Nobledark 40k XV: Bureaucratic Bastards edition

I like it. A scorched earth policy that they knew would bite them in the ass later when they needed those worlds, but still the only fighting chance they had.

Speaking of arguments over the Sororitas, here's the stuff that I wrote for them towards the end of the last thread
pastebin.com/rsCB8189
>Damn, I forgot the Orders Fraternis, where they stick the guys who want to join. Just so the femanons can have their white-haired bishie-boys (who may or may not be obsessed with rose motifs).
>There's plenty of overlap in the genetic compatibility requirements, but an Astartes aspirant that lacks a few of the markers for the AA Mk 3 can get the AS Mk 2. Also, not every sister gets the upgrades, and the Orders Fraternis can fill every role that doesn't require them (so no bishie-boy SoBs, but pretty boy heal sluts are okay), so they even get aspirants who aren't compatible with either package but are capable enough in non-combat fields to justify initiating them, or ones that just plain have their hearts set on joining (as is the case for most boys born to Sororitas members).
I'm working on fleshing out their augmentations, so I need ideas. Subtle is the keyword for these, maximum effect for minimal effort and invasiveness. If the genewrights could choose between three massive boosts that required their own highly invasive procedures, or three minor boosts that come from a single minor change, they went with the minor change. If the Space Marines are "barely human combat raep machine", the Sisters are " Human 2.0" with some extra tricks up their sleeves. An Astartes can't live a normal life after augmentation, a Sister can.
Got it?

>AS Mk 2
Well, AS Mk 1A, for Orders Fraternis, as the MK 2 is reserved for women by blessing of Isha.

How the Sororitas are organized is about as nightmarish as describing the SS to somebody who never heard of them. Acting as the paramilitary organization under the Inquisition they directly answer to Ordo Securitas but an be called to action to a lesser extent by Ordo Xenos. There are many non-military branches within the Sororitas that perform very specialized tasks like guarding children of politicians or inspecting worlds for corruption whether it be Chaos or otherwise. There are the two main military branches of the Sororitas being the 'Orders Militant' who are unofficially known as the 'Sisters of Battle' and the 'Orders Securitas'. The main job of Militant Sisters is that they offer assistance to the Imperial Army and work with both Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard elements when not requested to work for the Inquisition. On the front, they almost act like Commissars, in that the Battle Sisters are the fanatical soldiers threatening to hang anybody who retreats without orders to do so. The Securitas Sisters are there to ensure nothing hostile to the Imperium infiltrate society and put down any rebellions. They blend into Imperial society using spies, informants, and agents of all kinds to collect intelligence on everybody while keeping tracking everything. Often called to service under inquisitors, they can do many things from ruining a Crone Eldar raid to hunting down renegade Space Marines, and preventing a Genestealer cult coups.

Kryptman's other big idea, so his last one, was the thing remembered as The Kryptman Gambit.

Pure the Hive Fleet into one of the ork empires. Let them duke it out and nuke the survivors before they can build new space craft.

Did not work quite as planned. It did have some measure of success in that it did absorb an entire Hive Fleet. Sadly it seems that the orks are "farming" the Bugz. Fucking orks.

It could be that the vampires work on a delicate internal balance. The silver blood makes them powerful but eats them alive from the inside out very slowly. They can offset this with the regenerative abilities gifted by the silver blood.

The regenerative abilities have a limited cap on how fast it.can work. The hunger does not if it gets triggered too hard. Ultraviolet, X-Ray and gamma rays all make the silver more active.

The vampire gets progressively stronger as it is killed right up till it falls to dust.

In the last thread, or maybe the one before, one user went into detail about the development of the laser weapons. There was suggestion that the Inquisition kept trying to commission large scale manufacturing of UV laser rifles. They couldn't tell the tech-priests why because far less than 1% of adepts of Magi or higher rank even know what a C'tan is.

They kept telling them spurious reasons like
>muh no lenses flash
>muh invisible beam
>muh stopping power

AdMech tolls them to go fuck themselves because you can't see the beam in most conditions, wear some goggles for the flash and muh stopping power drains the battery hugely.

Individual adepts are permitted to build custom jobs as a hobby or to bring in a bit of recreational cash, which is where the Inquisition is getting most of its vampire slaying las-rifles from.

Shard vampires are the (remaining) Ctan's second go at uplifting/weaponizing mortals.

Since making the Necrotyr into the Necrons the Nightbringer and Deciever have been humbled by lesser beings, broken into shards, and have gained psychic powers, and they're now starting from beings significantly more hardy and psychically fit than Necrotyr. The shard vampires serve as soul devouring nodes, they are also lesser parts, disconnected but in the form of the whole. This fractal quality makes it so that the vampire's deeds and warp imprint is ultimately tied to that of its sire, whose proclivities it shares and whose pervading specter it extends. I imagine first or second generation vampires of either lineage to have a phisiology composed mostly of once organic human tissue almost entirely converted to living metal necrodermic tissue, including its physical mind, with a pseudo-soul of wrought warpstuff dredged up by psychic super AI. This greatly perturbes Oscar, much in the same way he was unhappy when he heard about the raid on Chthonia. No vampire is so mighty as the full legend of its sire, and tend to be less physically potent than a naked C'tan shard of corresponding type, but they have far easier access to their lineages reflection in the immaterium, and are tempered by their mortal personas.

And of course the Silent King said nothing when Oscar asked him what was going on because the Silent King is a dick who likes to keep his cards close to his chest.

There were two write-ups of some of the proposed SoB augs in the previous threads. Of the ones that were talked about, I remember...
- Reinforced dermal skin weave
- Synthetic organ similar to Biscopea that promotes muscle and bone growth
- Artificial gland that messes with things like adrenalin and cortisol (and may or may not increase aggression, AdBio won't confirm)

Sisters (barring the puritan orders) end up being a bit taller and buffer than average, but not to the point that one would stand out like an Astartes would among humans.

Wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of Black Carapace thing too given their reliance on power armor.

I was going to say everything monster has a weakness even if it is just some really minor or obscure thing like UV lights to the heart. Say if a weak C'tan vampire was walking around in daylight for 3 hours and it should be dead on the 6th hour if it keeps being exposed to sunlight. The vampire should be growing weak from the body constantly repairing itself while the shard keeps killing cells. For some reason, the vampire stumbled on a platoon of Scions. Now the Scions might decapitate the vampire or blow it to bits but that doesn't stop the vampire from overclocking its body to just instantly heal itself. Each of the limbs just flies back to the torso to reattach itself automatically and the decapitation only makes it angrier. The entirety of the 30 man Scion platoon with all the armor or weapons couldn't protect themselves from the vampire just walking up to them to kill everybody. This is while being weakened from sunlight and still winning against Spec-Ops soldiers. Feeding on the Scions allows it to give it enough energy for hyperactive constant healing then keep the vampire well enough to walk around in daylight well beyond the 6th hour.

The need to keep feeding on large lifeforms will create a trail which can be tracked back to a vampire. The more monstrous or larger of the vampires should just look like living metal due to the constant feeding allowing the shard to be fully integrated into the host's body. Those that almost look like humans albeit paler don't seem to have living metal until you slice them open, all of the skeletons should be replaced with metal even when feeding is kept to a minimum.

There was also the skeletal reinforcement via hyperdiamond and plasteel struts inlaid into the bones after the completion of the growth.

I would have no Black Carapace. It makes the armour still wearable but more clunky, thus differentiating them from the astartes.

Astartes should be the only ones with Black Carapace. It being one of the upgrades that made them superior to the old Thunder Warriors.

Space Wolves use an expensive mind-to-machine interface unit designed by their Iron Priests. Sadly not compatible with non-Space Wolves.

When Hive Fleet Jormungandr (a.k.a. Hive Fleet Galaxy Eater) first showed up on the fringes of the Imperium, the Emperor dialed up nearly everyone he could think of who might be old or wise enough to try to figure out what might be going on.

When Bjorn the Fell-Handed was contacted, he took one look at the data and said to Oscar "I'm surprised you didn't think about calling this thing Hive Fleet Fimbulwinter".

For those of you who know your Norse Mythology, think of what that means.

So old, powerful C'tan vamps are like vampyric Terminators?

In her few years of service Ambassador Lofn Ulthran regularly faced distressingly specific threats upon her person. This has been of some public note, particularly in light of the militant xenophobic attacks on her and her parents prior to her birth and throughout her youth. It has, however, been suppressed that a not insignificant number of these threats appear to be sent from Lady Malys, of many fecund terrors is she, mostly by proxy. The queen of crones has made evident a particular interest in the ambassador, mostly through voluminous missives composed in the formal style of Old Eldar Empire enunciations of menace. Delivered to craftworld Ulthwe in the claws of a Tzeentchian bird, by power of sorcerous rite, these messages have variously described the festivities of the Shah-Dome in lurid detail, aledged personal attacks against the foremost of the imperium, explicated the entireties of several bleak and unfavorable prophecies, and in one instance, shared what it claimed was Malys' personal intentions for Lofn on the occasion of her capture. Among these, those letters judged to be Malys' own writing focus on touting the obscene glories of the Eye of Terror, addressing Lofn in specific, while most others are the work of rotating Tzeentchian and Slaaneshi courtiers. The supernatural corruptive powers of these doccuments has been minimal, allowing them to be read by Ordo Mallus analysts, but it has been roundly agreed not to convey these materials to the public or to their targets, for obvious reasons. The purpose of this peculiar diplomatic campaign is unknown, but it is not unprecedented, as seen with several prominent galactic figures Malys has seen fit to harass in this manner. One supposes that Malys has free time, and spends it on these little volleys of barbs every century or so. Taken along with the continuing horrors inflicted by Malys's armies, the effect is jarring, and displeasing in the extreme.

Pretty much if the vampire lives long enough they should be stronger than several Inquisitors with a Guardsmen regiment and Space Marines reinforcements. Age only make these C'tan vampires stronger with feedings, skills, and experiences. Once a C'tan vampire could somehow overcome the solar radiation weakness (somebody probably did) it would take capital ship weaponry to kill it. Stubber rounds get absorbed, lasbolts only leave scorch marks, artillery is useless, UV lights are harmless, and pyker attacks nullified. The vampire being immune to solar radiation means it has control over the shard maybe temporarily but anything short of a Lance battery can't kill the vampire.

So it looks like (going with subtle)
>organ that forces changes in the musculature and skeletal structure that makes bones stronger and muscles just better (more output per calorie)
>modified adrenal glands (possible idea for fem only version: synthetic combat hormone baseds on estrogen, made via modified ovaries)
>reinforced skin
>possible additional skeletal reinforcement for Sisters Militant
>possible? Pseudo black carapace consisting of a brain implant and a few specialized data jacks. Nowhere near as capable as an actual black carapace, but gives them a bit more control than an unaugmented human
>white hair (possible to make it passed to descendants?)
>more efficient digestion?
>boosted immune systems. Mandatory for sisters hospitaller.
>implanted wards against chaos. Literally just thin sheets of something inscribed with hexagramatic wards put beneath the skin. Some sisters refuse as they can burn out painfully.
>better eyes
>better senses in general (but not as good as Astartes because they don't increase total available brain volume)
>looser requirements for augmentation, as this is basically a very refined and more "natural" thunder warrior with way less issues
More ideas, more debates.

Aspexts of Steel, film one
Aspect Warrior Loriel Zig: Why did I join the Arbites? Because I have a burning need for GREAT JUSTICE!
Brother Yakov, Steel Heralds Chapter: I think there's a treatment for that.

I'd say that that is a little too far.

They are supposed to be only one step removed from baseline pure human.

>Biscopea
Or something like it, that makes it easier to put on muscle and also enhances the muscle

>Genetically modification virus
Tailored to the recipients immune system (so it can't spread) that works in concert with the Biscopea to cause some mild increase in height but also enhances the immune system. Also increases rate of healing somewhat. Has to work with the Biscopea in some mysterious way or the increased healing rate results in multiple caner.

>Skeletal reinforcement
After the growth phase has finished the bones are inlaid with lightweight but strong non-metallic materials.

>Skin
Skin has a high durability micro-weave sewn through it to make it more durable.

These are the basics present in all Orders Militant but weird and rare Pure Human puritan orders. Orders may choose to implement additional modifications at their discretion. The bleached hair is a side effect that that effects less than 1 in 5 sisters but has become associated with the Sisters of Battle as a whole in the public eye and has lead to some orders bleaching their hair intentionally. Some shave their hair. Some do not care for such things one way or the other. None of the officially sanctioned alterations are inheritable, this is suspected to be intentional.

The optional extras like cybernetic eyeballs and glands that produce combat stimulants must also be of similar and discrete nature.

Even when naked they are supposed to appear 100% human. Their only visible difference is that, when taken as a group, they are a few inches taller than the average for women of their recruitment group and slightly more muscular looking. It takes medical equipment to tell them apart from baseline basic peasants. That's all part of their charm. They can infiltrate a society and nobody suspects a thing until the signal is given and shit gets very real, very fast.

Well, most of the implants I suggested are pretty compatible with "a few inches taller and buffer" and "look full human when naked".
The eyes and senses are not cybernetics (unless specifically requested for a sister that needs or would benefit from them), but instead focus on making the sensors themselves more sensitive, with a slight amount more of neurons to handle the extra input (as I said, they can't increase much because they don't increase the skull size by enough).
The wards are optional, and while subtle do make them standout when naked.
I think part olf the issue was me comparing their abilities in general to a thunder warrior.

I see.

That fits with what we have on what they are so far. No all we need is to reach some sort of consensus on where they are from.

If you don't mind having underground religious wars that can effect imperial politics, my pastebin from can be a start.
I suppose at this point its mostly a matter of details.

So as far as Good Ol' Bjorn can see the end is coming.

As a question how Does Oscar view Bjorn?

The two of them are at this point the only human veterans of the Age of Strife, two of the very few that still live that participated in the Raid on the Mansion, probably the last two people left who even remember that Earth had real nations and shit.

Did Oscar ever meet Bjorn back in the old days?

Does Oscar ever visit Fenris and talk about the goodish old days?

I imagine shit would be sad.

>white hair (possible to make it passed to descendants?)

This was talked about in a previous thread. It was pointed out that any augmentations to the sisters would have to be either cybernetic, epigenetic, somatic cell only, or otherwise non-heritable, or else all Chaos would have to do is get their hands on a Sister and Chaos would be able to create an army of enhanced humans that could shred Imperial Guard.

It's been suggested that white hair, or at least a tendency towards it, is one of the "side-effects" of the augmentation, which the Imperium waves through because it is so minor compared to what can go wrong with a Space Marine and is easy to counteract (hair dye). The white hair also serves as a symbol for the Sisters, in the sense of "Oh shit, the Sisters are here" to their enemies". Bunch of white-haired women show up at your door and you know you dun fucked up.

I was thinking just the white hair, which I had written as "put in the process because Domenica wanted it". Its a separate process, which being cosmetic only can be safely passed on (while Astartes are sterile from their body temperature being too high to support semen production, sisters are definetly fertile). But I completely agree with everything but the white hair being somatic only.
I just hate the entire " dye it white" thing because that is a bitch to maintain and get right. Not only do you have to strip any yellow from the hair (yellow being basically the base color of hair proteins), you then have to use slightly purple translucent products to get the sheen and tones just right. I've tried it.

Are there ye olde pre-black power and neolithic worlds in this Noble Dark Imperium?

It seem counter intuitive that there would be if one of the core driving themes is Civility vs Barbarity.

It's all about lifting up from the muck rather than letting thousands wallow because "muh super stronk child soldiers" that Vanilla operates on.

Not that they would tame the world, as such. Cretacia will always be a dinosaur infested shit heap, but the people might be living rather than merely surviving. The Flesh Tearers might still be brutal as fuck front line high speed meat grinders but they don't eat people. Blood rituals, but not actually gnawing the flesh from human bones.

Intentionally creating a mutation, installing it into a tailored virus that won't give you cancer, making it mark your children and your children's children possibly forever just so you can have different hair colour seems a tad vain.

Yes, yes it is.
It's perfect.
Its also recessive, so not every kid gets it.

There are plenty of worlds that are just "ooga booga, where da magiks at" short of just devolving back to nomadic society. The difference between vanilla and the AU is that the culture developed on these planets changed from "gas the Xenos, race wars now!" to "we must unite to kill anything threating" during the Great Crusade. Oscar specifically didn't want to see a civilization like Ursh developing in his Imperium. There is still fear of the unknown in these Death and Feudal worlds but nowhere near to the extent as in vanilla. Things considered barbaric are outlawed or at least regulated, such as sanctioned fights or only animal sacrifices. Only Kreig kills any unauthorized xenos on sight.

It also makes them identifiable when infiltrating a society.

I actually had thought about this, though I never managed to write it up as a Codex entry.

When the Imperium discovers a feral or feudal world, they probably often like to uplift it as much as possible before they actually start recruiting from it. Even though a laz-gun might be so simple an idiot can use it, the Imperium still likes it when the people holding know enough to know which end is the killy bit.

Of course, given the state of the galaxy in M41, standards have started to slip a bit.

As a result you get, for lack of a better term, Ascended Feral Worlds. Worlds that know about the galaxy beyond their door, but aren't super interested in giving up their way of life.

Think of some of the tribes in the Amazon or in some parts of Africa, who are still living in the same ways their great-grandfathers were except they are wearing t-shirts, carrying steel knives, and carrying electric lanterns instead of loincloths, stone tools, and torches. They are lifted up from the muck, and they aren't savages, but they aren't interested in building hives or "going soft". Some are enticed by the bright lights of the greater galaxy and leave, but for others it would be too much culture shock.

Civilization isn't "every world a hive planet", despite what some might think. It's about society and order as opposed to brutality and chaos.

That's why I (was the user mentioned in ) suggested it was either a side-effect, or a tendency (like 20% of all aspirants). In this case, it would be a flaw they aren't sure how to fix, rather than a feature.

Also, I'm sure in the noble darkness of the far future, they still have hair dye.

its been thousands of years, it would definitely come in and out of fashion. Speaking of which, Oscar, Horus, and one of the vampires have dark green sashes.

>So as far as Good Ol' Bjorn can see the end is coming.

Bjorn has seen some shit. He remembers when an unholy horde of demented Eldar and greenskins flowed across the galaxy in a manner that could be described more as a tidal wave than an invading army. He remembers when an entire fucking dimension populated by beings neither material nor demonic that took the laws of physics as mere suggestions tried to interpose itself upon reality. He has never seen anything like this.

Bjorn’s been around Eldar long enough to know about the Rhana Dandra. He’s heard the Starchild Prophecies, probably so often he’s told the Space Wolves he’s sick of them. He, along with everyone else in the Imperium, knows that something is up with the Dark City and the Eye of Terror. He knows who Ghazgull is. He sees the parallels.

It’s also possible he may be thinking of a more literal interpretation of Ragnarok. The part that despite a cataclysmic battle where nearly everyone dies, heralds the coming of a new age. Líf, Lífþrasir, Móði, Magni, Baldr, Höðr, Víðarr and Váli are all said to survive Ragnarok, so not everyone dies. And one would be hard-pressed to say that between the 13th Black Crusade, Ghazghull’s WAAAGH!, Szarekh’s resurgent empire, and the tyranids the current events of the galaxy aren’t going to represent the end of an era and the beginning of a new one in some form.

I was also thinking of a more literal interpretation of Fimbulwinter. Three entire years of winter with no spring wherein all the carnivores go nuts with starvation and try to eat everyone. And then, on year four, Ragnarok happens.

(cont.)
>and forgot my image like a pleb
>anyway, onto the subject of Oscar and Bjorn

Oscar might not be in the best place mentally. All of his close friends have died. Most of the beings he can reminisce about the "good old days" with fall into the "gods and epic heroes" category (Eldrad, Isha/Macha, Ceggers, whoever the leader of Saim-Hann is), which makes him rather uncomfortable. Bjorn is the last "normal" person he can talk with. I'd imagine they're closer than one would think.

We've talked in the past about why Oscar didn't name people like Macharius, Creed, Vandire, Yarrick, or Inquisitor Thor primarchs. Part of that may be because the title was seen as a relic of a past age. The real reason might be a bit more selfish, Oscar thinks that naming new primarchs would be an insult to his dead friends.

He probably tried to keep Vulkan close by him for as long as he could. He probably would have done the same with Ferrus but it sounds like few people could have stood him.

Heck, the Dark Age of Technology was, at maximum, only 10,000 years. And that's assuming the Men of Gold were invented at the start of the DaoT. Oscar may be biologically older than any Man of Gold that ever existed before him.

>Dark Age of Technology
that's actually the golden age, and the period following the rebellion of the Men of Iron and presumably the active Men of Gold is the Age of Strife. Stupid and confusing, but so it is.

I see the point in no Black Carapace.

So in many ways the Sisters are the opposite counterparts to the Astartes, they're both refinements to the crude augmentations of the Thunder Warriors, but the Sisters are more refined and "natural" (at the cost of strength, making them, as one user said "more like peak human than walking tank) as opposed to the Astartes who have even more shit thrown in to make them even tougher and stabilize everything out.

I was the one that said that quote. Something like the Black Carapace would mean a Sister has those sockets all over her body to be attached to the armor. That appearance in it of itself is a dead giveaway to anybody that can see her limbs, effectively preventing them from infiltrating as spies. Allowing them to move as gracefully as Space Marines in Power Armor would take away from the fact non-mutated humans shouldn't be able to do that. They should be slower and clumsy in their movements compared to Space Marines but are still much better than a Guardsman. In just about every way the Sisters' pattern Power Armor is superior to Flak Armor in almost every way. The only problem of not using the Black Carapace while in Power Armor is that if the joints every malfunction, the limbs of the wearer could be snapped like a twig. The hydrologics or motors inside the limb armoring would push/pull beyond the intended amount to rip muscles and break bones. The reality is, Sisters' Power Armor is not actually Power Armor, more like skin tight Exo-suits.

I think one of the first things that was put about the Tyranids was that:
>The hive fleets came far, far earlier than expected, and were one of the main reasons for the Tau joining the IoM (the other being civil war ending up as a philosophical crisis)
>Kryptman went ahead with his Gambit and Line ahead of schedule, too, and got excommunicated even harder this time since everyone was a little more reasonable.
>He's been pumped up with enough rejuvenant to see the full nid fleet making galaxyfall, though - and to see how his measures that just about slowed a hive fleet are pissing in the wind against the real thing.

Since we're having the Astartes fully attached to the Imperial Army (we also need to decide on calling them that or Guard), should we expend the role of the Sisters to all of the Inquisition? Sure, the Orders Securitas are the oldest and most well know, but their "yeah, we want to help make sure the Imperium stops doing that kinda dumb shit" could eventually extend to the rest of the Inquisition. I never really got the point of SMs being attached to Inquisitorial Retinues anyways (apart from for RPG purposes), and given that guardsmen other than stormtroopers are probably too weaksauce for their line of work, the Adeptus "Stronger-Than-Ordinary-Humans-But-Able-To-Blend-Inish" Sororitas seem to fit that slot pretty well.

Upper limit of a human on longevity treatments is 750 - 1,000. Kryptman has been taking all of the longevity and freezing himself between hive fleets. The Hive Mind is his white whale and he will chase it across all of time and space.

Imperial Army encompasses both Guard and Navy.

There may be Sisters that get assigned to other branches outside their traditional areas of expertise in the same way that you sometimes see Space Marines in Inquisitoral retinue. Sometimes something specialist needs doing and the Inquisition attracts odd.

Do you remember which thread? Because I don't remember Kryptman coming up before. If that's the case he would have to be freezing himself, since Behemoth was in M37 (or something, the timeline says M37 is the first vanguard fleets and I don't remember when the genestealer wars were). So otherwise Kryptman would have to be freezing himself like Shadowsun.

The only Astartes I know of working directly with the Inquisition are the Grey Knights and Deathwatch, both of which fight gribblies which would be far beyond what a normal Inquisitor would be expected to fight alone (super-daemons and super-xenos, respectively). It may be that's the only time here the Inquisition gets actively involved with the Astartes on the battlefield.

Bump with filk

m.youtube.com/watch?v=wJzPhRJRgFA

Quick skim of the archives sees Kryptman first brought up in Thread 3 talking about needing writefaggotry for Heroes of the Imperium. Thread 4 says his Gambit (Octarius) bought time for the Imperium to grind down the 12th BC.

Thread 6b has what I'm after though, although we might have to tweak it to do with the dates:
>Kryptman enacted his Gambit in his relative youth this time around, catching Leviathan and Orks in perma-combat at a much earlier date.
>Now he's pushing 800 and the rejuvenant drugs are barely doing anything and he is probably going to die knowing that he didn't buy the Imperium as much time as he hoped he would have.

>in the same way that you sometimes see Space Marines in Inquisitorial retinue
This is exactly what I meant - the majority are with the Orders Securitas, but whenever the Inquisition needs some muscle loaned out, they get Sisters where they would've gotten SMs in vanilla.

>The Hive Mind is his white whale and he will chase it across all of time and space.
This, this, holy shit this.

Bump with proper musik.
youtu.be/OogHYADY9IM

Did we ever talk about how the Crone Eldar Navy operates? We went into full detail about where the Imperial Navy comes from but almost nothing on the Crone Eldar. Seeing as they are one of the Big Bad Guys we should expand on the lore.

Someone suggested their ships were more like Craftworld Eldar ships than Dark Eldar ships but evil and possibly more technologically advanced but nothing else beyond that.

Yeah, Leviathan would be around M37. Of course, having the Octarius war go on for three millenia would probably produce OP plz nerf orks and tyranids compared to what we have in canon, but there's no way you could trick the main Hive Fleet into doing the same.

I was thinking that the Sisters attach for mostly investigation purposes, although they try and support every branch of the government. When the Inquisition needs heavy firepower is when the Deathwatch (need a better name) gets called in for super-xenos-sabotage-happy-hour and the Grey Knights for "we think they inscribed a summoning circle in the hives foundations".
So when you call the Sororitas, they have someone they call for backup.

In all fairness Kryptman might be "only" just shy of 800.

That could be excluding the time he has spent in the freezer.

Why does Kryptman hunt his whale? Because there was a world. It was a nowhere place. Total hillbilly dump. A few mines, a bit of agriculture, some nice beaches and shit it couldn't make into resorts due to remote location and nothing much else. Only contact it really had with the Imperium was a semi-retired Arbiter. It's contributions to the Imperium were minimal but it was no bother.

The only thing it ever produced that anyone ever noticed was a child, maybe 12 or 13 years of age, called Boaz Kryptman. A child that saw Tyran, his world, get devoured.

Kryptman isn't hugely clever, he isn't hugely charismatic, he isn't even a hugely dangerous combatant. But unholy fuck is he driven. He is driven like Curze was driven. He will make the Hive pay for what it took from him.

Under his commission poisons, diseases and strange alchemy have been concocted and although the Hive always adapts the toll before it does so is immense. No other mere mortal has hurt the Great Devourer quite as much as he has.

He is awoken when needed and preserved when not.

As of 999M41 he is very, very active. He is the spear tip slamming into the neck of the monster. His dying day is close and he knows it, but he will make his passing be felt.

I can’t believe how much I love this.

It would also go a long way towards explaining why Kryptmann was going to Tyran in the first place, given that the planet was out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere: he was going to visit his home.

However, that raises the question of why Kryptmann would give them the name of tyranids in the first place if he was actually from Tyran. By that standard, he is the last of the tyranids (as in the actual inhabitants of Tyran), not these bug-xenos. Maybe it was a name that just started floating around, despite Kryptmann’s attempts to squash it, and eventually it just caught on. It helps that Kryptman has been in the freezer 90% of the time, and you can’t quash a name if you’re in the freezer.

Given the nature of the Swarmlord in this timeline, one wonders how Kryptmann would react when he realizes the Swarmlord is the literal incarnation of the thing he’s hated all these years.

The only thing I would change is that it was Kryptmann’s gambit that got him excommunicated, rather than the Kryptman Line/cordon plan like in vanilla. The Imperium was on board with the Kryptmann line plan despite its ramifications, because this time they at least allowed the planets to evacuate rather than an Inquisitor suddenly showing up and declaring Exterminatus on a dozen worlds for no reason. It also kind of keeps with the Nobledark theme, because you have the Noble aspect of the poor bastards on the ships doing the Exterminatus despite knowing they will be stuck in the system with the Hive Fleet combined with the Dark aspect of the plan costing irreplaceable resources and working at best as a stop-gap measure.

Octarius was where he went completely off the reservation, stalling the tyranids by siccing the orks on them was too much for the Imperium. Or maybe Kryptmann excommunicated himself, his only goal in life is to destroy the tyranids, but sending them into Octarius has only made them stronger and he feels he no longer deserves the honor of being called an Inquisitor.

From what it sounds like, it seems like Kryptmann is still working with Imperial resources despite his actions. This might actually work better than in canon, in this timeline Kryptmann is working with the full force of the Imperium at his back, and yet he is still only able to inflict glancing blows on the Hive Mind. It may be that like Curze despite being an Imperial asset everyone in the Imperium is downright terrified of him, and the Kryptmann Institute may be as much to keep him under control as it is to fight the tyranids. Despite looking like George Costanza, the sheer amount of crazy coming from Kryptmann makes everyone else nervous, and if the tyranids were capable of feeling fear, they might be nervous too.

>It would also go a long way towards explaining why Kryptmann was going to Tyran in the first place, given that the planet was out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere: he was going to visit his home.

I was going for it being Kryptman as a child, one of the few to get evacuated, watching the dying of his world from the window of his evacuation craft.

The Tyrannids made Kryptman.

I like the idea that Swarmlord has started to recognize him. He certainly recognizes it.

>Swarmlord sees Kryptman.
>Starts making weird wheezing sound
>Kryptman realizes, or at least thinks he realizes, that it's LAUGHING at him

I like the idea of Kryptman being a child and losing his world, though how would he even get evacuated? Imperium didn't even know about the tyranids until Tyran, and they couldn't have seen it via farseers because what we have on the tyranids so far is they don't appear properly in things like the Starchild Prophecies.

Or could they? I know farseers can see hive fleets in canon, but I didn't know if this was something we put in to boost tyranid threat levels. Or is it Starchild prophecies only?

Perhaps they start to see it coming and cram who they can onto one of the leaving trader ships because of the panic, only to have it unable to escape because of the Shadow in the Warp. Kryptmann is found as the only survivor by the Inquisition/Navy/Marine group that eventually comes to investigate.

All of this is fantastic - Kryptmann has a You Killed My Homeworld, Prepare To Die complex that makes the Tanith First and Only look like rank amateurs, and now after trying to hold back the tide with sheer rage for so long, it's finally spat out a single entity for him to have something to fixate his anger on.

And then after Macragge, he finds out the swarm can create more of them. As if taunting him - and perhaps it is.

>technological advance
I have a hard time imagining Slanneshi cultist being able to research void ship technology. Maybe something like artists building ships with Warp powers based on Eldar Empire designs.

I wouldn't go as far as to say last one alive on the ship. It's a bit too hyperbolic. Although as Tyran was a damp nowhere world it was a small ship. There were less than 200 survivors, all children, from a world of 15 million. They were given refuge at the next safe world and they all drifted apart.

Kryptman, like many others, gets placed in the local branch of the Schola Progenium because child and nowhere else to put him.

If like Vanilla 40k "now" is one second to midnight 999M41 then the clock strikes with Old Man Kryptman in a laboratory carefully dissecting a captured Swarmlord to see how it ticks. The Swarmlord is still conscious.

The capture of the Swarmlord indents him to the Harlequins quite deeply, but it's so very worth it.

It's more like the Crone Eldar have access to the fancy toys the Aeldari please don't BLAM me empire had before the fall, especially since they control the old worlds of the empire. Like how Dark Eldar have better tech than the Craftworlders but ignore basically all of it that can't be repurposed for causing pain. It's not advancement, it's Eldar archaeotech.

Craftworlders and Exodites were more concerned about getting out of dodge than making sure they had every single bit of technology the Empire could produce, and they actually threw away a lot of their good technology (like automation) that would make them vulnerable to She Who Thirsts.

A thought occurs. The Hive Mind uses the Swarmlord as its avatar, in some ways seeing through its eyes, and it takes a decent amount of energy to maintain.

Why hasn't the Hive Mind tried to recapture it or just self-destruct it yet. Does it want to be there?

Can you just imagine Commissar Yarrick and Kryptmann sitting down for a drink and having a "YOUR nemesis. Oh no no no, wait until you hear about MY nemesis" contest.

This might be a big reason in why the Hive won't build more than a few Swarmlords. It's too deep in the Hive and can't be separated by will alone anymore than a human can saver his own right hand by wanting to.

And being so deep in the pain to the Hive Mind is closer. It's possible that Kryptman is causing considerable discomfort to the Hive Mind whilst he disassembles it's avatar.

The Hivemind's is a deadly, viscous pradator on an intergalactic scale, adapted to face natural warp gods and the majority of sapients and conceivable threats. Still, making galaxyfall, the swarm is hungry and fridged, and though it's had a very long time to plan its attack vectors and vanguard forces it is still jumping into a total war in a foreign galaxy after millennia of isolated travel. It's armies of engineered organisms are shown to do pretty well against the products of the Galaxy's natural selection. The psychic bio-weapons of the old ones and humanity (post DAoT men of stone) aren't as well optimized as its bioweapons, but can put up stiff resistance to the point of attrition. The Hivemind has no answer to the gleaming C'tan, the bleak legions of the Necron Star Empire, or even some of the high arcana the Imperium has inherited from the old empires. The Hivemind can comprehend the gashes in the galaxy that were torn as it closed in, but the engorged demon gods slaving living bioweapons to their will is not a familiar or pleasant discovery. Inorganics are usually avoided as a matter of course, warp gods suppressed through its psychic supremacy, and the odd organizations called societies shattered and maddened by its very arrival.

(Cont.)
Between the unpredictable, territorial, and incredibly aggressive technological life in this galaxy, a more or less organized response from galactic civilization which itself is heavily industrialized and engineered, and what appear to be four runaway warp based super-weapons/constructs the hive mind finds that it is entering a hostile environment. Still, it is starved, and deadly, and it must enter the Galaxy and devour enough to fuel another intergalactic hunt or die fighting the local wildlife, even if this galaxy is full of chaos demons and, even worse, robots. If it succeeds, it comes away more horrible than any other cumulative creatures like it, if it does not, it will be hunted, dissected, and purged by the deadly guns and knives of the Galaxy. The horrors the Hivemind might conceive should its fight be turned from predation to desperation beggar conception, but as of the fouty second millennium it falls upon the galactic disc as the hunter.

Bump

If the 'nids are capable of evading detection in farseer prophecies as mentioned by or even if they're just "really slippery to pin down", it raises the uncomfortable idea that the tyranids might have been specifically engineered with the galaxy's dominant lifeforms in mind, given that they nullify some of the major edges that those groups have over their enemies (Shadow in the Warp shuts down warp drives and chokes out Chaos, slipperiness in prophecies makes them difficult for Eldar to pin down if this is canon for this AU).

Guy who typed up the Lion fluff last thread, need some help with Mathhammer here. Trying to flesh out the five mega-ships a bit more. I am trying to find a size for the Five that is big, but not “stupidly large” to the point that the gravity of one of the ships just being near a planet would count as a form of Exterminatus.

I am unaware of any official figures for any Craftworld or any of the larger ships of the Imperium (i.e., Phalanx, Terminus Est), only that they are “miles” long. The Phalanx is supposed to be so large that a dozen cruisers (which might be around ~9 km long) could dock with it at once and the ship could be seen from other star systems. Almost small moon-sized.

There’s also the issue of where the Imperium, which at this point would be limited to the Sol system, even got the material to make these things if they are too large. The largest non-planetary object in the solar system is Ceres, which has an average diameter of 946 km, most of which is water. Trying to build a ship that is too large might require strip-mining the asteroid belt.

There’s no way the Phalanx or the Rock could ever be built to the sizes they are in canon, given one is supposed to be a DaoT artifact and the other is part of a planet with engines strapped to it. What’s weird is that some sources say the Terminus Est was a DaoT design the AdMech didn’t know how to build, and others say it was built by the Mechanicus.

I'm trying to figure out a size that's reasonable for the Imperium to build, but large enough that someone looking at it goes "yup, that's not a battleship".

The Five were supposed to be a display of solidarity between the newly unified worlds of Sol. These mega-ships were to be commissioned by the Warlord of Earth, built by the Mechanicum of Mars in the shipyards of Luna, and commanded by the Void Born. One was planned to be sent to each Segmentum, to serve as the flagship and headquarters of the Navy in that section of the galaxy. Thing is they took a long-ass time to build, and only two got done by the time the Great Crusade began: the Rock and the Phalanx.

The Rock got sent out as the flagship of the expeditionary force because the large size of the Five meant they had huge hydroponics and could be highly self-sufficient.

The Phalanx was kept in Segmentum Solar primarily to defend the Sol System. This means we have to do something about it in the War of the Beast. Maybe it was the ship that Olly rammed into the Beast’s Rokk, especially since the Beast’s Attack Moons were supposed to be so large they could cause gravitic damage to a planet. After that maybe it was salvaged, retrofitted, and put back into service, dented but not destroyed. Maybe tie it into Dorn’s story in some way.

Terminus Est was supposed to be central flagship of Segmentum Pacificus but that plan got scuttled when Typhon commandeered it after the death of Mortarion and turned it into the headquarters of the Black Templars.

Mirabilis and Nicor were supposed to be sent to the Segmentum Ultima and Tempestus, respectively. No clue how they are doing. Maybe one is the Ship That Moves.

The thing is, what if the Tyranids have already encountered similar enemies in its past? So not necessarily designed to target our galaxy by its creators, but the Hive was capable of simply out-adapting everything in previous galaxies that had Warpfuckery skills. And since it already came prepared with counters for *Chaos*, could anyone have a chance at beating it at a game it's clearly very good at?

Sorry if this isn't very well thought out, I need some sleep.

Girlyman's return bodes well for this thread.

>40k getting Nobledark'ed soon.

>Girlyman is back guys
How am I not surprised?

The Hivemind is good at suppressing natural warp gods developed from the aggragate psyche of a galaxy, but not one with a long history of immaterium effecting galactic historical/mythological capital. It's not familiar with warp gods that have developed not just from constant warfare and excess, but self concoious manipulation of their domains. It is also particularly adverse to non-biological threats, and the C'tan, star eaters that operate along fundamental, indivisible precepts since gifted individually by Necrotyr in return for the opposite, and honed to a horrible point by the vicissitudes of the warp.

Additional idea for Trazyn the Infinite: he allows scholars of all races to come and study his collection, provided they have one of two things
A) an impressive resume, or
B) something he finds interesting.
Item B covers a lot, from the items he thinks are pretty, to a uniquely colored creature, anything with an interesting story attached, xenos artifacts that do something, to dreary scholarly papers and databases of information.
And then he goes out and "procures" more. The collection is wide and vast, covering trillions of pages on thousands of subjects (split by general category. If you go by specific subject, check back in a few millennia when the M32-M36 index is done). Some say the real reason Trazyn is allowed to do this is his partially free (and widely distributed) publication of articles, databases, and short stories, the Necron-Nomicon. (Scholars proved in 912.M40 that the name is a reference to a fictional tome of chaos lore, when they uncovered the database recorded as Archeo/Hu/Early-265).
One subject where its collectors are allowed to wander the imperium freely are the Cultural Historians, fighting against war, time, loss of records, and apathy to record the myriad cultures present and past. The occasional discovery of archeohistorical databases of archeohistorical information have ignited cultural revolutions as their information (often recorded entertainments such as shows and music, with attached contextual information) often finds wide release. Mostly, it triggers imperium wide fads, such as the tank crew shows of mid M40, or the existential horror novels of late M36 (most of which took place in a bleak and theocratic version of the imperium), or even the roleplaying game market flood that took place over the entirety of M39.

It could he that they were in a state of half completion when they were found and left over from the DaoT. Also we had in an earlier thread decided that there was not goimg to be a The Ship as such.

Oh no, the raison d'etre for our fixfic will be gone :(

In all seriousness, I am sort of shocked how balls to the wall GW is going with advancing the plot all of the sudden. I can't tell if they're actually listening to fan feedback for more plot progression, trying to emulate AoS's relative success, or just losing their minds.

I think we're anthropomorphizing the Hive Mind a bit too much here. I was the one who was harping on about how vast and overwhelming Oscar's and Isha's minds would be, and this would probably be even more so for the Hive Mind since it's so alien. Losing a Swarmlord would probably barely even register except for vague annoyance and hunger to recover the lost biomass (which would probably have been a significant investment).

Amongst the enlisted forces of the Imperium, there is a hated class of officers, referred to as "Job-stealers". As in, " they steal the enemies job and kill us themselves". Tales of them pass around units on the eves of battle, between regiments on leave, and to young officer candidates in training. They stand in stark contrast to true heroes of the Imperium who gave everything to save people. Colonel Haufmann, who personally held the line against orks beside his commissar, two men making sure the last evacuation ship of Dertanlus VI escaped with the last of the civilians and the tattered remains of their regiment. Private Buckmin, who drew a Croneworld force into a trap filled deathmaze to delay them with a chase, and overdosed on combat drugs solely to extend the amount of time they would take to torture him to death.

The anthropomorphizing of the Swarmlord, and by extension The Hive, could be entirely in Kryptman's head. A view shared by his peers in the Inquisition is that he is bonkers. Useful but bonkers.

I'm imagining that he did let the Imperium borrow some of the things in his collection during The Harrowing.

It is not a thing that has been repeated.

>pastebin.com/KHnPEWnZ
My poorly written second story is done.
>What happens when a vampire becomes too powerful for its own good?
>How can the Inquisition deal with something with no known weakness?
(pic somewhat related)

That was kind of the idea I was floating around. That they built the ships out of a mix of newly constructed components and DaoT wreckage they found floating around the Sol system. That way it keeps the "awesome archaeotech" aspecf of the canon phalanx while also mixing in the "we built this" aspect for the Imperium without making it completely OP and illogical.

The only question is why didn't the Void Born do it first, since they obviously knew the Sol system like the back of their hand. Any ship that big would have huge benefits for a spacefaring population. Maybe they did know about it (or at least the wreckage), but just did not have the manpower, motivation, and/or resources needed to turn something that damaged into a workable ship.

I was under the impression that the Ship That Moves in this timeline is just a really big ship stocked up with a bunch of human and eldar embryos and a bunch of heavily cybered up crewmen just skirting the line of being tech-heresy held in stasis. If the Imperium falls and it looks like Chaos, Orks, Necrons, or 'Nids are going to win, the ship gets launched to the nearest galaxy. Nothing like the massive ship of the original concept.

Agree that the anthropomorphization of the Hive Mind is probably all in Kryptman's mind. The Hive Mind is more a force of nature than a sentient being and even though it has a ready-made avatar it is still uncapable or uncaring of communicating with other beings. If the Hive Mind really cared about Kryptmann, it would send a dozen Lictors to eat his face off in the night.

In terms of the amount of resources required to build a Swarmlord, it probably takes something like 0.005% (number pulled out of my ass) of the Hive Mind's total synaptic energy to maintain. Doesn't seem like much, but this is energy that could be going to thousands of gaunts or other lifeforms. This plus the backlash is the main reason why the Hive Mind doesn't just make an army of Swarmlords

>nobledark

wonder what kind of setting plebdark would be, or poorfagdark, or neckbearddark, and everione on the planet is a basement dweller cauze you cant live on the surface

>I was under the impression that the Ship That Moves in this timeline is just a really big ship stocked up with a bunch of human and eldar embryos and a bunch of heavily cybered up crewmen just skirting the line of being tech-heresy held in stasis. If the Imperium falls and it looks like Chaos, Orks, Necrons, or 'Nids are going to win, the ship gets launched to the nearest galaxy. Nothing like the massive ship of the original concept.

Having skimmed through the older threads it appears you are right. It is also commanded by the one member of the Ordo Desolatus of the Inquisition. That job must be the very stuff of Grim and Noble. He went into the freezer knowing that next time he wakes up the Imperium will have fallen and the galaxy will be dead or worse.

It's possible that the 5 Big Bastard ships were never created, yes in part because no man power and shit, but also because of the state of the Warp.

The numbers it would take to crew it would shine out like an all you can eat buffet and with the state the Warp was in at that time trying to sail it would be a death sentence for every one involved.

So they maybe used the empty frames for space habitats.

Unification occurs on Old Earth (except Hy Brasil), Sol Unification starts, Horus crowned King of Empty Space. HOrus commissions a new fleet, the start of the Imperial Navy, and offers places to it to all the Void Born currently living in the 5 Big Bastards.

Now empty Big Bastards dragged to the Luna Dockyards where the renovation starts. The mostly empty frames are then filled with the best that the Mechanicus can install alongside the few remaining DaoT systems that have survived. Sol Unification is completed (except Hy Brasil, FUCK YOU DALMOTH!) and by that time 5 Big Bastards are just about ready to set sail just as the Warp becomes stable enough for them to do so.

Most of the crew are Void Born because of course they fucking are.

I very, very much likes this. The 'nids took everyone else by surprise, but themselves were caught unawares at just how good our galaxy is at fighting itself. I get a distinctly HFY aftertaste, but I literally give no fucks whatsoever. It's nice. Also fantastic is the whole way it goes from expecting to be able to steamroller the milky way as a nice snack to finding out its prey could very well mortally wound it.

>Ship That Moves in this timeline
>5 Big Bastards
Wait, what'd I miss? Last I remember of that AU being mentioned was in one of the earliest threads semi-flippantly - should we really be having the IoM building lifeboats in a setting built for glorious last stands?

If you want to get rid of the HFY after tase change it from

>caught unawares at just how good our galaxy is at fighting itself

to

>caught unawares at just how toxic our galaxy is

It's not that we could mortally wound it in some epic confrontation so much as it will get septicaemia when one of our bones punctures it's guts an it gets blood poisoning from the shit that is us.

We will not outfight it. We are more likely to kill it with a terminal case of the trots.

>pic related
mein negro

As for the rest of the post, that's a much better way of putting it.
>mfw Kryptman's Gambit just gave a hive fleet the shits for a few centuries

In the Lion write-up posted last thread, the Rock was described as the super-battleship the Dark Angels took out as the vanguard fleet of the Imperium rather than the chunk of Caliban it is in canon. Because Caliban is such a minor part of the DAs history this time around, there is no reason for the Dark Angels to strap a set of starship engines to it and go tooling around the galaxy on it. Additionally, because it was the ship that the Dark Angels did most of their crusading in, they have as much of a sentimental connection to it as they do to Caliban and the Rock in canon.

It was at this point that I realized that the concept could be taken further and suggested that the Rock was part of a set of super-battleships commissioned by the Imperium, along with the other super-ships in canon (Phalanx, Terminus Est, Mirabilis, and Nicor). Only two got done by the time the Great Crusade started.

In some ways, the Five Big Bastards were vanity projects, but they were useful vanity projects
1) Their construction was a gesture of solidarity between the unified nations of Sol.
2) Keeping the Phalanx hanging around the Sol System meant that anyone trying to smother the nascent Imperium in the crib would be in for a nasty surprise.
3) As to sending the Rock out, having a giant super-battleship show up in orbit around your colony one day and having a conventionally handsome and chivalrous man step out and say “I’m from the Imperium, and I’m here to help” probably did wonders towards winning over the hearts and minds of former human colonies.
3b) It also would act as a display of strength, saying “EARTH IS BACK” to the rest of the galaxy
4) Finally, once all five of them would have been built, you would have a mobile base of operations and flagship in each of the major Segmenta, which in total would justify their long-term costs.

(cont.)
The connection with the Ship That Moves was that I was trying to figure out what happened to the Mirabilis and the Nicor by the present day. The Rock and the Terminus Est went off the reservation with the Dark Angels and the Black Templars, respectively. Phalanx is either still guarding Sol, destroyed, or something to do with Dorn. The question was what to do with the other two. If the Ship That Moves is still a thing, the Mirabilis or Nicor would be the perfect ship to use if we want to get rid of them, due to their sheer size and self-sustainability.

The Five Big Bastards =/= STM. It was just a suggestion for getting rid of the Nicor.

As to the Ship itself, the Imperium may be all about heroic last stands, but it would be stupid of them to not at least plan for a worst case scenario.

In a way, its less a lifeboat, and more like the archetypical "fling a light into the future" trope you see so often in sci-fi (e.g., the Protheans in Mass Effect), so that even if the Imperium loses, something of society will be around for future generations.

It could be that the only reason the Rock and the Phalanx were the only ones created by the time of the Great Crusade is that the Steward thought “let’s wait until we have more systems and resources under our control than strip-mine the entire Sol system”.

as a general note on Necrons, I've been thinking of ways to set them apart from canon in a way that hopefully works with our setting. They are, in essence, a fully realized transhuman/post-scarcity society, but viewed from the outside, and while it can be credited to them that they aren't mindless automatons, their occasional individuality is simply another asset in the subjugation of all within their power to act upon. One would be amiss to say the Necron star empire is in perfect accord, though the Silent King projects as much, and although he has the backing of numerous tomb worlds many of his most prominent lords have alway been the most willful. The Silent King, even his name alluding to effortless command, must hold court with his greatest assets, and though the majority remain in his grasp dynastic rivals have held out since the sleep of the empire. Trayzn the Infinite, Arankyr the Travler, and the Nemesor Zahndrekh are among the most prominent independent lords, moving with Necron imperial space to exert their own agendas. The Silent king has relied heavily upon the Stormlord to reassemble his empire and the Illuminor to reanimate his legions, and to make them new bodies, truly suited to the slayers of gods. He also holds in his camp the Diviner, plotting his grand course through the petty rivals of the galaxy.

Is the Blackstone Fortress megaship used by the Void Wolves one of these five, or is it its own thing due to its much later production and unique circumstances? I think it should be the latter, but often counted alongside the five terran dreadnaughts.

It was discover much later although we haven't decided when.

It was discovered by The Sons of Horus. A semi-monastic order of Void Born mystics. When the Void Wolves Legion was broken up they were the smallest faction created. They had one not particularly large ship, a small contingent of soldiers and a smaller one of astartes. They also got the Tomb of Horus (It's a tourist/pilgrim trap, they fired Horus's ashes at relativistic velocities into a star buried at C) and also the Corona Nox.

Their main purpose was to travel the sea of stars and settle disputes between the various Void Born factions and act as judges and teachers of the Laws of Empty Space.

At some point they encountered a Black Stone Fortress. Despite much effort they couldn't switch it on. They had to get eldar master boningers and shipwrights and historians to help. After much prodding they finally got it to be able to move and activated it's short range FUCK ALL OF THE SHIT UP weapons.

The Tomb of Horus and the eldar vessels are amalgamated into the surface of the Fortress, eldar and human ingenuity wrapped around a shard of Old One greatness.

That's all we have on that Blackstone fortress.

Only two others have ever been found, only one of which the Imperium knows of. The war chariot of Erebus, the Planet Killer.

The other the Tau have found. They don't know what it is, who built it or what it does. They don't even believe it is as old as it appears because shit obviously can't be that old. They won't report it to the greater Imperium until they have something concrete about it to offer. Finding something that big and handing it over without even a basic understanding of it would make them loose face they feel.

>few hundred years down the line, war in heaven II is getting hot.
>Tau finally reveal the spare blackstone fortress
>declare their scant historical findings with pride
>imperial navy, mechanicus, and eldar shipwrights must collectively restrain themselves from punishing the Tau for their presumption
>still, they can now surprise their enemies with a second blackstone fortress

I think that would be the only time in the entirety of the history of the universe that both Bonesingers and Tech-priests would REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in unison but not at each other.

Bumpan fr page 9

Just gonna fix the Imperial Dating system real quick
>check numbers is the same
>Year fraction replaced. Dates are shown as MM/DD, with 12 months of exactly 30 days and a 00 month of 5 days (6 on leap years).
>everything else the same.