+ The Alien Wars: The Chiron Anomaly and the Ordo Chronos +
It is said that time waits for no man. Fortunately, as the more observant of my colleagues will have already gleaned, I am no man.
– attr. Inquisitrix Barbari Kills, during her hearing before the Chronos Coven of Eight.
+ The Chiron Anomaly is a radiation-bathed region of wilderness space on the very borders of the galactic rim; both a memorial to the ancient warfare of the Great Heresy and – so it is whispered – a vision of a dark millennium yet to come. +
+ The Chiron Cabal +
+ Long quarantined by the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Nova Terra Interregnum saw the picketing Ark Mechanicus Assertive Denominator and its attendant fleet drawn to assist in the conflict over the Nova Terran outpost Jin Gi. With its guardians absent, numerous rogue traders, pirates and other opportunists were quick to descend. None emerged unchanged. +#+ The divided Inquisition also sent a number of agents to investigate the Anomaly; resulting in the formation of the Chiron Cabal; a group of Inquisitorial servants dedicated to the investigation of the Anomaly. +
+ The Chiron Cabal were subsequently (at least, as far as such a term can be used of the group) to form the core group of the Ordo Chronos. +
+++
+ Torans +
+ The Anomaly itself permanently affects two star systems; neither with inhabited planets in the current period (M35); owing to the constant projection of mereolgical ejecta. This has a matter-dilating effect that – from space – causes the surfaces of the planets to be a nonsensical soup of quantum contradictions. Further out, the unpredictable waxing and waning of the Anomaly's effect occasionally touches a third system, which contains the planet of Solemnace, intermittenly inhabited by hardy frontiersfolk and time-miners. +
+ Solemnace is inhabitable only in certain regions; those within the influence of the chthonic toran structures that predate colonisation. Beyond their reaches, the planets are bombarded with hard radiation remaining from an exterminatus-event executed during the Great Heresy. What garbled records remain are closed on who precisely executed the planets, but it is clear that at least one Astartes Legion was involved. +
+ The torans themselves are speculated to be of xeno origin; with some comparing their time-dilation effects to the technologies of the noxious hrud; though the gateways bear little similarity to other structures known to be 'constructed' by these aliens. Whatever their origin, the toran's effects on the planet are unmistakable; creating temporary localised regions of normalised space-time. Their cycling is relatively predictable, allowing the nomadic inhabitants to move to another pocket before the region winks out of stability. +
+ It is within these unstable regions that the Ordo Chronos – and others – delve, as they potentially allow a sufficiently briefed and trained operative to experience – and, so the theory goes, potentially affect – different periods of time. Thus, a number of different Ordos have brought their elite forces to the world; hoping to force their way through to change the past. Some aim to send word to distant regions; others to find an instantaneous method of galactic communion; prevent the rise of Nova Terra; or to expand the breakaway Empire's influence. The most ambitious – or insane – attempt to dive further back or forward in time, gathering tools and weapons to conquer a future galaxy, or prevent the Emperor's death. +
+ Of course; so the theory goes. In practise, most chronoagents are driven irrevocably insane, killed by timedisplacement, or otherwise lost forever. The planet has become a near-infinite mass of petty temporal skirmishes, with ever-escalating warbands reporting the appearance of new forces dating from pre-Imperial timelines to strange glittering warriors. +
+++
+ Thought for the day: Only the insane have strength enough to prosper. Only those who prosper truly judge what is sane. +
+ Thought for the day: Only the insane have strength enough to prosper. Only those who prosper truly judge what is sane. +
6 comments:
Oh hell yes... Anachronism in an already anachronistic world, merging Moorcock deeper into 40K,brilliant.
Reminds me of a xenos race I created for the Inquisitor game about ten years ago (coincidentally from the same region of space) called the Omicron (not their full name, just part of their Mechanicus designation as their name is entirely unpronounceable to any other living species). They were consummate masters and mistresses of temporal technology, creating weapons and defensive equipment that could slow down and speed up time, generate personal stasis fields that could stop incoming attacks dead but still allow the wearer to move as normal; but whilst they bent the laws of time, they never broke the Second Law of Thermodynamics, never went against Times Arrow (mostly because they simply hadn't progressed technologically enough to manage it).
Until the fateful day they finally broke through that barrier and developed functional, guided time-travel. No one is sure when, but all traces of the Omicron disappeared; their worlds, their technology, their people - as though they'd never existed at all. Some speculate that this occurred the moment that they successfully completed their first testing of time-travel, others argue that it is more likely that time-travel was misused too much to correct mistakes in the Omicrons past and their continuum simply collapsed paradoxical errors began piling up.
The only reason the Imperium know that the Omicron exist at all is that a few hundred prophetic (some would say enlightened) amongst their race, predicted this potential doom via temporal disintegration and instead installed their consciousness into artificial, shielded self-consistency rigs which protected them from the effects of temporal change. These refugees then disappeared into the darkest corners of known space, forever researching for a way to undo all that they brought upon themselves...
Really like this idea! :D
More, more I say! I very much enjoy digging through M35; it's a big ol' sandpit.
Cor, that sounds like a brilliant concept. Did you ever work up any figures or artefacts?
A nice way to square a circle :)
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