[X]: Ask the Chaplain questions (Think up of at least three and I'll pick the most interesting ones.)
Arne
Well, the first thing that came to your mind is well...who are the trinity? That obviously implies some sort of structure with three related deities. But that could mean a lot of things. Christians believed in a paradoxical three distinct but not separate trinitarian godhead, but based on the symbolism here they definitely weren't Christian. There were themes of Martyrdom in their art, but not to the degree that Christianity built itself on. The theme that struck you was more of perseverence, survival despite the longness of the odds and the darkness of the night. Even thriving. Not of the promise of a better tomorrow that will come when the saviour arrives. The saviour is already here, but armageddon is an ongoing process; not a dramatic finale neatly wrapped up in a single arc.
"Well, what do the Throne, Keep, and Cog represent?" You asked, turning to the Chaplain as she gave you a gracious nod in acknowledgement.
"The Throne is the symbol of our Emperor, the Keep our Empress, the Cog our Machine-God; however sundered they are now; they are the foundation and basis of our Imperium."
She turned to show you the murals depicting the earliest days of Imperial history, a scene in what you recognised as a representation of ancient anatolia. The neolithic era based on the architecture represented by the murals which twisted and turned like living objects through relatively subtle forms of nano-projectors, giving the sequence a sense of animation to add to the divinity of the revelation they offered.
"Our Emperor and Empress were born like any humans in the lost ancient era of prehistory. Already gifted with incredible wisdom and knowledge and matchless power. They watched history unfold, seeking to help guide it towards one where mankind would ultimately survive and thrive. Man would rise, and fall, and rise again many times, but it was only after the Wars of Iron and the disintegration of the Federation of the Dark Age that they would reveal themselves in full; to unite the shattered nations of Terra and give rise to a great human civilisation once more." She said, the images shifting throughout the countless years displayed through the animated murals, showing sequences of history both familiar and quite clearly radically divergent from what you knew of the distant past.
"There's a whole lot of...Falling there, yeesh." Chris said, blinking as he counted the large number of apocalypses human civilisation had to dust itself off from; shuddering when he got to the fall of the Dark Age Federation; where cruel and twisted Eldar, rampaging Daemons and other warpspawn, hordes of the Unliving, and renegade machines burned what had once been a glorious era to the ground and a tide of viridian and rodent fury and conquest swept over what had come before; overrunning scattered and shattered human holdouts.
The constancy of the appearance of the green skinned aliens concerned you. So soon after humanity's first trip to the stars, they started appearing. Again, and again, and again. An eternal nemesis even more common than the ratmen, the Tyranids, the living dead, the daemons, or other such foes in the constancy of conflicts between themselves and humanity. And in the back of your head you could hear a primal cry, one that was foreign to you but still gave you a sense of antedeluvian disquiet; as if every human who could feel the warp had an inkling of what it meant. The others, they could feel it too. Eudai backing away, Samus tensing for a fight, Agafya gritting her teeth, Sevrin straightening herself, Kid Win holding his breath.
An old war cry, the call of a beast of truly ancient warmongering delirium and ruffian hooliganry. The shout of tusked throats more numerous than any human could really hope to comprehend. The raucous, rapturous declaration of a form of war that made countless civilisations tremble; unchanging between the endless varieties that its speakers could be found in. You could almost feel a slight weakness to your knees, feel the paths of tomorrow coil around helixes of emerald as the three-fold split of this force of destruction spread outwards like an endless fungal bloom.
WAAAGH!
You pulled back, blinked, shook your head. You looked at the Chaplain and mumbled an apology as she seemed to regard you with concern, Samus laying a hand on your shoulder and reassuring you gently.
"You already know the story of how they first came to leave us, the first sundering of the Imperium; the great Heresy of Horus and the Atrocities of Atraya. The Emperor was bound to the Golden Throne to illuminate the warp so that we could traverse it, the Empress to the Silver Keep to maintain our pathway to an afterlife not drawn to the great pit of Nagash below. To be sustained by the sacrifices of a million psykers each, every day." She explained, drawing attention to the internment of the Imperium's founders to their life support.
"It was both an imprisonment and an ascension. As the old atheist ways were gradually discarded for deification and the amalgamation of sacrificed psykers; they became something more than they were, but fragmented. The machine god though, is something altogether different. Something old, something mysterious. A mystery god that one must spend a lifetime of contemplation to understand, worship that went to more than one being, some malevolent. Though the faiths of the priesthood of mars were once far more separate, they have drawn closer to that of our lords." She explained, going through the scenes of the ascension and then the foundation of the martian priesthood, drawing attention to how there was one; true Cog, and then false Cogs that fed into Chaos, some monstrosity of cold logic and soulless void, and the shadow of Living Death.
The Emperor and Empress began to split as well. From the corpses connected to their tombs something indifferent, simply devoted to the task of maintaining the great light and the heavenly sphere. From the crowns came a dread thing of golden wings and three heads, a creature of gilded tyranny that Samus and yourself felt immediately rankled by the presence of while Sevrin seemed to be briefly uneasy; Eudaimonica's tiara starting to hiss and screech in response. From the heart came two sets of shapes; something noble and heroic, and something childlike and innocent that tied into each other.
"So you worship your founding monarchs? And their reincarnations?" Agafya said, noting how the crumbling of the Imperium lead to the aspects going their separate ways. The Tyrant to worlds wrapped in gold, the Corpse Lords to their domains as neutral observers, the Heroes to watch over the great masses of mankind, and the Children pushing back into the materium with the guidance and blessing of the heroes to deliver hope in the darkest hour. "Why? What's the point of worshipping something you can touch?" She asked, folding her arms.
"For them to have walked and still walk among us is to know that we too can aspire to their example and find the truth they had discovered. It is to know that we are all of us, divine. A distant deity one can never match is of no solace." She replied.
"And the machine god, what's he offer?" She questioned again.
"Knowledge, discovery, animus. The enlightenment of learning and the gift of comprehension. They are the mind to the Empress' soul and the Emperor's body. Thought to complement form and spirit to make the person whole." She replied as Agafya squinted briefly.
"Well...ah." Sevrin interrupted, sensing Agafya was about to say something likely to spark an incident. "What do they mean to you?" He asked, trying to go for something more personal than historical.
"An example I can look towards as I do what I must and provide what I can for my fellows. Those who can give me the strength so that in darkness or light, none shall find me wanting." She replied, a glance being exchanged between you and Samus briefly before she asked her own question.
"What did your homeworld mean to you?" She asked, almost a whisper. "You speak of it so reverentially...it must have been hard to lose it." She said, with an offer of sympathy to her voice.
"My Homeworld was Calderis, but Terra? Terra is home. Though I never set foot on it, though I never gazed on it while it still lived...it will always be the cradle of mankind. And we are forever the poorer for its loss; and the severing we have all felt from its roots is a wound that will not heal. To have this chance..." She said, looking at the ground, and then at the group.
"To walk on it, even if it is not our Terra; is a blessing. To feel the history of mankind's origins, the weight of four point six billion years of geology that would lead to our kind...that is a gift." She said, her arms folding behind her back and Kid Win scratching at the back of his head in response.
"I mean...I've lived on Earth...an Earth my whole life, I've never felt that kind of connection to it." He said. "It's always just been the ground beneath my feet I guess." He went on while Eudaimonica shook her head and made a "tsk tsk".
"Suburb kid right?" She asked.
"Yeah."
"Knew it, suburb kids don't feel connected to anything." She folded her arms while Kid Win rolled her eyes and the Chaplain laughed.
It was a surprisingly gentle laugh for such a giant, but she seemed to take it all in quite good mirth, a hand on her armoured stomach before she calmed herself and looked down at the ground through the lenses of her skull helm, shaking her head.
"Alienation is a crisis of your time to be sure. But it is not one we are well suited to address. To fight against the dark pressing around you? Yes, the Astartes can do that. To transform your society? That is something not best left to those made for war." She said.
"Okay then...speaking of the dark. What's the darkest...dark coming our way?" Eudaimonica asked, listening to the advice given to her by Winterpyre from within her tiara, the demon's curiosity driving him towards a specific question in need of answers. Something relevant to the needs of his charge.
"A hard question to answer. Many are the terrors we face, few are the paths that can lead to victory. For what it's worth, the Dark Gods are our most fundamental foe. Even as the legacy of Horus grows thin, the Three-Eyed King's aspirations to beget the end still threaten us all in a manner more personal than most of the xenos." She said, gesturing to the rise of a three eyed figure clad in inviolable plate with a horned helm wreathed in the flames of the end of the world, the pelt of a beast worn as a cape, and his body atop a steed whose trod was the apocalypse and whose blade was the end of nations.
Even this depiction of him, as abstract as it was, felt uncomfortable to look upon. Like it was an abyss that everything was waiting to plunge into, an end to a question that never should have been asked, a beginning to a possibility that should never be. A bringer of not merely the turning upside down of the world, but the cessation of the very meaning of the term; whose form stood amidst yawning vortices that spoke of nothing and nothingness, while the disparate tendrils of a formless manifold wove into a united front of armageddon.
Eudaimonica seemed to pale, Sevrin murmured a curse, Agafya looked anywhere but at Archaon, Samus hardened her expression and you...you almost could feel as though the figure was somehow aware of you just for looking at this abstract representation of him. Which is silly of course, it's barely even impressionistic...but yet...
"Archaon, Chaos God of Chaos Undivided and the Apocalypse. One who had brought the end to a distant reality and came to ours having seen and learned truths of the warp that should be beyond knowledge or comprehension. Whatever he is now, his presence de-stabilises the warp, and brings forth things that never were." She said, the very mention of his name making something unpleasant crawl up your spine with a raptaptap, cold, wet, and crawling with far too many legs like some icy centipede.
"Others may perhaps have greater numbers than his apocalypse crusade, some have greater warriors. But Archaon means to end all things." She said gravely.
Kid Win though, seemed largely unaffected by the presence of Archaon's artistic representation and turned towards the Chaplain with a hand raised. "Hold on, "end the world" who does that? Don't people usually want to conquer it?"
"Archaon believes that only in the end can a new, better beginning come about. The Starchildren believe there will be no such beginning should he get his end."
"Whether ragnarok is a cycle, or a finale?" You asked.
"I suppose."
"But well...I like these iterations of reality even if I want them to change. We don't have to destroy everything for something better to arise."
"And that's as fine a reason as any to oppose him, Lord Skjoldr." She responded, placing a hand on your shoulder bigger than your head before she pulled it back.
"Okay so...omnicidal deities are a thing I guess? I've been trying to wrap my head around this Warp stuff since the Eldar came and...it still don't click with me." Kid Win sighed, shaking his head and then folding his arms before he took a look over at Samus who gave him a shrug in response.
"Well, what do you think of us so far?" You asked, sensing that the conversation had largely come to an end.
She took less than a second to answer, as if she already knew you were going to ask this at some point. "Though you are not Astartes or of the chapter, I would be proud to call you my siblings in battle." She said with the highest, most gentle praise she could offer from her station.
"You are brave, certainly far more so than could ever be asked of people your age. And yours is a might I don't think I have seen before, perhaps outside of the Primarchs. What you are? I cannot say. But we will watch you closely, and see what you mean for the future of our species." She offered a small bow and a nod as you got a message from back at the Starsetter base.
HeroYap
Victoria Dallon: Hey are you people up for visiting the Starvane Mall at Khalisti?
Arne Eriksen Skjoldr: Oh, sure I guess? We're in the middle of something with the Astartes though.
Victoria Dallon: Yeah but tbh, do you really have to do that at Christmas eve?
Samus Eabha Aran: we are learning a lot though you know??
Sevrin Edgar Agard: Hrm, I suppose. I am not a man well known for shopping though.
Agafya Elenovna Sokolova: You don't understand money honey...*wink*
Sevrin Edgar Agard: Says the woman who spent two thousand dollars on this "gacha"!
Agafya Elenovna Skolova: ...He was hot *sigh*
Sevrin Edgar Agard: He is polygons and binary code!
Arne Eriksen Skjoldr: Uhhhh...
Victoria Dallon: Tbh, I don't blame aggie for spending that much money to roll Tao Xueliang. He is a fiiiiine man.
Chris Maverick: Wait, that's what you spent your money on? These Primal Earth gambling simulators are evil! Eeeeeeeeeevil!
Blackmoth: You have thousands of dollars to blow on video games?
Arne Eriksen Skjoldr: I...sure let's go before this conversation gets any dumber.
Victoria Dallon: Great, I'll be at the IHOP
Arne Eriksen Skjoldr: Why is it the "international" house of pancakes?
Samus Eabha Aran: ...branding???
Alice Dahl: Look, you need the blue crystals to get the five stars to come home, i stg you have soooo much to learn about how to gacha
Arne Eriksen Skjoldr: I'm very lost...
"Oh...uh, sorry to cut this short. It's a holiday and we have some friends who'd like to hang out. Or...around...I think here hanging out means spending time with people?" You said, tensing a bit as she looked over you.
"Of course. We have a consulate in this city of Paragons in any case, should you need to contact us, it should be simple to find us. But do enjoy this "mass of christ". We have Sanguinalia to attend to ourselves." She said, giving you a small wave as you started to filter away from the chapel, taking a few glances towards the Techpriests who were outside when you felt them staring at you. Creepy, mechanical, but not soulless; chattering to each other in an incredibly information dense mechanical tongue of chimes and data pings.
A priest was also nearby, seeming to be leading a procession of more normal humans who had returned from an expedition outside, leading the march on a hymn of praise to the trinity for giving them another chance. But perhaps the most disconcerting thing were the fact that they built camera drones around skulls. That was...even if they were mechanical replicas of skulls it seemed a bit macabre to you, and you pushed one of the skull probes away when it got up in your face, Samus giving it an outright shove to send it flying back towards a Techpriest who caught it in hand and stared at her.
"Do you handle all machinery so roughly, Lady Aran? Or do you reserve such ruffian behaviour towards the blessed technology that reminds you of your mortality?" The red robed tech priest growled before looking at their skull probe and chattering to it to tell it that she didn't mean to offend...she just didn't understand.
Samus frowned beneath her helmet and offered a small bow. "I'm sorry, I just thought that it was getting too close to my...boyfriend." She said, looking to you as you nodded to her.
"It's my fault, sorry." You said, not wanting to let her start blaming herself again.
"Apologies accepted, though perhaps you would do well to learn the way of the Machine God some day, so that your lapses in care for the sacred arts are not repeated." The Techpriest said before taking their machine and leaving.
"...Man these people are weird." Chris murmured.
"Magical thinking applied to technology isn't that uncommon..." Eudaimonica countered.
"Hrm, do you suppose we will have Imperials at the mall?" Agafya asked.
"Oh they already have agents monitoring the populace gathering data." You said, pulling up the relevant data and making a flattened expression at the sound of Sokolova's sigh.
"Of course."
...
The mall was of course, big, with people maintaining pretty respectful distance from each other. The usual bonanza of consumerism surrounding you on all sides as you strode in wearing more suitable winter clothing. Jackets, scarves, hats and the like coded to your colour preferences. Honestly you could have gone in normal clothes; the temperatures outside were well above anything you'd genuinely consider even slightly uncomfortable; but it would make you stick out more than your hair and eye colour already did.
Victoria waved you over, sitting with Gallant as the latter was trying to compare menus from his native IHOP to the one here; as if doing so would lead him to some grand revelation about the truth of the universe...or pancakes.
She was smartly dressed in white with long stockings and boots, a scarf around her neck and ear warmers on her...ears, Dean Stansfield wearing a beanie, a great coat and pretty thick looking trousers to boot while Samus shook hands with Victoria.
You briefly took notice of a procession of Martian techpriests going around and cataloguing everything they saw, the rather offput security guard staring at them while they recorded their data; looking intently at one of the techpriests staring at a person of seemingly northern european stock and pointing an accusatory finger at him.
"You are not what you seem. Your guise may fool these novices in the arts of the machine, But I see you for what you are through mine eyes of steel." The Adeptus Mechanicus explorator declared.
"...I have no idea what you are talking about." The man said, tall, blonde, blue-eyed, strong-jawed...you looked more closely at him, something was off.
"Sir, this man has a right to be here you can't just bother him on a suspicion." The security guard said, clearing their throat while the sterile light of the food court beamed down on marble floors and granite walls, sculptures and fountains busy at work to provide some ambience while misplaced tropical flora swayed in the temperature controlled air.
Actions:
[]: Investigate the man
[]: This is the city of heroes, someone will take care of it, it's time to relax and have pancakes
[]: Ping the techpriests about why they're so suspicious.
[]: Notify any local capes who might be able to handle it
[]: Have Eudaimonica use one of her demons to have a look.
[]: Indirectly investigate him through tech scans, see what his digital footprint is like
[]: Write in
