The Arcturian Heresy [FT - Invite Only]

[The Eridani Imperium]

I tread the path of Righteousness. Though it be paved with broken glass, I will walk it barefoot; though it cross rivers of fire, I will pass over them; though it wanders wide, the light of the Emperor guides my step.
Dolan Chirosius,Sermon On the Road to Gathalamor

CLASSIFIED//ODAL

FROM: Avidia Caria, Magister Militum

20 Sundawn 2556

TO: Primarch Arnskar Ironhand of Kadria
CC: Vigiles Urbanis

---

Ser,

I tender my report on the current situation in Sector 20574AC and the surrounding regions henceforth known as the ‘Arcturus Sector’. Detailed reports on the Palatine, Aventine, and Capitoline subsectors contained in Attachments A, B, and C respectively. I would draw your attention to the recovered intelligence in Attachment E, especially Appendices I-IV.

Current Situation
As detailed in Attachment A, The Palatine Subsector remains in complete control of the Fyrvakt; given that the Governor of Arkadia requested our presence, this is within expected operating parameters. We continue to move additional assets into the Subsector and have established patrols per the requirements of the implementation instructions of Operation Vittra.

The Office of Strategic Services has determined that it is highly implausible that the ‘Monodominants’ referred to in Attachment E are unaware of our operations in the subsector. Arcturian and Eridani commands have been conducting extensive sweeps and remain on heightened alert, but no hostile Inquisitorial agents have been sighted as of yet.

The Aventine and Capitoline subsectors continue to see pacification operations (Attachment B and Attachment C provide specific details).

The Aventine subsector has seen the heaviest combat operations to date, as the Arcturian Guard (reorganized elements of the Navis Imperialis and Astra Militarum in service to Arkadia) and the Fyrvakt engage ‘loyalist’ forces lead by a Monodominant Inquisitor who refused to lay down arms. Operations continue, and the Inquisitor is expected to fall within the week.

The Capitoline subsector has mostly been secured, following the defection of several key worlds from the loyalists (specifics listed in Appendix I of Attachment C). Sweeps of the worlds in question have revealed esoteric cults to deities known as the “Chaos Gods”. All evidence was documented and then destroyed along with the cults on the advice of friendly Inquisitors of the Arcturus Conclave.

Combined forces and Eridani independent operations have destroyed 37 Loyalist warships while the latter was in the process of attempting to escape the Sector; It is the consensus opinion of all the commands that this process should continue to minimize disruptions to local space. It is further the consensus opinion that if any of these escape attempts succeed, they should be hunted down and destroyed to ensure no technology above the current baseline is salvageable.

I am pleased to report that morale remains high and discipline tight among our contingent.

Next Steps
We will proceed to implement the combat plans outlined in Attachment F with particular emphasis on locating the leaders of various loyalist cells and either convincing them to lay down arms or disposing of the leaders otherwise.

With the establishment of Arcturian control over the Palatine subsector, rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts will begin shortly.

Kadria Invicta,

Avidia Caria
Magister Militum

CLASSIFIED//ODAL

[The Ctan]

The day of the Arcturian Sector’s Translation
The Celestial Orrery, Thanatos

Far beneath the world of Thanatos lay one of the greatest treasures of the Great Civilization, a machine that occupied much of the planetary interior and was layered behind defences that staggered the minds of putative aggressors. The planet was crusted in places with continents worth of aggressor debris from those who had found out the secret of its contents, and ships of every species from the Aeldari Dominions to the Phuxtul had been deorbited onto it over the millions of years of the Great Sleep, and even over-ambitions ships from other necrontyr factions were visible beneath the layers of Thanatos’ shields.

Here, suspended in a vast chamber, hundreds of billions of lights hung, each of them was a small sphere within a golden frame, blazing with light. As Thalash moved through the cloud of these jewels, they swayed around her, parting like a bow wave as her platform moved through them.

A cloud of silver dust hung in the air, where the jewels flashed with rainbow fire. Thalash opened her hands, casting them wide to call the Orrery’s great display in closer.

The great Orrery had the facility to function as a tremendous weapon, but that was not its purpose, instead, it was used principally as an observatory.

The machinery of the chamber had called her attention to it, and she and other keepers were positioned in a wide circle around the observatory’s image of this distant part of space.

“Troubling,” Thalash said.

The monitoring of the galaxy’s warp storms was one of the many functions carried out here, and the keepers of the ancient celestial engine had plenty of occasions to catalogue such upswells of the Anathamaeic Realm.

“This is the third major incident this century, yes,” the keeper known as Róisín said.

“Not that alone,” Thalash said, and used her hekatic array to call out the local astropolitics.

“Oh.” Róisín said. “Oh dear.”

---

An Illegal Colony on the 'Gamma-Delta Border'

Tycho Balthus was an Astartes Veteran Praevin. The title had not existed before the Starchange, unknown to Old Imperium. The Oldest and best of the libraries of the Adeptus Astartes contained tales of ancient Legionary Centurion Praevins, who had handled the automata of the ancient forebears of the Legions, but they had been rare officer-grade individuals.

Tycho was not so highly ranked, but his role was similar, he was the creator and battle controller of a squad of automata, each stood as tall as the did, moving with surety up the slope, their heads and parts varied, he had created each one and their improvements showed, the earliest were crudest and the newest moved faster, had additional features. Each held cut-down bolters, firing from the hip as they moved in robotic lockstep.

As with many of his brothers, Tycho was more machine than man, and it was difficult to tell his ceramite-plated charges from him, while he could look through the optical units of any of them or the hovering scout-drones that accompanied his squad.

They were advancing on the colonial targets through narrow avenues between earthen block-houses that had been erected, the two fire-teams of his squad moving at speed, none of the automata needed his command to fire or to fulfil the general commands they had been given, one jerked around a corner with three precise shots, three humans bursting leaving a crew-served weapon drenched in their gore.

The text-trans runes in Tycho’s helmet related the words the enemy shouted.

++we are the warriors of the humanely star seed we will give our lives for the father-clay we oppose you foreign (alien?) degenerates++

Tycho blink-clicked the translation away, he did not need to hear what they had to say, and instead, he watched the green-grey humans die. Much of the galaxy now used simple stubbers as their armament of choice, though these at least used coilguns with a respectable velocity, though it would not penetrate Astartes warplate except in weaker areas. Tycho felt the impact of one on his armour, a burst of shots skittering from him, several embedding in his toughened cybernetic limbs, and he pivoted at the waist, his bolter chugged once, and the plosive roar of the rocket motor kicking in as the projectile left the barrel was cut off by the short-range impact. The mass reactive round burst the settler.

__ __ __

“Enemy dreadnought, two o’clock elevated,” the clipped tones of Sergeant Lanos came over the vox-link.

“Engaging,” Nalon said, and his battle strider pivoted, a quarter-turn toward the enemy, and the missile pods that sat on either side of the canopy disgorged a trio of missiles in quick succession, while his rotary cannon traversed and engaged a split second later, the impact bringing the shields on the target down.

The striders were in the weight class of Imperial Knights of the Old Imperium, a little lower, they were a divergence from typical Astartes arms, and they operated in support squadrons for larger actions without the support of a vast Imperium.

Satisfied that the target would not pose any further concerns, Nalon let the chin-cannon spray the high-velocity rounds through the infantry that had been sheltering behind the target’s shield, reducing them to ribbons before he moved on toward the centre of the colony.

Resistance was weakening now, and soon they would be able to press on to the colony itself.

__ __ __

“In the name of the Emperor-Numinous, I pronounce you guilty of unlawful settlement of this world, of murdering its peoples and contaminating its biosphere.”

The civil leaders of the colony were gathered, as were the citizens. The Judicator was backed by a squad of his brothers with ion rifles, the powerful first cousins of the ancient volkite technologies of the Imperium.

“This land is not yours. You have stolen it. Your leaders will die for their crimes. The rest of you will be taken forth.”

The executioners stepped forward. They had taken the time to wrench from the minds of each their complicity, in civilized places this was not a trial, but for the Silver Dragons, it would do. It was better than any had given to the natives of this world that they had worked to death to build their colony.

They were cast down in front of their assembled comrades, and the ion rifles blazed - energy weapons were cheaper. These blood-purity demagogues were not worth the expenditure of ammunition. The weapons vapourised them, but they did not do so in the efficient, bloodless way of necrontyr gauss flayers, which transferred the material of the target into stored energy patterns. Although the Silver Dragons were allied with the Great Civilization, their weapons were based on the Ancestral Imperium’s, with their own flair and discoveries.

These weapons were messier. The governor burst into fire, a roaring thunderclap of the water in his body was boiled away and much of his body scattered in a cloud of blazing cinders. An instant cremation.

The crowd screamed.

The ion rifles blazed again and again, as the colonial committee followed their viceroy to oblivion.

The price of stealing the planet out from a developing sapient species was sometimes steep, at least it was when the Silver Dragons came.

---

Great Civilization State Barque Consent of the Governed

Coordinator Mathen Sorikan ita Oruskar was one of the half dozen persons to hold the title. He was the leader of the Great Civilization’s Ancestral Strategic Interest Conclave, he was charged with oversight of the worlds and people were drawn from the same plane of existence as the Great Civilization’s technological ancestors.

And right now he was not a happy man.

He was not prone to venting his frustrations, but there was an alluvial tightness to his jaw and the mild twitch of someone bouncing requests irritatedly. Half a dozen simulacra, echoes of his personality through his arrays, were working to reduce his conscious workload, but that did not make the number of top-level delegates seeking his attention any less.

Effective delegation covered many eventualities, but it had its limits. Right now his Conclave was busily in debate with the Martian Conclave. Foreign lands were principally ‘managed’ by one or another conclave, at least if they were important, and previously that had been clear cut. There were agreed processes, of course, but still, he was not enjoying applying them.

The man who had introduced himself as the attache for the influential Progress Alliance was not helping Mathen’s mood.

“Ewart Van Saal,” he had introduced himself, “at your service, Coordinator.”

“I doubt that,” he said, “I take it that Praetia could not come to inflict herself on our expedition in person.”

“Alas not,” Ewart said, “but we always make sure to keep someone on hand here on fair Mandragora to accompany expeditions to any of our star-lost brethren.”

Mathen grimaced and glanded a burst of QuickCalm. He knew enough about Ewart Van Saal to mistrust the man, he was old, centuries-old, and his flippant persona was one that he had cultivated as older forms of influence had altered, he was not the most dangerous of the Ancestral interest in the Progress Alliance, but he was one step away from some of the most effective political animals to grace the halls of the Great Civilization’s Senate as lobbyists. He didn’t even disagree with the Progress Alliance’s principles, but it was frustrating to be effectively shadowed. The alternative was to turn down the representative or exclude him and face the dispute that would arise, and Mathen would rather eat his own fingers than deal with the conduct review that would ensue. “You’re welcome,” he said, at last, breathing out and showing a trio of diaglyphs that swam with data.

“Here are the operational briefings, we have recalled semi-deniable forces, and the Conflict Service is launching an operation to identify the region that’s translated. Unlike a standard starchange, this involved a warp storm,” he said. “We anticipate a non-trivial presence of Neverborn and subtle effects, and the Conflict Service had already dispatched two engagement elements.

“Our biggest problem is that this isn’t going to be our show alone. The neighbours have already noticed it. Xolotl put in a notice of our interest in certain venues but we need to act quickly to establish some just what that interest entails, or the whole environment might turn into a crusade,” he waved the shimmering images of the briefing aside, and a soligram of a region of space hundreds of light-years across came into being.

Ewart raised a finger to his lips, and curled it inward conspiratorially, as though suppressing the first instinct of his mouth, “Interesting phrasing.”

“Deliberate, yes,” Mathen said.

“To Kadria, then?” Ewart asked, “I did not know Coordinators did house calls.”

“Today we do,” he said. “Neja was going to be visiting them and the Arkasians sooner or later. It simply falls to me instead.”

“How long until we translate there?”

“We’re already there,” Mathen said.