Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

The new Council found itself swiftly assembled and brought to bear against the myriad problems that had already come to siege their doors when it was expanded, though with four new seats for the Civ Admin, alongside being the undeniable tie-breaker, and one new seat to represent the Cult of the Star Child, such would surely be swiftly eliminated.

Though there had been some nervousness regarding the Lamenters not being given a seat and, effectively, being relegated to a "mere" close ally of the station, Dreadnought Chyron was, in truth, glad that such a change had occurred. Being allied and a friend to a government that supports them with materials and recruits in exchange for sworn protection and oaths of allegiance was a situation far more familiar to him than being part of a larger entity as one singular component.

Besides him, the Celestial Choir took acute notice of being stripped of their vote until they were assuaged with a veto right like the Lamenters in their area of specialty, after which they mostly returned to their duties in harmonizing their songs and teaching a new-found psyker to control their powers. Unfortunately, the boy of nine has, at best, a few drops more power than the average person, so he will likely become part of the administrative or security apparatus of the Choir.

And with that, the only thing that remained was the replacement of the previous head of the Military with Thule-Omicron 55, a heavy stubber gunner who had been deeply involved in securing the zones where the known psykana experiments have holed up in and establishing a cordon so that they would not escape and start killing randomly. She has so far been efficient in her duties, though rather blunt and unimaginative. As far as she is concerned, any problem can be solved with enough firepower.

With a government reformed, the tasks of repairing the station, uniting the creed, and burning the corrupted parts continued with only minor interruptions. The repairs did little that they didn't promise at the start; a whole lot of damaged components were replaced, ancient machinery buckling under the weight of their corrupted parts was purged, new ones were constructed in their place, and massive swathes of the stations interior got freed up thanks to gutting machinery and laboratories no longer needed and the mazes of the housing habs being re-built in freed up sections in an efficient manner.

The only real upsets were, if one could call it that, the long sessions filled with sermons and revelations by Teeln, Prophet of the Star Child, alongside the theological arguments regarding the Motive Force, the Xeno, the Witch, and the Mutant. Surprisingly, the Mutant part would be the least controversial, with most on the same page. (If they could read.)

But to understand why that was, one needed to understand the history of the people living within the station now freed from Chaos' grasp.

You see, built some six thousand years ago, the station was fed every century with a large delivery of some ten million slaves purchased in exchange for manufactured materials and weaponry or combat-capable experiments and military support to various Chaos warbands and associated polities. Whenever such a shipment occurred, those eighty million living on the station were swamped with two scenarios, each bringing different problems.

The first scenario was that the shipment mainly consisted of Imperial citizens, who, upon realizing that they were now workers on a Chaos station, freaked out and tried to revolt. Such revolts were accounted for by the Dark Priests to test new weaponry, and had little to no support from the rest of the station that had already known and become forewarned of such events through history told in story and tale by their knowledge keepers. And, it must be said, by the primary divider between the first-generation Imperials and inhabitants of the station: Mutants. Everyone who lived on the station longer than a decade knew at least three, and considered one a friend, with some going further in calling some lineage-units by choice, or feelings. Imperials only saw Mutants, and acted as such, ensuring bad blood due to the murder of thousands and the failing of quotas and resulting punishments thereafter happening. Most natives held to a single belief regarding Mutants: if they weren't insane and could work, they were okay. Until they fucked with you, then they were open meat. Though Mutants were only a problem before the Imperials were broken and became a part of the station's workforce.

Scenario two came when the slaves weren't part of an Imperial world that got raided but parts of another Chaos world or station being traded. Because when that happened, things had a chance to get very ugly, very fast, even with Chaos already a daily thing to deal with. All due to the single reason that the majority of the population was created in Iron Wombs and decanted as children before being given to the workers as a pacification measure created by the Dark Priests. A communal creche or three being publicly and slowly subjected to punishment for their responding work units failing to meet quotas for too long had a way to motivate those units to meet their damned quotas. However, only a majority, around two-thirds, of the children on the station were brought into existence this way, with the other third being born naturally, either by choice or force from the Dark Priests. And it were those natural births that, though very undesirable for slowing down a worker for a long time before debilitating them for up to a week, would become the backbone for the subsequent batches of clones being created and decanted.

And the Dark Priests were unwilling to let their tools degrade beyond a certain degree, almost gleefully initiating station-wide purges once a certain threshold of genetic impurity had been reached. Ten such purges are remembered, with the last happening some seven hundred years ago.

The survivors would remember those massacres, and they would hand down a better, a more refined, version of the protocols that had been supposed to keep them safe from such a thing, though, in essence, they boiled down to a single thing: all nature-born Mutants were to be sterilized at birth, while all newly-changed Mutants were subjected to the same measure once mutated.

So it came as no surprise that with a mix of ruthless practicality and cultural forces, the first significant divergence would be canonized within the Cult of the Star Child: Mutants would not be killed on sight, but they were not allowed to procreate. Even though the Dark Priests were now gone, having the genetic purity of the station decay had been burned into the psyche of the people, and none would budge on that. If a Mutant desired children of their own, the communal creches had more than enough children to foster affection toward and have them returned until both agreed to become a lineage-unit. Beyond that, no other measures were taken beyond allowing Mutants to remove the physical evidence of their Mutation if they so desired or would be a hindrance to their ability to work and replace lost limbs with the blessed machine-flesh of the Motive Force.

When this declaration was spread among the population, it was returned with a noticeable increase in efficiency across all sectors as a large portion of the station had their future secured and nothing taken from them that they weren't already lacking or willing to give should they be changed by the Warp meddling in the Materium.

It was also apparently celebrated by two people if rumors are to be believed, as Hymnal Bnuy had generally radiated a muted sense of yearning and admiration whenever in the presence of Teeln, Prophet of the Star Child, which changed the day after the declaration when she shined in a radiance emitting a feeling of giddy passion and soothing fire within one's belly. Teeln, Prophet of the Star Child, also just so happened to be out for two days due to a "flamer-use-related accident."

Most everyone reacted to those rumors in the same way, with a knowing "Oh, they fucking!"

Moving onto more important theological matters, the Witch debate could be summed up as: If they get into the Choir to be trained, they good. If they resist? Naval-grade laser into their face. Thrown or activated, as long as it hits and murders them fatally and irreversibly.

In contrast, the Xenos debate was more hesitant and boisterous at the same time, but one thing could be agreed upon, even if the finer details needed some more time to cook: if the Xenos bowed to the Star Child, they would be spared in exchange for tribute and contributions to the common good of the galaxy. If they didn't, they would be killed without remorse.

Then came the Motive Force debate.

As a reminder, the Imperium is not the whole of humanity, as the Mechanicum is theoretically and legally a somewhat distinct entity only allied to it, even though both pray to the same being: the God-Emperor, even if the Mechanicum prays to Him as the Omnissiah, prophet of the Motive Force, the actual underlying divine energy and being according to their teachings. Now, being brought up on a Dark Mechanicum-controlled station, most people here were adherents to some parts of the Dark Priest's faith, even if only to operate the machinery without getting murdered horrifically if they didn't pray to the activation rune correctly while being observed directly or indirectly.

The people here thought of the God-Emperor and the Omnissiah as the same and only distinct in their roles: the face shown to humanity at large and the face shown to the engineers and specialists, with the Motive Force as the underlying web of energy that allowed the Lord of Mankind to do its works everywhere.

And now that the truth of the Star Child was revealed to them, questions were being raised about the relations to the Motive Force and its place in the cosmology of the universe at large once the Star Child was born. But that would be a debate that needed far more time than a mere decade to be solved.

On another note, a worker neglecting their duties discovered a new burning star. However, that star quickly turned out to be a burning planet after closer inspection via a telescope. Dreadnought Chyron took one look at the pict feed from that planet and determined that that celestial body had been subjected to an Exterminatus via Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo. This news did little to calm things down and has raised a call to begin arming the military and repairing the available system monitors moored at the station.



You Have 3 [Three] Actions.
[] [General] Construct a Scout Ship and explore your new Home
Despite it being impossible as far as you are aware, you have been transported to a new location by means you do not know. Previously you were...somewhere, and now you are in the middle of a trinary star system with a blue, golden, and brown star orbiting around you. So, the first order of knowing what to do next outside the station is to repair a damaged system monitor and scout out the local system you are located within.
(Gain: System Map and Knowledge)

[] [General] Construct Something
-[] Food Production
-[] Civilian Infrastructure
-[] Heavy Industry
-[] Void Industry
-[] Medical Services
With much of the station freed up, we can begin filling the empty parts again with industry and things we need, from clinics to starch vats feeding us in the void.
(Gain: A district focusing on the chosen option.)

[] [General] Figure out an Economy
You...don't exactly have a way to distribute things like food, medicine, and workers to where those are needed right now. It is primarily ad-hoc and relies heavily on shift-leaders taking things from where they are handed out and giving them to where they think they are needed. Some organization of these things should happen sooner rather than later before someone makes a system for you that sticks around for centuries.
(Gain: Figure out how to distribute resources in an efficient measure.)

[] [Military] Uuuuh, Organi-what?
Sure Boss-man, I'll get to organschating the troopers! What the fuck is a chain of command? Where are they made?! Heh?
(Gain: Uuuuuh, militarily organized?)

[] [Military] Raise A Light Infantry Unit
Though you cannot outfit your military with more than plain flak vests and las-rifles at the moment, it would still be a step up from heavy stubbers and prayers. However, it would be better if this was done after or while the Council figured out what it wanted from the military.
(Gain: A Light Infantry Unit.)

[] [Psykana] Hunt down the remaining Psykana Experiments
The Dark Prieshad mainly used their non-production related time for psykana experiments, alongside a dash of biological and demon summoning experiments, the latter of which was sometimes aided by Chaos Space marines that demanded a heavy toll from the people aboard in flesh and souls. Some of the psykana experiments have escaped containment in the chaos of the Waking Rising, and they now hunt the dark and forgotten parts of the station, where they take the souls of the unlucky and those caught off-guard. They need to be hunted down and destroyed, ere they do something worse than merely killing randomly.
(Gain: Clear the station of Dark Mechanicu Psykana Experiments.)

[] [Psykana] Construct the Symphonium
The Celestial Choir needs a place to conduct their songs, where they can listen to the Warp and filter out the false whispers from the slumbering guidance of the Star Child. There, their centuries-long service will begin in careful tuning of their abilities and where they shall live and work to see us secured from the malignant tumors of the universe.
(Gain: The Symphonium, where your psykers will be able to work on refining their psychic abilities and control in a safe-ish manner.)

[] [Faith] Motive Force And Cradle Slumbers
The nascent Cult of the Star Child has been established, yet it must answer a lot of questions for itself, chief among them the doctrine and truth they shall follow to unite the Omnissiah and the God-Emperor with the Motive Force, or if that will not be needed should Teeln, Prophet of the Star Child, be graced with another vision that would lay this debate to rest.
(Gain: Nail down the technical aspects of the Cult of the Star Child, improving your technological means by proxy.)

[] [Faith] Begin The Great Education
People cannot read, write, or do numbers beyond the bare minimum, and any hope of establishing a nation that will last beyond the next crisis must address this lack of education now that the unwashed masses have eliminated the educated class. As knowledge and technology are the purview of the faith, this shall be a burden and duty of the Cult to bear, gladly worn with the knowledge of the greater tomorrow their works will bring.
(Gain: Start educating your population in basic numbers and literacy.)

[] [Faith] Construct Cradle-Shrines
Five shrines will be built, one in the center, four on a cross centered on the first. There, our preachers will give sermons; there, our faithful will gather, and there, we will be united in faith and belief. From there, all of our works shall be elevated, and all our struggles made holy. We are but candles in the dark of the galaxy. Time to light five fires to gather around and provide guidance to all who are yet lost but wander still.
(Gain: Five Cradle-Shrines, beginning the creation of something greater than yourself.)

[] [Chapter] Screen for Potential Candidates and Foster Gene-Slaves
Though the practice of Gene-Slaves is frowned upon by most Chapters within the galaxy, some do use it in times of need and to prepare for times filled with many casualties. Now that the Chapter is but one, implanting all seventeen Gene-Seeds into willing volunteers to harvest thirty-four in ten years must be done. Only then can the rebuilding of the Chapter begin with four already pre-selected perfect candidates, with the thirty seeds implanted into volunteers once more before the practice can be retired after two or more repeats. Also, Dreadnought Chyron would like this to be given priority, as he can only aid our people with a Chapter at his back. He would really like if he was given the support to do so now, as it would be far too difficult to do so alone.
(Gain: 34 Gene-Seeds, beginning the first step of reviving the Lamenters Space Marine Chapter.)

[] [Other] Take Care Of [Future Or Current Problems]
(Write-In the problem being addressed.)
(Gain: Turn to address the issue.)