Warzone Feretory: The Nature of Truth and Lies

In the Library of Vigiliance

+ENTER CREDENTIALS+

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Salve, Inquisitor

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+++EVIDENCE FOLDER A664 – SUBFOLDER 'ABBETTICUS'//

[//Exloadsource=] Marr, Daesun; Grand-Librarius 

[//Draftee-authident=] Hanschaar, Kaleb; Librarius Majoris

[//Inloadsourcerecip=]: Librarium His Eternal Vigilance, Salts World, Sector Celebrant, Segmentum Pacificus.

[//Ascension Day, M37+]

My esteemed master, on whom no light shines save that which he deems fit,

As per your instructions, I am currently in the process of cataloguing the material concerning the war on the heretical empire of Feretory; which, as you will recall, we had theorised to sit somewhere within the Occidental Extent of Segmentum Pacificus, to the galactic north of the Laanah Rifts. While a precise date has thus far eluded us, we established the time period to be within the final third of M34, based mainly on the inks used in the substantial stash of questionable daguerreotypes that frustratingly anonymous archival records note were 'found buried in the building tentatively identified as the Chief Secretary's Manse.' No further geographical or biographical clues were given by this unknown archivist.

In my study of the straightforward 'clean tracts' of warehousing and shipping records – all within a fair degree of order, as far as I can tell from the degradation caused by the squalid conditions the filesafe has been left in – I was intrigued to find an envelope that had slipped behind the drawers. 

While the envelope was slightly foxed, the wax seal was intact, though illegible. Summoning my underscribe, Hyginus, we broke the seal and withdrew a number of documents. Alas, most had been water-damaged and proved illegible, though it was clear that heavy redaction had been made to the original documents from the thick black bars still broadly visible on the remaining scraps.

Besides these was a plastek coversheet, under which was visible an image; which I have appended here as tractus Theta. As I recount below, a day or so later we removed Theta from the plastek, at which point we uncovered a second image: tractus Iota. It is of this latter image that the missive is concerned.

Hyginus and I looked over them together; and between us we decided that these require superior oversight. The images have caused me great concern and a number of sleepless nights at the main cogitator here at the Vigilance; and I beg for your orders on how best to proceed. I have asked Hyginus to keep the information to himself until we hear back from you – he is clearly as shaken as myself.

*** 

As your lordship can undoubtedly see, the images are unmistakeably alike. Before even unfolding the plastek cover, I felt a nagging sense of familiarity upon seeing tractus Theta, and in scrubbing my membanks it suddenly occurred to me that I had seen a cropped version in one of my scholam textbooks. A perfunctory search of the Librarium archive allowed me to source this book – an historiam primer still common in scholams. 

Requesting Hyginus to fetch me a copy, he brought back a well-thumbed fourteenth edition, I scanned the colour plate section, where I found – unmistakeably – this image. Entitled 'His Rage – Made Form', it purports to depict an Astartes of the 'Flesh Eaters'. A fairly standard inspirational image for general distribution; it had me reminiscing, and I spent a few of my off-duty moments in personal research. Perhaps the Chapter is familiar to you, but I had to look them up. A cursory glance revealed that they are a Chapter both ancient and venerated. Since tractus Theta seemed to correlate closely with the information I could find in the Praeclusio Publica, available to public and amateur-historians alike; I thought little more of the image and turned to other matters.

[//+tractus Theta+]
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That a promulgatory image of the heroic Astartes would turn up in a child's scholam text is fairly unremarkable; though I mentioned it in passing to Hyginus the following day, at our desk-lecterns. Keen boy that he is, he had requested a copy of the primer himself, and – owing to a mistake by the monotask retrieval servitor – had been brought a first edition from the Inusitatus wing. As we talked, he expressed some confusion; not recognising my description of the clarifying caption at all. I asked him to pass me the copy of the book, which he had studiously replaced in its preservative cardboard box ready to be returned. After unwrapping the vellum, we turned to the colour plates. Imagine my surprise to be confronted with this:

[//extrsourcevalue: History of the Imperial War Machine; 1st ed.+]
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We could make little out from the low-quality image, but to my understandable surprise, the accompanying caption gave a curt account of the war in which it was supposedly drawn – that of the 'Conflict of Vertori' [sic]; one quite at odds with our suppositions from the publicly-available information. The variation, or corruption, of the planetary nomenclature perhaps explains why the scholam text was not highlighted in our earlier searches. The caption, brief and highly stylized as it was, has proven to be one of the few sources available to me in my research on the conflict. 

Unfortunately, in concert with the evidence below, it has implications which I find disturbing.  

On ordering Hyginus to run a datascrape for images, we confirmed the image from the later edition, tractus Theta, currently resides in the Praeclusio Publica for all to view. Knowing that colour plates are frequently re-used – particularly for cash-strapped scholarly publishing houses – I decided to check the physical document we found in the envelope from the filesafe. Were the image itself to bear similar Filecheck Signals & Signs to those used on the Chief Secretary's salacious daguerreotypes, we would have some circumstantial evidence that the image is genuinely that of the war of Feretory, rather than a re-used stock agitprop image.

***

The excitement at finding a potential lead in my research quickly turned to growing unease. On unfastening the plastek cover to look at the reverse of tractus Theta, a second image fell out: tractus Iota. I have appended a copy below, with some reluctance.

Iota bears an uncanny resemblance to the familiar 'His Rage – Made Form', yet it seems that the Angel in question is... well, wrong. 

[//+tractus Iota+]
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In confusion, I studied the new image – unquestionably a higher-quality original source for the first edition of the textbook – while Hyginus checked tractus Theta. With some disappointment, he showed me that the FS&S were similar to the daguerreotypes, but dated some four or so decades later. 

With a sick premonition, I turned over tractus Iota – to find that the dates here matched the daguerreotypes near-exactly, substantially pre-dating Theta.

An evening's fevered return to the vaults, both public and sequestered, means that I was able to expand my knowledge on the 'Flesh Eaters' somewhat. An ancient successor to the IX Legio Astartes of old; their recorded homeworld is a vast distance from the location we had supposed Feretory to be. Whether this is of relevance is unclear to me, but the salient fact is that the twisted subject of tractus Iota bears no resemblance to any available pict-captures of said Chapter.

I feel that it is imperative to investigate this anomaly further. I would therefore like to petition your permission and higher clearance in order to do so. Tractus Iota has matching data to Theta, yet besides the surface similarity... Whatever the case, I cannot believe that someone would intentionally falsify Imperial information. What justifiable end could that possibly serve?

I await your further instructions on the matter. 

Your true servant,

Librarius Majoris Handschaar

+DATA SPOOL TERMINATED+

+Thought for the day: In absentia lucis, tenebrae vincunt+

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