Mag'ladroth, the void dragon, most ancient and powerful of the C'Tan turns its vast mental might to bending a few lowly primitives to its will. Things don't go to plan.
The Void Dragon's Headache
- Thread starter Arcanestomper
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Determining Goals
You are Mag'ladroth, the void dragon. Greatest and most powerful of the C'Tan. At least as far as you know, and since you are also the most knowledgable of the star gods you are certainly correct in this. For the past few thousand years you've been imprisoned on a dusty red rock of a planet. Not a particularly long time for you, but it is irksome to be confined and unable to sail the void freely.
One of the primitive, but annoyingly powerful, locals locked you up here. You'd break out if you could, but that ungrateful little brat Szarekh managed to shatter a good portion of your body a few million years ago and though you are loath to admit it you aren't quite up to figuring out how to breach your current prison in your diminished state.
All hope is not lost however. There's a primitive civilization crawling all over this world, and you've been whispering in their dreams for a while now. It shouldn't be too hard to get them to retrieve your shards and let you out. After all you taught the Necrontyr how to embody you, and defeated the Old Ones at their height. How hard could bending a few jumped up monkeys to your will be.
One of the primitive, but annoyingly powerful, locals locked you up here. You'd break out if you could, but that ungrateful little brat Szarekh managed to shatter a good portion of your body a few million years ago and though you are loath to admit it you aren't quite up to figuring out how to breach your current prison in your diminished state.
All hope is not lost however. There's a primitive civilization crawling all over this world, and you've been whispering in their dreams for a while now. It shouldn't be too hard to get them to retrieve your shards and let you out. After all you taught the Necrontyr how to embody you, and defeated the Old Ones at their height. How hard could bending a few jumped up monkeys to your will be.
This quest is about the Void Dragon whispering secrets in the minds of the Mechanicus to get them to do its bidding. This will not be a serious quest, nor will it be a particularly lore accurate one. Not that I'm going to deliberately change things, but I'm not caught up with all the latest canon. Chalk it up to the Void Dragon being confined to one lowly planet. It doesn't even know what the date is.
The goal of the quest is to retrieve ten shards of the Void Dragon. Once you do the Void Dragon will break free and you win. To do that you need to whisper into the minds of the mechanicus. Each whisper will be rolled and have some effect.
Minor Whisper 1d20: Some simple command. Like go to this outpost. Or build this item. Simple straightforward and not open to much interpretation. Minor Whispers affect a single star system.
Medium Whisper 1d50: A more complicated command. Go to this outpost and build a sensor array. Dig up a cache of technology from a contested world. Build this new kind of motive drive. Medium Whispers affect a Sector
Major Whisper 1d100: A very complicated command. Go to this planet, dig up this specific artifact, and take it to that subsector at exactly this time. Go to this tombworld and conquer it then dig up this bit of tech. Build this new FTL drive. Major Whispers affect the whole Imperium.
The caveat of course is that you will be trying to be rolling under 10 in order for the Mechanicus to properly carry out the command. If they roll higher they will misinterpret the whisper and try to do something else. With results becoming more and more variant the higher the difference.
The other trick is that as the Mechanicus successfully carry out your commands the likelihood of them carrying out similar commands will increase. This will be almost entirely narrative based.
I will be responding to each one rather than voting to see which one happens. As such replies will be fairly short, and likely to be whatever I think is funny. This will not be a serious quest. I also encourage you to build off each other's prompts. It's a bit of an experiment on my part to see how it goes.
Whisper Format
Type: Minor/Medium/Major
Roll: (You can do it yourself or let me do it in the reply.)
Description: Some short description of what you want the Mechanicus to do. For example:
Tell the Archmagos to send an expedition to Tallos V to look for necron relics.
The goal of the quest is to retrieve ten shards of the Void Dragon. Once you do the Void Dragon will break free and you win. To do that you need to whisper into the minds of the mechanicus. Each whisper will be rolled and have some effect.
Minor Whisper 1d20: Some simple command. Like go to this outpost. Or build this item. Simple straightforward and not open to much interpretation. Minor Whispers affect a single star system.
Medium Whisper 1d50: A more complicated command. Go to this outpost and build a sensor array. Dig up a cache of technology from a contested world. Build this new kind of motive drive. Medium Whispers affect a Sector
Major Whisper 1d100: A very complicated command. Go to this planet, dig up this specific artifact, and take it to that subsector at exactly this time. Go to this tombworld and conquer it then dig up this bit of tech. Build this new FTL drive. Major Whispers affect the whole Imperium.
The caveat of course is that you will be trying to be rolling under 10 in order for the Mechanicus to properly carry out the command. If they roll higher they will misinterpret the whisper and try to do something else. With results becoming more and more variant the higher the difference.
The other trick is that as the Mechanicus successfully carry out your commands the likelihood of them carrying out similar commands will increase. This will be almost entirely narrative based.
I will be responding to each one rather than voting to see which one happens. As such replies will be fairly short, and likely to be whatever I think is funny. This will not be a serious quest. I also encourage you to build off each other's prompts. It's a bit of an experiment on my part to see how it goes.
Whisper Format
Type: Minor/Medium/Major
Roll: (You can do it yourself or let me do it in the reply.)
Description: Some short description of what you want the Mechanicus to do. For example:
Tell the Archmagos to send an expedition to Tallos V to look for necron relics.
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Whispers 1
Archmagos Ivonivion Zaul rose to normal awareness as her meditation downcycles finished. A system check resulted in a discrepancy between her projected and actual functioning. She was experiencing a great emotional outburst. For her mind was full of divine knowledge. The Omnissiah itself had spoken to her given her direction and purpose. In a divine reverie she issued orders and checked the noosphere. The Omnissiah had given her a location and cross checking with Mechanicus star charts revealed it to be in the Cadian system. So Zaul gathered her retinue for the journey.
Indeed soon her fervor had infected many of the other magi and logi on Mars and they gathered together for the holy journey. An explorator fleet was hastily assembled and launched for the Great Cadian Pilgrimage. The journey was long and arduous and many a great deed were done in its course, but at last Zaul's fleet arrived in orbit of the Imperial world. Giving only vague answers to the Imperial queries as to their presence, and quickly coopting the local mechanicus into the pilgrimage, Archmagos Zaul landed on the world and approached the pylons.
They were ancient, unknowable, and undeniably xenos, but the Omnissiah had granted her this knowledge for a reason. Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, she began to make modifications. Generators were attached, power flowed, and the pylons hummed with renwed purpose as they awoke for the first time in millions of years.
And slowly every so slowly the Eye of Terror began to be pushed back. This of course did not go unnoticed and the armies of chaos boiled out of the warp to contest the great work. Soon Cadia was once more engulfed in war as an impromtue black crusade clashed against the combined Imperial and Mechanicus forces.
Meanwhile Akigosus-Octike also heard the Omnissiah's voice. But his instructions were not so clear. So he meditated on the matter with his most trusted magi and consulted the noosphere for relevant scripture. After much deliberation the Archmagos determined that he had been inspired with a new doctrine for usage against the vile necrons.
Building a new censer and filling it with sacred oils he compiled a manual of appropriate chants, and after review by his fellow arch magi the resulting anti necron protocol was distributed through all forces likely to encounter the dreaded xenos race.
Acolyte Shuruul awoke with a start. Detaching her cranial cables from the wall outlet he rushed to her assigned workshop. In a frenzy she pulled down parts and tools and began to work in a frenzy. Under her whirling mechandenrites an axe soon took shape glowing with malignant green light. She didn't have a chance to test it or explain her actions however as a skitarii contingent descended upon the frenetic acolyte and dragged her before the acuitors to pay for her techno heresy.
Shuruul's Axe was given a brief examination and then locked in a vault of heretek artifacts.
There was no particular point of origin. Acolytes, magi, and artisans across Mars began adjusting their servo skulls. When queried they simply said the current form was not efficient, and they had determined a more divine configuration. Soons the air in the workshops was filled with buzzing with the modified servo skulls. Their form augmented with blessed mechanisms to match a draconic form.
Within a handful of decades shrines across Mars and beyond depicted the Omnissiah in a new decidely more draconic form.
The ark mechanicus Omni Schema arrived over the broken world of Cavlock with no particular fanfare. Archmagos Krelt Katrisonor brooded over the scans of the world from his command throne. There was nothing here but wastelands and broken hive spires. Chittering commands to his retainers resulted in a small contingent of his vassal knights landing on the world. They swept through the ashes with their mighty limbs and pushed deep into the caverns of the world.
Scattered shards were found in the deepest chamber. Remnants of an artifact that was once much greater. At Krelt's command acolytes spread out and carefully sifted through the rubble and ash for every single fragment. Each one was carefully collected and placed in a stasis vault sealed with Krelt's personal enigma pattern. Krelt watched in grim satisfaction. He was pleased to carry out the Omnissiah's will by containing such vile xenos artifacts. Never again would they tempt the uncertain and cause such wanton destruction.
After much consideration Fabricator General Passisch Gaveum has decreed that all mechanicus forces are to use lubricant chemtype gamma thelonius sixty five for their lubricant needs in all standard devices of the noctus schema. There is some grumbling from the magi that favor chemtype beta omegon thirty two.
Current Situation
Ongoing Black Crusade
Cadian Pylons being reactivated.
Anti Necron "Censers"
The Omnissiah: The Divine Dragon
Shuruul's Axe: Locked Away
Dimensional Forge Fragments: Locked Away
Mars Lubricants: GT65
Ongoing Black Crusade
Cadian Pylons being reactivated.
Anti Necron "Censers"
The Omnissiah: The Divine Dragon
Shuruul's Axe: Locked Away
Dimensional Forge Fragments: Locked Away
Mars Lubricants: GT65
Whispers 2
The arch magos in charge of the dolmen gate project succeeds in creating a crude projector to access the webway. An expedition is launched into the web way, and it promptly gets lost. More and more expeditions are sent, but the web way is a strange and eldritch place. Most of the expeditions get lost, and very few make it back to Mars, much less anywhere else in the galaxy.
An interesting flamer design starts turning up in the workshops of Mars. It is bright and powerful capable of a sustained flame of extreme temperatures. Using it seems to spark a holy zeal in the Skitarii and they take to it with more emotion than is normal for their hard wired brains. Unfortunately the flamer also leaks. Users tend to find themselves burning along with their victims. And so filled with zeal that they don't even notice until they are charred to ash.
Archmagos Mu 8-Jzzarv manages to bully their brethren into launching an attack on the Black Legion assaulting Cadia using actual scrap code. Everyone involved except Jzzarv is hesitant. What use is scrap code against the chaos legions after all. But the archmagos is insistent that they have found the opposite of scrap code. The divine language of the Omnissiah. And they are correct.
The Black Legion ships and war machines start to lock up and break down slowing the legion down and reducing it's effectiveness considerably.
The genetors have a serious of beautiful dreams and power on from their down cycles in a frenzy of inspiration. They clone limbs, tear apart xenos tissue, and carefully modulate the iron wombs. The result is a thing of awe. A new praetor design that is capable of both tearing apart it's enemies and roasting them in their tracks. It can't quite fly, but it can make very prodigious leaps.
It's a little bit wild, but this isn't the first time the genetors have made a barely controllable murder cyborg that answers to no one. They sacrifice a few dozen skitarii and trap the thing in a stasis pod. A few more are made just for good measure.
Arccording Fabricator General Gaveum the Omnissiah has blessed the machines spirits of the Mechanicus with renewed purpose and focus. Such machine spirits will obviously never fail their divine master. And thus canticles of activation and maintenance can be reduced by 17.5234 percent.
In unrelated news the turn over rate of tech acolytes on Mars has gone up 43 percent.
Quest Note: I didn't have time to write responses for all the whispers. But I figured they're mostly separate anyway and decided to just write what I could now instead of trying to wait until I have enough time to do them all at once. I'll keep working on them in the order they were posted.
Whispers 3
The design of a new type of cogitator is met with approval and the adulation of its creator Logician Zhakarov. However after several decades of use several unfortunate incidents occur in which the back doors are discovered and used by a group of hereteks to spread their blighted doctrines. Logician Zhakarov is executed in light of his apparent connection to the hereteks and the micro cogitators are put under review to decide if the flaw can be fixed, if they are worth using anyway, or if they are wholly heretek.
A genetor expedition makes its why to Torvus III, which a small hive tendril is currently attacking. Everything appears to be going well. Several good samples are collected. The hive tendril is defeated. And the genetors report that they are headed back to Mars. However they are stopped in transit by a request for aid from the local administratum. Due to a series of unlikely coincidences they eventually find themselves reinforcing the Cadian Front.
Magos Hedamien Carc-Vosch is struck by inspiration and spends several years digging into the Modular Archive. They are able to uncover a series of data fragments that combine into a number of fascinating STCs that are nearly intact. Hedamien is elevated to archmagos and the entirety of Mars is subsumed with the closest thing to rejoicing that the Mechanicus are capable. Binary praises of the Omnissiah fill the forges.
@Pyro Hawk That was a really good roll. I'll let you choose what kind of STC you want to have them find.
One of the STCs in the archive contained a set of plans for the production of adhesive backed laminates. Given the current state of divine providence the acolytes and lexmechanics start to produce divine heraldry that can be easily applied to any and all objects. Unfortunately it soon becomes clear that there are two distinct camps. One that favors the older orthodox images of the Omnissiah and the other that favors the more modern draconic image. They argue, plaster over each others stickers, and descend into physical violence.
A minor war is soon raging between the two sects.
There are voices that worry it might have something to do with the skipped safety checks. Fabricator General Passisch Gaveum reassures everyone that he has personally checked and found no connection.
In unrelated news a mandate is placed for increased canticle usage following the recent spread of hereteks on Mars and the possible sabotage from rival sticker sects.
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Whispers 4
The magos maintaining the golden throne are inspired to tinker with the designs of the ancient machine somewhat. So they adjust the mechanisms, reroute power, and try a variety of things to improve the capabilities of the throne. They end up not being able to do much for the efficiency of machine's purpose as the Astronomican, but do manage to drastically enhance its life support capabilities.
For the first time in millennia life starts to return to the shriveled body of the golden throne's occupant.
Further efforts are focused on the repair process as teams of genetors work closely with the other magi to monitor the process and ensure that the golden throne's revivification protocols proceed without interruption. They are prepared to install new augments to replace organs too ancient to be revived, but sadly this proves to be unnecessary. The occupant's health returns with startling rapidity and vivaciousness.
There is some dispute among the magi closest to the divine as to whether the Omnissiah favors red, green, or no color at all. Dispute soon spirals into fierce arguments and then armed conflict as numerous other recent doctrinal changes come to a head and the different sects organize themselves and begin to enforce their beliefs through physical might.
In later histories these will be known as the Chroma Wars.
Efforts to improve the Astronomican itself continue to prove fruitless. The magi involved try to implement the designs that come to them in their down cycles, but none of them ever seem to work in the cold light of day. In desperation many begin dabbling in heretek warp devices and both Mars and Terra are subjected to several daemonic incursions before the acuitors managed to stamp out the growing apostasy.
The tech acolytes of Mars cajole the machine spirits to return to their primal forms when they were closer to the Omnissiah. After much chanting and the application of sacred unguents the machine spirits comply. Unfortunately the machine spirits do not agree with each other an which form to return to. As a result the forge worlds slow production as machines no produce at the same rates. In some cases they no longer even speak the same version of binary and entire factory complexes become de facto independent sects as they fissure with their neighbors.
God Emperor Reviving (Note: Remember that you are the Void Dragon. This is not good news for you.)
Chroma Wars: Currently the Viridian Legion has a slight upper hand.
Warp Heretek: Double Forbidden
Machine Spirit Versions: Fragmented
Chroma Wars: Currently the Viridian Legion has a slight upper hand.
Warp Heretek: Double Forbidden
Machine Spirit Versions: Fragmented
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Whispers 5
A fairly standard paper on the intricacies of techna-lingua is attracting attention on the Noosphere. It is riddled with flaws, but constructed in such a way that readers invariably identify different portions of the paper as being incorrect and other as being fully valid. Numerous rebuttals have been logged and Noosphere activity has ticked up by a full 0.003% due to the number of lex mechanics attacking the paper, then the rebuttals, then the counter arguments to the rebuttals.
Archmagos Kral van Carnium has developed a new form of data storage that encrypts information into nested archives. Carnium claims they were inspired by the Omnissiah with visions of the necessary multidimensional mathematical functions, but no one except Carnium can make any sense of the supposed dimensionalities.
Technically the new iron plasma weapon that acolyte Grend built works fine. Unfortunately the fire retardant foam was not rated for the temperatures involved and there is nothing left of that entire manufactorium, but rubble, ash, and the prototype combi weapon.
More expeditions are launched into the Mars Dolmen gate. Unfortunately the only successful expedition was one that head off to a short nearby passage way. And the reason they are successful is because they almost immediately have to evacuate back to Mars upon encountering a hoste of daemons. Fortunately most of them seem to be occupied with something else, but there is now a small but steady number of daemons trying to breach the Mars Dolmen gate.
A fortified skitarii base has been established in the web way to hold the gate.
Never before has the Mechanicus unleashed such an abomination. Apparently driven mad by its own contradictory powers the twisted mutant destroyed the genetor lab that created it immediately upon gaining consciousness. It then proceeded to mind control all the nearby acolytes into slaughtering each other before leaving a trail of destruction across Mars.
It eventually entered the Dolmen gate and destroyed the newly built skitarii fort. By the time the daemon invasion was contained the abomination had vanished into the webway. If everyone involved wasn't already dead they would have been immediately executed by order of the Fabricator General.
The spirit link is hailed as the most blessed pattern ever to be recovered from the STC archives. Found by arch magos Hedamien Carc-Vosch it further spreads his reputation as one of the foremost figures of the modern Mechanicus. Even better it neatly slots into his previous discovery of the machine hive allowing supplicants to easily commune with and direct vast swarms of maintenace bots in their daily tasks.
Something that quickly becomes necessary to repair the ongoing damage caused by both the daemons and the Abomination's rampage.
Dissatisfied by the lackluster response to his amazing mathematical discovery Archmagos Kral van Carnium deigned to convert the multi dimensional data archive into something more usable by regular magi. The result is a an easy to use canticle that both encrypts and compresses vast stores of data into tiny packages. Now even a regular data slate can be used to hold a significant fraction of the noosphere.
Many of the techno archivists have started to erect shrines to Carnium as a saint of the Omnissiah.
Equipped a contingent of Pteraxii with the sacrificial flamers may have been a good idea, if somewhat dangerous. But then someone had the bright idea of also giving them the new iron plasma weapons. Already have driven mad by the divine flames and now equipped with plasma of extreme temperature the Pteraxii go up like flying torches. They swoop through the forges and across the surface of Mars leaving trails of flames in their wake.
Unfortunately the firestorm doesn't end when the Pteraxii die either as the alluring flamer combi weapons seem to draw in unknowing skitarii to pick up the weapons and continue the fiery crusade. The only bright spot in the whole fiasco is that they weapons seem to be making their way towards the Dolmen gate and are already fighting stray daemons that slip past the barricade.
In fact once the pyro Pteraxii finally reach the Dolmen gate they immediately throw themselves into combat with the daemon hordes and prove exceptionally effective. With this unexpected reinforcement they Skitarii are able to push the daemons back and allow exploration endeavors to begin once again. And finally some begin to return with actual useful information.
Routes to several nearby worlds are discovered as well as some rudimentary knowledge of the webway of the whole.
Techsorcist Alpha-Chi 84 appeared unexpectedly to tell her past self to abandon attempts at producing a working anti entropic device. Apparently it worked too well and started to break down local reality. The experiment was abandoned, but now there are two versions of Alpha-Chi 84, which is making everyone very uncomfortable about potential paradoxes.
Fabricator General Gaveum calls for a review of all genetor labs on Mars after the second batch of draconic abhumans escapes from the labs. They seem to have relased the first batch of modified praetorians and escaped into the under labyrinth. Despite the fact that the genetors are adamant that they used sterile specimens in their experiments the abhumans seem to have managed to set up a breeding population down there.
Quest Note: I'm going to try and get a page of whispers done at time. It makes for more connected stories if I do them one after the other.
Missed this question the first time. Yes, you can do a whisper again. Though it could just as easily make things worse.
Whispers 6
Techsorcist Alpha-Chi 84a continues to pursue her work on temporal artifacts. She successfully manages to create a device that can freeze moments in time. Unfortunately it promptly freezes her in time. She'd still be frozen if Techsorcist Alpha-Chi 84b hadn't figured out a way to reverse the process.
Bessane-Alpha-1 is a voidwright of great renown and has managed at last to convince the Fabricator General to authorize a personal project of theirs. A great fleet of mining ships and tugs descends on the ancient world of Mimas and begins to mine and build. Secret knowledge from the depths of Mars' vaults are used to build enormous void engines, and the entire moon is pushed out of orbit and back to Mars where the vast shipyards of the Mechanicus begin to convert it in full.
Tunnels are bored through the rock and vast bays are carved out. Living quarters for whole cities are installed. Entire armies of skitarii are frozen in cryogenic bays awaiting deployment and even a titan legion is embarked. The moon itself is not unarmed with countless quantities of macrobatteries and lances, but the greatest of its weapons is a mighty ordinatus weapon capable of cracking a planet in twain.
Unfortunately Bessane-Alpha-1 was unable to build a warp engine capable of shifting the monstrous vessel through the warp, but that is fine. Instead a modified Dolmen Gate is built that will allow the vessel to enter and exit the webway at will. Of course the webway will need to be mapped first, but that is a task the vessel is well suited to carrying out.
The Fabricator General christens the vessel Dei Voluntas.
Sadly Hedamien Carc-Vosch's further checks of the data archive revealed little of consequence. Which is probably for the best. Fabricator General Gaveum is already getting nervous about the archmagos's rising reputation.
Several attempts are made to improve the mesh. In each case the implants end up being used as a back door by Hereteks, corrupt the machine spirits, or generally drive the user insane. Despite this there is a small but fervent school of tech priests that swear upon its usefulness. They skirt the edge of heresy and are a constant source of ill advised experiments and rogue projects.
Despite the ongoing chroma wars if there is one thing everyone can agree it's that the Omnissiah is definitely a dragon. Thus the fact that the Omnissiah's physical avatar is not a dragon is extremely disappointing and points to a possible discrepancy in the doctrine. Several theses are put forward on the subject and ruthlessly suppressed by the Fabricator General.
Phaeteb 47/8 Lexene is a secretive peripherant of the Ancient Variable. Their mission is to unleash an ancient techno weapon of devestating potency on important figures around the galaxy. And they have a perfect excuse in the ongoing wars by Cadia. Abaddon the Despoiler has been sighted leading the chaos fleets and the opportunity is perfect.
Phaeteb makes their way to the front and commands a daring suicide raid onto Abaddon's ship. They confront the despoiler personally and unleash the techno weapon. The Despoiler is momentarily stunned but unfortunately proves too resilient and proceeds to slaughter the mechanicus strike force.
No matter the other peripherant's the of Ancient Variable will continue the work.
Emboldened by the near success of Phaeteb Omicron 9-Cingh infiltrates the tech acolytes assigned to the golden throne. In an opportune moment they unleash their own copy of the techno weapon on the emperor. Unfortunately the Emperor is old enough to remember that particular weapon and ancient lips start to move.
The few survivors of the Throne Room Incident seem to have been driven insane by a powerful simultaneous binary and psionic assault. They can only blearily hum a tune that seems to infect everyone who hears it. The survivors are quarantined and tended to by deaf servitors.
With the ongoing daemon situation it seems suitable to look for anti daemon weaponry in the archives and the development labs. But no one expects the amazing development found by Cyclomancer Gerellinis. In a hidden archive they chance upon an ancient and tremendously potent daemon countermeasure. The amazing thing is it only requires some minor modifications to a standard las gun to charge the las shot with strange and potent energies.
The weapons prove devastatingly potent and are quickly rushed into service for the skitarii troops holding the dolmen gate.
A somewhat cagey group of tech priests attempts to improve standard servitor designs to the point where they can replace Skitarii forces with a cheap droid force. They seem to succeed and proudly present their new artificial regiment for inspection. It soon proves apparent that they have gone a step too far, and have in fact created a legion of abominable intelligences.
Steps are promptly taken to execute the group, but despite the somewhat inadequate performance of the battle droids individually they are cheap and the group proves to have produced a lot of them. They are able to hold off the execution strike force long enough to escape into the webway.
Work is done on improving the ability of the dolmen gates to transport into and out of the webway. It proves to work well enough, but an accident with the modified gate sends the Dei Voluntas into the webway ahead of schedule. Attempts to contact it have no success. The Mechanicus can only pray to the Omnissiah that the monumental vessel will be able to accomplish its mission.
After the latest round of genetor experiments results in an extremely unsettling series of clones with disturbingly large eyes and uncanny proportions the Fabricator General orders all Genetors be exiled to Luna for the next standard century. "Let them meditate on what they have done. And ponder the weakness of flesh." The actual experiments have escaped into the hidden labyrinths under Mars. Again.
The Emperor starts a flame war on the Noosphere over the Lingua Technica debate. When lex mechanic scholars attempt to refute his essay they find he has embedded the techno weapon into the body of the work. Many tech acolytes are subjected to the terrifying weapon. Fortunately the emperor was kind enough not to include the psionic component and they are expected to make a full recovery.
@Pyro Hawk In case it wasn't obvious from the last update I did decide to take your bot hive idea.
Whispers 7
The tech adepts work on the golden throne discover that the psychic linkages are actually degraded and vastly inefficient. Repairs are made and instead of being lost to the immaterium the vast quantities of psyker souls the Imperium sacrifices every day flow directly to the Emperor.
The Emperor rates the tech adepts as five stars on the Noosphere.
The Fabricator General is slowly losing control over the mechanicus on Mars as they devolve into countless squabbling factions debating over the finer point of doctrine. This is no where more apparent than in the Genetors many of whom have simply ignored the exile order. Still some of them happen to belong to the Order of the Dragon. Seeing an opportunity they pack up and take the next ship to Terra. Mechanicus acolytes have practically taken over the throne room with all their modifications so it is a fairly simple endeavor to do a bit of tinkering with the life support lines.
The documents clearly indicate that as the Omnissiah's avatar made flesh the Empress was a dragon not a human. Her fight with her wayward son must have trapped her in this more limited frame. Ensuing millennia of history simply took her current form as her true, but the Order of the Dragon will set things right.
A new STC is uncovered relating to the maintenance bots. Except it is far larger in scale covering an entire city with a self maintaining web of machines. This is obviously of great interest to the Mechanicus and they make haste to implement it in a test city built on the Martian planes. Everything seems to be going well until communications abruptly shut down. Several skitarii forces are sent in, but none return.
The improved dolmen controls are revisited. Die Voluntas was pulled into the webway now the Mechanicus are attempting to replicate that effort. Unfortunately they have not learned their lesson from last time and the dolmen gate opens to engulf Mars. This awakens the Void Dragon from its campaign of whispers. The star god does not want to be both trapped and inside the creation of its most ancient enemy.
It rages and howls and Mechanicus all across Mars suffer from binaric overloads as traces of green fire burn their bodies in strange patterns. In a last ditch effort the Void Dragon is able to make a trade. Instead of Mars, Luna is pulled deep into the webway. Exhausted the Void Dragon falls into a deeper slumber.
The Administratum is working more efficiently somehow. No one is sure exactly why, but convoys reach their destination almost on time and with most of what is actually needed. Most clerks are happy to just accept this and don't investigate. A few suspicious inquisitors are not so willing to let things lie and look into the matter. They are never heard from again.
Another team of genetors is busy working on their own improvements to the Golden Throne. They believe the Emperor is actually a false prophet and no true avatar of the Omnissiah. They implement several measures to contaminate the the life support feeds and end his wretched life. Unfortunately the Order of the Dragon discovers their tampering and their is soon a quite civil war raging in the Palace.
The Chroma wars have spawned a third side who believe Gold is the holy color of the Omnissiah. Since the Imperium loves gold they naturally reconvene on Terra to gather supplies and even more naturally are drawn to the Golden Throne where they are promptly drawn into the other civil war.
At this point the Custodes try to intervene and all three Mechanicus cults call in reinforcements. The Palace is soon a twisting mess of shifting alliances and quiet battle fronts. Only the Throne Room itself is spared violence.
Archmagos Ivonivion Zaul has had an epiphany with regards to the Cadian Pylons. Under her guidance a smaller completely human is version is built, and it works perfectly. The Eye of Terror recedes and the Cadians gain an upper hand in the ongoing Black Crusade.
This sparks a frenzy among chaos forces. Driven to madness by their dark gods they pour out of the Eye of Terror in numbers not seen since the Horus Heresy in an effort to destroy this new discovery before it can be further implemented.
For over ten thousand years the genetors on Luna had hoarded a tiny cache of precious genetic material. True relics of the Great Crusade samples of Primarchs genetic templates carefully preserved against some dire need. With the ongoing chaos they decided that the time had come.
A thousand genetors slaved away to replicate the works of the emperor. Painstakingly they refined their models and formed the most perfect combined template. In a specially designed iron womb the fetus developed and grew with impressive speed. At last the 21st Primarch was born under the cold eyes of the arch genetor.
Named Kane after a mythological figure of the Dark Age the genetors began to prepare a training regime for their hope and salvation. The Omnissiah's second avatar. The Techno Messiah.
And then Luna was pulled into the webway.
A lone skitarii survivors has finally emerged from the relic city. They claim to have seen legions of machines marching in perfect unison. A great army being forged from the very maintenace hubs of the city. It seems the Arch Heretek B1 has returned from the webway with their abominable army.
Now the tan legions emerge from the city and cries of "Roger Roger" echo across the plains of Mars.
A small explorator fleet drops out over a system deemed likely to hold ancient archeotech. Unfortunately it is likely that a hive fleet will arrive here in the near future and so it has been deemed a priority to recover any artifacts before they can be destroyed by the devouring swarm. The explorators drop surface expeditions and begin exploring the extensive cavern system. They are surprised to discover that the caverns become worked the further down they travel and eventually transition entirely to a xeno construction.
Never ones to let a few xenos stop them from their recovery efforts the explorators wage a methodical war to clear out of the tombs and eventually recover a bevy of artifacts as well as information pointing towards a major relic of the Omnissiah. Unfortunately long dormant signalling systems were also activated by the intrusion and all along the periphery the Charnovokh Dynasty rouses from its slumber.
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Whisper Severity Judgements
I'm calling a moratorium on further whispers until I get through the backlog. I'm working through them right now, and I want to get them all done this time.
Also a couple adjudications.
Specific Whisper Adjustments
1. Blowing up a world is always Medium whisper. If it's an important world like Cadia, Terra, Mars, or Ultramar it's a Major whisper.
2. All alternations to the Golden Throne are now Major Whispers.
Also a couple adjudications.
Specific Whisper Adjustments
1. Blowing up a world is always Medium whisper. If it's an important world like Cadia, Terra, Mars, or Ultramar it's a Major whisper.
2. All alternations to the Golden Throne are now Major Whispers.
Whispers 8
The Omnissiah Faithful make another attempt to destroy the false prophet by adding a psionic siphon. A detachment of Faithful Sicarians managed to infiltrate the Astronomican chambers and destroy several of the psy linkages that had only recently been repaired.
This has degraded the flow of souls into the Emperor and resulted in the Omnissiah Faithful's noosphere sites being constantly hacked and defaced.
Archmagos Kral van Carnium is back once again. Unsatisfied with the Mechanicus's apparent lack of regard for his mathematical work he has with great annoyance turned his theorems towards the practical application of a sensor that can identify the multi dimensional signatures of a the xeno devices known as Tesseract Labyrinths at great distances. In some cases even across sectors.
As a side note in the Archmagos's testing he has determined that several of these detected locations seem to resonate with the divine essence of the Omnissiah. After dumping that revelation on the Fabricator General Kral disappears back into his Tower of Numbers.
HAHAHA,
Oh Mag'ladroth, Mag'ladroth. I am almost loathe to do this seeing how much your lackey's have been helping me lately. But then again keeping you right where you are is what lead to this in the first place. So let's just see about tightening things up down there. Looks like the labyrinth could use some work after all this time, maybe a few more guardians like little Dalia.
With Sincere Thanks,
The Emperor
(Quest Note: The Noctis Labyrinth has been strengthened. It will now require 11 shards for the Void Dragon to break free.)
The Mechanicus adepts are drawn to the site of the Noctis Labyrinth from all across Mars. They find that it has already been fortified by a regiment of ancient skitarii. The skitarii have valid codes, but their identification protocols are oddly blank and they refuse entry to all of the adepts siting a higher authority. The orders seem to have been issued by an unknown Fabricator General so the adepts acquiesce and instead begin setting up a second layer of fortifications outside the labyrinth.
Before anyone can stop them a band of rogue followers of old Bessane-Alpha-1 enact a series of experiments to further refine the planetary Dolmen Gate project. As almost everyone could have predicted this promptly results in Deimos being drawn into the Web Way.
The Grey Knights promptly send a war fleet to "complain" to Mars about the loss of their forge world. However the Fabricator General has quite enough on his plate and tells the Grey Knight representatives that Deimos belonged to the Mechanicus in the first place and if they disagree they are more than welcome to try their luck invading Mars. But the Mechanicus won't be replacing anything lost in the attempt.
The Grey Knights decide that the Martian interpretation of Deimos's status is in fact the correct one and go back to Titan.
Explorator Halphuul 20/1 Eldius is trawling the Noosphere when they happen to come across a description of a Necron Lord known as Trazyn the Infinite, along with the coordinates of his tomb world, a map of said tomb world, a warbook on all his forces, and explicit instructions from the Omnissiah to go to that world, confront Trazyn, and bring back one specific artifact holy to the Omnissiah.
Never in the entirety of the Mechanicus has the Omnissiah spoken so clearly and explicitly. Halphuul is promptly made an Arch Explorator and the entirety of Mars and Jupiter's shipyards are given over to equipping him with the largest Explorator fleet ever created for the sole purpose of going to the tomb world of Solemnace and extracting the artifact of the Omnissiah from the wretched xenos.
There seem to be a marked increase in the occurance of potato crops throughout the Imperium. The Administratum seems to be ordering it grown in any situation where it would be at all suitable.
Maybe next time you can try and make sure your Magos didn't grab one of the STCs which had a daemonic summoning circle encoded in it somewhere before you have them roll them out across the Imperium.
More seriously: great idea. Oh dear god did it go... About as expected for the WH40k setting.
(Thanks for the Idea.)
The jovian hauler was supposed to be a small multi purpose vehicle that could easily be repurposed for a variety of purposes. From serving as a tractor, to hauling goods, and even to providing local power. Made of easily sourceable parts assembled in a simple design it was hailed as a marvelous STC find and quickly distributed across the Imperium.
Unforutunately it turned out that a fairly easy misalignment in the engine block, caused by either a mistake in the assembly or unauthorized field repairs, turned the humble vehicle into the perfect vessel for a daemon. Almost overnight a thousand worlds were assaulted by hordes of a small daemon engines, and the Imperium was thrown into chaos as both Imperial guard regiments and space marine companies were hastily revectored to deal with the small but absurdly numerous incursions.
The Inquisition and Mechanicus both attempted to reclaim knowledge of the jovian hauler to prevent its further spread. But it was so simple to build, and so reliable when not hosting daemons that not only chaos cultists, but even the common Imperial citizenry continued to quietly spread knowledge of the machines.
Fabricator General Gaveum is shown a vision of the past. The great works of man with their towering cities sprawling across worlds. Their magnificent ships sailing through the void. The armies solely composed of millions of gleaming titans. The legions of Men of Iron, Gold, and Stone toiling to support the great work.
When the vision is over Gaveum finds that oil is leaking from his ocular implants and he shuts himself away in his private forge to repair this personal fault.
Tech marines all over the galaxy attempt to whip their brothers into a frenzy to retrieve these holy artifacts. Most are unsuccessful. Their brothers are not ungrateful, but are nowhere near as zealous about the Omnissiah as the tech marines. There are two notable exceptions. The Salamander chapter begins sending out expeditions to search for the artifacts. Like most of the other artifacts on the Salamander's list they find nothing.
The other exception are the Ultramarines who are always up for a good quest. Being Ultramarines, and thus incapable of failure, they promptly find one of the artifacts. Which they bring back to Ultramar and place in their vaults near their sleeping Father. After a congratulatory feast for once more saving the day the Ultramarines go back to doing Ultramarine things.
A minor order of warp drive enginseers have finally perfected their skim drive that allows a vessel to only briefly enter the warp before exiting. The drive has numerous benefits such as not requiring a navigator and only perfunctory gellar fields. But it is unfortunately vaster slower than the current warp drives, or even the dolmen gates.
As such it is relegated to a curiosity.
For reasons that even the rest of the Mechanius find incomprehensible some of the underground genetors on Mars salvage the work on the Abomination and make a few more clones of the beast. Several modifications are added to make them instinctively seek out and kill being psychic potential.
What the genetors did not take into account is that all humans have some psychic potential. The constant presence of their chosen prey drives the lesser abominations insane even in stasis and they eventually combine their unholy powers to free themselves and go on campaign of murder across Mars. Fortunately they seem less capable than their progenitor and are driven underground. Since the current draconic/pretty mutant population living underground are also psychic they are quickly driven into conflict with the abominations prompting yet another war on Mars.
The Fabricator General issues a kill order on all surviving Martian genetors. Something has clearly driven them all insane.
While the Fabricator General is off drinking fermented lubricant his deputy is let free to pursue their own projects. Young, only 150 years old, Kelben is eager to make their mark on the Mechanicus. Unfortunately on their first day a sect of renegade genetors laid an ambush of bioengineered lemonades in Kelben's office.
By the Omnissiah's beneficence Kelben is expected to recover with only 80% of their dermal layer replaced with augmentations. However their binary screeching for the past few days has been mostly translated to repeated imprecations against the Genetors doctrinal lineage, and questions to the secutors as to why there are even still genetors on Mars.
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