Teacher of the cursed: A Warhammer 40k Psyker School Quest.
- Thread starter Mayto
- Start date
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, it's gonna make field trips a bit interesting, but hey, no need for permission slips, so evens out.
Travler66
Let her name echo in song!
- Location
- Beyond
As someone who has never played Subnautica, as I read this, the first thing that came to mind was the underwater city of Rapture from Bioshock.
The average depth is at least 55 km's.
I'd estimate closer to 80 (factoring in the depth before the plateau, and after the mountain ranges.)
Subnautica's deepest point that is reasonable to go to is 2400 *meters*.
The deepest point at earth is at most 11km.
Subnautica ends at 3000m.
Most ocean worlds are 27km at most
Ours is 55km at least.
And probably closer to 100km at its deepest.
I'm gonna look up the equation for water pressure. Because holy shit, there should be no way any defenses survive down here.
Also the expenses of expanding is gonna be *steep*
Like 2 billion dollars to expand 1 meter out steep.
Custodes would have issues with being outside at this depth.
Good news is that ork's will have that same problem, the Waugh field does not protect verus overwhelming pressure last I checked.
Why am I doing this?
Because I am terrified of subnautica, this is subnautica where we say "but what if fighting literraly didn't have a point"
The stasis rifle isn't used to hold them while you kill then
It's for running away
Edit:553,848,075 Pascals
The highest tensile yield point is for tungsten, which is from 300-1000 million Pascals.
That's when tungsten breaks from a sudden impact.
Constant stress that number is at most 750 million pascals.
And remember, the entire structure would have to be able to handle that.
And it has to be countered. Remember that.
I am fucking terrified.
HOW THE FUCK DO PEOPLE LIVE HERE!
I'd estimate closer to 80 (factoring in the depth before the plateau, and after the mountain ranges.)
Subnautica's deepest point that is reasonable to go to is 2400 *meters*.
The deepest point at earth is at most 11km.
Subnautica ends at 3000m.
Most ocean worlds are 27km at most
Ours is 55km at least.
And probably closer to 100km at its deepest.
I'm gonna look up the equation for water pressure. Because holy shit, there should be no way any defenses survive down here.
Also the expenses of expanding is gonna be *steep*
Like 2 billion dollars to expand 1 meter out steep.
Custodes would have issues with being outside at this depth.
Good news is that ork's will have that same problem, the Waugh field does not protect verus overwhelming pressure last I checked.
Why am I doing this?
Because I am terrified of subnautica, this is subnautica where we say "but what if fighting literraly didn't have a point"
The stasis rifle isn't used to hold them while you kill then
It's for running away
Edit:553,848,075 Pascals
The highest tensile yield point is for tungsten, which is from 300-1000 million Pascals.
That's when tungsten breaks from a sudden impact.
Constant stress that number is at most 750 million pascals.
And remember, the entire structure would have to be able to handle that.
And it has to be countered. Remember that.
I am fucking terrified.
HOW THE FUCK DO PEOPLE LIVE HERE!
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- Location
- Netherlands
Next post will be a more general one about Odium about the layout, where things are, what the factions are, etc. So that the players are in an optimal position to make the right choices for.
Starting the damn school.
I'd apologize for being slow. But I like to think my writing is actually pretty fast. And why rush a good start when you can do worldbuilding?
Starting the damn school.
I'd apologize for being slow. But I like to think my writing is actually pretty fast. And why rush a good start when you can do worldbuilding?
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Futuristic sci-fi technology and metallurgy.
Math? In my Warhammer? No way!
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
Don't tempt the universe/the QM. I recall at least one mention of Orks making submarines and if they ever hear about a place that thinks it will never need to worry about facing a WAAAAAGH!, they will come for us.
-Looks for appropriate Imperial quotations/propaganda-
"Blessed is the mind too small for doubt for Faith is purest when it is unquestioning."
Allow me to rephrase, because you clearly don't understand. And that is on me.
WHY DO PEOPLE LIVE HERE!!!! ONE FAULT. ONE MICRO FISSURE, AND YOU WILL DROWN. YOU SEE THOSE BULKHEADS?!?! THEY WILL NOT SAVE YOU IF YOU END UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THEM, THEY WILL NOT SAVE YOU, YOU WILL DROWN. YOU WILL BE CRUSHED WITHIN A SECOND. WHY!!?!?!? DO YOU NOT HAVE THAT KNOWLEDGE KNOCKING AROUND YOUR HEAD
I... understand that it may not be by choice. But terrified laborers don't make good fodder. So how the fuck is the imperium getting anything from this world.
Why does the imperium allow it if they are so inefficient and its so expensive, do they just grow numb? Do we do drills? Say a micro fracture is detected. Is it evacuated? Once again. For me, the idea of so much water existing, able to crush me should one thing go wrong, it would be paralyzing. Hell, I froze up reading the pascel amount.
Also, if it needs twenty meters of transparisteel to make a window. A part of the structure that has force diverted away from it, how thick is the rest of the structure? How strong is the steel?
Is it stronger then auramite? Cause auramite has been crushed before. And this... this Is much stronger than anything angron can do.
As always, gravity shows that it is the baddest bitch around.
...wait
It survived the age of strife.
It survives in a area where the weight of water should crush it. In a area of high pressure, where the "strongest" material would break and shatter just due to the raw pressure.
Gravity manipulation in that seems the only real option
And even more terrifying.
20 meters of transparisteel is needed despite that.
A hole is still deadly, a fissure still incredibly dangerous.
What happens when one of the manipulators fails?
Can the walls take it? Did the engineers build with that in mind.
Was it impossible? So there are multiple redundant systems? Or is it hanging on a edge, where systems are brought online right as others need maintenance.
This probably does not do good things for my stress now that I think about it.
*redoes math*
Only 201 MPl
*checks the tensile strength of steel*
250MPl
Hm. So its.... possible with real life materials, as the outercasing. Those supports would have to be the size of skyscrapers! And I sure as hell hope no one builds on them. Cause sure. You might be able to get away with it when everything is fine. But if somthing attacks from outside? Well let's just say every pascal will be needed.
I AM SORRY, BUT UNLESS ITS THE RAGDAN, SLANESH OR NURGLE, I WOULD RATHER MY CHANCES OUT THERE. AT LEAST KHORNE WOULD HAVE THE DECENY TO NOT MAKE ME WAIT.
Edit: Upon a nap, further reading, and some introspection, I would actually agree to be on the plateau, but at the deepest part? Aw hell na, there is no escape down there, enslavers come? That's gonna kill you.
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- Location
- Netherlands
Because they don't care so long Odium just keeps paying its tithes?
How to not get in trouble as an Imperial World:
1: Pay your Tithe
2: Obey the Lex.
3: Kill your psykers or give them to the black Ships
4: Worship the Emperor.
Do that, and you can get away with pretty much anything.
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Max Uristwell
Custodian of the Toobs
- Location
- United Kingdom
"He is even worse than a traitor. He is, and may the God-Emperor forgive me for uttering this word, basic."
I wonder which is more practical, building under such high pressure or making a building and somehow lowering it down from higher up?
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
Or elevated bridges with massive windows so that when two opposing vessels close to unassisted visual range for broadside attacks (the only proper form of combat) the two captains may lock gazes so the foul cowardly xeno might know the fury and divine wrath of humanity before they are inevitably and utterly destroyed.
- Location
- Netherlands
Note all the buildings seen outside of Nautilus are domed colonies, and hence able to be lowered. Or they are in the process of being dug into the ground.
How to build on Odium:
Place down a large specialised airlock on a flat stone surface. Now cover it except for the door in a super resin that hardens from specific soundwaves or from an electrical pulse.
Ensure that this resin merged into and binds with the stone floor, then spread it really far out, just to be sure.
The special airlock should be huge, and have the ability to let the people on the other side, deposit mined materials outside the airlock, while special submarines provide air.
Now keep digging down, all the while applying this molecular resin at least twenty to thirty meters into the rock wall.
After you're deep enough. You dig your cave as you see fit.
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You know, the lack of decorations on the Xenos ships means they probably aren't doing deep dives of the Warp like the Imperium does, as the giant decorative churches actually help fend off warp entities.
As the tau found out when they stripped off all the religious stuff from an Imperial vessel, turned on the gellar field, and still got royally fucked when they warp jumped with the Imperium warp drive. But if you're a small enough stellar polity to get by on Warp skimming you don't need the holy decorations/bits an' gubbinz. Or they're just really blunt psychically nowadays.
As the tau found out when they stripped off all the religious stuff from an Imperial vessel, turned on the gellar field, and still got royally fucked when they warp jumped with the Imperium warp drive. But if you're a small enough stellar polity to get by on Warp skimming you don't need the holy decorations/bits an' gubbinz. Or they're just really blunt psychically nowadays.
The Hadal System and the planet Odium: A Survey.
- Location
- Netherlands
Astra Telepathica Survey.
Planet Odium, Hadal system, Torvum Sector, Ultima Segmentum.
Conducted:
3.111.500M41 Macragge calendar.
1.142.600M41 Primary Terran Calendar.
1.142.700M42 Terran Primary Calendar.
1.157.700M39 Primary Terran Calendar. Polar Hives
1.142.249M40 Ordo Chronos Calendar. *
*Current version by Ordo Chronos Inquisitorial Conclave Edict issues on:
1.142.521M41 Primary Terran Calendar.
1.142.651M42 Terran Primary Calendar.
*Previous Version by Ordo Chronos Inquisitorial Conclave Edict was:
1.142.245M40 Ordo Chronos Calendar.
Issued on:
1.114.517M41 Primary Terran Calendar.
1.142.646M42 Terran Primary Calendar.
By command of the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, this survey has been made of the Hadal System to prepare future Astra Telepathica Personnel.
History of the Hadal System.
The Hadal system is located within the Torvum deeps, in an area of The Leaves where only ships with navigators, or following a pilot ship with one, can traverse the warp. It is far from the war with the Tergragh, but it is often involved as a supply station for ships heading towards the Melded Worlds.
During the Golden Age of Technology, the city of Nautilus was founded at the bottom of the deepest trench, although the origins for the city are unknown. The ancient builders constructed The Rift Wall, the great fortified exterior of Nautilus, which controls access to the underground city.
When civilization fell and xenos empires slaughtered a broken human civilization, Odium called out into the stars, calling for the fragments of humanity's federation to rally in their system, to rally and regroup. For centuries, ships limped into the Hadal system, fleeing the collapse of human civilization, the tide only lessening as the warp storms intensified.
Nautilus's government became a military junta established by a 'Federation General Ataxia', which then over time morphed into a military aristocracy that ruled the world, before becoming a regular aristocracy.
Then the Tergragh invaded the system. Their warfleet bested the remaining human warships, leading to the abandonment of the orbitals and the floating cities. The ancestors of the Voidborn then fled into the outer system, while the people who would become the Nautillians retreated below the Radiotrophic belt.
The Tergragh attempted to build their own floating city and to assault Nautilus, fearing it could become a rallying point for human slaves. But the people of Nautilus fought back with their submarines and superior understanding of ocean warfare. In the end, the Tergragh would downgrade their garrisons before posting monitoring stations and departing.
Below the Radiotrophic Belt, the people of Odium built a complicated civilization well-suited to harvesting whatever its people needed from the oceans. Learning to thrive in an inhospitable world. When the Imperium discovered Odium, they learned of them only through the stories of the Voidborn, who'd maintained records of the city and their ancestors.
The first Imperials to meet the Nautillians were Mechanicus Explorators that searched for a lost city mentioned in ancient records. These were immediately fired upon by the automated defences.
A retaliatory strike to bring the world into compliance was launched, and then immediately ended when the fleet realised they had no force that could actually reach Nautilus short of Exterminatus. Imperial underwater forces were only equipped for deployments up to ten kilometres deep, and the MK2 Adeptus Astartes Power Armour of the early crusade was not rated for the depth.
In the end, sheer practicality ensured that the people of Nautilus were slowly lured out of their hole through the Explorators leaving caches of gifts and long-ranged communications. After news that humanity was in the process of reclaiming the stars finally filtered down to Nautilus, popular support ensured that the High General agreed to join the Imperium.
Nautilus has ever since been a member of the Imperium, slowly adapting to the Imperium through ecclesiarchy missionaries and Adeptus Mechanicus magi, but there still exists a distance between the Two that has yet to be bridged. The difficulty of reaching the city has ensured that assignments are generally reserved for lifetime appointments.
The Gravitic Sons:
The Brotherhood of this system, is a confederation of democratic stations and spacecraft who select a Governor to be their representative to the Administratum. The brotherhood, although spread out, has a traditional home in the form of Port Vurn.
Port Vurn is an Ohnyl Colony, two giant spinning cylinders connected by a central core within the L1 Lagrange point of Thalassa. Each cylinder is ten kilometres across and forty kilometres long, and maintains a comfortable spin-gravity of 0.5g.
A great shipbuilding industry exists around Port Vurn. The majority of ships built in the system are from a pair of shipyards that are built upward and downwards from the large core of the central axis of the rotating drums, each as long as the actual drums and containing the space-based industry needed to keep the voidborn civilization prosperous. It is in the habitation quarters of these static cylinders where most of the voidborn live, preferring the zero-gravity.
Port Vurn's cylinders have long since been completely rebuilt, but are supposedly made from the original colony ships that colonised this part of the Torvum sector. They hold great cultural significance to the Voidborn. To live within the grasslands of these cylinders, and to walk the ancient homes of their ancestors, is considered a humbling experience.
A formidable star fortress which serves as an important recruitment center for the Imperial Navy. Half the Star-Fort is set aside for the use of the Imperial Navy, with the remainder controlled by the Voidborn Brotherhood, the Gravitic Sons.
Contains:
Naval Base Torvum Deeps:
A massive sprawling collection of internal hangars and repair facilities for the fleet that defends the Hadal system. Large enough to accommodate the whole Torvum Deeps sub-sector fleet if need be.
-Currently empty
Naval Base Hadal:
Odium maintains a large system defence fleet which is so large that the Imperial Navy does not generally keep a large garrison within the system, allowing them to free up ships needed on the fronts. This has ensured that there is actually a healthy rapport between the System Defence Navy and the Imperial Navy.
-The system defence navy consists of four cruisers and sixteen escorts. They are primarily manned by a combination of Voidborn and planetary inhabitants, with the lower ratings being either hired from the lower hives of Nautilus, or impressed if needed.
Odium Naval Academy:
-This academy processes thousands of aspiring Voidborn each day, finding them positions either as officers, or as senior technicians. While the navy may impress masses of underhivers to do menial labour, the voidborn are destined only for prestigious voluntary service where their skills are most useful.
Odium orbital Plate:
The Orbital plate connected to the planetary tether is used to dock the constant influx of ships arriving to trade with the planet. The tether has four cars, one arriving and one departing every twelve hours. It is a vital artery of trade for the planet and the overall system and is therefore heavily patrolled and defended by the system defence fleet, and in the case an invading force takes control of the void, it is set to detonate and deny any would-be invaders easy access to the planet.
Orbital scanning towers:
These towers, each ten kilometres long and just twenty metres across, serve as Nautilus's eyes and ears.
The towers pass through the Radiotrophic belts, allowing accurate augur information to be captured by the sensoriums and augur stations in their tips.
A network of eleven of these move in patterns through Odium's oceans, giving the defenders of Nautilus a permanent view of their system.
Heavy defence batteries:
These mobile batteries are each a square kilometre across and a hundred metres high. The free-floating platforms are submerged a kilometre below the layers of radiotrophic algae and plankton that cover the ocean to hide them from detection by enemy scouts preparing for planetary assaults.
When the planet is threatened, the platforms will move into positions and rapidly surface and open their great metal irises, revealing anti-orbital laser cannons that dump heat directly into the ocean, and have frigate-grade void shields. These can comfortably take down frigates and even cruisers.
There are three platforms like this, always located in a pattern around Nautilus.
Anti-Orbital Missiles:
A design long known by the Mechanicus but rarely used. These missiles are buried in silos that have either been sunk down to the planet's floor, or embedded into the rock itself.
When the planet is attacked, the missiles are released to float to the surface. And upon righting themselves, each of the missiles, each a hundred metres long, with servitors integrated into the machines will aim themselves towards their target by adjusting the distribution of their fuel tanks and gyroscopic stabilisation.
The main missiles then ignite their fusion drives and head towards their target with the speed of a voidwar torpedo. The launch throws up a great cloud of radioactive mist, which serves to blind enemy augur systems, even as the missile begins shedding the plates protecting it from the salt water.
Built for speed and evasion, the missiles are eighty percent fusion engine and fuel and can hit a target in orbit within twenty seconds of launching, the heat turning the missile into a spear of molten metal containing a fusion warhead able to gut a large troop carrier.
Odium has ten missile silos hidden around Nautilus, each containing twenty manoeuvring pods containing six missiles each. Missiles are released from the pod and allowed to float upward separately, seeding the ocean for a sudden simultaneous launch.
Deploying underwater infantry on Odium:
A world as inhospitable to life as Odium, brings new challenges for the defenders of mankind. However, this world's soldiers have overcome the challenge and have become masters at underwater warfare.
Infantry on Odium, when required to patrol the perimeter of bases for pirates or wildlife, will do so wearing an extreme pressure suit with integrated jets, controlled via a Mind Impulse unit. Submarine Infantry or 'Submen' can manoeuvre using mental commands while fighting.
All military units deploy their infantry either as free-moving infantry in armoured deepsuits , or with open-topped submarines able to carry anything from a fireteam to a full platoon. These are supported by sealed submarines of various sizes ranging from ones the size of a car, to ones the size of a landspeeder. Equipment varies with crafts able to take various loadouts, from anti-kraken patrols, to anti-personnel loadouts.
Odium Planetary Defence force:
The Odium PDF is small, primarily focused on maintaining order and civil-defence within the depths of Nautilus. The hive city has a standing army of 10 million PDF members, their numbers constrained by their ability to actually move this army around. This does not count the planetary law enforcement forces, which number 100 million and can be pressed into service to defend the city. Most of this army is maintained for the sake of meeting Administratum standards in the event a tithe of guardsman is expected.
The PDF also operates a hundred war-submarines. Large heavily armoured submarines equipped with missile pods and torpedo tubes with a variety of warheads. They can fire missiles if the submarines surface, or launch torpedoes with explosive warheads for hardened targets, or flechette cases for shredding through flocks of divers.
Twenty dedicated carrier submarines each capable of deploying three thousand soldiers are used in the event one of Nautilus's many colonies requires the deployment of military force. As this is more than the population of most outposts, it has proven more than sufficient in dealing with revolts.
The Torvum Tribunes:
Ten regiments of the Torvum Tribunes are based in Nautilus, and alongside serving as the Planetary Governor's personal protection force, they are also trained to operate deep-sea pressure suits, and can be deployed anywhere on the planet using their submarine carriers.
They have ten carrier-submarines, each able to carry the entire regiment into battle. A kilometre long each, these carriers both have enough firepower to drive off a small kraken, and can deploy their regiment into the water.
Two of the carrier submarines do not carry troops, and are instead equipped with large torpedo bays and the ability to deploy smaller fighter-submarines.
In the event of internal dissent, the Torvum Tribunes maintain a motor pool and regular artillery for deployment in the vast underground spaces of Odium.
Baseline humanity:
The humans on Odium are a nearly distinct subset of humanity, and would, if not for immigration from offworld, have become an abhuman species already.
Their average height is one metre seventy one centimetres, and they are broad and stocky due to the world's slightly stronger 1.2 G's of gravity. Their eyesight is markedly worse than the Ultima Segmentum Standard Human Phenotype, and they are sensitive to bright light. Some remote populations within the Hive City have become legally blind, but have compensated for it with excellent hearing, smell, and rudimentary electrosensitivity.
Standard Astra Telepathica Psyker Aptitude Tests have confirmed the population of having an above average amount of telekinetics and pyromancers. Divinatory talent is rare among Odium's Psykers for reasons unknown.
League of Votann:
A population the Adeptus Astra Telepathica has identified as "Kin" from the Leagues of Votann, a recidivist abhuman civilization, have spent some time within the Hadal system. They maintain their own mining operations in remote parts of the Abyssal Plane and are known to trade clandestinely with the voidborn and the planetary authorities. Their efforts are migratory, constantly moving to avoid discovery but a base has been rumoured to exist out in the void.
Nautilus Ogyns:
Nautilus has a large underclass of Ogryns that work the great mines that extend from the Rift Wall deep beneath the earth. These mines produce most of the raw materials used by the city for internal expansion, and to expand the much needed living space. These Ogryns are reliable workers, and exploitation is rare as they're known for quickly 'clapping' (local slang for death by Ogryn) those who insult or abuse them.
The previous Planetary Governor was discovered to have bribed Administratum officials and passed off substandard production as part of the Imperial Tithe, while embezzling funds. He was subsequently publicly executed by the Adeptus Arbites, and a new ruler was needed. The Astra Telepathica successfully negotiated with the Administratum for the world to be transferred to them as a fief.
The Various organisations of the Adeptus Terra operate in full force upon Odium, working without deviations from standard Adepta operations. Only a few groups deviate.
Navigator Houses:
The three Navigator Houses have their own colonies on Odium within the Abyssal Plane. What they do is unknown, but the colonies were legally acquired and can not be taken away from them.
Adeptus Mechanicus:
Nautilus has a large Adeptus Mechanicus presence, and they largely recruit and trains locals who are inducted into the priesthood. The city has a healthy relationship with the Adeptus Mechanicus, with it diligently ensuring that all the systems keeping life upon the world possible are kept operational.
The economy of Odium is connected to offworld trade through connections with sector-spanning trade cartels, resource conglomerates, and Voidborn Brotherhoods, with many having a presence on the planet. The internal economy is slightly more varied, with each of the essentials of day to day life provided by competing mercantile interests especially with the middle sections of the hive having a large middle class. Most trades are represented by one or multiple Guilds, who ensure that anyone with a skilled trade, can be a prosperous citizen by Imperial standards.
Planetary Tithes:
Nautilus meets its tithe obligations primarily through providing the Imperium with prefabricated colonisation habitats. Deep sea mining equipment. Submarines. And occasional Imperial Guard tithings if the Guard requires it.
Mesa Waystations.
Built by the transport guilds, maintained by the Adeptus Mechanicus, and overseen by the Administratum. These waystations started as domed colonies lowered from the surface by Mechanicus bulk landers, followed by a slow but steady entrenching process where an underground base is dug to store the materials. Most waystations are connected to the Maglev lines, although many also have submarine docks.
Cargo containers with imports and with exports are sorted and catalogued beforehand into frames and packages, ensuring that the handover of materials is a smooth and painless process.
Maglev Lines and pipelines:
Like all things, the maglev lines need constant checks and repairs, which is why small habitation domes are scattered along the lines from which Tech-Priests, Tech-Acolytes, and their Technomat servants maintain the lines of supply that tie the world to the Imperium.
A popular form of goods conveyance on Odium, although reserved for hardy materials, is the use of large pipelines. These are primarily used to transport mined ores in slush form, or rendered biomass for reconstitution in Nautilus. These pipelines go through at least twenty-four separate airlock failsafes, each of which reinforced with gravitic fields which can hold off the ocean if the airlock is broken.
Nautilus Colonies:
Nautilus alone can not provide for the city's needs, and so the city has established a network of colonies. These colonies range from domed cities, to underground domains connected to Nautilus through underground maglev lines.
Alongside the many mining colonies, there are also agricultural and fishing colonies spread across half of the world's surface, either connected to Nautilus through pipelines and maglevs if they are close enough, or with cargo submarines. Large cultivated expanses of kelp forests and managed stretches of the abyssal plane where the agricultural and fishing colonies operate provide most of the influx of nutrients into the hive's Bio-recycling systems. Like most of the world's colonies, most workers are involved in managing and operating large groups of servitors.
The Nautilus Rift:
The home of most of the planet's populations. It's the nerve centre of the planet and where all imperial organisations build their Headquarters. The lips of the Rift are covered with domed factories processing the resources of the colony before transferring their goods onwards into Nautilus itself.
Across from the southern Rift Wall, in which the city of Nautilus is built, the natural rock of the northern rock face has been turned into storage space, habitats, and the vast bulk of the city's docks. There are also large habitat quarters here, largely intended for offworlders visiting Nautilus, with many hotels and entertainment districts being located here.
The City of Nautilus:
Nautilus as a city is laid out in a structure that ensures one's importance increases the closer they are to the Rift Wall, and to the bottom of the Rift, where a geothermal glow provides a rare source of natural light.
The Rift Wall is a great framework of ancient metal that has remained undamaged from the elements, and which no material known to the Imperium is able to breach. The Old City, the part of Nautilus built during the Dark Age of Technology, has retained a spark of the original beauty it once possessed, necessity has ensured that it has not fallen to squalor. Space here is at a premium, as the Old City was originally only built for up to a million inhabitants. This part of Nautilus is directly built into the Rift Wall's superstructure. Old airlocks have been used as starting points for new developments, mostly palaces for the rich, giving the Rift Wall a layer of strata built on top of the untarnished silver metal of the original construction.
The High-Middle, is the expansion of Nautilus made during the early Age of Strife, consisting of large habitats burrowed into the rock for the refugees moving into the city. Closer to the ocean floor, with only five kilometres of structurally reinforced resin-infused and gravity-reinforced rock between it and the sea floor. It is built from the same material as the Rift Wall, although much more densely packed and populated. It is the home of the city's artisans and skilled labour force, with the Ministries operating from here, although their Headquarters are in the Low Middle.
The Low-Middle is the administrative and bureaucratic heart of Nautilus, built when it became clear that humanity could no longer just hide on the world, and had to create an enduring civilization. It is here that the city's bureaucracy, Adeptus Terra officers, offworld trade organisations, and the City Ministries are based. The Ministries are the organisations within Nautilus that ensure the city is kept operational. This includes the Water Ministry, the Lighting Ministry, the Corpse Ministry. These Ministries ensure that their areas of responsibility are maintained to avoid the draconian punishments.
The Deep Hive is the name for the large square uniformly constructed self-sufficient habitation segments that each house up to a hundred million humans in relatively close confines, connected through underground rail lines. Each of these hab blocks is deeper than the other, with many being their own micro-states.
The Pit is the name for the hundreds of old mining tunnels and caverns that have been excavated over the years and turned into living space for the city's massive population. This part of the city goes far below ground, with life being found in anything from small outposts to even cities with some measure of order, here the habitation vary from homes made of metal, to caverns carved from the rock, whose indentured inhabitants have spent generations mining a specific vein for a mining guild that no longer exists.
Nautilus has long given up on fully mapping out the tunnels.
And that's the last worldbuilding done. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have in writing it.
Planet Odium, Hadal system, Torvum Sector, Ultima Segmentum.
Conducted:
3.111.500M41 Macragge calendar.
1.142.600M41 Primary Terran Calendar.
1.142.700M42 Terran Primary Calendar.
1.157.700M39 Primary Terran Calendar. Polar Hives
1.142.249M40 Ordo Chronos Calendar. *
*Current version by Ordo Chronos Inquisitorial Conclave Edict issues on:
1.142.521M41 Primary Terran Calendar.
1.142.651M42 Terran Primary Calendar.
*Previous Version by Ordo Chronos Inquisitorial Conclave Edict was:
1.142.245M40 Ordo Chronos Calendar.
Issued on:
1.114.517M41 Primary Terran Calendar.
1.142.646M42 Terran Primary Calendar.
By command of the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, this survey has been made of the Hadal System to prepare future Astra Telepathica Personnel.
History of the Hadal System.
The Hadal system is located within the Torvum deeps, in an area of The Leaves where only ships with navigators, or following a pilot ship with one, can traverse the warp. It is far from the war with the Tergragh, but it is often involved as a supply station for ships heading towards the Melded Worlds.
During the Golden Age of Technology, the city of Nautilus was founded at the bottom of the deepest trench, although the origins for the city are unknown. The ancient builders constructed The Rift Wall, the great fortified exterior of Nautilus, which controls access to the underground city.
When civilization fell and xenos empires slaughtered a broken human civilization, Odium called out into the stars, calling for the fragments of humanity's federation to rally in their system, to rally and regroup. For centuries, ships limped into the Hadal system, fleeing the collapse of human civilization, the tide only lessening as the warp storms intensified.
Nautilus's government became a military junta established by a 'Federation General Ataxia', which then over time morphed into a military aristocracy that ruled the world, before becoming a regular aristocracy.
Then the Tergragh invaded the system. Their warfleet bested the remaining human warships, leading to the abandonment of the orbitals and the floating cities. The ancestors of the Voidborn then fled into the outer system, while the people who would become the Nautillians retreated below the Radiotrophic belt.
The Tergragh attempted to build their own floating city and to assault Nautilus, fearing it could become a rallying point for human slaves. But the people of Nautilus fought back with their submarines and superior understanding of ocean warfare. In the end, the Tergragh would downgrade their garrisons before posting monitoring stations and departing.
Below the Radiotrophic Belt, the people of Odium built a complicated civilization well-suited to harvesting whatever its people needed from the oceans. Learning to thrive in an inhospitable world. When the Imperium discovered Odium, they learned of them only through the stories of the Voidborn, who'd maintained records of the city and their ancestors.
The first Imperials to meet the Nautillians were Mechanicus Explorators that searched for a lost city mentioned in ancient records. These were immediately fired upon by the automated defences.
A retaliatory strike to bring the world into compliance was launched, and then immediately ended when the fleet realised they had no force that could actually reach Nautilus short of Exterminatus. Imperial underwater forces were only equipped for deployments up to ten kilometres deep, and the MK2 Adeptus Astartes Power Armour of the early crusade was not rated for the depth.
In the end, sheer practicality ensured that the people of Nautilus were slowly lured out of their hole through the Explorators leaving caches of gifts and long-ranged communications. After news that humanity was in the process of reclaiming the stars finally filtered down to Nautilus, popular support ensured that the High General agreed to join the Imperium.
Nautilus has ever since been a member of the Imperium, slowly adapting to the Imperium through ecclesiarchy missionaries and Adeptus Mechanicus magi, but there still exists a distance between the Two that has yet to be bridged. The difficulty of reaching the city has ensured that assignments are generally reserved for lifetime appointments.
Beyond Odium:
Thalassa: The Gas Giant of the Hadal system lies beyond the radiation of the Black Hole and lies in a great asteroid belt that is all that remains of the original star system. Among these shattered worlds, the voidborn have built their civilization.The Gravitic Sons:
The Brotherhood of this system, is a confederation of democratic stations and spacecraft who select a Governor to be their representative to the Administratum. The brotherhood, although spread out, has a traditional home in the form of Port Vurn.
Port Vurn is an Ohnyl Colony, two giant spinning cylinders connected by a central core within the L1 Lagrange point of Thalassa. Each cylinder is ten kilometres across and forty kilometres long, and maintains a comfortable spin-gravity of 0.5g.
A great shipbuilding industry exists around Port Vurn. The majority of ships built in the system are from a pair of shipyards that are built upward and downwards from the large core of the central axis of the rotating drums, each as long as the actual drums and containing the space-based industry needed to keep the voidborn civilization prosperous. It is in the habitation quarters of these static cylinders where most of the voidborn live, preferring the zero-gravity.
Port Vurn's cylinders have long since been completely rebuilt, but are supposedly made from the original colony ships that colonised this part of the Torvum sector. They hold great cultural significance to the Voidborn. To live within the grasslands of these cylinders, and to walk the ancient homes of their ancestors, is considered a humbling experience.
Odium Orbit:
Defiance of Oblivion:A formidable star fortress which serves as an important recruitment center for the Imperial Navy. Half the Star-Fort is set aside for the use of the Imperial Navy, with the remainder controlled by the Voidborn Brotherhood, the Gravitic Sons.
Contains:
Naval Base Torvum Deeps:
A massive sprawling collection of internal hangars and repair facilities for the fleet that defends the Hadal system. Large enough to accommodate the whole Torvum Deeps sub-sector fleet if need be.
-Currently empty
Naval Base Hadal:
Odium maintains a large system defence fleet which is so large that the Imperial Navy does not generally keep a large garrison within the system, allowing them to free up ships needed on the fronts. This has ensured that there is actually a healthy rapport between the System Defence Navy and the Imperial Navy.
-The system defence navy consists of four cruisers and sixteen escorts. They are primarily manned by a combination of Voidborn and planetary inhabitants, with the lower ratings being either hired from the lower hives of Nautilus, or impressed if needed.
Odium Naval Academy:
-This academy processes thousands of aspiring Voidborn each day, finding them positions either as officers, or as senior technicians. While the navy may impress masses of underhivers to do menial labour, the voidborn are destined only for prestigious voluntary service where their skills are most useful.
Odium orbital Plate:
The Orbital plate connected to the planetary tether is used to dock the constant influx of ships arriving to trade with the planet. The tether has four cars, one arriving and one departing every twelve hours. It is a vital artery of trade for the planet and the overall system and is therefore heavily patrolled and defended by the system defence fleet, and in the case an invading force takes control of the void, it is set to detonate and deny any would-be invaders easy access to the planet.
Odium Planetary Defences:
To defend the planet from assault, the people of Odium have constructed a series of defensive measures.Orbital scanning towers:
These towers, each ten kilometres long and just twenty metres across, serve as Nautilus's eyes and ears.
The towers pass through the Radiotrophic belts, allowing accurate augur information to be captured by the sensoriums and augur stations in their tips.
A network of eleven of these move in patterns through Odium's oceans, giving the defenders of Nautilus a permanent view of their system.
Heavy defence batteries:
These mobile batteries are each a square kilometre across and a hundred metres high. The free-floating platforms are submerged a kilometre below the layers of radiotrophic algae and plankton that cover the ocean to hide them from detection by enemy scouts preparing for planetary assaults.
When the planet is threatened, the platforms will move into positions and rapidly surface and open their great metal irises, revealing anti-orbital laser cannons that dump heat directly into the ocean, and have frigate-grade void shields. These can comfortably take down frigates and even cruisers.
There are three platforms like this, always located in a pattern around Nautilus.
Anti-Orbital Missiles:
A design long known by the Mechanicus but rarely used. These missiles are buried in silos that have either been sunk down to the planet's floor, or embedded into the rock itself.
When the planet is attacked, the missiles are released to float to the surface. And upon righting themselves, each of the missiles, each a hundred metres long, with servitors integrated into the machines will aim themselves towards their target by adjusting the distribution of their fuel tanks and gyroscopic stabilisation.
The main missiles then ignite their fusion drives and head towards their target with the speed of a voidwar torpedo. The launch throws up a great cloud of radioactive mist, which serves to blind enemy augur systems, even as the missile begins shedding the plates protecting it from the salt water.
Built for speed and evasion, the missiles are eighty percent fusion engine and fuel and can hit a target in orbit within twenty seconds of launching, the heat turning the missile into a spear of molten metal containing a fusion warhead able to gut a large troop carrier.
Odium has ten missile silos hidden around Nautilus, each containing twenty manoeuvring pods containing six missiles each. Missiles are released from the pod and allowed to float upward separately, seeding the ocean for a sudden simultaneous launch.
Planetary forces:
In the unlikely event an enemy lands on Odium, the world has to be protected.Deploying underwater infantry on Odium:
A world as inhospitable to life as Odium, brings new challenges for the defenders of mankind. However, this world's soldiers have overcome the challenge and have become masters at underwater warfare.
Infantry on Odium, when required to patrol the perimeter of bases for pirates or wildlife, will do so wearing an extreme pressure suit with integrated jets, controlled via a Mind Impulse unit. Submarine Infantry or 'Submen' can manoeuvre using mental commands while fighting.
All military units deploy their infantry either as free-moving infantry in armoured deepsuits , or with open-topped submarines able to carry anything from a fireteam to a full platoon. These are supported by sealed submarines of various sizes ranging from ones the size of a car, to ones the size of a landspeeder. Equipment varies with crafts able to take various loadouts, from anti-kraken patrols, to anti-personnel loadouts.
Odium Planetary Defence force:
The Odium PDF is small, primarily focused on maintaining order and civil-defence within the depths of Nautilus. The hive city has a standing army of 10 million PDF members, their numbers constrained by their ability to actually move this army around. This does not count the planetary law enforcement forces, which number 100 million and can be pressed into service to defend the city. Most of this army is maintained for the sake of meeting Administratum standards in the event a tithe of guardsman is expected.
The PDF also operates a hundred war-submarines. Large heavily armoured submarines equipped with missile pods and torpedo tubes with a variety of warheads. They can fire missiles if the submarines surface, or launch torpedoes with explosive warheads for hardened targets, or flechette cases for shredding through flocks of divers.
Twenty dedicated carrier submarines each capable of deploying three thousand soldiers are used in the event one of Nautilus's many colonies requires the deployment of military force. As this is more than the population of most outposts, it has proven more than sufficient in dealing with revolts.
The Torvum Tribunes:
Ten regiments of the Torvum Tribunes are based in Nautilus, and alongside serving as the Planetary Governor's personal protection force, they are also trained to operate deep-sea pressure suits, and can be deployed anywhere on the planet using their submarine carriers.
They have ten carrier-submarines, each able to carry the entire regiment into battle. A kilometre long each, these carriers both have enough firepower to drive off a small kraken, and can deploy their regiment into the water.
Two of the carrier submarines do not carry troops, and are instead equipped with large torpedo bays and the ability to deploy smaller fighter-submarines.
In the event of internal dissent, the Torvum Tribunes maintain a motor pool and regular artillery for deployment in the vast underground spaces of Odium.
Planetary Population:
Baseline humanity: The humans on Odium are a nearly distinct subset of humanity, and would, if not for immigration from offworld, have become an abhuman species already.
Their average height is one metre seventy one centimetres, and they are broad and stocky due to the world's slightly stronger 1.2 G's of gravity. Their eyesight is markedly worse than the Ultima Segmentum Standard Human Phenotype, and they are sensitive to bright light. Some remote populations within the Hive City have become legally blind, but have compensated for it with excellent hearing, smell, and rudimentary electrosensitivity.
Standard Astra Telepathica Psyker Aptitude Tests have confirmed the population of having an above average amount of telekinetics and pyromancers. Divinatory talent is rare among Odium's Psykers for reasons unknown.
League of Votann:
A population the Adeptus Astra Telepathica has identified as "Kin" from the Leagues of Votann, a recidivist abhuman civilization, have spent some time within the Hadal system. They maintain their own mining operations in remote parts of the Abyssal Plane and are known to trade clandestinely with the voidborn and the planetary authorities. Their efforts are migratory, constantly moving to avoid discovery but a base has been rumoured to exist out in the void.
Nautilus Ogyns:
Nautilus has a large underclass of Ogryns that work the great mines that extend from the Rift Wall deep beneath the earth. These mines produce most of the raw materials used by the city for internal expansion, and to expand the much needed living space. These Ogryns are reliable workers, and exploitation is rare as they're known for quickly 'clapping' (local slang for death by Ogryn) those who insult or abuse them.
Planetary Rule:
Before the world was made a fief of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Odium was ruled by a planetary governor that was a descendant of a long line of military dictators. This ruling class was classed as nobility in Administratum records upon the planet joining the Imperium, and transitioned into this role. The planet is ruled by a large military elite and a series of extensive Ministries that are integrated into a planetary bureaucracy.The previous Planetary Governor was discovered to have bribed Administratum officials and passed off substandard production as part of the Imperial Tithe, while embezzling funds. He was subsequently publicly executed by the Adeptus Arbites, and a new ruler was needed. The Astra Telepathica successfully negotiated with the Administratum for the world to be transferred to them as a fief.
The Various organisations of the Adeptus Terra operate in full force upon Odium, working without deviations from standard Adepta operations. Only a few groups deviate.
Navigator Houses:
The three Navigator Houses have their own colonies on Odium within the Abyssal Plane. What they do is unknown, but the colonies were legally acquired and can not be taken away from them.
Adeptus Mechanicus:
Nautilus has a large Adeptus Mechanicus presence, and they largely recruit and trains locals who are inducted into the priesthood. The city has a healthy relationship with the Adeptus Mechanicus, with it diligently ensuring that all the systems keeping life upon the world possible are kept operational.
Planetary Economy:
The economy of Odium is built on the processing of the planet's immense natural bounty, and on exporting its advanced technology. The city has maintained a far above average understanding of Dark Age of Technology metallurgical knowledge and gravitic manipulation. The same application of gravity manipulation and advanced material sciences that allows for the creation of cities on the ocean floor, allows for the creation of advanced emergency habs and bases for the Adeptus Terra.The economy of Odium is connected to offworld trade through connections with sector-spanning trade cartels, resource conglomerates, and Voidborn Brotherhoods, with many having a presence on the planet. The internal economy is slightly more varied, with each of the essentials of day to day life provided by competing mercantile interests especially with the middle sections of the hive having a large middle class. Most trades are represented by one or multiple Guilds, who ensure that anyone with a skilled trade, can be a prosperous citizen by Imperial standards.
Planetary Tithes:
Nautilus meets its tithe obligations primarily through providing the Imperium with prefabricated colonisation habitats. Deep sea mining equipment. Submarines. And occasional Imperial Guard tithings if the Guard requires it.
Mesa Waystations.
Built by the transport guilds, maintained by the Adeptus Mechanicus, and overseen by the Administratum. These waystations started as domed colonies lowered from the surface by Mechanicus bulk landers, followed by a slow but steady entrenching process where an underground base is dug to store the materials. Most waystations are connected to the Maglev lines, although many also have submarine docks.
Cargo containers with imports and with exports are sorted and catalogued beforehand into frames and packages, ensuring that the handover of materials is a smooth and painless process.
Maglev Lines and pipelines:
Like all things, the maglev lines need constant checks and repairs, which is why small habitation domes are scattered along the lines from which Tech-Priests, Tech-Acolytes, and their Technomat servants maintain the lines of supply that tie the world to the Imperium.
A popular form of goods conveyance on Odium, although reserved for hardy materials, is the use of large pipelines. These are primarily used to transport mined ores in slush form, or rendered biomass for reconstitution in Nautilus. These pipelines go through at least twenty-four separate airlock failsafes, each of which reinforced with gravitic fields which can hold off the ocean if the airlock is broken.
Nautilus Colonies:
Nautilus alone can not provide for the city's needs, and so the city has established a network of colonies. These colonies range from domed cities, to underground domains connected to Nautilus through underground maglev lines.
Alongside the many mining colonies, there are also agricultural and fishing colonies spread across half of the world's surface, either connected to Nautilus through pipelines and maglevs if they are close enough, or with cargo submarines. Large cultivated expanses of kelp forests and managed stretches of the abyssal plane where the agricultural and fishing colonies operate provide most of the influx of nutrients into the hive's Bio-recycling systems. Like most of the world's colonies, most workers are involved in managing and operating large groups of servitors.
The Nautilus Rift:
The home of most of the planet's populations. It's the nerve centre of the planet and where all imperial organisations build their Headquarters. The lips of the Rift are covered with domed factories processing the resources of the colony before transferring their goods onwards into Nautilus itself.
Across from the southern Rift Wall, in which the city of Nautilus is built, the natural rock of the northern rock face has been turned into storage space, habitats, and the vast bulk of the city's docks. There are also large habitat quarters here, largely intended for offworlders visiting Nautilus, with many hotels and entertainment districts being located here.
The City of Nautilus:
Nautilus as a city is laid out in a structure that ensures one's importance increases the closer they are to the Rift Wall, and to the bottom of the Rift, where a geothermal glow provides a rare source of natural light.
The Rift Wall is a great framework of ancient metal that has remained undamaged from the elements, and which no material known to the Imperium is able to breach. The Old City, the part of Nautilus built during the Dark Age of Technology, has retained a spark of the original beauty it once possessed, necessity has ensured that it has not fallen to squalor. Space here is at a premium, as the Old City was originally only built for up to a million inhabitants. This part of Nautilus is directly built into the Rift Wall's superstructure. Old airlocks have been used as starting points for new developments, mostly palaces for the rich, giving the Rift Wall a layer of strata built on top of the untarnished silver metal of the original construction.
The High-Middle, is the expansion of Nautilus made during the early Age of Strife, consisting of large habitats burrowed into the rock for the refugees moving into the city. Closer to the ocean floor, with only five kilometres of structurally reinforced resin-infused and gravity-reinforced rock between it and the sea floor. It is built from the same material as the Rift Wall, although much more densely packed and populated. It is the home of the city's artisans and skilled labour force, with the Ministries operating from here, although their Headquarters are in the Low Middle.
The Low-Middle is the administrative and bureaucratic heart of Nautilus, built when it became clear that humanity could no longer just hide on the world, and had to create an enduring civilization. It is here that the city's bureaucracy, Adeptus Terra officers, offworld trade organisations, and the City Ministries are based. The Ministries are the organisations within Nautilus that ensure the city is kept operational. This includes the Water Ministry, the Lighting Ministry, the Corpse Ministry. These Ministries ensure that their areas of responsibility are maintained to avoid the draconian punishments.
The Deep Hive is the name for the large square uniformly constructed self-sufficient habitation segments that each house up to a hundred million humans in relatively close confines, connected through underground rail lines. Each of these hab blocks is deeper than the other, with many being their own micro-states.
The Pit is the name for the hundreds of old mining tunnels and caverns that have been excavated over the years and turned into living space for the city's massive population. This part of the city goes far below ground, with life being found in anything from small outposts to even cities with some measure of order, here the habitation vary from homes made of metal, to caverns carved from the rock, whose indentured inhabitants have spent generations mining a specific vein for a mining guild that no longer exists.
Nautilus has long given up on fully mapping out the tunnels.
And that's the last worldbuilding done. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have in writing it.
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The pit sounds like a brilliant place for our nutcases to have a field trip, more so cause i put bets on heretics and aliens being down there, cause there always are some even if its impossible.
- Location
- Argentina
First, I have to say that everything here is amazing and I love it, and that something so interesting would have not happened with the other choices. I am so glad this won.
Second, we have our own Underhive equivalent, with our own customized name in the Pit.
Third, as some speculated, we have our own brand of abhumans being born here. Electrosensitivity seems interesting when combined with Psyker lightning, but also for the Tech Priests.
Second, we have our own Underhive equivalent, with our own customized name in the Pit.
Third, as some speculated, we have our own brand of abhumans being born here. Electrosensitivity seems interesting when combined with Psyker lightning, but also for the Tech Priests.
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You and I have very different definitions of what makes a good place for a field trip. Graduation test, maybe, but not a field trip.
This place is gorgeous and...
I like how both Xeno and Great Crusade alike tried to take it and eventually concluded that fuck it, even some forms of lesser exterminatus(virus or nanite bombing for one wouldn't survive surface conditions) won't take properly