AN: Welcome to the epilogue! Sorry I took so long on this, but I rewrote this chapter several times trying to find just the right wording for it…But at any rate, lets deal with the REVEIWS! "SPARTAN-626," thanks. And yes, the Emperor is going have a hard time for a while for that reason, and what's in this chapter. "edboy4926," Now that I've been replaying Inquisition I may make that side story Inquisition instead…I don't know, I have other priorities first…Like the three unfinished fics I have on my profile needing updates. "CapitalClassShip," Poll was over. I may have Orkoids in the sequels, but I need to find a way to make it make sense in my head…As for the Tau, well you'll see. One last thing before I end this AN, I want to thank all you loyal readers who stuck with this fic until the end. It's guys and girls like you that make this all worthwhile. So without further delay, here's the Epilogue!

Normal Speech

Thought/Radio

Psyker/Deity thought/psychic communication

POV/Scene switch…Deity Speech

Rebuilding an Empire and Vision of the Future

Five Months Later: Earth

In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Eye, the remnants of the alliance limped back to Terra, only to discover that the world, much to their shock, was in uninhabited and unscarred by human life. After trying to contact the other worlds, they found that the leftover energy from the collapse had made contact outside the system impossible.

As such, the first priority of the fleet was to reestablish habitation on Earth; which was quite easily done with the quantum lathes the UNSC possessed…within a week there were several major habitations on the planet, but the majority was left untouched, as those regions were unneeded at this point.

With Earth recolonized, the attentions of the survivors turned towards the rest of the system, and quickly re-established the Sol system as the UNSC had it at its smallest form, but with Imperial and Eldar sectors established on the planets.

After Sol was re-established and subsequently fortified, the fleet started sending squadrons of Stealth Frigates off to explore the systems that they were aware of. Most systems were uninhabited, but there were a rather small number of human and or Eldar inhabited systems left, which were reinforced by extra defenses during this fragile time.

Strangely enough, the systems where the humans and Eldar dwelt in formed a defensive ring around Sol, as if the collapse had ripped each world from its proper place and then reoriented it into a more advantageous position.

Beyond discovering those colonized systems, they encountered a Tau controlled system; and, as their orders were not to get involved with other species at the moment, they left after deploying stealthed automated observation posts to determine what faction within the Tau Empire they were from.

The patrol groups also encountered a system full of inactive Necron Tombworlds, which was swiftly quarantined and mined to ensure that no-one would foolishly awaken the Necrons before the Alliance could agree on a plan to deal with them.

However, they were unable to complete their exploration, as roughly where Cadia was, before it was moved closer to Sol, was a massive warp storm that spread in a crescent completely shielding the territory, roughly a fifth of what used to be Human dominated space, already explored from the outside.

With this news the casualties taken during the war and collapse could finally be tallied up. The Imperium of Man, the most populous of all the groups before the collapse with a population in the hundreds of trillions, had lost over ninety nine percent of their population, there were only one trillion souls left of that proud empire.

The UNSC, the second most populous with a population of three hundred trillion humans (not counting the aliens who they had taken under their wing), had suffered similarly, and now there were only seven hundred billion of them left. Plus their cloning technology had been rendered inoperable, even if a new edition of the current design was built, by the aftermath of the merger…So now they had to redevelop that technology.

And lastly the Eldar, of whom there were only one hundred billion before the final battle, had their numbers cut in half.

While the numbers were high, they did not tell the whole story of the war. Among the casualties were some of the best and brightest of each group. The Eldar had lost the majority of their Farseers and Exarchs, the Imperium's Council of Terra had died when Terra was stripped clean of life (as did many other leaders on other worlds), the Primarchs had fallen when their ships where ripped apart from the inside by the malignant energy of the collapse, and the UNSC had lost the upper echelons of government when Earth was hit by the death wave.

If it were any other species such high casualties and near total destruction of the higher tiers of government would have probably led to the collapse of the species as effective group of decades to come...But Humanity, in all its forms, has always been a resilient species.

In testament to this, the remnants of these great Empires began to rebuild the government in a prototype manner. But there was one problem, the Immortal God Emperor of Man had been in seclusion ever since the news of his sons' death had been delivered. While it was to expected, the fact remained that no permanent solution for a new government could be reached until he took part in the formation, as the Imperials wouldn't agree to anything without the Emperor's input.

However, no one had the courage or nerve to confront the Emperor and try and get him to help with the foundation of this new government…Well at least until the Eldar Goddess Ishta literally stormed into his chambers. No one really knows what happened during the half a day she was there…except for the Custodes who were on duty then, and they have sworn themselves to silence on the matter. All that mattered to the population at large was that it did the trick, and that the Emperor, while obviously still saddened by the deaths of his sons, was able to take part in the formation of the new government.

Within a week of wrangling and arguing, the government, forever after known simply as The Imperium, had finally taken shape. Here's a summary of the new government.

At the head of this new government is the Immortal God Emperor, with absolute authority over the Imperium. Immediately below him are two advisory groups: The Imperial Council, made up of the best and brightest of the non Psykers in the empire, and the Chamber of Sight, made of the most potent Psykers.

Beyond that there is the Imperial Senate, a body of representatives gathered from the systems that survived the merger and the future colonies, which was meant to ensure that each system can bring their problems before the gaze of the wider Imperium for aid if need be...And if the Senate is incapable of handling the problem they then bring it before the Emperor. Each system also has their own local version, so that the planets could ensure that their needs could be taken care of locally or brought before the Imperial Senate.

Beyond the Legislative branch, there was the judicial branch, constructed much like the UNSC's but with more power to act as needed in the form of the Neo-Arbites and the Marshals. The Neo-Arbites fulfil much the same role as they did in the old Imperium of man, but they have additional powers (such as the ability to judge a criminal on the spot and the authority to carry out whatever sentence they see fit), but with higher level of requirements for selection to ensure that only the most incorruptible of people can become an Adeptus Arbite.

The Marshals are wondering lawmen (and women), who are held to an even higher standard than the Arbites are. But this is necessary as the Marshals are given even more power than the Arbites, such as being able to draft nearly any person into their cadre for the length of a case, and given better weapons and equipment, such as older (gen III) ODST armor and modified HEW-1s.

Beyond the government's creation, the military and intelligence agencies were all combined and or reformed as needed.

The lowest level of military service, taking a page out of the Imperium of Man's history as well as that of the Eldar, was the CDF (Colony Defense Force). The CDF is a vast a varied force, with each system's troopers equipped to fight on their home planets, much like the older PDF units. But the CDF is not just ground forces, it also includes space born elements, mostly older models of ships and planetary defense fortresses. But on top of the local forces, the CDF had mobile reserve forces meant to be first responders to any threats the local units couldn't handle on their own.

The Imperial Navy remained the most unchanged of all branches, save for the fact that engineers were coming up with new and more efficient designs to replace the current fleet and reflect the nature of the Imperium by taking into account all the styles of construction used before the unification.

The Imperial Guard and UNSC Marines and Army were combined into one branch, for ease of supply and command, known as the Imperial Marine Corps. The IMC was intended as both the first effective assault force as well as a stronger counter attack force then the CDF's mobile reaction forces; and to fulfil this role they were being given new weapons and armor as well as a new training regimen.

The Space Marines and UNSC Spartan Corps were combined into one joint unit, the Legions. Each Legion was meant to be, much like their forbearers were in the Great Crusade, a fully functional military into and of itself, with space born elements as well as superb boarding troops and ground forces. Each Legionary went through modified versions of both the Space Marine Augmentation and the Spartan one, just to ensure that each Legionary was the best of the best that the Imperium had to offer militarily.

As for the intelligence agency Imperial Intelligence, it is broken into three main branches…Each one based loosely off of the main branches of the Inquisition, but more focused. The OII (Office of Internal Intelligence) goal was to track, and if necessary counter, potential threats within the Imperium, ranging from criminal gangs and separatists (who would probably appear eventually if human history was anything to go by) to cultist and traitors (while unlikely that any chaos followers had survived, the damage wrought by the Chaos war was enough to make the Imperium adopt a better safe than sorry policy on that front).

OEI, or Office of External Intelligence, was built around monitoring and countering all external threats, whether they be the Tau or Necron they were aware of or an unknown threat hidden beyond the warpstorm.

Lastly OMI, the Office of Military Intelligence…Which was really just a generic title to cover all their purposes. The OMI covered intelligence gathering for the military, but they also handled black and deniable ops, including assassinations as the Officio Assassinorium had been folded into their functions.

The Eldar were not gathered into one particular path though, each Eldar, depending on their particular skill set, was allowed to pick their own profession within the empire. So for example there were Autarchs and Exarchs in the Legions, and Guardians in the Marines and CDF; while the majority of Farseers either joined the Chamber of Sight or the diplomatic world or even politics.

With the basic framework in place, the Imperium rapidly solidified and started to slowly, at almost a snail's pace, expand and recolonize the area available to them (to ensure that each world was fully protected and had a large enough population to be viable). And in the meantime diplomats left to negotiate with the surviving tau for at least a cease-fire if not a peace treaty.

However, it was closer to home that a startling discovery was made. Deep beneath the Martian soil, a hidden base made by unknown beings was discovered…And with it everything changed, and yet didn't.

Vision of Farseer Taldeer: Recorded on the Twentieth of April, 1 AU

The vision was grey and vague for the most part, but I was able to see scores of our forces fighting against an unknown foe…And losing.

I watched Legionaries fall to mysterious attackers, and CDF soldiers rounded up and put in prison camps never to return.

Worlds burned under the onslaught of a mysterious fleet, as our own navy fell burning from the sky.

And then the vision ended, the last scene being the symbol of a roaring lion standing proud on a field of crimson.

The most troubling aspect of this short vision was not the defeats, for as our cousins say "adapt improvise and overcome," but from what I felt in the vision. There was no menace, no sense of evil or horror…Just sorrow. And that terrifies me more than the Dark Ones did.

Pheonix Rising: Complete. Awaiting next phase

See you in the sequel folks!