Appearance:
Micholi was once a rather handsome young man. His eyes a piecing grey, his hair a soft black and his features sharp and striking. Despite being a giant of a man possessing super human levels of strength, the way he moved with precision and care was actually reassuring and comforting to those around him.

War takes its toll however and for Micholi that toll came in the form of a toxin covered eldar blade; During a fight against a trio of skilled Eldar warriors, one of them managed to get a slash in against the right side of his face. The wound itself was jagged and cruel to begin with, the toxins on the blade quickly began to eat away at flesh and muscle. Between the toxin being designed to incapacitate via horrific pain rather than kill and the powerful healing factor all Primarchs possess the damaged was limited to the superficial, but it left a horrible scar of damaged flesh and tissue along the right side of Micholi's face.

The tattoo on Micholi's face are markings from the culture of his adoptive mother. Each colonized turian planet as their own series of markings that they tattoo on their face as a sign of where they come from and as a connection to the planet they are born on. While turians typically use face paint because their biology doesn't really allow them to ink pictures into their flesh, Micholi made his markings a part of him because he was proud of his adoptive mother and her culture and promised to never deny it.

Psyker Status:
Beta Level, favoring Divination... even if he wasn't aware he was doing it at the time. His ability to get a 'fairly good idea' of what his enemies were planning and going to do combined with his presence having something of an 'inspiring effect' on his followers helped them win battles that due to the nature of their enemy they wouldn't have otherwise seen coming or survived.

Life and Times:
To understand Micholi and the challenges he had to overcome, one must first understand the foe that he was up against.

Before the fall of Long Night and the Age of Strife, the Kirk system was settled in the Dark Age of Technology. Consisting of four habitable worlds and some asteroid belts, the star system and the cosmic bodies within said system earned their names shortly after the colony ship arrived. Navigator Kirk had fallen asleep while he was on duty and almost resulted in the colony’s premature destruction because the ship almost crashed headfirst into the planet they wished to settle. As a spiteful joke, the colonists started naming the planets around them after virtues that Kirk didn’t have and the names kind of stuck.

Of the four planets, only three of them were colonized.

Kirk's Vigilance (the original world the settlers almost crashed into and system capital) was a continental world that became a minor trade hub for humanity in the dark age of technology, mostly dealing with illegal goods due to not being along any major trade routes and having very lax cargo inspections when it came to 'trusted traders' (It was felt that the more money a trader paid towards one of many charities local to the system that the customs agents championed, the more trustworthy they were and thus the less inspections needed to be taken).

Kirk's Generosity was a prime Agri-World and it was the second to be colonized. It was even provided with a Questoris Knight Paladin named Light's Shield to protect it, the Paladin being piloted by the highly respected Goldragon family over the years.

Kirk's Integrity was the third world to be settled. A giant, barren wasteland of a planet with a barely breathable atmosphere and a complete and utter lack of life, the planet itself was found to be insanely wealthy with minerals and ores. A mining colony was quickly established, but as time went on the actual colonists and miners were replaced by convicts and criminals as the planet turned into a penal planet. Didn't need much in the way of a garrison due to the fact that the world didn't grow any food or have any animals on it, meaning that the population could be kept largely under control by the fact that food had to be shipped in.

The fourth world, Kirk's Curiosity, was never settled. It was a habitable world with a breathable atmosphere, but apart from space it didn’t really offer anything that would make colonizing the planet worth the expense. Granted it wasn’t barren of resources since there were some deposits of ore that could be mined, the flora and fauna weren’t overly dangerous and crops could be grown from the soil, but compared to the other planets in the system it was just a colder, worse version of Vigilance.

Over time numerous plans to take advantage of the planet for some purpose or another were suggested, but few of them ever really went beyond the theory stage… and those that did tended to fall when the exact figures of expected returns came up. So for almost all the time that humans were in the Kirk system, the planet only ever saw the occasional squatter in the form of a noble or criminal (sometimes the same person) hiding out or creating a hidden stockpile on a planet with no one else on it.

The Age of Strife was relatively kind to the Kirk system; It had been out of the way enough that AI units were expensive and rare, meaning that when the Men of Iron turned on their masters there weren't really enough of them in system to pose the extermination threat they did elsewhere. When psykers started to develop, the black market of Vigilance responded by capturing as many of them as possible and shipping them off elsewhere (either whole or in pieces) in the name of profit. The warp storms that made travel impossible however brought an end to the system being able to trade outwards, so instead they focused their attentions inwards to survive.

When the warp storms finally faded, the Kirk system was tentatively ruled by an Oligarchy of ‘noble’ houses made up of the descendants of important political figures and important business leaders whom had survived the turmoil over the years. However, while the fading of the warp storms brought with it opportunities, it also brought in a danger that hadn't been a factor until then; Shortly after the storms had faded, the Kabal of the Moon Blades arrived and started their opening probing operations.

Where the other noble houses of the Kirk System saw (rightfully) a threat to themselves and humanity that needed to be fought and cast back into the void from once they had come, House Cruciatu’s current head, Victor Cruciatu, saw an opportunity and a possible ally to finally swing the balance of power in a way that his forebears had only ever dreamed of. While publicly Victor and his House decried the horrors that had been wrought by the xeno’s invaders in their typical opening terror attacks to inspire as much fear into the local population as possible, privately Victor reached out to the archon leading the raiders in order to work out… an arrangement of sorts.

In exchange for not attacking the holdings of House Cruciatu, Victor was more then happy to sell out the other noble houses by revealing locations, details about their plans and defenses and in the case of his family’s ancient enemies House Goldragon, send his own agents to eliminate as many of them as possible. Accepting the relatable desire to see ones enemies cast down in ruin and seeing the value of having insider information to help limit the inherent risks that came with raiding for slaves, the Kabal was more than happy to accept this deal as was, call it a very good day for them and make plans to come back in a century or so to either do it again or (if no one was willing to play ball) loot everything of value with bonus point if they nailed it down before they dragged it kicking and screaming away.

When Victor offered a second part to the deal, the Kabal was honestly surprised by the sheer ambition of the human they were talking to… and intrigued.

Victor didn’t want the other noble houses weakened; He wanted them completely removed and House Cruciatu ascendant as the one and only rightful ruler of the Kirk system. He also had plans to extend an empire outside of the system… and in exchange for the Kabal assisting in his rise to power, as well as making themselves available as allies and trade partners going forward, he was prepared to offer them a bulk hurler worth of slaves alongside enough food and water to reasonably last the captives till they got back to the Dark City itself. Every. Single. Year.

The slaughter of the noble houses of the Kirk system that followed was swift, brutal and absolute, with all members of the families and their servants either disappearing without a trace or being found in such a way that those who encountered it were deeply scarred for the rest of their lives… with the notable exception of House Goldragon, who had some of their members actually turn up dead due to more mundane things like poison.

With all their rivals eliminated, House Cruciatu naturally rose to become the sole power in the Kirk system with Victor as its head. Also, quite naturally, there was a great deal of uproar as quite a few people made the leap in logic that the one noble house that was completely unharmed by the actions of the xenos invaders might have made some sort of arrangement to make such a thing happen. A fast majority of these people were rounded up and divided between getting on a bulk hurler, being shipped to Integrity or being the first people to be sent to colonize the newly renamed Reserve.

Formally Kirk's Curiosity, Reserve would serve an important purpose in the Cruciatu Empire. As the Empire expanded beyond the Kirk system and started conquering or raiding planets (they preferred to set up one outpost in a system and leave less fortunate inhabited worlds they came across alone so that their populations could grow between harvests), after sorting the captured slaves into a number of groups to be sent elsewhere or sold, those left over would be given some supplies, some equipment and sent to Reserve to colonize it. They would be promised to be left alone for a few years to get settled before they started to tax them.

After waiting a few years for a settlement to be established and for the slaves there to start doing things like having families... they would be raided by Cruciatu slavers. Strictly speaking, they would be raided by slavers/solders who had undergone their training (both by human and dark eldar mercenaries hired for the task from the kabal) but hadn't yet gone out on a proper raid yet. Sending them to raid a settlement on Reserve was a means of letting them get that live combat experience under ideal circumstances: They had air superiority, knew where the targets were, a rough idea of how many to expect and held a massive tech advantage with the added benefit that if something went wrong, medical attention was nearby and easy to withdraw to.

While the captives taken in these raids to be offered up as part of the tribute to the Kabal, the point was made to allow some of the population flee into the wilds. Since there wasn't really any dangerous wildlife on Reserve or threats outside of the raids (or the occasional hunt purchased by a noble from Vigilance or Dark Eldar coming to visit who wanted the thrill of hunting their own slaves), the population on the planet was slowly but surely increasing over time... ensuring that if the slaver fleets weren't going to arrive in time around the time of tribute to the Kabal, there was a reserve of slaves on hand to be offered up to be sent to the dark city.

Reserve itself was covered in the ruins of many settlements. Dozens of different construction styles, cultures and species having been placed on the planet... with their constructors only rarely coming to try and salvage something when they had to risk coming out of the wilds, terrified being the next to disappear in the raids. Humans of many different worlds and lifestyles, stable strains of mutants and abhumans created by the age of strife and even xenos whom had only recently been able to spread their own wings in what had once been the promise of a new age as the warp storms faded away... all huddled in fear together in what shelters they could find because to be alone was to disappear without anyone knowing or caring.

This is the world that Micholi's pod landed on.

Most of the somewhat skittish population of Reserve nearby didn't go to investigate the impact, fearful that it was either a trap by the Cruciatu to lure them out into the open or if it wasn't that they would soon be investigating what it was and didn't want to be caught in the open when they turned up.

Only two went to have a look. The first as a turian woman by the name of Popivia Vakarian. A woman whom had recently entered middle age for her people, she had lost her husband in the opening raid of their settlement on Reserve and had only recently watched her only child choke to death in her arms due to an illness that if they had access to even the most basic of her people's medical equipment would have been easily survivable. She didn't care if she was taken or died anymore and going to check what the impact was seemed like a good way to do either.

The second was a reptilian beastman (more of a teenage boy, but he had seen more then enough in his short life to be a man) from a desert world named Taamir. While he would have been more then happy to let whatever had impacted with the ground be left undiscovered, Popivia was apart of his herd now and when she insisted on going he couldn't in good conscience let her go out there alone... so he had gone with to help watch her back.

They didn't know what to make of the pod or it's contents at first; While the Cruciatu were learning a lot in the way of sadism and terror from their eldar masters, they could tell that the pod was not Cruciatu technology and they strongly doubted that it was one of the Eldar's devices. The fact that the pod contained what appeared to be a perfectly happy and healthy human baby boy only furthered deepened the puzzle, but quickly deducing that it probably wasn't some kind of trap or ploy from the slavers they grabbed the child and got the hell out of there before they were discovered.

Popivia adopted the small human child as her own, naming him Micholi after a mythic figure of Turian legends... but she didn't raise the child alone; Young Micholi's childhood was spent being raised by the odd assortment of people and races of his adopted mother's 'herd' as Taamir liked to call them. Most of the group was made up of humans with no two of them having originally come from the same world, but there was also a small number of mutants and abhumans as well. Popivia had been the only turian left after the tragic death of her son, but she dedicated herself fully to the task of raising her new adoptive child as well as she could under the circumstances that they had found themselves in.

Micholi grow incredibly quickly, going from a baby barely a few days old to being taller and stronger then Taamir within a span of two years. There were enough humans hanging around to point out that this wasn't normal in the slightest but... well, he could pull his own weight now without them having to babysit him so there wasn't a whole lot to complain about. Micholi adopted to the harshness of their situation incredibly well, between the daily struggle to gather enough food and water, secure shelter and remain hidden from the odd Cruciatu raiding party (or worse, the odd eldar). Occasionally they found new herds or just lone people whom joined their own band of misfits... sometimes someone just disappeared while they were out and as much as they hoped they had just gotten lost and would find a new herd to help, deep in their hearts they mourned the loss of another family member that had been taken.

At night, after they had set up camp, Micholi listened to the stories of his people. Tales of worlds and cultures that he knew existed because the living proof was literally right there in front of him, telling the story to him. Explaining their history and sharing their myths and legends... and mourning for their homes and the families that they had been stolen from, even if they never said it out loud... and as he dedicated all of these stories to memory so that if another member of his family was to disappear a part of them would live on, Micholi learned many virtues... but one of the few he knew at his core that would be able to survive on Reserve for long was hate.

He hated the Cruciatu for the things they had done, the lives they had ruined and the dark pleasure they took in committing their crimes solely because there was no one around strong enough or willing to stop them. He hated the Eldar, because as bad as the Cruciatu were they were merely students of their Eldar masters that they aspired to be like in every way they could. Worst of all, he hated the fact that there was nothing he could do to bring their reign to an end; He could literally gaze up and see the heart of their darkness itself up in the night sky, but he had no means to strike at it. Not in a way that would cause them any meaningful harm, let alone remove their blight from the universe.

For many months he pondered on the problem, coming up with hundreds, possibly thousands of different plans and strategies of how to destroy the Cruciatu empire and stop it from causing anymore harm... none of which would work. It was a dark day when he finally conceded to himself that even if he united all of Reserve under his banner, they would never be able to overcome all the advantages that the Cruciatu empire had... the biggest one which was the fact that they didn't live on Reserve and there was no way for him and his people to actually reach them on the battlefields that would matter. Without the ability to strike at the worlds were they were getting their resources from, any losses they took would be replaced in time.

The cold, hard fact of the matter was that this was not a war that Micholi could win...

But...

One night, when he was on guard duty and was gazing at the sky in deep thought... maybe he didn't have to win. Maybe the path to victory was not in victory at all... but merely the act of not losing. For the rest of the night Micholi followed this new line of thought; This new objective on which to stage a campaign and for the first time in his life he finally developed a plan that wasn't assured to fail. The odds of a successful outcome were slim at best, there would be no glory or honor to earned and chances were that all that would happen was they would all die with their actions forgotten and their names unmourned... but a slim hope was better then none at all and the chance to cause the slavers to bleed lit a fire that warmed him to his core, even on such a chilly night.

Before he tried to convince the rest of his herd, there was one woman he needed to speak to first. He waited until morning for his mother Popivia to wake up before he took her aside to speak with her in private. He told her of the plans he had, of what it would take to make them happen and his exceptions of how things would go. He told her everything, sparing no detail and making it clear he had thought the whole thing through, including all the ways that it could go wrong and acknowledging that there were things he didn't know and couldn't factor in.

She listened. Occasionally she would ask a question or have a line of inquiry because either she needed help understanding something or she wanted to make sure that she hadn't noticed something her son might have missed. His answers satisfied her. When he was finished, Popivia hugged her adopted son tightly, told him just how proud she was of him and not only gave him her blessing, but swore to do everything she could to help.

With the full support of the one person in existence that Micholi would have heeded if she had told him this was a bad idea, he moved with full confidence to speak with the rest of his herd. It took a few hours, but Micholi remembered fondly the exact moment when he saw the fear in their eyes lit up with hatred as the fear they had lived with for so long caught flame and served as fuel instead of a burden.

They sort out other groups, each one easier to convince then the last as Micholi refined his ability to speak to crowds and individuals alike. Soon he was singling out the more passionate and well spoken of his followers and grouping them together so that they could go forth and spread the message in his stead for he could not be everywhere at once and they needed every one they could get who was sick of cowering in holes and burned out ruins waiting to die or worse, be taken.

Even as the message was sent out, it would take months of work to set up the groundwork, but many hands made light work and none worked harder then Micholi himself. Equipment from the ruined settlements was looted and repurposed, actual weapons being rare but mining equipment being common enough that some small scale operations were able to get underway in secret. They mined what iron they could, created underground bunkers and hidden tunnels, started gathering stockpiles of supplies and created basic but solid metal weapons, some more exotic then others. Micholi was a quick study of how to use these weapons to the surprise of many since some of them weren't designed with humans in mind, but in the end he elected to go with a large, two handed hammer that was designed to take advantage of his larger size, strength and reach.

Micholi didn't know how he decided upon the first ambush site; He had been looking at a hand drawn map of the parts of the world they were aware of and he found himself gazing at an almost random spot before pointing at it and saying with confidence that surprised even himself 'There'. After the fact he came up with reasonable sounding excuses as to why a team of slavers would show up at that location, but to his mother he softly admitted that the moment he saw the map he just knew with absolutely certainty that the slavers would be there... and he didn't quite know why.

His gut feeling proved well justified however. A Cruciatu ship landed in the ambush site and teams of rookie slavers were unloaded before the ship took off again, the solders left on the ground taking time to check their gear and organize. They weren't expecting to be ambushed and thus they hadn't bothered to patrol the perimeter, gloating to each other about all the slaves they were going to capture from the group that was hiding out near the nearby river.

They would not get there.

The ambush wasn't perfect, but the element of total surprise at being on the receiving end of an ambush, the lack of experience of the slavers themselves and the fury of having to live in constant fear for years being unleashed carried the day. Most of the slavers were killed in the swift and brutal melee that followed, but some were taken alive. All the bodies were removed from the site and their trail was covered as much as they could in order to hide exactly what had happened... as well as the fact that they had taken prisoners and looted all of the equipment. Mainly, their weapons and com units.

The war on Reserve would carry on like this for over a decade. A ship would be sent to the planet with Micholi have a surprisingly accurate gut feeling of not just when this was happening, but where it was going to land. If it was somewhere on the planet where their insurgency hadn't quite reached yet there was little they could do, but if it was landing was somewhere they could reach the nearest cell would be contacted over their increasingly growing radio network and an ambush would be prepared. If he could get there in time, Micholi would join the ambush himself.

Most were successful, through a number didn't end as smoothly as the original did. People Micholi had trained with, spent years alongside would get injured, crippled or die. It was the nature of war that people would be maimed or killed and Micholi had known that going into it but... when he had a moment, he would take the time to reflect on what he remembered of them and if he didn't know them personally he would find those that did. Even if it was just what their name was.

Few ambushes ever truly failed. If an ambush was getting messy or appearing to go poorly they had trained to fall back and disengage to either bait them into following into another ambush or regrouping to strike again later when the opportunity presented itself because throwing lives away was not an option. However, slaver teams that had eldar mercenaries connected to them to assist in their training tended to make things go horribly wrong very quickly if Micholi wasn't there.

Despite the few tragic defeats, within the decade Micholi had managed to unite if not all the slaves on Reserve, then at least the vast majority of them... and if he or his people couldn't find them he wished them the best of luck. The range in which they could intercept the raids had increased as well, covering almost the entire planet save for the tops of its few mountains and in the middle of the large water bodies. Punching the numbers, Micholi figured that out of all the ships the Cruciatu had sent since he started his campaign, if one factored in those ships that had landed in areas where they hadn't been able to get a force in to ambush in time back during the early years, seventy eight percent of them had left Reserve empty of both slaves and slavers.

The nature of the war changed just a little under 10 years, 6 months after the ambushes started. The Cruciatu stopped sending rookies needing some live experience at raiding; Instead, they sent in one of their proper raiding fleets. Micholi's campaign was baring fruit. Denying Reserve from the Cruciatu Empire so that they couldn't use it as a training ground for those recruits finishing their basic training, alongside killing as many of said recruits as possible had the benefit of hopefully reducing the quality of the new generation of slavers being built up, but the real goal had been to force the Cruciatu to dedicate resources away from more important fronts to try and retake a world of admitting little value to them at the heart of their empire because pride and a desire not to seem politically weak would not allow a slave uprising to undermine their authority.

Where the first stage of the war had taken a decade, the second only lasted two years. The doctrine of Micholi's forces was clear on how to fight this war: Never give them a clear target. Bleed whatever forces they send down with hit and run attacks, ambushes and misdirection, don't present them with a target they can get a bombing run or an orbital bombardment off on without having to hit a sizeable chunk of their own men in the process and above all else, don't die or let them take you alive. Every day you stay alive and free to take pot shots at them is another day they're stuck here with nothing to show for it but a raising body count and a drain on resources.

For his part, Micholi did co-ordinate the efforts of his forces where he could but he had spent the decade beforehand training his forces to be flexible and decentralized to take full advantage of the kind of war they were going to be fighting as well as to preventing a single assassination spelling doom. Instead, Micholi's vital contribution to the cause was by being the only real hard counter that his forces had to the eldar contingents of the subjection force.

The Eldar had been encountered during the decade of ambushes prior, but they tended to be in very small numbers, serving as instructors towards mostly human forces. While experience had proven time and time again that the Eldar could be killed, their advanced technology, supernaturally fast speed and reflexes as well as (having learned from the captives they had taken) incredibly long lives of experience in combat and taking slaves, fighting the Eldar was still a daunting mountain of a task. Micholi was the only one who had been able to fight and kill Eldar consistently, with his presence serving to bluster those with him to fight on the level required to do so.

Combating the Eldar parts of the Cruciatu forces proved vital to the war effort, since not only were they unbelievably good at ambushing the ambushers but they also had a gift for sniffing out their hidden tunnels, storehouses and bunkers which the human elements of the Cruciatu simply couldn't match. There was one silver lining, but Micholi and his followers were never quite sure what the root cause of it was: For every squad of Eldar raiders who were eliminated, their overall presence diminished. Their numbers weren't being replaced. It was unclear if this was because there weren't that many Eldar to begin with, or if the fact that there was something that was able to kill them in droves was making the other Eldar reluctant to commit themselves to this campaign, but each Eldar death made the night that little bit safer.

Then, one day... the fighting stopped. The raider fleet in orbit disappeared and the Cruciatu stopped sending forces to Reserve altogether. Micholi and his forces would remain vigilant for months after the disappearance, paranoid that it was some sort of ploy to let their guard down or that it was merely a lull before the storm kicked off even worse then before.

No Cruciatu ship ever came back... but another ship did. One that wasn't of Cruciatu or Eldar design. At first they were suspicious of the new ship, but when Micholi gazed up at it for the first time the gut feeling that had served him so well over the years served him again. He broadcasted a message on an open channel and within the hour a shuttle landed on Reserve's soil, baring the Emperor of Mankind.

The meeting between Micholi and the Emperor was awkward at first, partly because Micholi figured pretty damn quickly that if things turned hostile that it wouldn't end well for himself or his followers, but the presence of mutants, abhumans and xenos among his followers clearly put the bodyguards whom had come with the Emperor on edge even if the man himself kept a diplomatic face up. Still, the two of them retreated into a nearby bunker prepared for such a meeting in order to talk in private.

They discussed many things together, the topics starting about things such as the war on Reserve, what the Cruciatu empire had used it for, the nature of the alliance between the Cruciatu and the Eldar (The Emperor informed his son that while the two forces had fought against him until this point, now that his own forces had pushed them back to the Kirk system the Eldar had seemingly abandoned their allies to their fate), what Micholi had hoped to achieve and the make up of the forces under his command.

This last subject resulted in a bit of a argument between the two, with the Emperor using personal experience and data from prior engagements of the Great Crusade why the presence of Xenos and mutants was problematic, while Micholi argued in favor of the residents of Reserve, as well as their counterparts on the other planets in the Kirk system and beyond. It wasn't a heated argument since both parties could at least see where the other was coming from (the Eldar proved a good common ground for the two as evidence that some xenos species were monsters that couldn't be allowed to exist) and a compromise was reached.

Since the xenos, abhumans and mutants that Micholi had united alongside his human forces seemed perfectly stable and were willing to fall under human leadership, the Emperor made the decision to give them something of a trial run, not only to see if they could continue to work alongside humans but also to test Micholi and make sure that he would be up to the task of leading his legion in the Crusade itself.

The arrangement was that the worlds of the various xenos, abhumans and mutants would not be invaded, with the xenos citizens on Reserve would undergo questioning about their cultures and peoples, with the Emperor sending his own agents (both overt and subtle) to visit the worlds their races lived on in order to inspect them and vet them for suitability into being brought into the Imperium as if they were a human world. In the case of the abhumans and mutants, those present on Reserve would undergo some medical tests in order to inspect just how stable their genetics and strains were, as well as undergo questioning about their cultures and people so that their worlds could be judged as all abhuman populations were.

Micholi himself would shadow his biological father for the rest of the campaign against the Cruciatu, but at his own request he asked not to be in a command position. He didn't have an idea of the capabilities of the Space Marine legions his father commanded or the equipment that they had access to so he reasonably admitted that he wouldn't be able to lead them effectively. Finding the request reasonable and logical the Emperor agreed, Micholi serving the role of bodyguard for this campaign so that he could learn to be a commander of a legion in his own right.

The liberation of Kirk's Generosity was a somewhat swift but bloody affair, but for the most surprising of reasons. When Imperial forces landed, the various slave race and native human population rose up in revolt against the forces of House Cruciatu; It might have been a lifetime since House Goldragon had been eliminated, but their people hadn't forgotten them. They remembered what fair and just leadership was and knew in their hearts that there was something dark and rotten at the core of House Cruciatu, but hadn't really been able to do anything about it... until now.

A far number of Cruciatu officers in charge of their forces on Kirk's Generosity that weren't directly engaging one force or the other had a choice about which enemy to engage... and many of them decided to go after the rebelling slaves and civilians. For one thing they were less armed, armored and skilled then the invading space marines by a fair margin, but many of the officers had already come to the conclusion that the war was more or less over at this point and that all they could do now was take what petty vengeance they could on those weaker then them.

A shift imperial victory, but a lot of the civilians and slaves were slaughtered by the doomed Cruciatu slavers as well as vast stretches of land that had been destroyed and poisoned.

Imperial forces didn't even need to land on Kirk's Integrity. Once the food shipments were cut off the garrison was slain to the last and those prisoners and slaves on the mining world awaited liberation, reprisal or starvation.

The last stand of Kirk's Vigilance was a brutal affair; House Cruciatu and the Cruciatu Empire was doomed and their invaders were not inclined to accept peace terms or surrender from those who had willing submitted to be the vassals of an eldar kabal at the cost of countless human lives. The Cruciatu employed ever dark trick, every piece of eldar technology they were able to barter from their now absent 'allies' and every vile and inhumane ploy they could think of in an attempt to starve off their demise, but in the end it was in vain. Kirk's Vigilance was almost completely purged of its entire population.

Almost...

A number of the slaves on Kirk's Vigilance had been so broken by their masters that they had fought with a zealous zeal to defend their owners that it would have been respectable if it wasn't so inherently tragic. Others were forced to fight or at as meat shields less out of loyalty to their masters and more because explosive collars and other such devices are a thing. Others were just plain and simply unlucky. But there were survivors!

In the ruins of House Cruciatu's final baston, the Emperor of Mankind decleared victory over the Cruciatu Empire and named Micholi lord of the Kirk system. While he would be going to Terra in order to receive a proper education in order to fulfill his role as a Primarch in the Crusade, the system would be his to do with as he wished within the bounds of Imperial Law. Micholi accepted the honor and before he left the system with the Emperor he made two public announcements system wide.

The first was as much a guideline for the temporary regent government the Emperor was putting in place to help rebuild the system after they departed for Terra as an announcement for his own people. "No more slavery. There will be no more slaves in the Kirk System."

The second was a promise. "For those who wish to stay here, I will welcome you as a citizen and all the rights that come with it. But for those of you who were taken your homes and wish to return there... please be patient. I give you my word that I will do what I can to find where your worlds are and to get you back there, but we need time to rebuild. Time to sort through the information banks where the slavers recorded what worlds they visited. Time to figure out where you originally came from and what state it is in now. So please... give us that time and be patient."

After setting up his mother as apart of the newly established House Vakarian and promising to return soon, Micholi 'Slaver bane' Vakarian departed for Terra alongside the Emperor.

Ideology:
Micholi is both rather flexible and ridged in his thinking. Give him an objective and he will see it done. Give him bonus and side objectives to go with the original and he will go to great lengths to achieve them as well. When it comes time to figure out the how to achieve these objectives, Micholi will explore all valid paths and plans until he can find one that achieves as many (if not all) objectives possible with the best long term results. He is also humble enough to acknowledge when he is not the right person for the job to get the best results or achieve the desired objectives, but if there is no time to get such a person then he will do what he can.

Micholi is both ponderous and meticulous, taking his time to understand as much of the situation as possible before taking action. He is not immune to impulse, since he had long learned to trust his gut feelings when he receives insight into opportunities that have not yet presented themselves (a manifestation of his psyker abilities into divination). He is slow to anger or emotional turmoil, but in return when something does get to him it hits him hard.

The realities of war dictate that people will die. Micholi is aware of this cold, harsh fact and regardless of his personal feelings on the matter he accepted it long ago... despite this, he still cares deeply about the lives he is responsible for. Not just for the Space Marines of his legion, but also those of Imperial Army elements and even civilians he is tasked with overseeing and protecting. He'll even extend the courtesy to the lives of enemy combatants and civilians if they have redeemable qualities but they are at war for political reasons.

When Micholi has to fight a war, how that war is fought and the tactics used will depend almost completely on whom he is fighting. If he is fighting an enemy that he deems would be a wonderful assist to the Imperium but they are fighting because they have rejected all diplomatic options, he will learn what virtues the people he is fighting value and plan a clean, honorable war while respecting those virtues and what those people value. No atrocities or mindless slaughters that could breed resentment and be a rallying cry for rebellion down the track. Ideally, in victory the Imperium will have earned a grudging respect at worst from the foe and that respect can be the foundation of loyalty.

If only portions of the enemy have redeemable qualities while others are foul and corrupt in nature, then the plan will instead focus on safe guarding those good elements while purging the filth in the same way one prunes weeds from healthy plants. In the event that there is no redeeming quality whatsoever, then the foe is to be destroyed utterly. The very foundations of their existence will be broken apart so that the roots themselves can be pulled out and burned to ash so that when fresh soil and new life is put where they once stood, there will be no trace of the old to risk corrupting the new.

Having been raised by a mixture of humans, abhumans, mutants and xenos Micholi unsurprisingly actually has a very positive opinion on alien kind and will advocate in their favor. Even if it is currently only in the trial stages, he hopes that he can convince the Emperor to relax regulations against xenos across the Imperium. That said, he is neither naive or a fool; He is well aware of the fact that there are xenos out in the universe that either cannot or should not exist alongside others, the Cruciatu Empire being a key example of the latter. For the good of not just humanity, but all living things, these creatures must be hunted down and destroyed.

Surprisingly he has very little opinion on psykers. As far as Micholi knows he's never encountered one and he is unaware of the fact that he has psyker abilities himself. Truth be told, he's only recently discovered that they are a thing. From what stories he has heard, his views on them are that they are useful, but need to be employed and used carefully. One shouldn't mess with powers one doesn't understand recklessly.

Wargear:
Unity: A two handed thunder hammer, Unity was a collaboration project between tech priests of the Cult Machanicus that were deemed heretical for both their desire to work with xeno technology and their willingness to work with xenos to do it and a team of Turian scientists and engineers.

Desiring to offer a present worthy of the master of the Kirk system for the anniversary of the destruction of the Cruciatu Empire, his adoptive mother Popivia challenged the brightest minds of the Kirk system to create a weapon he could wield to not only serve him as a weapon of war, but also as a symbol of the strength of unity between the races he had led out of slavery.

While a number of different weapons were created by different groups (which would be offered to worthy captains of the Legion in their own right), Unity was forged by a team of tech priests lead by Magos Argol and a team of Turian scientists and engineers lead by Jupius Romulnion whom had originally started working together in order to try and make sense of some of the data and information of the databanks of the Cruciatu Empire in their research into Eldar technology.

They were unable to make any insights or progress with understanding Eldar technology, by working closely with the tech priests the Turians had a moment of inspiration with their own. Eezo's ability to generate power by releasing dark energy had been figured out by the Turian people very early on, as well as it's ability to create a field that could alter weight by either increasing or decreasing it depending on if a positive or negative charge went through it.

In a conversation about some of the Eldar blades that the Cruciatu had been trying to understand the technology of, the topic of human power weapons came up. Unsurprisingly, the idea of infusing human power weapons with Eezo was raised, the idea being to make it so that while the weapon was in a passive mode the weapon would be made lighter and thus easier to carry, but at the moment of impact the weight would be increased dramatically to had more weight and thus force behind the blow.

The idea was discussed and deemed to have a lot of merit, but would require a redesign of almost all power weapons to make work due to the fact that in order to benefit from being a power weapon, it needed to be on and the field active before someone started swinging it... which would increase the weight of the weapon far to early and make it practically worthless for combat.

But there was a power weapon that this could work for perfectly. The energy field of the thunder hammer only turned on when it made contact with a target, releasing all its stored up energy at the moment of impact and creating the sound that earned it it's name. Incorporating Eezo into the thunder hammer design wasn't even that hard, since all it really took was adding a second power source to the hammer who's sole purpose was to channel the right energy at the right time... and since part of the upgrade was literally to decrease its weight to make it easier to carry and wield, making the thunder hammer a bit bigger to fit the extra components wasn't that big of a deal.

The resulting creation was the Thunder Hammer named Unity. Unity itself is almost a third the size bigger then a stock standard pattern thunder hammer, since the shaft had to be made longer and thicker so it could be properly wielded by the Primarch it was intended for, as well as the head being larger and thicker in order to account for (and protect) the two power sources within it. While one created the energy field which gave the hammer its destructive power, the second would channel a negative charge through eezo implanted in the head and shaft of the weapon to make it deceptively light and thus easy to carry and wield for fast strikes. The moment the energy field triggers, the second energy source triggers as well for the split second of impact to channel a positive charge in the head of the hammer, reversing the weight effect and increasing it dramatically to increase the force behind the impact.

The result is a weapon that can be wielded with the grace and speed of a decently made steel longsword with an impact force rival to that of a Basilisk artillery shell landing directly on the target location.

The head of the hammer is engraved to show the twin headed eagle of the Imperium of Man on the top and longer sides of the hammer, while the smaller 'ends' are engraved with the symbols of the Cult Mechanicus and Turian Hierarchy respectively.

Other:
The Eldar Kabal of the Moon Blades is a Dark Eldar kabal. As far as Micholi and those of the Kirk system know, they are the only species of Eldar in existence and are currently unaware of the differences between the Dark Eldar, the Exodite Eldar and the Craftworld Eldar.

Appearance: Ajax's face is brutish and strong, with deep set piercing blue eyes and an almost permanent scowl. The top of his head is kept perfectly shaved while his face is decorated with a well trimmed goatee. If there is anything else that truly draws the eye on his face it is his scars, several large scars cutting down over the dome of his head, and several more on his cheeks and chin bisecting his face in irregular lines. If it bothers him, he does not show it.

Ajax is a large man even by Primarch standards, his body honed to perfection by a life dedicated to little else besides battle. His chest is massive and broad, muscles standing in stark contrast straining against his stressed skin. His arms are thick with corded muscle, his legs massive and bulging with strength. Looking at him even free from his armour, there is only one word that springs to mind. Power.
Psyker Status: N/A
Life and Times: The life of Ajax was not an easy one, but who truly in this universe has an early life? No one on New Troy that is for sure, that is unless you were one of the few thousand elites ruling over of a massively overpopulated hive planet. Ajax was not one of the ruling elite. Not for a long time.

No instead he landed deep in the depths of the hive world. On New Troy life is cheap, the lower levels are dominated by gangs warring over even the most basic of resources. Cannibals. And thrill kill gangs from the higher reaches that get their rocks off slaughtering those with little hope of fighting back. Every day was a fight for your life. Even for a Primarch.

With the city planet being so overpopulated the ruling elite came up with a novel way of keeping the masses entertained while doing their part in keeping the population down. Death games. The Death games were not a singular event nor game, no they consisted of Gladiator duels, pitched mass battles with blade or bullet or both. Death Races on every vehicle imaginable. Some volunteered eyes set on an easier life full of riches and glory, most were captured and pressed into the games with no hope of every getting out alive.

Ajax was among those enslaved and pressed into the Death games. But he defied the name and refused to die. He dominated the Gladiator games, led his team to constant victory and glory in the pitched battles and achieved victories that defied reality in the death races. He saw both the best and worst of humanity on these fields of battle. And the source of what was worst on the field? It all came from above. Those that would never bloody their hands if there was any chance the blood spilling to the sand would be their own. He saw them in all of their greed, all of their cowardice,their cruelty and their hubris. There was only one true course of action. Revolt.

It started off small, a coordinated uprising of all the various death game stables. Claiming guns, vehicles, swords, knives anything they could get their hands on that would allow them to fight against their oppressors. From their it grew onto a full blown revolution with Ajax's face the symbol. A symbol that was more often than not seen leading from the front. The population of the planet was devastated in the decades long war. Those at the top press ganging those below them into service, those not press ganged or recruited rising up from the bowels of the planet. Eventually the nukes fell, but by then it was too late. Ajax had overthrown an oppressive regime and all it had cost was 75% of the planets population.

From there societal reconstruction was on the top of Ajax's priority list. It was a civilisation that was now guided to venerate the values that Ajax had come to view as the most vital during his time in the arena. Honour, glory, responsibility and the value of life not to be thrown away pointlessly. The games that he both loved and despised were remoulded into a crucible. They were no longer battles to the death but instead a venerated tradition to prove your skill and demonstrate your virtues.

Those who fought their way through the Crucible would find themselves facing Ajax himself. A man that towers over his closest rival. If they could battle him for a full minute without surrendering they would be inducted into his personal guard and serve as an example of all those around them.

It was a time of rebirth for the planet. The population now small enough to be properly supported finding out who they were in a world were survival was not the only goal. Then came the Emperor of Mankind descending into the arena like some warrior god, too bright for most to even set their eyes upon. Ajax met him on the field of honour. The Emperor lasted for far more than a minute and finally when the battle came to an end it was Ajax that was cast to the sand. It was not enough to earn his eternal service but it was a start. From there it was on the Emperor to prove that he was everything he seems to be.

Ideology: Ajax hates the pointless loss of life that is rife in the universe, he looks at the great crusade as a way to unite the universe and end pointless wars. He has a strong distaste for aliens as they stand in the way of universal unification. He has a lesser dislike of psykers as he sees them as dishonourable and lacking in the traits he values above all others. He also does not like the aberration if humanity that they seem to represent.

Wargear: Ajax's wargear is shaped entirely by the method of warfare he has adopted as his own. Shock and awe combined with guerrilla tactics against key targets and targets of opportunity.

His primary weapons are his gauntlets, mastercrafted weapons gifted to him by the finest weaponsmiths of the Empire that he now calls his home on the Emperor of Mankinds direct orders and to his precise specifications. The combined power fist, heavy storm bolter combo is a sickening combination in the close quarters he favours. The blistering rate of fire of the four separate bolter barrels more than enough to scythe down even the toughest of foes in close combat and his power fists capable of crushing even the heaviest of armour.

His Storm bolters aside from using the heavier heavy bolter round use highly specialised ammo, pressed individually by the specialist ammo crafters of his chapter for use in his heavy storm bolters and by chosen champions of the chapter as they are incredibly hard to produce in large numbers. The rounds are designed with a shaped adamantium head allowing them to penetrate through thick armour very similar to other penetration rounds. However there is a second function that makes them far deadlier. Once the round punctures through armour a secondary explosion detonates inside the shell and throws flechettes. This reaction caused heavy metal darts around the inside of lightly armoured vehicles or shred the internals of heavily armoured infantry.

Other than that he is equipped with an expertly crafted jumpjet capable of lifting his great weight through the air. However his is modified so that it produces less sound than other similar models allowing him to move without his position being immediately identified. Others of his chapter have similarly modified jumpjet however they lack the artificer quality of his own.

Other: Anything that doesn't fit into a specific section, but bare's talking about.

Appearance: Tall and brooding, larger then most of his other brothers. He has lighter brown hair and bright green eyes. His hair is typically cut short, but he grows hair quickly so he can be seen with extremely long hair. His beard is curly but is normally kempt better then his hair. He has a light Caucasian skin that has been referred to as porcelain. He is typically depicted through stained glass on his home world as a lanky giant, but on his flagship, a full sized stained glass panel of him and eight of his top captains are depicted upon it.
Psyker Status: Gamma Level Psyker – Divination Discipline – Refusal to use
Life and Times: When arriving at his home world, his home was being relieved by the eldars who wished to warn the world of chaos. As a psyker, he was quickly found by the Eldar and brought into the civilized world as a mutant. But quickly this was found to be a mistake as he soon became the main trader for his father figure, a young man whose wife was entrusted by the eldar to keep the boy safe.
Sometime later, when a taxman from a warlord that had recently arrived in the area of his family, quickly formed a militia with the nearby town. When the army arrived to fight, him and the band held off the invaders and soon took them on the run, looting supplies from the fleeing raiders, and recruiting whomever the could find along the way until they reached the army and the warlord.
The warlord was slain in a duel, but an x mark on the Primarch’s left knee. When it was stitched up it resembled the Dixie Cross, and which a psudo-dixie cross would later make up his Legions insignia, but instead of the states of the south, it would be the twenty-three cities of the world.

After the warlord was defeated, he was crowned as the warlord of this army, and king of the world. He decided to have the army get on a fleet of ships and sail out past the horizons of the nearest ocean. Deciding an army would destroy the world he desired to live in. He did take the role of king seriously however as he began constructing infrastructure to the minor towns and their villages. Creating Militia’s that could handle the few bands of roaming men, and lastly an order of men dedicated to hunting witches and heretics.

He would soon find himself back in the small village he began his life’s journey in and was disappointed at how many had decided to move and live there. He would reside in his parents’ home instead of the Castle that was built for him and in his honor. He would continue to live the life of a statesman, but he would help his family, now with several brothers and sisters that varied between the ages of fifteen and two, grow food and raise the livestock.
Several years later, the skies would darken under the vessels of the imperium and an army would crush the fields beneath the landing craft of the Astartes. He would surrender upon seeing them, but the Astartes of first legion would surrender as well.

He invited Captain Ventari to dinner inside his home for dinner with his family. Ventari was surprised that night when he was eating inside a cramped hovel with dirt floors, eight children, two adults (one being pregnant), a Primarch, and two of his company commanders in Decoration Battle Plate.

The next day, when the large mechanical beasts of the Mechanicum, he would fight back against the invasion of the beasts. This is how he would meet the Emperor as he was the only one who could stop the onslaught against the Mechanicum’s civil engineers. Who would never return to the planet with the machines again to defile the face of the planet’s farms and ecosystems.

After being subdued by his father, and another humbling meal, he would take residency with his wife, and real father in the mothballed castle dedicated to him. The commander of army was sent down, as well as a pissed Mechanicum adept, and administratum officials. It was selected that this world would become a balance between a paradise world, and an agri-world. And that the Mechanicum could only help bring up the technological level of the world, improve its infrastructure, and that it had free range over the orbit as long as it did not interfere with natural growing seasons of the planet’s crops. It would have heavy tolls on the manpower taken from it, and the food it would produce. The orbital stations above also becoming hives for the planet’s population, massive elevators would be built to transport people between their homes in the heavens and their work places below.

Lastly, the beginning of Astartes recruitment would start immediately, to which one of his adopted brothers would make it into the program and would later become the apprentice of the head librarian. He would become friends with the adept who’s machines he destroyed and gained a weapon from him, a scythe in return for a solar system Tutston which housed a knight planet upon it, and the remains of an ancient forge. It would soon be put to good use under the Adept Veromanis’ rule, and what was his wife, would soon become the maiden-captain of his flagship.


Ideology: Staying humble, and to the right mind. He abhors most psykers, and most of his legion since his legion holds a somewhat large amount of psykers. Keeping all librarians before his father gave the legion to him, and rarely allow any more librarians to be trained. He knows that psykers are required for some tasks, and therefor mentions those he allows as ‘ordained by the Emperor’ to live. He does have an extreme lenience towards mutants and distant strains of humanity however, unless if he feels that the warp has touched them in some way. He does try and take as many world for humanity as he can, and preserving all of the lost colonies of humanity.

Wargear: His armor would be green and white, compared to his legions red and black. He would carry a scythe, one forged by the Mechanicum Adept Veronmanis. He would also have a bolter with an extended barrel, and custom frame to look like a tradition hunting musket that was popular on his homeworld.

Other:
Homeworld : Tessar I (Moon of Tessar, a large barren planet)
Adopted Father : Captain Ashton Jackson
Adopted Mother : Lady Vensia Jackson
Brother I-V : Andrew, Ashton the II, Steven, Abraham, Lee
Sisters I-IV : Anne, Margret, Bellis, Vensia
Wife : Terrisa Jackson

Appearance: Valus has been entombed inside his armor which is a drastically modified suit of Terminator armor with many weapons and servo arms attached to it. The armor is unadorned and largely unpainted except for the legion sigils and the legion colors painted onto the pauldrons. Before he entombed himself into his armor he was much like the other Primarchs, giants among men and carrying a charisma of command. Valus was no exception being about the same height of his brothers but noticeably more broad and muscled. What is more notable is the many cybernetic cables and wires tracing under his flesh, While he is certainly more human than the Techpriests most still believe that he is a leader specific for the Mechanicus though there is very little friendship between the Primarch and the Techpriests of Mars.

Psyker Status: Iota- His powers are small but highly focused, his power revolves entirely around technology granting him deep and intrinsic understanding of almost any technology he obtains. However his power has limits, some ancient Dark Age of Technology relics are beyond his understanding and certain xenos artifacts resist his perception.

Ideology:Valus is a dutiful soldier, crushing the enemies of the Imperium but he has always been resentful of his Father's decree halting his research into Automated combat machines. While he has not exactly stopped his research he has been put in his place by the Emperor and acts as the proper soldier. His goals are not even known to himself really, he is just going through the motions of the great crusade waiting for something to change or waiting for some purpose to arise.

Wargear:
Invincitus Terminator armor: The Invincitus armor is a suit of armor forged by Valus himself integrating dark age of technology relics into the armor to make it nearly unstoppable as the armor has an Ion force shield like that of the Knight titans. Even before the armor plating gets struck he can shrug off apocalyptic firepower.

Iron-Hail: Customized twinlinked Heavy Bolter used as a gauntlet mounted weapon more than able to shred infantry and light vehicles in moments.

Hell-Hammer: The hell hammer is a modified heavy plasma cannon fueled by the relics in the Invincitus. The cannon is mounted on his shoulder as a devastating mortar he can fire into the distance to blast holes in the enemies formations. However it can also be shifted to fire forwards and is more than capable of tearing through a super-heavy tank in mere shot or two.

The Claw of Valus: the Claw is more or less a dreadnought fist attached to his arm with all the force it can generate, crushing heavy infantry in its grasp or smashing a tank into the ground.

Life and Times:Valus fell to the world of Hellheim, a desolate and blasted world torn by civil war between mighty Forge complexes run by a Mechanicus remnant and towering hive cities. Valus was taken in by the Mechanicus and taught Enginseeing becoming, his understanding grew more quickly than any other pupil of the Mechanicus had ever seen but Valus was not drawn to the religious nature of the tech-priests. He began asking questions bout machine intelligence and trying to understand things that the Tech-priests knew was forbidden. The resistance shown to Valus made his learning more difficult but not impossible it took many years extracting tidbits of knowledge near what he was really searching for to glean the answers he wanted. He was still a child to the tech-priests however and was not allowed to do more than carry oil, ask questions and learn the rites of the machine god.

As Valus turned 12 and the Tech-priests could no longer give any real barrier to him, because he knew the rites better than most of his teachers. He attained the full rights of an Enginseer along with several machinery implants to assist him in his duties. This was mostly so he could converse in binary and give him a pair of servo-arms to assist him in his work. Along with his rank however was a laboratory where Valus could conduct his research however he wished so long as he did not delve into the forbidden arts of artificial intelligence or any other Heretek exploration. Valus always skirted the edge of the law gleaning understanding from related but not directly forbidden practices. This changed however after a particularly devastating attack from a nearby hive city crippling many manufactorums in the forge revealing a hidden vault deep within the heart of the forge. Valus climbing down searching for wounded and tech he could sabotage from his rival enginseers found an ancient and broken machine having been slain and locked away for many thousands of years.

The thing he found was a Man of Iron, it was destroyed but it was entombed here very carefully as if every scrap, wire, and rivet was accounted for. Valus took the dead thing and every one of its pieces back to his lab and hid it away. When the forge was working at acceptable efficiency again Valus returned to his studies and to the shattered Man of Iron machine. He quickly understood many parts of it, such as how the joints and skeleton worked or the alloys in the armor plating. However its mind was a mystery to him, He spent months toiling away trying to understand how the thing could think and act. When he found the pieces of machinery that must have been its mind. The technology resisted his best efforts to understand how it worked but it did give him hints. Once he believed there was little he could further learn from the dead machine he decided he had to build his own. Still in secret he built a robot with some level of intelligence of its own, it wasn't even as intelligent as servitor only able to follow a few very simple commands such as move forward and pick up an object. Valus did refine the process until the machines, still only following simple commands could carry them out without direct inputs of individual steps in sequence.

With his machines reasonably capable Valus launched a Coup on the forge complex using his machines and a few Enginseers that he had recruited in his time. The forge's servitors and Skitarii where vastly more capable and deadly than the machines Valus made, but he could make them infinitely. Thousands marched from his personal manufactorum at a time taking attritional warfare to its logical conclusion as Valus could make the machines faster than the Skitarii could kill them. Once the Magnos fell and the Forge was under Valus he repurposed every Manufactorum complex into making his simple machines. In mere days hundreds of thousands of them stalked around the forge complex as Valus and his Hereteks refined the machines further, giving them weapons better than simple servo arms to crush and tear. Even a simple Las-gun and blade made each machine a terrible foe when they came in their millions. He launched an all out war on every Hive and Forge around the one he had taken. The losses among his robots was... irrelevant, each could be dragged back to the forge and melted down into ingots ready for the factory lines making thousands of the machines a day. The Hives nor the Forges could stand in his way, Even great Titan god machines could not halt the advance of Valus' machines. They would slaughter the Skitarii protecting the titans and climb into the machine itself killing the crew and shattering components until the Titan fell silent. Valus stayed in his Forge trying to perfect his machines as they did not really think for themselves merely reacted very cleverly to a wide array of inputs but they could easily be out smarted.

Before Valus could find the answers in his quest The Great Crusade fell upon Helheim. The Emperor fearing he had found an enclave of the Men of Iron launched an immediate invasion with Space Marine Legions and Custodes to halt the Men of Iron before they could spread across the galaxy once again. The losses were considerable, Even among the Legions and Custodes. The Emperor knew swiftly that they were not in fact Men of Iron merely an imitation but it still was not a good omen. The Emperor leading Space Marine Legions descended on the Forge where Valus toiled. Valus however did not even know of the invasion as his armies had been dealing with advancing and replenishing losses on thier own for the past year. As the Emperor shattered his way through uncountable hordes of robots he despaired, part of him knew that one of his sons was behind this and he was so close to bringing about another wave of the deadly machines. Even as the Emperor strode into the workshop Valus had been using he wept, dreading that he may have to truly destroy one of his sons and snuff him from the annals of history. Valus was getting so close to actually understanding the broken relic he had found, he was sure and his work so utterly engrossed him that he did not even notice the Emperor walk into the room.

The Man of Iron twitched, Valus smiled to himself, "Yes, that's it! nearly there my friend.." he said before the Emperor sighed looking at is own Son twisted by the Mechanicus implants and so obsessed with something forbidden and dangerous as the Men of Iron. The Emperor inhaled to speak when there was a spark and another twitch from the machine laying on the table followed by a deep static roar of binary from the thing. "No!" shouted the Emperor realizing the dreaded machine had awakened. The Emperor tore it to pieces with his psychic might and ordered the Astartes around him to vaporize what remained, they followed his orders shooting every bolt and wire with plasma so there was no trace save for acrid smoke of ozone and molten metal. Only then, as the machine had been torn asunder did Valus realize anyone was in the room with him. He launched himself at the Emperor in a fit of rage, grabbing and tearing with his multiple servo arms and his swinging with his enhanced strength. "YOU DESTROYED IT! MY WORK!" shouted Valus blind with fury, the Emperor dodged and parried Valus easily until the Primarch could be subdued by the Astartes that would become his own legion. "My son, what you created was one of the greatest scourge this galaxy has ever known. Come we must talk"

Other: Anything that doesn't fit into a specific section, but bare's talking about.