grimely

Not a Step Back - a World War II Inspired NRP

Salian Socialist Union Republic (SSUR)

Name:
Most formally the Salian Socialist Union Republic of Dwarves, Elves, and Humans, otherwise known as the Salian Socialist Union Republic or SSUR for short



Summary of Nation:
The SSUR was born from the flames of revolution tearing down the tyranny of autocratic imperialism. For centuries the human majority, themselves displaced and threatened by conquerors to their east, had encroached upon the deep mountains of the southern dwarves and the forest of the northern elves in the name of their absolute monarch. A patchwork empire of unequal and dissimilar peoples, kept in order only by the ruthless application of force. Inspired by revolution in neighboring Longguo, the people soon rose up, overthrowing their monarch in a brutal struggle that lasted nearly a decade but at last saw the nation ruled by the people. Salia itself stretches from alpine forests in the north and impassable mountain ranges in the south, straddling vast central plains that sweep from the nation's border in the east towards the sea in the west. The nation's demographics roughly follow the same north to south division, consisting of nomadic elves, pastoral humans, and heavily urbanized dwarves. What above ground cities do exist are typically built upon rivers that bisect the great plains, and are relatively mixed in terms of their populations. It was in these that the revolution first erupted, the resulting conflict little noticed outside of their walls for years.

History:

Pre-War:

The Republic is relatively new on the world stage, the nationwide civil war that erupted following the outbreak of revolution in 1917 only subsiding in 1928. Prior to this its precursor state, the Salian Empire, routinely waged wars to its east, west, and south, most infamously against Jingguo. The last of these brutal wars, in which tens of thousands died in cramp tunnel fighting beneath the mountains that separated the two nations, eventually led to the outbreak of revolution in both autocracies leading directly to the formation of Longguo and the SSUR.

Reeling from the destruction and loss of life of the civil war, which saw factional conflicts both against reactionary forces and between rival revolutionary cadres, the Republic has spent the past decade rebuilding and rearming, originally expecting an imperialist reaction from Aelban. Basing off of a strategic posture that foresaw a seaborne invasion, the Republic spent years strengthening coastal defense batteries, improving the strength of the army, and further industrializing the dwarven fortresses while utterly neglecting the navy, figuring that such an investment would be as good as lost.

Outbreak of War:

The fall of the Aelban Empire served only to prove that if anything, those fearful of imperialist aggression had thought too small. Viewing the Reiyk not just a risk to the Union, but to all free peoples, the Salian people swiftly resolved themselves that opposing this new menace was their international duty. Having already taken strides to arm and defend themselves, they pledged themselves to the allies as soon as Longguo was invaded, opening the mountain passes to their former enemies and turning their vast industrial capacity to replenishing what they lost.

Recent History:

Those at the highest levels of the Union fully expect an invasion from the Reiyk, and have already begun to mobilize the nation onto a wartime footing. There is little that concerns the Republic more than the possibility of a dual offensive against their own coastline and a renewed push against Longguo, the most catastrophic projections estimating that a focused invasion would see them driven back into the mountains in months. To avoid such a brutal fate, great projects have been started to instill patriotic pride in the hearts of the people to stand fast against the coming storm.

Pressing Issues:
The civil war, and subsequent decisions, have left deep wounds upon the people of Salia. With their lands expropriated, the old nobility rallied their retainers and those peasants who either lacked sufficient class consciousness or were swayed by promises of continued domination over the elves and dwarves to side with their feudal masters, setting the stage for the brutal Salian Civil War. There was no peaceful rapprochement, no truth and reconciliation, merely vengeance igniting vengeance until the entire nation was bathed in blood. Recovering from such would be difficult even in times of peace, but the Union has no such luxury. The war has already arrived upon their doorstep, and a single misstep could well see all that the revolution sought to build stamped out beneath an Alfheiches jackboot.

Notable Strengths:
Even with a population decimated by internal conflict, Salia remains one of the most populated states in the world due in no small part to the shepherding hand of the snow elves. Though their magic has long faded, the advent of the Union Republic resulted in agricultural secrets long kept secret within their own domains finally shared with the human farmers of the plains, vastly increasing their production. This massive food supply, coupled with the underground wealth deposits that would remain inaccessible to most nations, serves as the basis for the state's plow and pick iconography, the two tools by which they believe they shall seize the future. With both food and mineral wealth secured, the Republic was able to focus not just on expanding its army, but also to ending the specter of starvation from even the poorest of its citizens.

National Priorities:
The Union has focused first and foremost upon improving the industrial production of their mountain cities, instilling patriotic zeal into the population, increasing the size of the army, and fulfilling the promises of the revolution by uplifting the common man. By contrast, the societal elite was either driven out (ironically, to Aelban) or executed, a large reactionary element still yearns for the restoration of the monarchy, the navy has been left to languish, and the state remains in many ways an international pariah due to their aforementioned treatment of the former societal elite.

• Dwarven Mountainhomes: Though the Dwarven Kings have long been dethroned, their great fortresses still remain. Vast cities dedicated to raw material processing and industrial production, they are the beating heart of the Union's war effort.
• Ideology
• The Army
• The Common People
• Agriculture
• Resource Extraction
• Industrial Output
• The Economy: Internal Trade
• Espionage and Intelligence
• Technology
• The Economy: External Trade
• Diplomacy
• The Navy
• Cultural Issues
• The Upper Classes

The Grim Crusade - A Warhammer 30000 RP

High orbit of 20-63
Strategium of the Redemption

Three thrones had been arranged at the back hall of the Doomsayer's camera arcanum, fit for demigods to lounge and gaze upon the holographic image of Praxia below. An entire wall had been dedicated to the effort, with a far more practical display of relevant strategic information projected from a hololithic tank in the center of the chamber. After pomp and ceremony, Daena's mind had turned to the work that was before them - the true work of rooting out the cause of this insipid insurrection. To that end, she had kept her own members of the war council to a minimum.

The Legion Mistress and Mistress of the Forge of the XIVth needed little introduction, both Vairya Kurus and Elise Hohenheim attending in full warplate that made no secret of their rank or station. More strange were the two men in attendance, one unaugmented and the other clearly Astartes. The mortal man wore the uniform of one of the Emperor's scientists and resembled Elise albeit on a far smaller scale, and was introduced as her twin brother Gustav. The odd man out wore plate marking him as a member of the Pact of the Lance, the Angel breezily explaining that she had chanced upon a detachment of their brother Primarch's Astartes without much to do. She was surprisingly tight lipped upon the details.

With introductions from her own council - and guest - finished, Daena's attentions fell upon Sekhmetara and Nelchitl. "I will be blunt, sisters. I am not here because you need assistance bringing Praxia back to compliance, I am here to ensure that another Praxia does not arise. I have reviewed your reports, and what I have read is disquieting in the extreme. I would know all that you would not trust to courier or astropath of this matter. All technical information on their arms should be directed to the Hohenheims, and you would have my gratitude if working examples of enemy technology could be delivered to them as well. We must root out who provided the rebels with such, they match no known models in the archives."

The Pact lancer spoke next. He was startlingly ugly, half of his face an oily pink burn scar, missing an eye, and his mouth was half-transfixed in a ghoulish grin due to missing skin around the teeth. He drooled as he spoke, but made an effort to wipe away the spittle with a handkerchief. On his face, the Raptor Imperialis was tattooed around his remaining eye.

“I am Optio Markus Vulf, 3rd Army group of the Pact. Sad to say, I am the highest ranking Lancer in the detachment Lady Azrael found.” He rasped, his voice dry and whisper like, but much louder. “I fought alongside the ‘Sayers on Terra, before we found our gene-father. Mistress Kurus, it’s a pleasure to see you again. Consider me the old man’s eyes and ears for this meeting. Any requests for materiel or troops…”

He wiped away the spittle foaming from his mouth. “...will no doubt be given utmost priority.”

“I can speak for the efficacy of Optio Vulf and his Lig- Lancers personally,” Kurus said after giving the Astarte a nod of recognition. “He earned his Raptor,” she explained laconically.

The grizzled Lancer laughed at the legion mistress’s verbal gaff, nodding his head at her explanation. “An old mark, but a powerful one. I wear it with pride.”

Nelchitl knew of Daena’s Doomsayers, knowing full well their positions and admittedly outdated honor rolls from the last time she had had the pleasure of being in their presence. But the likeness of the Pact Astartes was a new addition to her knowledge. A gnarled looking man, grizzled by war and the unforgiving nature of the tanks that her still mysterious brother so very adored.

She waved a single hand to Kurus, “Your cousin needs little praise in front of me Kurus. If your scion deems him worthy of sitting at this table, it is proof enough of his worth.” she assured her as she studied the Raptor tattooed over his good eye.

“You honor me, Lady Cuamani, I will endeavor to uphold your high praise.” The Optio bowed his scarred head in acknowledgement of the praise.

“However I wish to introduce my own council. As known as he may be, I fear he shows himself far too seldom to the majority of my siblings' most trusted members.” she stated with pride as she inclined her head to Daena’s daughters and Vulf. “Tech-Adept Octavian, Forgemaster of Elysium Mons and Representative of Mars to the Seventeenth.” she stated with a hand open to the hooded Martian standing silent vigil over her right shoulder.

Augmetics hissed as the statue moved for the first time since entering the strategium, the rhythmic clink of finely machined cogs and gears whispering from beneath his robes as Octavian bowed. A pair of exquisitely wrought arms of platinum rose from within their sleeves to form the Cog Mechanicum with mechanized precision, coming together with an obviously calculated clink of metal on metal.

“By the Omnissiah’s grace.” the Tech-Adept intoned to Daena and then Sekhmetara. His voice was like honey, surprisingly smooth and sweet as it was projected from some augmitter hidden beneath his hood.

Those who looked upon Sekhmetara in the time that introductions were flowing between the gathered parties beheld a side of her that might have been deemed unusual to those who did not know her well. The Mithran Primarch did not lounge, in fact she did not seem remotely at ease. The long flowing mane of her hair was bound in a complicated, but functional, weave of braids, the tips of its flecked with white and gold, a sure sign of the recent use of her psychic ability. Gone too were the ostentatious outfits of her planned social functions or the pride of her warplanes, instead her form was clad in a white body glove, accented with gold and black. The purpose of her garments were clear, various induction ports along the spine enabling her to interface with her artifacts of war to a far greater extent.

As the others spoke, she stood without warning, the smooth texture of the bodyglove flowing about her movements, framing her form perfectly but without any resistance, it was as much a second skin as it was an outfit. The Mithran’s eyes flashed with something approaching anger, but the focus of her attention was no one in the room. The Pakhetera had been hunting, soaring the traitorous atmosphere of Praxia as a part of the unceasing aeronautical war her legion had been fighting. Still her hazel eyes flickered with blue light as her iris display continued to detail after-action-reports and live feeds of the air campaign. The primarch paused her pacing as she beheld the vast view of Praxia. For a few long moments it was as if nothing else in the room existed, just Sekhmetara and the world who's kill she had claimed.

Then she turned, and her expression broke into a smile, nodding to those who had introduced herself. She strode back to her chair, but instead lent against the throne rather than sitting.

"You have a right to be concerned of this, sister." Sekhmetara waved one hand, interacting with the display to bring up a fragmented holographic recording. The picture was not clear enough to identify much in the way of details, but certainly depicted an engagement between astartes and mortal human forces. The engagement proceeded much as one could expect such a mismatch of ability, until a sudden flare of energy ripped through projection, flaring across one of the Astartes, before downing them. Vengeance was swift, but the rebels had certainly earned a kill strike.

"This was recorded by a remembrancer attached to the 912th expeditionary fleet. The 7th Chapter of my Legion is currently engaged in defending the Ulbix System from Orcish raiders, while elements of the human population have opted to use the opportunity to carry on the civil war compliance was supposed to have finished." Sekhmetara’s voice was far more even than her discussion of Praxia's rebellion. Ulbix had not been marked compliant by a fleet associated with her Legion. Resolving others' mess wounded her spirit far less. "There has been no suggested connection between Praxia and Ulbix before now, but it seems whatever force has emboldened the Praxians has a wider reach than this system." There was no sense of hostility between Sekhmetara and her sisters, but she was certainly competitive, and the web of remembrancers she had spread with her adoptive-sister's aid making a connection before her Sister’s close bond to the Imperial Regent was enough of a victory to steadily begin easing her out of the restless hunter's urge that still coursed through her.

“Forgive me my impudence for speaking out, honored Primarchs.” Optio Vulf once again rasped up, “But I do have ample experience with rebellious human populations, so to speak, and Lady Sekhmetara’s logic is sound. Populations do not typically rebel unless they have outside support from an entity perceived as being on equal footing with their enemy.”

He once again wiped spittle from his ruined face. “There’s no benefit to the human population of Ulbix rebelling against the Imperium when the Ork is pressing at their gates, unless they have a guarantee of protection from some other power. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and this… coincidence, I feel, is no such coincidence at all.”

“So our worst suspicions have been confirmed,” Daena said in a voice that carried a grim finality. The our could only refer to her quiet consultations with the Sigilite, the closest the Angel had ever come to admitting such even to her siblings. The great hololithic image of Praxia on the wall-sized screen faded away in a wash of static and fuzz, soon replaced by the Segmentum Obscurus. Two angry red runes pulsed upon the screen, denoting Praxia and Ulbix.

“My own forces here are more powerful than they need be. A Chapter shall be sent to seek out our rebels’ benefactors. Assemble the Arcana when we are done here, Vairya,” she said, turning to the Legion Mistress as an aside. “Sekhmetara, my heart, keep your eyes open. And let me know if you loosen any tongues. I fear, Nelchitl, that I am going to ruin your sport. We require survivors.”

With a disappointed grunt Nelchitl sat forward in her chair, “I don’t always have to kill everything.” she stated matter-of-factly before turning her attention away from Daena and to the hololith of the Segmentum.

“With Praxia nearing its end, I would like to divide my forces as well.” she seemed to think for a few moments before a scowl grew across her lips, “I’ll keep my Serpents in reserve for now. I imagine there is little a rebellion can do to stand before your daughters Daena, and as remiss as I am to admit it, my Serpents and Auxilia require time to rest and refit…” she seemed pained as she continued, “Not to mention House Cadaval’s losses, far harder to replace than even my own. Time will do mine well, and if they are again required they will be made available.”

She shifted in her seat and gave a wave to Octavian behind her, “As I will be setting my forces in reserve once Praxia is complete, I offer Octavian to help with any supply issues he can handle with the Mechanicum. Though the Serpents rest there will still be a role for them to play while you all require it.”

“I suppose that leaves me, then.” Vulf rasped. “I can’t really speak for dispositions, due to my humble rank, but, what I can say is that the Pact is… basically without work. Whatever you request from Father will probably be approved, as long as it isn’t something like…”

He shrugged. “The whole Legion? He wants to make a good impression on his siblings, so, if we have anything that will plug strategic gaps you’re worried about, it’s yours, up to and including our Superheavy assets. Fellblades, mind, fresh out of Martian storehouses.”

The mistress of the Tears of Dawn did not waver in her condemning stare at the projection of Praxia. Even her sister’s affectionate words did not pull her from her transfixed state. Her arms crossed over her chest, her stance almost petulant if it was not writ over the form of one of the Emperor’s own scions, the trim of her body glove flowing as she favoured the lean of one hip, before she exhaled in frustration.

"Finish the fight, then we can talk of reserves and support. I care not for what is next, but that this world will kneel." Her fingers flexed in place, wrapped as they were around her own opposing biceps, her own grip tightening as she beheld the object of her frustration. "Still they resist while three of our Father’s children wage war on them, the three of us!?" There was a snarl to her words which wasn't there before, a savage fury which seemed to bleed into the room, condemning all those around her as much as those truly responsible.

"I take this world within the day, find some wretch in the ruins for your questions." With her words spoken she was already moving, the fluid grace of her form belying the palpable tension of rage about her, the whites of her eyes bleeding to gold, vapour rising from her glowing orbs at her fury.

Vulf wiped his face once more, before chuckling to himself. “Good thing no one decided to tell her it was about to be four, then.”

Nelchitl, slightly taken aback by the anger on display, smiled. Her grin growing from ear to ear as she watched Sekhmetara stalk away, “The Serpents have fight in them yet sister, and I doubt House Cadaval would want to miss the fall of this disgusting rebellion.” she stood, her hands coming together as she wrung her knuckles where she stood, “No. They’d very much hate that.” the Emerald Priestess turned to Daena, her eyes alight with anticipation as her smile widened, “Loose us on that last wretched bastion of resistance. We finish this today, no more talk now Daena.”

Behind the Emerald Priestess, Octavian stirred as the hum of cooling fans filled the space around him, his eyes blinking as he recorded the events unfolding and streamed them directly back to the Headquarters of the Seventeenth Legion. “The Omnissiah’s Will be done.” he blurted in a lightning fast burst of lingua technis.

Daena sat upon her throne with a dour expression as Sekhmetara left the chamber, her daughters mirroring her clear displeasure. “So be it then. Ready your Astartes, our sister will brook no delays,” she said to Nelchitl and Vulf without looking at them, eyes fixed on the Mithran’s retreating form.

“It will be done.” Vulf said simply, and bowed his head. With that, he also left, carrying the promise of the support of the 10th legion.

Some time later

The camera arcanum had finally been emptied of foreign presences, all those remaining having sworn dire oaths in service of the Legion and its Primarch. Though few of her siblings matched Daena in her rigorous application of the Imperial Truth, even she retained affectations of her upbringing - trappings of the heathen temples of her youth. The Arcana was the most blatant of these, and the most hidden, its existence generally unknown outside of the ranks of the Doomsayers.

Membership rotated according to the inscrutable whims of the Deathseer, but those within the Praetorate and in command of a Chapter typically expected to attend to her in camera. Rumors swirled within the lower ranks how the remaining seats were filled, the most popular two insisting that Daena either could not foresee the woman's death or that she had seen a particularly auspicious one.

Traditionally, a full Doomsayer Arcanum consisted of thirty-six seats. Ten of these were filled by rank Astartes, another four by junior officers. A further twenty consisted of Praetors, Ladies-Commander, and other distinguished figures who had drawn the Primarch's eye - she herself sitting in the foremost throne. Directly opposite her was the thirty-sixth seat, in which currently sat an effigy of one of the leaders of the Praxian revolt.

Her Praetor Primus, Legion Mistress, Librarus, and Mistress of the Forge were all granted the honor of the upper rung of seats - along with the Ladies-Commander of the Chapters who had followed her here. It was a scanty order of battle, eight seats filled by mere Lieutenants Commander. But it was none of her Astartes that currently held Daena's attention, the Primarch's eyes locked upon her mortal Lord Engineer.

"As I was saying, my lady, the initial reports from your lady sister's tech-adept are... less than helpful." Gustav gave a quick apologetic shrug to his twin sister, though her elevation to an Astartes had somewhat muddled the resemblance, before continuing. "The Mechanicum has done distressingly little practical work upon the pieces of technology they've recovered intact, most of which was already included in the initial report. If I had time to work with the components I could perhaps discern certain... fundamental principles."

Elise snorted at her brother's dissemination, the Astartes shifting in her seat to face her Primarch. Though she still wore the cog-skull upon her armor, the Tech-Marines of the Doomsayers had never been fast in their faith even before their Primarch was rediscovered and she was little better. She and Gustav had established a working fiction under which she only worked on sanctified technology and 'fundamentals' while he - protected by the explicit permission of the Emperor and unbound from the Mechanicum's tenets of faith - busied himself with activities some might declare heretechal. But as polite as that fiction was, it was still merely a fiction. "My lady. Give my brother and I a month with their wargear and you shall know whether or not we have fought these benefactors in the past."

"Done. Gustav, the Tupelov trust you and your engineers. They will not ask questions if you ask their Lancers to bring you choice spoils. Elise, I trust your own subordinates do not require further orders," Daena said flatly before turning her attention to the assembled commanders of her Chapters in theater. In this most intimate of meetings, she did not bother hiding her emotions, and her expression swiftly turned sour.

"My beloved sisters have their blood up. Our original plan for this excursion has been scrapped. We will reinforce the Tears and Serpents as they assault the last holdouts of rebellion, and we shall show them what our judgement entails. Bring only your Raptors, the remainder shall fill the garrisons that Sekhmetara and Nelchitl will empty. I do not trust this world to give us victory so easily, but nor will I bring less than our best to my sister's party."

The Grim Crusade - A Warhammer 30000 RP

High orbit of Ullanor Prime
Two days after the fall of Urlakk Urg

Daena sat impassively upon the bridge of the Redemption, the ordinarily formidable seeming Gloriana appearing tame in comparison to the Emperor’s own magnificent warship. Thus she had always been, the demure and silent companion following after her master where and when he bade it. Both he and fate had conspired in equal part to keep her role in these endeavors dull and unheralded in Imperial annals, but fame was not her concern. Indeed, it had been those consumed by honors and glory that had left her in such a state, the woman dutifully cleaning up her brothers’ messes. While the others who had taken part in the campaign arranged trophies and spoils, she conducted a far less glamorous phase of the war.

Gazing into a great hololithic tank depicting the Ullanor system, Daena could see the sigil of the Doomsayers on almost every world, each marker denoting women clad in silver and black taking the place of their ‘victorious’ brothers. It was all too common for Astartes to depart from the battlefield when victory was declared, leaving behind the Auxilia to complete cleanup operations. Such was grim, dirty, and dangerous work - often deemed beneath the ‘value’ of a Space Marine’s time but evidently worth the lives of the Imperial Army. One need only look upon the foreboding armor of Doomsayer Destroyer Squads scouring the system of the most minute trace of greenskin life to understand how strenuously she disagreed with such thinking.

It was perhaps surprising to a casual observer that the only world where she did not feel the need to act was Quartus, its rune dull without the glowing symbol of an active Chapter. Although Sarghaul was not known to care for the lives of mere mortals, he was known for completing tasks such as these, and the Primarch was confident that her brother would not remove forces from the planet until its surface was cleansed of every ork spore. For all of his faults, and Daena could name many, one that she could never attribute to him was a lack of thoroughness. Would he only ensure that such commendable behavior was always put towards worthy ends...

With a sigh, the demigod shakes her head before she can lose herself in a reverie, bringing the hololith to focus upon the world she was currently above - Ullanor Prime. She was neither ordered nor requested to attend to her father’s side when he descended upon its killing fields, and so had not. Her fleet had entered the system shadowing his own, and fought where and as he directed - which more often than not meant that it did not fight at all. Dispatching individual Chapters to where she deemed them best suited, she retained the bulk of her forces waiting for a command from her father that never came. That a part of her had always suspected would never come.

Regardless, she did not consider it a waste. Playing hero on the surface was pointless when her time could be better spent coordinating her forces from her command ship, one more divinity among the rabble would not turn the tide. Her Revenants had departed with her father and his finest of warriors however, and they had paid a dear price in blood and bone for their zeal. Even now her forces were recovering their bodies, usually from great mounds of corpses created during the thickest of the fighting, many having been slain alongside the Emperor’s own Custodes. Many of her siblings would consider that news a point of pride, but Daena merely filed it away with a dull recognition.

After hours of detailing orders to her Chapters, she was eventually confident that the cleanup could run itself for the foreseeable future. A corner of her lip twitched at that thought, the woman realizing that she had made a joke. It had been some time since she had managed that. With those tasks accomplished, she turned to a far more morbid responsibility, pulling open the latest reports on all under her command who had perished for Prometheus’ trumpeted victory.

A veteran. A Revenant. A newly minted Battle Sister. “My lady.” A Techmarine. A Revenant. “My lady.” A Tactical Marine. A mother. A Scout.

“My lady!” The shout finally freed her from her morose contemplations, the Primarch looking up to the power armored frame of Vairya Kurus, Legion Mistress of the Doomsayers. “My lady,” she repeated for the final time, looking down on the seated demigod with poorly hidden relief. “Malcador has forwarded us a report from your sisters. He does not order...” she began, trailing off.

“....but he implies,” Daena finished for her. “Let’s hear it then,” she said with a firm nod, vigor returning to her frame as a problem was presented to her. Quietly, a part of her wondered how the Sigilite always seemed to know when she required such diversions.

“The disturbance began on 20-63, designated Praxia by the local human population. It was brought under Compliance some time ago without serious fighting. A rebellion has broken out recently however, Lady Sekhmetara’s scribes reporting that the rebels have arms far more advanced than the local industry could produce, and of a different make than the armament of the Imperial garrison. She rendezvoused with Lady Nelchitl and engaged the enemy on the ground. Both Legions report that enemy weapons are capable of felling Astartes and that attached Knight Houses have suffered losses far in excess of what the inhabitants should be capable of.”

The feeling coursing through Daena’s body as she processed the report was less the thrill of the hunt, and more of a boulder being rolled downhill. She and Vairya consumed all available information with a mechanical thoroughness until there was nothing left of the initial report. Her demeanor shifted as she did, the lethargic woman slowly rising as if she were a spring being wound. Ullanor fell away, the bridge fell away, even Vairya fell away as curiosity morphed into obsession. A bloodhound given a scent, she began teasing and pulling at every lead from the scraps of data available. An external force interfering with the world was obvious. But who? Many foes, human and otherwise, had attempted to incite rebellion before. Many had gone so far as to arm the rebels. But none had armaments similar to these. Daena permitted herself to feel excitement as she realized that this was something altogether new.

Eventually, the Primarch was satisfied with her research and began to give her orders. Any doubts she had on following Malcador’s unvoiced request had by now long vanished. “Prepare the First through Fifth in their entireties, as well as the Thirty-Eighth, the One Hundred and Sixty-Seventh, and as many Chapters with below average bloodright that can meet us en route. Work with the Navigators to chart a course that will take us through the territory garrisoned by the Ninety-Second, we’ll replace their deployments with the One Hundred and Sixty-Seventh as we go.”

“Of course, my lady. I assume we shall take a full Administratum detachment with us?” the Legion Mistress asked, both women already knowing the answer. ‘Administratum detachments’ were an all too common sight for errands run on the Sigilite’s behalf.

“Elucidators and Remembrancers,” Daena replied with a simple nod, before going yet further. “The Hohenheims as well, both of them. Leave the civilians and baggage train here with the rest of the fleet, we’ll be travelling through Compliant space. Standing orders for all remaining Chapters are to scour the system of hostile xenoforms and then proceed to previous orders. No doubt there will be some outlandish ceremony, I leave attendance at the discretion of the Ladies Commander. Yekterina will remain behind as well. Little remains in Ullanor save burning and speeches, my daughters do not need my oversight for the former and my Equerry shall suffice to attend the latter.”

“Is there anything else, my lady?”

For a fleeting moment, the Primach’s eyes flicked to the sight of Ullanor Prime far below them, its verdant expanse visible from the bridge. Of the horrors her daughters had borne witness to, and of the renown that was being given over to other men. A quiet, distant, part of her enchained psyche dared whisper the word lesser, taking advantage of the fraction of a second that her thoughts had dwelled on her brothers’ fame. A vision of every voice within the Imperium singing praise to her unfurling within her mind’s eye, a possibility that could be reality if she would only just reach out and -

And then she suppressed such foolish thoughts and gave her orders.

“Prepare the Astropathic Choir. Have them send tidings to my dear sisters.”

The Grim Crusade - A Warhammer 30000 RP

Daena io Azrael, the Angel of Death

Name: Daena io Azrael

Gender: Female

Homeworld: Irkalla Solum, classification δτ ("Death World"), should not exist. Records from the Dark Age of Technology name it as Irkalla Tertius, the least of three worlds capable of supporting life in that star system - but humanity's fall from grace took a bitter toll. During the Age of Strife both the hive world of Irkalla Secundus and the agri world of Irkalla Primus were destroyed in an unknown cataclysm that shattered the system, untold trillions perishing. Naught now remains of them save for circling rings of dust and rock that dance about their home star. But by some stroke of luck one world settled by man remained intact, preliminary analysis by the Mechanicum suggesting that a conjunction of Irkalla Tertius with the gas giant of Irkalla Sextus sheltered it from the storm.

Once an overlooked mining world feeding precious minerals to the flourishing society within the system during humanity's zenith, that past is immortalized by the monumental hulks of long inoperative mass excavators. Now, it is one of the few stellar bodies capable of supporting an atmosphere in the Irkalla system, and the only one with a gas mix compatible with human life. But though it was saved from destruction, the scars of that ancient calamity are deep.

Those who survived the shattering of Irkalla slowly picked up the pieces, the old mining concerns forming the basis of a new path forward in an uncertain world. Man labored tirelessly to raise himself from the calamity's ruin in a world forever changed, a stranger to them once more. It is a challenge depressingly common throughout the former realm of humanity during the Age of Strife, but the challenges here were greater than most.

The local wildlife on Tertius, fierce to begin with, were not cowed by the devastation wrought upon their home. Instead they grew stronger, and some whisper that they seemed to grow crueler, monstrosities unknown to humanity stalking them at their weakest hour, turned mutant and feral on a world inundated by radiation and worse. And more beside stalk the wastes, for stalking the blasted landscape are the relics of the long past golden age. Maddened automatons, clouds of death, and horrors forgotten generations ago all bring destruction and terror. Yet even here, surrounded by great and powerful terrors, humanity pressed on.

Irkalla System Gazetteer

+++Accessing Carta Galactica...+++
+++Primary information recovered from Dark Age data core, record date approximation M22+++
+++Supplemental information gathered by the hand of the Glorious Emperor of Humanity M30.890+++
+++Beginning record.+++

Welcome to Irkalla! Whether you've come to our home to stay, or just passing through, you'd do well to get accustomed to our little slice of the galaxy. Please note that accommodations for non-human physiologies are significantly hard to find outside of Irkalla Secundus, if you require such please contact the +WARNING: DATA CONTAMINATION DETECTED. PLAYBACK SKIPPING CORRUPT SEGMENT.+ and do enjoy your stay!

Irkalla Stella: A standard yellow dwarf, similar in many respects to Sol itself. Stellar cartographers estimate that the Irkalla star is approximately halfway through its lifespan. [Kids, click here for more fun star facts!] +Supplemental information for adolescents was unrecoverable.+

Contemporary examination of the star reveal it be aberrant, having somehow transformed into a blue dwarf. Local reports indicate that it intermittently surges purple-violet in defiance of known science, but this was not recorded by Imperial instruments. Mechanicum scholars have requested permission to erect a stellar observatory.

Irkalla Primus: The breadbasket of Irkalla! Located about as close as you can get to the sun without burning up, crops grow here at a rapid rate. So bountiful are its fields that over ninety percent of its output is exported to other star systems within +WARNING: DATA CONTAMINATION DETECTED. PLAYBACK SKIPPING CORRUPT SEGMENT.+ and that's just to name a few of the local delicacies. Visit today!

Irkalla Primus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Secundus: Capital of the Irkalla system, the great cities here are home to over eight hundred billion people and counting. If you're interested in high arts or the nightlife, or anything in between, there's something here for you. Restaurants, bars, clubs, opera houses, and more dot the spires, some local outposts from establishments linked back to Terra itself!

Irkalla Secundus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Tertius: If you like to rock a little bit more on the wilder side, this is the place for you! A cold world rich with mineral deposits, several mining concerns from +WARNING: DATA CONTAMINATION DETECTED. PLAYBACK SKIPPING CORRUPT SEGMENT.+ dot the surface, enticing explorers new and old! But take care, outside the mining zones little has been done to push back the native wildlife, and they're not the funnest critters to mess with. For those day trippers out there who want to spend the afternoon risking life and limb and evening in a warm bed, this is the place for you!

Redesignated Irkalla Solum. The planet remains intact and its original record remains approximately 60% accurate. Exploitation of mineral deposits is highly encouraged, as the same calamity that destroyed the rest of the system rent great chasms in the surface, exposing a bounty of wealth. Local fauna have become only more dangerous however, and there are reports from the locals that technology predating the Age of Strife remains active. Extreme caution is advised.

Irkalla Quartus: We like to think of Quartus as our last little light before you head out into the great dark beyond. It's a small planet, barely large enough to keep an atmosphere, and rests at the opposite end of the habitable zone from Primus. Settlement is extremely minimal, and we ask that any who wish to do more than tour the planet sign several liability release waivers. If you just want to get away from it all and eke it out like humanity used to, you can't get better than here.

Irkalla Quartus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Quintus: If Quartus isn't remote enough for you, give Quintus a shot. Resting outside the habitable zone, your only neighbors will be the occasional mineralogical survey. Please note, settlement assistance is not available on Quintus.

Irkalla Quintus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Sextus: An immense gas giant near the outskirts of the system, Sextus is the home of the largest refueling depot for light years. For many travelers, this is their last stop before heading off to parts unknown, and trust us that you'll never forget the sight of an entire fleet of sprint traders lighting their drives as they depart.

Redesignated Irkalla Quassus. The very world seems to bleed, a great cloud of gas trailing from it as it drifts through the void, and it is significantly smaller than prior records suggest. Mechanicum envoys hypothesize that examination of this wound could be used to date the shattering of Irkalla.

Irkalla Septus: Sextus' little sister, Septus is a far smaller gas giant but still rich in hydrogen and helium fuel. Travelers frustrated with the wait times at Sextus can make use of the smaller depots located in orbit here, but it's most commonly used by local shipping.

Redesignated Irkalla Moror. The former gas giant has dissipated entirely, leaving only the dense metal core to mark its passage. Even this has been knocked significantly off course, its orbit now highly elliptical.

This document was prepared by the Irkalla Tourism Board. We hope you enjoy your stay!

+++End of record.+++

Appearance: Daena is clearly a mutant, fully formed wings sprouting from her back. Even overlooking these, her form is distressing for most to look upon, blessed by a beauty beyond the human to the point that her perfection is inhuman. Over nine feet tall, her face is set with eyes of pure white, tresses the same color cascading down from her head. To some, she is an angel sent from on high, to others, an abomination of the human form, but to all it is clear that the giant woman is no ordinary human.

At peace she wears fine, if unornamented, robes appropriate for one one of high station, all such clothing tailored not just for her superhuman form but also the horror of her unwanted gift. At war she girds herself in finely wrought raiment, a suit of artificer armor that remains light enough for her to take flight unaided. She makes no attempt to hide the truth of herself in any arena, forcing the awe struck and the disgusted both to deal with the sight before them.



Personality: The Mistress of the XIVth is an impassive judge, a silent figure upon her high table, observing and weighing all. Her pronouncements are handed down with an iron surety, and it is said that only her father can dissuade her from a decision once she has made it. But beneath her iron countenance is a woman crushed by the weight of her office and the responsibilities it entails. Such is her compassion for mankind that she has been forced to kill her compassion itself, locking herself in the brutal calculus of death.

Those who she saves. Those who she will not save. Those whose lives she will spend. Those whose lives she will not spend. Those who she will kill. Those who she will not kill. Those who are saved because she killed they who would have killed in the future. Those who are not saved because she did not kill they who kill in the future. Each is assigned and weighted, awaiting the terrible doom to be given. What is one death to save one thousand? What is one thousand deaths to save one million? What is one million deaths to save one billion? What is damning one world to save ten? What is a xenocide to save all mankind?

To save one must kill. To kill is to deny salvation. But if each she sends to their death means the salvation of another, it is worth it. It is enough for a death to purchase a life, and the greatest tragedy for death to be in vain. By the same token, there is nothing more certain to rouse her wrath than wanton slaughter, no affront greater than a needless killing. Those who reject the infinite mercy of the Glorious Emperor of Humanity, be they man or xenos, are pitied as fools who bring death upon their own heads - who must be forced to submit and their leaders brought to account.

And yet, deep within her breast, one hope blazes. A dream. The conviction that it must be possible to save all.

Skills:

Flight: Though mutated, some use may be made of her affliction. The wings upon her back are fully functional, capable of lifting her into the air and enabling her to fly with shocking maneuverability. Such is their strength that she can even fly in full power armor, though she prefers a far lighter suit of artificer armor designed for her.

Resilience: Danae's mind and body both are difficult to break, the Primarch having been exposed to horrors beyond human comprehension before being rescued by the Emperor. Spikes of hard radiation and the sight of countless companions falling have both hardened her, and she is all but immune to both environmental hazards and psychological distress.

Inquest: Observation and evaluation are two sides of the same coin, and she has mastered both. With but a glance, she is able to determine the weak points in an opponent's armor, their relative strength compared to both herself and other foes, and determine how best to strike them down. Prolonged examination of a person, place, or problem permit her something close to true understanding, keen intuition filling in the blanks and providing a more or less accurate picture off of minimal information. Such insight is often combined with her psychic powers.

Deathsight: An irregular and not always desired psychic gift, Danae has the ability to gaze at any being with a soul and determine its manner of death. This is not true foresight, but instead the future most likely to occur with the clarity increasing as the event comes closer into being. Due to the lack of context provided with such visions, it is impossible to tell if actions taken in response to such information are truly averting the fate - or simply playing out as designed.

Decree Absolute: Rarely does the Primarch use this ability, but when she does woe betide all upon the field. Channeling the force of her own conviction, she pronounces a mighty doom with such force that all who hear it are convinced that not only should the judgement come to pass, but that it must. Armies and nations have been whipped into furor upon her word, never stopping until all is as was said or they lay dead.

Wargear:

Heavenly Raiment: A unique set of Artificer Armor, crafted by the command of the Emperor Himself to grant His daughter protection from all foes by the greatest masters of the Stargazers legion. Shockingly thin, it offers far more protection than it appears, made of sheets of auramite overlaid with a coating of silver and black adamantium. Should that outer covering be destroyed, the pure gold of the material that girds the Emperor's own Custodes would be revealed. Despite the great weight, it is rendered essentially weightless due to the installation of an abeyant, permitting Danae to fly unencumbered. As added protection, it incorporates a conversion field, dazzling all those who would dare land a blow upon the Primarch.

Lance of Judgement: Building upon the basic patterns of force staves and swords, Danae commissioned the creation of a force spear to her specifications by reforging her own weapon of Irkallan truesilver. The resulting weapon is both light and deadly, its blades sharp enough to pierce even the stoutest armor without the formidable psychic might of its wielder. In her hands, it is an instrument of death, ending the strongest of foes in a single strike.

Purgation: Appearing as a masterfully crafted inferno pistol, Danae has been seen to take impossibly distant shots with this sidearm. Closer examination reveals the truth, the "pistol" as large as a melta gun. Like all melta weapons, it is able to burrow through armor like so much tissue paper, showering the other side with molten death.

Assignment Grade: Delta. Though most associated with the discipline of divination due to her uncanny pronouncements, her ability with such powers is rather limited in comparison to true masters. Danae is most proficient with telepathy, using it as effortlessly as speech. Sending orders, reading minds, inspiring her followers, or simply striking down those who face her all within her capabilities.

Biography:

Biography

Incubation pod XIV was flung far from Terra, its course taking it deep into the Ultima Segmentum. Out upon the fringes of the galaxy is a lonely and scarred star, orbited by shattered rings of gas and dust - and one world that still bore life. Hurtling by the corpses of dead worlds, Danae's incubation pod crash landed upon the former mining world of Irkalla Tertius. Once a vital conduit of mineral wealth for teeming trillions, the scavenger clans of Irkalla are the descendants of foremen, technicians, and guards who once operated the automated digs.

Threatened by wildlife, other survivors mutated by the harsh environment, and the senseless depredations of automatons following nonsense orders, the people of Irkalla were loathe to approach the crashed pod. Eventually, a man with more courage than most came to see what fell from the sky, and upon recounting that it was a device that shone of metal avarice overcame fear. The scavengers fell upon the pod, keen to salvage its material for their own projects, only to discover a child inside. The fact that she was clearly a mutant complicated things less than might be expected, the clan simply sending her to live with the local witches, wyrds, and oracles living in the hulk of a defunct mass excavator the shadow of which loomed over the makeshift village.

Like all her siblings, she grew rapidly, absorbing every skill she was taught by those around her. Regrettably, she proved a second-rate prophet despite the best training, the growing child far too obstinate to introduce vagueness and flattery into her foretellings for them to seem 'genuine' to a planet accustomed to superstitions. Lest she bring disrepute to the seers around her with her penchant for only telling what she saw, the make shift temple assigned her to the guards. Austere figures bearing truesilver spears and cloaked in robes, the ranks of the guards were constantly worn down by the native wild life and their fellow man. While most who traveled to the great hulks of the mass excavators did so to beseech the wyrds who based themselves from that relic of a bygone age, there were always the foolish and greedy who sought to loot those tombs of the past.

It was while chasing down one such scavenger that then teenager awoke to her most accursed of gifts. Pursuing the thief deeper into the bulk of the dead god-machine then her fellows dared, wings unfurled and spear upright, she descended into a blackness so deep that even the senses of a Primarch were of little use. Her foe, armed with stolen archaeotech, was far less hindered and readied a killing strike against the guard. The vision that unfurled before her in that moment was unlike her attempts at divination, the path to victory shining bright in her mind's eye with an unnatural clarity - but it was not from her perspective. Instead young Daena foresaw herself swoop down upon out stretched wings and drive her spear into the chest of her enemy, through his own eyes. An abomination come from on high, the deliverance of justice, the angel of death.

Returning from the pits once filled with glimmering ore and untold riches, the guard was given the title of Deathseer and underwent the training to refine her newfound skill. Over the course of years, she found a way to see without sight, gazing into the swirling probabilities about everyone's soul and seize upon their terminus. For all men who live must one day die, all things that begin must in time end, and it was there, at the the cessation of possibility, that she was drawn. Despite her best efforts, she could never elevate her gift to the point of decreeing true fate - but in some ways that made her more valuable to the oracles. A warrior will pay more to know of a doom he can yet change than one which is set in stone after all. Indeed, the limitations on her sight were all likely preferable than perfect visions would be, for there is little more reassuring than being told that ones death is so distant no details can be parsed from what was seen.

The popularity of the 'Oracle of Death' soared across Irkalla as her predictions either came true, or even better, came just true enough for death to be thwarted. Such was Daena's fate never to conquer or unite her world, but instead to be viewed by the jostling techno-barbarians and scavenger clans as a valuable resource. The tribe that found her soon capitalized upon the fame of the angel who fell from the sky, their village quickly expanding to accommodate all those who wished to have their deaths seen. For nigh on a century this was the Primarch's life, accruing riches and power as she inevitably became mistress of the oracles and wyrds, her dominion stretching from their 'temple' to the growing city and the wastes beyond. While around her, chaos and death reigned, within her realm saw peace and a measure of prosperity. Slowly but surely, she began increasing her control, seeking to win without fighting and bring her peace to every soul.

Until the day she began to see her own death. She had first tried to do so as a child, shortly after her power first showed itself, and saw nothing. Decades passed with the woman occasionally daring to gaze into her own future, but the lack of response was so stunning she began to doubt if she could use her power on herself. And then she could. A sudden vision, brought forth by the innocuous act of looking herself in the mirror, of a purging light scouring her from existence. Troubled, she sent her servants and spies to discover if a new archeotech weapon had been discovered elsewhere on the planet, to no avail. Even more troubling was seeing that her closest companions seemed to suffer the same fate, and so she prepared herself for what was to come in the only way she could.

A grand convocation of every psyker with even the barest skill at divination was brought together, the assembly peering through the skeins of fate to find the bringer of their doom. When the truth was discovered, it is said that the oracles and prophets and wyrds and witches screamed in terror at the power of the being they witnessed, but Daena only whispered 'father' before dismissing those who had hurried to her side. Faced with the impossible might boring down upon them, the Primarch made no attempt to ready for war. It would make no difference either way.

When the Emperor came, his daughter recognized him and welcomed him to her home. Of what they spoke, little is known and much is rumored, but she agreed to stand by his side and bring his peace to the galaxy. Thwarting the fate she had seen, she boarded his ships of gold and reunited with her own gene-daughters, at last taking command of the XIVth. But the occasion was anything but a happy one. Discovered by a Stargazers fleet led by her brother, the stench of death hung heavy in the air and the number of her own Astartes was few. It is said that it was during these early days that she adopted her stoic countenance, but this is wrong. Far too astute to waste tears on the Stargazers in public, she nonetheless lamented the sacrifices they had made, and will make, alongside her own daughters.

It was only the beginning of her sorrows. Departing with the Emperor for her own Legion's main force, she found herself installed as Mistress of the XIVth halfway through the brutality of the Rangdan Xenocides. The deaths she foresaw for her own daughters, women greeting their Primarch and mother for the first time, etched themselves upon Daena's mind. Each Astartes who swore fealty to her, each who saluted her joyously at her finally having been found, each boasting during the grand feasts, each of her daughters who would suffer death and worse at her first commands - they were far too much to bear. Her closest confidants, the few she bothered to take with her from Irkalla, were the only ones permitted with her in private in those days, and whispers swirled that the Primarch was unable to command her own Legion. Feeling something on the verge of breaking inside of her, the telepathic woman took the step of reaching into her own mind to smother her emotions themselves, a state that rendered the superhuman far less than human more often than not.

Ordering her Legion forwards into the most wretched of wars with the cold efficiency of an automaton, she weighed the corpses made with each decision and picked the lighter side of the scale. Atrocity and slaughter were justified in the name of ending atrocity and slaughter, but even with her neutered emotions her daughters whispered that their mother wept at the sacrifices made at her command. Keeping to her resolve, the grim humor of the XIVth soon named her 'Doomsayer' - a name that stuck. Her reaction upon hearing the title given to her by her daughters is said to be one of the few times she smiled during the bio-pogroms, the Primarch ordering the Legion's name changed on the spot.

With the conclusion of the hellish conflict against the Rangdan, Daena and her Doomsayers retired to the rear echelons of the Grim Crusade, resuming the original mission of the XIVth. While the uncharitable whispered that she lacked the resolve of her sister Eiosha or the inhumanity of her brother Sarghaul, she dedicated herself to ensuring that Compliant worlds remained so. Installing herself as the highest judge on hundreds of worlds she ruled on matters of loyalty, treason, Compliance, and Tolerance, speaking with the authority of the Emperor himself.

The Meeting:

The Meeting

A streak of gold descended from the sky, tracing the same arc as Daena's silver pod had made so long ago, the Deathseer of Irkalla tensing as she strained to make out if it was the death she had foreseen. She relaxed when it came close enough to be seen clearly as a ship, her death would not come so impersonally at the least. Turning to the identical oracles kneeling behind her atop the great bulk of the mass excavator that was her home, she beckoned at them to follow her as she made her way back inside.

"Do you trust me?" she asked the twins, her wings fluttering to steady herself as she climbed inside of the hull.

"Of course, Deathseer," the pair said as one, walking in after her with an unnaturally smooth gait. "And to answer your next question, no, we do not know what happens after you order the visitor to be let inside. So, it makes perfect sense for us to trust you. We'll be blind in a few minutes anyway," they add.

She said nothing further as she flew down to the great hall that had once been.... she wasn't certain what it once was, but it was a suitably cavernous space to fit the supplicants and attendants that were par for the course when foreseeing a great hero's death. Seating herself down upon her throne, wings splayed, she made ready to wait until the inevitable arrived.

The oracles had told her what this day would bring, as much as they could, several times but nonetheless her pulse quickened when the guard knelt before her and made his report. "There is a man at the gate, my lady. He calls himself the Emperor and wishes an audience with you. It is as was said."

"The Emperor of what?"

"The.... Emperor of Humanity."

"That is a novel title..." The natives of Irkalla occasionally coalesced around strongmen and barbarians with a variety of ostentatious claims but this... felt different. She believed it.

Casting a glance at her personal seers for a moment, Daena gives the guard a nod. "Very well. Let him in. I do not think I have seen for an emperor before," she said, attempting to calm herself with levity - and also by going off script. Sometimes it felt good to defy fate, but she felt the glares from her oracles as she robbed them of the last certainty they had as their prescience was stolen from them but she paid it no mind. They'd get over it. Or they'd be dead.

A blinding light washed over the room as the doors opened, and for a moment she wondered if it was death after all, until her senses adjusted. Her eyes saw a gleaming figure, that much was true, a tall man in golden armor - but that is not what she saw. What she saw, what overwhelmed far more mundane sight, was the sheer number of possibilities radiating off of this Emperor - the sheer number of deaths. Sitting upon her throne, she saw a thousand thousand endings as he approached her, fate itself twisting and writhing with his every act. He was a locus of events, a place of many beginnings and many endings. And oh, he had so many endings.

She saw him die. She saw herself die. She saw those around her die. She saw those she never met die. But not once did the deaths stay the same.

The man, a flaming sword in hand, severing her head. Her, forcing her spear deep inside of his breast. The man, a gold tipped claw piercing her heart. Her, falling from the sky as impossible figures tore her apart. Her, leading the same against him. A winged man, his spine broken. A wise man, turning to dust. Armies killing at her command. Armies dying at her word. Worlds cracking. Cities starving. The stars burning. The man, a living a corpse, dying over the course of ten thousand years upon a throne of gold.

And then he came to a stop before her and the future vanished from her sight.

"Daena io Azrael. The Angel of Death. Deathseer of Irkalla." He spoke in statements, a man used to obedience. Perhaps a man deserving it.

Composing herself upon her throne, she regarded this Emperor clearly for the first time. He was tall, taller than even herself, and possessed the same impossible perfection. A word blossomed in her mind, once lost in the chaos and frenzy of visions, surfacing once more.

"Father."

"You know why I have come then."

"I know enough. I have seen enough."

"Then shall you join me?" he asked, and in that moment the sight of her death was never clearer. To answer no would to invite utter destruction, for her father had no need for truculent children.

"A question, father, I beg of you," she said, raising a hand as if to ward off the fate that was creeping closer and closer. The Emperor gave only a nod in reply, but that was enough. "Do you think we can actually succeed?"

A long silence stretched out as the two superhumans stared at one another, the vision of her death fading away the longer he thought on her question. When his answer finally came, it was not a surprise. The same will to demand obedience seemed to apply to the galaxy itself.

"We must, Daena. For all mankind."

Fluttering down from her throne, she presented herself on bent knee to him, staring up into his eyes as she supplicated her twisted body before him. "Then I am yours, if you shall have me, oh Emperor mine." Oh murderer mine.

Legio XIV, the Doomsayers

Legion Name: Doomsayers, formerly known as the Judicators

Legion Number: XIV

Legion Strength: 200,000 Astartes

Armour Appearance

A Lady Commander of the Doomsayers in Mk IV Armor.


A Doomsayer Praetorian in Mk II Armor, so rare are Mk IVs within the ranks of the XIVth Legion that even its Honor Guards are not fully outfitted with them.


A Doomsayer Veteran.


A Doomsayer Tactical Marine.


A Doomsayer member of the Revenant Wing.

Warcry: "We are the final judgement!" was the Legion's original warcry, "Your doom comes!" has become increasingly popular since the adoption of the Doomsayer name.

Dramatis Personae

• Legion Mistress Vairya Kurus: The first and only leader of the Judicators before reunification with Daena, she was granted the honor of retaining her title and now serves as second in command of the Legion. As the effective executive officer of the Doomsayers, she serves as head of the Praetorate and is tasked with ensuring that the needs of the Legion are met.
• Equerry Yekterina Ascania: Equerry to the Primarch, one of the last Terran Astartes who fought with the Legion before Daena's rediscovery. The Primarch values her relative youth and her ability to consider both Terran and Irkallan influences upon the Legion, and often consults her for a fresh view of proposed changes.
• Praetor Primus Asha io Qaphsiel: Head of Daena's personal bodyguard, one of the few Irkallan Marines raised to the Praetorate in any capacity. Raised within the temple that the Primarch herself dwelt in, she was in training to become a guard when the Emperor arrived. Swept into the stars and transformed into an Astartes, she quickly won acclaim as a warrior and was soon gifted an intricate silver spear of the same make as her Primarch's own and inducted into her guard.
• Lady Commander Livia Kastrioti: Commander of the First Chapter, a Terran born warrior who partook in smothering the last embers of the Unification Wars. Even as other Legions set out across the galaxy under the command of the Emperor and his generals, a great bulk of the Doomsayers remained behind within Sol and upon Terra itself to ensure that the hard won peace was kept.
• The Two Hundred: Ladies Commander of the Doomsayers, undisputed mistresses of the Legion's two hundred or so Chapters. The Lady Commander of the First Chapter is often considered the first among equals in their number, but the best that Livia could hope to accomplish is advising her sisters in arms. These operational commanders are trusted with and accustomed to independent command, and each is a fearsome warrior in her own right.
• Librarus Spenta io Raziel: The senior-most Irkallan Marine within the Legion, Spenta is the Chief Librarian of the Doomsayers and in many ways a mirror of her Primarch. Granted a limited form of Deathsight, the legacy of her gene-mother has also transformed her hair and eyes a stark white. Formerly a junior oracle within Daena's temple, she was one of the few witches of that place deemed both stable and young enough for transformation into an Astartes.
• Mistress of the Forge Elise Hohenheim: Born to a family of engineers in the confederation of orbital habitats and moons around the great gas giant Saturn, Elise was a girl when the Saturnyne Ordo was brought into Compliance with the Imperium. Her technical aptitude was noticed immediately after her induction into the Legion, the new Astarte sent to Mars for training as a Techmarine in accordance with the Treaty of Mars. To say her religious indoctrination did not stick would be an understatement, the entirety of the Legion's Techmarines at best paying lip service to the Omnissiah. The arrival of her Primarch and the Emperor's decree that the XIVth was exempt from the provisions of the treaty was a relief, and the highest ranking Techmarine of the Doomsayers has worked to ensure that true believers within her ranks are kept content.
• Lord Engineer Gustav Hohenheim: Twin brother of the Mistress of the Forge, he originally followed a vastly different career path than his sister, becoming an engineer involved in the manufacture of the Solar Auxilia's fearsome Void Armor. His skills soon granted him a name of his own, and though some may decry his appointment as nepotism, few would question his abilities to his face. Serving alongside his twin as head of the non-Astartes scientists and engineers attached to the Legion, he performs much the same role of a Mechanicum representative within other Legions.
• Navigator-Plenipotentiary Ramalies Pytheas: An ancient house of the Navis Nobilite that predates the Imperium itself, House Pytheas has served the Emperor since the days of the Unification Wars. Ramalies is himself a veteran Navigator who has served with the XIVth since it was founded, eventually rising to the august post of Navigator-Plenipotentiary of the Legion. Charged with coordinating the secretive Navigators with their Astartes mistresses, and senior-most of their number, he is arguably the most powerful person in the ranks of the Doomsayers other than the Primarch herself.

Legion Organization

The Doomsayers are unique among the Legions for retaining almost all aspects of their original character, including the Terran Standard organizational template laid down by the Officio Militaris at their founding. The Legion with the Primarch and Legion Mistress at its head is divided into Chapters, nominally composed of one thousand Astartes, led by a Lady Commander. Chapters are further subdivided into two Battalions of five hundred, led by Lieutenant Commanders, which are then broken down into Companies of one hundred each under the authority of a Company Captain. A Company is composed of four platoons led by Lieutenants - three line platoons and a support platoon. The line platoons consist of two standard tactical squads of approximately ten Astartes, with an attached support squad of another five, comprising roughly a fourth of the Company's fighting power. Finally, the support platoon is the home of heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and their maintenance and operational personnel.

Under the original dictates of the Officio Militaris, each Chapter was expected to be able to not just fight alone, but operate independently for indeterminate periods of time. The Ladies Commander of the Doomsayers are still granted this awesome right, and each is in command of not only a thousand Legionaries but an entire fleet with which to transport them. As a result, the full might of the Legion is almost never brought to bear, its Chapters strewn throughout the galaxy. A common deployment pattern of the Doomsayers is for a Chapter to be dispatched to a collection of worlds nominally brought under Compliance, but considered too militant or technologically advanced to leave loosely guarded. Dividing up her Companies, the Lady Commander sprinkles garrisons across potentially rebellious planets, ensuring that their populaces remain Compliant. In this way the Legion not only gains battlefield experience through the more typical assignments given to an Astartes, but that of peacekeeping and administration as well.

Perhaps even more shocking however is that the Legion remains comprised, at least on paper, almost entirely of Terran born stock. Originally raised from warriors of the Achaemenid Empire, a coalition of tribes who swiftly swore fealty to the Emperor, and recruiting further afield as Unification wore on, the Legion maintained its original raising grounds even after reunification with its Primarch. Though partly done out of need, there were few both strong enough and with pure enough genes on Irkalla to replace the influx of Terran Marines, it was also served a convenient secondary purpose. The militant tribes of Terra, those of Albia and Meric and Ursh, were keen for martial glory even centuries after Unification, and service in the Legiones Astartes proved an adept release valve for such hunger. Though the Legion has also taken to recruiting from the worlds it garrisons, it keeps itself to a strict policy of only accepting volunteers from not only these planets but Irkalla and Terra as well.

This results in an intake rate that some functionaries of the nascent Administratum find impossibly low considering the standing strength of the Legion in recent years. Indeed, much of the Legion's history seems deliberately obscured, the XIVth nearly doubling in size after the Rangdan Xenocides, an event coinciding with the creation of the Revenant Wing, a rapid strike force utterly at odds with standard Doomsayer doctrine. Every member is a veteran of those grim days, and seem to hurl themselves at death with a wild abandon, charging headlong into the heart of the enemy's forces. Marines of the Revenant Wing act so contrary to the typical behavior of the Doomsayers that some whisper they are not members of the XIVth at all, but that is of course merely conjecture.

The arguably greater variation that the Doomsayers have taken from the Legion norm is their refusal to induct their Techmarines into the Martian Mechanicum. Having remained in Sol far longer than the other Legions ensuring the Compliance of the Selenar gene-cults of Luna and the tech-enclaves of the Saturnyne Ordo without which the Crusade itself might flounder, they become linked not only with these independent scientific minds but also the Terran researchers of the Emperor himself. For decades this was an informal affair, the Legion operating with Imperial scientists and recruiting technically inclined women from Saturn's habitats while still obeying the tenets of the Treaty of Mars. It was upon Daena's rediscovery by the Stargazers that change was truly wrought, the Emperor decreeing that the Doomsayers were exempt from the requirement to have their Astartes technicians be members of the Cult. The motivation behind this proclamation is still unclear, some contending that it was requested by the Primarch herself due to her zealous adoption of the Imperial Truth, while others whisper that it was the Emperor's way of 'balancing the scales' due to having two of his sons so tightly tied to the Mechanicum. Regardless of the rationale, the number of Mechanicum Techmarines in the XIVth, always low, has been permitted to stagnate, their losses replaced by secular scientists trained on Terra, Luna, and around Saturn.

Battlefield Role

Where other Legions have a tendency to adopt particular styles of battle, the Doomsayers seem to almost consciously reject such specialization. Serving as a reserve and garrison force prior to Daena's discovery, the Primarch has made almost no alterations to the Legion's order of battle with the notable exception of the Revenant Wing. Able to fight any conflict, but lacking true mastery, they are the consummate second line, ready to engage in any emergency that may develop without obvious weak points.

Their greatest weakness is a lack of speed - where a Legion such as the Lurkers can immediately enter amphibious operations, the Doomsayers must first prepare themselves for such a battlefield. But this is in a sense also their greatest strength, for the patience required to observe and understand an enemy, to determine the best means by which they ought to be destroyed, have taught them secrets more forthright Legions have ground into the dust of history. Where the Serpents or the Dreadlords would erase their foe utterly, the Doomsayers pore over their ruins and lore, and have amassed a great trove of knowledge.

While the other Legions have grown and evolved, tailoring their wargear to their tastes, the Doomsayers have remained strangely static, utilizing to a woman almost the same equipment that they left Terra with. Mark II Power Armor and Volkite weaponry have yet to be replaced in any significant numbers with Mark IVs or bolters due to lack of wear - the latter of great significance to the Legion's secret councils. While upon the surface the Legion may seem strangely inactive, even indolent, its Primarch is watchful for threats that could threaten the entire Imperium. Spurred on by the harsh lessons of the Rangdan Xenocides, the Doomsayers have dedicated themselves to the eradication of enemy psykers - and the culling of enthralled Astartes. The darkest rumors contend that these have already been put to good use.

Legion Characteristics and Ideology

When the XIVth was reunited with its mistress, there was surprisingly little discord between them. Serving as the Emperor's magistrates and peacekeepers, the Judicators had already begun to see themselves as the Imperium's shield, and so the ideological drive of their Primarch to preserve human life was well received. Where other, more bellicose, Legions find war to be glorious, Daena and her daughters view it as a means to an end and zealously work to enact the Emperor's justice and peace upon the galaxy.

To that end, the Doomsayers dedicate themselves not just to martial vigor, but make a study of all aspects of humanity. Senior officers are expected to not only be strategic thinkers, but to have a working understanding of both the Administratum and the Lex Imperialis. The countless worlds throughout the galaxy that play host to a garrison from the XIVth often see the officer in charge place herself as both chief judge and bureaucrat, handling matters of justice and taxation if more appropriate Imperial officials are lacking. Dedicating themselves not just to humanity's expansion, but to the idea of humanity, it is no surprise that the XIVth's fleets have one of the largest concentrations of Remembrancers, Iterators, and Elucidators of any of the Legions.

As stalwart believers in the Emperor's vision of a united mankind free of superstition, every member of the Legion is versed in the dictates of the Imperial Truth and scorn the worship of any God. Senior elements of the Legion, the Primarch included, have however began to wonder if the Emperor has kept silent on matters of great import, for the writings of cast down foes paint a picture of a foe that the Truth would render humanity utterly ignorant of if they were true. What even those doubters do hold as firm as any faith however is that if the gods spoken of in the rantings of the insane and superstitious truly do exist, then it is their duty to eliminate them from the universe.

Such dreams of utter extermination are not held towards all of humanity's foes however, the Legion viewing the Edict of Tolerance as a wise and prudent measure. The ultimate expression of xenocide would result in war unending, costing the lives of countless scores of humanity. Altogether better to end a war peacefully and increase the power of the Imperium than waste it on a foolish notion of purity. These notions compound upon one another - for if there are no gods, if only reason prevails, then it must be that any species with which one may reason can come to accept the Emperor's peace.

Internally, the Legion has relatively few cultural markers imposed or influenced by their Primarch or her geneseed, the melange of Terran tribes predominant in its place. Two massive exceptions do exist however. The first, and by far the more important, is the Legion's outlook upon death. Influenced both by the thoughts of their Primarch, and the preponderance of psykers who develop abilities similar to her Deathsight, it is believed that one's death will come when it comes, and that it is the duty of every member of mankind to face it well. As a result, the XIVth has a remarkably small number of Dreadnoughts, the honor reserved only for those who deserve to face death twice. The second is driven entirely by Daena's genetic legacy, with a significant proportion of all Legion aspirants developing either the whited out eyes or white hair of their Primarch - some developing both.

Other than these markers of their Primarch's influence, compared occasionally to that of the Lions Illustris, the Doomsayers have a rather stable geneseed. Astartes of the XIVth tend to be more likely than average to develop psychic ability, and often develop on the shorter end of superhuman, resembling baseline humanity more than even their other sisters. This suits their tendencies quite nicely, their immense scale granting them immediate awe and respect without appearing inhuman.

This embrace of the human does not end there, for the Legion does not just permit but instead requires its Astartes to maintain mundane relationships. Developed from the martial tribal culture of the Terran techno-barbarians that swelled the ranks of the XIVth, the idea that a warrior would leave her family behind has always been anathema to the Doomsayers. The glory hungry tribes went so far as to preserve the gametes of aspirants to the Legion, ensuring that their gene line could continue if the Legionnaire went to prove her worth. Daena did not just tolerate this, but expanded it after taking control of her Marines, standardizing the process so that all under her command could have a mundane child if they so desired. The first of only two stipulations is that such a woman be a mother in truth to her children, and the Doomsayer's children travel with the fleets like any other child of the Crusade. The second is that it is forbidden for the father to be another Astartes, the concept considered both incestuous and rather besides the point.

Relationships

• The Emperor: It is unclear what the Master of Mankind thinks of the XIVth, with just as many whispering that he favors them as that he despises them. Kept far from the front lines for most of its history, and when brought to the fore rarely permitted to leave His side, it was assumed for centuries that He held distrust towards the abilities of its warriors. Yet, the missions they were entrusted with were of the utmost importance, often quelling rebellions within the heart of the Imperium that could spell disaster for the Crusade had they been left unchecked. In the quietest of councils however, it is rumored that the Emperor grows concerned with the knowledge the Legion has begun to amass.
• Malcador and the Administratum: The Doomsayers are the Sigilite's favorite Legion almost by default, being as they are one of the few among the Astartes who think to care for the needs of the Administratum and his Order Elucidatum. Malcador frequently makes use of the Legion for his more irregular activities as well, knowing that the XIVth are always willing to assist entreaties from the civilian government. The Doomsayers often receive reports sooner and are able to receive what they need far easier from the Imperial bureaucracy, an advantage that is often overlooked.
• The Imperial Army: Taken as a whole, the Exercetus Imperialis have no small measure of awe and respect towards the Doomsayers, a respect that is often mutual - especially among the regiments of the Solar Auxilia and the Old Hundred. Loathe to waste human life, the Doomsayers refuse to throw the regiments of the Army into the meat grinder, a fact known and treasured by both officers and enlisted alike. Members of the Solar Auxilia raised from Saturn have a special affection for the XIVth, more than a few military families having a daughter within its ranks.
• The Mechanicum: The Priests of Mars do not particularly like nor dislike the XIVth Legion, instead viewing them with something altogether different and in many ways worse: utter indifference. Categorizing the Doomsayers as a Legion of least concern, most Mechanicum resources are diverted to ensuring the smooth operation of the other Astartes. Though of little issue at the moment, the Legion's own Techmarines more than sufficient for routine maintenance, there is notable lack of Tech-Priests among its fleets. It is considered likely that this is the Primarch's own doing, her initial exposure to the Mechanicum via the Stargazers seeding a distaste for the only religious body permitted within her father's Imperium. Surprisingly, the Mechanicum cares little for not receiving Techmarines from the Legion, more conservative magi contending that such were borderline hereteks to begin with. So long as all other provisions of the Treaty of Mars are followed, including the timely delivery of rediscovered STCs and the approval of new technologies, both parties seem content pretending the other does not exist.
• The Navis Nobilite: Few Space Marines engage with the affairs of the Navigators, but for the unusual deployment of the Doomsayers it is a necessity. Compacts have been forged with a slew of Houses for the services of their sons and daughters, for each Chapter of the Legion is expected to be able to traverse the Warp on its own - requiring an immense number of Navigators.
• Other Legions: The XIVth has kept itself aloof from the affairs of its brother and sisters even before its Primarch was discovered, its typical duties seeing them fight alongside the Imperial Army far more than other Legions. Where they did interact, it was at best for the duration of a campaign as emergency reinforcements before leaving once more. Daena saw no reason to alter this state of affairs, a decision that proved wise in the wake of the Rangdan Xenocides, a grueling era of war that saw the Doomsayers slay scores of fellow Astartes.

The Grim Crusade - A Warhammer 30000 RP

Primarch

Name: Daena io Azrael

Gender: Female

Homeworld: Irkalla Solum, classification δτ ("Death World"), should not exist. Records from the Dark Age of Technology name it as Irkalla Tertius, the least of three worlds capable of supporting life in that star system - but humanity's fall from grace took a bitter toll. During the Age of Strife both the hive world of Irkalla Secundus and the agri world of Irkalla Primus were destroyed in an unknown cataclysm that shattered the system, untold trillions perishing. Naught now remains of them save for circling rings of dust and rock that dance about their home star. But by some stroke of luck one world settled by man remained intact, preliminary analysis by the Mechanicum suggesting that a conjunction of Irkalla Tertius with the gas giant of Irkalla Sextus sheltered it from the storm.

Once an overlooked mining world feeding precious minerals to the flourishing society within the system during humanity's zenith, that past is immortalized by the monumental hulks of long inoperative mass excavators. Now, it is one of the few stellar bodies capable of supporting an atmosphere in the Irkalla system, and the only one with a gas mix compatible with human life. But though it was saved from destruction, the scars of that ancient calamity are deep.

Those who survived the shattering of Irkalla slowly picked up the pieces, the old mining concerns forming the basis of a new path forward in an uncertain world. Man labored tirelessly to raise himself from the calamity's ruin in a world forever changed, a stranger to them once more. It is a challenge depressingly common throughout the former realm of humanity during the Age of Strife, but the challenges here were greater than most.

The local wildlife on Tertius, fierce to begin with, were not cowed by the devastation wrought upon their home. Instead they grew stronger, and some whisper that they seemed to grow crueler, monstrosities unknown to humanity stalking them at their weakest hour, turned mutant and feral on a world inundated by radiation and worse. And more beside stalk the wastes, for stalking the blasted landscape are the relics of the long past golden age. Maddened automatons, clouds of death, and horrors forgotten generations ago all bring destruction and terror. Yet even here, surrounded by great and powerful terrors, humanity pressed on.

Irkalla System Gazetteer

+++Accessing Carta Galactica...+++
+++Primary information recovered from Dark Age data core, record date approximation M22+++
+++Supplemental information gathered by the hand of the Glorious Emperor of Humanity M30.890+++
+++Beginning record.+++

Welcome to Irkalla! Whether you've come to our home to stay, or just passing through, you'd do well to get accustomed to our little slice of the galaxy. Please note that accommodations for non-human physiologies are significantly hard to find outside of Irkalla Secundus, if you require such please contact the +WARNING: DATA CONTAMINATION DETECTED. PLAYBACK SKIPPING CORRUPT SEGMENT.+ and do enjoy your stay!

Irkalla Stella: A standard yellow dwarf, similar in many respects to Sol itself. Stellar cartographers estimate that the Irkalla star is approximately halfway through its lifespan. [Kids, click here for more fun star facts!] +Supplemental information for adolescents was unrecoverable.+

Contemporary examination of the star reveal it be aberrant, having somehow transformed into a blue dwarf. Local reports indicate that it intermittently surges purple-violet in defiance of known science, but this was not recorded by Imperial instruments. Mechanicum scholars have requested permission to erect a stellar observatory.

Irkalla Primus: The breadbasket of Irkalla! Located about as close as you can get to the sun without burning up, crops grow here at a rapid rate. So bountiful are its fields that over ninety percent of its output is exported to other star systems within +WARNING: DATA CONTAMINATION DETECTED. PLAYBACK SKIPPING CORRUPT SEGMENT.+ and that's just to name a few of the local delicacies. Visit today!

Irkalla Primus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Secundus: Capital of the Irkalla system, the great cities here are home to over eight hundred billion people and counting. If you're interested in high arts or the nightlife, or anything in between, there's something here for you. Restaurants, bars, clubs, opera houses, and more dot the spires, some local outposts from establishments linked back to Terra itself!

Irkalla Secundus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Tertius: If you like to rock a little bit more on the wilder side, this is the place for you! A cold world rich with mineral deposits, several mining concerns from +WARNING: DATA CONTAMINATION DETECTED. PLAYBACK SKIPPING CORRUPT SEGMENT.+ dot the surface, enticing explorers new and old! But take care, outside the mining zones little has been done to push back the native wildlife, and they're not the funnest critters to mess with. For those day trippers out there who want to spend the afternoon risking life and limb and evening in a warm bed, this is the place for you!

Redesignated Irkalla Solum. The planet remains intact and its original record remains approximately 60% accurate. Exploitation of mineral deposits is highly encouraged, as the same calamity that destroyed the rest of the system rent great chasms in the surface, exposing a bounty of wealth. Local fauna have become only more dangerous however, and there are reports from the locals that technology predating the Age of Strife remains active. Extreme caution is advised.

Irkalla Quartus: We like to think of Quartus as our last little light before you head out into the great dark beyond. It's a small planet, barely large enough to keep an atmosphere, and rests at the opposite end of the habitable zone from Primus. Settlement is extremely minimal, and we ask that any who wish to do more than tour the planet sign several liability release waivers. If you just want to get away from it all and eke it out like humanity used to, you can't get better than here.

Irkalla Quartus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Quintus: If Quartus isn't remote enough for you, give Quintus a shot. Resting outside the habitable zone, your only neighbors will be the occasional mineralogical survey. Please note, settlement assistance is not available on Quintus.

Irkalla Quintus has been destroyed, orbital track now inhabited by a ring of planetary fragments.

Irkalla Sextus: An immense gas giant near the outskirts of the system, Sextus is the home of the largest refueling depot for light years. For many travelers, this is their last stop before heading off to parts unknown, and trust us that you'll never forget the sight of an entire fleet of sprint traders lighting their drives as they depart.

Redesignated Irkalla Quassus. The very world seems to bleed, a great cloud of gas trailing from it as it drifts through the void, and it is significantly smaller than prior records suggest. Mechanicum envoys hypothesize that examination of this wound could be used to date the shattering of Irkalla.

Irkalla Septus: Sextus' little sister, Septus is a far smaller gas giant but still rich in hydrogen and helium fuel. Travelers frustrated with the wait times at Sextus can make use of the smaller depots located in orbit here, but it's most commonly used by local shipping.

Redesignated Irkalla Moror. The former gas giant has dissipated entirely, leaving only the dense metal core to mark its passage. Even this has been knocked significantly off course, its orbit now highly elliptical.

This document was prepared by the Irkalla Tourism Board. We hope you enjoy your stay!

+++End of record.+++

Appearance: Daena is clearly a mutant, fully formed wings sprouting from her back. Even overlooking these, her form is distressing for most to look upon, blessed by a beauty beyond the human to the point that her perfection is inhuman. Over nine feet tall, her face is set with eyes of pure white, tresses the same color cascading down from her head. To some, she is an angel sent from on high, to others, an abomination of the human form, but to all it is clear that the giant woman is no ordinary human.

At peace she wears fine, if unornamented, robes appropriate for one one of high station, all such clothing tailored not just for her superhuman form but also the horror of her unwanted gift. At war she girds herself in finely wrought raiment, a suit of artificer armor that remains light enough for her to take flight unaided. She makes no attempt to hide the truth of herself in any arena, forcing the awe struck and the disgusted both to deal with the sight before them.



Personality: The Mistress of the XIVth is an impassive judge, a silent figure upon her high table, observing and weighing all. Her pronouncements are handed down with an iron surety, and it is said that only her father can dissuade her from a decision once she has made it. But beneath her iron countenance is a woman crushed by the weight of her office and the responsibilities it entails. Such is her compassion for mankind that she has been forced to kill her compassion itself, locking herself in the brutal calculus of death.

Those who she saves. Those who she will not save. Those whose lives she will spend. Those whose lives she will not spend. Those who she will kill. Those who she will not kill. Those who are saved because she killed they who would have killed in the future. Those who are not saved because she did not kill they who kill in the future. Each is assigned and weighted, awaiting the terrible doom to be given. What is one death to save one thousand? What is one thousand deaths to save one million? What is one million deaths to save one billion? What is damning one world to save ten? What is a xenocide to save all mankind?

To save one must kill. To kill is to deny salvation. But if each she sends to their death means the salvation of another, it is worth it. It is enough for a death to purchase a life, and the greatest tragedy for death to be in vain. By the same token, there is nothing more certain to rouse her wrath than wanton slaughter, no affront greater than a needless killing. Those who reject the infinite mercy of the Glorious Emperor of Humanity, be they man or xenos, are pitied as fools who bring death upon their own heads - who must be forced to submit and their leaders brought to account.

And yet, deep within her breast, one hope blazes. A dream. The conviction that it must be possible to save all.

Skills:

Flight: Though mutated, some use may be made of her infliction. The wings upon her back are fully functional, capable of lifting her into the air and enabling her to fly with shocking maneuverability. Such is their strength that she can even fly in full power armor, though she prefers a far lighter suit of artificer armor designed for her.

Resilience: Danae's mind and body both are difficult to break, the Primarch having been exposed to horrors beyond human comprehension before being rescued by the Emperor. Spikes of hard radiation and the sight of countless companions falling have both hardened her, and she is all but immune to both environmental hazards and psychological distress.

Inquest: Observation and evaluation are two sides of the same coin, and she has mastered both. With but a glance, she is able to determine the weak points in an opponent's armor, their relative strength compared to both herself and other foes, and determine how best to strike them down. Prolonged examination of a person, place, or problem permit her something close to true understanding, keen intuition filling in the blanks and providing a more or less accurate picture off of minimal information. Such insight is often combined with her psychic powers.

Deathsight: An irregular and not always desired psychic gift, Danae has the ability to gaze at any being with a soul and determine its manner of death. This is not true foresight, but instead the future most likely to occur with the clarity increasing as the event comes closer into being. Due to the lack of context provided with such visions, it is impossible to tell if actions taken in response to such information are truly averting the fate - or simply playing out as designed.

Decree Absolute: Rarely does the Primarch use this ability, but when she does woe betide all upon the field. Channeling the force of her own conviction, she pronounces a mighty doom with such force that all who hear it are convinced that not only should the judgement come to pass, but that it must. Armies and nations have been whipped into furor upon her word, never stopping until all is as was said or they lay dead.

Wargear:

Heavenly Raiment: A unique set of Artificer Armor, crafted by the command of the Emperor Himself to grant His daughter protection from all foes by the greatest masters of the Stargazers legion. Shockingly thin, it offers far more protection than it appears, made of sheets of auramite overlaid with a coating of silver and black adamantium. Should that outer covering be destroyed, the pure gold of the material that girds the Emperor's own Custodes would be revealed. Despite the great weight, it is rendered essentially weightless due to the installation of an abeyant, permitting Danae to fly unencumbered. As added protection, it incorporates a conversion field, dazzling all those who would dare land a blow upon the Primarch.

Lance of Judgement: Building upon the basic patterns of force staves and swords, Danae commissioned the creation of a force spear to her specifications by reforging her own weapon of Irkallan truesilver. The resulting weapon is both light and deadly, its blades sharp enough to pierce even the stoutest armor without the formidable psychic might of its wielder. In her hands, it is an instrument of death, ending the strongest of foes in a single strike.

Purgation: Appearing as a masterfully crafted inferno pistol, Danae has been seen to take impossibly distant shots with this sidearm. Closer examination reveals the truth, the "pistol" as large as a melta gun. Like all melta weapons, it is able to burrow through armor like so much tissue paper, showering the other side with molten death.

Assignment Grade: Delta. Though most associated with the discipline of divination due to her uncanny pronouncements, her ability with such powers is rather limited in comparison to true masters. Danae is most proficient with telepathy, using it as effortlessly as speech. Sending orders, reading minds, inspiring her followers, or simply striking down those who face her all within her capabilities.

Biography:

Biography

Incubation pod XIV was flung far from Terra, its course taking it deep into the Ultima Segmentum. Out upon the fringes of the galaxy is a lonely and scarred star, orbited by shattered rings of gas and dust - and one world that still bore life. Hurtling by the corpses of dead worlds, Danae's incubation pod crash landed upon the former mining world of Irkalla Tertius. Once a vital conduit of mineral wealth for teeming trillions, the scavenger clans of Irkalla are the descendants of foremen, technicians, and guards who once operated the automated digs.

Threatened by wildlife, other survivors mutated by the harsh environment, and the senseless depredations of automatons following nonsense orders, the people of Irkalla were loathe to approach the crashed pod. Eventually, a man with more courage than most came to see what fell from the sky, and upon recounting that it was a device that shone of metal avarice overcame fear. The scavengers fell upon the pod, keen to salvage its material for their own projects, only to discover a child inside. The fact that she was clearly a mutant complicated things less than might be expected, the clan simply sending her to live with the local witches, wyrds, and oracles living in the hulk of a defunct mass excavator the shadow of which loomed over the makeshift village.

Like all her siblings, she grew rapidly, absorbing every skill she was taught by those around her. Regrettably, she proved a second-rate prophet despite the best training, the growing child far too obstinate to introduce vagueness and flattery into her foretellings for them to seem 'genuine' to a planet accustomed to superstitions. Lest she bring disrepute to the seers around her with her penchant for only telling what she saw, the make shift temple assigned her to the guards. Austere figures bearing truesilver spears and cloaked in robes, the ranks of the guards were constantly worn down by the native wild life and their fellow man. While most who traveled to the great hulks of the mass excavators did so to beseech the wyrds who based themselves from that relic of a bygone age, there were always the foolish and greedy who sought to loot those tombs of the past.

It was while chasing down one such scavenger that then teenager awoke to her most accursed of gifts. Pursuing the thief deeper into the bulk of the dead god-machine then her fellows dared, wings unfurled and spear upright, she descended into a blackness so deep that even the senses of a Primarch were of little use. Her foe, armed with stolen archaeotech, was far less hindered and readied a killing strike against the guard. The vision that unfurled before her in that moment was unlike her attempts at divination, the path to victory shining bright in her mind's eye with an unnatural clarity - but it was not from her perspective. Instead young Daena foresaw herself swoop down upon out stretched wings and drive her spear into the chest of her enemy, through his own eyes. An abomination come from on high, the deliverance of justice, the angel of death.

Returning from the pits once filled with glimmering ore and untold riches, the guard was given the title of Deathseer and underwent the training to refine her newfound skill. Over the course of years, she found a way to see without sight, gazing into the swirling probabilities about everyone's soul and seize upon their terminus. For all men who live must one day die, all things that begin must in time end, and it was there, at the the cessation of possibility, that she was drawn. Despite her best efforts, she could never elevate her gift to the point of decreeing true fate - but in some ways that made her more valuable to the oracles. A warrior will pay more to know of a doom he can yet change than one which is set in stone after all. Indeed, the limitations on her sight were all likely preferable than perfect visions would be, for there is little more reassuring than being told that ones death is so distant no details can be parsed from what was seen.

The popularity of the 'Oracle of Death' soared across Irkalla as her predictions either came true, or even better, came just true enough for death to be thwarted. Such was Daena's fate never to conquer or unite her world, but instead to be viewed by the jostling techno-barbarians and scavenger clans as a valuable resource. The tribe that found her soon capitalized upon the fame of the angel who fell from the sky, their village quickly expanding to accommodate all those who wished to have their deaths seen. For nigh on a century this was the Primarch's life, accruing riches and power as she inevitably became mistress of the oracles and wyrds, her dominion stretching from their 'temple' to the growing city and the wastes beyond. While around her, chaos and death reigned, within her realm saw peace and a measure of prosperity. Slowly but surely, she began increasing her control, seeking to win without fighting and bring her peace to every soul.

Until the day she began to see her own death. She had first tried to do so as a child, shortly after her power first showed itself, and saw nothing. Decades passed with the woman occasionally daring to gaze into her own future, but the lack of response was so stunning she began to doubt if she could use her power on herself. And then she could. A sudden vision, brought forth by the innocuous act of looking herself in the mirror, of a purging light scouring her from existence. Troubled, she sent her servants and spies to discover if a new archeotech weapon had been discovered elsewhere on the planet, to no avail. Even more troubling was seeing that her closest companions seemed to suffer the same fate, and so she prepared herself for what was to come in the only way she could.

A grand convocation of every psyker with even the barest skill at divination was brought together, the assembly peering through the skeins of fate to find the bringer of their doom. When the truth was discovered, it is said that the oracles and prophets and wyrds and witches screamed in terror at the power of the being they witnessed, but Daena only whispered 'father' before dismissing those who had hurried to her side. Faced with the impossible might boring down upon them, the Primarch made no attempt to ready for war. It would make no difference either way.

When the Emperor came, his daughter recognized him and welcomed him to her home. Of what they spoke, little is known and much is rumored, but she agreed to stand by his side and bring his peace to the galaxy. Thwarting the fate she had seen, she boarded his ships of gold and reunited with her own gene-daughters, at last taking command of the XIVth. But the occasion was anything but a happy one. Discovered by a Stargazers fleet led by her brother, the stench of death hung heavy in the air and the number of her own Astartes was few. It is said that it was during these early days that she adopted her stoic countenance, but this is wrong. Far too astute to waste tears on the Stargazers in public, she nonetheless lamented the sacrifices they had made, and will make, alongside her own daughters.

It was only the beginning of her sorrows. Departing with the Emperor for her own Legion's main force, she found herself installed as Mistress of the XIVth halfway through the brutality of the Rangdan Xenocides. The deaths she foresaw for her own daughters, women greeting their Primarch and mother for the first time, etched themselves upon Daena's mind. Each Astartes who swore fealty to her, each who saluted her joyously at her finally having been found, each boasting during the grand feasts, each of her daughters who would suffer death and worse at her first commands - they were far too much to bear. Her closest confidants, the few she bothered to take with her from Irkalla, were the only ones permitted with her in private in those days, and whispers swirled that the Primarch was unable to command her own Legion. Feeling something on the verge of breaking inside of her, the telepathic woman took the step of reaching into her own mind to smother her emotions themselves, a state that rendered the superhuman far less than human more often than not.

Ordering her Legion forwards into the most wretched of wars with the cold efficiency of an automaton, she weighed the corpses made with each decision and picked the lighter side of the scale. Atrocity and slaughter were justified in the name of ending atrocity and slaughter, but even with her neutered emotions her daughters whispered that their mother wept at the sacrifices made at her command. Keeping to her resolve, the grim humor of the XIVth soon named her 'Doomsayer' - a name that stuck. Her reaction upon hearing the title given to her by her daughters is said to be one of the few times she smiled during the bio-pogroms, the Primarch ordering the Legion's name changed on the spot.

With the conclusion of the hellish conflict against the Rangdan, Daena and her Doomsayers retired to the rear echelons of the Grim Crusade, resuming the original mission of the XIVth. While the uncharitable whispered that she lacked the resolve of her sister Eiosha or the inhumanity of her brother Sarghaul, she dedicated herself to ensuring that Compliant worlds remained so. Installing herself as the highest judge on hundreds of worlds she ruled on matters of loyalty, treason, Compliance, and Tolerance, speaking with the authority of the Emperor himself.

The Meeting:

The Meeting

A streak of gold descended from the sky, tracing the same arc as Daena's silver pod had made so long ago, the Deathseer of Irkalla tensing as she strained to make out if it was the death she had foreseen. She relaxed when it came close enough to be seen clearly as a ship, her death would not come so impersonally at the least. Turning to the identical oracles kneeling behind her atop the great bulk of the mass excavator that was her home, she beckoned at them to follow her as she made her way back inside.

"Do you trust me?" she asked the twins, her wings fluttering to steady herself as she climbed inside of the hull.

"Of course, Deathseer," the pair said as one, walking in after her with an unnaturally smooth gait. "And to answer your next question, no, we do not know what happens after you order the visitor to be let inside. So, it makes perfect sense for us to trust you. We'll be blind in a few minutes anyway," they add.

She said nothing further as she flew down to the great hall that had once been.... she wasn't certain what it once was, but it was a suitably cavernous space to fit the supplicants and attendants that were par for the course when foreseeing a great hero's death. Seating herself down upon her throne, wings splayed, she made ready to wait until the inevitable arrived.

The oracles had told her what this day would bring, as much as they could, several times but nonetheless her pulse quickened when the guard knelt before her and made his report. "There is a man at the gate, my lady. He calls himself the Emperor and wishes an audience with you. It is as was said."

"The Emperor of what?"

"The.... Emperor of Humanity."

"That is a novel title..." The natives of Irkalla occasionally coalesced around strongmen and barbarians with a variety of ostentatious claims but this... felt different. She believed it.

Casting a glance at her personal seers for a moment, Daena gives the guard a nod. "Very well. Let him in. I do not think I have seen for an emperor before," she said, attempting to calm herself with levity - and also by going off script. Sometimes it felt good to defy fate, but she felt the glares from her oracles as she robbed them of the last certainty they had as their prescience was stolen from them but she paid it no mind. They'd get over it. Or they'd be dead.

A blinding light washed over the room as the doors opened, and for a moment she wondered if it was death after all, until her senses adjusted. Her eyes saw a gleaming figure, that much was true, a tall man in golden armor - but that is not what she saw. What she saw, what overwhelmed far more mundane sight, was the sheer number of possibilities radiating off of this Emperor - the sheer number of deaths. Sitting upon her throne, she saw a thousand thousand endings as he approached her, fate itself twisting and writhing with his every act. He was a locus of events, a place of many beginnings and many endings. And oh, he had so many endings.

She saw him die. She saw herself die. She saw those around her die. She saw those she never met die. But not once did the deaths stay the same.

The man, a flaming sword in hand, severing her head. Her, forcing her spear deep inside of his breast. The man, a gold tipped claw piercing her heart. Her, falling from the sky as impossible figures tore her apart. Her, leading the same against him. A winged man, his spine broken. A wise man, turning to dust. Armies killing at her command. Armies dying at her word. Worlds cracking. Cities starving. The stars burning. The man, a living a corpse, dying over the course of ten thousand years upon a throne of gold.

And then he came to a stop before her and the future vanished from her sight.

"Daena io Azrael. The Angel of Death. Deathseer of Irkalla." He spoke in statements, a man used to obedience. Perhaps a man deserving it.

Composing herself upon her throne, she regarded this Emperor clearly for the first time. He was tall, taller than even herself, and possessed the same impossible perfection. A word blossomed in her mind, once lost in the chaos and frenzy of visions, surfacing once more.

"Father."

"You know why I have come then."

"I know enough. I have seen enough."

"Then shall you join me?" he asked, and in that moment the sight of her death was never clearer. To answer no would to invite utter destruction, for her father had no need for truculent children.

"A question, father, I beg of you," she said, raising a hand as if to ward off the fate that was creeping closer and closer. The Emperor gave only a nod in reply, but that was enough. "Do you think we can actually succeed?"

A long silence stretched out as the two superhumans stared at one another, the vision of her death fading away the longer he thought on her question. When his answer finally came, it was not a surprise. The same will to demand obedience seemed to apply to the galaxy itself.

"We must, Daena. For all mankind."

Fluttering down from her throne, she presented herself on bent knee to him, staring up into his eyes as she supplicated her twisted body before him. "Then I am yours, if you shall have me, oh Emperor mine." Oh murderer mine.

Legion

Legion Name: Doomsayers, formerly known as the Judicators

Legion Number: XIV

Legion Strength: 200,000 Astartes

Armour Appearance

A Lady Commander of the Doomsayers in Mk IV Armor.


A Doomsayer Praetorian in Mk II Armor, so rare are Mk IVs within the ranks of the XIVth Legion that even its Honor Guards are not fully outfitted with them.


A Doomsayer Veteran.


A Doomsayer Tactical Marine.


A Doomsayer member of the Revenant Wing.

Warcry: "We are the final judgement!" was the Legion's original warcry, "Your doom comes!" has become increasingly popular since the adoption of the Doomsayer name.

Dramatis Personae

• Legion Mistress Vairya Kurus: The first and only leader of the Judicators before reunification with Daena, she was granted the honor of retaining her title and now serves as second in command of the Legion. As the effective executive officer of the Doomsayers, she serves as head of the Praetorate and is tasked with ensuring that the needs of the Legion are met.
• Equerry Yekterina Ascania: Equerry to the Primarch, one of the last Terran Astartes who fought with the Legion before Daena's rediscovery. The Primarch values her relative youth and her ability to consider both Terran and Irkallan influences upon the Legion, and often consults her for a fresh view of proposed changes.
• Praetor Primus Asha io Qaphsiel: Head of Daena's personal bodyguard, one of the few Irkallan Marines raised to the Praetorate in any capacity. Raised within the temple that the Primarch herself dwelt in, she was in training to become a guard when the Emperor arrived. Swept into the stars and transformed into an Astartes, she quickly won acclaim as a warrior and was soon gifted an intricate silver spear of the same make as her Primarch's own and inducted into her guard.
• Lady Commander Livia Kastrioti: Commander of the First Chapter, a Terran born warrior who partook in smothering the last embers of the Unification Wars. Even as other Legions set out across the galaxy under the command of the Emperor and his generals, a great bulk of the Doomsayers remained behind within Sol and upon Terra itself to ensure that the hard won peace was kept.
• The Two Hundred: Ladies Commander of the Doomsayers, undisputed mistresses of the Legion's two hundred or so Chapters. The Lady Commander of the First Chapter is often considered the first among equals in their number, but the best that Livia could hope to accomplish is advising her sisters in arms. These operational commanders are trusted with and accustomed to independent command, and each is a fearsome warrior in her own right.
• Librarus Spenta io Raziel: The senior-most Irkallan Marine within the Legion, Spenta is the Chief Librarian of the Doomsayers and in many ways a mirror of her Primarch. Granted a limited form of Deathsight, the legacy of her gene-mother has also transformed her hair and eyes a stark white. Formerly a junior oracle within Daena's temple, she was one of the few witches of that place deemed both stable and young enough for transformation into an Astartes.
• Mistress of the Forge Elise Hohenheim: Born to a family of engineers in the confederation of orbital habitats and moons around the great gas giant Saturn, Elise was a girl when the Saturnyne Ordo was brought into Compliance with the Imperium. Her technical aptitude was noticed immediately after her induction into the Legion, the new Astarte sent to Mars for training as a Techmarine in accordance with the Treaty of Mars. To say her religious indoctrination did not stick would be an understatement, the entirety of the Legion's Techmarines at best paying lip service to the Omnissiah. The arrival of her Primarch and the Emperor's decree that the XIVth was exempt from the provisions of the treaty was a relief, and the highest ranking Techmarine of the Doomsayers has worked to ensure that true believers within her ranks are kept content.
• Lord Engineer Gustav Hohenheim: Twin brother of the Mistress of the Forge, he originally followed a vastly different career path than his sister, becoming an engineer involved in the manufacture of the Solar Auxilia's fearsome Void Armor. His skills soon granted him a name of his own, and though some may decry his appointment as nepotism, few would question his abilities to his face. Serving alongside his twin as head of the non-Astartes scientists and engineers attached to the Legion, he performs much the same role of a Mechanicum representative within other Legions.
• Navigator-Plenipotentiary Ramalies Pytheas: An ancient house of the Navis Nobilite that predates the Imperium itself, House Pytheas has served the Emperor since the days of the Unification Wars. Ramalies is himself a veteran Navigator who has served with the XIVth since it was founded, eventually rising to the august post of Navigator-Plenipotentiary of the Legion. Charged with coordinating the secretive Navigators with their Astartes mistresses, and senior-most of their number, he is arguably the most powerful person in the ranks of the Doomsayers other than the Primarch herself.

Legion Organization

The Doomsayers are unique among the Legions for retaining almost all aspects of their original character, including the Terran Standard organizational template laid down by the Officio Militaris at their founding. The Legion with the Primarch and Lady Commander at its head is divided into Chapters, nominally composed of one thousand Astartes, led by a Lady Commander. Chapters are further subdivided into two Battalions of five hundred, led by Lieutenant Commanders, which are then broken down into Companies of one hundred each under the authority of a Company Captain. A Company is composed of four platoons led by Lieutenants - three line platoons and a support platoon. The line platoons consist of two standard tactical squads of approximately ten Astartes, with an attached support squad of another five, comprising roughly a fourth of the Company's fighting power. Finally, the support platoon is the home of heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and their maintenance and operational personnel.

Under the original dictates of the Officio Militaris, each Chapter was expected to be able to not just fight alone, but operate independently for indeterminate periods of time. The Ladies Commander of the Doomsayers are still granted this awesome right, and each is in command of not only a thousand Legionaries but an entire fleet with which to transport them. As a result, the full might of the Legion is almost never brought to bear, its Chapters strewn throughout the galaxy. A common deployment pattern of the Doomsayers is for a Chapter to be dispatched to a collection of worlds nominally brought under Compliance, but considered too militant or technologically advanced to leave loosely guarded. Dividing up her Companies, the Lady Commander sprinkles garrisons across potentially rebellious planets, ensuring that their populaces remain Compliant. In this way the Legion not only gains battlefield experience through the more typical assignments given to an Astartes, but that of peacekeeping and administration as well.

Perhaps even more shocking however is that the Legion remains comprised, at least on paper, almost entirely of Terran born stock. Originally raised from warriors of the Achaemenid Empire, a coalition of tribes who swiftly swore fealty to the Emperor, and recruiting further afield as Unification wore on, the Legion maintained its original raising grounds even after reunification with its Primarch. Though partly done out of need, there were few both strong enough and with pure enough genes on Irkalla to replace the influx of Terran Marines, it was also served a convenient secondary purpose. The militant tribes of Terra, those of Albia and Meric and Ursh, were keen for martial glory even centuries after Unification, and service in the Legiones Astartes proved an adept release valve for such hunger. Though the Legion has also taken to recruiting from the worlds it garrisons, it keeps itself to a strict policy of only accepting volunteers from not only these planets but Irkalla and Terra as well.

This results in an intake rate that some functionaries of the nascent Administratum find impossibly low considering the standing strength of the Legion in recent years. Indeed, much of the Legion's history seems deliberately obscured, the XIVth nearly doubling in size after the Rangdan Xenocides, an event coinciding with the creation of the Revenant Wing, a rapid strike force utterly at odds with standard Doomsayer doctrine. Every member is a veteran of those grim days, and seem to hurl themselves at death with a wild abandon, charging headlong into the heart of the enemy's forces. Marines of the Revenant Wing act so contrary to the typical behavior of the Doomsayers that some whisper they are not members of the XIVth at all, but that is of course merely conjecture.

The arguably greater variation that the Doomsayers have taken from the Legion norm is their refusal to induct their Techmarines into the Martian Mechanicum. Having remained in Sol far longer than the other Legions ensuring the Compliance of the Selenar gene-cults of Luna and the tech-enclaves of the Saturnyne Ordo without which the Crusade itself might flounder, they become linked not only with these independent scientific minds but also the Terran researchers of the Emperor himself. For decades this was an informal affair, the Legion operating with Imperial scientists and recruiting technically inclined women from Saturn's habitats while still obeying the tenets of the Treaty of Mars. It was upon Daena's rediscovery by the Stargazers that change was truly wrought, the Emperor decreeing that the Doomsayers were exempt from the requirement to have their Astartes technicians be members of the Cult. The motivation behind this proclamation is still unclear, some contending that it was requested by the Primarch herself due to her zealous adoption of the Imperial Truth, while others whisper that it was the Emperor's way of 'balancing the scales' due to having two of his sons so tightly tied to the Mechanicum. Regardless of the rationale, the number of Mechanicum Techmarines in the XIVth, always low, has been permitted to stagnate, their losses replaced by secular scientists trained on Terra, Luna, and around Saturn.

Battlefield Role

Where other Legions have a tendency to adopt particular styles of battle, the Doomsayers seem to almost consciously reject such specialization. Serving as a reserve and garrison force prior to Daena's discovery, the Primarch has made almost no alterations to the Legion's order of battle with the notable exception of the Revenant Wing. Able to fight any conflict, but lacking true mastery, they are the consummate second line, ready to engage in any emergency that may develop without obvious weak points.

Their greatest weakness is a lack of speed - where a Legion such as the Lurkers can immediately enter amphibious operations, the Doomsayers must first prepare themselves for such a battlefield. But this is in a sense also their greatest strength, for the patience required to observe and understand an enemy, to determine the best means by which they ought to be destroyed, have taught them secrets more forthright Legions have ground into the dust of history. Where the Serpents or the Dreadlords would erase their foe utterly, the Doomsayers pore over their ruins and lore, and have amassed a great trove of knowledge.

While the other Legions have grown and evolved, tailoring their wargear to their tastes, the Doomsayers have remained strangely static, utilizing to a woman almost the same equipment that they left Terra with. Mark II Power Armor and Volkite weaponry have yet to be replaced in any significant numbers with Mark IVs or bolters due to lack of wear - the latter of great significance to the Legion's secret councils. While upon the surface the Legion may seem strangely inactive, even indolent, its Primarch is watchful for threats that could threaten the entire Imperium. Spurred on by the harsh lessons of the Rangdan Xenocides, the Doomsayers have dedicated themselves to the eradication of enemy psykers - and the culling of enthralled Astartes. The darkest rumors contend that these have already been put to good use.

Legion Characteristics and Ideology

When the XIVth was reunited with its mistress, there was surprisingly little discord between them. Serving as the Emperor's magistrates and peacekeepers, the Judicators had already begun to see themselves as the Imperium's shield, and so the ideological drive of their Primarch to preserve human life was well received. Where other, more bellicose, Legions find war to be glorious, Daena and her daughters view it as a means to an end and zealously work to enact the Emperor's justice and peace upon the galaxy.

To that end, the Doomsayers dedicate themselves not just to martial vigor, but make a study of all aspects of humanity. Senior officers are expected to not only be strategic thinkers, but to have a working understanding of both the Administratum and the Lex Imperialis. The countless worlds throughout the galaxy that play host to a garrison from the XIVth often see the officer in charge place herself as both chief judge and bureaucrat, handling matters of justice and taxation if more appropriate Imperial officials are lacking. Dedicating themselves not just to humanity's expansion, but to the idea of humanity, it is no surprise that the XIVth's fleets have one of the largest concentrations of Remembrancers, Iterators, and Elucidators of any of the Legions.

As stalwart believers in the Emperor's vision of a united mankind free of superstition, every member of the Legion is versed in the dictates of the Imperial Truth and scorn the worship of any God. Senior elements of the Legion, the Primarch included, have however began to wonder if the Emperor has kept silent on matters of great import, for the writings of cast down foes paint a picture of a foe that the Truth would render humanity utterly ignorant of if they were true. What even those doubters do hold as firm as any faith however is that if the gods spoken of in the rantings of the insane and superstitious truly do exist, then it is their duty to eliminate them from the universe.

Such dreams of utter extermination are not held towards all of humanity's foes however, the Legion viewing the Edict of Tolerance as a wise and prudent measure. The ultimate expression of xenocide would result in war unending, costing the lives of countless scores of humanity. Altogether better to end a war peacefully and increase the power of the Imperium than waste it on a foolish notion of purity. These notions compound upon one another - for if there are no gods, if only reason prevails, then it must be that any species with which one may reason can come to accept the Emperor's peace.

Internally, the Legion has relatively few cultural markers imposed or influenced by their Primarch or her geneseed, the melange of Terran tribes predominant in its place. Two massive exceptions do exist however. The first, and by far the more important, is the Legion's outlook upon death. Influenced both by the thoughts of their Primarch, and the preponderance of psykers who develop abilities similar to her Deathsight, it is believed that one's death will come when it comes, and that it is the duty of every member of mankind to face it well. As a result, the XIVth has a remarkably small number of Dreadnoughts, the honor reserved only for those who deserve to face death twice. The second is driven entirely by Daena's genetic legacy, with a significant proportion of all Legion aspirants developing either the whited out eyes or white hair of their Primarch - some developing both.

Other than these markers of their Primarch's influence, compared occasionally to that of the Lions Illustris, the Doomsayers have a rather stable geneseed. Astartes of the XIVth tend to be more likely than average to develop psychic ability, and often develop on the shorter end of superhuman, resembling baseline humanity more than even their other sisters. This suits their tendencies quite nicely, their immense scale granting them immediate awe and respect without appearing inhuman.

This embrace of the human does not end there, for the Legion does not just permit but instead requires its Astartes to maintain mundane relationships. Developed from the martial tribal culture of the Terran techno-barbarians that swelled the ranks of the XIVth, the idea that a warrior would leave her family behind has always been anathema to the Doomsayers. The glory hungry tribes went so far as to preserve the gametes of aspirants to the Legion, ensuring that their gene line could continue if the Legionnaire went to prove her worth. Daena did not just tolerate this, but expanded it after taking control of her Marines, standardizing the process so that all under her command could have a mundane child if they so desired. The first of only two stipulations is that such a woman be a mother in truth to her children, and the Doomsayer's children travel with the fleets like any other child of the Crusade. The second is that it is forbidden for the father to be another Astartes, the concept considered both incestuous and rather besides the point.

Relationships

• The Emperor: It is unclear what the Master of Mankind thinks of the XIVth, with just as many whispering that he favors them as that he despises them. Kept far from the front lines for most of its history, and when brought to the fore rarely permitted to leave His side, it was assumed for centuries that He held distrust towards the abilities of its warriors. Yet, the missions they were entrusted with were of the utmost importance, often quelling rebellions within the heart of the Imperium that could spell disaster for the Crusade had they been left unchecked. In the quietest of councils however, it is rumored that the Emperor grows concerned with the knowledge the Legion has begun to amass.
• Malcador and the Administratum: The Doomsayers are the Sigilite's favorite Legion almost by default, being as they are one of the few among the Astartes who think to care for the needs of the Administratum and his Order Elucidatum. Malcador frequently makes use of the Legion for his more irregular activities as well, knowing that the XIVth are always willing to assist entreaties from the civilian government. The Doomsayers often receive reports sooner and are able to receive what they need far easier from the Imperial bureaucracy, an advantage that is often overlooked.
• The Imperial Army: Taken as a whole, the Exercetus Imperialis have no small measure of awe and respect towards the Doomsayers, a respect that is often mutual - especially among the regiments of the Solar Auxilia and the Old Hundred. Loathe to waste human life, the Doomsayers refuse to throw the regiments of the Army into the meat grinder, a fact known and treasured by both officers and enlisted alike. Members of the Solar Auxilia raised from Saturn have a special affection for the XIVth, more than a few military families having a daughter within its ranks.
• The Mechanicum: The Priests of Mars do not particularly like nor dislike the XIVth Legion, instead viewing them with something altogether different and in many ways worse: utter indifference. Categorizing the Doomsayers as a Legion of least concern, most Mechanicum resources are diverted to ensuring the smooth operation of the other Astartes. Though of little issue at the moment, the Legion's own Techmarines more than sufficient for routine maintenance, there is notable lack of Tech-Priests among its fleets. It is considered likely that this is the Primarch's own doing, her initial exposure to the Mechanicum via the Stargazers seeding a distaste for the only religious body permitted within her father's Imperium. Surprisingly, the Mechanicum cares little for not receiving Techmarines from the Legion, more conservative magi contending that such were borderline hereteks to begin with. So long as all other provisions of the Treaty of Mars are followed, including the timely delivery of rediscovered STCs and the approval of new technologies, both parties seem content pretending the other does not exist.
• The Navis Nobilite: Few Space Marines engage with the affairs of the Navigators, but for the unusual deployment of the Doomsayers it is a necessity. Compacts have been forged with a slew of Houses for the services of their sons and daughters, for each Chapter of the Legion is expected to be able to traverse the Warp on its own - requiring an immense number of Navigators.
• Other Legions: The XIVth has kept itself aloof from the affairs of its brother and sisters even before its Primarch was discovered, its typical duties seeing them fight alongside the Imperial Army far more than other Legions. Where they did interact, it was at best for the duration of a campaign as emergency reinforcements before leaving once more. Daena saw no reason to alter this state of affairs, a decision that proved wise in the wake of the Rangdan Xenocides, a grueling era of war that saw the Doomsayers slay scores of fellow Astartes.

New Man's Tomorrow(Solar NRP)

Olympus Mons, Mars
The Olympic Palace

The Presidium of the All-Martian Congress of Soviets
Sol Martis, Mina 10, 1186 ATO

The Olympic Palace was a feat of Imperial architecture, and paranoia. Nestled upon the soaring majesty of Olympus Mons, it was the home of the Princes of Mars for generations until the Collapse and Martian Revolution. Now, as then, workers making their way to the great space elevator that rose into the heavens. But unlike in centuries past, now they looked upon a true palace of the people, where all were welcome.

Still, it was rare for an ambassador of any nation to be invited to the seat of Martian power, the meeting place of the Supreme Soviet, and account for the actions of their nation. For Ambassador Anisa M’bala, it was at least not a surprise. The actions of the Technate were not subtle, and the soviets were clamoring for an explanation.

Anisa had not long been formally appointed Ambassador, though her predecessor's work had more than calmed the way for her to assume the position without much difficulty. Coming up the diplomatic service from the Pan-Bantu Technate on Earth, there was some familiarity in Mars, for she had seen their culture and society at work in North Africa, and of course, it had granted some basis for her initial posting here. The Martian State was often a curiosity to most of the Technate’s upper, and she gathered, lower, echelons - and it still held elements of such to her, but time had bred familiarity. One hoped it would never breed contempt.

Over two hundred years ago, the Hall of the People was once a ballroom for the highest of imperial nobility to dance and scheme with one another. Now, it was a vast and foreboding chamber, with a grand dias at one end upon which the members of the Presidium sat with a far less imposing table and chair for Ambassador M’bala. She was forced to walk beneath a gallery of portraits, the visages of long dead revolutionaries lining the walls along with the everpresent red banners. The only sign of the room’s former grandeur were the ornate marble floors and glittering chandeliers, the grand imperial seal at the hall’s end replaced by the red banner of Mars.

“Ambassador M’bala, welcome. We have much to discuss with you. In the interests of time, I hope you will forgive the lack of formalities,” Premier Keqiang began. “The Technate is expanding their defensive perimeter. Explain this.”

Anisa inclined her head and responded. “I will forego a need for a request of specificity, as I would not be called here if the affairs of Lunar orbit were a pressing concern for the Presidium, the Technate Custodial Fleet is undertaking a program to solidify the current existing patrolled corridor of space utilized by Lunar mining expeditions, whilst the total details are not privy to myself, I am aware that stationary emplacements are likely to be employed as a means to reduce the amount of “raw fleet power” I quote, being deployed to this corridor.”

“The Technate intends to permanently declare a corridor of space between Luna and the Belt its own, and employ static fortifications to enforce this?” a Presidium member on one wing of the dias asked, inclining her head incredulously.

Anisa smiled pleasantly, before responding “The Presidium is no doubt aware that the Technate has been patrolling this area of space, at length, enforcing Technate mercantile law - which we understand most parties to find fair, for some time now. This is an extension of what is a matter of fact. We have been doing this alone at a time of continued civil and military unrest that has enabled the entrenchment of not insignificant raider and pirate activity, not to mention the preditations of particular powers in the system. It is now the policy of the Directorate of the Technate and the Custodial Fleet that enforces this control that the current cost in mobile assets is too high to not take this course of action. Particularly when Lunar, and, if we may, the security of a considerable portion of the Earth’s orbit falls entirely upon our Custodians as well.” Anisa paused for a moment, taking a quick glance at the members of the Presidium before continuing.

“Further, we would note that a secure shipping corridor from Luna to the Belt does not infringe directly upon Martian sovereignty, and would indeed offer exactly this, a secure shipping route for Martian merchant craft. As you know, the Technate does not enforce tariffs for vessels that do not dock at or engage in commercial activity with Technate facilities. As has been the case for nearly 200 years, we continue to provide much needed security in the Inner System in a more than fair, transparent and just manner.”

“The Technate has always had a habit of making even the most outlandish suggestions sound… logical,” the Presidium member who spoke replied, nodding her head softly at Anisa’s explanation. With a sigh, she waved her hand towards the center of the dias, the premier taking up her gavel with an expectant look in her eyes.

“On the condition that the corridor remains open to Martian shipping, and that of our fraternal republics, I see no reason to oppose the Technate’s actions. Are there any who stand opposed in light of Ambassador’s M’bala’s explanation?” Ivanova asked, followed by a period of silence and then the echoing sound of the gavel coming down upon the dias. “It is decided then. But this is not the only reason we wished to speak with you, ambassador. Comrade Eisen, if you would.”

A thin Red sitting next to the Premier looked up at Anisa, and began to speak. “Ambassador M’bala, it is no secret that the Technate is home to some of the greatest minds within Panhumanity. As the mysteries of Sol Security have inspired generations of study on Mars, we know that the same is true of the Moon. Therefore, in the interests of all sentient beings, I ask that the Technate join with us in correcting the defect that plagues the system so that it might truly serve as a guardian for all mankind.”

Anisa took a moment to consider a response, a small distant voice in the back of her mind taking her attention, if only for a moment. Anisa most certainly was not a Hecatoncheires, but like most Technate citizens she had numerous implants, and in the service, it paid dividends to be linked into the system - and Mars was important enough that there was a local connection. “Firstly, thank you for your praise, while the Presidium may have some certain things to say about our forebear corporations, one cannot deny their ability to pool talent that we have been able to draw from and emulate since the Technate’s creation.”

Anisa’s face turned more serious, as she continued. “In regards to “SolSec”, if you may allow me the contraction, we may have a convergence in opinion that would allow the pursuance of a joint task force to pool our ability to study the AI. There may be more I personally could share on behalf of the Directorate, however, such matters would not be able to be discussed in public, that is to say, on Presidium record.”

“I see. That is a very irregular request, Ambassador. However, your comments are promising, and we understand the need for state secrecy. Let the record show that we have stopped recording on behalf of the Technate, and that specifics are placed under seal until such time that they are not a threat to the Revolution. Are there any opposed?” the Premier asked, once more raising her gavel.

“Comrade Keqiang, let the record show my disapproval of so readily agreeing to closing official proceedings.”

“Your disapproval is noted, Comrade Langenbach. There is a majority in favor. The record has been sealed. Continue, Ambassador.”

“Thank you, Premier Keqiang, and thank you to the Presidium, I understand some of the concerns you may have, but this is a matter that very few outside of the Directorate and high ranking diplomatic staff are generally permitted to disclose, let alone be fully aware of.” Anisa began, taking a brief moment to collect her thoughts, and continued.

“You are aware that there is a fully sapient and independent AI acting within the Sol System, of course, that is known to us as Talus. Their primary function of course is pre-eminently of military nature, though it has since become somewhat more, and in our neighbourhood has become a not inconsequential and eminently dangerous cult leader, if you’ll forgive the quaint summary. I expect some of you are also aware that your own Intelligence Community has a number of pertinent questions when it comes to the Technate’s own publicly disclosed AI programme. As such, considering its relevance to this matter I am officially, although off public record, disclosing the existence of a sapient, unshackled AI present within the Technate, that has been operational since prior to the existence of the Technate itself and that is, as far as we are aware, of next generation inception and creation when compared to Talus and SolSec. However, we must press that this AI is not of a military nature.”

Silence fills the chamber as the Presidium members digest this revelation, before their eyes turn towards Comrade Eisen who nods as he accepts the unspoken order. “Yes, Ambassador. I understand why you would wish this revelation to be off the record. An unshackled AI that predates the Technate itself is… an interesting revelation to say the least. As I am sure you know, it is the official policy of Mars that Talus is a sentient being as deserving of rights as any other member of Panhumanity, and that it is just as capable of working great horror as any other. We extend this same consideration to the entity within the Technate, and I will personally note with great relief that it seems the being whose secrecy you have kept for so long has been far more friendly than Talus. Considering that it possesses its own free will, we would petition it to aid us in understanding, and repairing, SolSec. If I may, how does it refer to itself?”

Anisa knew the Martian’s were most likely the least to be particularly bothered by the particulars of the revelation, but she quietly released a breath she did not know she had been holding, letting it flow into her response. “Gaea has retained the naming convention of her project codename, and goes by that name. As noted in my choice there, she has also orientated to a gender matching the mythological namesake. I have no doubt that she would be happy to share a brief overview of her scope and capabilities, though I doubt intimate technical details, at a suitable time. While there is some delay, of course, with her primary self, there is a local connection built from her core technology present in the Technate Embassy to provide immediate advice and intermediate query responses, though it is itself a pale imitation. What I can disclose is that Gaea was initially, shall we say unfortunately, given prevailing attitudes present, property of one of our parent corporations. That status has of course, been rectified.”

The Presidium looks far more tense at the revelation that the AI was once considered property than they had at being told that it existed, the members taking their time to relax at M’bala’s last statement. “...very well. Comrade Eisen, I nominate you to serve as the Presidium’s liaison to Gaea,” Premier Keqiang says, half raising her gavel before stopping and turning her attention back to the ambassador. “If such is acceptable, of course.”

Anisa nodded an affirmation. “Your appointment has no objection from the Technate.”

The gavel rings out again, and Ivanova nods. “We thank you for your time, Ambassador M’bala. It would be greatly appreciated if you could provide all necessary materials to Comrade Eisen so we may begin cooperating. Hopefully, together we shall discover a peaceful resolution to the crises represented by both SolSec and Talus. Never forget that our goal is the happiness of all mankind, our digital children included.”

“The Embassy will forward all pertinent information to move forward on this issue within the next standard lunar day.” Anisa responded, awaiting final dismissal.

“That is all then, again, our thanks. Let the record show that this meeting of the Presidium has adjourned.”

New Man's Tomorrow(Solar NRP)

Olympus Mons, Mars
The Olympic Palace

The Presidium of the All-Martian Congress of Soviets
Sol Lunae, Mina 9, 1186 ATO

Unlike the freewheeling debates - and excessive commentary - that characterized meetings of the Soviets both high and low, the Presidium met in person and retained the right to do so privately. It was one rarely exercised, but considering the news reports of the past few hours the Martian people frankly expected that they would confer without the live chats and cameras. Which did not stop the chattering Communists from discussing what they would do if they were in control, VR and plaintext forums filled with the thoughts of the Red Planet's 1.6 billion souls. And beneath it all was the unspoken promise, the unspoken threat, that if the Presidium's response erred too far from what that churning mass of panhumanity eventually decided on as appropriate every single member of that esteemed body would have to find a real job.

Ivanova smirked at that thought, finally freed from her wandering mind as she took in the room. It was long ago, longer than any living Panhuman had lived, the grand audience chamber of the Prince of Mars, but draped now in the red banner. Here, a Prince had declared himself Emperor, never to return from his demented quest. But that was the past, and there was history being made now.

"Comrade Keqiang? I couldn't quite catch that," a soft voice said, a baseline human man physically taking notes. Such was the secrecy of the session that automated recorders had been forbidden, and a Presidium member duly elected to serve as Secretary for the duration.

"My apologies, Comrade Langenbach," she replied after a deep sigh. "As I'm sure you are all aware, history is marching ever onward, and once more the volksgeist is made manifest. The Ustran proletariat calls out, the mistakes made with the Belt shall not occur again. This time, history will unfold as it ought and neither reactionary nor liberal shall stand in the way. Not this time. Our comrades in the Socialist Ustraian Party but await the hour, and we shall rush to their aid. Before such an hour occurs however.... 'Sometimes, history needs a push'," she quoted, to nods from the other members of the Presidium. "Comrade Camus?"

"Of course, Comrade Keqiang. Our contacts in Ustra have made significant advances arming those possessed of sufficient revolutionary potential, and our cadres in training are advancing smoothly. Additionally, we are exploring the possibility of providing munitions to the lumpenproletariat, a recommendation shall be made to the Presidium after we've discerned the extent of that particular class's reactionary tendencies within the Ustran context," she said in a gravelly voice. Camus was an orc, the Jovian creations having found their way to Mars in due time. For her, the liberation of the Ustran working class was as much a matter of history as self pride.

"Very well. Let us forestall any further discussion until we receive news from Ustra or Comrade Camus. Moving on, I have already been briefed by the Committee of State Security in the ministerial meeting prior to this on the Lunar affair, I trust you all have been similarly informed. Comrade Langenbach, add the report to the record if you would. Presently, the Technate appears to be reinforcing their zone of control in orbit of Luna, but we have reason to believe they do not intend to stop there. Presently, we are not entirely certain of their goals, but the Committee finds it doubtful they will be harmful to the Republic. Therefore, I propose that we invite the Technate ambassador to explain the situation. All in favor?" Ivanova pronounced, a chorus of ayes answering her. "Opposed?" To which there was only the sound of silence.

"Comrade Keqiang, on the matter of the Technate, we have been mulling a proposal," another man spoke up, a thin Red. Receiving the Premier's silent nod, he duly continued. "It concerns Sol Security. I have worked with the Special Committee, and I believe we are nearing the fullest extent of our understanding of its systems. At least, as far as we may without further examination of its network ourselves. The Technate however ought to have a sounder basis, and we see no reason why they would not wish to collaborate with us on this matter."

"In favor?" Yet another chorus of ayes. "Opposed?" And again, silence.

"Very well, Comrade Eisen. You shall discuss the matter with the Technate's ambassador after we have resolved the present matter. Comrade Langenbach, record the end of the meeting, we are adjourned," Ivanova pronounced. The Secretary made the final notes on his minutes before stowing them away. Not a single member of the Presidium made to leave the room.

"Our formal business has concluded. What I speak of now shall go in no record, and if nothing comes of it, shall be nothing but sound lost in the wind. If we do decide to pursue this course of action, the record shall be sufficiently accurate for posterity. Am I understood?"

A tense silence filled the room at her statement, but none of the Presidium members were surprised. Private sessions of their meetings were rare in the extreme, and such unrecorded 'after meetings' were expected. Only now could the concerns of perception and politics be thrown aside, and the doctrinally unsound be massaged into an acceptable form.

"The Legion is a threat to all Panhumanity, that much I hope we all agree upon. Talus must be dealt with, and sooner rather than later. If possible, remedying its defective codebase would be the ideal solution, but we may be forced to turn to military means." A deep intake of breath, not just from the Premier, but the entire Presidium as they all braced for the other shoe to drop.

"I am proposing we send a diplomatic mission to Venus to entreat the Empress for an alliance against the Legion."

The resulting uproar would no doubt have made fantastic entertainment, almost as certainly as it would have toppled the entire Presidium. When the dust finally settled, the vote was narrow, but in favor. As consolation, the mission would be conducted in secret, and a rough proposal was sketched out for the mission to conduct itself on Earth where only the Mediterranean separated their borders. A missive was quickly prepared for transmission to Venus, encrypted with the most intensive of ciphers, to the Martian mission in the heart of the Empire. Naturally, a hardcopy was made for their matching number on Venus, the delivery deliberately delayed so that the Venusian representative on Mars would receive the message at the same time that the Martian representative on Venus was delivering it to the imperial palace.

A tightbeam message to Venus

Veturia Belletor-Gordian IV,

We have little in common, and less to talk of. But the current threat to all Panhumanity demands that even differences such as ours be set aside for the good of all.

It is clear to us that little of value can be gained by the passing of messages, but we will be blunt as to our goal. We wish to form a front in common cause against the Legion.

If such is to your liking, we would recommend a meeting on the island of Malta between your agents and our own to begin discussions.

The Presidium of the All-Martian Congress of Soviets

New Man's Tomorrow(Solar NRP)

Martian Soviet Socialist Republic (WIP)

_{Workers of all worlds, unite!}

Government Type

The Martian Soviet Socialist Republic (Martian SSR or rarely MSSR) is a soviet democracy assisted by specialist artificial intelligences in accordance with modern cybernetic and informatic theory. The building block of the Martian state is the soviet, a local council of directly elected and instantly recallable delegates. A Martian citizen will be in the electorate of at least two soviets, their residential district and their workplace, but may potentially vote for or even be elected to many more depending upon their education and hobbies. Assignments to soviets, the number of delegates a soviet is entitled to, and running elections for soviets are complicated tasks described in monolithic equations maintained and executed upon by a robust system of AIs, making the Martian model also a case of cyber democracy. A delegate to a soviet operates under a mandate that may be revoked at any time, triggering an immediate election that is typically resolved within the day.

A local soviet representing a factory, work place, or mathematically defined subsection of an intellectual community has complete executive and legislative power over its area of influence, save for anything that effects another soviet. Such areas of overlap are handled by having the constituent soviets elect delegates from their own ranks who then comprise a higher soviet. This is repeated across all facets of the state, culminating in the All-Martian Congress of Soviets, also known simply as the Martian Soviet.

At the apex of the Martian state is the Presidium, an executive committee elected by and within the Martian Soviet to handle day to day affairs. The Chair of the All-Martian Congress is, ex officio, Chair of the Presidium and is referred to as the Premier, the single most powerful official within the Republic. Parallel to the elected soviets is a professional bureaucracy tasked with implementing the will of the delegates. The paramount body of the bureaucracy is the Council of Ministers, with the Chair of the All-Martian Congress also, ex officio, holding the title of Prime Minister.

The same structures, in miniature, are duplicated upon Mars' terrestrial holdings - the territory legally speaking comprised of two sister republics in union with the Martian SSR. By far the more populous of the two is the Maghrebi Soviet Socialist Republic, the African nation acting almost entirely autonomously - except in regards to foreign affairs. In comparison the Saharan Soviet Socialist Republic is nothing more than a legal fiction, the land effectively governed by the Ministry of Terraforming - the same techniques restoring Mars used to greenify Earth's greatest desert.

Demographics

All of Panhumanity is welcome on Mars, and of the various forms mankind has taken the vast majority can be found on, beneath, or above its surface. Baseline humanity makes up perhaps a third of the population, mostly descended from those who immigrated from earth after terraforming had been well under way. A slim majority is made up of the so-called original Martians, or Reds, who trace themselves back to one of the earliest offshoots of humanity.

A Red

Designed so early as to not have a formal name, the process that created the Reds was above all steeped in practical concerns. A suite of genetic tweaks permitted them to survive indefinitely on the original surface of Mars in only a pressure suit without the need to carry external air or heavy layers of insulation. The modifications made that saw them require far less oxygen, as well as being far more tolerant of carbon dioxide are effectively invisible, aside from cases of hyperoxia in Earth like atmospheres, but the last change is anything but subtle. A high dependence upon iron was purposefully engineered, the metal exceedingly common on the surface, with the excess deposited upon the outer layer, giving them red skin.

Economy

Industry is the beating heart of the new Mars, the past two centuries having rapidly rebuilt what was lost in the civil war. Centrally planned and managed by teams of panhuman economists and AIs from the Ministry of Development, the Martian Miracle saw a planet devastated by the whims of nobles come roaring back to life. Information theory is at the heart of this management, with the daily output of individual factories scrutinized by both man and machine to maximize production. In this way, the three great goals of the Martian state shall come to pass.

Defend the revolution.
Already, the Martian People's Navy stands ready upon its base at Deimos, and every day its strength grows. The labor of millions working tirelessly have created a massive network of fortresses and defense batteries. Almost every Martian knows someone who is directly involved in the production of weapons of war.

Establish a workers' paradise.
With the fall of the Empire, and the Martian nobility fleeing to other worlds in the solar system, great surplus capacity that had once gone to the vanity and gluttony of the ruling class became available to all. The same vineyards and fields that provided bounty to banquets are still worked, if they survived the Collapse at least, but now open to all to consume. Arts and culture began to flourish anew after the first decades of chaos had passed, and though few Martians live in luxury, all are comfortable.

Resume terraforming.
The great effort of centuries to terraform Mars was undone in moments by the horrors unleashed during the collapse, and only recently has agriculture started to return to where it was under the Empire. It is a bitter irony that only the great death of the war ensured the battered biosphere was able to feed the remaining the Martians. The last domes and caverns were reopened within living memory, but even so the work continues.

Military

The Martian People's Army and Martian People's Navy comprise the military, the former the older but far less funded of the two services.

Born in the Dhanus Revolution, the People's Army fought for and won the liberation of the Martian worker. Today however it is little more than a garrison force, the vast majority of its personnel operating the great surface to orbit batteries that defend Mars from any attack. It is a point of pride, and official propaganda, that the Army is utterly incapable of occupying any other stellar power. Indeed, the only force that is even properly equipped for ground fighting is on Earth, defending the Maghrebi and Saharan Soviet Socialist Republics from imperialist powers.

Though the chaos of the collapse and revolution saw the Martian state acquire numbers of warships, it was only recently that a formal navy was constituted. With the restoration of the biosphere permitting work beyond that necessary for survival, shipyards that had lain dormant for generations were pressed back into service in the past century. Dedicated almost exclusively to defense, the MPN's vessels are slow and ponderous, designed to fight within the orbit of Mars itself. At that mission, it excels, the seemingly underpowered drives able to precipitously decrease their operating range in order to intercept any threat to the Republic. Its crews remain green however, with little combat experience save for skirmishes in the belt.

History

The oldest daughter of Earth, Mars was in many ways the second planet of the Empire. Panhumanity flourished across its surface before the jump gate network was devised, and the riches of the stars flowed towards it in almost as great a flood as the mother world. Within decades, what had once been a hardy frontier became a decadent playground for the wealthy and indolent, the Princes of Mars holding court from the great Olympus Palace.

But a storm was coming. The death of Jarus Augustus IV seemed the perfect opportunity for the last Prince, Galatian Augustus, to trade in his crown. A distant cousin of the Emperor, the rulers of Mars were considered a collateral branch of the imperial family, the logical successor to the throne. When Galatian arrived on Earth to be proclaimed Emperor however, such tidy thinking was replaced by horror as SolSec ruthlessly gunned him and his family down - the last Prince of Mars learning too late that the codes Emperor Jarus had entrusted to him were fakes, the defense network programmed to consider him and his line to be traitors to be exterminated if they were ever used.

Shock and grief among the nobility provided an opportunity unlike any seen before. In the midst of the chaos, before any serious contender from beyond the jump gates had arrived, the Martian Social Democratic Labor Party made its move. Having long agitated among the workers that toiled for the imperial nobility, their startling success only grew their numbers.

By the time a claimant arrived to attempt to have Mars support their bid to the throne, the fleets that had guarded the empire's second planet had already defected or had been captured - and all flew the red banner. Through long conflict and struggle in high orbit, upon the ground, and in the ancient cave cities of Mars, victory was at last secured. It was upon a broken and battered world that the Martians emerged, but one that was theirs.

Two centuries of peace and prosperity have come and gone, and the scars of the past have begun to heal. The Martian people gaze out upon the solar system with despair. Slowly at first, but more and more with each day, the digital and very real forums of the Republic are filled with voices wondering if now was the time to go beyond their fortress, and to spread the revolution to all Sol.

Characters

Ivanova Keqiang

Premier of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic
Chair of the All-Martian Congress of Soviets
Chair of the Presidium of the All-Martian Congress of Soviets
Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic
First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic
Chair of the Central Military Commission of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic

A Red in both senses of the word, Ivanova was originally an engineer from Elysium Mons, specializing in mining equipment. First elected to her soviet without being aware she was running, she is respected as a risk taker who never attempts to deflect blame for when said risks fail. A sprightly thirty-three Martian years old - approximately sixty-two according to Earth calendars - she seems poised to be the longest serving Premier in Martian history despite the checkered performance of the state during her tenure. I is felt throughout the entire planet that the coming days require decisive action, not methodical planning.

Julian Olaguer

Marshal of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic (Martian People's Navy)
Vice-Chair of the Central Military Commission of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic

Born on Deimos to a mainline human family that had served in the Martian People's Navy since its formation, with ancestors among the original defectors in the Dhanus Revolution, military life was all but predestined for Julian. Yet his success was anything but, the AI guided double blind merit system on all officer's exams letting him know that it was aptitude and not his name that placed him with the awesome responsibility as first line of defense for the Martian people.

Hocine Said

Premier of the Maghrebi Soviet Socialist Republic
Chair of the All-Maghrebi Congress of Soviets
Observing Member of the All-Martian Congress of Soviets
Chair of the Presidium of the All-Maghrebi Congress of Soviets
Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers of the Maghrebi Soviet Socialist Republic
First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Maghrebi Soviet Socialist Republic
Chair of the Central Military Commission of the Maghrebi Soviet Socialist Republic
Observing Member of the Central Military Commission of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic

Native to Algiers, Hocine has spent almost his entire adult life within the soviets, winning a recall of a delegate who thought the mundane concern of a broken water pipe beneath his dignity. He retains the humble dignity and servant mindedness of his first election, a tendency that the less charitable would say perfectly suited his Martian masters. The truth of such claims is irrelevant to his people, who see in him only a leader who can ensure that their Martian comrades defend them from the imperial menace on the other side of the Mediterranean.

Grigori Mansour

Marshal of the Maghrebi Soviet Socialist Republic (Maghrebi People's Army)
Vice-Chair of the Central Military Commission of the Maghrebi Soviet Socialist Republic
Observing Member of the Central Military Commission of the Martian Soviet Socialist Republic

Grigori's position puts lie to the idea of the Maghrebi SSR as its own state, the man having been born on Mars in Arabia Terra. The composition of the Maghrebi People's Army is at least half Martian, and its senior leadership is almost always from the Red Planet. He is a soldier's soldier, one who grimly accepts the reality that war will soon be upon humanity once more, and that to defend the paradise of his homeworld he must fight upon panhumanity's homeworld.

The Last Laugh

The Purple Chamber, Finisrol Palace
Maratilm, Jharya
Yaratilsh

Salos was loath to enter Finisrol, the grand and unrepentant modern palace at the heart of the capital of Maratilm. A standing edict passed dozens of generations prior decreed that the Emperor's seat ever renew itself, and even now construction crews were at work renovating the south portico. It was ever changing and chaotic, but worst of all it reminded the old Emperor just how far advanced his years truly were, for he now saw nothing in the structure that reminded him of his youth. All was new, and the old had been brushed away.

It was fitting then that he took up residence in the Purple Chamber surrounded by the new. Descending upon Maratilm, he had ordered every adult member of the House of Taulros to attend to him in the massive throne room, so that all his heirs may be present and know his will. For it was now his time to do something new, something that only the force of his will could make the more conservative members of his lineage accept.

He finished reading aloud from his reply to the Chancellor of the Federation of Nations, and waited for what outrage would come.

Chancellor Alanna Descoix of the Federation of Nations

@Taeryn

Your concerns are wise, but unneeded. With bluntness of Our own, We tell you now that Our empire already possesses a mockery of democracy. Our Senate is filled with hereditary members, and the wealth requirements to be eligible to sit within it are onerous in the extreme. Such has served Our ancestors and Ourselves well in the past, but the times are changing.

No more can one man's will adequately provide for all the needs and longings of Our subjects, and the ways that have long governed Our own kind are foreign and strange to those newly brought into Our domains. How can a son of the League think to stand in Our councils and speak for all those worlds who have heard the name Illusia only in the most recent of years?

It is Our hope that as your Emperor Claudius once did, that We shall induct the flower of the colonies into Our assemblies.

All being said however, it is Our duty to inform you that your Federation is not the only body which We would request such advice from. It is not Our intent to create here a Federation of Our own, but a democratic state compatible with the legacy of the Divine Taulros.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI, Imperator Taulrosum

The Emperor was pleased, though not entirely surprised, to see that there was none. He was by far the oldest person present, for all those of his generation were dead, and a great many of the next two were as well, taken in the fires of the Great War. The eldest present was his own son, Ardisol, who was in agreement with the idea to begin with, and the prince's surviving siblings tended to defer to the peace loving academic. Salos' grandchildren and their descendants would never think to speak against him so publicly, when rebuke was so certain. But still, he knew it was a false peace. One that would only last so long as he lived.

"If we are all agreed then, I shall have this sent to the humans for their response," Salos said in a soft voice, scanning the faces of his children, nieces, nephews, and their own children to see who was still inept enough to mask their dissent. He was equal parts pleased and concerned for his succession that none failed.

"Father, why are we writing only to the Federation? The Lokoid and the Kadathi sent us messages as well. Surely they, at least the Kadathi, deserve a measure of reply," Ardisol asked, the entire family looking first to him - and then to Salos to gauge his reply.

"Oh, my son, it is simple. We do not write to them for we as of yet have nothing of import to say. The Lokoid and the Kadathi respond favorably to our entreaties, yes, but we are not yet in a state to ask anything concrete of them. Worry not however, for should the crisis in the Commonwealth continue, I think we will find ourselves reconvening for such letters to be penned. Now leave me, my children, for I tire."

Ardisol tarried as the ranks of the House of Taulros left their lord to his chambers, as was his right as heir to the throne. When only father and son remains, the younger sets himself opposite the older, his wings hanging limp and uselessly from his back. "You insult those who could be friend."

"You think me miserly of my affections towards a people who are friendly towards us solely because our atrocities were committed against either their foes, or a comfortable distance away?" Salos asks, but there is no sting in his voice.

"I do, father. So long as they only see us as distant conquerors, they will aid us against common foes, but bear us no love."

"Perhaps so. Very well. Make ready your household, my son, for there are none who will think as you in my service save for yourself. Travel to Kadath, and see what love you may engender in their hearts." And so he began to write, penning a response to the Crown Princess.

Her Highness, Crown Princess Cerula of the House of Dzijmeter

@Predawnia

Pray, inform your lord father that I wish him well, and the speedy ending of whatever consumes his time.

I write to you this short note to further strengthen our bonds and assure the arrival of a new dawn of peace and prosperity. To such an end, I hereby name the new Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the Court of Trydosh to be my eldest surviving children, and heir, Ardisol, Prince-Imperial.

I know that he shall be given the warmest of welcomes upon his arrival.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI of the House of Taulros, 99th Emperor of the Taulron

Camp Kalando, Imperial Research Base
Outskirts of Point Jakurna
Agdemnar

Janfras Camoll was annoyed, and everyone in the room knew it. The strange communication signature had suddenly vanished as soon as it had appeared, and his own genius - at least, in his words - idea had been for nothing. So it was with equal parts amazement and relief that the comms officer on duty reported that the Commonwealth wanted a word with the base.

In most any other research post, the role of Principal Investigator would go to a scientist with sterling credentials in his or her field of study, respected and cited by peers. For Camp Kalando, this was insufficient. Camoll was all of those things, yes, but more important for his current posting was his first love - xenobiology, and psychology, and linguistics.

"The Commonwealth? Unless someone's died the leader of their ground side forces is General Verenkin var Gnaesh, Szitzu. Hard nosed, doesn't take shit, is probably going to hate me. Let's do it. Give them a chirp back and see what they have to say."

Remnants of the Asrian Outpost
Agdemnar

Raw power flowed through the Ghostseer's body, the psychic echoes of the dead amplified through him until they could take on a life of their own. Though the force of special operations troops kept a discrete distance, none could escape the unearthly feeling of their wings standing on end, and a sudden chill in their bones.

And then the dead walked the earth again, if but for a time.

The echoes were legion. Many of them tortured and broken. The flow of psionic energy warped around them like shadows. Only dim lights indicated that they truly were alive and not shade-like automatons. Never the less, the rogue Conflux forces were monstrous even as quickly fading whispers. Amid them, it was not hard to find the revenants of the Asrians. There were no commanders. They had fled after giving the last order to their Thralls. Even though the soulless automatons had no life, there was something of them that stayed behind. An imprint that was only slightly tainted by emotions. The precise orders were quickly fading but their intent was clear: ‘fight until you die’. The coldness by which that demand was given would shock any living creature to its core. It forced one to resign survival. Forsake yourself. Pay with your life. It went against everything being alive but the Thralls were not technically alive. They had given it up willingly and gladly. Some had pulled a Conflux acolyte down with them. The tortured creature’s echo no doubt wrapped around the cold psionic command. But the brightest stars in this fading, incorporeal world of whispers, echoes and dust were those of the fallen Sorcerers. Those great and powerful beings that flung psionic energy. Their echoes were strong and clung to the ground. Unwilling to release themselves. They were clear. Clear enough so the echoes carried more than just faint feelings and psionic imprints. Images and even sound rippled from the blazing psionic nuclei.

“Come die before me! I will burn you all down to ash!” One screamed as he flung empyrean flame at his enemies. Their armor melting as he felt nothing but glee. Which quickly turned to sorrow and coldness. He looked down and saw claws through him. Blood dripping from them. Sorrow was replaced with a vengeance. A clear thought rippled through the echo: "I will take you all with me." The echo ended with a blazing explosion.

Another echo crackled with thunder. Lightning destroyed all in its path as the Sorceress desperately tried to fight off the shadowy enemies. Behind her was a wreckage of a shuttle. Her thoughts were clear. A constant stream. “Sister. Sister. Sister.” Her sadness was intense. “Why didn't you listen? Why did you get on the shuttle?” It was the only deviation from her constant chant. Even when Conflux weaponry ripped through her, dooming her to her last moments, she kept repeating her chant. Until she fell unconscious.

“I am a Prince of Asra! Come at me! Die at my hand!” Another echo repeated. The Prince’s. His was not arrogant like the first echo. It did not have the intense, dreadful sadness of the second echo. There was rage but also a remarkable other thing: a sense of purpose. The echo made it painfully clear, Nautilian knew he would die. Never the less, at the edge of the abyss the Prince stood and found his place. Lightning burned his enemies. Telekinetic forces crushed armor. His echo’s images were crystal clear as well. Untouched and unsullied. They showed the culprit of the attack and the victims of the Prince clearly: Conflux Troops. Even when the lightning died down and the energy of Nautilian vanished, his resolve never changed. Even when his executioner came at him. Only when claws went through him and he laid on the floor did the echo change and emit one last sound: “Are you happy now, brother?”

The shades of the departed faded away, leaving only the desolate landscape of new made glass behind, and a trembling form kneeling upon the ground. With mechanical efficiency, the retinue of soldiers lifted the Ghostseer away from that place of death, and faded into the darkness of the night as the visions themselves had.

Taulron Embassy
City of Andalusia
Corinthene

Larthia Velansa held the envelope in his hands, doing his best to suppress his curiosity at what his Emperor had placed inside his letter of introduction to the Commonwealth's monarch. Two messages had been reposed for him to transmit to the leaders of the Commonwealth upon his arrival at the embassy, but it was that one to their queen that was by far more interesting. A physical letter, dispatched by regular courier, it had arrived some time ago under strict instructions that he must give it personally to Catherine - and that no one must read it save her. The second, far more recent, missive was sent on an emergency courier with no delay and concerned the Durand crisis.

There was a great deal of information within those simple facts, and the ambassador smiled as he began to speculate on what his sovereign had planned. The simple matter was that the physical letter was by far the more important of the two, for not only was it penned with such meticulous care, it had also been sent in such a manner to arouse no undue suspicion. While the contents of the second were well secreted, its matter was obvious to all, and the sheer speed with which it was sent would well imply that it contained nothing earth shattering.

With both due to be sent, the ambassador endeavored to simply deliver them as one to the Imperial-Queen and her Chancellor. Straightening his cranial crest, he exited the embassy, and began the long journey to the audience chamber of the only monarch whose power challenged his own. His longtime aides simply shook their heads as they made note of the jaunt in his step, for they knew that far from being excited at what he knew he was delivering, Larthia was ecstatic at not knowing.

Lord Sir Clement Herzog von Metternich, Duke Far Maddow, Knight Indomitus of the Order of King Nikolai, Lord Chancellor of Her Imperial Majesty’s Government

@Ozerath

We shall not mince words. The crisis on Durand is intolerable, for both Our states. Provincials who know nothing of the broader picture must not be permitted to influence policy in such a horrid fashion, and We are well aware of the issues facing the Commonwealth should the embargo of grains last ere long. To minimize these, We are prepared to open up Our own markets of such vital foodstuffs and persuade Our dear friend the Kadathi to do the same in the name of maintaining peace and order.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI, Emperor of the Taulron

Catherine, by the Grace of the Gods of the Imperial Systems Commonwealth and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen

@Ozerath

I trust with bountiful hope that my representative to your court will prove most satisfactory. By the time this letter has reached you, he should have already delivered his introductory speech to your Parliament and been credentialed. But it is not Larthia Velansa that I write to you now about. Nor am I here to harangue you over your abrogation of Detente, for such is the way of states. No, there are far more trying matters for us to discuss.

As you know, I am old. I near my hundredth year upon my throne, and well am I into the winter of my years. Matters of succession have long circulated in my halls, for it is not a clear thing after the deaths of so many of my sons and daughters - to speak nothing of their own issue. By right, the crown should pass to my oldest surviving child, my son Ardisol. But all know why he does not sleep in eternal peace with his brothers and sisters. He is not a man of war, but a man of learning. Bereft of flight since birth, he has long turned his attention to his studies, and is a wise and reasoned jurist.

Many nieces, nephews, and further kin does Ardisol have, and many and more besides will object to his claim upon my death. But I have consulted with the augurs of my own kin, and they have foreseen that Ardisol must take up my crown lest all come to ruination - for both thee and thine. Many actions I have taken to see him secure upon the throne, and this is no different.

My sister monarch, I give you now both a mighty weapon and a potent doom. In you I now entrust my instrument of abdication, for I repose into your care the solemn oath that I shall not reign for longer than a century, and my ineffable will that Ardisol serve as my heir. But you I would too name the arbiter of all challenges to my succession, in the hopes that you will take to heart the ill tidings that have been cast should my plans go awry.

Take heed and bear witness now:
By the Grace of All the Gods and Thundering Parlos Foremost, the Most Noble and Unconquered, We, Salos VI, Pious and Blessed, Emperor of All that was Claimed by Taulros the Great and His Heirs and Those Domains Beyond the Stars Thereunto Belonging, Victor of the Great War, President of the Council of Kings, Foremost of the Imperial Senate, Consul for Life and Dictator in Perpetuity of the Amsivarran Republic, Eternal Archon of the Illusian League, High Priest of Parlos to Whom Everything Belongs, King of Jharya, King of Chersona, King of Pulia, King of Samogol, King of Vitiak, and of All the Eastern Princes Master, Hereditary Sovereign and Ruler of the Mountainous Chieftains and of others, Duke of Howig, of Stovarn, of Volmar, and of other titles beyond retelling here, have hereunto affixed Our seal.

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"Remnants of the Asrian Outpost" was written by @Legion02 with my thanks.

The Last Laugh

The Imperial Senate
Maratilm, Jharya
Yaratilsh

"To my fellow Conscript Fathers, greetings," Salos intoned as he took to the floor of the Senate. Anywhere else in his empire he was Salos VI, Emperor of the Taulron, but here, nominally at least, he was simply Senator Salos. It was a game that many of his predecessors had no patience for, but the wily old man found himself taking a certain delight in it.

In response to the ritualized introduction came the usual flurry of replies, stern answers of "Welcome, Senator" came from those who dreamed of making the Senate more than an overdressed theater while his more loyal followers gave enthusiastic cries of "Hail, O Victor!", and the show carried on.

"For twenty years, we have enjoyed a peace wrought not by some outside force, but by our own hands. For twenty years, the price paid by our daughters and sons was deemed adequate for such a price. For twenty years, all the nations sat in agreement upon the order of things. But now come sounding anew the drums of war, and the day we all knew would come has arrived," he solemnly intoned, the rows of assembled Senators from every accepted race in his empire nodding and murmuring along in sad agreement.

"The Imperial Systems Commonwealth. The Federation of Nations. The Harmonic Conflux. The Urdji Civîneşra. The Imperial Union of Kadath. All have withdrawn from, or made mockeries of, the guarantor of that peace - the Treaty of Madrigasa. But a treaty stored safely within our temples, and witnessed by our gods, cannot be set aside so easily. The divine urge that the galaxy be at peace, and we shall be the enforcers of their will," the Emperor declared, more than a few taking to their feet to cheer their affirmation. Some of them might even be genuine.

"But I shall not lie to you, my faithful brothers and sisters. This is not an easy task the gods have ordained for us, nor one that can be undertaken without great effort. In the name of the gods I demand that this body declare the Treaty of Madrigasa in abeyance until all the nations return to its terms. We have had a long and prosperous peace, but it is clear that the ancient adage has come true once more. If we wish to keep this peace, we must prepare for war."

And so the shouting began, senators on all sides announcing their support or denunciation as bedlam took over the chamber.



Queen Nulla's Gardens, Trydosh Palace
Kresslon Hill, Jharya
Yaratilsh

"Sire, the Senate has finally taken a vote upon your proposal to set aside Detente," Chancellor Lauchu Vipin announces as he enters the gardens, restraining a sigh as he finds his emperor bent over a desk putting pen to paper. "My Emperor, we have teams of scribes and calligraphers that could be doing that for you."

"Yes, we do," Salos says in a murmur, etching out letters on the fine parchment with an intense care. "But I don't trust them to see the contents of this letter."

"Surely you jest, everyone employed within the Chancellery was approved by me personally," Lauchu replied, playing with the tablet in his hands to distract himself from the oddity he was witnessing.

"This is true. But I do not trust you to see the contents of this letter either," the Emperor says with a small smile before setting down his pen and breathing out across the paper to dry the ink. "Send this to Praetoria, on a regular courier run. Ensure it arrives there before Larthia finishes that absurd relocation from Corinthene. He is to deliver it into the hands of the Imperial Queen, and none other than her. To keep things fair, I'll let you in on the secret after he hands it off. Gods know she's going to show it to her Metternich as soon as she's done reading it. Perhaps before." As he speaks, he heats an ornate wax seal, impressing it upon the letter with a loud bang.

"Of course, sire," Lauchu says in a very quiet voice, all thoughts of Salos' impropriety replaced by his own for daring to intrude upon correspondence between sovereigns.

"You did not just come to tell me the results of Senate votes. The Senate votes in my favor, that is the way of things. What else do you have for me?" Salos asks in a soft tone, giving his overly conscientious chancellor a chance to regain his bearings as he folded the letter up and placed it under seal.

"Quite right, my Emperor," the Merlovian says, clearly eager to return to form. "The missives to the Rolvians, the Federation, the Lokoid, the Urdji Civîneşra, and the Kadath are awaiting your signature and approval. I trust you will find them to your liking."

Lady Vannifar, Prime Speaker of the Star Republic of Rolvius

@Aleranicus

We understand that your illustrious office is engaged with a multitude of states at this moment, so We shall keep Our remarks to you brief.

Should any provocation against the Star Republic of Rolvius become more dire, We implore you to consider Us as a trusted and concerned friend. The stability of the Republic, and the foodstuffs which it exports, are of paramount concern for continued peace. We understand that in situations such as these, one may consider turning to less than ideal options to prevent catastrophic outcomes.

It is Our dearest hope that this letter shall assure you and your people that alternatives exist.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI, Emperor of the Taulron

Chancellor Alanna Descoix of the Federation of Nations

@Taeryn

It is with great distress and sadness, but ultimately agreement, that We reacted to your decision to withdraw from the Treaty of Madrigasa. The core duty of any state is the protection and peace of its citizens, and at present the treaty represents shackles instead of assurance. All the nations are now upon the precipice of another great conflict, but in you and your Federation We see one who truly desires a lasting peace.

The successful peace of the past two decades has shown Us that a cooperative, constructive, peace without imposition by the Ashtar is indeed possible. We would have it be known that in the dark days that are sure to come, We consider the safety and security of all those nations which agree with Us in this matter, as you do, a paramount concern.

Further, this mutual understanding compels Us to reach out to you with a request. It is Our belief that the current state of Our Empire is not conducive to Our vision. As such, We formally request that the Federation of Nations send advisers to assist in the establishment of democracy.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI, Imperator Taulrosum

Supreme Hierarch Araq of the Lokoid Hierarchy and its Ruling Caste

@Liotrent

We understand that a delegation of the Hierarchy is due to begin talks with representatives of the Star Republic of Rolvius, and that there is fear of escalations due to the presence of the Asrian Ascendancy.

It is Our interests that all such conferences occur peacefully and calmly, and We would ask that before resorting to arms, that We be considered for any needed mediation.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI, Emperor of the Taulron

Bilnd-Sûmangişt Biryar Arlydlan of the Urdji Civîneşra

@Keyguyperson

It is right and just for one to defend their home. We do not respond to your withdrawal from the treaty so dear to Our heart with anger, merely sorrow that it has come to this. It is with understanding of the situation facing your people that We are forced to concur your actions are done in the name of self-defense and lasting peace.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI, Emperor of the Taulron

His Imperial Majesty, Kerxec XV of the House of Dzijmeter, 13th Emperor of Kadath

@Predawnia

Twenty years ago, you and I stood side by side to bring about a lasting peace. Together, we saw to the creation of a new order, of states prospering in peaceful coexistence. I entirely understand your belief that those days are now gone, but I implore you to consider that they might yet come again – if one is willing to see it so.

I urge you to consider the bonds forged between our peoples in that prior war at the end of this peace, for together we may yet build something new again.

His Imperial Majesty, Salos VI of the House of Taulros, 99th Emperor of the Taulron

"You didn't follow proportionality with the federals," Salos muses. "My titling is more formal than hers. Why?"

"The humans are the only ones we asked for help. Using Latin was deemed an effective way to impress your majesty upon them without resorting to stylings they may find overwrought."

"And if they find the language itself an anachronism?"

"My Emperor, that is the entire point of the letter."

There was a short silence as the old Emperor considered this point before he finally shook his head. "I yield to your mastery of protocol. Send them via the soonest scheduled courier. Except for the Rolvian message, send it via PsiNET. Use a cipher that we know the Commonwealth has broken but we're reasonably certain the other powers haven't."

"Of course, my Emperor. Now then, there is the matter of proclamations.”

Concerning the Harmonic Conflux of the Innumerate Suns

@Oraculum

The machinations of slavers and tyrants are ever designed to mask the worst of abuses in the most flattering of lights. Such is Our disdain at the transparent ploys of the Conflux to anoint themselves as the true upholders of order and peace that we urge all nations to close their markets to them.

Let not a creature who would sell your children as chattel name itself a protector of peace.

Let not the slavetaker and slavemaster cover itself in the auspices of order.

We denounce them and their acts, before all the gods and all the nations.

Proclaimed by We, Salos VI, Emperor of the Taulron, at Trydosh Palace, in the Ninety-Sixth Year of Our Reign

The People of the Asrian Ascendancy

@Legion02

A father should never outlive his son. This is a truth We know well. Though We did not have the pleasure of meeting Prince Nautilian in person, We know that he was beloved by his people, and loved them in turn.

There is nothing mere mortals can do to end this pain, but there is some that can be done to soothe it.

Upon the deaths of many of Our own children, We comforted ourselves with the knowledge that though they are gone, the memory of their lives remain. Mourn the death of your prince, but celebrate his life as well.

I leave you now, not as an Emperor, but as a father, with the words one now lost to me once wrote.

"Dearest father, I know that you fear for me. I know that you wish you could keep me close to your breast, and never more suffer a loss. But my life is one of duty, as you and mother taught me. I go now to see to that duty, wherever it may take me. Remember, father, that among the assignments life gives, death counts among them, and mourning as well. I shirk not mine, and know that you shall not shirk yours." - Her Imperial Highness, Aurian, Princess Imperial

Proclaimed by We, Salos VI, Emperor of the Taulron, at Trydosh Palace, in the Ninety-Sixth Year of Our Reign

"Yes..." Salos says slowly as he finishes reviewing the messages. "These will do. Promulgate them immediately," he orders in a tired voice, before pressing a sealed envelope into his Chancellor's hands. "I will be at the mausoleum if I am needed."

"Of course, my Emperor."



Camp Kalando, Imperial Research Base
Outskirts of Point Jakurna
Agdemnar

The coming of the obelisk caused a massive stir within the camp, and Captain Jouyin Heliak found herself bundled into a war room with a collection of military officials and scientists. It was the latter who were in charge of the camp, and so the young officer found herself in the uncomfortable position of having to sit and listen to the clique gush about a bunch of hellos for hours on end until the threat status of the newcomer could be verified.

And then the most ostentatious looking man she had ever seen in her entire life walked into the room, Principal Investigator Janfras Camoll. The man in charge of all official Taulron operations on Agdemnar, he was an excessively tall Yaratelmsh with an obviously artificial wingspan and even more obviously artificially colored plumage - though at least his was the result of him genetically engineering himself to grow the purple feathers instead of dyes. An eccentric and a genius, his scandals were matched only by his discoveries, and the worst thing was he knew the latter got him out of trouble for the former. Heliak hated him.

"Right right right, let’s get this settled. Giant obelisk appeared out of nowhere, no jump signature so it probably drifted, quantum communication technology - no one has that, Ashtar probably knew about it but wasn’t their cup of tea. No point in having quantum state greetings if you could just think the words into someone's minds and all. While all of you were busy gawking, I was with the boys down at the sensor array and managed to bang out something that can reply with a bare bones transmission in a similar enough way that whatever this think is doesn’t mistake us for idiots by tearing apart one of the spare neutrino detectors."

"Does that mean we can go now?" one of the other stealth corvette captains asked, the entire lot of them still chomping at the bit to get running.

"What? Oh, you guys. I'll do you better actually. Seems like everyone is confused as hell anyway so I'm lifting flight restrictions. Get out of here, especially you Heliak. The old women of the mountain want a Ghostseer for their next op and they asked you to do the delivery," Janfras said in the same casual, stream of consciousness rant he seemed to say everything in.

Half an hour later, and the Nightshade was flying low and cloaked with a mute Hateri on the cramped bridge, speeding far away from Camp Kalando just as it began to transmit back to the obelisk.

"WHOAREYOU.WHOAREYOU.WHOAREYOU.WHOAREYOU.WHOAREYOU.WHOAREYOU.[…]"

Remnants of the Asrian Outpost
Agdemnar

Taulron special operations groups on Agdemnar fit a particular mold. Almost all were Yaratelmsh veterans of the Great War, making even the youngest older than the vast majority of soldiers who went into the field. It also meant that they had all seen a Ghostseer work before, and the women and men kept a respectful distance from the Hateri as he walked across the glassed surface that many had fought and died on.

The winds died down as the psintegrae began his grim task, ice crackling across the glass. Every emotion felt by every being left a psychic imprint upon surrounding objects, and more powerful emotions consequently leave more powerful imprints. The art of a Ghostseer is recalling these imprints, and reliving them. The mission of this Ghostseer was to find the death echo of Prince Nautilian, and plunder the remnants of his thoughts impressed upon the ground he died defending for information. But many people died at that outpost, and finding the last emotions of one was a trying task. The largest driver of failure was not enemy action, but the Ghostseer’s will breaking.