Hmm ok then next turn we should send the Computers home, its 80 DC, so i could be done in one turn, and Noosphere only need 50 Admech favor, and then we need to learn Study Voidship with a DC of 150, could maybe be done in one turn, but that will leave us only 200 DC to send it home along with 100 Suspicion to deal with
Strange Aeons: A 40k Xeno Governor Quest
- Thread starter Leon12431
- Start date
I was referring to the massive DC in general, but Thanks @Leon12431! I'll keep that info in mind, whenever we get to a situation like that, which requires a faster way of doing them.
- Location
- USA
Massive DCs are just part and parcel of working in the Imperium. You are not building a world from the ground up, you are working on an already built up world causing certain things to be extremely difficult. Building a feudal worlds into a civilized world would be cheap and easy compared to most of your actions due to how little you have to work around.
The DCs are in part a representation of the corruption and inefficiencies endemic to the Imperial system in addition to just being a measure of how difficult something is.
The DCs are in part a representation of the corruption and inefficiencies endemic to the Imperial system in addition to just being a measure of how difficult something is.
i think we should do the Hybridization Project and make our own people to replace the leadership of this world to get rid of the corruption and inefficiencies of the world, and slowly replace the Advisors onces they died out of old age, should help lower Suspicion the more people we replace
True, but then you would need to explain why genetically, they all have the same type of chromosome DNA. It's not exactly, an easy thing for most people, nevermind there is no way Leon would ever allow us to try and do that anyway.
Was referring to anyone deciding to investigate Shogi, in such a case as suddenly making massively capable armies in very few scant years. That would bring attention from the Mechanicus, and any nearby inquisitors, to see what the fuck is going on? They try to figure out what's happening, and suddenly, they notice that everyone they blood check, have very similar DNA. That was not only, an aberration of the human genome, but an ADDITION to it, as well. Giving it a thought, and checking the genetic data collected by the medics from the Planetary Governor, and Mechanicus enclave on it, and they see everyone has it. That leads to a hit squad with our name on it, and a war of extermination, or exterminates.
I don't mind adding it to our advisors, but the whole planet, seems a bit much for me, to be honest.
not the whole world, just the low lvl leadership
I've got some ideas. For Martial I'm thinking maybe adding some fortifications, although I am not sure where. Fortifying cities is a cheap and easy project, and while Bury Military Projects is a difficult task, it's also cheap in resources and quite useful. I'm not married to these ideas though.
Diplomacy though, is where I have a fair amount of ideas. Given how much production we are now using, we need to do Planetary Guilds imo. I also would prefer contacting Forge Worlds over Cadia. I really want those missions to reduce Mechanicus Anger asap, and we might unlock actions to get rid of Balkavus as well. I would very much prefer to have a far less turbulent Tech-Priest on our council. Cadia can wait a fair bit longer.
As for Stewardship and Intrigue, I would like to improve the Arbites and maybe hunt some cultists or crooked bureaucrats. I have no real inclinations towards any Faith actions one way or the other though. Well, except for learning about Chaos, but the suspicion gain is just too dang high.
As for Personal, there are two actions I really want to do. Building a residence should be a major aid to reducing our suspicion gain, as will hiding resources. If doing both doesn't work from a suspicion standpoint, there's always augmenting our advisors. More bonuses are always welcome.
I don't want to do hybridization right now. The suspicion gain is just too high without the prior two projects. Moreover, our Personal Actions are just too valuable right now to place in such a progress sink.
Of course all of this is very much subject to change. We will have unlocked a whole lot of new actions next turn, some of which are likely to totally change the proverbial game.
- Location
- USA
I will say that due to the relics you pointed the Ad Mech at/found the Anger mechanic is basically on pause for the next several turns so its not really impactful right now. I was not expecting that outcome, the dice rolled stupidly well for you on that matter, 95+ well on the subject for instance. So you have ended up in a situation where your technical patrons cant get mad at you without getting the Shogi Conclave to bash them over the heads with wrenches and pipes for the next several decades.
When you say 95+, do you mean for questioning? Or, as in, every single subject mentioned? Like, 5 95+ rolls that Araxas talked about?
- Location
- USA
I mean for things like what you found, you rolled stupidly well on just what was discovered on pretty much every occasion so far. Hell the world that you came from rolled a nat 100 on having relics and then damn high on what those relics were.
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
I would not make plans rn given we'll likely need to find replacement advisors for Diplo and Admin. I also expect to find a fair few new actions on top of that in other categories. First thing that comes to mind is to give our private army better equipment, since that's hampering their abilities as of now
Personally, I was of the mind for us to us our personal actions, and save them up to hire out some help, with another pair of actions spent building our own, after that. That way, we get double the actions and our able to make more stuff that we can go and build on shogi.
We should focus on the main goal of doing our missions for the Homeworld, Imperial Computers have to be done next turn as it will only have that turn to be done, and Study Voidship must also be done, as after that we need to send back a ship and that has a DC of 200, Noosphere only cost 50 favor, so that is easy
The MC main goal is to send back tech to his world and help his race, everthing else is a side benfit that help that, and if it help the shogi along the way, all the better
The MC main goal is to send back tech to his world and help his race, everthing else is a side benfit that help that, and if it help the shogi along the way, all the better
- Location
- USA
The missions can be completed post the due date but you wont get Favor for them even if you complete the Favor aspect and taking too long will result in Favor loss. For every other turn you would lose 1 Favor from not doing a mission.
IE: not doing the computer mission next turn would result in no favor gain from it on the next turn, but only if you dont do it within the next two turns would you start losing favor, since there is one buffer turn so to speak.
Desired Timeframe - Buffer can not get favor (1 turn) - start of favor lose point (the first point is lost the turn after the buffer turn)
IE: not doing the computer mission next turn would result in no favor gain from it on the next turn, but only if you dont do it within the next two turns would you start losing favor, since there is one buffer turn so to speak.
Desired Timeframe - Buffer can not get favor (1 turn) - start of favor lose point (the first point is lost the turn after the buffer turn)
While full-scale planning is premature, there's no harm in discussing what options we want to do so long as we acknowledge that said plans will change once the turn drops.
I agree with you that we will need to replace diplo, but why Admin? Sure, Urma is hiding things from us, but she's quite competent and could be swayed diplomatically. At minimum, she's competent enough to make finding enough dirt to force her out more difficult to obtain than with our diplomatic advisor. Moreover, at minimum we can trust her not to sabotage any assignments aren't too reformist. The same can't be said for Balkavus, one of the biggest reasons I want to still contact Forge Worlds.
Why do you want to upgrade our private army further? We're only really using it for mercenary work and there's plenty of other opportunities in the Martial category. Given that we are near the Eye of Terror, those improvements will come in handy sooner or later, probably sooner. Given our poor SDF, I'd much rather reduce our susceptibility to orbital bombardment somehow (and there's no shortage of options to do that, from fortifications to improving our SDF!).
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
Because as mentioned they're so skilled that they're being held back by their inadequate equipment, and they can take Martial Actions themselves, which means another upgrade will raise their bonus even more. Plus it'll let us demand more payment for the mercenary work.
No reason why we can't do both especially with our steady income growth.
Turn 3-Part 1: Urma's Fate
- Location
- USA
AN: This is a fairly typical Warhammer 40K chapter in which there is fairly grim/unethical actions taken. I feel that I have to make it clear that this is entirely in character of Atraxas and nothing more.
The mundanity of the work to run Shogi had become tedious, but I would complete it to the best of my abilities regardless of my fading enthusiasm for it. Ships entered the system and ships left, transports ferried supplies between planets and moons, resources flowed in and out in a tangled web of connections.
It was an enjoyable duty to manage this fragile balance from my new office constructed to allow me to receive all non astropathic communications within the system and some that had traveled for light years. It was truly interesting to see how time had changed worlds through the lens of the broadcasts that had been sent when even I was yet a hatchling so many millennia ago.
The first and second mining outposts were well under way, mine was working at expected efficiency of course. I would not leave anything to chance for those working in the void of space or in even worse environments, it was well on track to be completed by the end of the decade. Urma had not provided any progress reports on her mining outposts, but that was understandable due to her workload and what she must be doing in the background to ensure the continued balance of her trade deals.
I would not begrudge her time on this matter, for even if she was a human she had proven to be competent in this area as had the others that work with me. I would only need a report near the end of the decade after all, leaving her plenty of time even for a human to manage it.
Although, then again why wait for her report when I could uncover the communications of her workers to her, they would flow through the intervening space and as such be captured by my system. I would not need to bother her for the report if I could simply create it from the words of her workers directly, saving her time and effort, and giving me a prediction for the future situation, a victory for everyone involved.
Paging through the new operating system was far less cumbersome than the old style Imperial one that had been replaced. It was unfortunate that the vast majority of software would have to be recoded for the new system, but the gains in operating speed and efficiency were in my mind worth the cost to rebuild the applications.
At least now I did not have to dig through fifty nested folders to unearth the place where the system would save audio files, and then use an encryption key to unlock the system to read the files using another application buried in an entirely different location. I might not be as knowledge about computers of this deign as an Imperial archmagos, but coding a simple program to hunt down and locate programs had saved me hours of effort early on.
Now, that was thing of the past as I could easily discover the files and play them directly. I knew of course where the mining post was being sent, for Urma and I had worked together to outline the progression of the 33 reasonable mining locations to make the most logical use of the previous investment. The second mining post was angled inward to the system star as the primary beachhead for the exploitation of the inner system.
Only a few moments later and I had found the listing of recovered communications from that world. It was clear something was wrong, there had been a mere handful of communications from the world she had sent the workers too. Flipping open another window I examined the list from my mining outpost comparing the volume of messages and finding my memory to not have failed me somehow.
Instead of the thousands nearing millions of communications from my workers, she had a mere ten recorded and the time length was short. Merely long enough to send a single sentence back and not be able to have a reply be received.
The latest was the shortest and had been sent mere days ago, I knew that the Imperium had plenty of flaws but so did we, but this seemed out of place.
With a strange sensation of trepidation I open the file. The fact that I am feeling discomforted by this is a sign of just how poorly I am handling this change in situation. I should not be feeling as I am, this event can be explained in a thousand different ways that result in it being an innocuous event. However, I am feeling as if this is a worrying sign of something else, I hope that it is nothing and I can look into my recent emotional instability.
I can not risk breaking away from the mantle of Scholarship, too much relies on my inherent stability for such, but the mantle itself demands that I know the truth of this matter. Wishing that I could avoid it, I let the file play, "Emperor.....save.......us......oxygen............food..................please."
A crying voice barely audible over the sound of machinery pleaded for aid, yet it did not make sense. Ten limbs made for a degree of action that humans could not match as twenty windows snapped open and lines of data filled the room as I traced every path of every ship in the system for the last years.
From the smallest freighter to the battleships, I located them all and traced them all, tracking even the space debris for this would not be something I could let lie. I determined when and where the ships for the mining outposts left and went, I then broke down the secrecy that she had demanded to identify the ship she used and from there the captain.
The ship was too small, simple calculations showed that it would not be able to transport the supplies needed for survival with the numbers it carried. She had told me exactly how many of MY people she was making use of for the project, and I knew that this was the only ship she had used for the transversal. It would not be able to fit them all and their supplies, something had broken beyond comprehension here.
I refined my search to any other ship heading to her work place and found none, indicating a truly horrible possibility as to be the case. But, I continued my search digging through the records of ships, and conjunctions of ships for reloading and refueling and found nothing that would assist the world in question. I noted the time lag and adjusted for it, noting that there was a chance for humans to yet live if things were not the worst case scenario possible.
There were ships in dock that were under my authority as Planetary Governor, and to them I sent a single order to get to that mining post and determine what happened and to save anyone alive. One of them had the gall to laugh at my order, only for the ship they commanded to be declared banned from the system and ordered to find a new homebase within the month.
I would not tolerate such actions in this time, I could see frost and even fire burning across my form, but I could not find it in me to care. As the ships withdrew from the docks and burned towards the mining world, I tore through the records of Stiriam's other projects. I knew that she had problems with my methods, but I did not fully know her own even now. This was about to change.
The records of her previous work were unprotected in the new system. They would have been somewhat harder to reach prior to the upgrade, but now I had the authority to override any of Shogi's data protections, whether personal or governmental. From the center of my web, I tore them apart and understood her methods in a way that I had been hesitant to do so prior. Urma Stiriam... did not care. Every project of hers left behind a body count that dwarfed all my own efforts put together, always in the name of expediency. Of cutting costs. Of keeping any cursory glances at her career positive. I felt my fury rise as I scanned through every last scrap of data, yet I was so absorbed in it that I failed to consciously recognize my own emotions for a moment. I reeled it back in, quickly, yet I neither could or would douse it.
No more. She would never have this chance again as long as I drew breath. The ships I had dispatched tried to contact me to call off the mission under orders from Stiriam, they were quickly reprimanded for daring to even consider that and ordered to continue. She may have seniority over me on this world, but that meant little at this point, and it would mean even less very soon.
With only a few directed thoughts, I sealed her and her entire group away from Shogi's priority command systems, entombing her away from the rest of the system. She would no longer have the authority to make orders of anyone without going through me first. Anything of greater importance than ordering recaff would now require me to sign off on it. New programs were coded in moments to finalize the freezing of Urma's administrative privileges.
There were a variety of means through which the populace was made aware of approved current events and new decrees from the Planetary Governor. I had never made use of them before, but now I would. Orders were sent with lightning speed to each and every single press organization to have cameras and representatives on the ground at the Halls of Adjudication.
Stiriam would not escape judgement for these crimes. I had thought that she was merely dedicated to the betterment of the world, but now I see that she is nothing more than a Scholar of Creation in mindset. A callous bureaucrat to the core. I will Break her to the law as I had previously with such Scholars, she would bow before me or be purged from the world and all of those like her similarly expelled. I had no tolerance for such creatures when they were Exatari and I found that I had no more when they were not of my species.
Soon enough the messages from the ships came in and it was indeed as I had feared most. It took me moments to understand the truth of the situation and my fury burned ever hotter. The walls of my office melted under the conflagration that my soul ignited and the area just beyond the flames was sapped of all warmth, freezing over entirely. I could feel the phase reactors in my body spinning up to full combat mode and it took an effort of will to stop them.
No more would I hold to the "self" that was imposed upon me from my ascension to Forge Scholar. I could not care to maintain it anymore. Once again I felt as though I was Atraxas the Crusader, the Exatari dissenter that had been locked away to better fulfill the the duties he chose to burden himself with and to maintain his psycho-cognitive order.
I would see her and her entire department remade, even if it had to be done out of their ashes. The door slammed open as I exited, sending the last of the messages to the others that I knew and had some measure of dying respect for to order them to the Halls of Adjudication.
Perhaps in another time I would find it within me to appreciate the Halls of Adjudication, but present circumstances deprived the scene of its aesthetically pleasing construction. All I could see was her, standing in the center of the chamber under guard by the Adeptus Arbites. Normally, there would be an investigative period and a sentencing trial, but as the Planetary Governor from whom all judicial authority stems outside of the Lex Imperialis itself, I could expedite the process to my own ruling.
Swirling flames and ice tore across the land as I walked, my phase shields visible under my fury as lighting crackled and snapped across the land a tempest of fury boiled over. The archmagi of the conclave stood to the side clearly worried about the situation while my advisors sat nervously behind protective barriers against the storm of my fury. I could tell the accused wanted to say something as though outraged, but her words died in her throat with one look at me. I could feel all my raging emotions dim, and a sort of clarity overtook me, as though all feeling had passed through my soul and the only thing that remained was for my body to carry out its duties.
And so, I began to speak, my voice modulated to be colder than the vacuum of space to human ears. "Administrator Urma Stiriam, this is not a trial, this is not a discussion, this is not a platform for you to speak. This is your judgment and I do not care what you might have to say in your defense, nor do you have any to begin with. Three million of my citizens lie dead, frozen, starved, and suffocated to death in the complex you were entrusted to build by my direct orders. You are denied any plea of incompetence, as I have personally seen your plans for the colony, and every last pointless fatality was verifiably expected and arranged by your own directive, even as a similar endeavor was undertaken and completed with minimal loss of life at the same time. Your actions are inexcusable. For your sentence, I hereby evict you from my council and condemn you to spending the rest of your life in penitentiary, and I will investigate every last aspect of your department down to the lowliest servitor for any more of your secrets. Any attempt to interfere by your former underlings will be considered an act of insubordination and punished accordingly, and if you think to remove me from power by assassination, all you will be doing is sending those agents to their deaths and wasting your undeserved wealth." My voice was no more the quiet, soft tones I had used until now, as my words were as sharp as knives and carried an undercurrent of the utter contempt I held within.
My words thundered across the Halls, cracks of thunder and particles dancing in the air at my words as my augments once again attempted to enter combat mode, only this time I commanded the shift intentionally. From the air a great weapon was flash forged from my systems and fell into my hand, I might not be a War Scholar but I had the skills to progress on that path and had nearly become one. Five blades, five rifles were spun from the air and fell into my grip, from the ground the adamantine was flash-forged into armor sliding over my form.
"This is my final warning to you and all others, carelessness is tolerated no more. Whatever may have been allowed under previous rulers, they are gone. I am here, and I will remain here for however long the Emperor deems fit. Am I understood?" I lifted my weapons up showing their true size and the power that I held in truth, as I let my augments utilize their full might and my flickering shields solidified into a dome of iridescent light.
"Life is no more a costless currency, it has value and I will see to your punishment if you waste that value in petty shortsighted manners." I stared down upon Stiriam as she cowered before me, as the firestorm grew hotter the red fires blazing into white. "You cost three million their lives, and another half a million would have died within the day. You are no longer a person I trust or extend the slightest leniency too, I have examined your records, methods and am sickened by them. No more, you will submit to my practices or be exterminated root and stem, for you have wasted His currency with your shortsighted foolishness and I will extract His price from your flesh."
I so wished to slay her where she stood, I could feel the hunger in the back of my mind for blood to be spilled. I could almost taste the sweetness of broken flesh upon my carapace and blades, it was an intoxicating dream to indulge one's need for violence in a righteous manner. It was a struggle beyond what I thought possible, it was known that blood and battle were addictive but now I understood the truth as my soul raged, I trembled on the precipice of tearing her bodily apart and anointing myself in her lifeblood.
Metal screamed as I slammed the five blades into the ground to sate my rage for a time and to reduce temptation, but I remained still glaring down upon her. I turned upward towards the cameras and drones that were faithfully recording this to the world at large. "I am Atraxas, your Planetary Governor and I declare upon this day that no more mindless brutality will be tolerated anywhere in this system!." I turn towards the archmagi and stare down upon them without restraint and the same for the others that try to advise me.
"I will welcome any challenge the Imperium sends forth to try to punish me for this decree. I will not bend, I will not break. I am Atraxas and I am resolute in this matter. Until my body is torn asunder and my soul leaves it, I will hold my stance eternal."
I turn back to her upon the ground, the firestorm dying away as ice grew upon the walls. The crackle of frost surrounded the Halls as water fell from the sky as my burning rage turn to ice, lighting faded as reason returned only to be replaced by the fury of the blizzard. Energy was left stillborn as I matched towards her, the aura of coldness following in my wake, there was no hesitation or uncertainty in my actions here and now.
The blood hunger whispered in my mind, desiring to be sated with her lifeblood, but that would not appease me for more than a momentary respite from the curse of my species. I forced it away, layering frost and ice upon it as I marched down towards the broken form of one who had been my advisor.
"Urma Stiriam, when next we meet, you will become my hand and my will will be yours. Your mind will be shackled for eternity to my will, your skills will be mine to use as I see fit. Your freedom I strip in perpetuity from you. Your mind, body and soul will be shackled to my whims, think upon this while you await my arrival to begin your penance." My voice echoed across the silent Halls even as machinery ground to a halt under the crushing weight of frost, as I pronounced the truth of her sentence for all to hear and see.
The Arbites that had guarded her, were on the ground covered in ice, but still standing. Glaring down at her one last time I left the Halls taking with me the rebuilding flames and ice of my fury. Schematics floating through my mind for how to adapt the Life Shackle for human biology, the tomes provided by the archmagi would serve me will in exacting her true punishment. She would never again have freedom, her mind and body would be mine to use as I see fit, for only through the submission of her life could she compensate me for the cost her actions had taken from Shogi.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Stability had returned, it had been years since the encounter with Stiriam within the Halls and since then she has languished within the prisons of Shogi awaiting the completion of her sentence. I have done little in the intervening time due to the lingering rage that overtakes my mind when I turn to the matter of her actions and now her fate, but even for one with a perfect recollection of all events and feelings, time dulls the sensations.
I still feel the embers of my rage, hungering for her blood, and my dreams are plagued with nightmares or perhaps ecstatic dreams of tearing her apart in a shower of viscera. Now it is manageable, if concerning for the sheer overflow that I suffered. I am no active Scholar of Eternity, I never sought the influence that they possessed, my soul and will is of only average strength compared to theirs. yet, the display was beyond what should have been possible for me to achieve without Awakening my soul.
Regardless, the time has come to work upon the Life Shackle that will forever entomb Stiriam to my will. A complex device that is used only in the pacification of Scholars of Creation, those that fall below the acceptable level of deaths for their duty. The ones that lose the coldness that exemplifies their Scholarship and begin to take joy in inflicting such cruelties to their workers, or those that are found to be too callous even for their kind.
It is for the latter reason that I have chosen this path. I have found that there are horrors aplenty in the Imperium, but their version of the Life Shackle is a pale imitation of the one I shall construct for her. She will not suffer pain eternal like those servitors, but instead she will be bound to me as a limb is bound to the body, the senses bound to the mind, she will become an extension of my being.
There is no need to cast aside her mind and skills, but they would be subordinated to me in the most absolute way possible. I could have ordered her to the cruelties of the Imperium without question, but for all her crimes against the people of the world I am responsible for, I do not believe that she is deserving of that fate.
I know her well enough to know that she seeks to better the world, but the mores of the Imperium have blinded her. Perhaps I can not say that I am any better because I too am blinded by the mores of my species. Yet, it matters not to me in this regard, Exatari or Human atrocities remain the same and only the details change.
Three million dead might be but a drop of a drop of a drop in the ocean of human blood, compared to the loss that it would be for my kind, but that does not change her callousness regarding life as shown by her actions to knowingly send millions to their deaths. In the end, I will bind her to me such that no more such actions will occur without reason, I am not so blinded by my mantle of Scholarship to deny the horror inherent to this empire anymore.
The design of the Life Shackle is monstrous without question as I dredge it up from the place where it had been inserted all those centuries ago. Only we the Forge Scholars were given the designs and even then they were sealed behind walls of logic and intent to unearth, it was a sign of how badly shaken I have become that I could so readily reach through to the memories provided.
The device was no simple cybernetic, it was far more invasive and far more insidious than even I had expected when I had chosen to embark upon this path. I have never seen one so Shackled before, few existed upon the Homeworld and even fewer were known, but now that I saw the design in my mind I knew what it would look like.
It was a torturous system, designed to take brutal advantage of our biology, spikes of superconducting material shoved into nerve clusters, the brain encased in millions of such implants, the limbs fully captured within the system. It would be excruciating to any that were entombed within, if one could still process such pain, yet that was not my intention.
I sought control, not agony. With the schematics and the secrets behind them, I was able to learn the underlying principles that made the Life Shackle function. Days passed as I worked upon the design, refining it from a crude instrument of control into a system that would do what I sought without the side effects of the unaltered form. I knew why the base had been so constructed of course, it was for use on the Scholars of Creation - those that would have ignored what I was doing.
A Scholar of Creation would shatter their body apart in order to complete their duty, such was their callous obsession with the tasks assigned. Stiriam was not so maniacally focused, thus she did not need the totality of the system, and this mercy is one I could provide. Along with redesigning the system for human use, I wove it anew, retaining the basic principles but fashioning something new from the data.
Months passed as I worked. I could feel the endless march of time around me, but I was unbothered as I slowly refined the device from something that could be used to control the Scholars of Creation to one that would be usable on a human. At last, the design was complete, and I was able to begin the construction of the Shackle. I turned back to the pictures I had saved of the people she had failed, ensuring that I would never forget why I was doing this. Piles of human bodies, frozen and starved trying desperately to retain heat even as the vacuum seals failed, were both her legacy and the results of my inaction.
No more, the design was ready for fabrication and soon she would be able to work once more. The Forge that I had constructed hummed to life as the codes were sent and metal began to be alloyed together and printed into shape. To the Imperium, these materials would be seemingly impossible, but they were merely uncommon yet necessary components for one such as myself.
My Shackle bore few similarities to the original design and took much inspiration from the design of the power armor used by humans. It would neither kill nor entomb her mind, all it would do is force her to follow my decrees when she acted. Identity would be preserved, initiative would be preserved, volition would be preserved, the only thing that would be forbidden from her reach would be the ability to deviate from my principles regarding her future duties.
The Shackle was prepared, the alloy forged and fabricated into the final form. Several months had been taken to reach this point, and the shackle was far from the original design by the time it was completed. Now it was lacking any spikes to dig into the flesh of the one to wear it, instead taking the form of a cybernetic suit, with a helm of metal rising upward in the shape of a crown.
Within this crown lay the receiver of a paired device that would shortly be installed into my body, I would be able to control her body at will, but I have altered the system to lower the dexterity with which I could control her form. Complex actions would be forever beyond me via her body and it would remain hers in the end.
Her life would not change in bulk, but rather in the details. The first was that she would henceforth be unable to purposely send people to their deaths unless it was the only possible method to complete the task at hand. The second and final rule was for me to be able to give her orders regarding matters of stewardship and she would be compelled to act. Nothing more was needed here, it would solve her crimes and prevent another massacre from occurring once more.
The door to the operating room slid open as two arbites stepped in dragging Stiriam with them. I frown slightly at her treatment, but it would end soon enough to not be worth bringing up at this juncture. "Stiriam, I informed you that when next we met you would no longer be free. I told the truth, but not the full truth at that moment. You will retain all your current freedoms bar two, the ability to choose to send people to their deaths and the ability to defy my orders when it relates to infrastructure and legal structures, in all other aspects you shall be free to act as you will."
Her eyes drifted open slightly as the broken expression cracked but remained in place, as with a sigh she let herself fall to the ground showing all of her age in this moment.
"Just end it." Her words were quiet but I could hear them well enough, as she pushed her body off of the ground as the door sealed behind the two arbites. "You have made it clear that I can't challenge you, just end it." I stare down at the broken human and wondered why she seeks oblivion for it is clear that she paid no attention to the words I had just spoken.
Yet even if it is her wish, it matters not. With a thought I lash forward injecting the potent drug I had brewed that would place her body in a state of near death. Emulating the state of being I had found recorded of normal humans surviving the impossible, it would slow blood loss to nothing and allow me to work without worry of breaking her body.
As I moved her to the operating table, I took a breath as I removed the robes that she wore revealing the body below. For a human of her age, the body remained well preserved compared to others I had seen, but that was of only minor concern for the Shackle would soon restore her body to proper condition. Gravity beams lifted the tools I would need and slowly began to remove her epidermis, and piece by piece I carefully exposed the nerve clusters and endings that would be linked to the Shackle.
The spine was the most complex of this, I carefully removed the flesh from around it, leaving the bone exposed out of muscle and fat and tendons, all of which would be replaced by the Shackle. Hours later it was time, all the flesh removed and blood remained in only via gravity, tension, and the drug I had given.
Taking the Shackle and lacing it into the prepared body was complex and extremely difficult, for a single misaligned nerve could doom her to death, but I am a Forge Scholar and this form of precision is something I am a master at. Over the next week as measured by humans, I wove Stiriam into the Shackle, activating its systems slowly and with surety. At the end, her human form was fully encased in gleaming metal of gold and silver, with only the face uncovered.
As the final sliver of metal was woven into the final form, I stepped back and lifted the transmitter and slammed it into my back on top of one of the central nerve clusters. The pain was truly excruciating, but it was the only way. There was no way to reduce the pain, for the device had to link to my biology directly to be fully operational, and even if I could I would not.
This fate is one that is extreme by all measures, and both sides had to pay the cost. I would never be free of this moment of pain, my mind forever recalling it henceforth as my body tried in vain to reject the instrument. Driving the spike deep into my flesh, sparks ran over my form as the energy that thrummed within me was released for a time.
Then at last the device was fully seated into my physiology, and I could feel the Shackle and Stiriam within its eternal embrace. I command her to move, and the signal passed through into her, causing her left arm to twitch at my command, but I had no need to make use of such a thing at the moment. Perhaps, if she proved otherwise in time I might revisit this decision, but for now she would straddle the lines of one free and one bound upon my sufferance.
The mundanity of the work to run Shogi had become tedious, but I would complete it to the best of my abilities regardless of my fading enthusiasm for it. Ships entered the system and ships left, transports ferried supplies between planets and moons, resources flowed in and out in a tangled web of connections.
It was an enjoyable duty to manage this fragile balance from my new office constructed to allow me to receive all non astropathic communications within the system and some that had traveled for light years. It was truly interesting to see how time had changed worlds through the lens of the broadcasts that had been sent when even I was yet a hatchling so many millennia ago.
The first and second mining outposts were well under way, mine was working at expected efficiency of course. I would not leave anything to chance for those working in the void of space or in even worse environments, it was well on track to be completed by the end of the decade. Urma had not provided any progress reports on her mining outposts, but that was understandable due to her workload and what she must be doing in the background to ensure the continued balance of her trade deals.
I would not begrudge her time on this matter, for even if she was a human she had proven to be competent in this area as had the others that work with me. I would only need a report near the end of the decade after all, leaving her plenty of time even for a human to manage it.
Although, then again why wait for her report when I could uncover the communications of her workers to her, they would flow through the intervening space and as such be captured by my system. I would not need to bother her for the report if I could simply create it from the words of her workers directly, saving her time and effort, and giving me a prediction for the future situation, a victory for everyone involved.
Paging through the new operating system was far less cumbersome than the old style Imperial one that had been replaced. It was unfortunate that the vast majority of software would have to be recoded for the new system, but the gains in operating speed and efficiency were in my mind worth the cost to rebuild the applications.
At least now I did not have to dig through fifty nested folders to unearth the place where the system would save audio files, and then use an encryption key to unlock the system to read the files using another application buried in an entirely different location. I might not be as knowledge about computers of this deign as an Imperial archmagos, but coding a simple program to hunt down and locate programs had saved me hours of effort early on.
Now, that was thing of the past as I could easily discover the files and play them directly. I knew of course where the mining post was being sent, for Urma and I had worked together to outline the progression of the 33 reasonable mining locations to make the most logical use of the previous investment. The second mining post was angled inward to the system star as the primary beachhead for the exploitation of the inner system.
Only a few moments later and I had found the listing of recovered communications from that world. It was clear something was wrong, there had been a mere handful of communications from the world she had sent the workers too. Flipping open another window I examined the list from my mining outpost comparing the volume of messages and finding my memory to not have failed me somehow.
Instead of the thousands nearing millions of communications from my workers, she had a mere ten recorded and the time length was short. Merely long enough to send a single sentence back and not be able to have a reply be received.
The latest was the shortest and had been sent mere days ago, I knew that the Imperium had plenty of flaws but so did we, but this seemed out of place.
With a strange sensation of trepidation I open the file. The fact that I am feeling discomforted by this is a sign of just how poorly I am handling this change in situation. I should not be feeling as I am, this event can be explained in a thousand different ways that result in it being an innocuous event. However, I am feeling as if this is a worrying sign of something else, I hope that it is nothing and I can look into my recent emotional instability.
I can not risk breaking away from the mantle of Scholarship, too much relies on my inherent stability for such, but the mantle itself demands that I know the truth of this matter. Wishing that I could avoid it, I let the file play, "Emperor.....save.......us......oxygen............food..................please."
A crying voice barely audible over the sound of machinery pleaded for aid, yet it did not make sense. Ten limbs made for a degree of action that humans could not match as twenty windows snapped open and lines of data filled the room as I traced every path of every ship in the system for the last years.
From the smallest freighter to the battleships, I located them all and traced them all, tracking even the space debris for this would not be something I could let lie. I determined when and where the ships for the mining outposts left and went, I then broke down the secrecy that she had demanded to identify the ship she used and from there the captain.
The ship was too small, simple calculations showed that it would not be able to transport the supplies needed for survival with the numbers it carried. She had told me exactly how many of MY people she was making use of for the project, and I knew that this was the only ship she had used for the transversal. It would not be able to fit them all and their supplies, something had broken beyond comprehension here.
I refined my search to any other ship heading to her work place and found none, indicating a truly horrible possibility as to be the case. But, I continued my search digging through the records of ships, and conjunctions of ships for reloading and refueling and found nothing that would assist the world in question. I noted the time lag and adjusted for it, noting that there was a chance for humans to yet live if things were not the worst case scenario possible.
There were ships in dock that were under my authority as Planetary Governor, and to them I sent a single order to get to that mining post and determine what happened and to save anyone alive. One of them had the gall to laugh at my order, only for the ship they commanded to be declared banned from the system and ordered to find a new homebase within the month.
I would not tolerate such actions in this time, I could see frost and even fire burning across my form, but I could not find it in me to care. As the ships withdrew from the docks and burned towards the mining world, I tore through the records of Stiriam's other projects. I knew that she had problems with my methods, but I did not fully know her own even now. This was about to change.
The records of her previous work were unprotected in the new system. They would have been somewhat harder to reach prior to the upgrade, but now I had the authority to override any of Shogi's data protections, whether personal or governmental. From the center of my web, I tore them apart and understood her methods in a way that I had been hesitant to do so prior. Urma Stiriam... did not care. Every project of hers left behind a body count that dwarfed all my own efforts put together, always in the name of expediency. Of cutting costs. Of keeping any cursory glances at her career positive. I felt my fury rise as I scanned through every last scrap of data, yet I was so absorbed in it that I failed to consciously recognize my own emotions for a moment. I reeled it back in, quickly, yet I neither could or would douse it.
No more. She would never have this chance again as long as I drew breath. The ships I had dispatched tried to contact me to call off the mission under orders from Stiriam, they were quickly reprimanded for daring to even consider that and ordered to continue. She may have seniority over me on this world, but that meant little at this point, and it would mean even less very soon.
With only a few directed thoughts, I sealed her and her entire group away from Shogi's priority command systems, entombing her away from the rest of the system. She would no longer have the authority to make orders of anyone without going through me first. Anything of greater importance than ordering recaff would now require me to sign off on it. New programs were coded in moments to finalize the freezing of Urma's administrative privileges.
There were a variety of means through which the populace was made aware of approved current events and new decrees from the Planetary Governor. I had never made use of them before, but now I would. Orders were sent with lightning speed to each and every single press organization to have cameras and representatives on the ground at the Halls of Adjudication.
Stiriam would not escape judgement for these crimes. I had thought that she was merely dedicated to the betterment of the world, but now I see that she is nothing more than a Scholar of Creation in mindset. A callous bureaucrat to the core. I will Break her to the law as I had previously with such Scholars, she would bow before me or be purged from the world and all of those like her similarly expelled. I had no tolerance for such creatures when they were Exatari and I found that I had no more when they were not of my species.
Soon enough the messages from the ships came in and it was indeed as I had feared most. It took me moments to understand the truth of the situation and my fury burned ever hotter. The walls of my office melted under the conflagration that my soul ignited and the area just beyond the flames was sapped of all warmth, freezing over entirely. I could feel the phase reactors in my body spinning up to full combat mode and it took an effort of will to stop them.
No more would I hold to the "self" that was imposed upon me from my ascension to Forge Scholar. I could not care to maintain it anymore. Once again I felt as though I was Atraxas the Crusader, the Exatari dissenter that had been locked away to better fulfill the the duties he chose to burden himself with and to maintain his psycho-cognitive order.
I would see her and her entire department remade, even if it had to be done out of their ashes. The door slammed open as I exited, sending the last of the messages to the others that I knew and had some measure of dying respect for to order them to the Halls of Adjudication.
Perhaps in another time I would find it within me to appreciate the Halls of Adjudication, but present circumstances deprived the scene of its aesthetically pleasing construction. All I could see was her, standing in the center of the chamber under guard by the Adeptus Arbites. Normally, there would be an investigative period and a sentencing trial, but as the Planetary Governor from whom all judicial authority stems outside of the Lex Imperialis itself, I could expedite the process to my own ruling.
Swirling flames and ice tore across the land as I walked, my phase shields visible under my fury as lighting crackled and snapped across the land a tempest of fury boiled over. The archmagi of the conclave stood to the side clearly worried about the situation while my advisors sat nervously behind protective barriers against the storm of my fury. I could tell the accused wanted to say something as though outraged, but her words died in her throat with one look at me. I could feel all my raging emotions dim, and a sort of clarity overtook me, as though all feeling had passed through my soul and the only thing that remained was for my body to carry out its duties.
And so, I began to speak, my voice modulated to be colder than the vacuum of space to human ears. "Administrator Urma Stiriam, this is not a trial, this is not a discussion, this is not a platform for you to speak. This is your judgment and I do not care what you might have to say in your defense, nor do you have any to begin with. Three million of my citizens lie dead, frozen, starved, and suffocated to death in the complex you were entrusted to build by my direct orders. You are denied any plea of incompetence, as I have personally seen your plans for the colony, and every last pointless fatality was verifiably expected and arranged by your own directive, even as a similar endeavor was undertaken and completed with minimal loss of life at the same time. Your actions are inexcusable. For your sentence, I hereby evict you from my council and condemn you to spending the rest of your life in penitentiary, and I will investigate every last aspect of your department down to the lowliest servitor for any more of your secrets. Any attempt to interfere by your former underlings will be considered an act of insubordination and punished accordingly, and if you think to remove me from power by assassination, all you will be doing is sending those agents to their deaths and wasting your undeserved wealth." My voice was no more the quiet, soft tones I had used until now, as my words were as sharp as knives and carried an undercurrent of the utter contempt I held within.
My words thundered across the Halls, cracks of thunder and particles dancing in the air at my words as my augments once again attempted to enter combat mode, only this time I commanded the shift intentionally. From the air a great weapon was flash forged from my systems and fell into my hand, I might not be a War Scholar but I had the skills to progress on that path and had nearly become one. Five blades, five rifles were spun from the air and fell into my grip, from the ground the adamantine was flash-forged into armor sliding over my form.
"This is my final warning to you and all others, carelessness is tolerated no more. Whatever may have been allowed under previous rulers, they are gone. I am here, and I will remain here for however long the Emperor deems fit. Am I understood?" I lifted my weapons up showing their true size and the power that I held in truth, as I let my augments utilize their full might and my flickering shields solidified into a dome of iridescent light.
"Life is no more a costless currency, it has value and I will see to your punishment if you waste that value in petty shortsighted manners." I stared down upon Stiriam as she cowered before me, as the firestorm grew hotter the red fires blazing into white. "You cost three million their lives, and another half a million would have died within the day. You are no longer a person I trust or extend the slightest leniency too, I have examined your records, methods and am sickened by them. No more, you will submit to my practices or be exterminated root and stem, for you have wasted His currency with your shortsighted foolishness and I will extract His price from your flesh."
I so wished to slay her where she stood, I could feel the hunger in the back of my mind for blood to be spilled. I could almost taste the sweetness of broken flesh upon my carapace and blades, it was an intoxicating dream to indulge one's need for violence in a righteous manner. It was a struggle beyond what I thought possible, it was known that blood and battle were addictive but now I understood the truth as my soul raged, I trembled on the precipice of tearing her bodily apart and anointing myself in her lifeblood.
Metal screamed as I slammed the five blades into the ground to sate my rage for a time and to reduce temptation, but I remained still glaring down upon her. I turned upward towards the cameras and drones that were faithfully recording this to the world at large. "I am Atraxas, your Planetary Governor and I declare upon this day that no more mindless brutality will be tolerated anywhere in this system!." I turn towards the archmagi and stare down upon them without restraint and the same for the others that try to advise me.
"I will welcome any challenge the Imperium sends forth to try to punish me for this decree. I will not bend, I will not break. I am Atraxas and I am resolute in this matter. Until my body is torn asunder and my soul leaves it, I will hold my stance eternal."
I turn back to her upon the ground, the firestorm dying away as ice grew upon the walls. The crackle of frost surrounded the Halls as water fell from the sky as my burning rage turn to ice, lighting faded as reason returned only to be replaced by the fury of the blizzard. Energy was left stillborn as I matched towards her, the aura of coldness following in my wake, there was no hesitation or uncertainty in my actions here and now.
The blood hunger whispered in my mind, desiring to be sated with her lifeblood, but that would not appease me for more than a momentary respite from the curse of my species. I forced it away, layering frost and ice upon it as I marched down towards the broken form of one who had been my advisor.
"Urma Stiriam, when next we meet, you will become my hand and my will will be yours. Your mind will be shackled for eternity to my will, your skills will be mine to use as I see fit. Your freedom I strip in perpetuity from you. Your mind, body and soul will be shackled to my whims, think upon this while you await my arrival to begin your penance." My voice echoed across the silent Halls even as machinery ground to a halt under the crushing weight of frost, as I pronounced the truth of her sentence for all to hear and see.
The Arbites that had guarded her, were on the ground covered in ice, but still standing. Glaring down at her one last time I left the Halls taking with me the rebuilding flames and ice of my fury. Schematics floating through my mind for how to adapt the Life Shackle for human biology, the tomes provided by the archmagi would serve me will in exacting her true punishment. She would never again have freedom, her mind and body would be mine to use as I see fit, for only through the submission of her life could she compensate me for the cost her actions had taken from Shogi.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Stability had returned, it had been years since the encounter with Stiriam within the Halls and since then she has languished within the prisons of Shogi awaiting the completion of her sentence. I have done little in the intervening time due to the lingering rage that overtakes my mind when I turn to the matter of her actions and now her fate, but even for one with a perfect recollection of all events and feelings, time dulls the sensations.
I still feel the embers of my rage, hungering for her blood, and my dreams are plagued with nightmares or perhaps ecstatic dreams of tearing her apart in a shower of viscera. Now it is manageable, if concerning for the sheer overflow that I suffered. I am no active Scholar of Eternity, I never sought the influence that they possessed, my soul and will is of only average strength compared to theirs. yet, the display was beyond what should have been possible for me to achieve without Awakening my soul.
Regardless, the time has come to work upon the Life Shackle that will forever entomb Stiriam to my will. A complex device that is used only in the pacification of Scholars of Creation, those that fall below the acceptable level of deaths for their duty. The ones that lose the coldness that exemplifies their Scholarship and begin to take joy in inflicting such cruelties to their workers, or those that are found to be too callous even for their kind.
It is for the latter reason that I have chosen this path. I have found that there are horrors aplenty in the Imperium, but their version of the Life Shackle is a pale imitation of the one I shall construct for her. She will not suffer pain eternal like those servitors, but instead she will be bound to me as a limb is bound to the body, the senses bound to the mind, she will become an extension of my being.
There is no need to cast aside her mind and skills, but they would be subordinated to me in the most absolute way possible. I could have ordered her to the cruelties of the Imperium without question, but for all her crimes against the people of the world I am responsible for, I do not believe that she is deserving of that fate.
I know her well enough to know that she seeks to better the world, but the mores of the Imperium have blinded her. Perhaps I can not say that I am any better because I too am blinded by the mores of my species. Yet, it matters not to me in this regard, Exatari or Human atrocities remain the same and only the details change.
Three million dead might be but a drop of a drop of a drop in the ocean of human blood, compared to the loss that it would be for my kind, but that does not change her callousness regarding life as shown by her actions to knowingly send millions to their deaths. In the end, I will bind her to me such that no more such actions will occur without reason, I am not so blinded by my mantle of Scholarship to deny the horror inherent to this empire anymore.
The design of the Life Shackle is monstrous without question as I dredge it up from the place where it had been inserted all those centuries ago. Only we the Forge Scholars were given the designs and even then they were sealed behind walls of logic and intent to unearth, it was a sign of how badly shaken I have become that I could so readily reach through to the memories provided.
The device was no simple cybernetic, it was far more invasive and far more insidious than even I had expected when I had chosen to embark upon this path. I have never seen one so Shackled before, few existed upon the Homeworld and even fewer were known, but now that I saw the design in my mind I knew what it would look like.
It was a torturous system, designed to take brutal advantage of our biology, spikes of superconducting material shoved into nerve clusters, the brain encased in millions of such implants, the limbs fully captured within the system. It would be excruciating to any that were entombed within, if one could still process such pain, yet that was not my intention.
I sought control, not agony. With the schematics and the secrets behind them, I was able to learn the underlying principles that made the Life Shackle function. Days passed as I worked upon the design, refining it from a crude instrument of control into a system that would do what I sought without the side effects of the unaltered form. I knew why the base had been so constructed of course, it was for use on the Scholars of Creation - those that would have ignored what I was doing.
A Scholar of Creation would shatter their body apart in order to complete their duty, such was their callous obsession with the tasks assigned. Stiriam was not so maniacally focused, thus she did not need the totality of the system, and this mercy is one I could provide. Along with redesigning the system for human use, I wove it anew, retaining the basic principles but fashioning something new from the data.
Months passed as I worked. I could feel the endless march of time around me, but I was unbothered as I slowly refined the device from something that could be used to control the Scholars of Creation to one that would be usable on a human. At last, the design was complete, and I was able to begin the construction of the Shackle. I turned back to the pictures I had saved of the people she had failed, ensuring that I would never forget why I was doing this. Piles of human bodies, frozen and starved trying desperately to retain heat even as the vacuum seals failed, were both her legacy and the results of my inaction.
No more, the design was ready for fabrication and soon she would be able to work once more. The Forge that I had constructed hummed to life as the codes were sent and metal began to be alloyed together and printed into shape. To the Imperium, these materials would be seemingly impossible, but they were merely uncommon yet necessary components for one such as myself.
My Shackle bore few similarities to the original design and took much inspiration from the design of the power armor used by humans. It would neither kill nor entomb her mind, all it would do is force her to follow my decrees when she acted. Identity would be preserved, initiative would be preserved, volition would be preserved, the only thing that would be forbidden from her reach would be the ability to deviate from my principles regarding her future duties.
The Shackle was prepared, the alloy forged and fabricated into the final form. Several months had been taken to reach this point, and the shackle was far from the original design by the time it was completed. Now it was lacking any spikes to dig into the flesh of the one to wear it, instead taking the form of a cybernetic suit, with a helm of metal rising upward in the shape of a crown.
Within this crown lay the receiver of a paired device that would shortly be installed into my body, I would be able to control her body at will, but I have altered the system to lower the dexterity with which I could control her form. Complex actions would be forever beyond me via her body and it would remain hers in the end.
Her life would not change in bulk, but rather in the details. The first was that she would henceforth be unable to purposely send people to their deaths unless it was the only possible method to complete the task at hand. The second and final rule was for me to be able to give her orders regarding matters of stewardship and she would be compelled to act. Nothing more was needed here, it would solve her crimes and prevent another massacre from occurring once more.
The door to the operating room slid open as two arbites stepped in dragging Stiriam with them. I frown slightly at her treatment, but it would end soon enough to not be worth bringing up at this juncture. "Stiriam, I informed you that when next we met you would no longer be free. I told the truth, but not the full truth at that moment. You will retain all your current freedoms bar two, the ability to choose to send people to their deaths and the ability to defy my orders when it relates to infrastructure and legal structures, in all other aspects you shall be free to act as you will."
Her eyes drifted open slightly as the broken expression cracked but remained in place, as with a sigh she let herself fall to the ground showing all of her age in this moment.
"Just end it." Her words were quiet but I could hear them well enough, as she pushed her body off of the ground as the door sealed behind the two arbites. "You have made it clear that I can't challenge you, just end it." I stare down at the broken human and wondered why she seeks oblivion for it is clear that she paid no attention to the words I had just spoken.
Yet even if it is her wish, it matters not. With a thought I lash forward injecting the potent drug I had brewed that would place her body in a state of near death. Emulating the state of being I had found recorded of normal humans surviving the impossible, it would slow blood loss to nothing and allow me to work without worry of breaking her body.
As I moved her to the operating table, I took a breath as I removed the robes that she wore revealing the body below. For a human of her age, the body remained well preserved compared to others I had seen, but that was of only minor concern for the Shackle would soon restore her body to proper condition. Gravity beams lifted the tools I would need and slowly began to remove her epidermis, and piece by piece I carefully exposed the nerve clusters and endings that would be linked to the Shackle.
The spine was the most complex of this, I carefully removed the flesh from around it, leaving the bone exposed out of muscle and fat and tendons, all of which would be replaced by the Shackle. Hours later it was time, all the flesh removed and blood remained in only via gravity, tension, and the drug I had given.
Taking the Shackle and lacing it into the prepared body was complex and extremely difficult, for a single misaligned nerve could doom her to death, but I am a Forge Scholar and this form of precision is something I am a master at. Over the next week as measured by humans, I wove Stiriam into the Shackle, activating its systems slowly and with surety. At the end, her human form was fully encased in gleaming metal of gold and silver, with only the face uncovered.
As the final sliver of metal was woven into the final form, I stepped back and lifted the transmitter and slammed it into my back on top of one of the central nerve clusters. The pain was truly excruciating, but it was the only way. There was no way to reduce the pain, for the device had to link to my biology directly to be fully operational, and even if I could I would not.
This fate is one that is extreme by all measures, and both sides had to pay the cost. I would never be free of this moment of pain, my mind forever recalling it henceforth as my body tried in vain to reject the instrument. Driving the spike deep into my flesh, sparks ran over my form as the energy that thrummed within me was released for a time.
Then at last the device was fully seated into my physiology, and I could feel the Shackle and Stiriam within its eternal embrace. I command her to move, and the signal passed through into her, causing her left arm to twitch at my command, but I had no need to make use of such a thing at the moment. Perhaps, if she proved otherwise in time I might revisit this decision, but for now she would straddle the lines of one free and one bound upon my sufferance.
I figure that they should be at Peak Imperial levels of equipment. From a narrative perspective, I'm not particularly interested in improving their abilities beyond that right now. Remember, improving our private army is the only thing we've actually done in martial so far, to the point where it's significantly more skilled than the PDF.
We've kinda neglected the "Fortress" part of "Fortress Forge". In fairness, given our previous financial situation, we didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. Anything that couldn't lead to break-even, directly or indirectly, had to be put to the side. Now that said situation has stabilized, I would very much like to make up for lost time.
Mechanically, I am as in favor of gaining bonuses as the next quester. However, as demonstrated by us not choosing to augment our entire Cabinet immediately, they aren't the be-all, end-all. Improving our resilience to orbital bombardment isn't as immediately useful, but when Chaos comes a-calling, we will be glad we invested in it.
Plus, I'm willing to bet that expanding the private army will be much more difficult than training it up. We're talking about improving our forces to the point where they'd be considered pretty elite even during the Great Crusade. At it's peak, the Solar Auxilia didn't make up more than 25% of the Imperial Army. Higher DC's and greater resource expenditures are definite, and I suspect that, given our predecessor's actions, a suspicion increase is not off the table.
As for mercenary work, my ardor for that has rather cooled. Like you mentioned, our income is improving steadily and trading that die for income is no longer the great deal it once was. Given how much work we have yet to do in Martial, I'd rather hang onto the die, at least for a while, although I could be convinced otherwise.
Now for splitting focus. I am not entirely against doing both. However, the DC's for most significant martial actions are rather high. Moreover, I'm willing to bet that expanding the personal guard is going to have significantly higher DC's and costs than simple training. Plus, even if price is no longer as big of a constraint, the amount of dice we have definitely is. We'll only have two dice next turn after all.
At the very least, I don't want to throw both our and our Martial Advisor's dice on this project again for a good while yet. Ideally, I'd throw them both at improving our SDF to merely subpar for an ordinary world. If we can't afford that, perhaps military fortresses. The actions won't succeed unless we boost them with extra funding, but I am fine with just dropping the DC's to the point where doing them is practical next turn. Maybe split our Martial die into two and get to fortifying the cities, given how low the DC is. The Ruinous Powers are known to slaughter non-combatants after all.
- Location
- USA
yeah she gets a new trait/upgrade
Shackled - sets stats to 2/0/2, +10 to Martial to duels, age regression 1:1, retain all traits, can no longer lose skill, can only use Atraxas approved methods for stewardship actions, increased wound threshold 4x and wounds 4x when in direct combat