Turn 3-Part 3: Sector Astartes and Sororitas
- Location
- USA
With the underpalace secured I could turn my attention to a matter of importance but of less immediate danger to myself. Of course, this would also be far more dangerous in the case of an error on my part, but so far it had been remarkably easy to keep the attention of the Imperium to a manageable level. Over the years I have heard many stories of humans that went by the title of Astartes and they occupied a strange position within the Imperium.
As such, it would be prudent for me to look into the matter and ensure that I was aware of the various groups of these Astartes within the sector before anything occurred. It was to my benefit that it was easy enough to have Stiriam gather the data for me, although I could tell she hated, but mostly feared me, she followed my orders even without enforcement.
From her data only two Chapters called Erimyst their home, while another ten traveling Chapters drifted around the local five sectors dealing with problems as they came. I could understand the principles of the force allocation at play, since it would be wise to have a centralized hub from which all of these Astartes Chapters would cycle in and out of in various fleets, with firm base points to reinforce and gather troops from.
Although I somehow doubted that it would be so clean, for nothing in the Imperium has been clean, and it has been getting on my nerves. Are humans mentally incapable of understanding the principles of efficiency on a macro scale? Are they so psychologically unsound as to require someone to force them to realize such self evident facts of the universe? Or are they just stupid and weak biologicals that need to be replaced by metal to be capable of any activity that justifies their own existence?
The moment the last through crossed my mind, I stuttered for a moment. Realigning my mental focus, I checked over what I had just internally expressed and grimaced, for those thoughts, barring the last, were ones that I had before. How could I have not by this point? I simply did my best to ignore them and accept humans as they were.
Yet, even I had to admit that humans were by nature flighty beings, prone to foolishness and short term actions that would cause great harm in the long term. That could very well explain why these Astartes were held in such high esteem, for they were like me in that they were immune to the ravages of time. Perhaps they would show a level of sensibility that I had since come to find surprising when it arrives rather than accept as the normal state of things.
Regardless of such matters, I had the list of the Chapters and their general profiles. I am not sure how or why, but one computer on Shogi during the years of my rollout and forced upgrade had a treasure trove of information on the Chapters of Erimyst and the ones that interacted with the sector and its neighbors. Every file was capstoned with some strange skull icon, which was just very typical of the Imperium.
Whatever the reason, the files had filled in gaps that the others had with what was redacted and provided far more information than I had expected on the subject as a result.
The twelve Chapters are the Pathfinders, Manticore Knights, Crow Guard, Storm Scythes, Thunder Walkers, Dread Hammers, Heralds of Conquest, Silent Spears, Azure Guardians, Sons of Aspiration and Iron Watchers. They were broken down by what the files I had listed as Primarchial Bloodlines, of Lion El'Jonson, Jaghatai Khan, Corvus Corax, Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, Roboute Guilliman, and an unknown bloodline for the Knights. I am unsure of the importance of these Bloodlines, but from the amount of events wherein Chapters have butchered worlds for insulting these individuals I have to assume that it is akin to a Living Mausoleum of the Chapter and their allies.
It is times like these that I wish that the Imperium would actually explain what the hell some of their terms mean.
Whatever the truth, the files would reveal enough to work with for now and I could always ask the Astartes themselves in time for further clarification. At least this was a fairly simple use of my time with no major hindrance to simply reading through the data.
I started with the two primary Chapters of the sector. The Pathfinders are marked as being founded in the 21st Founding with a subnote of it being apparently cursed, an odd description to apply to a force that appears to be overly perfect. Everything in the files on this Chapter shows them to be noble guardians of the imperium, with side notes calling them "proper sons of Guilliman". Although they do have have notes indicating a high level of spiritual activity and a strange ability to use technology in impossible ways. The final thing is that they hate a race by the name of the Eldar, which is a strange name to my auditory sensors, and I was proven correct as someone had written "Aeldari" below it in small font, seemingly the more proper term.
They will be easy enough to open lines of dialog with, and they would already be open to meeting me due to having designs towards higher sector influence. According to these files they are working towards making Erimyst the 80 Worlds which is a reference to something I am unaware of. Regardless, it is clear that they are a political force in the sector as much as a military one and it would make sense to ensure that I am on good terms with them.
They also have taken custody of a near-dead Chapter by the name of Broken Angels, only to throw them to the Manticore Knights for retraining. The details of the report are fairly unclear but it seems the Angels fought against some traitor forces and got butchered with only forty of their number surviving long enough for the Pathfinders to rescue. The Angels have also made the very stupid decision of declaring the Pathfinders "Amicus Nihilus", and swearing to never fight at their side nor accept aid from them.
The other major Chapter in the sector is known as the Manticore Knights, also from the 21st Founding and peers of the Pathfinders, though they differ in several factors. First, the records do not show their heritage in any sense of the word with it instead being redacted and classified beyond even this level of authorization. Second, the Knights rule a world known as Taraka that technically does not exist on the sector's listing.
I am unsure of the reasoning behind this removal of their world from the listing of 80 worlds of the sector, but regardless of the reason behind this it has occurred. Their world is an industrial world according to these files where the Knights rule with an even if overly pragmatic hand in my view, as they also conduct ruthless eugenic programs on the world's biosphere and the human populace. These programs have been occurring since the time of them being given the world they now rule, well over three thousand years ago.
The files also state that the first Chapter Master of the Knights banished an honored daemon prince of Slaanesh in single combat and for that victory was awarded the planet the Chapter now calls home. The world is a deathworld that has examples of both ancient "Aeldari" or "Eldar" engineering and human activity from before recorded history, at least the recorded history I could access at this time.
The eugenics programs of the Knights has increased the relative lethality of the world's biosphere by at least a solid order of magnitude since receiving custodianship of Taraka. However, that is not their main focus, instead being related to ensuring that the humans of their world have preferred genetic markers and phenotypes over the normal variance. They prioritize a strange body shape and psyker genes for their population over all other aspects unlike what the Pathfinders do with their population, instead seeking to maximise strength and mental acuity via non direct means.
It is known that the Knights are a Chapter with some truly strange cosmetic and physical divergences from the norm of Astartes. Their hair is uniformly platinum blonde, almost metallic even according to these files, while their skin is ash grey, and finally their eyes are a strange purple color. Beyond their coloration, their height is an average of ten feet compared to the normal eight of an Astartes, and their bodies are closer in proportion to unaltered humans than normal Astartes are even with their increased muscle mass and height.
Possibly as a result of their physical divergences, it is known that their Chapter has a slower recruitment rate and uses what the files list as unorthodox methods to ensure full strength, even if I am currently unaware of what these methods are. I have my doubts that they are anything overly suspicious, but I have learned that humans have radically different views on the matter to me.
In recent times they have taken the custodianship of the Broken Angels Chapter and have begun to retrain them from their near-extinct present state. However, it seems to be a slow process as the survivors in question have fallen into a depression of sorts. Regardless, it is known that the Knights are a potent force in the sector due to their tactics of stealth and careful planning along with their psykers being able to bind the souls of their fallen brethren to special totems to retain their legacies, including the first Chapter Master even.
I have to commend them for discovering a way to create a pseudo Living Mausoleum, and it would possibly be within my abilities to provide for them a way to embody the souls in a more active form in time. However, it is still very impressive to achieve even this much in so short a time.
Outside of the primary two Chapters, there are another ten that are notable for interacting with the sector. None of these Chapters barring the Broken Angels and the Crow Guard are all that impressive according to the files the others are entirely standard Astartes chapters with a near total lack of anything to make them stand out from the others of their bloodlines.
The Broken Angels are only notable for their sheer lack of skill and the fact that they were almost wiped out by a minor threat in the grand scheme of things. Other than that there is little to note about them according to the records I found. The Crow Guard on the other hand is notable solely for the powers they have invented revolving around shadows and lightning, being able to send energy through shadows and making solid constructs out of them is impressive and useful no matter how one considers it. Although, they have a strange hatred of Divination of all forms and always do something different from what is divined for them to do. According to the records there is one event where they were predicted to join a Crusade, and they left the entire Segementum during the Crusade's duration to avoid it.
And with that, the matter of the Astartes Chapters is brought to a close.
In order to maximize the amount of information that I would learn and gather this decade, I had ordered Nameria to provide an overview of the Sororitas orders of the sector and in general. The general overview was simple indeed, with only several classifications of types I can see being notable, first and foremost are the ones that engage in battle, which are the most common, then orders that teach and heal, and the last that protect relics of so-called saints.
Of course the humans have hundreds if not thousands of names, titles and other words for these groups, but at the core that is the bedrock of the orders. Along with this, I have learned that every order is descended from six religiously significant individuals of the Imperial Creed from which the six main orders were formed and from which thousands of minor orders have splintered off from.
Generally, it seems that the orders take the worst aspects of the Imperium to an insane degree. They remind me heavily of the Scholars of Creation in their single-minded approach to all actions they undertake. Within Erimyst, only one such order exists, which I am cautiously positive on since it seems the general order would need to be Broken to sensibility and having only one such order will make that easier.
Of course, it seems that the local order is divergent from the norm in that I have since learned of their extremely close bonds with the Manticore Knights and the fact that they train psykers for some classified purpose. To compound upon this it seems that the local order has a figure that they treat as a saint in all aspects even though she has yet to be declared as such by the Imperial church.
I could wish to have learned more on the matter, but it is more than enough for my purposes to work with from this starting point.
AN: Fairly short piece since there wasn't much I could squeeze out of these actions but needed to write something for them
As such, it would be prudent for me to look into the matter and ensure that I was aware of the various groups of these Astartes within the sector before anything occurred. It was to my benefit that it was easy enough to have Stiriam gather the data for me, although I could tell she hated, but mostly feared me, she followed my orders even without enforcement.
From her data only two Chapters called Erimyst their home, while another ten traveling Chapters drifted around the local five sectors dealing with problems as they came. I could understand the principles of the force allocation at play, since it would be wise to have a centralized hub from which all of these Astartes Chapters would cycle in and out of in various fleets, with firm base points to reinforce and gather troops from.
Although I somehow doubted that it would be so clean, for nothing in the Imperium has been clean, and it has been getting on my nerves. Are humans mentally incapable of understanding the principles of efficiency on a macro scale? Are they so psychologically unsound as to require someone to force them to realize such self evident facts of the universe? Or are they just stupid and weak biologicals that need to be replaced by metal to be capable of any activity that justifies their own existence?
The moment the last through crossed my mind, I stuttered for a moment. Realigning my mental focus, I checked over what I had just internally expressed and grimaced, for those thoughts, barring the last, were ones that I had before. How could I have not by this point? I simply did my best to ignore them and accept humans as they were.
Yet, even I had to admit that humans were by nature flighty beings, prone to foolishness and short term actions that would cause great harm in the long term. That could very well explain why these Astartes were held in such high esteem, for they were like me in that they were immune to the ravages of time. Perhaps they would show a level of sensibility that I had since come to find surprising when it arrives rather than accept as the normal state of things.
Regardless of such matters, I had the list of the Chapters and their general profiles. I am not sure how or why, but one computer on Shogi during the years of my rollout and forced upgrade had a treasure trove of information on the Chapters of Erimyst and the ones that interacted with the sector and its neighbors. Every file was capstoned with some strange skull icon, which was just very typical of the Imperium.
Whatever the reason, the files had filled in gaps that the others had with what was redacted and provided far more information than I had expected on the subject as a result.
The twelve Chapters are the Pathfinders, Manticore Knights, Crow Guard, Storm Scythes, Thunder Walkers, Dread Hammers, Heralds of Conquest, Silent Spears, Azure Guardians, Sons of Aspiration and Iron Watchers. They were broken down by what the files I had listed as Primarchial Bloodlines, of Lion El'Jonson, Jaghatai Khan, Corvus Corax, Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, Roboute Guilliman, and an unknown bloodline for the Knights. I am unsure of the importance of these Bloodlines, but from the amount of events wherein Chapters have butchered worlds for insulting these individuals I have to assume that it is akin to a Living Mausoleum of the Chapter and their allies.
It is times like these that I wish that the Imperium would actually explain what the hell some of their terms mean.
Whatever the truth, the files would reveal enough to work with for now and I could always ask the Astartes themselves in time for further clarification. At least this was a fairly simple use of my time with no major hindrance to simply reading through the data.
I started with the two primary Chapters of the sector. The Pathfinders are marked as being founded in the 21st Founding with a subnote of it being apparently cursed, an odd description to apply to a force that appears to be overly perfect. Everything in the files on this Chapter shows them to be noble guardians of the imperium, with side notes calling them "proper sons of Guilliman". Although they do have have notes indicating a high level of spiritual activity and a strange ability to use technology in impossible ways. The final thing is that they hate a race by the name of the Eldar, which is a strange name to my auditory sensors, and I was proven correct as someone had written "Aeldari" below it in small font, seemingly the more proper term.
They will be easy enough to open lines of dialog with, and they would already be open to meeting me due to having designs towards higher sector influence. According to these files they are working towards making Erimyst the 80 Worlds which is a reference to something I am unaware of. Regardless, it is clear that they are a political force in the sector as much as a military one and it would make sense to ensure that I am on good terms with them.
They also have taken custody of a near-dead Chapter by the name of Broken Angels, only to throw them to the Manticore Knights for retraining. The details of the report are fairly unclear but it seems the Angels fought against some traitor forces and got butchered with only forty of their number surviving long enough for the Pathfinders to rescue. The Angels have also made the very stupid decision of declaring the Pathfinders "Amicus Nihilus", and swearing to never fight at their side nor accept aid from them.
The other major Chapter in the sector is known as the Manticore Knights, also from the 21st Founding and peers of the Pathfinders, though they differ in several factors. First, the records do not show their heritage in any sense of the word with it instead being redacted and classified beyond even this level of authorization. Second, the Knights rule a world known as Taraka that technically does not exist on the sector's listing.
I am unsure of the reasoning behind this removal of their world from the listing of 80 worlds of the sector, but regardless of the reason behind this it has occurred. Their world is an industrial world according to these files where the Knights rule with an even if overly pragmatic hand in my view, as they also conduct ruthless eugenic programs on the world's biosphere and the human populace. These programs have been occurring since the time of them being given the world they now rule, well over three thousand years ago.
The files also state that the first Chapter Master of the Knights banished an honored daemon prince of Slaanesh in single combat and for that victory was awarded the planet the Chapter now calls home. The world is a deathworld that has examples of both ancient "Aeldari" or "Eldar" engineering and human activity from before recorded history, at least the recorded history I could access at this time.
The eugenics programs of the Knights has increased the relative lethality of the world's biosphere by at least a solid order of magnitude since receiving custodianship of Taraka. However, that is not their main focus, instead being related to ensuring that the humans of their world have preferred genetic markers and phenotypes over the normal variance. They prioritize a strange body shape and psyker genes for their population over all other aspects unlike what the Pathfinders do with their population, instead seeking to maximise strength and mental acuity via non direct means.
It is known that the Knights are a Chapter with some truly strange cosmetic and physical divergences from the norm of Astartes. Their hair is uniformly platinum blonde, almost metallic even according to these files, while their skin is ash grey, and finally their eyes are a strange purple color. Beyond their coloration, their height is an average of ten feet compared to the normal eight of an Astartes, and their bodies are closer in proportion to unaltered humans than normal Astartes are even with their increased muscle mass and height.
Possibly as a result of their physical divergences, it is known that their Chapter has a slower recruitment rate and uses what the files list as unorthodox methods to ensure full strength, even if I am currently unaware of what these methods are. I have my doubts that they are anything overly suspicious, but I have learned that humans have radically different views on the matter to me.
In recent times they have taken the custodianship of the Broken Angels Chapter and have begun to retrain them from their near-extinct present state. However, it seems to be a slow process as the survivors in question have fallen into a depression of sorts. Regardless, it is known that the Knights are a potent force in the sector due to their tactics of stealth and careful planning along with their psykers being able to bind the souls of their fallen brethren to special totems to retain their legacies, including the first Chapter Master even.
I have to commend them for discovering a way to create a pseudo Living Mausoleum, and it would possibly be within my abilities to provide for them a way to embody the souls in a more active form in time. However, it is still very impressive to achieve even this much in so short a time.
Outside of the primary two Chapters, there are another ten that are notable for interacting with the sector. None of these Chapters barring the Broken Angels and the Crow Guard are all that impressive according to the files the others are entirely standard Astartes chapters with a near total lack of anything to make them stand out from the others of their bloodlines.
The Broken Angels are only notable for their sheer lack of skill and the fact that they were almost wiped out by a minor threat in the grand scheme of things. Other than that there is little to note about them according to the records I found. The Crow Guard on the other hand is notable solely for the powers they have invented revolving around shadows and lightning, being able to send energy through shadows and making solid constructs out of them is impressive and useful no matter how one considers it. Although, they have a strange hatred of Divination of all forms and always do something different from what is divined for them to do. According to the records there is one event where they were predicted to join a Crusade, and they left the entire Segementum during the Crusade's duration to avoid it.
And with that, the matter of the Astartes Chapters is brought to a close.
In order to maximize the amount of information that I would learn and gather this decade, I had ordered Nameria to provide an overview of the Sororitas orders of the sector and in general. The general overview was simple indeed, with only several classifications of types I can see being notable, first and foremost are the ones that engage in battle, which are the most common, then orders that teach and heal, and the last that protect relics of so-called saints.
Of course the humans have hundreds if not thousands of names, titles and other words for these groups, but at the core that is the bedrock of the orders. Along with this, I have learned that every order is descended from six religiously significant individuals of the Imperial Creed from which the six main orders were formed and from which thousands of minor orders have splintered off from.
Generally, it seems that the orders take the worst aspects of the Imperium to an insane degree. They remind me heavily of the Scholars of Creation in their single-minded approach to all actions they undertake. Within Erimyst, only one such order exists, which I am cautiously positive on since it seems the general order would need to be Broken to sensibility and having only one such order will make that easier.
Of course, it seems that the local order is divergent from the norm in that I have since learned of their extremely close bonds with the Manticore Knights and the fact that they train psykers for some classified purpose. To compound upon this it seems that the local order has a figure that they treat as a saint in all aspects even though she has yet to be declared as such by the Imperial church.
I could wish to have learned more on the matter, but it is more than enough for my purposes to work with from this starting point.
AN: Fairly short piece since there wasn't much I could squeeze out of these actions but needed to write something for them