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'The War of the False Primarch was a dark and bloody episode of the Imperium's history, now largely lost to myth and purged from all records, that plunged the Segmentum Pacificus into anarchy from 780.M33 to 860.M33. The conflict was finally ended when the High Lords of Terra convened the Pentarchy of Blood and tasked five loyal Chapters to destroy eleven others that had been declared Traitoris Perdita for their actions during the war.'
Imperial Armour Volume Two - Second Edition pg. 17
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| [//IWANTTOKNOW+] |
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M41 – secy. pp: _____ _____, Master of the Astronomican
What then? What came next?
Always there seem more questions. The more we dig, the more we found ourselves pressing against scrapdata; not a wall, but a cloying blanket of noospheric nonsense. As you pushed in, something pushed back – and you'd end up suffocating. Even the optimus-grade mnemosifters would degrade, and eventually die as their enhanced neural wetware failed; a sort of mental suffocation.
I shuddered, the first time it happened. Witnessing death first-hand is not my style at all.
Redaction is a standard tool; of course. You don't rise high in the Administratum without deploying it wantonly. Some of our colleagues specialise in it – after all, rewriting one's own history is all but essential to elevation to the Senatorum Imperialis – but there's always a hole. You carve out information and fill it in; and there's always somewhere the new doesn't quite fit.
This, though... Yes, this wasn't normal. This wasn't like the subtle scars of quality rejuvenat; only there if you closely enough. Here, the thing seemed to be in plain sight – simply shrouded in a labyrinthine and changing data-blanket. You'd dig and dig; but always emerge at the other side gasping for mental breath, having hit nothing on the way through.
What is it? What has been hidden in so unique a way?
Personal append-note: I want to know.
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| [//Legio Validus Skitarii, pictured during the Siege of Ishim, homeworld of the Red Fish and site of the first assassination attempt of the 'Primarch'+] [//IGident:warppainter+] |
M36 – secy. pp: Grand Provost Marshal _____ _____, of the Adeptus Arbites
If there is one thing I have learned as Grand Provost Marshal, it is that questions irrevocably lead to more questions. Eventually, one has to dictate what reality should be, and bend your arm to ensuring that reality comes to be.
It started innocuously: a routine strategic query which had been hived off, then routed up and up and up by increasingly senior – and increasingly spineless, in my opinion – until it reached my desk, where it squatted, like some poison toad.
I had not slept well. While we had all privately known for some months through our personal channels; official confirmation of Nova Terra's declaration of Secession – the creation of the so-called Ur-Council of Nova Terra – had come through. Here on Terra, the Palace was in uproar as the entire might of the High Lords of Terra bent itself to finding every possible scrap of information that might be relevant.
...and then they'd found it. Some wretched scribe had done his duty so diligently, so mindlessly, that he had looked for historical instances of secession – for comparative purposes. Quite standard. After all, we work best when we learn from the past. It's just unusual to ask such bone-headed questions. I guess even idiots have their uses to the Emperor.
An entire Segmentum seceding had seemed so obviously singular, that none of us had considered that it might have happened before. Surely it would have been common knowledge. It would appear in scholam-grade books, let alone in the Deep Memory afforded to the Senatorum Imperialis.
And so I started asking questions. Here though; there was no answer – and nor were there more questions. Just that one datapoint. Just one. In a galaxy-spanning empire that has endured for more than five thousand years, and records the comings and goings of the least factota... Just one.
A single, orphan reference to a Segmentum rebelling – and then a sea of silence.
It is imponderable. A mistake? Possibly. But my instincts suggest otherwise. Regardless, I want to know.
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| [//Iconolate Third-Class Maolruibh; one of the Ecclesiarchy's 'New Model Army' of elite, heavily-trained 'Tempestus' soldiers created to rival the fading Solar Auxilia of the day.+] [//jamie_c+] |
M32 – personal: G____ J____, Speaker for the Chartist Captains (brt).
+Vox-spatter RESOLUTIONFAIL+
It is sealed. It is done. It is with a shaking hand that I put the last seal in place[voxspherics]
Ten High Lords lost. A Segmentum in flames. Wars on a thousand fronts, and aliens at the Gates[voxspherics]
+vocaldata creant: UNKNOWN+ [What now? What comes next?]
That's how it began. Now? Now we begin to count the cost. And part of that is not just sealing this awa[voxspherics]t has clearly faile [voxspherics]re. No; with this seal, you and I are going to ensure that no-one else ever has to pay the cost of asking that question.
+vocaldata creant: UNKNOWN+ [What question?]
What question? Let the Imperium never again say those accursed words: I want to know.
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| [//ident: – Chapter Astartes 'Jade Talons' recon specialist – pictured during the events on Qorabbas+] [//adam_j+] |
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