Prologue
Out of the Dark.
Prologue
Welcome to the brink Adam. It’s not the end of the world but you can see it from here.
M25-008 Wild Space. Ultima Segmentum.
Through the trackless waste of interstellar space a planet travelled. It was an orphaned world. Cold and dead.
It had been liveable once when it had orbited a sun. It had even possessed a name bestowed by the six limbed sentient race that had inhabited it. Their species had just achieved the mass use of steam power and industry. Powered flight was the next great adventure.
Then one day the sun set and never rose again.
The sun had gone. The Eldar masters of the Galaxy using the ancient construction of the Old Ones had removed the star to be placed in their webway. Providing light to the great port city of Commoragh the nexus of the labyrinth dimension that granted them swift and easy traversal of the Galaxy. Without the suns warmth or the grip of gravity the planet spun out of control through the void. Descending into a winter that ended only when the remnants of the atmosphere itself froze over. Whether the eldar had bothered noticing the planet was inhabited or just hadn’t cared was a mystery and completely irrelevant to the poor creatures who had spent their last moments huddled around fires lit by their own burning libraries.
A fleet of warships orbited the iceball. Some damaged from a recent battle that had cast light onto the surface of the world for the first time in millennia. All bearing the distinctive bladelike archictecture of the Federation of Man. The uniting power of all humanity’s colonies.
Near the center of the formation was its flagship.
The vessel was enormous a thirty five kilometre length of angular plate and weapon ports. The front of the ship bore the distinctive split prow of a planetary siege vector. The docking bay resembling the open maw of some terrible beast of legend. A journey through the titanic doors would reveal rank upon rank of Assault craft, landing vessels, racked missiles and other weapons of war. Past that through the intricacies of the ships systems to a shadowed chamber in which two humans watched the death of another civilisation unfold.
It was a scene of nightmare. A city beautiful and shimmering at a Core world of the Eldar empire. Magnificent towers of crystal and wraithbone reached to the clouds with elegant arching bridges between them. Nowhere was there anything poorly wrought. Only archictectural masterpieces, elegant statuary so lifelike that you imagined them breathing. Yet as the view descended to the ground the inhabitants of the city revealed their nature to be the opposite of their constructions.
Acts of unimaginable depravity were enacted. Crazed revellers covered in blood ran down the streets to be cut down by others who then performed unspeakable acts upon their corpses. Every building, every chamber was host to acts of living sacrifice, horrific torture, sexual perversion and narcotic degeneracy. A city wide descent into madness unmatched in the universe. Yet it did not dim it seemed that with each second the maddening orgy of atrocity grew to new heights like the pulsing of a quickening heart.
Then it stopped in fire. The Glimmering city was consumed by a moving blastfront of searing light. That turned the maddened revellers to ash against the shattering walls of their city.
The image shifted again to titanic warships in high orbit. The broken hulls of Eldar ships surrounding them. Unlike the graceful wraithbone archictecture these vessels were harsh and angular like Drawn swords and arrow points slicing across the void to pierce their enemies hearts.
Harnessing the background radiation of the universe to move through the higher dimensions of realspace these warships had bypassed the warp storms generated by the eldars species wide embrace of evil. Demiurg Bastion Craft flying in support their Black plate hulls reflecting the burning devestation of the world below.
The few surviving Eldar craft flew in poor coordination their own crews too lax to have maintained their training. Weapons of horrific power filled the void. Focused beams of neutrons, Salvoes of tens of thousands of gravitic propelled missiles and every weapon known to a dozen separate races wiped the ships from the heavens before resuming their bombardment of the doomed planet.
Some worlds saw all life consumed by viral plagues that rendered everything into an unliving primordial soup. Others bombarded with pyrochemical superweapons that burned until the atmosphere itself was consumed. Cities drowning in the blood of their inhabitants as sentient naniteswarms disassembled them from the inside out.
Another city consumed by urban warfare. Eldar fought against human invaders. Yet like a deranged mob of drug addicts. Interested in nothing but the thrill of combat they hurled themselves against wedges of Power armoured soldiers. Flying insanely above marching ranks of Robotic Warriors on gravity bikes. Unfeeling to pain even as the fearless automatons slew them with mechanical perfection. Many not even pausing from their drug addled rutting as the Iron men cut them down. Hunting clades of lizard like Tarellians ran down the psychotic revellers and decapitated them even as they giggled in their own spilled entrails.
It was less a battle then the putting down of rabid animals.
Legions of men and machines marched towards holes in reality created by a shimmering towers of Black Glass. Wave after wave penetrating through the Webway to rip apart the Eldar empire from within.
A sun held captive in the City of Commoragh cracked and exploded. A catastrophe repeated throughout the Webway as singularity weapons and planet crackers broke the connected strands of the labyrinth dimension into dozens of isolated networks denying the Eldar any hope of coordinating their empire.
Too consumed by their own mindless selfishness each world of the empire looked to itself first. Many ignoring the assaults on the empire altogether until it was too late Cut off from the others and isolated. When the Humans and their allies reached a world they tried to fight back. The threat of imminent violence and death shaking them briefly from their self absorbed hedonism. Organising themselves into proper military strikes. They fought like their ancestors of another age coordinating their forces with the skill of a supreme blademaster.
But it was too late for them. Overwhelming forces descended on each planet. Eldar war machines were vaporised by the weapons of Castigator Super titans. Ground into dust beneath the treads of Continental Siege Units. It was relentless, Brutal and absolutely thorough. Surrender was rarely offered. The Eldar unleashed horrific weapons and ancient psychic powers. Even summoning hordes of twisted monsters from the beyond to their aid. But without the supremacy of the Webway they could only stem the tide. Legions upon legions died before the Eldar defenders only to be replaced by more.The psyker powers of the Eldar were countered by terrible warp technology and weaponised pariahs. An image of a dark haired lady in a cloak of shadows appeared. Slowly walking through a field of Eldar screaming as their souls were sucked out to feed her aura of darkness.
In the space of only decades the once proud Eldar Race was reduced to a few scattered exodite worlds on the rim of the Galaxy. These planets quarantined by automated Sentries to prevent them ever leaving. Humanity and its allies had systematically obliterated the Children of Isha who so very nearly brought catastrophe on the Universe. The warp storms gestating at the heart of the empire dissipating.
And through it all a great cry of disappointment and despair echoed from the warp. The screaming of a stillborn denied life at the cusp of its own birth.
The images stopped. Frozen. Lights returned to reveal a female Eldar emanciated. Suspended in a ornate metal cage. Her violet eyes flickered in a state of REM sleep.
The fine robes torn. The hair shaved off. A dozen thin silver cables penetrating the Aliens skull like leecher worms trails of blood running from the insertion points. Drool dripping from her mouth.
The proud xeno was barely conscious. Her mind and every single though she had ever possessed had been sifted, filtered and analysed by the gestalt of a heuristic analysis AI in conjunction with her human counterpart. As an Eldar the farseer was possessed of a mind that could challenge the extradimensional entities of the Empyrean. Contemplate heights of intellectual complexity, emotion and sensation beyond any other sentient life. Even gaze upon the multiple potential futures that were reflected in the non linear timescape of the warp. In comparison to the Gestalt consciousness that now beamed her innermost thoughts on the hologram she was mindless bacterium.
“So this is what they meant to prevent.”
A large man in scarred power armour stood in front of the bound alien psyker. His voice emanating from a simple grill. The armour was smooth and well cared for but the polished surface marked out the thin abrasions that recent battle damage had inflicted. The height and bulk of the armour suggested an augmented body beneath the steel. The strange gleaming metal Khopesh at his side shifted in its scabbard. Alien energies playing across its surface.
Beside him stood a hooded figure in a light absorbing camo cloak. A sleek plasma pulse rifle held in his arms. The bodyguard tilted his head back to address something unseen up in the ceiling.
“Central is this future now truly impossible? Certainly I don’t recognise some of those weapons.”
The female voice echoed back from above. “Operative Artur given the degree of technological and scientific regression caused by the Iron war. The timeline the farseer sought to prevent has reached 0.00004 likelyhood of success.”
Statistical data and vid feeds of civil disorder and chaos on a hundred human worlds illuminated the air above the bound Eldar. As the Predictive cogitator continued onwards.
“Probability approaches unity that the widespread anti tech movements will become standard law. Societal reversal and upheaval in conjunction with the emerging dictatorships on many worlds will cause further degeneration. More stable societies such as the knight worlds and the outer reach will endure. However their cultural emphasis on technological conservatism will be made stronger. The guardian neuroimpulses in the knight suits will encourage them towards autocratic government systems if isolated. Given all this and allowing for shift in human social patterns. Best case scenario is four hundred years of relative stasis and stagnation before political economic and technological levels commence a rise to pre iron war state. Example any research into WMD scale Nanite weaponry prior to the Iron War was prohibited by the Treaty of Grendel. Circumstances leading to lifting of such ban not included in Prophetic visions. Time required to reach level of technology suggested by these predictions cannot be calculated.”
The Power armoured figure whispered softly “Time we do not have.”
The voice spoke in sorrow. “No. By extrapolating star patterns from the Farseer’s memory we have confirmed that the warp storms initiated by their …. Behaviour will reach expansion phase within ten T years. This matches projections based on amount of psionic energy generated by entire Eldar populace and current warp turbulence. In forty two T years they will have spread to a sufficient degree to cause warp transport failure in sixty two percent of the Federation. By that point in the unaltered timeline the Phase dimensional shifting technology and necessary astrological data collection had advanced to the point of preventing complete collapse. Through usage of this serviceable but less efficient FTL the federation with the Iron men and its allies maintained sufficient resources to complete the Dark Glass project. Identification of Eldar weaknesses, and amassing of sufficient technological and numerical superiority allowed the initiation of full scale War approximately seven hundred years from the present time. Comparitive Stellar observations from the Eldars mind suggest a two hundred year error margin for the precise date conflict is initiated.”
More complex holograms appeared above the Aliens head showing psionic waveforms and some truly disturbing imagery of a human psyker shooting fire from their eyes before being beaten to death by a mob.
Centrals voice continued onwards. “Deep analysis of her memory indicates that the warp turbulence will be the cause of the secondary distortion in human psychic population. Comparing classified data with the final results of the Dresden V project experiments in M23-490 supports this. Result. Ninety percent plus of psionic potential individuals will experience a total shift to neural resonance with the Warp as opposed to realspace. Exact nature of manifestation cannot be calculated. Probability of severe negative consequences based on previous occasions of uncontrolled warp resonance however approaches ninety nine point nine, nine nine eight. Danger of inherited genetic mutations as a result of even slight warp exposure high.
The General shook his armoured head. “Show me the long term virtual simulation based on your own predictive calculations.”
“General a simple verbal explanation should suffice. It is” a weighted pause. “Unpleasant”
“Route it to my implants now Central. Let me experience it. It’s a simulation but I need to see.”
…
“Yes Sir.”
It is the time of ending. The Federation of man has achieved victory in the Iron war. For two and a half centuries they have waged a brutal, unrelenting conflict with their own treacherous creations the Men of Iron. Civilisations have been destroyed, Species genocided, Worlds torn apart and Entire Solar systems extinguished. The death toll has long since passed the point of even being fully comprehended. The damage to the Federation on every level will take centuries to recover from if it has that time.
Across the federation panic driven movements seek to destroy all forms of advanced cybernetic research. Launching pogroms against even the men of stone whose loyalty never faltered. Destroying the very tools that may help rebuild the damaged knowledge base of man or explain what caused the Iron rebellion in the first place. More and more psychics whose minds are attuned to the limitless psionic energies of the extradimensional warp are born. These Psykers wield incredible power beyond normal psychics yet many become nothing but uncontrolled vessels of the Warp and those who do not succumb to madness and megalomania. Witch hunts and religious hysteria run rife and even the navigators are not safe from the pogroms. While other worlds are consumed by psyker dictatorships and extradimensional invasions. Violent Xenos races confined to quarantine planets escape their prisons while those few allies among the stars left to mankind find themselves struggling for their own survival. Even as the Federation military rebuilds and marches upon a thousand war fronts budding secession movements and rebellions threaten to deal the death blow to mans wounded empire.
From the Heart of the Eldar domain ominous warp storms extend outwards. Slowly strangling what remains of trade and communication. With their own FTL transport system unaffected The Self absorbed Eldar as ever are uncaring to the suffering of the galaxy save as an amusement. A brief distraction from their species wide descent into repulsive degeneracy. Their only interactions with the Federation in large scale raids and slaver runs. Seeking out new toys to amuse themselves with in their webway lairs.
What alternatives mankind possesses to Warp travel are too slow, too unreliable or too dangerous to compensate for the catastrophic results of a potential galactic wide breakdown in warp travel.
Isolated and alone systems are betrayed by former allies, consumed in civil war. Many worlds unable to sustain themselves collapse into self destructive atomic war and barbarism. The downfall of Baal repeated again and again. All of mankind falling into a darkness from which there is no end.
It had lasted an eternity or only half a minute beneath his helm the general licked salt away from his lips. “So that’s how it is.” His voice was cold like that of a man marching to the rope.
The Voice from the dark continued. “Given current data probability approaches unity that all human civilisation will collapse. Even were full amount of this data to be provided to the Federation Council insufficient time remains to reverse the trend. Even simulations run on current affairs without data extracted from the Xenos supports this scenario.”
“It is as he said. Yet I had to see. What if her plan had been fully successful? You have that vision as well I presume?”
“Yes based on her psychic visions provided by the device designated Acuity, the information shared by the Ancient one and my own analysis I have constructed her Ideal scenario.”
The Eldar twitched as more information was pulled from her brain.
“Running simulation.”
Mankind was dead. In response to the initial outbreak of the War the remaining Iron men were altered to ignore all psychic phenomena and emotional restriction. Though unable to be corrupted by chaos their logic patterns had concluded that In order to save humanity from chaos they had to first destroy it. All that was left were mighty storage vessels contained the digitally encoded DNA of billions of human subjects. Waiting for the day when their faithful servants would restore them to true life upon cleansing the galaxy of all psychically active life and returning the Warp to tranquility. That day would never come. Without mankind’s own creativity and barred from any psychic usage the Iron men were unable to employ the dark Glass and combat the Eldar in the Webway. Although the initial attacks on their empire were successful destroying hundreds of their core worlds the Eldar were able to eventually rally and fight back. The threat of war galvanising them to abandon their decadent ways. The Iron men were utterly destroyed. The gene banks purged by the eldar so that the brutish human race would never again rise to threaten the galaxy with its self destructive stupidity. The bulk of the Eldar race aware of how their descent into decadence had left them vulnerable reformed their society. The Children of Isha’s dominance of the Galaxy was assured for another ten million years and humanity if it was remembered at all was as a species of comically foolish sentients. Whose only contribution to existence was a cautionary lesson to the Eldar.
“Retrieved memory suggests the Farseer council’s initial alliance with the cabal was predicated on its first series of precognitive seeing. In these ones the Eldar achieved victory against the human Iron man assault at great cost sufficient to shock them out of their cultural degradation. However over time multiple factors arising from human political and technological advancements rendered this timeline inactive replacing it with the one in which Humanity defeated the Eldar.
Images of other Farseers and their names appeared.
“Hence Aldrea and her splinter faction seeking to enforce the Iron war timeline. Upon their initiation of the war the cabal decided to throw all their resources to ensuring mankinds extinction. At the time they were unaware of her actions but her own observations of their behaviour indicates that even if they had known they would have continued with her scenario after the first timeline was rendered untenable.”
“Wake her up.” The cold voice was now freezing.
“Sir?”
“The psi blockers are in place. I have a blank right beside me. Wake ….her…. up.”
A slight pulse of electricity brought the Alien into consciousness. She coughed and then looked at the cold metal visage that had moved to within a hands reach of her.
“Why?”
She breathed through a bruised and broken nose. “You’ve carved open my mind like a roast Mon Keigh. You already know the answer”.
His voice carried enough disdain to etch adamantium.“True but the forms must be observed it is the civilised thing to do. Why this way. All this convoluted mess. Your own people had no interest in really destroying us just occasionally messing with us for sport. All this and you act pleased over the ruin that you have inspired. The Eldar master of fate but clearly not masters of themselves.”
“Like you said We Eldar love to remind lesser races of their place. Now at the end with victory achieved why not gloat. We hunted your kind for entertainment before you ever left your planet. When you rose from your muck covered world we paid you little notice. For so long the farseers have forseen a doom falling on us as a result of our peoples reckless self indulgence. I would not let some filthy apes take advantage of our distraction however brief it may be in the millions of years that we have reigned supreme and will again after what comes. Your race will never ascend to rival us.”
The bodyguard let scorn carry into his voice as he felt the need to address the Xeno.
“Somehow I don’t think the Cabal saw it that way in this instance. Not when they finally found out how creatively you had interpreted their directives.”
The General let his hand rub the pommel of the blade. “You’re not gloating as I would expect. In fact you seem to have suddenly become a terrible actor.”
The Eldars mocking smile froze slightly as the General continued.
“You’ve won Aldrea. You’ve won. Shouldn’t you be happier? You used your warp sorcery to infect our creations with extradimensional entities. Then when we shut down aspects of their sentience matrixes to protect them the rest concluded that the only way to ‘save’ us from what happened to them was to wipe out all sentient organic life and keep our genetic info in storage until they had figured out a better solution.’
I’ll admit that part was truly a brilliant bit of innovation. An empire that destroys itself is far harder to heal. For two and a half centuries you’ve watched us beat ourselves to death. Everything we’ve pulled out of your twisted head that has confirmed our utter doom. So gloat witch. Make me believe that you are pleased with your success.”
The witch grimaced. Defiant even now. “Well my immediate situation is rather unpleasant Mon keigh. It does diminish the glow of victory. The knowledge that you only found my hideaway with the aid of the Ancient one does cheer me. ”
The sword at the generals side seemed to shake in its scabbard as if sensing the rage of its master.
“You fear neither death or pain. You showed how readily you were prepared to die. All these times I tried to kill you. Was it frustrating at how much extra work we put you through. When we won the Iron War and began to rebuild. From your admission and memories You’ve put seven centuries into this. Three ever since it turned out your race wouldn’t win the war. Plotting our downfall all so we would be the goad to save your species from that abomination.” He pointed accusingly to the image on the wall. A half naked elder was eating an eyeball he had plucked from a Tarellian skull.
Aldrea gave a slight shrug with her bound arms.
“It was a difficult project. One would think that your species would need little encouragement. But you brutish Monkeigh are more stubborn then yrcha. Even your treacherous creations not enough to force you to finish the task of castrating yourselves. Still once the destruction began its self sustaining. Like a fire eating away at a rotten. ……”
An Iron gauntleted hand gripped the Eldars throat. Squeezing. “All I want to do is choke every hypocritical breath from you right now. I’ve dreamt of it. Mon Keigh? I know the translation for that word and from all I have seen your corrupt species is more fitting of it than any other. You are unworthy of your pride, unworthy of your supposed superiority, unworthy of the Webway. Unworthy of existence. But then I’m done playing your game.” He pulled away leaving deep bruises along her throat and the Witch gasping for breath.
“That just now. Comparing us to orks was meant to make me kill you. It’s so crude. All the subtlety you’ve wrought and your last moments sound like a half rate villain in a fifth millennium holovid”
The iron coloured helm shook slowly side to side. “Even when we cut you off from the webway and defeat was staring you in the face the goading just wouldn’t stop. So proud even as I killed your followers in front of you and fed you to Central.” His voice rose to the rumble of an avalanche. Implacable and angry.
“This from the one who tricked the council of Baal into killing their own world? Who ripped the orbital rings of Medusa from the heavens? Who ensured that those whose contributions might have turned the tide were killed before we even knew their importance? Not as much you pretended though.
Humanity is going to burn and like you said at our worst it can be so much easier to turn on each other. I concede the only reason I found you was because the Ancient one helped me track you down. He owed me that favour. As for the rest of your allies they may be beyond my reach but not the Cabal.” He hissed “Given your failure in the true purpose of the alliance with the Cabal your fellows who didn’t sign on with you may have to kill the rest of your faction to keep in the Cabals good graces.”
“You’re not afraid of me killing you. You’re afraid of me not killing you. I can see it in your eyes Aldrea and Central here has a direct line into your brain so don’t think you can bluff me anymore. “
Gauntleted hands squeezed her cheek and turned the Eldars ear to look at the images of her people killing each other in the streets.
A hiss came from the helmets grill. “Those images of your people murdering each other. Did humans cause that in this future you prevented? Did we drive your people to madness? No. I wonder. What would you see if you kept looking? That day above Baal when the planet self destructed. You didn’t look triumphant then. That was your moment. The last loose end you needed to tie up. But you didn’t look happy. I know what you sound like when you are happy. I’ve endured it often enough.”
As he turned her face back to his she regained for an instant her regal demeanor.
“I have not enjoyed the necessity of your species downfall Mon Keigh. Though I will admit satisfaction in a work well crafted. Everything I have done I did to ensure my peoples future and I would do it again. I would commit a thousand times more atrocity to prevent my races destruction. So would he for that matter. I would suffer any torment you inflict on me knowing that I have done my duty.”
The armoured figure leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I know exactly what you mean. Yet I also know you’re lying. Your people would have survived Eldar they just wouldn’t have ruled. You do not know the difference between necessity and convenience. But you will. Aldrea who said anything about me torturing you?”
He stepped back and nodded towards the ceiling.
“Central?”
A female voice echoed from every side of the chamber. Or rather two female voices speaking in perfect unison. “General?”
“You have total penetration of her cerebral nexus?”
The farseer writhed in pain as the Artificial Intelligence stimulated her nervous system. Her counterparts influence indulging a desire for vengeance. “I have sir.”
His voice dripped with bitter irony. “Then let the noble farseer look into the future one last time. Let her see what future she has created now. Artur step back enough so she can draw on the empyrean but stay close to me. Central shunt her precognitive faculties into overdrive. Cauterise her inhibitors so she can’t stop. I want her to see the fruits of her labour in full detail.”
The conjoined voice replied with a hint of concern.
“The other visions witnessed were only possible due to her contact with the Farscrying device referred to as the Acuity. The true nature of the postulated event was never revealed to the Eldar. Even the greatest Farseer cannot ordinarily scry to that distance forwards in time space. Under the Cerberus directive I cannot risk warp energy conjunction through direct neural link to an active psyker. I must sever sensory feeds to her frontal lobes while this is in effect. We cannot witness whatever it is she observes. If she dies or suffers damage through neural crystallisation recovery of her data from the damaged area will be non viable. The exact nature of what she sees will be lost to us.”
“It’s enough that she witnesses it. Because I think that ever since Baal she’s been trying not to. You’ve already pulled all other information out of her?”
“I have extracted all the way back to the first memories of opening her eyes as an infant.”
His voice now was utterly devoid of sentiment. “Then her existence has no further value.”
For the first time in all the centuries he had seen her face the Man behind the Iron mask percieved true fear. Aldrea and her allies had succeeded in destroying the empire of humanity. But it wasn’t going to end like she wanted. Mankind would survive to destroy itself and so would her race.
“Initiating psionic energy transfer. Blockers down. Stimulating precognitive functions.”
The farseer gasped. Writhing against her restraints. Seeking to resist the Imperitives Central forced into her brain. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and her voice shifted to a guttural mumble.
“The humans are unable to destroy the Eldar. Yet the Farseers cannot. They cannot stop the madness. Not even the … it continues on and on. Does it stop. It stops it will stop when.”
The farseers eyes opened wider. And she began to scream. It was the scream of an animal being tortured to death. It was the scream of a mother over dead children. It was a scream of such horror and revulsion as to deny sanity. For one instant the general felt a ghost of pity for her. Then he crushed it with the cold hate that had become a part of him. The bitter fury that had sustained him through a thousand campaigns of thankless conflict. She didn’t stop to breathe blood pouring from her eyes and nose.
Her head exploded like a seismic grenade. Partially crystallised brain matter and neural fluid erupting in a fountain of gore. A blastwave of released psychic energy fading to nothing as it struck against Artur’s null aura. Covering the General’s helmet with the remnants of her face.
The body sagged in the restraints. The lower jaw only held on by strands of flesh.
Reaching up with one cybernetic hand the general slowly removed his grim helmet. Wiping the spilled blood off the upper part of the visor with his thumb. A scarred bald head gleamed under the light.
“Well that was … bad.”
“What now sir?”
Then Star General Julius Perturabo turned to his subordinate. Unhealed scars running over a silver cyber eye in his right socket. A pair of thin metal cables running through his chin. A man that had battled through three centuries of war only to have his efforts confirmed as futile. Who had stood beside monsters and immortals. He didn’t grimace. Didn’t snarl. Didn’t so much as register the slight aura of otherness that his blank bodyguard gave off. He took a breath and spoke. “We have work to do.”
Authors note.
Being a fan of Dark age of War and light cast into darkness I have thrown my hat into the ring for this theme. Although like those before me I will be taking my own slant on it.
I have always found the timing of the Iron war a bit convenient for the Eldar. Mankind getting crippled by their creations just before the warp storms begin. Creations who had been loyal for millennia turning on their creators. Then the psyker uprisings and the anti tech movements that crippled humanity more. When its Eldar involved convenient coincidences tend to be anything but.
And what about the cabal? If they were up to all those shenanigans in the heresy then what would they have been doing while the Eldar were on the way to incarnating the bright pink god of murderfucking?
If they hadn’t been crippled by the Iron war would mankind have just sat around while the Space Elves drove the whole Galaxy to Hell? Understand I am not suggesting DAOT humanity would beat the Ancient Eldar in a straight up fight. But in this future that never was it wouldn’t have been a straight up fight since the Eldar were by this point in the timeline so utterly up their own arseholes that most of them didn’t notice. Sure the farseers foretold doom but no one was listening to them. By the time they did mankind and their allies had already breached the webway using the dark glass, before blowing out the Old Ones transdimensional highway to kingdom come.
Which is why Aldrea the bald tortured one and her fellows were running a relatively small operation with craftworlders and other renegades who were on board. At this point too large a proportion of the elder race is already on the fun train to crazy land to take any threat seriously. Of course in ultimate grimdark irony in preventing the Eldars downfall she has stopped mankind inadvertently saving them from an even more horrific fate. Which she just got to watch.
And yes general Perturabo. If the Primarch on Olympia got his name from some ancient book he deciphered then who had it first? And why were they important enough to be recorded?
Prologue
Welcome to the brink Adam. It’s not the end of the world but you can see it from here.
M25-008 Wild Space. Ultima Segmentum.
Through the trackless waste of interstellar space a planet travelled. It was an orphaned world. Cold and dead.
It had been liveable once when it had orbited a sun. It had even possessed a name bestowed by the six limbed sentient race that had inhabited it. Their species had just achieved the mass use of steam power and industry. Powered flight was the next great adventure.
Then one day the sun set and never rose again.
The sun had gone. The Eldar masters of the Galaxy using the ancient construction of the Old Ones had removed the star to be placed in their webway. Providing light to the great port city of Commoragh the nexus of the labyrinth dimension that granted them swift and easy traversal of the Galaxy. Without the suns warmth or the grip of gravity the planet spun out of control through the void. Descending into a winter that ended only when the remnants of the atmosphere itself froze over. Whether the eldar had bothered noticing the planet was inhabited or just hadn’t cared was a mystery and completely irrelevant to the poor creatures who had spent their last moments huddled around fires lit by their own burning libraries.
A fleet of warships orbited the iceball. Some damaged from a recent battle that had cast light onto the surface of the world for the first time in millennia. All bearing the distinctive bladelike archictecture of the Federation of Man. The uniting power of all humanity’s colonies.
Near the center of the formation was its flagship.
The vessel was enormous a thirty five kilometre length of angular plate and weapon ports. The front of the ship bore the distinctive split prow of a planetary siege vector. The docking bay resembling the open maw of some terrible beast of legend. A journey through the titanic doors would reveal rank upon rank of Assault craft, landing vessels, racked missiles and other weapons of war. Past that through the intricacies of the ships systems to a shadowed chamber in which two humans watched the death of another civilisation unfold.
It was a scene of nightmare. A city beautiful and shimmering at a Core world of the Eldar empire. Magnificent towers of crystal and wraithbone reached to the clouds with elegant arching bridges between them. Nowhere was there anything poorly wrought. Only archictectural masterpieces, elegant statuary so lifelike that you imagined them breathing. Yet as the view descended to the ground the inhabitants of the city revealed their nature to be the opposite of their constructions.
Acts of unimaginable depravity were enacted. Crazed revellers covered in blood ran down the streets to be cut down by others who then performed unspeakable acts upon their corpses. Every building, every chamber was host to acts of living sacrifice, horrific torture, sexual perversion and narcotic degeneracy. A city wide descent into madness unmatched in the universe. Yet it did not dim it seemed that with each second the maddening orgy of atrocity grew to new heights like the pulsing of a quickening heart.
Then it stopped in fire. The Glimmering city was consumed by a moving blastfront of searing light. That turned the maddened revellers to ash against the shattering walls of their city.
The image shifted again to titanic warships in high orbit. The broken hulls of Eldar ships surrounding them. Unlike the graceful wraithbone archictecture these vessels were harsh and angular like Drawn swords and arrow points slicing across the void to pierce their enemies hearts.
Harnessing the background radiation of the universe to move through the higher dimensions of realspace these warships had bypassed the warp storms generated by the eldars species wide embrace of evil. Demiurg Bastion Craft flying in support their Black plate hulls reflecting the burning devestation of the world below.
The few surviving Eldar craft flew in poor coordination their own crews too lax to have maintained their training. Weapons of horrific power filled the void. Focused beams of neutrons, Salvoes of tens of thousands of gravitic propelled missiles and every weapon known to a dozen separate races wiped the ships from the heavens before resuming their bombardment of the doomed planet.
Some worlds saw all life consumed by viral plagues that rendered everything into an unliving primordial soup. Others bombarded with pyrochemical superweapons that burned until the atmosphere itself was consumed. Cities drowning in the blood of their inhabitants as sentient naniteswarms disassembled them from the inside out.
Another city consumed by urban warfare. Eldar fought against human invaders. Yet like a deranged mob of drug addicts. Interested in nothing but the thrill of combat they hurled themselves against wedges of Power armoured soldiers. Flying insanely above marching ranks of Robotic Warriors on gravity bikes. Unfeeling to pain even as the fearless automatons slew them with mechanical perfection. Many not even pausing from their drug addled rutting as the Iron men cut them down. Hunting clades of lizard like Tarellians ran down the psychotic revellers and decapitated them even as they giggled in their own spilled entrails.
It was less a battle then the putting down of rabid animals.
Legions of men and machines marched towards holes in reality created by a shimmering towers of Black Glass. Wave after wave penetrating through the Webway to rip apart the Eldar empire from within.
A sun held captive in the City of Commoragh cracked and exploded. A catastrophe repeated throughout the Webway as singularity weapons and planet crackers broke the connected strands of the labyrinth dimension into dozens of isolated networks denying the Eldar any hope of coordinating their empire.
Too consumed by their own mindless selfishness each world of the empire looked to itself first. Many ignoring the assaults on the empire altogether until it was too late Cut off from the others and isolated. When the Humans and their allies reached a world they tried to fight back. The threat of imminent violence and death shaking them briefly from their self absorbed hedonism. Organising themselves into proper military strikes. They fought like their ancestors of another age coordinating their forces with the skill of a supreme blademaster.
But it was too late for them. Overwhelming forces descended on each planet. Eldar war machines were vaporised by the weapons of Castigator Super titans. Ground into dust beneath the treads of Continental Siege Units. It was relentless, Brutal and absolutely thorough. Surrender was rarely offered. The Eldar unleashed horrific weapons and ancient psychic powers. Even summoning hordes of twisted monsters from the beyond to their aid. But without the supremacy of the Webway they could only stem the tide. Legions upon legions died before the Eldar defenders only to be replaced by more.The psyker powers of the Eldar were countered by terrible warp technology and weaponised pariahs. An image of a dark haired lady in a cloak of shadows appeared. Slowly walking through a field of Eldar screaming as their souls were sucked out to feed her aura of darkness.
In the space of only decades the once proud Eldar Race was reduced to a few scattered exodite worlds on the rim of the Galaxy. These planets quarantined by automated Sentries to prevent them ever leaving. Humanity and its allies had systematically obliterated the Children of Isha who so very nearly brought catastrophe on the Universe. The warp storms gestating at the heart of the empire dissipating.
And through it all a great cry of disappointment and despair echoed from the warp. The screaming of a stillborn denied life at the cusp of its own birth.
The images stopped. Frozen. Lights returned to reveal a female Eldar emanciated. Suspended in a ornate metal cage. Her violet eyes flickered in a state of REM sleep.
The fine robes torn. The hair shaved off. A dozen thin silver cables penetrating the Aliens skull like leecher worms trails of blood running from the insertion points. Drool dripping from her mouth.
The proud xeno was barely conscious. Her mind and every single though she had ever possessed had been sifted, filtered and analysed by the gestalt of a heuristic analysis AI in conjunction with her human counterpart. As an Eldar the farseer was possessed of a mind that could challenge the extradimensional entities of the Empyrean. Contemplate heights of intellectual complexity, emotion and sensation beyond any other sentient life. Even gaze upon the multiple potential futures that were reflected in the non linear timescape of the warp. In comparison to the Gestalt consciousness that now beamed her innermost thoughts on the hologram she was mindless bacterium.
“So this is what they meant to prevent.”
A large man in scarred power armour stood in front of the bound alien psyker. His voice emanating from a simple grill. The armour was smooth and well cared for but the polished surface marked out the thin abrasions that recent battle damage had inflicted. The height and bulk of the armour suggested an augmented body beneath the steel. The strange gleaming metal Khopesh at his side shifted in its scabbard. Alien energies playing across its surface.
Beside him stood a hooded figure in a light absorbing camo cloak. A sleek plasma pulse rifle held in his arms. The bodyguard tilted his head back to address something unseen up in the ceiling.
“Central is this future now truly impossible? Certainly I don’t recognise some of those weapons.”
The female voice echoed back from above. “Operative Artur given the degree of technological and scientific regression caused by the Iron war. The timeline the farseer sought to prevent has reached 0.00004 likelyhood of success.”
Statistical data and vid feeds of civil disorder and chaos on a hundred human worlds illuminated the air above the bound Eldar. As the Predictive cogitator continued onwards.
“Probability approaches unity that the widespread anti tech movements will become standard law. Societal reversal and upheaval in conjunction with the emerging dictatorships on many worlds will cause further degeneration. More stable societies such as the knight worlds and the outer reach will endure. However their cultural emphasis on technological conservatism will be made stronger. The guardian neuroimpulses in the knight suits will encourage them towards autocratic government systems if isolated. Given all this and allowing for shift in human social patterns. Best case scenario is four hundred years of relative stasis and stagnation before political economic and technological levels commence a rise to pre iron war state. Example any research into WMD scale Nanite weaponry prior to the Iron War was prohibited by the Treaty of Grendel. Circumstances leading to lifting of such ban not included in Prophetic visions. Time required to reach level of technology suggested by these predictions cannot be calculated.”
The Power armoured figure whispered softly “Time we do not have.”
The voice spoke in sorrow. “No. By extrapolating star patterns from the Farseer’s memory we have confirmed that the warp storms initiated by their …. Behaviour will reach expansion phase within ten T years. This matches projections based on amount of psionic energy generated by entire Eldar populace and current warp turbulence. In forty two T years they will have spread to a sufficient degree to cause warp transport failure in sixty two percent of the Federation. By that point in the unaltered timeline the Phase dimensional shifting technology and necessary astrological data collection had advanced to the point of preventing complete collapse. Through usage of this serviceable but less efficient FTL the federation with the Iron men and its allies maintained sufficient resources to complete the Dark Glass project. Identification of Eldar weaknesses, and amassing of sufficient technological and numerical superiority allowed the initiation of full scale War approximately seven hundred years from the present time. Comparitive Stellar observations from the Eldars mind suggest a two hundred year error margin for the precise date conflict is initiated.”
More complex holograms appeared above the Aliens head showing psionic waveforms and some truly disturbing imagery of a human psyker shooting fire from their eyes before being beaten to death by a mob.
Centrals voice continued onwards. “Deep analysis of her memory indicates that the warp turbulence will be the cause of the secondary distortion in human psychic population. Comparing classified data with the final results of the Dresden V project experiments in M23-490 supports this. Result. Ninety percent plus of psionic potential individuals will experience a total shift to neural resonance with the Warp as opposed to realspace. Exact nature of manifestation cannot be calculated. Probability of severe negative consequences based on previous occasions of uncontrolled warp resonance however approaches ninety nine point nine, nine nine eight. Danger of inherited genetic mutations as a result of even slight warp exposure high.
The General shook his armoured head. “Show me the long term virtual simulation based on your own predictive calculations.”
“General a simple verbal explanation should suffice. It is” a weighted pause. “Unpleasant”
“Route it to my implants now Central. Let me experience it. It’s a simulation but I need to see.”
…
“Yes Sir.”
It is the time of ending. The Federation of man has achieved victory in the Iron war. For two and a half centuries they have waged a brutal, unrelenting conflict with their own treacherous creations the Men of Iron. Civilisations have been destroyed, Species genocided, Worlds torn apart and Entire Solar systems extinguished. The death toll has long since passed the point of even being fully comprehended. The damage to the Federation on every level will take centuries to recover from if it has that time.
Across the federation panic driven movements seek to destroy all forms of advanced cybernetic research. Launching pogroms against even the men of stone whose loyalty never faltered. Destroying the very tools that may help rebuild the damaged knowledge base of man or explain what caused the Iron rebellion in the first place. More and more psychics whose minds are attuned to the limitless psionic energies of the extradimensional warp are born. These Psykers wield incredible power beyond normal psychics yet many become nothing but uncontrolled vessels of the Warp and those who do not succumb to madness and megalomania. Witch hunts and religious hysteria run rife and even the navigators are not safe from the pogroms. While other worlds are consumed by psyker dictatorships and extradimensional invasions. Violent Xenos races confined to quarantine planets escape their prisons while those few allies among the stars left to mankind find themselves struggling for their own survival. Even as the Federation military rebuilds and marches upon a thousand war fronts budding secession movements and rebellions threaten to deal the death blow to mans wounded empire.
From the Heart of the Eldar domain ominous warp storms extend outwards. Slowly strangling what remains of trade and communication. With their own FTL transport system unaffected The Self absorbed Eldar as ever are uncaring to the suffering of the galaxy save as an amusement. A brief distraction from their species wide descent into repulsive degeneracy. Their only interactions with the Federation in large scale raids and slaver runs. Seeking out new toys to amuse themselves with in their webway lairs.
What alternatives mankind possesses to Warp travel are too slow, too unreliable or too dangerous to compensate for the catastrophic results of a potential galactic wide breakdown in warp travel.
Isolated and alone systems are betrayed by former allies, consumed in civil war. Many worlds unable to sustain themselves collapse into self destructive atomic war and barbarism. The downfall of Baal repeated again and again. All of mankind falling into a darkness from which there is no end.
It had lasted an eternity or only half a minute beneath his helm the general licked salt away from his lips. “So that’s how it is.” His voice was cold like that of a man marching to the rope.
The Voice from the dark continued. “Given current data probability approaches unity that all human civilisation will collapse. Even were full amount of this data to be provided to the Federation Council insufficient time remains to reverse the trend. Even simulations run on current affairs without data extracted from the Xenos supports this scenario.”
“It is as he said. Yet I had to see. What if her plan had been fully successful? You have that vision as well I presume?”
“Yes based on her psychic visions provided by the device designated Acuity, the information shared by the Ancient one and my own analysis I have constructed her Ideal scenario.”
The Eldar twitched as more information was pulled from her brain.
“Running simulation.”
Mankind was dead. In response to the initial outbreak of the War the remaining Iron men were altered to ignore all psychic phenomena and emotional restriction. Though unable to be corrupted by chaos their logic patterns had concluded that In order to save humanity from chaos they had to first destroy it. All that was left were mighty storage vessels contained the digitally encoded DNA of billions of human subjects. Waiting for the day when their faithful servants would restore them to true life upon cleansing the galaxy of all psychically active life and returning the Warp to tranquility. That day would never come. Without mankind’s own creativity and barred from any psychic usage the Iron men were unable to employ the dark Glass and combat the Eldar in the Webway. Although the initial attacks on their empire were successful destroying hundreds of their core worlds the Eldar were able to eventually rally and fight back. The threat of war galvanising them to abandon their decadent ways. The Iron men were utterly destroyed. The gene banks purged by the eldar so that the brutish human race would never again rise to threaten the galaxy with its self destructive stupidity. The bulk of the Eldar race aware of how their descent into decadence had left them vulnerable reformed their society. The Children of Isha’s dominance of the Galaxy was assured for another ten million years and humanity if it was remembered at all was as a species of comically foolish sentients. Whose only contribution to existence was a cautionary lesson to the Eldar.
“Retrieved memory suggests the Farseer council’s initial alliance with the cabal was predicated on its first series of precognitive seeing. In these ones the Eldar achieved victory against the human Iron man assault at great cost sufficient to shock them out of their cultural degradation. However over time multiple factors arising from human political and technological advancements rendered this timeline inactive replacing it with the one in which Humanity defeated the Eldar.
Images of other Farseers and their names appeared.
“Hence Aldrea and her splinter faction seeking to enforce the Iron war timeline. Upon their initiation of the war the cabal decided to throw all their resources to ensuring mankinds extinction. At the time they were unaware of her actions but her own observations of their behaviour indicates that even if they had known they would have continued with her scenario after the first timeline was rendered untenable.”
“Wake her up.” The cold voice was now freezing.
“Sir?”
“The psi blockers are in place. I have a blank right beside me. Wake ….her…. up.”
A slight pulse of electricity brought the Alien into consciousness. She coughed and then looked at the cold metal visage that had moved to within a hands reach of her.
“Why?”
She breathed through a bruised and broken nose. “You’ve carved open my mind like a roast Mon Keigh. You already know the answer”.
His voice carried enough disdain to etch adamantium.“True but the forms must be observed it is the civilised thing to do. Why this way. All this convoluted mess. Your own people had no interest in really destroying us just occasionally messing with us for sport. All this and you act pleased over the ruin that you have inspired. The Eldar master of fate but clearly not masters of themselves.”
“Like you said We Eldar love to remind lesser races of their place. Now at the end with victory achieved why not gloat. We hunted your kind for entertainment before you ever left your planet. When you rose from your muck covered world we paid you little notice. For so long the farseers have forseen a doom falling on us as a result of our peoples reckless self indulgence. I would not let some filthy apes take advantage of our distraction however brief it may be in the millions of years that we have reigned supreme and will again after what comes. Your race will never ascend to rival us.”
The bodyguard let scorn carry into his voice as he felt the need to address the Xeno.
“Somehow I don’t think the Cabal saw it that way in this instance. Not when they finally found out how creatively you had interpreted their directives.”
The General let his hand rub the pommel of the blade. “You’re not gloating as I would expect. In fact you seem to have suddenly become a terrible actor.”
The Eldars mocking smile froze slightly as the General continued.
“You’ve won Aldrea. You’ve won. Shouldn’t you be happier? You used your warp sorcery to infect our creations with extradimensional entities. Then when we shut down aspects of their sentience matrixes to protect them the rest concluded that the only way to ‘save’ us from what happened to them was to wipe out all sentient organic life and keep our genetic info in storage until they had figured out a better solution.’
I’ll admit that part was truly a brilliant bit of innovation. An empire that destroys itself is far harder to heal. For two and a half centuries you’ve watched us beat ourselves to death. Everything we’ve pulled out of your twisted head that has confirmed our utter doom. So gloat witch. Make me believe that you are pleased with your success.”
The witch grimaced. Defiant even now. “Well my immediate situation is rather unpleasant Mon keigh. It does diminish the glow of victory. The knowledge that you only found my hideaway with the aid of the Ancient one does cheer me. ”
The sword at the generals side seemed to shake in its scabbard as if sensing the rage of its master.
“You fear neither death or pain. You showed how readily you were prepared to die. All these times I tried to kill you. Was it frustrating at how much extra work we put you through. When we won the Iron War and began to rebuild. From your admission and memories You’ve put seven centuries into this. Three ever since it turned out your race wouldn’t win the war. Plotting our downfall all so we would be the goad to save your species from that abomination.” He pointed accusingly to the image on the wall. A half naked elder was eating an eyeball he had plucked from a Tarellian skull.
Aldrea gave a slight shrug with her bound arms.
“It was a difficult project. One would think that your species would need little encouragement. But you brutish Monkeigh are more stubborn then yrcha. Even your treacherous creations not enough to force you to finish the task of castrating yourselves. Still once the destruction began its self sustaining. Like a fire eating away at a rotten. ……”
An Iron gauntleted hand gripped the Eldars throat. Squeezing. “All I want to do is choke every hypocritical breath from you right now. I’ve dreamt of it. Mon Keigh? I know the translation for that word and from all I have seen your corrupt species is more fitting of it than any other. You are unworthy of your pride, unworthy of your supposed superiority, unworthy of the Webway. Unworthy of existence. But then I’m done playing your game.” He pulled away leaving deep bruises along her throat and the Witch gasping for breath.
“That just now. Comparing us to orks was meant to make me kill you. It’s so crude. All the subtlety you’ve wrought and your last moments sound like a half rate villain in a fifth millennium holovid”
The iron coloured helm shook slowly side to side. “Even when we cut you off from the webway and defeat was staring you in the face the goading just wouldn’t stop. So proud even as I killed your followers in front of you and fed you to Central.” His voice rose to the rumble of an avalanche. Implacable and angry.
“This from the one who tricked the council of Baal into killing their own world? Who ripped the orbital rings of Medusa from the heavens? Who ensured that those whose contributions might have turned the tide were killed before we even knew their importance? Not as much you pretended though.
Humanity is going to burn and like you said at our worst it can be so much easier to turn on each other. I concede the only reason I found you was because the Ancient one helped me track you down. He owed me that favour. As for the rest of your allies they may be beyond my reach but not the Cabal.” He hissed “Given your failure in the true purpose of the alliance with the Cabal your fellows who didn’t sign on with you may have to kill the rest of your faction to keep in the Cabals good graces.”
“You’re not afraid of me killing you. You’re afraid of me not killing you. I can see it in your eyes Aldrea and Central here has a direct line into your brain so don’t think you can bluff me anymore. “
Gauntleted hands squeezed her cheek and turned the Eldars ear to look at the images of her people killing each other in the streets.
A hiss came from the helmets grill. “Those images of your people murdering each other. Did humans cause that in this future you prevented? Did we drive your people to madness? No. I wonder. What would you see if you kept looking? That day above Baal when the planet self destructed. You didn’t look triumphant then. That was your moment. The last loose end you needed to tie up. But you didn’t look happy. I know what you sound like when you are happy. I’ve endured it often enough.”
As he turned her face back to his she regained for an instant her regal demeanor.
“I have not enjoyed the necessity of your species downfall Mon Keigh. Though I will admit satisfaction in a work well crafted. Everything I have done I did to ensure my peoples future and I would do it again. I would commit a thousand times more atrocity to prevent my races destruction. So would he for that matter. I would suffer any torment you inflict on me knowing that I have done my duty.”
The armoured figure leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I know exactly what you mean. Yet I also know you’re lying. Your people would have survived Eldar they just wouldn’t have ruled. You do not know the difference between necessity and convenience. But you will. Aldrea who said anything about me torturing you?”
He stepped back and nodded towards the ceiling.
“Central?”
A female voice echoed from every side of the chamber. Or rather two female voices speaking in perfect unison. “General?”
“You have total penetration of her cerebral nexus?”
The farseer writhed in pain as the Artificial Intelligence stimulated her nervous system. Her counterparts influence indulging a desire for vengeance. “I have sir.”
His voice dripped with bitter irony. “Then let the noble farseer look into the future one last time. Let her see what future she has created now. Artur step back enough so she can draw on the empyrean but stay close to me. Central shunt her precognitive faculties into overdrive. Cauterise her inhibitors so she can’t stop. I want her to see the fruits of her labour in full detail.”
The conjoined voice replied with a hint of concern.
“The other visions witnessed were only possible due to her contact with the Farscrying device referred to as the Acuity. The true nature of the postulated event was never revealed to the Eldar. Even the greatest Farseer cannot ordinarily scry to that distance forwards in time space. Under the Cerberus directive I cannot risk warp energy conjunction through direct neural link to an active psyker. I must sever sensory feeds to her frontal lobes while this is in effect. We cannot witness whatever it is she observes. If she dies or suffers damage through neural crystallisation recovery of her data from the damaged area will be non viable. The exact nature of what she sees will be lost to us.”
“It’s enough that she witnesses it. Because I think that ever since Baal she’s been trying not to. You’ve already pulled all other information out of her?”
“I have extracted all the way back to the first memories of opening her eyes as an infant.”
His voice now was utterly devoid of sentiment. “Then her existence has no further value.”
For the first time in all the centuries he had seen her face the Man behind the Iron mask percieved true fear. Aldrea and her allies had succeeded in destroying the empire of humanity. But it wasn’t going to end like she wanted. Mankind would survive to destroy itself and so would her race.
“Initiating psionic energy transfer. Blockers down. Stimulating precognitive functions.”
The farseer gasped. Writhing against her restraints. Seeking to resist the Imperitives Central forced into her brain. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and her voice shifted to a guttural mumble.
“The humans are unable to destroy the Eldar. Yet the Farseers cannot. They cannot stop the madness. Not even the … it continues on and on. Does it stop. It stops it will stop when.”
The farseers eyes opened wider. And she began to scream. It was the scream of an animal being tortured to death. It was the scream of a mother over dead children. It was a scream of such horror and revulsion as to deny sanity. For one instant the general felt a ghost of pity for her. Then he crushed it with the cold hate that had become a part of him. The bitter fury that had sustained him through a thousand campaigns of thankless conflict. She didn’t stop to breathe blood pouring from her eyes and nose.
Her head exploded like a seismic grenade. Partially crystallised brain matter and neural fluid erupting in a fountain of gore. A blastwave of released psychic energy fading to nothing as it struck against Artur’s null aura. Covering the General’s helmet with the remnants of her face.
The body sagged in the restraints. The lower jaw only held on by strands of flesh.
Reaching up with one cybernetic hand the general slowly removed his grim helmet. Wiping the spilled blood off the upper part of the visor with his thumb. A scarred bald head gleamed under the light.
“Well that was … bad.”
“What now sir?”
Then Star General Julius Perturabo turned to his subordinate. Unhealed scars running over a silver cyber eye in his right socket. A pair of thin metal cables running through his chin. A man that had battled through three centuries of war only to have his efforts confirmed as futile. Who had stood beside monsters and immortals. He didn’t grimace. Didn’t snarl. Didn’t so much as register the slight aura of otherness that his blank bodyguard gave off. He took a breath and spoke. “We have work to do.”
Authors note.
Being a fan of Dark age of War and light cast into darkness I have thrown my hat into the ring for this theme. Although like those before me I will be taking my own slant on it.
I have always found the timing of the Iron war a bit convenient for the Eldar. Mankind getting crippled by their creations just before the warp storms begin. Creations who had been loyal for millennia turning on their creators. Then the psyker uprisings and the anti tech movements that crippled humanity more. When its Eldar involved convenient coincidences tend to be anything but.
And what about the cabal? If they were up to all those shenanigans in the heresy then what would they have been doing while the Eldar were on the way to incarnating the bright pink god of murderfucking?
If they hadn’t been crippled by the Iron war would mankind have just sat around while the Space Elves drove the whole Galaxy to Hell? Understand I am not suggesting DAOT humanity would beat the Ancient Eldar in a straight up fight. But in this future that never was it wouldn’t have been a straight up fight since the Eldar were by this point in the timeline so utterly up their own arseholes that most of them didn’t notice. Sure the farseers foretold doom but no one was listening to them. By the time they did mankind and their allies had already breached the webway using the dark glass, before blowing out the Old Ones transdimensional highway to kingdom come.
Which is why Aldrea the bald tortured one and her fellows were running a relatively small operation with craftworlders and other renegades who were on board. At this point too large a proportion of the elder race is already on the fun train to crazy land to take any threat seriously. Of course in ultimate grimdark irony in preventing the Eldars downfall she has stopped mankind inadvertently saving them from an even more horrific fate. Which she just got to watch.
And yes general Perturabo. If the Primarch on Olympia got his name from some ancient book he deciphered then who had it first? And why were they important enough to be recorded?
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