Welcome to Nobledark Imperium: a relatively light fan rewrite of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, with a generous helping of competence and common sense.
LAST TIME ON NOBLEDARK IMPERIUM: >Lion finally gets finished >Avatar of Khorne >Totally not canon M42 stuff, Morty was right, vermin really do get the last word >More on Imperial Civil War, Cadia and surrounding systems, and Ferrus Manus post War of the Beast >Ka'bandha and the Blood Angels
WHAT WE NEED: >More writing and synthesis of the stuff on the Notes page. Any write-ups that get stuff off the Notes page or the suptg thread discussions and puts things in text would be appreciated.
and, of course... >More bugs >More weebs >More Nobledark battles
Still working on an Tyranid Splinter Fleet-Imperial Guard battle, bit hard getting momentum on it. Also haven't made much progress on an Imperial ship sketch, haven't had much free time to work on it.
Also just out of curiosity, have we had a write-up for Commander Shadowsun yet?
Michael Gutierrez
No, we definitely need one.
Speaking of which, the Olamic Quietude came up last thread. Was thinking of putting a summary on the Notes page to make sure it didn't disappear. I was wondering if this is the general outline that had been agreed on.
- Isolated bastion in a sea of mostly Imperial space, control one inhabitable planet and a bunch of uninhabitable ones (by human standards) they mine for materials. - Really technologically advanced. Entire society consists of human minds uploaded into robot bodies. - Mechanicus REEEE at this. Not just because the Quietude have gone full tech-heresy and not just made Silica Animus but become them but because on some level they represent the logical extreme of Mechanicum ideals, and it scares them. - Imperium (via Vlka Fenryka) tried making peaceful contact with them during the Great Crusade. Olamic Quietude vivisect the ambassador team. They believe they are the only true successors to the GaB Human Empire and the rest are degenerate savages. - Leman Russ in full-on rage mode. They had insulted the Imperium, they had insulted his Legion and he had friends in the contact team and he knows that they died badly. - Steward takes a look at the situation and realizes the cost would be astronomical. The Imperium would win through sheer numbers, but it would cost dozens of soldiers for every Olamic (Olamite?). All for one shithole world worth no strategic value. - Manages to talk Leman down. Quietude dodge a bullet and become quarantined in their own little region of space. - Problem is that unlike the Imperium Quietude invent things and eventually they will reach the point where their tech is going to outweigh the Imperium’s numbers
Ayden Gonzalez
- However, the Quietude have weaknesses. Because they are not reproducing like organics and new people aren’t born but get cloned and uploaded (and the Olamics aren’t in a habit to do so), each individual controls an increasing proportion of the Olamic power base. That means each death means a greater proportion of power taken offline than for the Imperials. - They get knocked back by catastrophes just like the Imperium does. The Beast fucked them over. The Harrowing fucked them over. The Howling/death of the possible Man of Gold (did we decide if they were the same thing?) fucked them over. They don’t get wiped out or lose all their advanced but their tech gets knocked back quite a bit and they have to rebuild. - Half the time they attack the Imperium specifically to prevent them from figuring this out. - This time the Imperium has figured them out. The Olamics have attacked and burned Ljot’s Landing, a Fenrisian Colony. Fenrisians chomping at the bit for long-overdue revenge. Oscar isn’t happy about this, but he realizes the galaxy is going to explode into conflict any day now and the Quietude have to be out of the way now as opposed to later. So he gives the Wolves the go ahead to wipe them out. Bjorn’s response? “By Hal, it’s about time”.
James Johnson
So, are there any birth wounds from Tzeentch, Malal, or Nurgle? Seeing as those three had an entire era of undetermined length spanning the whole golden age of the Old Ones prior to the War in Heaven to themselves, the remnants of the nurseries of the Gods would probably be pretty scant.
There's the Tyrant Star, also called the Un-Star, that matches legendary descriptions of Malal's singularity-esque road to oblivion, now held under the sway of Tzeentch. There are also the Ghoul Stars, which I don't think we've touched on, but could be the remnants of the birthplace of Nurgle. On the other hands, if there's any god to drag its birthplace into the warp whole cloth to keep its birthplace from changing it would be Nurgle. Nurgle might never have even left the warp himself, always dwelling in the realm of his greatest comfort. Tzeentch's own birthplace is likely hidden or lost or forgotten, but its presumably somewhere in the galactic core as well, maybe even the Old Ones' homeworld. Tzeentch generally gives off the impression of a natural god that had become cancerous in later ages, not being a totally malignant force like Khorne, and like Nurgle, Tzeentch only got truly cancerous after the usurpation of Malal threw things off balance even worse at the end of the War in Heaven.
Its also interesting to note that a species of reptile/amphibians would have a bird god. It simultaneously suggests evolution by way of mutation into a more robust and varied form, as well as the image of a bird of prey falling upon unsuspecting toads as they sit unaware.
Eli Gutierrez
>GaB Human Empire only thing I could add is that we've been calling DAoT humanity the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion because the Iron Minds were too decentralized to be called a true empire.
Benjamin Hughes
Was actually going to bring this up last thread. If Khorne's axe-wound of a birth is still around 65 million years later, that implies the other three must be really, really old. It really drives home the point that the Old Ones weren't called that because they were a recent thing.
It's not that Chaos and the Old Ones are/were infinite in this timeline, it's that they're so mindbendingly powerful and old that they may as well be. It's just possible to get a handle on their loose boundaries, but it requires so many zeroes that it makes everyone involved feel silly. Like trying to measure a supervolcano or a hypercane. Putting numbers to it drives home just how old and powerful these entities are as opposed to "infinite", which the human mind writes off as abstract.
I mean, if Tzeentch is the eldest and the other three have to be at minimum twice Khorne's age, then Tzeentch could have been born before birds had ever evolved on Earth.
It makes you wonder if there was anything before the Old Ones. Canon says they were generally recognized as the first sapient race in the Milky Way, as opposed to the C'tan, who don't count because they only became self aware during the War in Heaven. I can imagine Be'lakor saying the Old Ones asked themselves that same question. At most they found evidence of some giant simultaneous supernova event that sterilized most of the galaxy way back in history but that was it.
Of course, the possibly more mundane explanation is that Tzeentch, Malal, and Nurgle were born when the Realm of Souls were much, much less shitty, and they just never left holes to begin with because their birth went off without a hitch instead of becoming a galactic C-section. None of the lesser races' gods ever dragged planets into the Warp with their birth either.
Angel Cox
...
Isaiah Murphy
I think this works great to sum up the discussion on the Olamic Quietude.
Is the GaBHD a title taken from some canon blurb, or is it something the threads came up with over time? IIRC the term Federation has been tossed around as well to describe DAoT humanity.
This is pretty well thought-out, considering the galaxy-scale Vortex grenade that is the Eye of Terror. It seems that most of the pre-Slaanesh gods came into existence with a lot less nefarious intent and painful birth throes compared to the Young Prince, so most of their ancient birth scars would have been obscured by the cataclysm that began the Age of Strife.
Also have a vague question related to the Tyranid-Imperial fighting and Guardsmen/Navy numbers. We know the Imperium tends to pull a Kryptmann Line on planets facing the full-might of a Hive Fleet. If it was fighting to defend a planet against a relatively young (weak) Splinter Fleet, how many ships and regiments of Guardsmen would a Hive City be stuffed with? Would there be multiple regiments (if the resources were available) sent to reinforce PDF infantry and naval elements? Could a Splinter Fleet wiped out without resorting to Exterminatus if the Imperium responds quickly enough?
Andrew Hall
Do they still pull the Kryptmann Line that often? I thought it was still highly controversial beyond mercy killing planets that were gone either way.
I think splinter fleets have been wiped out without resorting to Exterminatus in canon. Trick is making sure all the hive ships are dead so the tyranids don't just show up for round two a few decades later after munching some Dead Worlds and rebuilding their numbers.
Either way, if the Imperium thought it could keep a planet out of tyranid hands without Exterminatus it probably would. Habitable worlds are a limited and valuable resource. Even though the Imperium has terraforming technology (now in multiple flavors), they take centuries or millennia to make a world habitable again. And that's assuming a best case scenario, where the planet doesn't suffer from catastrophic structural failure.
I think the whole thing with the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion is just something that sprung up naturally over time.
Dominic Mitchell
They have been beaten in conventional warfare in canon. It's difficult because people instinctively think of them as simple predators but if they get over that they realise how adaptive they and it is possible.
Gabriel Wilson
Tzneetch, Malal and Nurgle also came into existence gently over thousands of years and achieved sapience over thousands more. Khorne and Slaanesh were murderfucked into existence relatively quickely, thir births violent and sudden.
Logan Wright
It´s...disturbing
Isaac Anderson
Ok. Putting some notes on the sisters:
The original religious order was called "Daughters of the Ancestral Sun" they were somehow related to Ultramar Polytheism?
They were recruited be Vandire. Mostly to have her own praetorian guard full of bling. The vanilla armor can be used in this period? Renamed Adepta Soroditas?
Alicia can´t stomach the growing madness of Gore, the Hydra put her in contact with Thor. They go full rebellion. Alicia forms the Frateris Militia as support troops, the force is (probably) mixed. Thor goes looking for Oscar. Alicia left in charge. The Imperium goes nuts. Alicia Alicia recruit/create the Famolous/Dialogous/Hospitalers?
Thor return. Imperial Palace Gambit. Steward end as the Emprah. Rebellion and incursion cripple the Imperium. The emperor need troops now! Doubs in the guard. Astartes overstrechted. Thunder warrior augmentation given to selected Frateris. SM1AP prototype given to SoB. Imperial guard equipment used initially until exosuit and personal Bolter weapons were more accessible.
Aftermath. Most Thunder warriors retired. Sob ackoleged as viable. Investigation of more advanced forms of SM1AP ongoing, current version SM4AP.
The organization of Alicia renamed Adepta Securitas, Frateris continue as support troops.
Anthony Reed
Ok. I will say something seriuosly smartass about this image. It seens as something funny, but this can really happen in this AU. We sometimes forget that Eldars are aliens. They don´t necessary understand us. The woman maibe is genuinely triying to help a traumatic comrade, but she dons´t know exactly who. And this end creepi as hell. Who many times something like this has happen in the Imperium?. That just for a cultural/biological different point of view something is fucked beyond recognition.
Jose Martin
It's also funny how in this timeline you can see how Eldar have gotten more human and human have gotten more Eldar through cultural osmosis.
In Eldar you can sed it in how they don't quite have the stick up their ass after 10,000 years (even though it is still there to some degree and likely always will be) an attitude you can gradually see over Imperial history.
Humans? Well, look at all the examples of "enlightened self-interest" in this timeline, which increase over time and occur even between humans. As in, doing something considered ethically good that also ends up profiting the user. Humans have gotten a bit better at manipulating due to learning how to deal with the Eldar for 10k years, and also a little more arrogant (in a "our civilization is the greatest thing ever" kind of way), especially if you listen to the Tarellians and the Tau.
They're both well within the range of mindsets of both species, but it's interesting to note how the interaction has changed them.
Caleb Hall
I think it was decided Knights/Daughters of the Ancestral Sun were a non-Ultramar heliocentric religion, if only to keep things from being disproportionately about Ultramar and humans have been praising the sun since the beginning of recorded history.
Alicia was sent by Vandire to kill Thor, Thor knew ahead of time and won Alicia to his side through charisma and appealing to her better nature. This was a sign of how Thor did things and an indicator of how he would get the rebellion ball rolling. Alicia definitely was getting sick of Vandire's brutality beforehand. Don't remember how much the Hydra was involved.
Non-militant orders would be established way after Civil War and the Securitas being established as an institution, if at all. Still up in the air which non-militant orders even exist. Dialogous have no real reason to exist in-universe and many reasons not to. Famulous could work with some tinkering, though other suggestions have been proposed (Order of the Old Tree). Hospitaliers at least have a good suggested origin that fixes issues with Valkyries.
Colton Hernandez
Actually we can put the NM orders in the setting whithout much problems. Just expanding the nature of the Securitas.
In vanilla the ecclesiarchy, is a tool of social control. So...We can do the same. The Securitas is not only a part of the Inquisition, but a full Adepta. Remember that the job of the Sisters, is inner police. So, we have the M orders as the executor arm. They put down rebellions, low intesity conflicts and give muscle to the others Adepta. This is done because the Guard and Astartes, are overkill, and the Arbitres are not really prepared for this sort of situations. Especially in the most development and protected worlds were the necesity of limited firepower but more training is needed.
The NM have a more social and subtle job. Control and influence the society, looking for dangerous teachings and behaviors. The Famulous rise as a AdBio project, but his job to look after the nobility, was hinder because..well AdBio. After being absorved be the Securitas they change. The nobility will not accept close scrutiny, but saying no, it´s no exactly proper. So the place of Castellan is given to this well educated profesional. Were they can do their job, help the house and just plain simple being helpful. All win. The Dialogous can be born as a department of the Iterators. And indeed the two groups can co-exist. The job of the It-guys is help in uplift, probably the sort of project, that need the help of several Administratum departments. The Dialogous in the meantime work looking after teaching and entertainment in the most develotment world, with the occasional mission in lesser worlds. Her job complex as fuck. Looking after all the things that can be subverted and used to corrupt the Imperium. The Hospitaliers can continue whithout much changes, really. As and spin-off of the M orders, they are combat medics and disaster relief workers. They are the humanitarian? wing of the Imperium always ready to jump.
Owen Rodriguez
(Cont)
At last i must say that the most reasonable is doing the NM mixed, maibe with the Hospitaliers having more females, because SoB cross-training. The SoB will be and All-female force thanks to the augmentation.
The Frateris Militia continue as was talked as less trained support personal. In the case of the M orders, they will be more trained in combat. But if the SoB need really help they will call the PDF, Guard or the Astartes.
Easton Howard
Ok..Some cross cultural osmosis.
"We you wear that?" "Because is my armor?" "Yeah..i..know..it´s just..hmm..that..hmm..it have to much bling" "I don´t understand, it was handcrafted and given to me be our bonesinger, is and expression of his art" "Well..is..pretty..but..well..i wear green. The officers wear green. There a thousand of guys wearing green. You wear a black engraved brilliant armor" "Oh..I see your point..Hmm" "Come on. Let´s trow some green paint, and try to mute the bling. Seriusly is blingding..je..understand..bling.ding..je..je"
Later.."For Vaul! What have you doing to my art" "Is Green"
Grayson Nguyen
>Like comm'on, do you wanna be target practice???
>...I WAS on the path of the Dancer.
Andrew Flores
Order of the Old Tree is just one of many orders under the umbrella of the Famulous.
Michael Gomez
It still raises the question of why diplomats and "people who keep planetary governors from doing something too stupid" come from an overwhelmingly female branch of government though. Militant branches have the excuse of increasingly specialized augments and Hospitaliers are technically not gender specific (aside from orders like the Valkyries, but that is because they use augments), but their founder was a Sister and they have a higher proportion of women because Sisters who can't fight but want to contribute to the war effort tend to end up there or in other non-militant orders.
Bentley Harris
That is the reasoning to make the NM mixed. The securitas augmentation is sex-locked, but the NM don´t really need that.
Benjamin Johnson
We have a bit of writefaggatory about her but not a proper writeup.
Elijah Hall
There was a suggestion way back in an old thread of Exarchs listening to music before battle. I can see the Eldar showing interest in some aspects of human culture.
In terms of music, strangely the music they seem to like the most are things like opera and jazz, or whatever the 41st millennia equivalents of those are. They like the emotion, the passion put into the work, and consider the performance almost more important than the music (kind of like...I think it's Noh theater? It's not about what you do, it's about how you do it?). Eldar have kind of this love-hate relationship with passion. On the one hand they are an artsy and passionate species by nature, on the other hand letting that run wild is what led to their current predicament.
There was a mention that some young eldar saw Vulkan as this great exotic paladin, especially because he fills a combat role that none of the Phoenix Warriors did. That said, these are mostly eldar who have never met Vulkan personally and are only hearing about him secondhand through other species (mostly humans) who are gushing about how awesome and friendly he is. Any such eldar who actually did meet Vulkan would be profoundly disappointed.
There are probably other cultural aspects that the different species find interesting about each other. Sometimes there's overlap, sometimes there's not. Like kinebrach and their love of metal composition. Kinebrach art probably involves a lot of the emotion the artist was feeling at the time it was made, which the eldar get, but to other races it feels too abstract (except to people who like that kind of stuff). Most xenos art to the Tau looks bland and doesn't have the right color balance since they see into the UV spectrum.
And then it varies between individuals. What someone from Saim-Hann or Chogoris likes is going to be different from Alaitoc or Old Earth.
Wasn't Order of the Old Tree AdBio?
Noah Thomas
Yes. It has been talked that the order is Adbio proyect. That is one reason to say that the Famolous can have the same origin.
Brody Martin
Ok. this is another vignette, in my ongoing work of triying to write something about a Demon Breaker aprentice. This are the consequences of attack a DE barge with a force sword.
The room was bathed in blood and guts. The Kabal has fallen into disarray after the dead of the Archon, and now they were wiped be the new arrival."I give up, stop". The witch just stood over the kneeled vatborn."Oh.. And why I must?". The Eldar looks up to the woman, thinking quickly in a way to just survive."Because.. look.. HM.. I know the true reasons of the raid" Smiling in what pass for a candid way in a sadistic monster."Ok..i feel merciful.. talk". Wiping blood from his bodysuit he talk quickly."Because, he was looking for something.. Eh.. I don´t know exactly what.. wait.. wait.. It was something powerful, a.. uh.. Who is called?.. Hm..A Demon Breaker was there looking for the same, he take it" She stood thinking."Are you talking about that mon-keigh boy that destroy yours barge?". Whit trepidation he begins to talk"Yeah, right. He just destroys it with a sword. And then rip apart the Archon with his sorcery. It was incredible. He wasn´t even a full fledge Astartes. The only explication is that whatever was that, he takes it. And.. and I know where he is". She walks slowly to the throne."Ok.. You have an opportunity to take me to this.. kid. Let´s see, what was so important to your old master. But remember, I Folnesh are your new Archon.. Jajaja" "I must say, that is surprising that your plan was successful". Muffle sounds."Yes. Indeed, it must be painful. Bones, inner organs, massive loss of blood. You are lucky that the remained PDF kills that abomination before kicking you to death". Painful gurgles."I wasn´t expecting that, my apprentice. It was a simple supply run. Well, you have demonstrated that I haven´t chosen badly. Isnt´it. Don´t worry, I don't really think we meet more in the near future"
Jace Morales
You are right. It started out as Securitas but was changed. They do retain close ties to the Securitas.
Brayden Collins
How many systems should the Quietude have?
Also are the civilians to adopt into the Imperium or are they all broken?
Hunter Nguyen
...
Michael Phillips
The Quietude are said to have only one conventionally habitable world and a bunch of Dead Worlds they use for resources. Thing is they punch waaay above their weight class (almost borderline DaoT tech, or at the very least between DaoT tech and Imperium given their extensive use of advanced A.I.) that they don't need the numbers.
As for redeemability, Russ thought the plebs, particularly the women and children, could be redeemed. That said he may not have understood how the Quietude worked. There are no true children, every mind is uploaded into the network as soon as they are able from a brain-in-a-simulator. Their women fight alongside the men, given that they are all engrams for whom gender is just a personal concept. They could even all be compromised because they are all linked through a single network. They are Nazi Borg, after all.
The Quietude are also sitting on a huge trove of DaoT knowledge in canon. The Imperium doesn't seem to know about it (in canon Russ used it to perform a colony drop before he knew what it was and wished he hadn't destroyed it). It's not an STC by a long shot, but it's enough that the AdMech would be REEEE-ing even louder than they already are if they knew about it.
Dominic Mitchell
Bump
Benjamin Bailey
Here’s a question. Did the other two members of the Triarchy survive to M41? The Silent King would have filled the position with cronies loyal to him when he sentenced the two previous triarchs to death, but said cronies would have probably also been some of his greatest generals that he could trust and the closest thing he had to friends.
The knee-jerk assumption is that Imotekh and Anrakyr are the other two triarchs, given how they already seem to form a triumvirate with Szarekh. However, thinking about it some more, I was almost thinking that it might work better if the other two members of the Triarchy didn’t survive until M41, instead being lost to the ravages of time. Imotekh and Anrakyr are at best unofficial triarchs raised to the position by the Silent King to fill the void created by losing his greatest generals.
It has a good effect of showing just how big the scale of the Necron Star Empire was and how bad things could have been. If the other two triarchs were lost, this could mean that up to two-thirds of the Necron forces were lost due to attrition over the course of 65 million years (and conveniently explains why any fight with an Empire that could stand up to the Old Ones plus their servitor races [albeit with C’tan help] wouldn’t inevitably end in a complete curbstomp for the Imperium like the Old Ones gave the Necrontyr, especially given that humanity and the Eldar are far from the height of their power). The Imperium thinks it has it bad with Szarekh and the Star Empire they know walking around, but it could have been so much worse.
Logan Diaz
Also, since they're all full cyborgs and uploads they can make much greater use of dead worlds on account of not needing trivialities like 'air', 'water', 'food', 'temperatures above freezing and below boiling', and other such weak things for weaklings.
Jordan Long
I think they died in the later stages of the Old One war. Silent King never bothered replacing them because he does not share.
Jose Butler
We don't want to make them too OP.
And it is at this stage of the war just Fenrisians vs Borg+Strogg. We start making them AI gods and we will have to wojder why they aren't ruling the galaxy.
Zachary Peterson
bamp
Kevin Wilson
Maybe their god-tier stuffs requires Adamantium, as all other proper DaoT stuffs are - things they don't have but the Imperium do even if its just a bit. Thus, justify their raids into the Imperium in one sweep too.
Isaac White
Or they could just be broken monsters doing it because sadism is the only thing that makes them feel good or they just don't have a reason not to.
Lucas James
I figure both, they're horrible little machine men that like to hurt meatbags and think nothing of it, they are more interested in building their own Dyson swarm than conquering the galaxy, and even within that goal they lack the Adamantium that is needed for the superstructures of those vessels, let alone the Neutronium they would need for a sphere, ring, or even major space elevators. I bet that last bit is something the Mechanicus would taunt them with, despite not actually having the galaxy's only Neutronium foundry their sole control either.
Also, I remember some discussion of including the homebrew planet and guardsmen of Hua Yuan in the setting, and was curious if it ever made it into the notes or drafts.
Evan Phillips
I would say no, given our general aversion to donut steel in this AU. Also Hua Yuan is one of the most laughably poorly done things Veeky Forums has done.
Henry Price
So are we going with brain in jars or full human simulation or a combination of the two?
Zachary Hall
It did. It was mentioned in the Kryptman writeup.
I think it was supposed to be more in the sense of "Viatnemese-esque hive city that got invaded and are ANGRY, ANGRY ABOUT TYRANIDS and figured out how to cook them" than the Kowloon Walled City concept. So it might be better to say they are inspired by the Hau Yuan than a straight port. Maybe change the name and rework it more like we did with the Ark Ship.
First ones Szarekh executed Because he's Space Octavian + Space Qin Shi Huangdi + Space Tutankhamen + Space Ramses. He would have had them replaced for the sake of appearances. The way the Triarchy works per canon is the other two kings don't rule but act as advisors and the left and right hands to the Silent King. In return they obey no authority but the SK himself. So Szarekh wouldn't have had to share. Though in canon I think you are right that they did get killed in the War in Heaven.
I would vote uploading, to explain their population problems and to make the more distinct from the AdMech, but in canon I think they were brain in a jar.
Daniel Ross
Can simulated human minds breed?
James Green
Like you will create and IA. Esencially they are the same.
Christopher Sanders
The other suggestion was that they clone new brains and upload them. Both ideas have their pros and cons. On the one hand making new citizens as A.I. from scratch might defeat their claims of being the only true remnant of the GaBHD. On the other hand the Men of Iron and Men of Gold were seen as part of humanity during their time and all of the cybernetics available during the DaoT would have made the lines between Man of Iron and Man of Stone very blurry (Men of Stone with cybernetics so advanced they could link to the Iron Mind network, Men of Iron with computerized brains in fleshy bodies).
Any post-organic society is going to laugh at the restrictions organic ones have on them (food, water, etc.) by definition. All they really need after a certain point is energy and matter. That's why we have them restricted to a few worlds, any more and they start getting traction. The Borg and Strogg are only such a threat in their respective universes because they are obsessed with harvesting novel biological components (rather than just growing their own). Or look at the Geth in Mass Effect, all they want to do is build their Dyson Sphere and be left alone.
Tyler Allen
What should be the kill ratio between the Olamic Quietude and the Fenrisians?
Jacob Evans
(cont.) By contrast, things that we as an organic society think are trivial are going to be serious business to a non-organic society. One of these is bandwidth. Computing speed = power to an A.I. The Quietude may have maximized how much they can compute based on their energy inputs. They only control a handful of worlds, and they don't seem to have the resources to build a Dyson sphere (so in a sense they’re basically A.I. techno-barbarians). As each Quietude individual dies the remaining individuals get more processing power. You could make more individuals, but that would mean the remaining ones have to give up power, and they don't want that. Back in the DaoT you could just make more processing power but now you’re quarantined on your own little world. So you essentially have a situation like Rome right before the fall of the Republic. All of the resources of society are increasingly held by a small number of individuals. At least there aren't populist riots like in Rome.
That doesn't change the fact that they are still petty little machine men who have very petty goals. A DaoT Man of Iron like Tiberius would take one look at them and go "01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101".
Xavier Brown
The only problem with that is that they soon become unstoppable. If they can make processors out of silicon and use their home star as a power source then they don't even need a planet to live on at all.
Where as if they are keeping an organic brain alive it limits them into something no world breaking. Possibly they kept some measure of organic brain because it was more resistant to deamonic possession, having witnessed the Iron Minds and their fall and being able to remember it better than most others.
It could also explain a measure of their towering arrogance. If they are born human then to them meat is a stage that you grow out of, like learning to walk. They see the rest of humanity as genuinely retarded. Disgustingly so. We to them are child people that can't grow up and worse refuse to grow up. We are to them dead skin to be discarded.
Their "leader" is a giant brain in a jar on Olamic. It is composed of their best and brightest, or at least brightest and most popular. Upon death or if sufficient seniority is achieved they are opened up and scooped out of their bodies, placed into the vat, hooked up to a life support machine and by delicate golden thread connected to everyone else in the tank and a large data-loom. The data-loom is then connected to the data-looms of the other tanks. Together they make up the leadership of the Quietude. Testicles and ovaries are extracted from the prepubescent before their brains are cut out and grown independently elsewhere for the cultivation of the next generation, assuming they are free of deformity.
It also ensures that the subject can't become weak by developing too much of a moral structure or question too much and start to unduly empathize with the lesser castoffs in the rest of the galaxy. They cultivate good and useful little psychopaths and then give them Terminator bodies.
Jonathan Williams
They torture those that they capture because they find it funny and they can't think of a reason not to. They literally can't think of a reason. Despite not having rejuvenents they can live for centuries with no flesh beyond brain to grow old and wither and even that can be patched up to an extent with tech before they deem termination a necessity. In that time they don't learn empathy and eventually the part of the brain responsible for that just atrophies away.
The ones currently fighting the Space Wolves are all centuries old and do not give a fuck beyond securing their own future, a future they see as only attainable with them as the only heirs to humanity. It might be considered folly given that they don't have the numbers until you consider the method of reproduction that they employ. Their population's only hindrance is resources. Each pairing can potentially produce millions of new Olamics so long as they have that many iron wombs to grow them in. If they start to gain momentum they could quickly snowball into a genuine threat to the Imperium as a whole.
They weren't quite this bad when Russ first encountered them. It was suspected that they still maintained a "breeding population" of almost baseline humans and didn't have toys quite as good as they do now. Also they are far more aggressive now. It is suspected that they underwent a planned population increase in preparation for the war with the Imperium. The Think-Tank council increased in proportion to this and the data-loom network hit critical mass and became sapient in it's own right, an A.I. made of organic base components and lesser iterations. Although the Olamics would normally be aghast at the notion of being ruled over by something not one of them they aren't. It won't let them be. The wires in their brains used to ensure compliance made it all to easy to change their minds for them and it influences their beliefs and moods and has enslaved them from the inside out.
Kayden Wright
The composite A.I. is a creature born of their sadistic cruelty, petty hatreds and arrogance pooled into something truly and inhumanly monstrous. The effects on Olamic society has been profound as the society has been essentially hollowed out. They don't really make art anymore, they don't make music, they don't write or read anymore. Their society is directed towards one thing and one thing only, to propagate and spread and usurp the stars from other and lesser forms of humanity.
The composite A.I. may dream of godhood, it is unknown although it may achieve it or something like it as a byproduct if they are victorious. However only Njal Stormcaller, the most learned of the Space Wolves recognizes this as a possibility. He hasn't raised the subject; they can't fight any harder than they already are and everyone has enough to worry about.
The only real advantage the Wolves seem to have is that the Quietude has never had a documented case of psychic ability.
Henry Wright
The reasoning for brain-in-a-jar sounds a bit better, but the A.I. explanation sounds a lot like a rehash of the Slaugth. As in "you thought it was the Olamic Quietude, but it was I, an artificial intelligence".
Maybe have it so the Olamic Quietude are controlled by a collective gestalt. A hivemind formed by the collective connections of the Quietude's minds with one another. During Russ' time it was "only" akin to an Internet in everyone's head (though they were still genocidal little shits), now it is altering and guiding individuals' mental states so they are only what the Quietude want.
Though this might be too similar to the Necrons and their "have individual personalities but have a massive backdoor through which their minds can be altered at will and where the individual ends and the programming begins is very vague". The only difference seems to be there is a single individual who can alter the network at will in the Necron's case, whereas the Quietude would be affected by their own network like the Tau Ethereals in canon.
We should also probably have some reason why Exterminatus doesn't work on them, because otherwise the Steward would have just told Russ "chill, I got this" and then hit them with a cyclonic torpedo. Especially since they only have a few worlds. If the Quietude are too aggressive to the Imperium the Imperium will just go "fuck it" and wipe them out anyway. Or pull something out of Mars or Yme-Loc like they did with the Rangda Abomination.
Luke Morgan
Does the Imperium know about all the DAoT stuff left on the Quietude worlds? If so, they might be valuable enough to stop them from just blowing the planets up, and there might be some screeching from the AdMech as well.
Ayden Gonzalez
It might be seen as just as big of a reason to wipe them out. Keep them from having their mitts on anything big. On the other hand in canon the DaoT stuff was in part cultural information than tech, and it could be argued that the tech they had was what they originally used to get to their current state, and they couldn't go much further beyond that without inventing things wholesale.
Anthony Ross
>what the Quietude want I'm picturing a horrible mental being that is nothing but that bleak society's vicious, inventive id and its arrogant, self aggrandizing superego all pooled together.
Also, the Quietude, or at least Olamic individuals, seem like ripe targets for corruption, both by the ruinous powers and by the C'tan sires. I doubt the Quietude would have the same objections that the Imperium does with vampires in their midst, and they lack the cultural baggage and experience that makes the Necrons hate them, so its quite possible that Strigoi are prominent in their politics and Nosferatu among their officers. On the other hand, they would probably not welcome the presence of the Golden Pyramid, no matter what technology is on offer.
Additionally, what do they think of the NSE?
Bentley Rivera
>I'm picturing a horrible mental being that is nothing but that bleak society's vicious, inventive id and its arrogant, self aggrandizing superego all pooled together.
By the throne how horrifying. It makes it worse when you realize that the Quietude brought this all on themselves. They could have treated peacefully with the Imperium and probably have been brought into the fold as a survivor civilization. Heck, given their Dark Age technology the Imperium would have probably held off the AdMech like they did for Savlar long enough for the AdMech to stop "REEE-ing" and start wondering why they had a "why boner".
>Additionally, what do they think of the NSE?
Might see them as some mythical ideal to be attained, might have their cogitator so far up their waste port that they just see them as competition.
Necron opinions might range from to "you people are gross. We had this happen to us by accident and you did this to yourselves on purpose" to "congratulations, you are marginally less primitive than everyone else".
Eventually though, if they found out about Szarekh's plans, it would result in conflict. Quietude wants to die about as much as everyone else.
Levi Robinson
Developing the brain-in-a-jar idea was a good choice. However, the idea of the think-tank-turned-AI forcing the Quietude to accept it does sound pretty similar to the Iron Mind on Rangda/Silent King being made default admin over the NSE.
Not sure if this would fit with either, but what if the composite AI retained some of the personalities of the people incorporated into it? Being part-Quietude's best and brightest, it believes it is the best candidate to accomplish the Quietude's goals, and the Quietude tell themselves that their Think-tank council couldn't make a mistake, and accept the slight change in leadership (those that disagree quietly suffer the fate in the original write-up).
According to the wikia article the Quietude were protected from orbital bombardment by artificially-strengthened ice caps, and odds are their naval fleet would wreak havoc on any Navy fleet sent to escort a ship armed with Exterminatus weapons into range. And considering the superior technological level of the Quietude, it's possible they might intercept and destroy the big fat target that a cyclonic torpedo is before it even reaches the atmosphere.
The Nobledark Imperium probably has a very strong suspicion of DAoT remnants on the Quietude homeworld, but in canon Russ dropped the space library that contained the data collected by the Quietude on top of them (implying they didn't know about the loot). The Nobledark Imperium would've figured out that they don't have game-changing weaponry (otherwise they would've felt the pain already), but they don't know exactly what the Quietude has on hand.
It seems like the Quietude is just as xenophobic as canon Imperium is, they'd probably be disgusted by the inferior, flesh-obsessed Chaos Eldar and would be triggered over being manipulated by non-human minds like C'tan shards. Ironic, considering both the composite AI and the gestalt mind-control writing.
Jason Nelson
What sort of weaponry should they prefer?
Jackson Cooper
Maybe we can draw comparisons between the Quietude and the Fall of the Eldars: an utterly arrogant race with montrous and in-understandable morality and debauchery seeking to create their own 'God', seeing all others as 'toys'/'things to exterminate', they can also represent the utterly xenophobic and grimdark aspects of the Human race and the must-remove-fleshy buts of the Necrons and the Society>Individuality gone wrong to the Tau.
>The Quietude as the -ultimate- wrong of all major civilized races: Necrons, Tau, Human and Eldar, all roled into one and much more terrifyingly they don't scream/screach to a halt seeing this path but cackles like madmen and speeds up.
Andrew Allen
Can someone remind me why we have the Quietude around in the current day in this AU when they were blown up during the GC in canon?
Ethan Gomez
Oscar was unwilling to expend vast amounts of men and resources to conquer a few barely habitable rocks when there was the option of quarantining them for the rest of time.
Carson Miller
This but also they don't have Navigators. Therefore their ships are slow as balls and the Imperium has the edge in large scale interstellar conflicts. Fucking awful as they were they were a containable problem.
Basic troops should be armed with things not dissimilar in effectiveness and sophistication to the mid to high end Tau military.
The difference being that whilst a stealth suit is to the Tau a specialist piece of elite gear it's pleb tier to the Quietude. It's also a body rather than a suit.
I wouldn't say that they are into debauchery in the traditional sense of it. They haven't got enough left to be hedonistic with for one thing. They enjoy casual sadism because it's funny but that's about it. They are less about dick stroking and more about ego stoking.
Oddly the more we write about them the more they seem to end up like the Ideal Masters from the Elder Scrolls but more aggressive.
Camden Stewart
The composite A.I. should be noticeably smarter than a regular human but not massively so. Most of the bulk of it is dedicated to storage. It knows a lot but doesn't think super fast compared to the A.I. of yesteryear.
It's also debatable how many, if any, of the Olamics know about it. It grew without their intent and might just decide it doesn't want them knowing about it.
Benjamin Butler
How widespread is the belief in the Galactic. Eldar. Conspiracy.
Josiah Kelly
Not super seriously widespread. It is Luther's lasting cultural legacy
Aaron Allen
Just how many worlds have the Fenrisians settled and to what extent do the Space Wolves have on them?
Anthony Phillips
I think we had about 200 Fenrisian worlds? And the Space Wolves have significant but far from absolute influence over them. There's some stuff on Fenrisian government and colonies somewhere on the notes page, I think, I'll see if I can dig it up.
William Reyes
Out of universe the Quietude came about when someone suggested are there any independent Survivor civilizations that have not joined the Imperium. The idea was mentioned that there was some group of highly technologically advanced humans that uploaded their minds that the Imperium wiped out for using A.I. I’m pretty sure we were confusing the Auretian Technocracy with the Quietude.
The idea was that the Quietude didn’t want to join and were aggressively isolationist, but were so technologically advanced it wouldn’t be worth fighting them and not aggressive enough to justify the cost of wiping them out (also to keep said game-changing tech out of the hands of the Imperium). Q’orl or Dorhai evil as opposed to Laer evil or Saroshi evil. So the Imperium goes “fine, enjoy being alone” and leaves them to be technocratic Space North Korea. The tension with the Quietude is that they can into technology and the Imperium is going to eventually have to deal with the problem before they become a bigger problem.
Then we did some more digging and found out that the Quietude are more aggro than we thought and their history with the Wolves was discovered. So the idea was proposed of Nazi Borg versus Space Vikings. The whole “need to deal with them now” is currently biting the Imperium on the ass because the galaxy is due to erupt into the War in Heaven 2.0 any day now and the Imperium cannot afford to have the Quietude waiting in the wings to swoop in and secure the kill.
William Gray
In-universe the reasoning is the Quietude just aren’t worth the resources. The Olamic Quietude and Imperium are at a stalemate. Quietude has much more advanced technology but Imperium can always drown them in bodies and is no slouch in tech themselves. Imperium would win but it would be a pyrrhic victory for almost no gain. To paraphrase a canon general, Oscar isn’t afraid to spend lives but he never wants to waste them. As long as the Quietude stayed within their little box
In canon the Quietude had to go during the Great Crusade regardless of how advanced they were. They could have been nice people like the Interex offering a complete STC to the Imperium, and they would have to go regardless. Canon Emperor’s goals for the Great Crusade were to unite all of humanity under his aegis and prune any variation that deviated from his intended end-goal of humanity. There could be no “alternative option” for humans outside the Imperium (*cough*Tau*cough*). There could be no available alternative path for human evolution.
Oscar’s intent with the great Crusade is to return humanity to its former glory of the Dark Age of Technology. Gives zero shits about what humanity looks like as long ass it plays nice, especially since he is a Man of Gold and would expect some divergent evolution due to isolation. If the Quietude want to be dicks about it and attack people then enjoy getting Orked the next time a huge WAAAGH! comes about.
Owen Jenkins
I can see it.
Control freaks > Humanity in general Xenophobic and think their way is the only right way > grimdark!Imperium Horrendously arrogant > Eldar Controlled through societal engineering and brainwashing to subvert individuality > Tau, particularly grimdark!Tau Cyborgs/robots with compromised individuality > Necrons Hive mind > Tyranids
The 40k wiki and Lexicanum have some information on their weapons
Seems they have a thing for meltas and gravity hammers on their heavy infantry.
That's why perhaps we should make it more like the canon Tau. The Quietude are conditioned from birth through psychological and cybernetic indoctrination through their social network hive mind (I'm not joking, they call it a social network in canon [Quietwitter?]). This includes the leaders, who are the ones that give the go-ahead for the indoctrination (or are they some kind of cyber-democracy or consensus?). It's become a loop, they don't even know that they've compromised their own thought processes.
There's some stuff that isn't on there yet, like how Fenris wants to petition for "quasi-Survivor Civ" status once the current threat level goes down, and some of the societal phenomena (e.g., Fenrisian culture is aggressive by others standards, but it's more "pistols at dawn" with legal and formalized dueling).
Kayden Ortiz
How the Olamic Quietude view xenos?
Parker Mitchell
Do the Olamics actually have a working (semi-working) STC or did they just inherit a shit load of old printouts and DaoT Haynes Manuals?
Given that the STCs were digital and they don't use computers other than brain-jars it would seem that they just inherited physical copies of how to into tech.
Mars could be secretly wanting a war to go through the scrap. Their toys and trinkets are pre Dragon becoming active, their information therefore without it's influence but still human in origin and so pure.
Adam Myers
It varies. As a minority group within the Imperium that have a reputation for being manipulative and a very real ability to see the future, the Eldar are always going to be the target of conspiracy theories and supremacist groups.
Then you have the conspiracy theories around certain individuals. It was mentioned before that there is a school of thought among conspiracy theorists that tries to pin Eldrad as the root cause of everything. Everything. Ranging from the events he actually was involved with (Raid on Nurgle's Mansion) to ones he was most certainly not (appearance of Oscar, beginning of the Age of Strife, who ate the last pastry in the office. Heck, there are probably a few Eldar who think Eldrad has planned everything. It doesn't help that Eldrad likes to act all-knowing and mysterious.
Isha was mentioned to have been portrayed as a manipulative Lady MacBeth kind of figure by anti-Eldar groups early in Imperial history. Isha and Oscar might have a few of the old vids around for sheer comedy value. Thing is, Isha really is manipulative, but her goals are pretty transparent. She's concerned with rooting out corruption and threats to her adoptive family, like a taproot slowly destroying a stone over dozens of years. And while she is much more subtle and willing to play the long game than Oscar, Oscar is perfectly willing to be manipulative as well.
Then there are people like Luther, but Luther thinks everyone's out to get him. He's not wrong, but he's got the cause and effect backwards.
Connor Cooper
Nobody knows. In canon they stored all of the cultural and technological knowledge they had (which included quite a bit of DaoT stuff) in an artificial satellite orbiting their planet which the wolves used to perform a DIY Exterminatus.
They probably just inherited a lot of old printouts and manuals. Canon strongly suggests the Ark Mechanici, in addition to being A.I., are the STC machines everyone is looking for. As in the Mechanicus are looking for an STC machine while riding around in an STC machine. It's been suggested in this timeline they are merely "just" A.I.s staying hidden for fear of being destroyed to cut down on the ridiculousness (and to not give the Imperium a win button literally under their noses).
Asher Howard
I could actually see interesting situations with machine-catholic cyborg spies infiltrating the borg-nazis to steal their secrets, but in doing so compromising their own morals and even some important strictures of design to achieve thie espionage missions. In universe it an interesting way of having these two similar and deeply opposed factions vie against each other, and out of universe it works as something of a historical joke and inspiration.
Jack Cooper
Just thought of something. We all know how the Imperium measures time (though member states probably do have their own calendars, we know the Voidborn do). Would Crone Eldar measure dates in years before or after their "ascension" (i.e., the Fall)?
Lincoln Phillips
They probably don't have much in the way of strict time-keeping at all, since they live on daemon worlds in the Eye of Terror in a constant drug- and bloodlust-addled haze.
Jaxson Bell
Only when sober
Gavin Perry
In regards to the posts about Cadia last thread, I don’t people quite understand the scale of the Eye of Terror picture that was posted. The Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000 light years, and from the 40k galaxy map the Eye is maybe about 1/20 of the galaxy. So that diameter is 5,000 light years, so even the tiny sliver of real space leading to Cadia as depicted in the picture is probably around dozens of light years wide, whereas for Cadia to be an effective defensive position, passing fleets will need to be in the range of its orbital guns so the corridor really should only be a few million kilometers wide at most. That is several orders of magnitude smaller than what is shown and in the grand scheme of space is ABSURDLY small.
Brandon Ross
The visible gap might be that wide but the currents of the warp might be horrendously dangerous in all but a much narrower gap.
Liam Davis
What other groups are after quasi-Survivor Civilisation status?
Samuel Morgan
Every hive world with it's own protectorate breadbasket of off-world trade partners for one thing.
James Richardson
What is time to an insane immortal?
Jeremiah Richardson
Pastoral worlds are another. Basically any semi-cohesive ethno-cultural group that spans more than one world. And the Tau and Tarellians will likely throw their political weight behind it, Tau in the hopes that when they start pushing for a seat at the big table the other quasi-Survivor Civs will back them.
And, as pointed out by another user, the galaxy takes one step closer to Horus' vision. Checkmate, Oscar.
Nathan Miller
That's another conspiracy theory that could be floating around.
Sons of Horus are a secretive monastic order of the already pretty clannish Void Born. Horus had a different vision of the end game for the Imperium than Oscar. The Imperium is heading towards that end game.
Void Born man all of the, or at least have a hand in all of the, human interstellar travel in the Imperium.
Looks pretty suspicious.
Ian Bennett
So if the Triarchy is restored who are the other two members?
Michael Harris
Has the Necrontyr homeworld been lost?
Mason Hughes
Most likely. It was a pretty shit planet and the Necrons aren't the sentimental type anyways, so even assuming it wasn't destroyed in the WoH it's most likely abandoned.
James Stewart
Probably. If I was an Old One it would have been tue first target once shit got real.
Also Nightbringer lowered the life expectancy of their sun so after 60+ million years it might have gone out
Necron homeworld could be a lifeless, airless, empty rock orbiting a cold cinder of a dead star if it exists at all
Ryder Gomez
How well know of is Alpharius to the average pleb?
Jaxon Green
I was going to say probably for the same reasons (if you were the Old Ones where else would be your first target), though the only question is where would Szarekh have gone into stasis since he wasn't awake the whole time like in canon. In canon Imotekh was considered a minor general among the Silent King's forces but the Sautekh Dynasty has been the center of the Silent King's forces because so many of it's worlds survived.
The Necrontyr seemed to hold onto their homeworld more out of spite than anything else. They could have ditched their shithole homeworld after they developed reliable space travel but stayed there anyway because FUCK YOU PLANET.
Though I always saw the (more internally logical) reason the Necrontyr kept their home planet was because holding it was a sign of prestige and symbol of legitimacy. The dynasty that controls the original Necrontyr homeworld is the one that rules the people, even though in practice it's a complete white elephant.
Nicholas Hill
So from what world should SK rule?
Levi James
As was mentioned above Imotekh and Anrakyr already seem to be forming an impromptu triumvirate with Szarekh at the head. Imotekh seems to be Szarekh’s go-to beatstick, though the Silent King seems to be facepalming half the time at his complete lack of subtlety. Anrakyr seems to be the velvet glove to Imotekh’s iron fist, going around waking up all the dynasties in the name of the Silent King so they’ll be willing to go when Szarekh says the word.
We really need more on the Star Empire’s Necrons. So far the independent dynasties (Maynarch, Gidrim, Solemnace, Orikan) have been more fleshed out than the Star Empire. It’s a real missed opportunity, especially since the Necrons aren’t faceless masses in this timeline despite being post-organic and post-individual. They have individuality, but only so far as Szarekh allows it and it advances the interests of the Star Empire. They’re like Fantasy Lizardmen, they’re singly-mindedly devoted to a goal (restoring the Necrontyr to their former glory/the Great Plan) but they have different individual opinions on the best ways to do it and are capable of having their own opinions so long as they don’t conflict with the end goal. The only difference is you have Szarekh around as a final arbiter in the event the Necrons start squabbling with each other more than shooting the enemy. Plus many of them have their own quirks they developed during the Great Sleep which Szarekh can’t override directly without compromising them and has to work around (e.g., Imotekh’s obsession with dueling).
Indeed, I think we’re low on characters the Star Empire can use. So far there’s definitely Imotekh and Anrakyr, and there were suggestions that Valgul and Illuminor Szeras work for the Silent King. Orikan seems to work for the Silent King through clever wording of any order Szarekh gives him to make it seem like he obeys, but we all know what he’s up to and Szarekh probably suspects something is amiss as well.
Blake Nelson
Do they keep pets/slaves/subjects from the lesser races?
Szarekh is obviously going to kill them the moment the big red Cadian button gets dickslapped but do they keep them around on their worlds in the meantime?
Liam Perez
The Altymhor Dynasty keeps organic slaves. They one conquered and enslaved a Hive World. This is literally all that is known about them.
In interesting potentially Nobledark-related fluff about other Necron dynasties, the Arotepk Dynasty in canon got wrecked by what we would identify as a Wyvern.
Owen Brooks
>ut they have different individual opinions on the best ways to do it and are capable of having their own opinions so long as they don’t conflict with the end goal To add to that, there was mention that Anrakyr isn't the only Necron that's congenial whenever he has no order not to be. An Imperial diplomat might even be able to walk around a Pharon's halls between (non)negotiations and strike up conversations with the porters and guards, and while they would seem all very much alike with their only variations being proclivities and interests that align perfectly with their roles, they would nearly all be lucid, charming, learned, loyal, and perhaps even opinionated, though again, only inasmuch as it flavors their loyalty and diligence.
Liam Hughes
>They one conquered and enslaved a Hive World I'd imagine this is rather contentious, particularly considering the Silent King's 'One Trillion citizens' request. If its not the flashpoint to set off the cold war between the Imperium and NSE then it would definitely be the galactic equivalent to the Iranian hostage thing.
Joshua Powell
This kind of reminds me of something I was thinking about regrading the Necron rank-and-file.
I keep thinking of a situation kind of like the episode “Dalek” in Doctor Who. A bunch of Imperials try and capture a Necron warrior to see how it ticks. The warrior gets loose, as you might expect, and the Imperials run away and shut a blast door behind them opened by a manual override, hoping that the Necron is too mindless to figure out how to open a door or do any kind of problem-solving without gauss weaponry. The door is watched by a security camera and the Imperials, being a curious lot, pile behind the monitor on the other end to see if the Necron will try to bang on the door or perhaps just wander about mindlessly now that every living target has left the room.
And then the warrior slowly turns to look at the camera. And everyone present realizes that there’s actually intelligence behind those robot eyes. It doesn’t just see the camera as an inanimate object. It knows that there are people behind the lens watching it. And then it slams the manual override button with its hand, not breaking its gaze with the camera the entire time, as if to make a point.
The Necron warriors aren’t silent because they have no mind. They are silent because they have nothing worth saying. What words does a farmer say to the wheat? What does an exterminator have to say to the vermin they kill? Their minds are simple, yes, but only because they are given only as much thinking power as needed to solve their current situation. Frontline soldiers in firing lines don’t require people skills (though there are plenty of Necrons whose minds really have degraded that far due to repeated reanimation protocols).
It would probably be after the two started shooting at each other. And if it was, Szarekh's first command upon finding out would be "your slaves, give them to me".
Hudson Stewart
Probably not well known. Most of the data seems to have been scrubbed on them some time after their death. It's known A and O were primarchs and had a hand in setting up the Inquisition, but that's about it. Everything else is contradictory.
The fact that Omegon exists seems to be pretty well known, though. Of course, when you have two individuals claiming to be some variant of A and O it doesn't matter if people know. Just having two similar-looking people show up is enough to make people nervous while not tipping your hand.
