Into that Vast and Unrelenting Darkness (40K Xeno Civilization Quest)

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My theory is he is a composite god created from the remnant of ancient human gods and myths. He is the enemy of humanity because humanity turned its back on him and honestly, largely purged itself of anything truly admirable besides from sheer tenacity.
 
[X] Plan: Dig Deeper
-[X] Brixis
--[X] Maintenance A-I094
--[X] LAB M-01W
--[X] Rhetoric: We're working to exorcise the virus from the rest of the station, but how was Marjak able to escape infection? Could they help save any other Autonites on the station, which would benefit the Poliad by giving them more help.
-[X] Algoa
--[X] Lab E-02U
--[X] Lab P-02F
-[X] Kaziin
--[X] They Perform an Exorcism

[X] Plan: KRN
 
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[X] Plan: KRN
- [X] Brixis
-- [X] Archive ON-73
-- [X] Maintenance A-I094
-- [X] Rhetoric: Request to negotiate with the Poliad via intercom. The fact that some of the away team are organic, and most aren't Autonites, is unusual enough to warrant the legitimate government's input before execution of Vlahk.DIE.
- [X] Algoa
-- [X] Lab E-02U
-- [X] Lab P-02F
- [X] Kaziin
-- [X] Destroy It Utterly: It must be destroyed forever. It cannot be left to exist in any form, in any cycle. The price will be painful, but the universe must be protected from its evil, so that it can harm no one ever again, machine or organic.
 
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[X] Plan: More Information
-[X] Brixis
--[X] SECURITY NRT310-OOM
--[X] LAB M-01W
--[X] Rhetoric: Ask Marjak how long has it been since she received any order from the Poliad. Isn't it worrying how much time it has passed?
-[X] Algoa
--[X] Lab E-02U
--[X] Lab F-02FBXIS
-[X] Kaziin
--[X] They Perform an Exorcism
 
Galaxies of Darkness Faction Primer: The Directorate​

Once, a ferretlike race born on a particularly trash-covered world in a Junk Galaxy was set for extermination by the Imperium. This is a story that has been told countless times. The detail might be different, but they were merely permutations of the same tale. However, this time was different. Unlike the Tau, they were not saved by a freak Warp Storm. In point of fact, the Imperials emerged from a Warp Storm to begin with, suggesting that this might have been a case of a stable time loop. The Salamanders led the surviving Crusade forces that emerged to the Tekket's homeworld, Teklia, where the extant nations and their peoples were ravaged, the Astartes, or Destroyers as the Tekket would come to call them, engaged in sabotage of key assets up to and including commandeering their nuclear arsenal and using it against their cities, while the baseline humans and Mechanicus adepts, who would be referred to as Servile Ones and Red Priests for quite some time, engaged in more general butchery, the latter dissecting and vivisecting Tekket to engineer plagues and improve their targeting algorithms, doing much the same to any technology the Tekket possessed.

Even with the advent of BlokTek, hyper-modular technology adapted from children's toys, of all things, the physical advantages of even basic human troops and the weapons they wielded were too great, and in another world that might have been the end of it. However, this was not merely a Junk World. In their eagerness to slay the Tekket to the last, the humans infringed upon the resting place of a group of C'Tan, who had merely been imprisoned rather than shattered by the Silent King, as they lacked the malice towards living beings of, say, the Nightbringer or Void Dragon. The Tekket, in their desperation to find some means of stopping their imminent extinction, had excavated what would much later be identified as a Necron facility. The God-Machines turned back the humans, annihilating their forces in the system and removing them from the small galaxy on the fringes of known space the Tekket evolved in. Three of them remained on the surface while the others returned to their prison, and came to be worshipped as gods by the Tekket. Perhaps amused, perhaps fond of the diminutive mammals, they taught the Tekket the use of living metal and lifeforce, similar but distinct from the use of the Warp, something the God-Machines could feed on rather than be harmed by.

The Tekket would incorporate a mixture of God-Machine technology, Lifeforce-enabled spiritualism for their folklore gods and spirits in general, Machine-Spirits in particular, hyper-modular technology, and nuclear power in their efforts, alongside an idealism unmatched even by the Tau in their founding of the Directorate. That was not to say their near-genocide had not left scars. As individuals, they were as varied as humans, but as a race they became extremely cautious, which only worsened as they encountered destroyed civilization after destroyed civilization and accidentally animated an entire mountain that they barely managed to injure enough to put back to sleep.

Their earliest encounter with another race in space was when their ships stumbled across some form of voidborne organism akin to the Void Whale colonized by the Orks, where they would retrieve a Grot by the name of Stizlak, who they would free from Gork and Mork, admittedly mostly because Gork wasn't interested in fighting over a single Grot from an immature WAAGH and Lifeforce was beefing up their mystical traditions, making the first of the orange Hobbgrots, who eventually became a significant demographic once the issue of a lacking Waagh! Field was worked around. The second was with the Autonites, a race of machines corrupted by an artifact of unknown origin which created something akin to Scrapcode, which they termed the Logic Virus. While the Tekket freed their vessels from it's grasp, they were reticent to attempt the same on the major stronghold of Autonites, the CPUMoon, for over a century, which angered the Autonites and significantly delayed their later integration.

The third major encounter they had was with the Khimer, a brain-like race who spoke with concepts originally, who had suffered a near-miss with the Tyranids via vanguard genestealers(as this was well before the Tyranids emerged from the Rim) growing tired of the wait and crafting their supposed gods themselves, which led to a civil war with most of the modern Khimer being supersoldier hybrids of original Khimer and Tyranid genestealers, more or less immunizing them to Tyranids, further boosted with Power Gems, soulstone-esque items that used spiritual power to bolster equipment, and turned the water world into a desert as the Tyranids drank most of it before the Khimer managed to use experimental technology to petrify their ships, though a significant quantity of the genestealers escaped. The Khimer kidnapped a Tekket engineer, Ryth, who accidentally set off all of their alarms in his efforts to escape, leading the Khimer to destroy most of their own infrastructure and attempt to destroy the petrified bioship the Directorate was examining at the time, though Ryth was able to talk the Khimer down, and the Directorate began aiding in their planet's recovery.

The fourth encounter, and the one where the Tekket properly encountered some of the major factions of the universe was the battle of Yr Albain, where the Tekket found Chaos and Imperial forces fighting each other even as they both deployed forces to exterminate the Exodites on Yr Albain below them. Through the clever tactics of the captain of their warship, a Hobbgrot known as Wurf, including one which supercharged the Soul Circuit to the point of bringing a number of Eldar back to life as the Wyld Hunt and reawakening a cruise ship from the pre-Slaanesh era, they were able to wipe or capture both forces, which was also their first major exposure to Chaos. Via a favor called in by an Exodite, they also came into contact with the Dark Eldar for the first time, the Winterspite Cabal. In the aftermath, the Directorate brought the latter's flagship to life, which quickly took control of the Cabal. More relevantly to the galactic stage and the wider Eldar race, they pumped a tremendous amount of Lifeforce into the planet in an effort to accelerate it's recovery, raising an Eldar goddess of wilderness and magic by accident, a patron that has saved many Exodite worlds which in turn weakened Slaanesh' hold on their race, something which the Eldar are eternally grateful for, and Slaanesh is eternally holding a grudge against them. The Exodites, in turn, explained the dangers of Chaos to the Tekket, which would prove useful in containing their new prisoners.

The Directorate is a varied bunch that nonetheless fit together well, not unlike their emblematic BlokTek. They have a huge pantheon, and are inherently polytheistic as a society, similar to the Holy Alliance, and possess a similar number of priesthoods, though they mostly work together well. They also have a number of 'borrowed' gods, including those of any pantheon they absorb, such as the Waagh Spirits of the Hobbgrots. This includes a priesthood for what appears to be a surviving(for a given value of surviving) Old One, which has drawn Lizardman interest, and they have a number of C'Tan viewed as patrons both by the Directorate itself and by outside factions. YALDABOATH, the C'Tan possessed of mastery over Time, makes many particularly wary. Additionally, they believe they can construct gods or craft a body for a true god that already exists, and have been steadily making progress on both fronts. The strongest of their 'proper' gods is the Dancer, a goddess of art and beauty, and a patron of such, who is often derided by the forces of Chaos as 'Slaanesh gone soft' as she so easily slots into that conceptual space that she can block Slaanesh' hold on Eldar entirely in her places of power. The Directorate also has a huge number of Spirits, as the Tekket have a habit of jamming Lifeforce into just about everything that isn't actively hostile. From the Vita of Life, Currents, Schools, and Coral, to the art spirits the Muses were constructed to embody, and of course the Machine-Spirits. Not to mention the Elementals, Cthonic spirits who guard them against the touch of Nagash, and so on.

As for the Materium-based denizens, there are of course the Tekket, the original founders of the Directorate. A race strongly suspected to have evolved from ferrets, they are smaller than even the Gretchin of immature WAAGHs, and have to use technological aids to wield powerful weapons, even with C'Tan technology backing them up. They are intelligent, creative, and inquisitive, though many glance twice at their policies of allowing their children to experiment with nuclear technology, biotech, and simple sorcerous texts. It seems to have largely worked for them.

The Hobbgrots are a curious race to many, being Orkoids that have left behind their roots by being severed from the Orks, which has led to their blue coloration. They were initially, despite some efforts otherwise, largely pigeoholed into fighting like their larger cousins, though that changed with time. They have engineers, priests, sorcerers, musicians, Kart racers, and a strong focus on wildlife, inherited from their patriarch, Stizlak. Unlike Orks, Hobbgrots do not gain size with age or combat after reaching roughly human size, but they do continue to accumulate power and intelligence. Orks are viewed poorly by their society, as are their gods, though Orkoids freed by the Rite of Pacification are generally given a pass if they prove willing to learn.

Muses and many of their more developed Machine-Spirits are viewed as full citizens, to the point it is not unheard of for them to captain starships. The Muses are definitely one of the strongest blocs in their society, partially as a consequence of the Dancer's influence being encouraged to help make their Exodite allies comfortable, and partially because their nature allows a huge number of types and overlap with both other types of spirits and other types.

As the Directorate colonized their home, a major galaxy, and a handful of satellite galaxies mostly via integration of existing peoples and slow-burn colonization, they encountered the Epsilon Advent, a race created by humanity to understand Psionics in the Golden Age of Man, long before the Dark Age of Technology, and like the Votann, abused by the Men of Gold. The Advent were shunted into the dark spaces between galaxies, often frequented by horrors of infrareality or creatures of dark matter and tachyons that cared for very little of baryonic entities and understood only slightly more. As the Directorate was far more willing to colonize spaces between planets and stars than perhaps 95% of all baryonic life, intergalactic spaces held no more inherent wariness for them, so they came into contact with the Advent far earlier in their history than most. Of course, this also lead them to come into contact with the Infrareal in far vaster quantities than they'd ever found lurking in the spaces between stars.

Where Psykers were always conduits of the Warp to some degree, and priests relied on a connection to a specific entity of some sort, Psions relied on their mental faculties and their physical endurance when making use of their powers, and while the Tekket struggled with the latter, they had long experience in using computers to augment the former in their TekGrimoires, technological aids in sorcerous pursuits, and had a number of deities who could assist in the creation of similar aids for Psionic purposes, particularly when they were eager students of the Advent's craft, as they had already been dealing with lesser infrareal threats before coming this far into the wider universe, and found the Advent when the human-descended entities aided one of their expeditions. Tapping into the Dreamtime was not unlike a Psyker tapping into the Warp in terms of danger, but with the Advent's expertise, unusually direct aid from the C'Tan who had strongly negative memories of the creatures of Infrareality, and not inconsiderable aid from the Toymaker and his connection to dreams and dreamlands, granted them a new power, one exceedingly well-equipped to bolster Hero Units and to fight the encroachment of reality by the Strangers and their servants. As excessive amounts of lifeforce had effects similar to Daemonworlds already, the side effects on conventional reality were largely accepted without issue, particularly since sleeping unprotected didn't really happen in Directorate territory before this, and trained Espers were some of the best defenses against this vector of infrareal infection.

In many ways, the Directorate and Advent were excellent partners. They former were perfectly willing to listen to the latter in their fields of expertise due to previous struggles against lesser examples of the Furthest Ring's denizens, and where the Directorate built insanely tall, the Advent built wide because the had little choice in the matter due to scarcity of habitable areas and they also had a moneyless society where resources were apportioned out as needed due to scarcity of resources. The Directorate's Living Metal-derived technologies to produce water and other necessities made for much easier living for their new allies, while the Advent had a strong appreciation for beauty, both physical and mental, and so they found the Dancer appealing. Funnily enough, they related much more to the Eldar than the humans they ostensibly descended from in many fields, this was just one more.

Much like the Exodites led to contact with the other branches of the Eldar, they came into contact with several of the other great powers following the Advent. First, they came into contact with the Votann, who weren't as close to their kindred descendants of humanity as, say, the Exodites and Craftworlders, but maintained a strong bond due to mutual interests. The Leagues were very different from the civilizations the Directorate had encountered thus far, being very much interested in the hoarding of wealth, often beyond the point they could ever reasonably spend it, however, they shared an appreciation for mega-engineering, something the Votann excelled at, though the idea of Gem spirits seemed to intrigue them, as did the idea of Stone Spirits being inherently giving. The large variety of unique psychoactive materials the Directorate had access to was also of great interest, and while the mercantile trade was not something they had much experience with, it was not unknown to them, so they weren't at a complete loss when negotiating with the Leagues on the matter.

The Leagues also had a strong bond with their Ironkin, an entire caste of machines treated as part of the Leagues, not unlike the Bond-Machina, and the Ancestor Cores themselves, the Votann were objects of great reverence, as their memories were one of the few things they prized over material wealth, and they were stored in the Cores. Between NekroTek efforts to do much the same, and the expertise on the matter of machine souls the Directorate had to offer, they could at least begin to come up with solutions to the problem of the Ancestor Cores suffering degradation as they went over capacity the Leagues suffered.

On the other hand, the Leagues were very fond of colonizing galactic cores in general and heavy worlds in particular, and this made them well-equipped to colonize and exploit a number of worlds the Directorate's race were ill-equipped to touch, though the issues with extreme radiation in the galactic core wasn't much of a problem for the Directorate. As such, there were a number of worlds the Directorate could offer up for League miners without much issue. The Leagues soon introduced them to the Dwarves, who had similar preferences for worlds as the Leagues who had been made in their image, with something similar being true of the Advent and Eldar.

The Dwarves had unique knowledge of working material than any others the Directorate had encountered, though the C'Tan had greater knowledge of the sciences and technology, there was an inherent artisanship to Dwarven artifice the Directorate appreciated. The connection to the C'Tan initially left the Dwarves suspicious in the extreme, but consulting their Book of Grudges revealed no active Grudges against the C'Tan aligned with the Directorate, though there were a few that had been struck out quite some time ago. Still, Dwarven psychology is not human psychology, and once a Grudge is struck out, they hold no further animosity, so they were willing to parlay. Where the Leagues mined and built massive structures, the Dwarves were commissioned for art and runecraft, a dichotomy many outside the Directorate found amusing. The Directorate obeyed the stern warning not to attempt study of the Runes, accepting the explanation they were divine lore of the Ancestor Gods, and having experience with gods that took offense to their gifts being shared with certain others in YALDABOATH's rivalry with the Old One.

The Necrons, who had only recently begun to awaken from their long sleep, were encountered almost by complete accident following the Directorate intervening in a battle between them and the Tyranids on their side. They were deeply suspicious of the Directorate for their ties to the C'Tan, but these C'Tan were largely neutral parties, or they would have been shattered by the Silent King like the others, rather than merely imprisoned. So while things were certainly tense at first, the good initial impression did much to help push past this suspicion.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses, of course, in addition to the Imperials they'd encountered in their galaxy, nearby galaxies were crawling with Imperial forces, which the Advent and Leagues alike advised them would inevitably take offense to the Directorate, composed of either nonhumans or humans 'tainted' by alien culture and technology as it was. Infrareal enemies were in some ways worse than the Orks, whose belligerence could be laid at the feet of their gods and the Old Ones who'd made them in a fit of desperation, and the Orks themselves were a constant presence. Chaos was also making itself increasingly known as the Directorate became increasingly known to the wider universe, with Slaanesh in particular taking offense to them, and the Dancer in specific. Then there were the genestealers, who seemed to regard the Khimer with particular disdain, and later, their Tyranid masters. Still, as minor powers went, the Directorate was extremely well-equipped to grow in strength, being extremely difficult to take as anywhere within their territory became akin to a Daemonworld with no singular master to defeat in a matter of decades.

Strengths: Cannon Fodder. The Blokbots function much like Necron Warriors in being self-repairing cannon fodder, which allows them to fill this role with ease, and they are a rare example of Cannon Fodder that has elites via the Upgraders, and will get back up as smaller, weaker units known as Zwergbots unless completely destroyed, allowing them to excel in keeping enemy forces occupied or force them to deploy disproportionate force to take them down.

Versatility. The Directorate has an answer to just about any problem. Necron Pylons? Lifeforce ignores them, as does most C'Tan-based technology. Astartes? Khimer mercenaries are hybrids with genestealers. They're perfectly suited for fighting Tyranids, both because the Khimer have immunized themselves to the tricks of the common strains and because they can constantly switch up their tactics and weaponry to force the Tyranids to try and adapt to too many things at once.

Nuclear Proliferation. Having combined Living Metal with radioactive metal, their fusion weaponry and bombs are powered by regenerating materials, allowing the later to explode for three hours straight, making them excellent area-denial weapons and allowing them to break formations with comparatively small munitions. Being granted Homing abilities by the C'Tan made them exponentially more dangerous.

Massives. They have their own Titan equivalents, and the Commander-Class Machina are fully sentient beings in their own right, making them in some ways superior to Titans, as they have no need to worry about an organic pilot. They can still, technically, be mass-produced in ways only Tau Mantas can really compete with. They also have a variety of war-beasts tamed by the Hobbgrots, born of the excessive amounts of lifeforce their worlds have been imbued with, which often possess some form of odd power.

Spiritualism. Having a plethora of gods and spirits backing them, the Directorate is well-equipped to handle any esoteric nonsense they might be facing, Psyker, sorcerer, antagonistic deity, etc. This also provides them many of the benefits of being a follower of the Chaos Gods or Lords of Order without the downsides. The activity of the former, with the general benevolence of the latter.

Pseudo-Daemonworlds. Massive infusion of lifeforce eventually has a self-reinforcing effect, leading to bizarre effects normally restricted to the likes of a Daemonworld. This provides easy access to lifeforce in daily life for the Directorate, and makes any world under their control for any significant period about as much of a nightmare to take, particularly since there's no patron the world is consecrated to, meaning there's no one to target to quickly remove it.

Rapid Research. Much like the Tau, the Directorate is a rapidly-growing, rapidly-advancing polity. Thus, even if they lose an engagement, they will swiftly develop some degree of countermeasure. It's not as swift as the Tyranids, but a solution that works on them once will be less and less effective over time. They may also take inspiration from you and improve something that you did well in. Or, if they do neither of those, they'll add some new weird ability to their units, or further the realization of one of their gods and gain a host of new abilities. While at times derided for being easily distracted by some promising new avenue of research, they also always have something promising to pursue, which makes it easier for them to direct their efforts towards a specific goal when they need to.

Varied Races. The Directorate is a diverse group drawing on the strengths of many peoples. The strength and creativity of the Hobbgrots, the inquisitive nature and energy of the Tekket, the industrial might and E-War capacity of the Autonites, the raw killing power and biotechnical expertise of the Khimer, and so on. Xenophobia is almost a foreign concept to them, except, perhaps ironically, as 'something the Imperium takes to insane extremes'.

Dark Engineering. The Directorate is more than willing to colonize the darkness between planets, stars, and even galaxies, something most races are unwilling to do in any major capacity, and have adapted quite a bit of their technology to this end. This means that they exploit their territories much more fully than most, and trying to hide from them on, say, a rogue planetoid, is usually a fruitless endeavor.

Bizarre Grab Bag Nonsense. The Directorate is infamous for creative solutions to problems, such as somehow making firing a C'Tan-based cannon into a planet to supercharge it's soul circuit an excellent solution to the problem. This is a common practice, and has been somewhat blamed on the Hobbgrots by other factions, though they take some offense at their ideas being dismissed as 'Ork bullshit'. This is felt both in the general civilian side of things, and is often devastating in a fight, allowing the Directorate to consistently punch up against their foes.

Vehicles. Kart Racers are an elite(not elitist, an important distinction) bunch, having personalized vehicles they know to such an extent that it's not unheard of for sabotage to fail because, for example, the driver could tell the weight was off before they even started the vehicle. As such, the Directorate has an elite squad of vehicles at the ready for military engagements.

Mega-Engineering. Having begun with the Mega-Art installations, which evolved into the Giga-Art installations, the Directorate had a penchant for huge infrastructure projects, often spending wild amounts of resources on something that might be a vanity project in the Imperium, but they can usually squeeze some use out of. The installations having been used to empower the Dancer, for example. It's not uncommon for a rash of them to be built to empower one of their gods in a similar manner, in these darkening times. That being said, they are fully capable of building them for purely practical purposes.

Weaknesses: Attrition. Unlike the Necrons, their infantry cannot simply teleport out and be teleported back in after repairs are completed. Combined with their focus on quality over quantity, and horde tactics are surprisingly effective.

Master of None. While they have an answer to every problem, their lack of specialization hurts them when the enemy can force them into a field that plays to their strengths, like the Orks forcing a slugging match. This is the way Tyranids most reliably win engagements, resorting to Orkish tactics and drowning the Directorate in numbers, something they're concerned about the Tyranids doing on a strategic scale.

Power Issues. In some ways, Directorate technology was too advanced for it's own good. In a handful of centuries, their pure technological prowess equaled the Imperium's, but their lack of refinement caused them problems to the point they turned to sorcerous aid to find solutions to the power-hunger of their systems. In most of their ships, it's difficult to run more than a few systems at full capacity, as every time they catch up, they immediately start trying to get more performance out of the ship and they're back to square one.

Supercapitals. The Directorate is fairly new to space, and while building things like transit systems and immobile infrastructure is simple enough, truly massive units like the Imperium's Glorianas essentially isn't in the cards for them. Part of it was how power-hungry their ships already were, and how much worse a larger ship would be.

Hero Units. While individuals of import are not uncommon, proper Hero Units are not. On the bright side, this makes them much less vulnerable to destruction of the faction or even local forces via assassination of commanding figures.

Lack of Psykers. Mass lifeforce donations are not conducive to psychic awakening, though sorcerous affinities are not affected. This harms their ability to leverage their esoteric abilities only a little, as they rely heavily on their gods and techno-sorcery, but they suffer when forced into direct clashes with enemy esoterics where throwing a fireball would be most useful.

Bombardment. Their artillery is somewhat underdeveloped, which can be a problem on the ground. Particularly when trying to wear down fortifications. This does not apply to orbital bombardment, where they are actually one of the more developed factions, or on their ships in general. It is specifically a problem on the ground.

AN: GoD is an Expanded Universe fusing 40K, Fantasy, and Age of Sigmar, where the Garden of the Old Ones was about 1% of the Observable Universe(total volume is estimated at 3.566×10⁸⁰ m³, so the Garden is 'merely' 10^78 instead, 93 billion lightyears in diameter dropped to 930 million) instead of being 1 galaxy. So the Imperium is more like a trillion galaxies than a single one, with other factions similarly expanded. Having a single galaxy is like having 1 system in the canon setting. You may notice that up to the encounter with the Yr Albain, this is mostly just a summary of the Quest's major Events.

There are also a few Original ideas, like the Strangers. They aren't even really Nothing, as they're so disconnected from reality(originating(as much as things disconnected from time or space can be said to originate) from a place known as the Infrareality, the Abyss, the Far Realm, the Furthest Ring, the Dark Tapestry, or simply The Strange), that they're disconnected from the concept as we understand it. They fulfill the Lovecraftian niche of enemy types, though they also make Psionics a thing in return, if with the same general caveats of 'Slaanesh made Psykers a lot more common' applying in a similar manner to the forces of the Strangers. They do weird stuff like 'up and down have changed direct, they have changed meaning' and 'these squares make a circle' and hop up and down their personal timelines in some cases since they're disjointed from time. Luckily, the faction isn't equipped to understand Materium-based life in any real sense, so they're basically at their end game strength already. They have to use hybrids, the Army of Starless Night(the Pale Wasting, for example, which is described as a horrible mix of the X Parasite and The Thing, even if aesthetically it looks a great deal like the Necromorphs), just to actually interact with reality. Even Psionics is a hybrid power born of reality and the Dark Tapestry interacting, with their actual power being Wyrd. The Strangers are opposed by literally everyone, as they are completely incapable of any form of mutual understanding with beings of reality since they literally don't operate under the same rules, and are one of a handful of threats Chaos will put aside it's differences with itself and with others to deal with.
 
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The Bird said:
Then had come the discovery. A desert excavation project had breached a vault, deep below the scrap and sand, a relic from some ancient precursors.

Inside they found a tomb of black, living metal and unearthly green light. Inside the tomb they had found Gods.
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ilbgar123 said:
In their eagerness to slay the Tekket to the last, the humans infringed upon the resting place of a group of C'Tan,
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tekkets found it not humans
 
Woltaire said:
tekkets found it not humans
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Well, Tekket found it, yes, but they themselves didn't know why the God-Machines decided to intervene, and based on some of their information from later options such as the Wheel and Owl's unlock actions, I think it was a case where they were allowed to act to defend the prison, and the main three were 'let out early for good behavior' in essence.
 
And so the three magicians made their way to where the star had fallen far afield from the city, in deep wilderness. On their way, they would eventually happen upon a trio of princes: special mechanical men, each gifted a crown and a floating castle. One had a crown of flowers. One had a crown of chains. One had a crown of thorns.

Each of them asked the magicians about the Star, having heard the tale reach them from the ever growing series of wires and tubes, of a trio of foreigners from exotic lands who spoke of a fallen piece of the heavens and a curse brought by it.

The Prince of the Mountains feared for their people and the Watchmakers they had come to care for. If this star was real, would it not be better to be prepared and informed?

The Prince of the Gardens held no fear, curious. Surely such a thing was false: the notion of a star that brought ruin was nonsense. Still yet,
The Prince of Graves remained silent, making no judgement.
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Ok, so these are Vlahk, Koptu and Ijin. Beyond the 'floating castle' bit they were the first to find the star, here:

"Thank...you. The Logic Virus...controlled us," They explained, something like guilt in their voice. "It was...discovered inside an artifact found floating in...deep space. It...infected our systems when we attempted to interface with it's vessel. Drove us...berserk. Drove every...machine...in the system...berserk. Made us...slaughter our crew...slaughter our creators..."
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The implication here is that one of them made a deal with the giant for something which caused the logic plague in exchange, here;

What is the stars purpose?

"Knowledge. Power. I have seen what those great cancers do: offer devil-deals to the desperate. Learn from thy enemy: to the eager, to those on the brink, the Stars, my Heralds, offer power unparalleled. In return, something is taken. A task is performed. A price is extracted. And, in the case of the Watchmakers, a door is opened. Perhaps those who took the deal later come to regret it, but what concern of that is mine? I did not force them to let me in."
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Here are their descriptions;
the Autonites of the Ijin were painted a forest color, helping the ship print out and install extended processing bays and network labs across the AutoVessel fleet, upgrading the processing capacity available to the ships in preparation for the eventual assault on CPUMoon: Ijin wanted to be able to contibute a complement of Autonites to aid in its liberation, but this could only be done if they were insulated and protected against the virus.

The Autonites of the Koptu meanwhile were a light cyan, their eye-screens a pale silver color, few in number but persistent in their curiosity, the labour androids pestering the Mysteks of the Accomplishment relentlessly, stealing every scrap of arcane knowledge they could squeeze from their repairers, until by the end of the year the sentient ship had, it was discovered by intercepted communique, cracked the secrets of harvesting lifeforce...though they lacked any means to take advantage of this, the ship having zero agricultural bays aboard to generate the lifeforce they could now utilize.

Vlahk, meanwhile, proved short-tempered, paranoid, and distrustful. Directorate crews, organic or synthetic, were accompanied at all time by dark purple and black painted Autonites holding arm-blasters installed directly onto their limbs, the robots insisting that all who stepped aboard were to be monitored. The ships network would find itself locked away under layer after layer of network barrier and firewall and encryption routine, the AutoVessel making it exceptionally clear it didn't trust the Directorate an iota.
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Still not sure which is which and who did what but I'm working on it.
 
I'd bet Vlahk is the Prince of Graves, given their generally reserved demeanor. Ijin seems the nicest and most empathetic, and so is probably the Prince of Mountains. The Prince of Flowers is probably Koptu, by process of elimination.
 
[X] Plan: Buying Time and Info
-[X] Brixis
--[X] SECURITY NRT310-OOM
--[X] Maintenance A-I094
--[X] Rhetoric: We're working to exorcise the virus from the rest of the station, but how was Marjak able to escape infection? Could they help save any other Autonites on the station, which would benefit the Poliad by giving them more help.
-[X] Algoa
--[X] Lab E-02U
--[X] Lab F-02FBXIS
-[X] Kaziin
--[X] They Perform an Exorcism

[X] Plan: Dig Deeper
 
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Citrakayah said:
I'd bet Vlahk is the Prince of Graves, given their generally reserved demeanor. Ijin seems the nicest and most empathetic, and so is probably the Prince of Mountains. The Prince of Flowers is probably Koptu, by process of elimination.
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Yeah, having finally found the secret reports that's the conclusion I came to as well. I'm not sure which crown corresponds to who but it might not matter.

I'm fairly certain it was Vlahk. I think they made a deal with the Giant to try and emancipate the Autonites from there creators and got Monkeys Paw'ed. I'm not confident enough in that to put it in a vote, though.
 
Anybody thinking of making mind machine interfaces or mastering biotransference so when we meet a rational necron we can just look at them and be like "yo, not to be rude but would you like a body?"
 
MightyMutt said:
Anybody thinking of making mind machine interfaces or mastering biotransference so when we meet a rational necron we can just look at them and be like "yo, not to be rude but would you like a body?"
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If it were that simple, the Necrons themselves would have done it. What they want is an Immortal biological bodies. After all, Necrons hated that they had such short lifespans when they were flesh and blood.

What we should do if we meet Necrons is to see if we can't give the Necron Warriors (aka, their commoners) their free will back. It has been hinted in some of the Necron books that the average warrior still has sentience, they just aren't able to do anything freely due to their loyalty programs. A very 'I have no mouth and I must scream' situation.
 
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In fairness, if the process for putting them into a body also worked for taking them back out, then you could effectively fulfill that dream. The body you give them may be mortal, but if they can 'jump' to a new meat suit after a few decades, why does that matter? It's not like Necron Lords lack the means to pay us- or, given their incredible technology, reverse engineer how we did it and figure it out themself.

However, I powerfully doubt it's that easy.
 
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