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The Empty Crusade (Horus Heresy)
- Thread starter Planetary Tennis
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Peoples of The Imperium-The Golden Apostles.
Across the Imperium, the greatest polity to ever exist in this Galaxy, exists myriad of beings and societies and every day new are brought into the fold, liberated from darkness of superstition and fear and the monuments of rationality and hope are raised to withstand forever more.
The Emperor, Heir to the First, He Who Remained, The Conqueror of Sol, The Great Uniter, The Law-Speaker and the rightful Ruler of the Galaxy and all mortalkind commands this ever expanding machine, when other's, would sow destruction and death, our Emperor with mere words conquers entire star systems, ending the millennia old grudges and planting seeds of prosperity.
Countless Alien Species, once feared as senseless beasts, accused of either eternal bloodlust towards Mankind and each other or betrayal towards Humanity, are now united under the aquila to serve like any other citizen, in great factories working tirelessly to manufacture the countless contraption necessary for new colonists or in the ever expanding frontier, harvesting the raw resources for the Forge World of The Marsian Priesthood to process them or serving among the billions of Solar Auxillia.
Witches, Sorceres, Demon-Wierds, Warp-Touched, those names, forever lost to the Age of Strife are long forgotten in The Imperium, together with old wives' tales of mad Witch-Kings and Dark Covens who bring the unnatural beings into the Material reality.
Now, in great Academies of Scholastia Psykana, those with Psychic potential are brought to undertake the gruelling training and learn how to control their powers, allowing those who would in the dark past be burned at stake or harm themselves and those around them, to use their paranatural powers for the Imperium. Working in hospitals to increase the healing rate of patients, creating in the warded guild-halls of Scholastia Psykana marvellous psy-devices, serving as probability-pernumerotes of planetary governors or serving in Solar Axuillia, using their powers to burn the enemies to ashes or shield their comrades from artillery strikes.
And the countless strains of Humanity are brought back from the darkness of the past ages and into the glory of the Pax Imperialis that is to reign across the Galaxy.
In this and future volumes, by order of the Council of Terra, I shall make a overview of the various societies and beings that serve under the aquila, as to familiarize the wider Imperium with them, describing their history, society, sanctioned religions and their place in relations to other servants of The Terran Throne, starting with the greatest commercial centre of The Imperium: The Golden Apostles.
History:
If the legends of the Apostles are to be believed, the borders between the Sol system and the galactic core were always the home for the reclusive and eccentric, living at the edge of The Human interstellar dominion. When the storms that consumed the Galaxy begun, countless Human systems, already wounded from The Cybernetic Revolt, were brought low, without the resources needed to sustain the arcologies and ecumenopolises, conflicts fueled by survival raged, setting entire worlds on fire and leaving them easy prey for Invaders.
That was not the fate of the Golden Apostles forebears, inhabited by malcontents and radicals of the past Human order, they took course that would be unthinkable for so many other Human populations who suffered so much from Xeno invaders during The Age of Strife and made alliances with their closest Alien neighbours, the relatively small distances allowing them to effectively support each other even as the Immaterial fluctuations raged.
What however came to define the The Golden Apostles civilizations was the discovery of stable Warp Channels that were spread across the outer reaches of galactic core, their origin is unknown, perhaps those Channels were the result of some ancient Alien civilization like so many others, the only difference that those Channels outlived the devices which forged them or perhaps were formed, in cosmic irony and happenstance, by the storms that consumed the Immaterium during this era. Whatever their origin, when other Warp Channels were marked by the physical devices, those were marked by the regions of space itself and after crossing them, one could travel through the Warp and straight into another system, several lightyears away.
This not only allowed the Apostles to quickly grow into multi-system civilization but also opened to them a new path of advancement, The Apostles having lost the Warp Drive of their Human ancestors duing the last days of The Dark Age of Technology, started experimenting with other paths of manipulating the Immaterium and by researching their Warp Channels, tried to device machinery that could mimic them and started to forge great Warp Gates, which could temporary form, if less stable and thus safe, Channels, allowing the Apostles to spread further across the borders of galactic core.
Soon, The Apostles reached supremacy in their region of galaxy, many Human systems and Alien, both old and only starting their spacefaring age, were absorbed directly into the mainstream Apostles culture, while others, inhabiting the inner reaches of the core and the outer of Sol system, became their vassal civilizations and those who not only dared to not acknowledge their primacy but also fought them, such as Ork pirates or the xenophobic Human civilization of Ankhanari Khans, were either destroyed or forced into submission.
The Apostles, became powerful local force, taking tithes of raw resources for protection and allowance of usage of their Warp Channels for transport, reigning unchallenged in the outer reaches of the core. Then, The World Serpents arrived.
The Fifteen Legion, after reunion between their Primarch and his brother Ferrus Biarekh, took upon themselves to lead the frontlines of The Imperium. It was the Serpent which swallowed the swarm-fleet of Q'Orl, it was the Legion of Fenris, which conquered The war-world of Allu and it was Magnus himself who humbled the Sorcerer-Lord of Baeroos IV. And it was The World Serpents who discovered The Golden Apostles and their Warp Channels which allowed the Great Crusade to travel straight into the galactic core.
Mistaken at first for local fleet of some Human system, The local magnate, demanded from The World Serpents tribute of several megatonnes of plasteel for permission of using their Warp Channel, quickly however, it became clear that The Imperial Fleet was something far bigger than what The Golden Apostles encountered before and the news of The World Serpents spread like fire across their systems.
At first, The Magnateria and Techno-Sorcerers of Apostles, took quizzically The Fifteen, seeing those hulking figures in runed armour, wearing hides of beasts and bone fetishes as primitives who scavenged the artifacts of their betters. Soon, however, it became clear, that despite the rough exterior of The World Serpents, those were men of wisdom and scholarship, shamans of The Fifteen bested the philosophers and Techno-Sorcerers of The Apostles on the battlefield of debate and the populace, until then, ignorant of the abilities of mortal minds to manipulate the flow of Immaterium, was equally awed and terrified by the Psykery that the shamans wielded with such power and skill.
Magnus give The Apostles the same choice, The Imperium gives every advanced civilization: Kneel before aquila or be forced to. The Apostles accepted the demands for compliance and became subjects of The Terran Throne, opening the way for The Great Crusade to galactic core.
The Golden Apostles, thanks to their Warp Channels and their significance as The gateway of The Imperium to the galactic core, grown as commercial powerhouse from and to which flows the trading routes. The ever cunning Apostles, were slow if relentless in establishing their supremacy over their rivals, traping the Navigator Houses in loop-hole contracts and exploiting their role as the gateway to the inner reaches of the core, to become the trading hub of the Imperium, they are today.
Peoples:
The Golden Apostles are a multi-species culture, consisting of numerous sophonts, the five main ones are as follows:
Humans:
The descendants of the meagre Human colonists that inhabited the outer reaches of the core, due to isolation from other Human populations, The Apostles developed unique phenotypes from other strains of Humanity. The most populous are The Zinithian phenotype, characterized by their prominent, triangular shaped faces, thin lips, almond eyes and the most striking feature: The milky white colour of their skin, hair and even irises of their eyes and The Alphetian phenotype, characterized by their hawkish noses, curly, black hair and blueish tone of their skin. Other characteristics of their Human populations, is generally short height, just under six feet tall, and slenderness.
Drezevobrinians:
Are species of insectoids, which instead of exoskeleton, possess chitinous endoskeleton, covered in skin-like tissue. Drezevobrinians have short, rotund heads with four, black, tentacle like sensory organs responsible for both hearing and seeing and with set of wicked looking mandibles which despite their looks, are purely specialized in consumption of plant matter.
Drezevobrinians possess six limbs, two pairs serving the function of legs, balancing the Drezevobrinian body and are located at the sides of the thorax and one set functioning as arms of Drezevobrinian, at the end of which are located, six, partially flexible, tentacle-like organs with very small chitinous structures inside, counterparts of Human phalanges. Those arms are very long, being located at the top of the thorax.
In the abdomen, are located the primary digestive organs of Drezevobrinian and respiratory organs, the sides of the abdomen are lined with gill-like structures which serve to obtain oxygen. Drezevobrinian reproduce asexually via budding, thus their abdomen lacks any sexual organs, internally or externally. Drezevobrinian hide is usually grey, though, there also exists phenotypes with blueish and greenish hues. Average specimen is four feet long and eight feet tall.
The most notable trait of Drezevobrinians is, although not Blanks, unusually strong resistance against Psychic powers, being able to survive even direct offensive attacks of High Delta and Mid-Gamma level Psykers with minimal external or internal damage. Telekinetic tsunamis that could topple skyscrapers, would barely move average Drezevobrinian. Beside, this remarkable resistance against Psyker and Warp phenomena, Drezevobrinian don't demonstrate any qualities, mental or physical, that would significantly distinguish them from baseline Humanity including Psychic potential, de facto, their external tissue is more vulnerable to mundane heat and sharp objects than Human counterpart, though, they more resistant to blunt damage, especially head trauma, due to their brains being located deep in the thorax.
Drezevobrinians are notable for being a purely herbivorous species, a unusual evolutionary path, especially for intelligent life, because of this, Drezevobrinians developed extremely advanced agriculture and for centuries their worlds served as breadbaskets for The Golden Apostles and today, products growed in the many miles high, vertical farms of Drezevobrinians, can be found across The Imperium.
Lemurii:
Standing at five feet tall at average, Lemurii possess long, thick arms, extending down to their feet, flat faces with two, small, deep set, solid dark red eyes and round mouths with three rows of needle like teeth. Their legs, are proportionally short to the rest of their body and due to their naturally forward facing neck, giving the illusion of Lemurii being hunched and thus significantly shorter than in reality, looking to be standing at mere four feet tall instead of five. On each of their four fingers, both on hands and feet, grow long claws that can serve as improvised combat knives.
Lemurii lack noses or any specialized externall respiratory organ and use their mouths to breathe. Lemurii thick skin ranges from yellowish, to orange and brownish hues and is characterized by it's plastic like sheen.
Lemurii natural lifespan is significantly shorter than baseline Human, with the oldest recorded Lemurii dying at the age of sixty, with average Lemurii, without any cybernetic modification, rejuvenant treatments or other forms of extensive, invasive medical procedures, dying at age of thirty years old.
Lemurii are extremely durable and adaptive species, with Lemurii after exposed to hostile conditions, starting immediately to adapt to them. Faced with acidic atmosphere, Lemurii will start developing tougher internal and externall tissue and they respiratory system will start to adjust itself to breathe it as if it evolved in those conditions, when exposed to heavier gravity, Lemurii will start to develope extra muscle mass and bone tissue. Lemurii also possess remarkable regenerative abilities, allowing them to regrow limbs and can also survive and recover from being severed in half, vertically or horizontally makes no difference to Lemurii. However, this species requires large amounts of nourishment, so if lacking any edible matter to feast upon, Lemurii may face situation where it's organism starts starving itself to death during the adaptive or regenerative process.
Lemurii also possess truly robust reproductive process. Lemurii have eight sexes, each capable of impregnating and being impregnated by one another, either via specialized reproductive organs or mere skin contact on top of possessing various forms of asexual reproduction via fission, budding, in extreme cases fragmentation and in case of three out of eight sexes, parthenogenesis process.
Lemurii due to their durability and large population, were commonly serving as The Golden Apostles ground troops, and with great favor, Lemurii join the ranks of Solar Auxilia.
Scholastia Psykana has yet to register Lemurii with Psy-rating above Kappa level.
Yijii:
Standing at over twelve feet tall, Yijii are avian-like in their visage, with short, black spoon shaped, beaks with protruding teeth. Yijii possess elongated, cylindrical heads, long necks and have three, five fingered, long arms, the third protruding from the middle of their slender stomach and developed to help in feeding. Yijii have long, roughly eight feet, tails to help in balancing their bodies. Yijii bodies are covered in pycnofibres, with males possessing striking, colorful filaments, for sexual display, usually bright blue with green and red stripes across their bodies, females have greyish to blackish plumage.
Baseline Yijii can live around two hundred years, they egglayers with males possessing vestigial pouches underneath their third arm for females to deposit eggs into, which offered greater protection for survival of the young for the animalistic ancestors of the Yijii.
The most remarkable trait of Yijii, is that, they developed specialized organs for the purpose of communication, utilizing electromagnetic waves akin to the vox-caster. This allowed Yijii la rge range communication which caused this relatively young species, to quickly globalize on their homeworld of Yajena Jel and develope into voidefaring civilizations. The most valuable result however of this trait is that Yijii learned how to crystalize vox waves into flexible and durable material, perfect for voidship building, this exotic matter, termed Yijii Iron is do this day widely used by The Golden Apostles for their voidfarring vessels. Yijii Iron can also be used for creation of object which are inscribed with certain sounds. For example, one can find vases made of Yijii Iron which repeat poems or popular sentences.
Yijii possess no discernable Psyker abilities.
Omoo:
Are voidborn species of extremophiles no larger than algae spores. Omoo reproduce via fission and lack specialized sensory organs, using their entire bodies to perceive the reality around them. They feed on background, solar radiation. Due to their size, Omoo possess group intelligence, a single Omoo is no more intelligent than a plant, however, hundreds of Omoo are equals of Human mind. Thanks to their insight as beings born in the eternal nights of the cosmos, Omoo helped with designing many of the first, voidfarring vessels of The Apostles, divergent from the designs of the Dark Age of Technology and with superior protections to ensure safety of beings who can't survive in the vacuum naturally.
It is theorized by some sisters of The Selena gene-cults and the specialists from Scholastia Psykana, that large enough number of Omoo could exceeds limits of Psykery that Human and other species, such as Eldar, exhibit, mainly, their own bodies and very minds having problem withstanding power of Psy-rating Alpha, Alpha Plus and the hypothetical ratings beyond even that. However, as of now, there yet to be documented case of Omoo displaying any Psykery whatever.
Others:
Of course, those aren't the only species belonging to The Golden Apostles, centauroid Abhumans of the dry world Jewen, characterized by their obsidian dark skin and sapphire eyes, know for their oddity of mummifying their dead or the tentacled Belengi who spend their larval stage in the hematocrit oceans of their fleshy world of Belenghanarii. Those are just the most numerous and most historically influential culturally and politically in the shaping of The Golden Apostles society.
Society:
The Golden Apostles society is concentrated on virtues of knowledge, wisdom, spite, carefulness and family.
The Golden Apostles hold family in great importance, it is as much spiritual unit as social among The Apostles, the deeds of past and present members constantly shape and define the path each of the family members walks. The Apostles believe that due to bonds between the family members, action of one of them must be acknowledged by other of their lineage and in case of improper actions, either stop it, mitigate them or repaid the damage caused by the shameful action or in case of proper actions, be as well gifted for them and in turn work to themselves fulfill beneficial actions for the society, first, and family secund.
Because of that, every action done by one family member, influences everyone in it, like calm pool into which a single rain drop falls, for high standing families, the actions their members take is constant balancing act to remain in social standing, any mistake potential dooming the family to be socially rejected and toppled by their ex-peers and those beneath them on social ladder and stripped from their silk garments.
Another result of this perspective on family, is the tradition of adaption, anyone who is friend, ally or otherwise beneficial to the family can be officialy adapted into said family. Such adopted individual is fully acknowledged by other family members as they equal, despite not sharing the blood, and family in truth, such adopted family members are always referred to as "Far-Cousins", because of this tradition, multi-species families with several parallel bloodlines, aren't unheard of among The Apostles.
Spite is another important virtue that influences The Apostles worldview. Never to forget nor forgive, every slight against one self and one's kin as well as every mistake of one self or one's kin must be always remembered and must be always repaid. For The Apostles, even the most despised ancestors are still remembered and placed on the same altars as their betters, for those disgraces must be acknowledged, showing the path that the one's kin must never walk again.
One of the only ways to be severed from one's family in The Apostles society, is to be offering that is used to repaid the debt one family owes to another. In case of grave offence, such as killing family member of the other family, the offending family may repent by allowing the wounded family to adopt their own kin. Such adopted kin will retroactively stop being family member of the offending family he was born in and became retroactively family member of the wounded family. Such adopted offering, will never be acknowledged as family member of the lineage they were born into and vice versa, acknowledged as kin, as if born into the family they were adopted into.
The Apostles, because of the importance of spite, have conception of honor based solely on one's duty to kin and fulfilling said duty. Cheating one's enemy, lying, ambushes, misdirection and every other trick imaginable are all honorable among The Apostles, as long as one's duty is fulfilled this way. Because of this, The Apostles are extremely shrewd traders and bitter warriors, never showing enemies any quarter and always making sure that before the battle ahead, the enemy is bloodied, to make the final kill easier.
The virtues of knowledge and wisdom are rather self-explanatory.
The Apostles, thanks to experimenting with The Warp Channels, became masters of warpcraft, though Psykers were unknown to them during The Age of Strife, The Apostles devise machines to manipulate Immaterium for them, much akin how in the bygone ages, Humanity first forged the Warp Drive and Gellar Fields to make voyages through The Warp. Beside devices, capable of creating temporal Channels that allow travel into the closest system, The Apostles also invented machines that by manipulating skein of The Immaterium, can affect minds of beings around them, hindering them in battle by poisoning their very consciousness.
The most famous of those devices, across The Imperium, are the daedliest of The Apostles naval weapons: Spatial Disturbance Cannon. Those great devices used in naval warfare, direct the energies of The Immaterium to "batter them" against spatial dimensions, causing great fluctuations in space, or, for lack of a better word, cause "spatial tsunami" that washes away the enemy fleet, this weapon is incredible destructive and dangerous , not the least of the reasons, being the way it manipulates the Immaterium to get the desired effect, by violently "battering" the spatial dimensions of The Materium with the energies of The Immaterium. Another being the sheer scale of this "spatial tsunami" that can just as easily sweep away the friend as the foe.
The specialist at the Warpcraft, are know among The Apostles as Techno-Sorcerers, term coined before the contact with The Imperium and thus populations with Psykers of high enough Psy-rating to actually showcase their abilities in the first place.
Beliefs:
The most popular faith among The Apostles were always informal ancestor cults, which due to their non-invasive nature on lives and knowledge of The Apostles, free of the taint of superstition and ignorance, were easily sanctioned under The Imperial Truth. The Apostles, widely practice cremation, viewing the corpses of the dead as nothing more than empty husks. To honor the deceased, The Apostles construct figurines, paint paintings and create other artistic representation of their family members and their life. It may be a simple portrait, or a stained glass showing crimson sword shining like a star, to represent the life of a soldier the deceased took, each such art is as unique as the person it means to represent.
Poorer families, use public, burial houses to place the art in honor of the dead kin, while richer families have private mausolea for their ancestors.
Relations:
The Navigator Houses: The Apostles and The Navis Nobilite have strained relations, the most important being the Warpcraft of The Apostles. Navis Nobilite even before The formation of The Imperium, build their prestige by their services of Navigating the Immaterium. Even the earliest ancestors of today Navigators, born from the experimental test subjects, under the watchful eye of Commercial Conglomerates of The Dark Age, lived the lifes of luxury. The idea of replacement to the standard form of traversing The Immaterium, as improbable as it is, brings fueled by paranoia fear in The Houses of The Navis Nobilite.
Of course, The Apostles, though able to design their own Warp Gates to form artifical Warp Channels, ultimately, can't replace The Navigators. They devices though impressive, take long periods of time to built, each time the Warp Gate has to be activated to form The Warp Channel again, after which it will be consumed by the chaotic maelstrom of The Immaterium, rise and repeat and as opposed to Navigators, The Warp Gates of The Apostles can only take ships to the next system over, limiting travel and requiring to construct beforehand a series of such devices if one desires effective travel. And of course, as opposed to the Warp Channels, discovered by The Apostles in their early days, the Warp Channels formed by The Warp Gates of The Apostles, aren't free of dangers typical of voyages through The Immaterium, making The standard travel via Warp Drive the preferred and the practical choice just as it was before The Apostles were shown The Imperial Truth.
Nonetheless, many Navigators, still look with revulsion and fear towards the contraptions of The Apostles.
The other reasons, being the manner in which The Apostles exploited The Navigator Houses, making loophole filled contract with The Navis
Nobilite, to ensure that they and not the Navigator House, will benefit the most out of the commercial transportation of goods, when The Apostles were establishing their place as the trading hub in the wider Imperium.
Still, due to significance of The Golden Apostles as the commercial center, The Navigators must accept the contract involving the transportation of goods from and into The dominion of The Apostles, either directly or if already serving on a vessel, indirectly.
The Space Marine Legions:
With most of The Legions, The Apostles keep cold if formal relations, the expection to it being The World Serpents and The Imperial Legion.
In case of The Snakes of Fenris, The Apostles appreciate they insight into The Immaterium, as well as talent to manipulate it with the mind rather than complex machinery and of course, it was The Fifteen who bloodlessly brought The Apostles into the fold, causing the bound between The Apostles and The World Serpents to be close. Magnus The Red Shaman is commonly respected as a great scholar among The Apostles, and soldiers of Solar Auxilia who originate from The Golden Apostles, are know to be fighting with unbreakable resolve under The World Serpents.
In case of The Legion of The Emperor himself, The Apostles are one of primary distributors of gold necessary to gild armaments of The Imperial Legion. As of time of writing this document, one of the moon's of Yajena Jel, The Yajena Boi, who's crust was mostly composed of gold, no longer exists.
Scholastia Psykana:
The fascination of The Golden Apostles with Psykery, caused by The World Serpents, lead to many of The Apostles magnates, to invest in supplying the acadamies of The Scholastia Psykana, as well as hire Psykers serving in it's guild halls for various tasks, such as probability premonitions.
Also, should have written it sooner, but for people wandering why I referred to Ferrus as Biarekh:
In my opinion, it makes sense for Ferrus to have taken Trazoekh dynasty name as his surname. The word "Bia" was likely The Old Egyptian word for iron. Thus, I came up with Ferrus Biarekh.
In my opinion, it makes sense for Ferrus to have taken Trazoekh dynasty name as his surname. The word "Bia" was likely The Old Egyptian word for iron. Thus, I came up with Ferrus Biarekh.