculture, or otherwise needed to sustain vital war industries, the Imperial government had been buying up and stockpiling any food surpluses that it could, and doling them out as needed to meet demand. But that stockpile was rapidly depleting, and the price of food was skyrocketing. With the population rapidly growing, it would soon become unsustainable, and then the Imperium’s people would start starving, and then rioting in the streets.

Sethano felt the weight of the responsibility that had been entrusted upon her settle heavily upon her shoulders. She knew what had to be done if the Imperium was to be saved, lest it collapse under its own weight. It was a callous act, based on a cold calculus. Those who would suffer from it were xenos, yes, and she would always prioritize humanity’s survival above all else, but that didn’t take away from the cruelty of what she was about to do, necessary as it was. Unlike some of her fellow High Lords, who truly believed in their own xenophobic propaganda, she knew that her victims were capable of suffering, just as human beings could, a fact that was deeply troubling to her.

The Nu-Baol were sapient beings, but they were also plantoids, and an analysis of their biology indicated that they would be highly nutritious to humans. And so, she gave the order to keep them as livestock.

Of course, the population could not simply eat unprocessed xenos, for their revulsion and fear of contamination would get in the way. Even many on the High Lords were initially appalled by her proposal, not out of sympathy for the xenos, but fear of being tainted by them. So Sethano further decreed that the Nu-Baol, after being harvested, would be processed in such a manner to ensure food safety and cleanliness, while making them more appetizing to the average citizen of the Imperium.

​

Soon, new government rations began being issued across the worlds of the Imperium, bringing much-needed relief to its hungry citizens. The rations took the form of green wafers, advertised as being made of “high-energy vegetable concentrates”. In spite of their bland appearance, the people of the Imperium found that they were not only nutritious, but delicious, which made them love Sethano Horst as they had few High Lords of Terra. And while it wasn’t their official name, popularly the wafers became known as “Sethano Green”.

She hated that name.

With production of Sethano Green now in full swing, the Imperium’s food crisis had been solved practically overnight, with it now having a stable and plentiful food supply, that would naturally grow to meet the needs of the Imperium’s population. But Sethano couldn’t dwell long on her own monstrous act, for the Tzeentchians were at the gates.

The Tzeentchians arrived in the Algorab System just four months after Sethano took power as the first among the High Lords of Terra.

Starhawks launched at once to meet the Tzeentchian invaders.

The Starhawk pilots showed great bravery in the defense of the Algorab Bastion, but their efforts were in vain. After a siege, the Tzeentchian forces managed to take the station, and slaughtered the soldiers manning it.

Now, only the Bastion of 40 Eridani and the Fortress World of New Cadia stood between the Tzeentchian Sorcerers and the rest of the Imperium’s worlds.

 

[Arithmetician]

To the surprise of all of the High Lords of Terra, the attack posed at the core of the Imperium never came. Though the Tzeentchians had taken the Algorab bastion, they had suffered significant fleet losses in doing so, and chose simply to fortify their newly-held position instead of pressing their attack further. And so, the war petered out to an “end” four years later.

But no one actually thought it was the end. The Tzeentchians would be back, and with much greater force next time. And so the Imperium would have to do its best to prepare for their return.

And of course, the Tzeentchians weren’t the Imperium’s only foe. The T’au had successfully held off the Arachnid Hive, which was too distant to immediately strike at the Imperium, but there was also the Drukhari Kabal and the Heretek Hell-Forges to contend with.

The Adeptus Mechanicus was busy working on all fronts to ensure that the Imperium would be ready to meet those challenges. Research was ongoing into the stabilization of volatile motes, which were thought to have metallurgical applications, and the newly elevated Genetor Verata Orpheus was working on refinements to cloning processes, so that new batches of Replicae could be produced without the mutations and deformities that had plagued previous generations. And, crucially to future war efforts, the Imperium was piecing together the plans and infrastructure to begin building new cruisers, so it would no longer be dependent on a single, formerly derelict cruiser to serve as its flagship.

42 years and 3 days after the discovery of the atomic clock in the Eta Cassiopeiae System, nanites emerged, rapidly terraforming a formerly lifeless planet into a verdant Gaia world with rich mineral deposits. Colonization efforts began immediately.

Sethano Horst presided over a state funeral for her immediate predecessor, Lady Natalia Marques, on 06.06.248M43. For her role for defending the Imperium Reformatus in its first wars against hostile xenos, the Adeptus Ministorum canonized Marques as an Imperial Saint.

In spite of his increasing age, Lord Neumann was still good health for the time being, continuing to oversee military operations in Sector Solar as a fellow High Lord of Terra. He maintained a good working relationship with Sethano, and did not bear her any sort of grudge for her ascendance over him. The two of them understood that they were, first and foremost, servants of the Imperium and the Emperor of Mankind, and this led to a strong mutual respect for each other, even if they had slightly different visions on how best to serve.

“I knew that there was something special about you that day, when I recruited you for the Logos Historica Verita,” he told her, “but I never imagined at the time that you would rise as far as you have, Sethano."

“It is a terrible burden... but one that I gladly bear,” Sethano replied, “so that humanity may endure. And I will always be humbled that you gave me that chance, so many years ago, and the knowledge that whatever I may have to sacrifice is small, next to the sacrifice that our Emperor has been making for millennia on end."

“I always knew that I would not be able to accomplish the task of rebuilding the Imperium alone,” Lord Neumann said. “Instead, it was my task, and Natalia’s, to safeguard the Imperium until your generation was ready to serve as the leaders of a new Crusade, one that will retake the galaxy."

“The fleet is still far too small for my liking, but once the new cruisers start coming on line, that will change,” Sethano said. “We will drive back the xenos who threaten the Imperium, and carry the Imperial banner to every world, no matter how far. That I promise you."

It was fortuitous that the Imperium finished researching cruiser technology soon after that conversation, for new enemies made themselves known. One was the Necron Dynasties. Like the Hereteks, Necrons had formerly been organic beings, the Necrontyr but they had been tricked into transferring their consciousnesses into mechanical bodies. However, the souls of all but the most powerful Necrontryr had been forever lost. Now, they were little more than automatons bent on exterminating all organic life, so that they could reclaim their long-lost empire as they emerged from stasis on their ancient Tomb and Relic worlds.

The Nurglites were also rediscovered, followers of the Chaos God Nurgle, the Plague Lord, presiding over disease and decay.

(The Nurglites also have the necroid city set... again, not sure why it showed as the mammalian one in this screenshot).

The Necrons controlled a swathe of space between the northern part of Segmentum Ultima and the eastern edge of Segmentum Obscurus. The T’au Empire lay directly in the path of the Necron’s expansion.

There was also an remarkably advanced xenos empire, the Godaid Archivists, to the Necron’s north. In spite of their name, the Godaid were staunchly materialistic, with no belief in the divine. They had taken to cybernetically upgrading their bodies, but as there technology was alien, a mockery of the sacred devices of the the Machine God.

The existence of the Godaid was deeply disturbing to the High Lords of Terra. Not only was there an immensely powerful xenos empire hidden among the Halo Stars, but there was no mention of them whatsoever in Imperial records. Had they been there since before the Sack? Or had it actually been far longer than the centuries since the Old Imperium’s fall, giving the Godaid potentially millennia to develop? None could say. But if there was any saving grace in the encounter, it was the Godaid had fallen into stagnation themselves, just like the Old Imperium, and showed little desire to expand past their current borders.

The Nurglite’s empire lay on the other side of the galaxy, along the southernmost edge of Segmentum Tempestus and stretching into the Veiled Region. Worryingly, there also seemed to be an Arachnid output in that corner of the galaxy, which was soon discovered to have been colonized through the use of a wormhole. To even have such technology meant that the bugs were far more advanced than the Imperium would have cared to admit.

But in spite of all of the new enemies that had appeared on the galactic stage, the Imperium’s goals remained unchanged. It would continue to defend itself against any xenos threats - and once it was strong enough, it would strike back against them.

 

[Arithmetician]

In spite of the Imperium’s continued distrust of xenos, under the pragmatic leadership of High Lady of Terra Sethano Horst, it signed a Defensive Pact with the T’au Empire. The Imperium had an interest in the continued existence of the T’au as a buffer against the Necrons and Arachnids, and if the Drukhari, Hereteks, or Tzeentchians were to attack again, they could greatly benefit from the strength of the T’au navy, or at least use the T’au as a distraction in the Galactic north. Of course, some hardliners were very unhappy with this, but Sethano suppressed them ruthlessly. The survival of the Imperium came first, and small-minded individuals would not be permitted to stand in the way of that, if reason could not dissuade them.

Of course, further war with the hostile Ruinous Powers surrounding the Imperium was inevitable, so work continued on fortifying the Imperium’s borders.

Within the Imperium, there was, however, growing unrest, with pirates preying upon shipping lanes... until they were crushed by a detachment of the Imperial Navy.

Winged Statues, which came to be known as the Sentinels, were discovered on Chiron. Explorator Dymetrin was seriously maimed while investigating the site, but in spite of all expectations of a premature death following her injuries, she continued to go strong, augmenting her body with new cybernetics.

As for the Sentinels themselves, an uneasy agreement was made to permit them to augment the defenses of Chiron. Short of carrying out an Exterminatus on the planet, there was no feasible way to dislodge them, and Sethano was not so foolish to throw away loyal Imperials and resources that she could use for the good of the Imperium.

The T’au warlords, in a further break from their species’ former empire, began employing increasingly xenophobic rhetoric, priming their population for war against their xenos neighbors. Similar, fear campaigns were underway throughout the Imperium. Yet in spite of the rhetoric, there remained a strong degree of respect between the leaders of the T’au and the Imperium under Sethano Horst, and their defensive alliance remained in place.

Besides establishing new Star Fortresses in key systems, the Imperium was accelerating its colonization of Segmentum Solar, and had begun research on Jump Drives, which would be a key advantage in the conflicts sure to follow.

To the Galactic southeast of the Imperium, sightings of a new xenos empire, codenamed the ‘Res Menace’ were made.

Before communications from the Res Menace vessels could be fully deciphered, the Drukhari declared war on the Imperium again, and by extension, the T’au Empire.

More hostile vessels were sighted soon afterward in Segmentum Ultima, clearly belonging to Orks, historically one of the most belligerent species in the galaxy, living only to fight, and making use of ramshackle technology, which, when it worked, did so when it had no right to.

But the Ork Worlds were far from the Imperium’s current borders. Seeking an opportunity as the Imperium mobilized to deal with the Drukhari, the Hereteks declared war on the Imperium once again as well.

Twenty years after first rising to prominence, Sethano Horst remained the de facto ruler of the Imperium of Man as war engulfed it anew. Yet, with the death of Lord Neumann, six months after the war with the Herteks resumed, she felt increasingly cut off from her humanity. She knew she had sacrificed much of it in the atrocity she had committed and continued to commit against the Nu-Baol, and as popular as she was among the ordinary citizens of the Imperium for improving their lives, her regime was still deeply politically repressive, though she viewed this as a necessity to keep the Imperium’s competing elites strictly in line. She still had Explorator Dymetrin, but the number of people who knew her on any personal level from before she became the leading High Lady of Terra was rapidly diminishing, unmooring her from the girl that she had used to be.

Then again, she had never been an ordinary girl. She still had dreams of the Emperor, and had the sense of inexorably being driven on by a terrible purpose.

If she faltered from that path now, the Imperium would fall, and so she would continue on, no matter how high the cost might go.

(Hi! I’m sorry for not updating for a while! First I got distracted with the Stellaris beta release for 3.3 for a while, and then life got busy. But I haven’t forgotten this AAR, and I hope to update it a bit more regularly again going forward!)

 

[Arithmetician]

The ‘Res Menace’ was soon shown to be the Aedlari Reclaimers, a fanatically xenophobic sect of the Aeldari, who were determined to restore the vast empire that they had once had over the galaxy before their Fall and the birth of the Eye of Terror... by exterminating humanity and all of the other ‘vermin’ who now infested the galaxy. Ironically, this made their sadistic cousins in the Drukhari or “Dark Aeldari” less hostile to humanity as a whole.

Fortunately, like the Orks, they were too far away from the Imperium’s current borders to be immediately considered a serious threat, though that threat would grow as both empires colonized the space between them.

In 262.M43, the Imperium won a decisive victory against an invading Heretek fleet in the Capella System, along their border. Meanwhile, the Drukhari largely appeared to be distracted launching an invasion of the T’au Empire.

That bought crucial time for the Imperium, which finished researching Jump Drives, granting new fleet unparalleled mobility, and developing upgrades for its fighters, which were now at the cutting edge of combat avionics.

Contacts started to filter in from the Eastern fringes of the galaxy, starting with the Prikkiki-Ti, which were every bit as genocidal as most of the xenos that the Imperium had encountered thus far.

Contact was made with another Fallen Empire, machines serving as the caretakers of an ancient but decaying ring world. There were also whispers of a cult to an alien god in the sector, and of hideous xenos who perverted the teachings of the Omnissiah in an unholy fusion of flesh of metal, in mockery of his sacred designs, said to be aggressively expanding and assimilating their neighbors into a soulless collective.

Yet unseen, another threat was about to emerge...

Through the hubris of the Necron Dynasties, the galaxy suddenly found itself under invasion by the so-called “Gray Tempest”, fleets of self-propagating nano machines determined to process all life into more nanites.

Yet even as the battle for the Milky Way began, the Imperium still had to win its wars closer to home...

 

[Arithmetician]

While there was some initial panic about the sudden emergence of the Gray Tempest, it was quickly realized that there were no “L-Gates” for them to invade through near the Imperium’s space. In fact, no sign of them could be picked up on Imperial sensors whatsoever. Some one the High Lords of Terra questioned if the “Gray Tempest” really existed, or if it was some xeno ploy. Others were of the opinion that the Tempest was probably real, but that, since it did not pose any immediate threat to the Imperium, it could be safely ignored for the time being. After all, the Imperium was still locked in two wars, and could not afford to spare ships hunting for the Gray Tempest. It was better to let the xenos weaken themselves, throwing their fleets against the Tempest.

Word of the Tempest’s arrival was quickly censored and suppressed among the common people of the Imperium to prevent further panic, though it would remain in the back of the minds of many, who had some inkling that it was out there as a sort of extragalactic bogeyman.

In the meantime, the Imperium came into contact with more foul Chaos cultists, from the eastern fringes of the galaxy.

Another border skirmish occurred with the Hereteks in the Capella System, winning the Imperium another decisive victory.

On the Drukhari front, the war was not going particularly well for the T’au, who lost a major fleet engagement in the Elaeldam System. The defeat only served to make the T’au government even more xenophobic, though they remained willing to work with the Imperium against their common foes.

The Imperium had more success in opening a front against the Drukhari, using a task force of Jump Drive-enabled cruisers to start to attack and occupy several outlying systems, especially those with planets ripe for colonization.

The technology needed to build even larger capital ships was soon thereafter rediscovered in the Imperium, which immediately set to work constructing them at their Forge Worlds to further press its advantage.

In a move that was kept largely secret from the general public, and in an earlier time would have certainly gotten her executed for Hersey for even suggesting it, High Lady of Terra Sethano Horst took the unprecedented step of having the Imperium join a newly formed “Galactic Community”, that had ben proposed by some of the few xenos nations that weren’t rabidly omnicidal.

Sethano had little interest in the utopian sort of vision that some foolish or deceitful xenos pitched the Galactic Community. The past, present, and grim dark future of the galaxy was war. She knew that all too well by now. But by joining the Community, Imperial spies would be better able to infiltrate xenos governments and keep tabs on the threats that they might pose, and in time, Sethano hoped to subvert the workings of the community to bring those few xenos nations that could be reasoned with under Imperial dominion.

While the xenos were debating the creation of the Galactic Community among themselves, contact was made with another ancient and tremendously powerful Fallen Empire, the Tomiyakian Shard.

The Shard was located in a swathe of space on the eastern side of Segementum Tempestus.

On 01.01.269M43, the Galactic Community was officially founded... and a dreadful threat, one only rumored in the past, was revealed, lurking amid the Ghoul Stars...

“We are the Blorg,” a mechanical voice announced, taking over channels across the Imperium to do so. “Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will take your biological and technological distinctiveness and add you to our friends. Your culture will adapt to party with us. Resistance is futile... and impolite."

Not only was the Blorg an Abominable Intelligence, it was driven by a depraved perversion of xenophilia, heretical as that already was, seeking to forcibly assimilate all sapient beings into its gestalt consciousness, stealing their souls away in the process, all in the name of “befriending” them.

Moreover, unlike the supposed “Gray Tempest”, the Blorg were an abundantly real and potential existential threat to the Imperium. They were already in the process of aggressively assimilating their neighbors, and their overall level of technological development vastly exceeded that of the Imperium. Worse, the Blorg’s strong economy, military, and high population gave them a large share of influence in the newly formed Galactic Community, as much of a menace to the rest of its members as they obviously were.

No further proof was needed of the threat that the Blorg posed than the fact that they had already conquered the homeworld of the Khornate Berserkers, who served the Chaos God of War. Assimilated Khornate cultists and daemons, fitted with horrific cybernetic implants, now served as frontline Blorg shock troops, equipped with nanospore dispersers to assimilate their targets. Khornate bloodlust had also been assimilated into the broader Blorg gestalt consciousness, leading them to carry out their conquests with far more feral relish than would be expected of cold machines.

The other great power in the Eastern Fringe was revealed to be Sacred Tribunal of Kyaikton. They were in many ways, the polar opposite of the Blorg: a peaceful, highly spiritual society, with egalitarian values that recognized the importance of individuals.

Members of the Inquisition immediately distrusted the Tribunal. Insidious xenos cults and plots surely lurked under the surface.

And many cults there were on that side of the Galaxy...

Two more Fallen Empires were also discovered.

The galaxy was truly dark and full of terrors.

 

[Arithmetician]

Word quickly reached the Inquisition of a foul xenos cult, believed to originate from the Prophets of Dagon, spreading on Holy Terra itself! While High Lady Sethano Horst often privately thought that the Inquisition was overzealous in carrying out its duties, the risk of corruption or subversion was too great not to treat the Prophet’s operations as a threat to be terminated with extreme prejudice. And soon thereafter, the great Witch Hunts of Holy Terra began. Many would die, slowing the rate of the planet’s population growth, and the pace of research would slow significantly in the climate of heightened suspicion, but it was sadly necessary.

Militarily, the Imperium concluded the war against the Drukhari Kabal, seizing several systems from them, including one rich with strategic resources. The Drukhari took several systems from the T’au as well, but they were uninhabited border systems.

Around the same time, the Blorg Collective finished assimilating the last planets of the Khornate Berserkers, forcibly integrating their cultists and daemons into their Gestalt Consciousness.

After the war, the approximate borders of the Imperium looked something like this.

Not stopping with the Khornate Berserkers, reports came in that the Blorg Collective had begun to rapidly assimilate the worlds of the Slaaneshi cultists. Whereas the Khornates had imparted their aggression to the Blorg gestalt consciousness, the Collective absorbed from the Slaaneshi new ways to party - in the most debauched and depraved ways imaginable. And needless to say, soon there were further reports of cyborgized Slaaneshi cultists and daemons joining their Khornate counterparts as Blorg drones invading world after world.

It was around this point that people throughout the Imperium began to speak of the Blorg as the “Great Assimilator”. It was feared that, if they were not stopped, they would continue to eventually assimilate the entire Milky Way.

As a means of blunting Blorg influence in the eastern Fringe before it could spread further, the Imperium reluctantly began negotiations with the Sacred Tribunal of Kyaikton, as they were the only power in the region comparable in power to the Blorg.

Back on Holy Terra, after fighting the Heretek Hell-Forges to a stalemate, Sethano Horst initiated another round of government reforms, bringing about truly meritocratic promotion practices throughout much of the Administratum and military, while improving the coordination and efficiency of the Imperium’s war industries, so that it could continue to rapidly expand its fleet to deal with the myriad xenos threats that faced it. Moreover, with a larger fleet, they would finally be able to deal a decisive blow to the Hereteks, and eliminate their threat once and for all.

Another such threat revealed itself soon afterward, the Locryst Swarm, a ravenous hive mind that burrowed deep into and devoured planets themselves.

The Locryst were located in Segementum Ultima, on the northward side of the Galactic Core region.

While the Imperium was growing ever stronger, the galaxy remained a dark and dangerous place.

 

[Arithmetician]

The Blorg finished off the Slaaneshi cultists, assimilating their final planet into the Collective.

Hardly sated, the Great Assimilator next turned its sights against the Prikkiki-Ti. The lizards too would be assimilated. As the Great Assimilator’s envoys made the habit of announcing every time the Galactic Community was in session, resistance was impolite, and all would eventually be assimilated.

The Imperium cared not for the Prikkiki-Ti, who would happily murder every last human if given half a chance, but Sethano was deeply concerned that every planet conquered only made the Great Assimilator more and more powerful. The Gray Tempest was still a nebulous, practically mythical threat, which the Imperium still hadn’t seen any signs of activity from, besides the initial transmission warning of them when they were first unleashed upon the galaxy. But few could ignore the Blorg’s rapid expansion at the expense of their neighbors.

At long last, the Witch Hunts on Holy Terra finally rooted out and purged the last of the Deep One cults on Holy Terra, and those who had allowed themselves to be corrupted by the foul xenos. Many would breathe easier on Holy Terra, though unfortunately, Witch Hunts would become increasingly common across other Imperial Worlds, as the Deep Ones sought to spread their cult far and wide.

Concerting reports arrived on Holy Terra that certain colonists on the frigid world of Kanaka Durga Prime had begun genetically modifying themselves, not only to better tolerate their harsh environment, but to be physically stronger as well. They had even begun openly referring to themselves as “Post-Humans”.

Throughout its history, the Imperium had regularly genetically modified select male trainees into transhuman Space Marines, through the use of Gene-Seed and surgically implanted organs based on the same. But for civilians to be giving themselves such treatments, even if they were but a pale imitation of the procedures used by Space Marine Chapters was highly alarming, and there were some unsubstantiated rumors that it was part of a Deep One plot to mutate humans into beings more like themselves.

Inquisitors were dispatched to investigate, but Sethano was very explicit that no Exterminatuses or purges were to be carried out unless there was genuine and definitive proof of corruption. After all, they were still citizens of the Imperium, and their Imperial Tithes were needed to continue building its defenses against the hostile xenos who surrounded it.

Sethano Horst, as the leading High Lady of Terra and Master of the Administratum, should not have been able to give direct orders to the Inquisition in such a manner. The Inquisition was outside of the normal chain of command, and did not officially answer to her. However, the Thorians had only grown in prominence in the Inquisition since Sethano Horst had first risen to her office, and her steadfast and inspiring leadership against myriad xenos threats had only further fueled their convictions that she was divinely inspired by the Emperor, acting as the living expression of his will. To refuse an order from her would be to oppose the designs of the Emperor himself.

Others in the Inquisition were deeply uncomfortable with this, whispering that Sethano could yet prove a second Goge Vandire, the tyrant whom Sebastian Thor had helped depose millennia ago, who had pretended to be inspired and protected by the Emperor. But any and all covert assassination attempts against Sethano inevitably failed, and often so spectacularly that it only reinforced notions that she truly was divinely protected by the Emperor.

The pace of these attempts slowed dramatically when the Tzeentchian Sorcerers declared war on the T’au Empire, and by extension, the Imperium once again. That wouldn’t stop Sethano from investing heavily in improving the Imperium’s espionage and counter-espionage operations though. Besides protecting herself, these operations were focused on infiltrating both the Tzeentchians and the Blorg to gain intelligence on their movements and steal their technology, once it could be sufficiently purged of Chaos and xenos taints.

The foundation of the Galactic Market in a backwater system that had rebelled from the Drukhari Kabal was largely an afterthought to many in the Imperium, though Sethano would quietly open channels to secure the purchase of supplies and materials needed for the Imperium’s war effort.

As Imperial Battlefleets were deployed to the front, a revolutionary technological breakthrough was made on how to reactivate ancient Warp Gates. While few in number, they would allow distances between them to be traversed almost instanteously, far beyond the range of Jump Drives.

Imperial Battlefleets reached the Rana System. Once held by the Imperium before being taken and colonized by the Tzeentchians decades ago.

Orbital bombardment commenced against the Tzeentchian colony, Last Exit, that, if prolonged, would have eventually culminated in an Exterminatus. However, Sethano wanted to be able to use Last Exit as a forward operating base, so once the Tzeentchian defenses had been sufficiently softened up, the Astra Militarum moved in, along with squads of Inquisitors and Sisters of Battle tasked with the extermination of the surviving Tzeentchians on the ground.

While exploring a natural wormhole leading from the Rigel System in Segementum Tempestus, Explorator Rawohlt reported dire news. The other end of the wormhole opened up near Blorg space. While the Great Assimilator hadn’t reached the cluster yet, it would only be a matter of time before it was on the Imperium’s doorstep.

Emergency work began on transforming the Rigel Gate, as it would become known, into a Fortress World that would rival New Cadia.

As exploration of the cluster on the far side of the Rigel Gate was discovered, a fearsome Scavenger Bot was also discovered, roving among a massive graveyard of ancient void ships.

The arrival of Void Cloud VLUUR in the Sol System was another ill-omen, severly disrupting navigation there.

Two Imperial Battlefleet pushed into the Algorab System, to retake the bastion that the Tzeentchians had seized so many years before.

While the bastion was taken, the Tzeentchians swiftly counterattacked with two large fleets.

The battle quickly turned desperate, with horrific losses on both sides as they closed in on each other.

The better part of both Imperial Battlefleets were wiped out.

But Imperial Starhawks ensured that the Tzeentchians paid a heavy price, and narrowly repelled them.

Both sides were bloodied, but the war had just begun...

 

[Arithmetician]

In spite of the heavy fleet losses in the Algorab system, some good news came with the rediscovery of Mega-Engineering techniques. Now, not only did this open the possibility of reconstructing the Ring of Iron that had once surrounded Mars and served as the Imperium’s greatest shipyard, but it would allow the building of megastructures never before seen in the Imperium.

This was shortly followed by a breakthrough in Climate Restoration techniques, which would allow Mars itself to be colonized once again.

Meanwhile, the Great Assimilator finished absorbing the Prikkiki-Ti into its collective. It would soon turn its attention to the Sacred Tribunal of Kyaikton, leading to war between the two great powers of the Eastern Fringe. Many in the Imperium privately sighed in relief at the news. It would take the Great Assimilator time to conquer an empire as large as powerful as the Tribunal. During that time, the Great Assimilator would be unlikely to split its focus with an invasion of the Imperium.

The Algorab bastion, which had only barely remained in the Imperium’s possession, finally fell to a new attack by Tzeentchian forces.

With the fall of the Algorab bastion, New Cadia once again became the Imperium’s primary line of defense against Tzeentchian incursions into its core worlds. Those between Algorab and New Cadia were on their own, at least until Imperial battle fleets could reinforce them.

Sethano continued to invest heavily in New Cadia’s defenses, and was extremely popular there. The inhabitants even unveiled a statue of her on 01.24.285M43. It was soon noticed that some of the locals treated the statue as an object of veneration, something Sethano disapproved of, but she knew better than to suppress such customs by force, when the people of New Cadia sincerely wanted to serve her (and by far more important extension, the Imperium) in whatever way they could.

A ruined Science Nexus and what appeared to be the assembly site for a previous, short-lived Galactic Community was discovered in the Extanaught System, on the far side of the Rigel Gate. Unfortunately, the Imperium lacked the ability to claim the system for the time being, and the Great Assimilator’s borders were creeping ever closer to it...

Imperial exploration of Segementum Pacificus finally began in earnest. The Segmentum had long been cut off to Imperial vessels, due to a lack hyperlanes leading there, but Explorator science vessels were finally able to make a Jump to the the Tiralam System. True to the Segmentum’s name, no fighting had occurred there thus far, but the Tzeentchians were starting to spread south into the rest of it.

The Tzeentchians were not to be permitted to take Segmentum Pacificus uncontested, so further effort to chart and colonize the region were planned.

And finally, on 01.22.286M43, efforts to restore Holy Terra to its former glory were finally completed, with the completion of reconstruction efforts on its final arcology districts.

No, Sethano thought... not just to its former glory. Much of the ecumenopolis’s ancient ruins had been beyond repair, so she had taken the opportunity to update and modernize the infrastructure from Holy Terra from the ground up. Everything was cleaner, safer, more efficient, and grander in scale than it had been before. There was still plenty of ignorance and superstition, but under her leadership, learning and progress were the orders of the day. More had been accomplished in mere decades than twelve millennia, revitalizing an Imperium that had been a walking corpse. Holy Terra now coruscated against the darkness of space, the glittering jewel of the reformed Imperium.

But Sethano knew that her greatest work was yet to come. With the restoration of the Forge World Principal of Mars underway, and concurrent repairs to the precursor shipyards in the Grunur System, the Imperium would soon be able to produce warships on a scale not seen since the Great Crusade.

And that, of course, was her goal. The rest of the galaxy could not be allowed to remain in darkness, ignorance, and in a cycle of unending, destructive conflict.

“It is not exactly the same Imperium that you sought to build,” Sethano thought to the visage of the Emperor in her mind’s eye. “But the essence of the project, a galaxy safe for an enlightened humanity, remains the same. I have simply adjusted the particulars. It is a more flexible approach, designed to account for the realities that the Imperium faces today."

The Emperor said nothing, but Sethano felt something rumbling, in a maddening realm beyond that which her ordinary senses could perceive... but also within herself, and humanity as a whole. It was building up, and soon like a dam, it would be unleashed. When it did, it would happen as quickly as switch being flipped. And instinctively, Sethano knew that it was tied to her terrible purpose.

And that purpose was far more than just a new Great Crusade, which would cause devastation on an galactic scale before bringing about a new era of peace and prosperity for humanity.

Soon, the entire galaxy would discover it for themselves and tremble.

But she had to fight off the Tzeentchians first.

 

[Arithmetician]

The Tzeentchian attack came next at Epsilon Indi.

A pitched battle ensued as the Tzeentchians closed in.

At significant cost, Battlefleet Solar prevailed, wiping out the the large majority of the Tzeentchian fleet.

But the Tzeentchians weren’t done, and laid siege to Last Exit in the Rana system.

A Battlefleet was deployed to drive the Tzeentchians off.

The war continued to go back and forth, with the Second Battle of Epsilon Indi following soon thereafter.

The Tzeentchians tried to lay siege to Last Exit again, leading to the Third Battle of Rana.

Yet amid the fighting, something unprecedented in the history of the Imperium occurred. The number of Psykers in the Imperium had gradually increased over time, but overnight, large numbers of humans suddenly began manifesting psychic powers where they had not shown any such affinity before. Psykers still remained a small minority of the population, but compared to their almost insignificant numbers before, it was estimated that as much as 5% of all humans might have become Psykers, whether they knew it themselves yet or not.

Normally, this would be incredibly dangerous for the Imperium, as untrained Psykers could easily have their minds taken over by dameons and serve as gateways for the foul agents of Chaos to enter the Materium, potentially dooming entire worlds. But these Psykers were markedly different than any who came before. It was seemingly not by any conscious effort on most of their parts, but they seemed to have an innate degree of control over their own powers that was sufficient to render daemonic possession all but impossible unless they willingly sold their souls to the Ruinous Powers.

Sethano knew deep within her soul that this was only the beginning of something far greater.

It was happening at last.

Humanity was becoming a psychic species.

And now that the floodgates to psychic talent were open, it wouldn’t be much longer before the dam burst.