'Come and See' – conflicting theories on the Silver Stars
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| [//Remembered early+] [//@death_of_a_rubricist+] |
***
Echoes of the Silver Stars
You have been long-primed to [______] the truth of what has been [_________] here. On thin soil is the tree of certainty grown; and [____]. Tin. [____]. [_____]. Antimony.Collected here are some of the theories about the Silver Stars, variously recovered from databanks, interrogations, folk traditions and former investigations into the War of the False Primarch.
None can be verified.
All are fragmentary.
Some Things Are Best Left Forgotten.
***
All statements, in the end, fail the test of truth.
[//Vox Volnoscere+]
***
[//@valentin.froute+]
froute.jpg)
Sceptical? Of course I was sceptical. After laying claim to a planet, however justified that action, I knew we were in defiance of the Lex Imperialis. For mysterious allies to conveniently appear, powerful beyond measure and led by one of the Emperor's own Sons, holding out his hand? Laughable.
...And yet.
If you had only seen them. If you had only met him.
But the chance has passed. And for that alone, I am sorry.
[//Interrogation; Erson Monad, Riven Lords – Brevet-Captain of the Fatemakers. Post-Lemmas+]
***
The stench of recidivism: Renegades
By fa[___________]ommon theory put forward by [____________] analysts of the War was that the Silver Stars were simply a Renegade warband. [____] [___] [_____________________________] [____________________] [_______________________________]
Allusions to Hy[____________], and A[____] L[______] were amongst the most common; but S[___] of H[____], sundry Blackshield and like [___________] of dubious of uncertain heritage and allegiance have also been proposed.
None properly accounted for what the Pseudolegion had been [___________] in the [intervening?] time; nor the sheer scale of the Pseudolegion.
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| [_______________________] [//@chrisbuxey+] |
[...]Pirates and scoundrels. Do you suppose all the scattered warbands of the Scuto Tenebros were tidily welcomed back into the Imperium after the Great Scouring? That every one of the fell-damned Treacherlegionaires was brought to justice?No. What purpose would the Holy Ordos serve if not to do precisely this? To hunt down such forces and prevent them from promulgating in the cold dark places of the Galaxy. A returned Legion? Awfully convenient. Much more likely they are charlatans. This is, my Interrogator, not even the first 'Primarch' I have hunted.
[//Inquisitor O-W-Clouseau+]
***
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| [//By the Late War, the Silver Stars' once-eerie uniformity had degraded until [______] fort.+] [//@gunnarlopez08+] |
[_______________________] [___]: [____________________________] [__] [___] the last
[_________] [_____________________][....]
***
Xenos-touched
I'll tell you! I'll tell you! I'll tell you whatever you want to know! Just – just don't let her near me again! Please!
It was... it was the Dain Mhiri. They were there first. Every time. It was they that laid the path; sure as thunder follows lightning. Th-that's all I...
No! No! Don't–
Charged with explaining [______] by Master Enoch, Theoretician Dônes put forward supposedly 'impregnable evidence' of the [____________] somehow under the direction or influence of a xenos [_______]; though the supposed evidence was lost during the Great Redaction (much to Dônes' chagrin, as she had relied on testimony of its existence to exonerate herself before the Silent Sisterhood, and was therefore [_________].)
Since Dônes, the status of [________] as [____________] was reinvestigated on a number of occasions as the Imperium sought to find a reason for the colossal war. These varied from learned claims about supposedly-redacted species and events, such as the Great Crusade-era [_______] [__________]; the Mnemospore and Set.
[...]
[//_________+]
[//matt_t/@spacedhulk+]
'Embrace your prejudice and rely on the revealed truth of Xenological historography. The unfortunate mental fallout of those First and Sixth makes them unreliable in the extreme. 'Shadow-blasters'? 'Murder-minds'? These are symptoms of war-trauma. None of their supposed 'Xenocidal' reportage can be trusted.
'To suggest [__________] could be dominated by a Stranger's hand? To be beyond the Emperor's ability to [_________________]? An impossibility and a fairy-tale. 'An open mind', as the saying goes, my child. Stay the limits of your imagination.'
[// – Engines of Betrayal, a later history of the Horusian Rebellion +]
***
[@death_of_a_rubricist+] [...]marks the bounds of Imperium. Amongst those vanishing few outlier stars of the Endworlds lies the inter-galactic gulf; a name that signifies nothing, in quite literal terms. The great absence that lies between island universes is not merely empty in the sense of wilderness space, but emptying of one's very sense of self.To travel beyond the Endworlds, those scattered and distant beaches where humanity's boundaries are finally marked, is to subject oneself to sensory deprivation of a degree from which there is no return. – and is an invitation to the strange freedom of madness.Even the frontiersmen there, acclimated and accustomed to those infinite starless skies, avoid looking up.The great yawning sense of self-loss is akin to the myths of Lethe. Lost. Forgotten. No-one and nothing can travel there and be unchanged. No-one returns from that realm.[...]
[//[Braxon Leionidon Mercutial, Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes+]
In some such xenos-led theories, the False Primarch himself was a xenos creation – variously an illusion; a matter-bulked being; or a recovered corpse of a genuine P[_______], resurrected or dominated to [_______]. Others scoffed at the supposed existence of a 'P[_______]', claiming V[___________] to be nothing more than a particularly [______________________], and instead focussed on the Silver Stars themselves.
Perhaps the most [___________] of these was that put forward by Baron Vant of Ert, who suggested that the D[_____] M[_____] had somehow replicated the ability to [________] Astartes, and had spent many thousands of years in their great Craftworld, [_________] thereby falsifying [________].
This hinged, of course, on the D[___] M[__] leaving the galaxy entirely at some point prior to the Great Scouring – a not unfeasible suggestions, given the pressure xenos were put under during the period. [__________] Vant triumphantly pointed to the Silver Stars' archaic equipment as 'proof'; forged – in both senses of the term – from the patterns of most recent material the E[____] had to hand when leaving the Galaxy. For creatures used to endless human lifetimes, and filled with arrogance; it might not even have occurred to them that such materiel would be outdated.
[____________________] but [______] [___________], [________________________] [...]
***
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| [//Echoes of Neris+] [//@6pluspainting+] |
Pirates and renegades
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| [//Interlude Quay+] [@chrisbuxey+] |
Pawns of the Navigators
[...]Every single source of Navigation. Do you think it was coincidence they pursued them? That every one vanished, never to be seen again? No. The [_______] Navigators had to be involved. What other force, so secret? What faction, so powerful and intertwined? The Patriarch must hear of this.[...]
The theory was compelling. In the wake of the Great Scouring, the Navigators, already persecuted and looked at askance by an increasingly paranoid and inward-looking Imperium, had much to gain and little to lose in an intra-Imperial struggle.
Who but a group with a seat on the High Lord could command such influence and power? Which group of abhumans had much to gain and little to lose in an intra-Imperial struggle? Had not another pocket empire – the Adeptus Mechanicus– created the Steel Confessors of Krascis IV in the shadows scant centuries previously?
[______] theories [____] [_______________] why the False Primarch's forces were [____________] so closely and [___________] in the early years of the War. Certainly hundreds, if not thousands, were abducted by the [_____________]. [______] [______] points to a much-needed 'resupply' of sorts by the Stars' immense fleet following long-m[________] beyond the edge of the galaxy; or a closer [______] by which Volnoscere sought to cripple and slow his opponents; gaining an edge of manoeuverability and displacement over the Extinction Armada fleets is [_______].
[_____] [...]
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| [+[_______________] [____________] [__________________]//] [//@greg.burch.mb.ca+] |
Distant then, and cunning. Far out of mind, meatshapers and madmen could come to recapture the Emperor's craft – for in truth, while He guided it, followers patched in the details, and made sure the writing was writ.It surprises me more that it was not suborned and duplicated prior to Alpha Primus – so why would the appearance of a monster and its false spawn convince me that this band is genuine?Look not to your storybooks, but attend to your histories.
***
A Lost Legion
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| [//[_____] [____]! [____]+] [//@cerberus_prophet+] |
+ [datalog] [spooling] [transcript unclear] [fatal error]
[...]he came from the ten thousands of Saints, with flaming fire at his right hand.[...]
[...]was not, of course, the case with the Astartes, who were as different – as 'Other' – from base mankind as was the Emperor himself. Even the [_____________], monstrous figures who seemed quite inhuman to the Emperor's foes – and, indeed, to those like us, who bore witness to their conflict – had been created from human warriors. They had human minds inside their gene-bulked bodies, albeit altered [__________]. In contrast, the Astartes were elevated; their genetic code altered and partially subsumed beneath the pattern dictated by each Legion's unique genesperm.
The Astartes' stature, [__________] and physical alterations were the least of the differences from their previous selves; their mental and spiritual alterations – or as the Emperor's jealous enemies came to say 'mutilation' – creating something quite different. As a result, while Astartes might have memories of their families or places of birth; the changes wrought upon them, in concert with their training and indoctrination, rendered these memories ghostly and vague.
+ dat+ [datalog terminus] [proceed] [spooling] +
[//Aspects of Stibium – auth. Howtopher Buxcraft+]
***
Appealing and widespread as these many theories were, none truly gave convincing explanations for where [______] had been; though the sheer scale of their fleet and depth of their armoury was a powerful argument in their favour.
An argument, true – but as demonstrated by the ability of Belisarius Cawl in M42 to produce hundreds of thousands of functional Astartes seemingly from nowhere [_____] [____] [__]; perhaps the Pseudolegion was not merely the inspiration, but [_] [____] a distant antecedent.
***
'The Silver Stars are the Legion of [__________]. Driven by mystery and symbology, few records survive regarding The Silver Stars and their ways. Equipped with Legion-era equipment last seen during the Wars of the [__________] and the subsequent Great Scouring, the Stars formed the bulk of the Partisan resistance during the War.'
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| [//Captain Legatus Isaia Tagata of the 11th Grand Battle Company+] [//@the_og_krug+] |
D[_______]
'Walker of the twenty-first path, fount of the fourth sephira. He is the west wind; who is destined to pass around and about the tree of life; shaking loose old growth – but never to interact of be part of its nature. Pity him, then!'
'Weep not for the sacrifices we made to stop the misguided High Lords. Weep instead for those who will remain in the shadows of their wicked oppression.'[//Unknown Partisan soldier+]
[//collab. secure{FRITHFRITHFRITH}]
[//boreal splines reticulated+]
[//++
[//incerto{process. VAL-TRUE+]
***
[//@death_of_a_rubricist+] [...]from them I heard everything, and from them I understood as I saw, but not for this generation, but for a remote one which is for to come[...]
[Basilius Tens, Ordo Chronos+]
***
[_____________________]
And last, of course, is the sole theory that bears the Seal of the current High Lords – an Official Statement that was issued following the Siege of Orom.Seven thousand years separate the end of the War from this peculiar and fragmentary note being granted official sanction – and perhaps here only on sufferance, in the dying years of the 41st Millennium; and overseen by none save Servitors.
[{source-val=NOTFOUND+]
[//respoolnearby={TRUE}; spooling+]
[//spooling+]
[//spooling+]
[//substitutetextfound=TRUE+]
[//reshare: punctumpriori – sub:text{sub text}subsequens SPOOL:+]
The Ashen Folly of Czernobog. The Fobidden Vault. It opens onto Wyrmbore – White hole.It vented out beyond the galactic disc, pouring matter endlessly into an unfillable expanse. Thin, of course, even then – for little [______] could [_______]ct the strange space there. Relieved there of the pressures of the warp and where the glue-like space-time of matter thinned, other, stranger, dimensions reveal their internal symmetries.
[...]
Or so say the Eremites of the G[_________]s; who claim there skulks the Bitter King Uridimmu; open-jawed witness to all possible existences. In that Other place, on his Throne of Ash, his absent, atropic actions permit the stringless and boundless beings ingress to [________] ; from Churnmilk, Orion and [_____] Atom; Bog; J[____] N[_____] and Feverdream.
Ancient, they say. Aeonic. And yet this is not true; for such octonionic beings are as beyond time as they are space, and so the Tenets of the Ten [_______] falter in what is to be done. For how can one resist or oppose such power? And perhaps more to the point, prevent Others from gathering same?
Not for us. Say the Eremites. Not for us. Echo the Third-Hundred and Thirty-Third.
For the Divine Prince Volnoscere Silverstar; Fortune set in place by Him-on-Earth. He and his Sons – and later the Hidden Sons of the Divine Prince Strength; those who were never set in bounds of the Imperium, but whose [__________].
Strength spake: These shall be forever [_______] to Wyrmborne Sons, the embittered offspring of a Wormwood King. These and more:'
'Gilded Rams; Sons of Sunder; [________]; Bronze Bulls. These were the first to answer. Dreadful in aspect and feverish in arms, they battered themselves bloody against the forces of F[_______]m and C[_______]k, and the dreadful gigantes.’
‘And it was the Rams who at last called for succour; who lifted eyes reddened with tears of fury. And lo! They were answered, for Four followed on, and Five, and Six after them, ‘til all the Sons of Salamander and their artifices stood arrayed in black and gold and green.’
S[___] C[____]
[...]he trees wither and divest themselves, all except nine, which do not lose their foliage but retain their old foliage; two to three years till the new comes.
[...]Cast him hence into darkness: And make an opening in the desert. And place him there upon rough and jagg[...]ide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light.
So was it written. But what was written may yet be excised; and the sins of our fathers are come to revisit. [____________________] What should a [_______] do when rejected, but despair in madness, and gather to himself power, and return?
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| [//Kapihe: Moonthorn; Thalas Prime+] [//@datacrypt_624+] |
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| 'I was there at the beginning; I will be there at the end.' [//@the_midnightmare+] |
I go to the place of my execration with head held high; for in all I have done, I have held true to my oaths – truer, indeed, than I once knew to be possible.
Ah! A mere accident of timing; to be born in a time of miracles. A cruel fortune – but not one I would have exchanged.
Seeing only the promise of a lifeline in a storm-wracked sea, we shied from it when we should have striven. Keystones to humanity's survival are now lost to us; and worse – in our struggles, we have forgotten that they ever existed.
[//attr. Venascal+]
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| [+@death_of_a_rubricist//] |
[//CASCADEERRORFAIL+]