The Fall of the Eldar happened in the 25th millenium, and the warpstorms triggered by that are the reason that the Age of Strife happened at all. so there was five thousand years or so, between the Fall and the rise of the Imperium of Man, and the Great Crusade. and ANOTHER few thousand years before The Beast Arises.
Slaanesh was born a mere few centuries before the Great Crusade started in M30, and Slaanesh's birth caused the Fall of the Eldar. Therefore, the Fall of the Eldar in specific could not have been the cause of the Warp Storms that triggered the Age of Strife.
However, Slaanesh's birth pangs reverberated through the Warp, and therefore through Time, because time is not linear in the Warp. This is what caused the breaking of the ritual that empowered the Emperor, which allowed human Psykers to be born once more. Those birth pangs also caused Warp Storms as an additional side effect.
Those two things, combined with the rebellion of the Men of Iron (Why yes, electric sheep do dream, damn Void Dragon), are what started the Age of Strife.
Slaanesh's birth is what led to the storms subsiding enough that Warp travel was possible once more, thereby ending the Age of Strife. The Eldar, with the use of the Webway, could likely ignore it, and their Psychomatons could easily still assassinate those Warbosses that became too powerful.
As a result, it only takes a few centuries to go from a 'struggles to conquer a planet' level Warboss to one on par with Gorro or Ullanor. The Beast is a likely extension of this, only requiring an additional century or so of negligence on the part of anybody trying to play caretaker.
Slaanesh was born a mere few centuries before the Great Crusade started in M30, and Slaanesh's birth caused the Fall of the Eldar. Therefore, the Fall of the Eldar in specific could not have been the cause of the Warp Storms that triggered the Age of Strife.
I would really like this clarified. Granted, most of my lore knowledge comes from either TTS Device, or various lore videos on YouTube, so I'm willing to admit error here.
I would much rather let the Abyssals be their own independent Warp faction, not cludged up under the generic banner of Chaos. There is far more to the Warp than the Big Four, and the Abyssals does not fit under any of their main themes. Abyssals are the revived souls of the Betrayed, the Lost, and the Damned who have returned to avenge their death and the death of their crews with cold, burning, and merciless fury and spite. That does not really fit under Khorne, who is all mindless battle-lust and bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. They're more like murderous and vengeful-hungry ghost of a jilted lover than bloodthirsty and war-hungry ghosts of a battle addict.
If anything, I would want the Abyssals to represent the cold and heartless fury of the void-damned over Chaos, powered up by the countless quintillions of human souls and millennia of fear and superstition surrounding the void. Where each Abyssal shipgirl leech off of the image and superstition surrounding the Emperor's Will to help form their war-spirit - but instead of the righteous fury of the pious, they are the coldhearted and merciless fury of the lost and the betrayed. Where each Abyssal shipgirl relentlessly pursue their personal vendetta against whoever has damned them, and damn the consequences - be it the Imperium or a single planet, Mankind or xenos, the Loyalists or the Traitors, the pious or the apostate. Where Abyssals form individual and independent Abyssal Fleets out of mutual respect, need of protection and logistics, and shared hatred, and carve out their own void fiefdoms in the galaxy to help feed and supply their vengeful crusades. And the galaxy will have to learn how to deal with this new Warp entities.
That, I think, is far more interesting choice than going "lol Chaos Abyssals."
I think there's a misunderstanding here. Granted, I was being pretty laconic in my last post, so it was to be expected, I suppose.
I'm not saying any kind of "Abyssal" (assuming they are a thing in-story) would automatically be the standard servant of the Ruinous Powers of the classic 40k lore or even demonships. I'm saying that the mechanism that brings Abyssals into being - stuff like hate, fear, resentment, etc having enough metaphysical weight to create a brand new being - is very similar to how warp beings (which, if not Emperor-aligned, are usually called Chaos Demons regardless of their allegiance to any of the four chaos gods) come into being. I generally don't believe in redundancy in crossovers - if two mechanisms from two different settings mirror each other, then they are probably expressions of the same thing. As such, Abyssals would be malignant warp beings and therefore "chaos demons" by any 40k standard definition - which doesn't mean they have to act the same as ordinary chaos demons, mind you.
And considering the 40k setting is already filled to the brim with chaos "ghost ships", they could very well be in-story precedent for the presence of abyssals in-setting.
I'm not saying any kind of "Abyssal" (assuming they are a thing in-story) would automatically be the standard servant of the Ruinous Powers of the classic 40k lore or even demonships. I'm saying that the mechanism that brings Abyssals into being - stuff like hate, fear, resentment, etc having enough metaphysical weight to create a brand new being - is very similar to how warp beings (which, if not Emperor-aligned, are usually called Chaos Demons regardless of their allegiance to any of the four chaos gods) come into being. I generally don't believe in redundancy in crossovers - if two mechanisms from two different settings mirror each other, then they are probably expressions of the same thing. As such, Abyssals would be malignant warp beings and therefore "chaos demons" by any 40k standard definition - which doesn't mean they have to act the same as ordinary chaos demons, mind you.
I'd like to point out that the chaos gods would hijack the Abyssals and use them to further their goals. Any faction that goes "big" in 40k typically have to worry about chaos (unless your the orks) and unless tzeetch missed this completely than you can expect feelers from the dark gods to worm themselves amongst the abyssal ranks.
This is, of course, assuming the Tzeetch saw His Will coming. Personally, I think he did, but was so delighted about her that he allowed her to bitchslap the 13th black crusade. Tzeetch is the kind of guy that will always change the plan. In fact, I bet he doesn't really "plan" but make and break plans at the same time. The only time I think he thought up a plan and followed through was during the Horus Heresy, and even than I bet he threw in a bunch of revisions into it.
Tzeentch is the embodiment of the concept "It is impossible from the outside to determine what was carefully laid planning, and the seizure of a belatedly-realized opportunity". Most of his "plans" are so outrageously, hilariously convoluted, there's absolutely no way he worked them out ahead of time. The mollusc isn't -planning-, he's the supreme opportunist, who does shit for the lulz.
Or at least, he would be, if he were limited to the usual four dimensions of spacetime. As he's a chaos god, and the warp tends to take the laws of physics as amusingly quaint notions.....
I don;t know why I haven't read this fic before hand however I am kicking myself over that fact, it's damn good, hit's a couple of spots I don't know needed hitting.
Well, this took a bit longer than anticipated. Enjoy.
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A retinue. She was getting a retinue.
Will rolled the word around in her head, trying to get used to it. Retinues were a thing people had. They were like ship escorts, but for people. And they weren't for just any regular person, but the important ones, like how important ships had their own escorts to guard them. The kind of people to have retinues were those upon whom the fates of millions if not billions depended upon, and whose deaths would have far reaching consequences for all beneath them.
But Will was a ship, even if she was just shaped like a person at the moment. She had thought that she didn't need an escort. Ships of her class generally didn't need them when acting alone, the reason being that anything that drew close enough to threaten her was well within range of her powerful Lance batteries, which were more than capable of destroying all but the most stubborn of targets with single broadsides. It was typically only in great battlefleets when she had companion ships, which she could support from afar with pinpoint strikes from her Lances. In that way, an Apocalypse's existence was lonely.
Will wiggled further into the plush sofa of her quarters, the feelings of apprehensiveness ever persistent. Despite being a ship, she was shaped like a person now though. And as hard as it was to get used to, being human was something she now simply was. She was important now it seemed, important enough to draw the attention of a Lord Inquisitor, and important people like Inquisitors kept retinues. All of her past Admirals and Captains had often had them, bodyguards and crewmen whose duties varied from serving their lord to protecting them with their lives. Her Admiral probably had one, handpicked personnel he chose to watch his back, ready to lay down their lives for him.
She took a deep breath, trying to still the butterflies in her stomach. Her Fairies had reported no avian creatures wandering her storage compartments despite her insistence otherwise, although they had reported that there was far too much empty space in said compartments and that they would need further resupply. So why was she so nervous? Perhaps it was the sheer novelty of it all. Being alive and human, when scarcely a day ago she had been... neither. It probably wasn't going to be all bad, was it?
A knock on the double doors to her quarters caused the apparently nonexistent butterflies in her stomach to jump. "C-come in," she called out.
Commander Matoi strode in through the open door, closing it behind her. Will recognized her as being one of the Legacy's middle-ranking officers, although Will wasn't quite sure where her duties lay. "Greetings, my lady," the woman said to her with a bow. "How are you?"
"I… am well, I suppose," Will answered. "Although I'm a little unsettled."
"That's completely understandable I think, after being interrogated by an Inquisitor." The Commander strode over to Will, sitting opposite of her on the wraparound sofa. "So, what have you been doing for the last few hours?"
"Not much," Will shook her head. "I've been too nervous to even think straight. Just wondering what's going to happen."
"To you?"
Will nodded.
"Well, you aren't being arrested for heresy or treason, so you probably don't have anything to worry about," Matoi replied. "Well anyways, onto the important matters." Matoi said with a smile as she placed the pair of dataslates she had been carrying onto the holotable, setting them side by side and pushing them across the table to Will. "As the first order of business, the Lord Admiral wants you to provide your current combat readiness. His words, not mine. Not quite sure why you need all these forms though, to be honest."
Will picked up the slate nearest to her. It made sense to Will, for the Captain of a new addition to a fleet to apprise their superiors of the state of their vessel. It's crew complement, fuel levels, amounts of supplies like water and victuals and the like. Of course that role would fall upon her, considering her current states of her own being. Will noted the requisite forms presented on the display in crisp clarity, The model of dataslate clearly superior to the ones her own officers were familiar with. It lacked the wide bezel and integral keyboard, so the device was presumably a new model, or at least a model unique to the sector.
She tapped the screen and was pleasantly surprised by the responsiveness and intuitiveness of the display. With a swipe of her finger, the form disappeared and another replaced it. She repeated the motion, showing more and more forms in new pages of the display. Will looked over to the other slate, and it dawned on her just how much paperwork she had on her hands. The Departmento Munitorum was still fond of forms and paperwork it seemed, whether they took the form of paper, fennel or dataslate.
"This is a lot," Will finally said.
"Yeah, I just sort of brought everything. A lot of those forms probably won't apply to you, since it doesn't seem you've got a command or a ship of your own." A beat passed in silence. "Unless you do?"
Will set the slate back down on the table. "What has the Lord Admiral told you about me?" She asked.
"The Vice Admiral actually, and the basics," she replied. "Before von Saeger foisted me upon you, all I knew was that you're some kind of specialist with some sort of archeotech gear that let you somehow attack the Planet Killer head on."
"Archeotech?"
Matoi sighed. "I'm starting to suspect my earlier assumptions were poor. The Vice Admiral wasn't exactly forthcoming with details when he delegated this to me."
Will nodded. Might as well get this out of the way, she decided. "Well, I'm a battleship."
Matoi blinked. "Pardon?"
"A battleship," she repeated.
"As in the spacefaring kind?"
"That was what one of the Inquisitors said too."
"I… What?"
"Commander, I am honestly as confused by all of this as you are," Will said with a shake of her head. "Yesterday, I kind of just woke up, out there in the void." she gestured off to the side, past a wall of the quarters and towards the outside of the ship. "One moment I was awake, aware, alive, and the next I was being bombarded by the Despoiler's flagship."
Matoi was briefly lost in thought for a second. "Okay," she said flatly. "So you're a spaceship."
"Yes."
"And you're also a person."
Will nodded.
"Are you insane?"
"One of the Inquisitors thought I might be," Will replied with a shake of her head. "For what it's worth, I don't think I am."
Matoi opened her mouth, only to close it a moment later. "Right," she said. "This is by far the strangest interaction I've had in my service career so far, and I'm stationed at the Cadian Gate, the largest weirdness magnet in the segmentum."
Will opened her mouth but quickly closed it, not sure how to reply, or to prove she was speaking the truth. She thought about deploying her rigging like she had done earlier before the conclave, but she didn't want to damage her quarters if she bumped into something. But she did have another idea. "I can show you one of my crew if you don't believe me," she said.
"Crew? What do you mean?"
"I have a crew," Will said. "Well, of a sort. They're not people, but they seem to fill the role my crew used to."
"I see," Matoi spoke. "Can you show me?"
"Certainly." One of her Bridge officers took that as their cue to disembark, and she felt it pushing at the edge of her jacket. She unbuttoned her topmost button, reaching into her blouse to deftly extract the Fairy from her cleavage before unbuttoning her coat. There in her palm stood one of her officers, looking up with its beady eyes to meet her downward gaze. "Hey," it spoke.
"Hey there." Will set the creature down, its assignment regarding her forms already given by her Captain Fairy. "So, will you need a moment, Commander?" She asked.
Will had expected the same shocked expression that had adorned her Admiral's face, but the Commander's reaction seemed… nonplussed? At least she seemed to be handling it better than her Admiral and the Vice Admiral had.
"He's cute," Matoi suddenly said to Will's surprise, the other woman leaning down to pat the creature on its head.
"Hey! Hey!"
"Oh, sorry," Matoi pulled her hand back at the Fairy's shouts of alarm. "Apologies, of course you'd technically outrank me."
"Commander?" Will asked. "Wait, you can understand it?"
"Oh?" Matoi looked up at her, away from the glaring Officer Fairy. "Oh, no no, I just saw its insignia," she said with a wave of her hand. "Respect and etiquette and all that."
"Oh, okay. But yeah, he's one of my Fairies. Like I said, they act as my crew it seems."
"Dare I ask how many of them do you have?"
"Lots, actually," Will said. "About as many as a battleship of my class."
"And how many is that?"
"Hey! Hey!"
"Well according to him, about two hundred thousand give or take?"
The other woman only nodded silently. "Well, those forms are starting to make a little more sense." She watched the Fairly clamber its way onto one of the dataslates, the tiny creature studying the strange device beneath its feet. "Well, I'll try to provide any help that I can, although I suspect your Second Officer might be more aware of your situation report."
"Thank you. And yeah, I might need some help. Although, I would like some company as well."
"Certainly. My orders for the moment are to basically help you fill out paperwork. Not a fan of the stuff, but it gets me off the Bridge at least."
"Oh. Are you in trouble?"
"I don't think so," Matoi spoke with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Although Kevil is going to have the Vice Admiral breathing down his neck for the foreseeable future."
"I see."
"Yeah. Anyways," Matoi started, reclining on the sofa, "Since you've delegated some responsibility there," she gestured to the Fairy on the table, "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"
Will nodded. "I suppose the Lord Admiral wants to know that too?"
"What do you think?" She answered with a smile.
"Yeah," Will sighed. "Well, I'm not sure where to begin."
"The start is always a good place."
The start. Her earliest memories were… dim. Yeah, dim was the right word. Formless colors and shapes, that quickly sharpened to clarity as her form and being came into, well, being. Her first clear memories were of a shipyard, high above the surface of Mars in the Ring of Iron. A battleship identical to herself in a berthing next to hers, just one of her two identical sisters. On her opposite side, an even larger and more ornate vessel than herself was being laid down. Over her time in the yard, that ship would resolve itself into the resplendent golden battle barge that would come to serve as her Emperor's own flagship, the Bucephalus. And if she thought about it, hers as well.
"I was laid down in the Ring of Iron," Will began. "I was there for a while. There were others like me too."
A beat as the other woman seemed to process her words. "Others like you?" The woman asked with a raised eyebrow, seemingly perplexed.
"My sisters," Will explained. "Might and Word, my sisters. There were certainly older vessels in the Navy, but I was amongst the first laid down specifically at the behest of the Emperor. We were the first ships purpose built for his Navy."
Matoi was silent, and WIll took that as a cue to keep going. "After I was completed, the Emperor himself came to inspect me and my sisters."
"The Emperor? Really?"
"Yeah." Will remembered the day he had set foot upon her deck, surrounded by his loyal Custodians and retainers. The Master of Mankind, her Emperor had seemed lost in thought at first, having just come from visiting his own flagship. No, distracted might have been a better word to describe his state of being. But upon greeting her first Captain his expression had warmed and focused. "He seemed proud of me, of my sisters. We accomplished a lot, in those early years. And then I…" Will trailed off, suddenly remembering a shameful portion of her past.
"Will?"
"I'm fine," she lied. "I just... remembered something that I wish I could forget."
"I won't pry."
"Thank you."
A beat passed in silence before either of them spoke. "What about after?" Matoi eventually asked.
"After?"
"After."
"I've spent most of my existence in the Solar System, above or near Holy Terra. There were a few interesting moments, like the one time xenos actually managed to reach Terra. That's how my sister got her nickname, from ramming one of their warships into the sun." Will seemingly remembered how Might and her crew had been proud of that particular accomplishment, embracing the nickname 'Sun-Diver'. "Once in a millennia or so I'd be seconded to another fleet, if they needed additional firepower or reinforcement. That's how I wound up in the Armageddon Sector. Their battlefleet had lost a lot of their ships to the Orks, and so I was sent to plug holes in their defenses."
"Interesting." The Commander opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by loud knocking on the door to the room.
Will made to get up, but Matoi beat her to it. "Don't worry, I'll get it Will."
Will nodded in acknowledgement, briefly shifting her focus to the Fairy standing atop the glass of the dataslate. It looked down at the glass, close enough to see the individual pixels of the screen. "Hey," it said, looking up at her.
"Yeah, they've come a long way since parchment and fennel."
"Hey."
"I know you've got quite a lot to do, so you'll probably need a few extra hands." On command, a few more of her bridge crew filed out of her coat cuff, marching over to join their comrade in labor.
"Oh, my Lord, welcome!" Said Matoi over by the door. Will looked up just in time to see the newcomers file into the room.
There were three of them, and WIll immediately recognized them all for what they were. The first was adorned in crimson red robes patterned in the style of the Mechanicus, their hood up and obscuring their face. but judging from the buxom nature of the first's chest, they were definitely female and almost as tall as she was.
The second was also clearly a woman, albeit shorter. She was a Sororitas, a Sister of Battle, and judging from the armor's paintwork, a member of the same group of Sororitas underneath the command of the Lady Inquisitor. She wore a suit of polished and gleaming bone white power armor, a deep black cloak flowing behind her as she walked with her helmet under her arm. If Will focused, she could just barely make out the hiss of her armor as she walked. But the third and final newcomer towering over the others…
Was an Astartes. And from the power armor and snarling wolf head on the pauldron, a Space Wolf like those before. He was massive, a huge slab of blue-gray armor that flowed into the room on the hiss of servomotors and the clanking of steel boots. Will's gaze was drawn to his face, and the word handsome instantly came to mind. A face that almost seemed polished and chiseled, framed by a mess of braided and fiery red hair.
Will stood from her seat, resisting the urge to bow. Technically, weren't they supposed to bow? Did Astartes bow? She couldn't quite recall at that moment if they did. Instead she walked over to stand next to Matoi. And after a brief moment, a "Hello," was what she managed to finally say.
"My lady," the Sororitas spoke, "It is an honor to stand here today. I am Sister Superior Emilia Alrosa, of the Order of the Sacred Rose. Lady Strasbourg has gracefully permitted me to accompany you." The woman gave a curt bow as Will considered her words. It was a fancy way of saying that the Lady Inquisitor had sent the Battle Sister to keep an eye on her, but Will kept that to herself. "I hope you permit me to accompany you."
Before she could respond to Emilia, the Techpriestess interjected. "And I am Marcellia, one of Lady Sorrik's attendants. She has assigned me to your care, should you need me."
Will gave a curt bow of her own two the two women. "Thank you. I feel it is I that is in your care though."
"And now that the lassies have had their say," the Astartes spoke with a grin and a voice filled with mirth, I'll go ahead and introduce myself." He strode over to her, with every bit the swiftness that the Great Wolf had shown, and before Will could properly react he had scooped one of her gloved hands up with his own. "The name's Lukas, my fair lady," he said, leaning down and bringing her hand up to plant a kiss on the back of it. "And it is a pleasure to meet you."
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2.9k words. Technically this is the first half of a larger chapter, but due to the fact that I have a literal hurricane bearing down on me and that I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again, I've decided to push this out the door. Hopefully it'll stir some discussion while I'm gone due to hurricane shenanigans.
Depends on where they are in the timeline; the Cadian Guard are actually the default Imperial Guard regiment in the 41st millennium, though the majority of such probably aren't actually entirely Cadian thanks to replacing casualties with local recruits and the fact that all non-unique Guard regiments don Cadian-style gear by default.
But still, 1000 men is way too small for a 41st millennium Cadian regiment.
Now, 42nd millennium on the other hand? Yeah, 1000 Cadians in a regiment is entirely plausible then. That said; they'd probably still have a bunch of other, non-Cadian guardsmen with the Cadians serving as a core of elite shock troops, as the majority of the Cadian Guard went down with Cadia and any survivors were basically split up across the entire Imperial Guard in the hopes of their skills spreading through osmosis.
As a sort of special honor guard regiment though, 1000 Cadians would actually be considered pretty extravagant in the 42nd millennium.
... they sent the space wolf with a reputation for sleeping around and flirting. *to be part of a retinue for a hot battleship ship girl. and said retinue consists of lukas, a sororitas, and a buxom techpriest*. [sarcasm activated] i see NO WAY that this could end badly. [sarcasm deactivated].
i am looking forward to more.
... they sent the space wolf with a reputation for sleeping around and flirting. *to be part of a retinue for a hot battleship ship girl. and said retinue consists of lukas, a sororitas, and a buxom techpriest*. [sarcasm activated] i see NO WAY that this could end badly. [sarcasm deactivated].
i am looking forward to more.
Generally, IG regiments can be anything from a few hundred to around about a hundred thousand in personnel strength. Most however seem to be between the size of a medium brigade to a small division (ie: between 3,000 and 10,000 men).
Honestly I'm more inclined to believe that Lukas, as per his Trickster title, chases everything with a skirt the lulz rather than because he is actually a shameless manwhore.
It makes more sense than the Wolf Wolves of Wolfworld randomly being extra super special wolf snowflakes and somehow retaining their sex drive for no reason.
Although I guess it might just be because someone at GW wanted to make a 'horndog' pun. Which would be acceptable.
