The Rerle//The Machine Druid
Long before the fall, the Eldar seeded many worlds that they would in time become verdant worlds for them to settle. Long before the fall, the Eldari crafted countless works of wonder matched only by species then dead or gone. One of those works was an entire species, the Eldari creating an entire race to tend to worlds and stars broken and devastated by the terrible, terrible war in heaven. The galaxy diminished and scarred, it was hoped that in time they might restore some of it's beauty and glory.
The species was called the Rerle. Released unto the galaxy, they were told to reshape the broken and dead worlds into verdant ones full of life. To never disturb the tomb worlds of the dreaded Necron that it might restart the War in Heaven. Made of a fusion between organic and inorganic life, the Rerle are cyborgs and psykers from birth; The ideal form for which they could slowly shape dead worlds unto life. In their task they traveled in great living ships across the galaxy, each cybernetic ship of theirs a wondrous fusion of life and technology into a greater whole.
For eons they worked at their task, slowly altering the orbits of planets and continuing in a sense the works of the Old Ones in seeding life across the planets they reached (though the Rerle would never match the diversity of life the Old Ones created). They arrived onto lifeless husks of planets and star systems rent asunder, replenishing and repairing them to leave behind verdant worlds of life. Slowly they mended the scars of the great War in Heaven the galaxy bore.
In their task they, like all sapients, began to develop beliefs of their own. For the Rerle, they believed earnestly in their duty to tend to all life. In time this belief coalesced into a divine seed which grew with every world the Rerle tended to life. Like the worlds the Rerle shaped, it came unto life as the god Rythul, guiding the Rerle in their task. Countless eons more did the Rerle have in their task to mend the galaxy, but it seemed possible that they might be able to return it to a shade of it former vibrancy.
But we know how the story of the Eldari Empire ended.
Warpstorms began to imperil warp travel, the Rerle and their great cybernetic ships taking ever longer to navigate the increasingly perilous warp or even forced to outright abandon warp travel. The Orks grew bolder, amassing in great Waaghs that struck across space as the Eldari looked ever inward. Advanced as they were in the restoration of worlds, the Rerle were no warriors. Their numbers were not great, and their capability at all aspects of war lacking. Unable to safely traverse the warp as they had before, the Rerle suffered their first losses to war, their wondrous ships and people butchered by roaming Waaghs and Chaos raids. Worse, the worlds they tended to were reduced to war as Orks and various other species contested them.
Knowing the healing of the galaxy an impossible task under the circumstances the faced, Rythul commanded his followers onto great fleets that the Rerle might at least survive the war to heal the wounds it would create. Their psychic ability, shaped as it was towards restoration proved ill-suited to combat, but pooling their strength together they could divine threats and war, steering themselves away from havoc. This they managed, hiding themselves among the most inhospitable of worlds they could find as they slowly shaped them to vibrancy.
One would imagine this a shortened task with hundreds or thousands more Rerle than before, but the truth was that the way in which the Rerle reshaped a world made it a slow process irregardless of how much resources and effort one put in. Ten times the Rerle might only reduce the time taken by half, a hundred times to a quarter. Certainly they were faster than the Eldar ways of creating a Maiden World, but still slow. That is why the Rerle were many and so dispersed throughout the galaxy.
Thus they persevered as they continued their great work. For the Eldari Pantheon still held back Chaos and so the Rerle 'only' had to deal with marauding Orks. But they could not do so forever, and so Rhytul led his worshippers far from the faltering Eldar Empire even as it's refugees fled. But even as the Rerle gathered in ever-larger fleets, they wondered how they would survive in an increasingly dangerous galaxy. They were made to create, not to destroy. And that was merely on the side of the Materium. While Rythul was powerful in the warp still, his stored strength was being depleted by repeated assaults by daemons, especially Nurgle who hated all that the god represented. As advanced as they were, if the Eldar Empire fell, the Rerle would inevitably go extinct soon after, their task forever incomplete.
Many options were considered, and just as many were discarded. Reshaping themselves to war was unthinkable even as it asserted itself the easiest and simplest solution. Perpetually scrying the future and present to evade misfortune forever was as implausible as it seemed; Theirs was the power to reshape and grow, not to pry the skeins of fate like their progenitors. Nurturing and creating species made for war in order to protect them in their task was far at the edge of their capability; it would take centuries at best in ideal conditions before a suitable race could be created, and centuries more of unchecked growth before it would be capable of protecting them.
In the end they had only two palatable choices. To try and integrate themselves with one of the few sane races who could and would protect them, or to gather themselves in hiding among the void between the stars, and wait out the turmoil of the galaxy. In the aftermath of the revolt of Men of Iron against the Human species, there was about no existing species able and willing to defend the Rerle against the inevitable onslaught of chaos. And so they chose to hide from the galaxy.
A Rerle ship is made to last for near an eternity without outside resupply or maintenance, for in their task it was not expected for them to ever come across planets full of infrastructure. All maintenance were conducted by the ship itself, individual Rerle only one of many parts in their repair. One might even imagine that the Rerle and their ships are one and the same, and they would even be somewhat correct. With the ability to survive unaided, the Rerle gathered in countless hiding spots around the galaxy.
Within asteroids, subtly adjusting their courses through telekinesis that they avoided collision perpetually. Deep in the underground of frozen worlds, hibernating away in silence. In the void between the stars, floating between them at the sublight speeds of a generation ship. Camouflaged upon worlds near-lit on fire, submerged on the very bottom of oceanic worlds. A scant handful of fleets remained plying away between the stars, deciding against gambling the survival of the entire species upon a single strategem.
Many Rerle died. Slowly, throughout the millenia of an ever-darker galaxy of war. Some died on worlds condemned to exterminatus. Some ended up in a space hulk and died to chaotic or orkish hands. Some simply never woke up, reserves of strength slowly slipping away to nothingness. Others found themselves the target of marauding bands of chaos and orks able to find the hidden Rerle through the warp. Rythul hid himself in order to evade the overwhelming assault of chaos his very existence would incur.
But it seemed only a matter of time before the Rerle died at last. The greater whole of their species was hidden near Eldar Maiden worlds, sheltered from danger through proximity and Farseer assistance. And then the Eldar freed the Krork, their ancient allies. The creation of the massive Krork Empire along with the returned Eldar attention to the galaxy at large would be the salvation of the slowly-dying Rerle species, now at last able to act in the greater galaxy for good without being wiped out.
*Possible re-creating, an attempt to recreate a species lost in the War in Heaven.
AN: The Rerle can be thought of as the opposite of the Tyranids. How the galaxy turns.
@Durin
Anything to change?
