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[DISCONTINUED] In the Beginning, There Was Man (WH40k x SC)

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Shark8 said:
We already have something like four research/development projects started yet unfinished... shouldn't we get the ones that are close finished first?
(e.g. "Finish reorganization of the Adeptus Astronomica for its new duties as keepers of Warp beacons instead of the Astronomicon.")
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I gave Krain some OOC info that he's really excited about but can't tell anyone else. Because I know he's going nuts over there, I'll throw out a few IC reasons why you might want to do research on the GT.

1) Psyker amp
2) Warp Beacons can use a psyker amp to be safer for the psyker powering it
3) It has ridiculously advanced life support systems built into
4) It's a bitchin' throne

;)


Shark8 said:
Fixed! ;)
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Well, had I known you would fix that I'd have said that James, Ted, and Will should be Seth, Josh, and Allisun. :p
 
torrmercury said:
I gave Krain some OOC info that he's really excited about but can't tell anyone else. Because I know he's going nuts over there, I'll throw out a few IC reasons why you might want to do research on the GT.

1) Psyker amp
2) Warp Beacons can use a psyker amp to be safer for the psyker powering it
3) It has ridiculously advanced life support systems built into
4) It's a bitchin' throne

;)
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Lol yeah, it's been driving me nuts. :p
I have to keep thinking of what I can and can't say so as to not reveal it.
Gets a little tricky!
 
torrmercury said:
I gave Krain some OOC info that he's really excited about but can't tell anyone else. Because I know he's going nuts over there, I'll throw out a few IC reasons why you might want to do research on the GT.

1) Psyker amp
2) Warp Beacons can use a psyker amp to be safer for the psyker powering it
3) It has ridiculously advanced life support systems built into
4) It's a bitchin' throne
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Krain said:
Lol yeah, it's been driving me nuts. :p
I have to keep thinking of what I can and can't say so as to not reveal it.
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Updated: Plan: More Infrastructure!
 
TheLoneWatcher said:
Ooh, of course, we want that for the Beacons.

Maybe I'll reassign Leona to researching the Throne, then.
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That'd be great.

Also seriously considering assigning Corvus to Raynor. Anyone have input on that before I decide?
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Well, Corvus is a Primarch, someone who's so incredibly charismatic that he can make people unbelievably loyal.
And he's also someone who's a military genius so Raynor could respect him.
I say go for it.
 
@qsurf After this new info, maybe change Leona's research subject to Golden Throne?
 
Okay, here's the revised version.

Plan Safe Progress v2

[X] WRITE-IN: Shelve the geneseed under high security for research later. Focus on incarnating Ynnead instead.

HIGH LORDS:

[X] Reorganize Imperial Military part 2: Imperial Command - Cement leadership, polish inter-branch protocols, create new training regimes.

[X] Provide economic incentives for new growth. (Increases chance for greater Work Point returns per month - currently at 1d4 /2 per month)

[X] Get in contact with the Dominion. (Mini-turns)
-[X] Remote communication
--[X] ATTACH HERO: Malcador
~ Krain raised a good point about learning more about them first, but I'm thinking we want to keep them off-balance. And remote communication is safest.

[X] Get in contact with Raynor's Raiders. (Mini-turns)
-[X] Meet in person
--[X] Raider proposed neutral location
--[X] ATTACH HERO: Corvus Corax
~ Because A: bonuses, B: he's from before the Heresy, so not an Imperial Cult zealot, and most importantly C: he was a resistance leader on his homeworld. Who better to make a good impression?

[X] Start devoting resources to reviving Eldar, especially since the Empress Herself is to be incarnated soon.

HEROES:

[X] Aurora: Continue work on the new Soul Binding Ritual.

[X] Leona: Research
-[X] The Golden Throne
~ Because it will help with the Warp Beacons.
 
Icipall said:
@qsurf After this new info, maybe change Leona's research subject to Golden Throne?
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[x] Plan: Imperial Foundations v.1.2

Black Wards Gene-seed
[x] Write-in
- [x] Lock down and isolate the gene-seed and all research related to it, forward the findings to Malcador, Leona, Jaghatai, Corvus, and Remus, then when Astartes production is up and running bring them out of isolation and do both of the following
-- [x] Find a single aspirant and implant it. You'll find your results soon enough and with little effort. If the gene-seed is as pure as it seems to be, and even if it's not, you can do more with a fully functional Space Marine than with just gene sequences.
-- [x] Continue researching it for now. Though it may take an extraordinary amount of time and effort, this is the safest route of finding out what's what with this gene-seed.
This way, we can record every single last bit of data on this new form of Gene-seed. Every single last one.
Edit: Also, the reasoning behind telling this to Leona, she already knows there's something up with the Gene-seed, so we need to inform her so she can have some closure on the matter and focus on other things. She can't go any further on this project.


The High Lords of Eden
Martial
[x] Reorganize Imperial Military part 2: Imperial Command - Cement leadership, polish inter-branch protocols, create new training regimes.
Edit:
-[x] Attach hero: Jaghatai
There a suggestion some time back of adding one more member to the Imperial Command to act as a tie-breaker or to speed things along. I think we have the chance now, and I vote for that position to switch between Adam and Ynnead.

Stewardship
N/A

Diplomacy
[x] Get in contact with Raynor's Raiders. (Mini-turns)
-[x] Meet in person
--[x] Raider proposed neutral location
--[x] Attach Hero: Malcador
Best chance for a meet up with the Protoss...too bad it won't be Zeratul though.

Intrigue
[x] Inquisition Action (Each is an individual action)
-[x] Ordo Xenos: Allocate resources and expertise to healing the Nine Sons.
Edit:
-[x] Attach hero: Corvus
We need our New Deathwatch up and running, the Ordo Xeno is the only one at this point without a dedicated Militant Force, as small as they all are.
Edit: There's only one other person I know of who knows more about Astartes Biology, the Emperor.

Learning
[x] Start devoting resources to reviving Eldar, especially since the Empress Herself is to be incarnated soon.
Let's do this thing...
Edit: Gonna attach the Emperor to this during His turn. There's no one else available right now.
[x] Research (Pick 1- number of concurrent research projects can be raised by creating facilities devoted to the AdMech)
-[x] Properties of native minerals
This is probably the most useful of the current research projects considering that we will be building with them, so better to get this done now.

Piety
N/A

Psykercraft
N/A


Hero Actions
[x] Aurora: Continue work on the new Soul Binding Ritual.
Needs to be finished before we can open the Scholastica Psykana.

[x] Leona: Research
- [x] Golden Throne

=============================

Alright, edited, Leona of Mars is doing research on the Golden Throne now.

However, let me say something here, I don't like using meta-knowledge to influence my votes. All I wanted was sufficient In Character justification to start the research from either the turns or everyone else and honestly this has irritated me more than anything else at the moment.

=============================

Edit:
Oh, and to those voting the Primarchs into doing diplomacy, please remember that they are very obviously beyond Human (at the very least) and consider how that will affect how the Imperium is seen.
 
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qsurf said:
However, let me say something here, I don't like using meta-knowledge to influence my votes. All I wanted was sufficient In Character justification to start the research from either the turns or everyone else and honestly this has irritated me more than anything else at the moment.
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Yeah, I only switched because I'd actually forgotten about the Throne's relevance to the Beacons. Those have priority in my mind, but starting them from a better point is good too.
 
qsurf said:
However, let me say something here, I don't like using meta-knowledge to influence my votes. All I wanted was sufficient In Character justification to start the research from either the turns or everyone else and honestly this has irritated me more than anything else at the moment.
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I understand perfectly, I'm of the same mindset, but, well, the gyrinx is out of the bag now.

[x] Plan: Imperial Foundations v.1.2
 
cultadium said:
The nine year old boy Zeruel stood in the Clocktower overlooking district 32 of the city of Urdri. The smokestacks pushed out smoke as far as the eye could see through the Clockface, towering over the roads below. The large gear turned under his feet and his body moved around with it.

The boy's job was to wind the mainspring which had been built too far into the clock to be maintained by someone with the large body of an adult. He had to do literal acrobatics to get to the spot. Grabbing onto enormous gears as they rose, jumping to adjacent ladders, crawling through extremely small passages.

It was the best part of his day coming in here yet soon he wouldn't be able to do this job much longer. He was simply getting too big.

There were stories of boys taking a wrong step and dying between the gears but such could be said for any machinery on a Forgeworld. The cool machines at any rate.

Life is directed motion, and here he stood within life itself.

Bits and pieces of a Mechanicus education
An Enginseer knows verse IV of VII
Kinematics -
Pure motion without cause, the path from beginning to end, the length of the path, the time to go over the path and how pieces may be found given other pieces of the four. Position, Velocity, acceleration, and time.
Rigid body dynamics-
Pure strength without deformation, without strain, without weakness. Perfect as only the machine god can make machines.
Statics-
When the stiff metal is made to move it's undeath is broken and power drives through it affecting that which is around them. Yet all stays balanced and through this balance one can follow the power and make it work for you.
Dynamics -
The study of how much pressure the machine can withstand, every machine is made of cogs, rods, and wheels. Their ultimate strength is misleading for none can go all out forever yet if the forces put on a machine are limited to the proper amount below the blessed Yield stress the machine will last forever. Thus the metal blade of a power sword is reforged again and again and again to fix the cracks from hitting against the bones of the zeno.

Zeruel Axe swinging practice
Ten now, Zeruel looked up at his mother as she shook him awake. It was 5 a.m. which would have been far too early if he didn't go to bed at 8 every night. It was the only time of the day he got to see his mother because of her job as a bodyguard for Explorator Malorn.

"It's time for forms." Mothers grating mechanical voice stated simply.

He walked outside into the street and saw his older brother(14) already there swinging his broken chainsword. He took his own place and started swinging his axe. (Normal Axe not power Axe) Though at a much slower pace. He wasn't strong enough yet to make full use of it. Mother for her part took her place on the other side using her old Chainsword from her time as a Skitarii Hyspasist.

"Are you sure Tech Priests can't use swords?" Zeruel asked his mother.

"It's not that they can't, but think about it. Right now your light, agile, young, weak. You won't stay that way. Once your a techpriest your body will be of metal. You'll be slow, plodding, strong. All better traits for wielding an axe rather than a sword."

A Factory job
Twelve

Boring job now. His clock job had been so much better. Yet this job did pay better so that was something.

It was a packaging related job, and he wasn't packaging anything cool either.

Twenty days into wrapping tape dispensers the wrapping machine broke down and the line ground to a halt. Everyone else on the line relaxed, happy for the brief respite. Zeruel however immediately started looking at the machine to try to figure out where to open it in order to figure out what was wrong to fix it.

"Don't touch it there's a maintenance guy who works on that stuff. We're not allowed to." said one of the other menials on the line. Not wanting to lose his job Zeruel waited patiently. Shortly thereafter a forty three year old man with a tool belt approached, Zeruel couldn't resist hovering to watch him as he worked.

"How much do you make?" He couldn't resist asking and was surprised by just how much in the response. It wasn't twice what he made but it was close.

"Also while I don't make as much as those in the air conditioned office I do get to walk much more rather than being stuck in one spot, which is rather nice."

Having often heard from his Lex-technician father who worked in such an office himself, that being stuck for long periods of time in one place was unpleasant Zeruel knew he had a point.

"How come they're willing to pay that much?" asked Zeruel.

"I've been here a long time working on these machines. I'm worth more because of my Experience."

Zeruel decided he needed to gain some "Experience."

A maintenance job in the Underhive
Fourteen

Zeruel easily lifted the cut pipe and carried it to the wagon with the sentinel. Eyeing the dangerous surroundings of the Underhive he stroked the Autopistol his father had lent him for comfort. The city was repairing the sewer pipes in the area and some workers had been attacked and killed. Fortuitous in a way since he would never have gotten such a cool job otherwise.

That's when he heard screaming from the other side of the wagon.

He steered the machine to the other side but his comrade had already disappeared. Pulled into one of the tunnels no doubt.

There were no more attacks that day, but his parents still made him quit. Shame, where else would he get sentinel driving experience.

Techpriest testing infodump
On a forge world one is raised from birth based on genetic testing to become that to which you are most suited. Hypothetically at least, in practice you were far more likely to take on one of the occupations of your parents. After all that's where your genetics came from was the usually touted reason. In truth the genetic testing had never had much accuracy.

The order understood the importance of effort in understanding the workings of the machine so there was testing available for people wishing to raise their station. In theory, for the far greater reason for the testing was to force the children of Tech priests to work hard enough to earn their place. Yet they had an advantage. Part of the testing was to judge the mentality of the student and there was a fair bit of prejudice against those of lower birth. So quite a few children who tested better than their peers were nonetheless denied the higher position of a techpriest.

It sounds unfair but there were only limited slot's for tech priests. Only limited jobs that required one of their expertise. In a society that worshipped the machine god where almost everyone would be a Tech priest if they could there would never be enough jobs for all the tech priests. Yet there were ways that one could make their admittance more likely. Those that left the forge world for greener pastures were generally judged to be the lazier less capable of tech priests, but if one signed up to do so it was far easier to pass the mentality portion of the testing. Among the choices was the Imperial Guard.

Also worth pointing out. Initial Implants for tech priests are usually provided by one's master in an apprenticeship or for free if one passes on schoolarship but the latter case has changed into implants being paid for by loan as the increasingly pressing economic situation of the war has worn down on the Imperium.

The actual testing
Zeruel stood in line to the testing facility in district 136. It was a very long line but most of the children were the son's and daughters of the relatively uneducated laborers that numbered the majority of the world's population. Most wouldn't make it past the initial testing but a few might manage to raise their rank to technician using their results by joining the military.

The children of Tech priests were obvious because many of them had augmentations already.

Eventually the doors opened he went in and took his seat.

The dataslates were passed out and he answered the preliminary test answers. His name, his ID number, and his desire to join the Imperial Guard were the more important ones. He reluctantly passed by the Skitarii. If they judged him of proper mentality to make it as a trouper he'd pass the testing to become a tech priest for sure.

Passed
He'd passed! Somehow. When asked to describe an experienced where he felt in true communion with the Omnissiah he'd talked about his experiences at the tower. Somehow the interviewer had known from that alone that he was from district 32 and had apparently met his mother. He'd gotten top marks for mentality, which wasn't all that suspicious since his mother was a Skitarii. His marks for the tests had been on the high end for his level of training, but were nothing special in comparison to the children of Tech Priests.

Getting a new body
The jar of feederworms on the desk the tech priest was eating was a little creepy.

Zeruel stood nervously in front of Malorn as the tech priest sized him up. "So if the heart is a pump it's a machine right? Which means it has a spirit of it's own and that when you lose it that spirit is lost right?"

"Don't worry boy, I won't be taking your heart today." Replied Malorn. "Unless." The man tilts his head in thought.

The huge body, practically a tank complete with eight Mechanendrites which sprouted from his back in all directions moved with surprising dexterity through a door.

Being left alone Zeruel did the natural thing, he snooped. There was an open data slate nearby so he went ahead and looked at that first. It appeared to be a Tech priest offering a very substantial sum of money for a number of items a crystal potentia coil and cybermantle among them. It occurred to Zeruel that those were the exact items his Parents had requested Malorn make and install on his behalf.

Coming back Malorn carried what appeared to be a tall skinny tech priest which he set on the metal surgery table in front of him.

"This is the body of my former associate Nuke. I came across him in my younger days and was very impressed by his capabilities. I managed to get him to work for me by being the only one willing to work with him because you see when I met him he was already 1500 years old and completely raving bonkers.

For example he would only manufacture things with screws. He would take the screws, melt them down into bars, rods, or metal plate, and then build things by hand from the metal he had made. He required a workshop that had to be setup just right, and he only made certain things.

Luckily one of those things was storm trooper carapace armor."

-Malorn squinted his eyes in what you knew from experience was a squint of pain.

"Now I can't make any money off him anymore."

The pity Zeruel felt immediately fled from his mind.

"At any rate I promised your mother to give you a strong cybermantle and potentia coil, this body has both but everything is built into it in typical Nuke fashion. Taking the body apart to get to the valuable components inside would destroy at least half the value of the components inside."

It was a beautiful body but,

Looking at the body Zeruel knew it wouldn't be popular among most tech priests. It was small and lacked mechadendrites. Mechadendrites were all the rage. Yet Zeruel wasn't most tech priests. He was to be a Lux-mechanic. His job wasn't to build things. It was to compile data into computers. That and the fact Nuke had lived so long. You didn't live that long without a decent Vitae Supplacement, the component that made and housed nanomachines that sustained flesh, a component few forgeworlds properly made anymore as resources were diverted to war.

"Why is it so small."

"Nuke said it was because he liked to blow things up and that sometimes when planting bombs you have to be able to run away. Also that the natural dexterity of the human form came in handy for making armor and weapons, which he was really good at so who knows he might have been right. Also for running away. He wasn't exactly normal but he did live a long time so it probably had merit. Of course a big body like mine would be better, but trust me you can't afford it."

Zeruel didn't need to think long. The likely presence of a Vitae Supplacement had cinched it for him, provided it still worked. "Nuke's Vitae Supplacement didn't stop working right?"

"To my knowledge his mind simply finally gave out."

"How old was he exactly?"

"3000 or so, of course my mind is still as sharp as ever at 1700 so I don't know what his problem was."

--Munches on feederworms. Machine eyes look strangely glazed over.--

"RIght."

The surgery-a bit gross. You have been warned.
The body was strange, it was two inches taller but one of those inches was from the metal feet which were almost like boots. Everything felt cold but that feeling would fade in time as his mind adjusted he knew. His kinesthetic senses though particularly in his fingers. They were sharper somehow, which he hadn't expected. His arms and legs were faster than they had been before.

He read over his specs. He could carry a heavy weapon such as a Heavy bolter on his own. Though the strain meant he couldn't carry much else when doing so without damaging his body. His potentia coil was high quality but it was small as to fit inside the body so it provided a little less power than a normal potentia coil. The body in general was much less power hungry so this wasn't a disadvantage, and it was actually possible to get enough energy off of food to operate. Though that was normal for tech priests.

He had seen the video of the operation. Looked carefully at it image by image. The human pieces of old nuke being removed. the skull, the brain, the spine, the scraping of human cartilidge from deep inside the body. The feeder worms sent inside to clean up the last of the human biomass. The water that swished those feeder worms out.

Malorn's dendrites had been changed, often being removed at the stem of his back even, changeable mechadendrites, that wasn't common. Expensive, difficult, unusual. They'd been changed to regular medical mechadendrites, but also long spindly utility mechadendrites that he wouldn't usually think of being used in surgery yet they were.

It was a bit nauseating to watch what was done to his own body. Much more of his body was used than he'd expected, his spine, brain, nerves, blood vessels, muscle, and bones. They bones torn apart for their marrow which was lined into specially designed metal organs.

Malorn had explained more than shown though, the artificial organs such as the lungs heart and digestive system were connected inside in a manner that the body couldn't be easily opened up without causing expensive damage. Which meant only the small mechadendrites could fit in and there were no camera images.

He had to trust that Malorn had done everything correctly. Though it all seemed to work fine so far.

Zeruel timeskip on Cadia

Cadia, he had been sent to Cadia. It still hadn't fallen, though everyone knew that was just a matter of time. He was the leader of his own workcrew of voidsmen on one of the Ramilles space stations that guarded the planet.


His group did hull repair. Not quite what he'd expected to do based on his previous experience but his body lent itself well to the job.

His agility and fast senses had kept him from being crushed by large metal plates on more than one occasion. The job wasn't complicated, but the speed people were required to work at made it hard. Especially for those with unaugmented human bodies.

When there was no repair work to do they made system monitors. They were never enough of them and they always got shot to hell.

Over time he learned how to repair pretty much everything. Warp drives, the bridge, air systems, coolant systems, even Macrobatteries and Lances. Rarely he even made small modifications in his repairs to the holy STC.

Generally adding structural support to a damaged ship section rather than replacing half the hull. Over time that became his specialty.

At first his fellow crew leaders and crewmates taught him many General rules of thumb, but learning how to use software that simulated the stresses and strains the different parts of a ship underwent was what he found the most fun.

Many of the basic little sayings he'd memorized when learning to become a tech priest applied as he looked at the simulations if he thought about them. There was great meaning between the math he'd found. Though some sayings he'd found had more meaning than others.

Most rewarding was when he had free time to really look at the STC diagrams. The full diagrams for the ships took extensive processing power when one used the best simulations but since they were applicable to his work even one of his lowly position could access those computers without trouble.

Increasing his expertise would be considered work by some but those that made it farthest in the path of knowledge were almost always tinkers at heart.

Tinker he did, trying to to design something better than the STC, but nothing he made was ever better. He could design a functional ship well enough but something always ended up being inferior. Hull strength, cost, speed.

With the standard parts he was given and the equipment his crew had with which to assemble his ships the STC designs seemed to be the best possible configuration. He continued trying anyway despite that, it was more interesting than the repair work he did, and perhaps one day he might just manage something.

He could see that with more complicated equipment more was possible. Yet his superiors could not see it. They reprimanded him for his lack of safety. Decried his designs as unholy and impure. He was denied building or repairing better ships, to the more prestigious and interesting work.

Though his tinkering led him to a much stronger understanding of the weak points of hulls. Even given ships he'd never worked with before. He was only allowed to touch Monitors or Valkyries. The cheapest and most Ubiquitous of Imperial technologies. Being more interested than others, over time he became able to repair them effectively and cheaply much better than others.

As the common technologies gave up the last of their secrets however he slowly lost interest. Discovery was the fun part and his favorite activity changed to teaching others the basics.

Through seeing their joy in learning he could experience a small portion of what he had lost. Over the years his image of himself changed from an explorer of the mysteries of motion to a wise keeper of knowledge who passed on what he knew to others.

Eventually that became who he was.

Forty years passed. His brother didn't make it into the Skitarii but he made Corporal, then Lieutenant, had a few kids, and then died to Orks before they were fully grown. Or disappeared it was hard to tell.

By the time Zeruel learned of it the kids themselves had either fully grown up or died. Communication was slow in the Imperium. Not that it mattered, there wasn't much you could do when you lived halfway across the Galaxy.

About five hundred years later his capabilities had been fully recognized and he had risen to the Rank of Magos both as an Artisan and as a Lexmechanic. He had even been offered a place as a Fabricator Locum on Ryza, but had turned it down because he felt his work on Cadia was more important. Though he was competent with Plasmatech he didn't feel passionate enough about it to be second in command on a Forgeworld dedicated so strongly too it.

For the most part he'd stuck to Cadia but he had managed to go on a couple decades long Explorator missions.

Though it would be a bit much to say he gained the equivalent rank of a Fabricator Locum on Cadia he did manage to make himself indispensible to Forbin U Creed the Imperial Governor. His diplomatic skills combined with his number crunching and the level of respect afforded him due to his achievements as an artisan served him well. Plus his many years serving in the Ramillies shipyards fixing numerous ship problems.

Forbin's Great great grandfather had eventually given up on training his successors to his level and had entered cryo, to be awakened when Cadia came under attack.

Cadia Attack Overview, Halfway through M43

Momek a minor champion of Chaos had built a strong following and was tired of waiting for Abaddon. In Momek's opinion he had lost too many times and grown too cautious as a result. Very well, he would take it upon himself to bring about Cadia's fall then.

It was a well defended planet. 21 Ramilles star Fortresses with Lances and Macrobatteries larger than those found on battleships. Fortress Cities with with 12 layer voidshields and macrobatteries that gave them them the offensive might of 1 Ramilles and the defensive might of 4. A population that had swelled to 2 billion and were all professional soldiers. 6 Battleships boasting Nova cannons, 12 Grand Cruisers, 60 Battlecruisers, 120 regular cruisers, 100 Light cruisers, 50 light cruiser monitors, 3200 destroyer monitors.

It wouldn't be enough.

Though it had taken many years Momek had managed working alongside certain demons to subvert key members of the scout-ships that normally would watch the pass for invaders. It's amazing how effective the right poison in the air supply can be.

10000 Destroyers, 400 cruisers of various size, 12 battleship sized ships, Momek's flagship an Abyss Class Battleship called Son of Damnation, and two unusually poorly armed space hulks that looked to be made more of debris than ships.

The space hulks were sent tumbling towards the planet of Cadia the ship thought to perhaps be Planet Killer taking formation in the back center of the fleet which grouped behind the larger of the space hulks to avoid fire from the fleet of Cadia.

The Space hulks were then sent tumbling towards the planet of Cadia.

Cadia Attack Zeruel Viewpoint 1

Although Zeruel was sometimes in the Imperial palace he still worked on ships from time to time. Though his fellow workers knew he was of high rank and had other duties very few knew just how much power he possessed which suited Zeruel just fine.

It was mostly soft power anyway, earned from doing small favors and showing positive regard. Without the Creed families eye and appreciation for merit he likely would have never been able to come so far.

Zeruel was working when he heard the Lances of the Ramilles first fire. The alarm went off, and everyone scrambled to deactivate the machinery they were working with so they could run to their stations.

Fear and confusion painted the faces of most, though they collected themselves quickly enough.

Making it to his computer console Zeruel pulled up his system, loaded the appropriated software, and started taking count of his dispatchers as they called in for roll call. His job covered fire control for the station. Though he'd reroute power for Lances at times if lines were damaged and such a thing was possible.

"May the Omnissiah grant me the wisdom to survive this trial," Zeruel nervously murmured as he waited.

He reflected on some of the words he'd heard from the fighter pilots. "Battle is hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of terror."

Battle really was boring Zeruel reflected an hour and a half later. The lances had gone off twice more and nothing much had happened yet. He didn't know what was going on outside. That didn't bode well.

If the enemy fleet was small there would be no reason to hide it. If the fleet was equal, you would say things to encourage people to work just that bit faster to beat them.

If the enemy fleet was bigger you would lie and say it was a little smaller to encourage people to work a bit faster in the hope that you would get lucky.

Not saying anything over the intercoms though. That meant Command wasn't sure of the appropriate action to take. That was never a good sign. At least according to the hearsay he'd heard from voiders.

They were a rather superstitious lot though.

At the two hour mark the macrobatteries started to go off.

But it wasn't until the two and a half hour mark that the enemy torpedoes hit.

The Ramillies shook from the impact and Zeruels body rocked from side to side as the structure shuddered under the attack. Warning signs of a hull breach flashed and he dispatched people to cover it.

His fingers twitched urging him forward to fix the breach, hundreds of years of fixing ships calling him to action.

Turning his head to the side he asked an apprentice if he was capable of taking over for him, a redundant question since Zeruel knew he was already. After getting a nervous but positive response Zeruel said "good,".

Then he Grabbed his data slate and moved out running to the worksite.

He looked over the slate in the airlock on the way calculating the fastest way to get to the Powerlifter sentinels.

The Ramillies rocked again.

Cadia Commander Viewpoint

Planetary defense force Admiral Faustus Germanicus looked at the fleet deployment displayed on the holodeck before him. Forbin U Creed and Ursarkar E. Creed stood nearby. He had recalled most of the patrolling monitors to defend the planet but a few had stayed out as scouts collecting intelligence.

He'd sacrified quite a few to have them use active scanners so he'd know exactly what he was facing. Two Space Hulks being used as meat shields to hide the real fleet wasn't a common tactic, but planets as fortified as Cadia weren't attacked often.

What was truly strange was how poorly armed they were. Normally space hulks would have enormous guns installed on them. Which these ones did but, it was less guns than one would normally expect. Their composition likewise was strange, low on metal, they were hard to kill due to their enormous size but somehow they felt, cheap somehow.

He couldn't fire on anything else though so given the circumstances he choose a Hulk and focused fire upon it.

It had kind of worked out since one of the Hulks had blown up.

Kind of because that took two hours and it would only take an hour for the remaining hulk to be in bombardment range of the planet.

Kind of because the enemy fleet had used that moment as a signal and enemy ships from behind the destroyed Hulk moved forward, the ones behind the intact one rising up and around as well moving as one coming forward to attack.

Somehow they were moving 25% faster than their ship class would suggest. Which given the incredible number of destroyers was a big problem indeed. He'd seen this before and bile rose in his throat. Sorcery was what it was and he feared what other spells had been cast.

He'd thought maybe the enemy Hulks had been mostly empty, ruses meant to distract, but now he realized the truth. They had planned on one of the hulks dying to fuel their spells all along. How do you plan for a force who gains power from their lack of respect for life itself.

The remaining space hulk then could be better thought of as an enormous Ork Rok he realized. If it landed it would most likely disgorge an enormous number of armies and troops upon the planet. They wouldn't have to take over all of the fortress-cities, just one or two would be enough to allow more troops to be safely shipped in from the Eye of Terror.

He looked over the battlefield analysis.

Chance of victory if he targeted the remaining hulk with his remaining ramillies, battleships, and planetary defense cannons. 3.4%,

Chance of catastrophic failure if he targeted the remaining Hulk with his remaining ramillies, battleships, and planetary defense cannons 64.5%

Chance of victory if he targeted the enemy battleships instead .5%

Chance of catastrophic failure if he targeted enemy battleships with ramillies 10.5%

Lose or lose huh. That made it easy, the option that killed more enemy ships would slow the enemy advance more.

"All destroyers and cruisers continue defensive formation with ramillies, cruisers attack enemy battleships with priority when they are in range, destroyers as second priority, ramillies, battleships, and planetary cannons attack enemy battleships as first priority, enemy cruisers as second priority and remaining hulk as third priority." --Admiral.

"I suppose I'd better get on the ground and prep the forces for that Chaos Rok. Odd strategy that one used." –Ursarkar E. Creed

Faustus Germanicus wondered if he'd chosen wrongly, but quickly decided he had not. Cadia's purpose was as a bulkwark. Even if it won this battle it would be too damaged from the enemy attack to hold against enemy reinforcements. Better to inflict as much damage as possible.

"It's as good a call as any." –Ursarkar E. Creed stated simply putting his hand on the shoulder of the man before moving out.

Chaos Force Viewpoint

Dark Apostle Spurius looked on as his Hulk was destroyed, as half a billion of his slaves burned. Channeling the power from their deaths He and other sorcerers in nearby ships summoned and controlled fell daemons of the warp and fed human souls into their warp engines to increase their power. He wasn't happy because he lost his chance to lead half a billion ground forces on Cadia.

His chance to personally plunge the planet into the warp and convert it into a Daemonworld was lost. Yet it had been planned from the start that both hulks weren't going to make it and that the first to be destroyed would provide the fuel for the sorceries his fleet wished to cast.

He'd had two hours to accept their fate. There was still glory to be had. He looked forward at the screen before sitting down into the Captain's chair of his Strike Cruiser and gave a small smile to his Captains.

45 minutes later, he looked around the cramped space of his boarding torpedo. Rather than try to cut through the thick armor of the enemy enemy space station the pilot had elected to aim at a recently patched breach in the hull of the enemy ship. The pilot forgot to slow down sufficiently to take the weaker hull into account and broke through the hull into the space station itself damaging some of the steering thrusters in the process.

Cadia Attack Zeruel Viewpoint 2

Zeruel applied a final bolt into the hull mostly fixing the last of the hull breaches. Now his crew just had to weld around the patch and the hull breach would be fixed. Except that a big shadow crashed through the patch right at that moment. Zeruel luckily had been to the side instead of in the center of the patch or he would have died then and there. Some of his co-workers were not so lucky.

Being pissed and surprised Zeruel nonetheless remembered how large metal pieces are maneuvered. Reaching underneath the enemy vessel as it went by Zeruel pulled the vessel upwards releasing the safeties on his equipment in order to get as much power out of his vehicle as possible.

Another way to put it would be that Zeruel punched the boarding torpedo and caused it to flip forward and tumble, though that would give more credit to his power than he actually had. Technically the torpedo was already crash landing, he simply applied pressure to a place that made said crash much worse.

Being inside would not be pleasant Zeruel surmised as he walked over to inspect the vehicle motioning his partner sentinel pilot to join him.

Chaos Force Viewpoint 2

Spurius flew around inside of the small cargo bay of the boarding torpedo like a seed in a maraca, his two marine Captains beside him, they smashed into his soldier slaves crushing them against the walls which themselves became damaged as they crushed inwards from the crash. He had chosen to stuff as many soldiers into the vessel as it was possible to fit and now that the space had shrunk it was hard to move through the soldier slaves. They were mostly dead and those that still lived were too broken to be much help.

The vessel was pretty dark now because bodies were in the way of the lights.

"Get this tin can open." He commanded his two Captains.

This wasn't an easy matter, since they'd both chosen extra large power chainswords rather than Power blades and had no holsters the two Captain's didn't have their chainswords in their arms anymore. Now were chainswords the optimal weapon to use under the circumstances. Still one was able to maneuver near where the exit originally was meant to be. Or maybe that way was the cockpit, it was hard to tell anymore as crushed as the torpedo had become.

"I need more strength," he shouted back at the dark Apostle.

"Use me," said a half crazed slave near Spurius, he was only too happy to oblige using his and a number of the other dying slave's souls to fuel his spell of mutation upon his Captain who's eyes started glowing as he used a hand to punch through the opening of the vessel. Unfortunately for him the door was easier to break in some places than others and he had trouble making a hole big enough even with his strength, he didn't have a proper tool turning around he looked through the bodies.

"I need a chainsword so I can use it as a prybar." He shouted.

Cadia Attack Zeruel Viewpoint 2

Zeruel smiled as he looked on upon the crushed enemy vessel but it didn't last as the fist of a space marine broke through the smoking carcass.

Of the 11 workcrew he had present two of them didn't let out an expletive, this shocked Zeruel even more than the presence of the space marine had.

"Space, let's push this thing back into space." Said one of the work crew, running forward to the side of the vessel to start to push it back towards the hole it had made in the station wall.

Glad to have a productive task that might allow them to not die for a moment longer the group quickly realized it was easier to roll the thing.

All but one person in Zeruel's workcrew had strength implants and the only reason that person didn't was because he was naturally strong anyway.

Still it was a very tense three minutes as they pushed the vessel. In addition to the progress of the first marine Black bolts of energy started to fly out of the side of the vessel, into the ground, into the air, into the wall, and sometimes dangerously close to his crew as something inside the vessel tried to cut his way out. His cutting was patchwork and basically just consisted of making a whole bunch of holes but those holes really started to add up, as time went on and just as the enemy vessel was pushed out a single marine punched his way through those holes out the side of the Torpedo, managing to stay within the station rather than being sent into space.

His eyes glowed Yellow boring into Zeruel.

Zereul could see a glimmer of red that embedded itself into each and every one of his crewmates. A burning presence that left a scaring sear of pain across the whole of his body. Parts that no longer even existed started to ache as the grinding light brought the pain to the forefront of his senses. A feeling of hopelessness and terror coming over him as he struggled to retain focus. As he struggled to retain his sanity.

His crewmates didn't manage it, he could tell from the screaming.

Pushing forward on the control stick he swung his manipulator arm forward towards the Dark Apostle attempting to knock him out of the station but the Dark Apostle jumped backwards at just the right angle and grabed onto the manipulator arm, and then he started to climb it, despite Zeruel's wiggling of the arm, gradually reaching closer to the front shield window of the sentinel. Seeing no other option Zeruel pushed forward on the movement joystick running through the hole in the wall and putting himself and the Dark Apostle into space.

Reaching above and behind himself he pulled himself through the frame of his cockpit as the enemy pulled his way into the cockpit.

Maneuvering his way around the smokestacks on the top of the sentinel he pushed off the vehicle as hard as he could, aiming at the hole in the space station.

As he entered the hole and felt the artificial gravity pull him down he smiled remembering a far distant memory.

A good body for running away was it?

Ursarkar E. Creed Viewpoint

Ursarkar E. Creed looked at his hands and chuckled to himself. At this point of his life he was starting to feel like one of the mechanicus. He'd manage to lose every limb in battle, thrice in the case of his left arm, and the left half of his face. He'd survived though.

How the enemy had never figured out he had secret tunnels and high tech rail system below the surface of Cadia was even now a source of great amusement to Creed.

Everyone had always just assumed it was his own tactical genius. He'd always thought himself as merely proficient in Guerilla warfare himself.

The hulk hitting ground had wrecked havoc on the planets tectonic plates and many tunnel systems had collapsed in places but it mattered little, the trajectory of the vessel had already been calculated and his people were already in place, in fact it was probably for the best they had been damaged lest the invading forces use them against the defenders.

This was probably the last battle he would be able to keep them a secret.

Creed looked at his scout titans, baneblades, leman russes and lascannon artillery groups.

The fastest route for an army to the closest Fortress-Citadel was through this pass which was a lake on one side and the hill Creed was hiding on and within on the other.

A smart General would see the potential danger of the terrain and take a different route.

Creed was gambling on Momek being arrogant.

Sure enough shuttles were spotted coming down from Momek's battleship to the Hulk as forces were gathered and a ragtag poorly equipped force of slaves and daemon engines blitzed through the pass.

Creed could have killed tens of thousands but in a battle this size such numbers would have hardly mattered. Instead he waited for his prize Momek and after a half hour and two million troops had passed he got his chance.

Momek was spotted on a Defiler in the middle of a large group of traitorous Heretecs and Decimator dreadnoughts.


Creed waited till he was in the best spot and then ordered his force forward, attacking from superior ground.

The geography of the terrain should have allowed Creed to maintain a 3 to 1 ratio of his troops vs Momek's.

Momek took action quickly and charged straight up the hill. His yellow boring eyes spreading fear and terror into Creeds men.

Creed knew this could happen and stayed in place in the center of the formation to bolster his men's confidence while shouting to improve moral.

Drawing his sword he walked up to a leman Russ tank and entered in the top and shouted at the driver.


Cadia Commander Viewpoint (End)

Planetary defense force Admiral Faustus Germanicus looked at the Holoscreen as he gave out the retreat orders. The hulk had landed on the planet, and things had gone both better and worse than expected.

On the positive side he still had 10 Ramillies and about a tenth of his original ships damaged though they were and one side of the planet was still under Imperial control.

Momek was dead defeated in combat by Ursarkar E. Creed himself.

On the negative side the enemy had managed to capture the two fortress cities on the other side of the planet between using space marines and soldiers from the Hulk. The defense systems hadn't been self destructed once breached as they were supposed to.

In addition Abaddon's Planet Killer had just been spotted at the edge of the system with a fleet of a thousand ships. Nothing impressive but it would be enough to tip the scales.

Forbin for his part looked like the saddest man in the universe right now.

"Bring as many soldiers up to the Ramillies as we can, stuff them to the brim with the people of Cadia. This battle is lost. Faustus stated quietly."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think this one still needs a bonus.
 
@torrmercury If I can get some clarification on something. Since we are doing several research projects this turn, do we need to decide on what project gets the research bonuses?

Also your thoughts on the idea of a dedicated Imperial Survey Corps?

One last thing, can we have an option to actively start testing the Ghosts to see what Psychic Disciplines we can teach them? This might be good practice into understanding the capabilities and limits of SC Psychics (due to a lack of knowledge of psychics like Tosh, Nova, and Kerrigan being the high end).
 
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