by the skin of their teeth. The Imperium in 40k is in terms of total population less than 5% of the numbers that the Dark Age had. Basically, it was a rounding error for the numbers that lived through the Iron War and even now 10k years later Humanity still hasn't even reached 10% of its apex population levels.
The Imperium plays with high trillions/low quadrillions, the Dark Age played with High quadrillions/low-mid quintillions
Basically, Humanity was just able to spend more to do things. The Iron Minds were driven by logic, which hampered their action profiles, so Humanity could do things like suicide entire battle fleets into killing single enemies. The Human military considered losing five trillion lives for a single dead AI ship a pittance of a cost. Basically the numbers the Imperium throws into the meat grinder wouldn't even registrar to a Dark Age general or admiral as being worth a single thought. their reaction to learning that the imperium fights with trillions only on the larger scales would be "How the fuck are you managing such stupendously great kill ratios?" because to them losing less than a trillion on a single battlefront would be a flat out miracle.
by the skin of their teeth. The Imperium in 40k is in terms of total population less than 5% of the numbers that the Dark Age had. Basically, it was a rounding error for the numbers that lived through the Iron War and even now 10k years later Humanity still hasn't even reached 10% of its apex population levels.
The mystery box perk and trait?
One gives us a good chance of not being yeeted out the airlock(insta-repair a station subsystem). The other will make Chaos go scream "HACKS" as we proceed to eliminate their assets.
I will note that you have to repair (1/4 research) a system first and then you can use Furious March to learn 1/4 of any system or technology 2 tiers below that first system. Its not a flashy perk, but it is a slow growing one that will eventually save you decades to centuries of time due to the lengths of time that it will take to invent higher tier technologies.
Basically for a more complete understanding, the Perk allows you to gain the same amount of progress in any technology 2 tiers below your highest progress bar. If you have completed a tier 10 research, once per decade you can auto complete any tier 8 or below technology from then on out.
Note, that repairing a present system does not require you to have completed prerequisite techs on the tech tree.
I go with the idea that the most it ever did before the Ad Mech came into prominence is that it might give people nightmares of echoes of echoes of tech if they slept on Mars. Most of the time random people got these dreams, but a few of the more nasty Dark Age items are born from them, but by and large until post AoS/Iron War the Void Dragon basically did nothing of note.
I am not going to say much of its current state of being, but I will say that its somewhat responsible for the proliferation of cybernetic implants among the ad mech.
I am not going to say much of its current state of being, but I will say that its somewhat responsible for the proliferation of cybernetic implants among the ad mech.
Yeah, I guess it would have to be because this is set long before the birth of what's in the current canon may be becoming a God of the Greater Good, at best it might be a twinkle in the mind of vespids I guess.
Its been only a couple of days since the last update. I also am in college over the summer so that eats up time and doesn't do wonders for my stress levels. I would very much appreciate it if people would bug me about updates if its been a week or so. This just seems entitled and won't make me work any faster.
Its been only a couple of days since the last update. I also am in college over the summer so that eats up time and doesn't do wonders for my stress levels. I would very much appreciate it if people would bug me about updates if its been a week or so. This just seems entitled and won't make me work any faster.
To clarify things a bit more, Shroud+Warp do not mix. Trying to use warp stuff(eldar precog) on a psion(shroud) will not work and vice versa. Combine this with the fact that chaos is warp and we have Illumination and
*CACKLES*
Let's just say chaos will hate us a lot.
As you sat in the throne of gold and marble, looking at the four beings of power that had offered their might to you. You knew that this choice was a choice that would shape all of your life to follow suit, there would be no redoing this moment, there would be no alteration this would define in part your life to come.
Thus, as you turned your prodigious mind upon the offers, you found that the Eater of Worlds offered nothing to support for you. You were simply not a warrior born, you were no Angel of Death, you were no grand general, you were no mythical commander of armies. You instead were created for a different purpose.
Your soul had been crafted and infused with the knowledge you knew, to rebuild the Imperium into that which the God Emperor wished to see. You were to be His servant in the perfection of His Imperium. He already had a billion servants guiding his armies and navies across the galaxy, but you were meant to take upon the mantle of the builder.
Thus, you turned to the Eater and with a flex of your will, banished the avatar it had sent from your Demi-realm. You rejected it forevermore, it would never be accepted in your heart, it was forever gone from your future. Its choice blazed with war and that was not your purpose in His grand design.
As the Eater faded away with a scowl upon its face, you turned to the others and thought upon them. Neither Whispers nor the Instrument would serve you will, their offers too weak and restrictive in turn to interest you today. But, they did offer greater things than the Eater could ever hope and so you spoke once more, but not in Their forms but in your own, "Beings of the Shroud, I reject your boons as offered today. In time to come I may accept a boon from you, but the boons offered are not for me." Your voice echoed across your realm as the wraiths of soldiers turned towards the castle as their creator spoke his first proclamation.
"Future/time to be set/certain, choice/decision/outcome known/understood/accepted." The echoing voice of the Whispers in the Void returned as it faded away to return to whence it came.
"Oh Chosen One, your choice rings forth across the sea of time and light. I wish that in time to come you may yet find harmony among the eddies of our essence. Desire chosen, form seen, so it shall be for all of time to come." The song of the Instrument of Desire spoke as it slithered away into the depths of the Shroud, the merry chime of bells and musical instruments of a million worlds fading into silence as it left.
Lastly, your focus turned upon the final of the four, the Composer of Strands. It offered the best for you, but in the end it was still lesser than you would seek from a Boon of such magnitude. "I too reject your offer, Composer. Yet, you are the closest to which I cleave." It made no response for what is there to respond too in such a rejection and instead it simply oozed out of your realm. As it left, your realm quieted down as there was no intrusion to be had and you could think and ponder what you were for the first time.
As the echoes of the four great presences faded, you turned towards what you knew of your physical form. As you looked upon yourself, you realized just how different your two sides were. In the mortal realm, you were but an infant with an active mind, lacking in understanding and nuance. Yet, in your dreams you were a near god that was several steps removed from humanity.
Perhaps, if you had taken a Boon, you would accept this divergence, but such would only weaken you now and here. Thus, you brought to the fore all of your prodigious might and forced unification upon yourself. The melding of mortal and immortal to give rise to a new mind. The awareness of the Shroud mixing with the limited view of the mortal, to give rise to new perspectives.
Your very core changed as you forged yourself anew. Losing the pure fanaticism of your mortal mind, but gaining a vastly expanded viewpoint in turn. Losing a surety of purpose in turn for a guarantee of cause, you lost but gained in equal measure from this working and so you smiled.
Across your realm, the flickering realm stabilized as its lord and master, became whole at last. The ghostly wraiths turning into images of the Angels of Death gleamed from your inferences of the people of your home and their few recollections of the times where a Chapter would harvest the young of Olynn for their numbers. The champions that guard your castle, becoming exalted Angels of light and noble bearing, while within your throne room, out of flickering gold came grand statesman and governors.
Your throne shifted from the purple marble and gold to a simpler affair of solid steel and titanium, spartan in design, function over form for this new throne. The greater throne room shifted around you as you sat upon your now mundane throne into a more proper seating form. As the grand dias upon which you had placed your throne moved from under you to the far end of the chamber upon which a grand throne of gold and wondrous technology formed, in which from the drifting waves of energy a representation of Him formed in solid radiant light.
With a sound that had no sound, the Chosen One and the human named Anatol became one. The clarity of which suffered every inch of your soul and heart, for you had no time to waste and from the Shroud did you gleam the secrets to make your purpose manifest.
You were no mere mortal child, nor were you bound by such limits and so you reached forth and into the realm of your physical body did you reach and you took your form in your astral hands and twisted. Flesh and Bone bent to your will, neurons shifted and grew, the body of an infant grew. Years, seemingly pilled onto your young form, as you tossed aside the weakness of years of growth to begin your work immediately.
You would have no patience to suffer the body of a child for longer than needed and you had no need to wait for nature to give you your finished form. You released your control as your body entered its first decade of age and the process slowed to a crawl from your perspective, yet even so your physical form grew at a stupendous rate that would have made any that had watched declare you a mutant on sight.
But, your conscious was clear for the dictates of the God Emperor said that only genetic and spiritual purity was to be mandated. You were already partially dammed for being born with mutation, so you would willingly take upon further taint to aid yourself in completing the duty for which you were crafted. If you were meant to wait you would soon find yourself rebuked by Him.
As the station's power systems began to cycle signaling another day breaking, you let go of your physical form grown in a flash to the age of fifteen. Now a man fully grown, with strong muscles and hardened flesh covering bones wrought by your own hands. You were not as fragile as the vast majority of humanity, but you still were one of His people.
Now, with your body grown and your mind combined, you were ready and so you stepped forth off of your astral throne and into the material realm once more. As you open your eyes in the material, you notice the lack of strain instantly and smile as you take a look around. Your eyes and newly gleamed knowledge from the Shroud and your own soul, whisper to you secrets of the station, echoes of the past reverberate through its superstructure.
As your eyes trace over the hidden systems within the wall, you know that even with your perception more is hidden from your sight, but you gleam much from just what you see. With a simple effort of will, your father's glasses are brought to you and when you place them on your nose, the world explodes once more. Runes dance along your sight as the glasses calibrate to your senses and your mind begins to work on the language drifting across your sight.
Within only mere seconds, you have connected the runes to the writing system that you knew from the papers that litter your home. Reverse engineering the pimples from what you know to that which you don't, over twenty thousand years of divergence crunched and given shape in a mere moment as your brain tears through the simple codes of the language. Aided vastly by the surprising lack of divergence in truth, due you believe to the general plenty of such relics.
Perhaps, on another world you wouldn't be so lucky, but on Olynn you know that your father and mother could be trusted to know at least a few words from the relics of the past. As the runes drift into comprehension, you choke back a laugh at just what you are wearing and how different it stands to what your memories say should be.
The glasses are no such thing, instead they are a complex system built into transparent Adamantium, with circuitry formed from specially treated gold and iron molded at the atomic level to ensure a proper bonding with the outer-casing. All of this was in order to give the wearer, the ability to control the magnification and diagnostic systems integrated into the headset by eye movements. With the cogitator core being inserted in the bridge of the nose.
This single item, was something you simply weren't prepared to encounter. It could do basically anything you could think of in a handheld scanner and do it better than you thought possible. As you flicked through the systems it offered, noting with some surprise the total lack of machine spirit interference, you found that it had somehow gotten stuck on the absolute most basic diagnostic runtime.
It took less than five more minutes to unlock its systems and to be able to actually begin to properly use the system and the moment it did. Errors invaded your sight. Everything you turned to see was riddled with errors, nothing was in proper state, everything was broken to it. Blazing runes traced line after line across your eyes as its systems came alive and you could only stare at the sheer amount of things wrong with the station.
The strain of metal under weight drew you from your stupor at the sheer amount of issues that the visor could find in this smallish room alone. "Well, seems that Lysa got her wish. Although, in the worst possible way for her." Your father spoke from the doorway as he looked at you, with quirked lips.
As you turned towards him, not sure of what to do, he spoke again, "Its pretty clear that you are my son, after all your color palette is non standard. I knew full well when I got roped into this project of her's that you would be a powerful psyker if everything went to plan." He rubbed his eyes as he spoke, "It seems that it did, based on your accelerated growth. Now, I was never sure of what I was going to do as a parent and I highly doubt that you particularly need a parent as an infant does.
So, lets do something a bit more useful of our time. You can keep the visor for now, Emperor knows that I know basically everything they have to say." He said as he stomped over to the wall, where a small glass of water rested.
You were not sure of what to do in this moment, but you figured that a response of some form was correct. "The visor is an Architectural Structural Diagnostic Cogitator. Primarily designed to function in extreme locations for the construction of habitation systems in such environments.
It had ended up locked into basic diagnostic mode. I unlocked it and reset it to the manufactorum setting." You were expecting a moment of surprise, your father instead nearly fell to the floor in shock, only saved from such as you lifted his body with your psychic power.
"You managed to unlock the visors? I never thought I would live to see the day in which someone could fix it. We have records of thousands of years and the visor is commonly mentioned as being the key item in the survival of Olynn, but I never could figure out how they were so useful.
The visor for me was only useful for finding gaps in the walls, the records though speak as if they could find the smallest flaw in the smallest compartment of the station from afar. The records are incomplete but the few we have from that time talk of the loss of the visor as a death sentence.
How, how did you recover something lost for eons?" His voice was broken with emotion as he stared at you as if he had never seen you before, which on reflection you considered that might be true in a sense. But as he spoke, his voice only became ever more confused and stressed as he stared at you, coming near a breaking point.
"By His will, I am more than a normal human. To me the letters that the visors presented were easy enough to decode from our written language, which in turn came from our spoken language.
With that I was able to partially learn the rituals needed to unlock the visors once more." You speak once more and you find that the act of speaking is unpleasant in a way, its cumbersome and inelegant compared to what you just know telepathy would be.
Your father, just stared at you before falling into laughter. He rolled on the floor laughing as he banged into the chairs and tables, before you managed to pick him up. "Decades of effort to learn a single of their words, and you decode it all in less than an hour." Seizing your neck in a grip at odds with his seemingly fragile body he hissed.
"Son, Anatol, whatever you do, don't tell the Adeptus Mechanicus about this. They will claim the visor in an instant if they knew what it was. Hide what you know from anyone that you don't know to be trustworthy." Using your body as a lever he pulled himself up to stare at your face and smiled a broken smile.
"I never wanted to be a father, but now that I am, I wish that you needed a father. Son, we might not be able to have a true familial bond, but I will be by your side if you will let me. I might not be your equal in any field, but I am the best worker on Olynn that isnt of the Adeptus Mechanicus."
You found the sight of your father, so broken by the heights to which you have soared in such a short time to be remarkably unpleasant, you don't understand why he thinks he can't be family to you. You don't understand why he is so unsteady, he seemed so solid yesterday when he fought your mother for your right to life. Now, he seems like a broken shell of that man, you just don't understand why.
Reaching out towards him with your powers, you could feel something there, a bright spark of bouncing energy that lived over his shoulder. You knew that it was his soul and mind, but it was both beyond your reach and within your grasp. Yet, you couldn't reach for it, there was a shell of unbreakable force guarding it from your touch, but you knew that it had a chance of helping him if you could touch it.
"Son, please talk to me, by the Emperor, I am tired. Nine months of suffering Lysa's insanity and now being rejected by my own son. Why? Emperor, is this my punishment for taking part in her project." His voice broke even more as he whispered under his breath recriminations against himself, you knew that he was not a particularly faithful man to the particulars, willing to let any live provided they weren't too far gone, giving aid to the mutant even those that bore major deformities brought about by random genetic mutation.
But, this was wrong to you, you wished to understand him and wanted to comfort him, but you were too far from his understanding, your confusion was taken as a rejection of him. You reached once more towards his soul and found that in this moment the shell protecting it had fallen. You could feel that something was nearing it on the other side and so acted with haste, you tore it free and reached into your shroud realm where the glittering jewel of your father's soul came to rest.
In a moment your mind expanded forth and connected to his. A torrent of emotion lashed outward as you felt his sheer exhaustion, the effort that he had to spend protecting the people of the station from Lysa's mood swings, his ever present sense of defeat as the station comes ever closer to annihilation. A normal man would have stumbled under the sheer amount of despair that your father had held for decades, yet he bore it and thrived in a sense.
You could feel his happiness buried under decades of despair and hopelessness at having a family, you could finally understand people on a personal level. A smile formed on your perfect face as you found holes in your knowledge patched by his.
"No. Father, I might have aged my physical body to its physical peak, but I lack general understanding. I lack much in truth, we might not be a normal family, but we can be a family." You said as you hugged his crying form to your chest, letting him finally relaxed after decades of holding in his emotions. You knew that he was glad for the chance to let go of his weight and that was enough for you to continue to hold him.
Hours later, the two of you were sitting at the table, relaxed for once, his soul shinning in your Demi-realm safe and sound behind the legions of noble astartes. "What do we need to worry about" You asked your father deferring to him for his sheer skill with Olynn's systems was more than enough to make up any lack on his end in intelligence.
"We need to fix the station as the primary goal. With the visor repaired it should be easy enough to determine the issues at hand, however, the larger issue is the supplies that repairs will cost.
Furthermore, the Adeptus Mechanicus, will be a constant nuisance once they realize what is going on which is certain due to needing to buy highly complex parts from forge worlds. We might have to give away a few of our less useful items to buy what we need.
As for the station itself, I personally believe that the conversion systems are the most critical to repair first due to them being the primary method for stabilizing the greater station's temperature. However, Lysa is correct in that power will be an issue, so we need a better power source than the current set of small Starcell reactors that currently power everything"
As he finished speaking you leaned back in your chair to consider his statements. On one hand you had to weigh the chance of bias to be affecting his decision making process, but in the end everything he said would have to be done anyway. So bias wouldn't matter in the end, so then it came down to figuring out what to focus on repairing first and getting the resources in order to do so.
"If we do end up requiring resources, how do you plan on buying them? Also, isnt there a fairly good chance that the parts would be archeotech in and of themselves?" You question him, but with the release of stress he simply smiled.
"The turn of the decade is coming within this year, if we need any small complex Plasada part, we will have plenty soon this year. Our concern needs to be on the larger bulk material that we don't have the room to grow in sufficient amounts.
"Adamantium for one is a highly limited metal and most of it is used in patching the various holes that form in the hull on a near daily basis now. Other than adamantium, the most precious is Plastitan, which we have an even smaller supply of than adamantium. Basically, our supply issues aren't in the complex, but in the bulk materials that simply aren't something our local Metallum Gramen can grow in sufficient amounts.
"Expanding the Metallum Gramen might be a worthwhile investment if we can figure out how to expand the growth medium. Of course everything hinges on the visor being usable again to what my ancestors claim it could do. Without them, I am not sure even with your innate abilities we would be able to do anything of note." Your father stared down at the table as he considered what he had said and you did the same as you thought things through and came to a decision.
Month Long Turn (you have a total of 5 actions to spend on any set of options)
Stellaris Research - Can choose up to 3 things, Locks them until completed (research)
Note that any research that would use exotic materials in its construction will require the methods of their creation as a prerequisite
-[] Blue Lasers (T1)
-[] Fusion Power (T1)
-[] Improved Reactors (T1)
-[] Hyperspace Discovery (T5)
-[] Field Modulation (T1)
-[] Global Energy Management (T1)
-[] Deflectors (T0 250 cost)
-[] Active Countermeasures (T0)
-[] Scientific Method (T5)
-[] Gravtic Sensors (T2)
-[] Volatile Material Plants (T2)
-[] Bio-reactor (T2)
-[] Hydroponics (example exists on Olynn, T0)
-[] Gene Crops (example exists on Olynn, T2)
-[] Genetic Mapping (example exists on Olynn T0)
-[] Gene Tailoring (example exists on Olynn T3)
-[] Psionic Theory (Anatol exists, T4)
-[] Industrial Base (T5)
-[] Unanchored Construction (T3)
-[] Weather Control Systems (T2)
-[] Nanocomposite materials (T0)
-[] Flak Battery (T0)
-[] Afterburners (T1)
-[] Ion Thrusters (T2)
Station Examination (research/other)
-[] construct basic station map
-[] identify the weakest systems
-[] identify station power situation
People Interaction (interaction)
-[] Eliza
-[] Lysa
-[] Astein
-[] Just wander around with your father for a bit, maybe you will find some interesting people
Shroud exploration (psionic)
-[] try to figure out what you did to your father's soul
-[] see if your shroud realm is useful for anything in the material realm
-[] try to understand the nature of the shroud
Okay:
Let's look at the research available to us right now:
T1 is bare min for the imperials. Anything lower is basically useless by themselves.
T2 is the bare min for imperial tech that is "combat worthy". Think PDF or an isolated world tying to do things by themselves.
T3 is the common Imperial patrol ships.
T4 are like upgraded ones.
T5 are the bigger Imperial Navy stuff.
Each tier has a higher research progress cost. Each tech requires it's prereqs to research. Normally that is. Salvage events and copies/access to the real thing can short circuit this(eg why we are here).
-Laser is meh at the moment. Leave on the pile of do later on when we can. It's a vital stepping stone but at the moment, it's only really useful for climbing up to imperial standards.
-This is one I want to work on. It itself allows us to start understanding the reactors on this station which may have issues. From discord info, the reactors in common use are T2(fusion). Starcell Reactors are T3(cold fusion). I want this since it will allow us to rapidly reach the required knowledge level T3.
-This is new. @Leon12431 , what does this do specifically?
-This is key if we want non warp FTL. Can transport large ships and requires 1yr of prep before one can rapidly navigate hyperspace. The process is quick once in hyperspace and you can jump along the "nodes" via hyperlanes to your destination. More research down this will permit faster jump times. However, this will start drawing srutiny from the navigators and will take a while to complete.
-This is a leads to repeatable tech in Stellaris(eg research to gain minor boost in something) that increases power generation efficiency from your economy. Also adds a power generation boost to the economy.
-Unlocks a better power grid.
-Upgrade to power generation from economy. Better than Field modulation but only has a limited amount of researches down this chain.
-Basic shields. Not much to say but this is vital for when we start ship building.
-Oh. This is new. Likely improves the equivalent of Stellaris evasion stat. That stat is pretty potent once you get enough modifiers for it(corvettes gain a 90% chance to just not get hit at max bonuses). Still, not that useful at the moment.
-Oh nice. This helps our researchers (if we have any) research faster. Pretty important since we have a 100X boost to research. This helps to narrow the gap between the plebs and us.
-Better sensors and allows for researching dark matter mining.
-OH NICE. This gives EM(exotic matter(Stellaris gas, crystal, and motes)) production. As we unlock better structures and ship components, we will need to use EM in them. Higher tier stuff may also need other strategic resources(eg dark matter) but we shouldn't really worry about that right now.
-Power gen structure. Takes food, creates power. Not much more to say here.
-Food generation structure tech and unlocks more stuff down this route
-Food generation bonus
-Lifespan increase and also unlocks the path to gene mods
-Gene mods
-Oh nice. This is what allows us to take people and turn them into Psions. Nice bonuses are gained from that. If the psion does research, a bonus is applied to their research speed.
-Unlocks all resoure production involved in industry. Vital for the future. Not getting this cripples us in the long term.
-IDK what this is. @Leon12431 , can you clarify what this does?
-What it says on the tin. Also boosts housing capacity/density.
-T0 stellaris armor. Paper to any serious weapon fire but does unlock the entire armor tech tree.
-T0 Point defence weapon, intended for evasive targets like fighters.
-Add on to increase movement speed
-Better thruster. On par with the lowest imperial thrusters I believe.
-[] try to figure out what you did to your father's soul
-[] see if your shroud realm is useful for anything in the material realm
-[] try to understand the nature of the shroud
Hyperspace Discovery is what you need to learn that Hyperdrive is possible, basically its the discovery of "Oh Yeah, that is something we can use"
Unanchored Construction is using drones and such to build stuff in gravity wells. Its basically a prerequisite for going full automated zero g construction.
Also Industrial Basics and Scientific Method are basically reinventing the wheel. They as a pair include basically all of the methodology that humans discovered and refined prior to the Age of Strife where science fell away and the Imperium never really got around to getting it set back up. You pretty much need both of them for anything above tier 3 if you don't want to spend centuries waiting for single items to come off the production lines.
Also the Active countermeasures is the energy point defense option. (I do not know why Stellaris has energy/kinetic point defense but it does)
Oh I am an idiot, Improved reactors is basically just being able to increase the output of the last tier of reactor by a goodish amount. Basically its a way to cheat your way to more power without needing to research the next tier as the improved variant lags behind so to speak.
an example is the improved variant of fusion is only tier 1 while cold fusion is tier 2 and so on
[] Plan Keep It Simple Stupid
-[] Gene Crops (example exists on Olynn, T2)
-[] Field Modulation (T1)
-[] Industrial Base (T5)
-[] identify station power situation
-[] Just wander around with your father for a bit, maybe you will find some interesting people
If this station is going to presumably become our future base I'd like it to be self sufficient. Plus I imagine that field modulation will have synergies with identify station power situation
[]Plan: Essentials power
-[] Global Energy Management (T1)
-[] Improved Reactors (T1)
-[] Industrial Base (T5)
-[] identify the weakest systems
-[] identify station power situation
If this station is going to presumably become our future base I'd like it to be self sufficient. Plus I imagine that field modulation will have synergies with identify station power situation
