Rebirth Of Man: Unification Of Terra

I have thrown around the word Capstone a few times in this quest so far and am making this post to elucidate the particulars behind the word and its meanings within the context of this quest.

What is a Capstone?
A Capstone is the culmination of the technology of a Grand Nation. It is the apex of their technological might and the completion of the Dark Age technology upon which they founded their empire upon. The Umbral Lands has grown around the Anvil Of The World and as such from it they have gained the technology of Terraformation. Which in turn leads to the Capstone being the Completion of the Anvil, finishing what their ancestors began so many eons ago. All Grand Nations have their own Capstones that they will struggle to complete, each of which is specialized into their niche.

Capstones and their effects
A Capstone is a monument to the glory of humanity in a very real way. Its a reclamation of the heights of the Golden Age, its a return of the past glories. Its a victory over the uncaring universe in a very real sense, each and every capstone is a wonder of Galactic importance and significance. Upon completion the empire that holds their Capstone will find themselves granted immense bonuses to the fields of their Capstone. In short completion of a Capstone, ensures the victory of the holder unless others have wrought their capstones into place around the same time.

Capstone Niches and Power
Each Capstone holds absolute dominion over a Niche. In this niche the capstone is exalted beyond all other wonders made by human hands, it is the pinnacle of this era in this area. It is a wonder without compare, even other races such as the Aeldari would take notice and be moderately impressed by it in this age.

Capstones and Emps
Emps is in effect the Completed Capstone for the Imperium. In turn his Primarch Project is a secondary Capstone for the Imperium and the Astartes Legions are a 3rd rank Capstone for the Imperium. However, Emps does not compare to the specialized Capstones that the Grand Nations are working towards save one. Imagine Emps as a pool of 100 points, he has evenly spread his points across all branches possible, leaving him without the sheer power of specialization but giving him synergy between several branches to reach the same seeming level of power. A Capstone on the other has 100 points and dumps them ALL into its niche/branch.

Consider what this means for the Complete Anvil which holds the Niche of Shaping.

By allowing this farce to continue, you had tied yourself to the treaty and as such would have to give John something to begin working from. Yet, you couldn't ask for everything under the stars, as that would only give John more opportunities to taint your name upon the world stage once he left the oversight of your people.

Thus, you could only request what would be sensible enough to request for a nation in your situation, pretending as if this entire mess had any true value to your side of the treaty. The first thing was to request that they would simply give you what they offered you, that would have been a sensible start point to work from, but at the same time it was expected. John had controlled this entire meeting from the moment he had walked into your office due to knowing how the chain of events would unfold due to experience and skill.

Therefore, the best option you had was to destroy his script. Prevent him from using the past to shape the future, something you understood very well. Over the course of centuries it would have become clear to Nord Merica that nations upon this world would always fall into predictable lines of thought, and that then allowed them to abuse that foreknowledge to enact their treaties. Which means that their greatest weapon in this matter, wasn't John's innate skill or training but the countless eons of experience with how people reacted across the centuries to their offers.

Therefore, the expected requests would be playing into their hands. They would have had countless centuries to discover ways to manipulate such requests into their favor, there would be without a doubt hidden venom within their words if you requested from them expected items. This in turn indicated that the only viable option if you wished to disrupt John's control of the situation was to eliminate the backing he had in the form of past knowledge.

"I have decided upon what my side of the treaty shall begin with." You speak up as you hide your emotions as you face towards John paying close attention to his face, noting all of the micro expressions on his face for future use. "Wonderful, may I know what you have decided upon for this stage of the treaty?" His voice was slimy with hope, as he smiled guiltlessly at you from across your table, no doubt eager to hear what you had decided to begin twisting it to his own ends.

A faint smile formed on your face as you enjoyed the idea of wiping that smirk off his face, "Certainly, I would request that Nord Merica and the Umbral Lands join together into a formal alliance of state. With a higher order government formed to enact laws to govern both our lands while our individual lands retain sovereignty for lower level laws. In exchange I am offering, three of my best personal to the service of Nord Merica for a period of fifty years and an open offer to terraform your land to have significantly improved resource yields." Leaning back in your chair, you let the words and their intention sink in for a moment and then it happens. John's face goes blank as he falls back into his chair, visibly trying to make sense of your request and offers.

"I must have misinformed you, for I don't have that level of authority over Nord Merica. I would have to return to them for confirmation of allowance for such a request to be allowed to be made." John managed to say as he tried in vain to recover from the disruption of his no doubt carefully orchestrated plot to subvert the Umbral Lands to Nord Merica control.

Smiling openly you smirk in turn, "I do believe you opened this debate by claiming to be the final arbiter of the treaty and Nord Merica would be bound to your word." The table had turned for a time, you could tell, John was now fully scrambling trying in vain to discover some means by which he can counter his own claim without it being transparently obvious that he was only here to subvert your lands.

"Yes, I am the final arbiter of treaties, but I do not have the power to unilaterally merge nations." His response was as expected a simple delaying tactic to ensure that you wouldn't be able to hammer this point home fast enough, unfortunately for him, you had no mercery to spend on him at this moment.

"I would assume that you would have a transmitter of some sort that could connect with your people from here, why don't you bring them into the discussion and we can speak of this topic as soon as possible." You return fire, causing him to squirm once more in his chair, as you gleefully eradicate every last ounce of normality from this event.

"Enough. I have a communication relic yes, but its unable to send or receive anything more than a handful of words per day. I will begin conferring with Nord Merica, and outlining what can be done for the treaty to cleave as closely as possible to your requests. However, I doubt that your primary request will be accepted in any form." His voice was tired and clearly his will to fight had faded away into the past, from the sheer chaos and insanity of your request.

As you nod towards him, dismissing him without words, a smile crept onto your face at the knowledge that you had outplayed Nord Merica in their own field of mastery for a time.


AN: going to start writing the other parts of the update tomorrow, hopefully I will have another section report up by mid week

Noting down that John had been seen engaging in legal discourse with your lawyers, for the fifth time this month, you turned away from keeping tabs on his actions to prepare for the next meeting. You were unsure of the issue at play and what would have driven Nathan to request a private meeting with you in the Anvil Vault, the most secure place in the entire nation.

It was the only place, you could be one hundred percent certain was not infected by any spies or bugs of any sort. Mostly due to you being the only person with the key to the doorway, to the vault. Yet, it was in his authority to request such a meeting and even though you weren't trained in combat, you were still more than able to defend yourself if it came down to it.

Lifting the Heart above your head, you let your fingers dance across its arcane sigils to input the correct requirements to terraform the world into the proper shape. Stone and metal flowed like water around you as you sank into the floor of your office. Light flickered before stabilizing as stone was transformed into esoteric alloys that radiated their heat as light that your eyes could see, even as you slide deeper and further into the heart of the world.

The Heart blazed with blue light as it enforced your will upon the world around, and the pathway you had been carving shifted violently towards the right to a place that you had memorized long ago. Soon, you could feel the stone begin to move upward even as you slowed down, light began to bleed through the now glass ceiling to let your eyes adjust to the return of the sun above.

Nathan stood waiting for you in the place you had told him of, when he had asked for this meeting. You could tell that he was shocked and wary of your arrival, but for now you shook your head as he went to speak. For, if he had requested a meeting in the Vault, it would be an action of the most foolish to speak outside of the safety of the vault.

Twisting the Heart once more, the bluish light blazing even greater a larger part of the earth flowed downward. Carrying you and Nathan into the bowels of the earth. You could feel through your feet the faint rumblings of the world around you, you knew what was metal and what was stone. You could pick out the vines of gold and silver that crisscrossed the world around you, you could feel the lakes of water below waiting to be harvested.

This is where you were most at home, not above in the sun, but encased in rock and the world. Feeling the currents of the living stone all around you, letting yourself relax into the embrace of the warmth of the world. As the journey continued, you could tell that Nathan didn't share your sense of peace for this as he became more and more agitated. In deference to him, you tapped a sequence into the Heart accelerating the progress through the world.

Only a handful of minutes later, the cage of stone fell away into a grand cavern, flickering with the light emitting from the magma that flowed below a screen of force. It was a truly majestic vista, a monument to the past in all its glory, and yet this was merely the antechamber to the Anvil itself. Even in this antechamber, once could see the very core of the world below them, the solid yet liquid iron core that spun eternally protecting all life upon the surface. If one looked closely enough, one would see countless threads of metal reaching into and through the rock that flowed over the glowing core of the world. The hallmark of the Anvil, the source of its power. Leaving Nathan behind, you walk out onto the energy bridge to stare downward into the heart of the world.

Every time it was glorious to see what was in reach of the past. A world's core found and reached, pulled from the mantle above and revealed to human eyes. It was a working beyond your comprehension, it was a wonder of the past without a doubt and you knew that the only reason you could reach this place was the Heart that shaped the world around it to allow for the transversal of the mantle above to reach this place, on the very edge of the heart of the world.

"Is this a relic of the past, Lady Khas?" Nathan's voice broke the almost sacred silence of this place, the first human words uttered in what was almost certainly centuries if not since the Fall itself.

"Yes." What more needed to be said? There was nothing that you could say or do that would further enrich the silent wonder of this room and what it contained. It was a silent testament to humanity and nature entwined.

Turning towards Nathan, you gently slide your fingers over the surface of the Heart and two chairs and a table flow out of the floor, ready for use. "Why did you request a meeting here? My office should be equally as protected." You ask as you take a seat upon one of the two chairs, waiting for your advisor to overcome the shock and awe of this place.

As he took his seat, gingerly obviously still discombobulated from the area in which he was, he bowed towards you gently. "Lady Khas, I apologize for my misunderstanding. I assumed that the Anvil and by extension the Vault were located on the surface, in a secret bunker, if I had realized the degree of separation that the Vault possessed from the rest of the nation I would have chosen to speak in your office." His tone implied much more than he said.

You frown at him as you judge his actions and behavior from the past while and against to what you knew of him in normal events. "I understand that you bear a distrust for terraforming and that the method of entry to this place would disturb you on a level I did not anticipate. For that I do apologize, I am too accustomed to my leaders who have grown up with the knowledge that the underground is our domain and that we control it to feel unsafe while using terraforming technologies. However, you do need to overcome this fear if you are going to be able to be a proper military advisor to the Umbral Lands, and it does not change the fact that the Vault is the safest place to speak of pressing matters." Your tone was kind, if firm and you hoped that he would accept your statements as they were meant to be taken.

Nathan nodded in turn as he shook himself, before shifting into a focused state of mind. "Lady Khas, I requested this meeting due to discovering what I can only label a total infection of corruption in the military industrial complex of the Umbral Lands." That was about the single worst event you could envision happening at this moment, Nord Merica to the north, the Pan-Pacific Bloc to the west and Hy Brasil to the east. Even if the last name isn't a Peer nation it would still pose a danger to the Umbral Lands if any two of them attacked at once.

"How corrupted is the military?" There was no time to dance around the matter, reports had to be clean and concise to elucidate the information that would become critical in the decades ahead.

"The corruption is endemic, as far as I can determine there is no area of the industrial side of the military that is not corrupted. The soldiers and actual military forces are exempt from the corruption, I will go into detail on them later. As for the corruption; its a mix of grift, bribes, general incompetence, nepotism, workplace culture, and smuggling rings." Nathan spoke in a monotone voice, obviously trying to keep his emotions in check even as his face showed the lie as rage was etched onto every one of his features.

"How is it possible for my generals to not realize this?" As much as you don't believe Nathan to be lying, it was a possibility and it would be a clever method by which to suborn control of a nation's military.

"Simple, they aren't looking for it. Their jobs and their personalities ensure that they are more focused on the external picture. None of them are trained or have the inclination to work to reveal something that they are not aware of. This is the part where the workplace culture comes in, even new hires are quickly indoctrinated into maintaining the illusion of low corruption and this presentation is what your generals and champions see when they look into the industry." Nathan stated even as he pulled out sheets of paper, to further explain what was going on and how it had been revealed.

"How did you find out about this, if it was so entrenched into the organization." Another hidden accusation at his luck in finding this hidden event so early on in his tenure and recently proven loyal by psykers. Yet, it was a well known fact that psykers even trained ones were unreliable at best and could easily be tricked into believing lies over what was true.

"My status as a foreigner. With my training being done in Nord Merica, I come from a very different workplace and by extent the culture is new to me here. From this I could see actions that did not make sense and when I begun to poke at them more and more corruption began to unravel." A nice explanation, yet at the same time not perfect, but then again nothing is perfect and you have to remember that he did get vetted by several psykers.

"What do you propose we do about this?" You ask as he pulls out more sheets of paper from his briefcase and puts them onto the table.

"We do not have many options, Lady Khas. The corruption is too engrained into the military industrial complex as to be easily removed with corruption purges. I have outlined only a handful of plans that I think might allow for some cleansing of the corruption." He seemed worried as he shifted the papers over to you.

"Explain the thrust of your ideas." You ordered making no moves towards the papers, letting them sit on the table even as you stared at Nathan.

"Lady Khas, as stated before the field forces are uncorrupted and as the issue lies in the city based areas of the military. The first plan and the one that I consider to be the better option is to imprison all of the personal that deal with production and outfitting the military. The next stage would be to give each and everyone of them trials by psykers to rip anything they might know from their minds and then once their guilt is confirmed execution. I am confident that this plan would reduce corruption by several levels. Most likely bringing the Umbral Lands military corruption into line with Nord Merica and the other Grand Nations in corruption." His words were firm and steely, yet there was a well hidden sense of hatred below that and you could tell that Nathan both truly hated the idea of corruption in the military and the fact that he had to go to these lengths in purging it.

"What is the second of your options." You ask even as you begin to read over the report on the first option, noting how its a good bit more detailed. Listing several exceptions that would result in people not losing their lives and giving clearance to new hires.

An expression of disgust covers Nathan's face as he prepares to speak on the next option, you quirk an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic display of emotion from the man. "I hate that this might be a needed option, but it is your decision in the end Lady Khas. The other option is to normalize the corruption. Currently, the military budget is straining to outfit a single army, however, if you were to collapse the military and civilian budgetary diversions; there would be enough in the budget to accept the corruption. It wouldn't reduce the amount of corruption, but it would reduce the effect of corruption indirectly by giving a larger pool of resources to feed the corruption." Every word was laced with poorly hidden disgust and vitriol at the very idea, but it was an idea worth considering at the very least.
"Lady Khas, I reluctantly have to ask for your permission to put all other military projects to the side until the corruption has been reduced to an allowable level. If you give me permission, I will stop tactic integration in favor of working towards reducing or restructuring the military to reduce the impact of corruption." He fell silent after the final words, waiting for your response.

[] Permission Granted: negates Nord Tactic Integration action for turn 1. Unlocks an action slot for turn 2 in military. Auto completes a turn of progress in chosen anti corruption measure
[] Permission Denied: retains Nord Tactic Integration for turn 1. Anti corruption action is locked in for turn 2

[] Normalize the corruption: removes the divide between civilian and military budgets, military budget has access to 100% of resources. No buffer with regards to civilian actions.
[] Purge the corruption: imprison everyone, extensive psyker tests, executions for the guilty, a full and total revamp of the military sector.

Actions and their result as if turn actions
Normalize Corruption Stage 1: The corruption is beyond the point of purging, it is too engrained and deep set to be able to be removed. Therefore, the only option that remains is to normalize it such that the military can still continue to function in the future. Cost: 1 turn, Rewards: removes military budget from budget, gives military full access to full national resources, does not impact corruption at all

Purge Corruption Stage 1: The corruption might be deep, but that only means that it is even more critical to tear it free of the military and purge it root and stem. Mass trials, escalation of punishments, involve the psykers and use any and all means to gather the needed information. The guilty will be purged from the military and new blood hired in their place. Cost: 2 turns, 50 pops, 50 resources (will be drawn from stockpile). Rewards: Corruption reduced by at minimum 6 levels, rolls above 60 on any of the 3 dice reduce it by another stage. Corruption reduction calculated on final turn of action, action can not make corruption worse.