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Hadrian Caeser
The Ad-Mech will download all the knowledge they can as soon as possible as they like collecting knowledge.
edboy4926
I thought the Ark was just a prop from the movie that got into someone's collection.
QEC would quickly put the astropaths out of business and then what would be done with all the psykers that the Black Ships round up. I supposed Thrax could try to limit the tech to himself the Ad-Mech and Inquisition who don't like to share their toys I'll give it some thought.
Rogue Trader CYOA Story 3
"Loyalty is it's own reward" - Lion El'Jonson
Part 2
The Enduring Triumph. The Terminus Systems.
When we left the warp and the bridge crew discovered that were in no known system they did not panic because most of them had been serving me long enough to get used the idea of ending up somewhere in the vastness of unknown space. As such they calmly reported in about the status of the cruiser and how we'd arrived within a star system a safe distance from the local star.
Assuming that I'd brought us to the right place we should be in the Mass Effect galaxy. To be more precise this system was located somewhere on the far side of the Attican Traverse, beyond the space administered by the Citadel Council or claimed by the human Systems Alliance. These systems are populated by a loose affiliation of minor species, united only in their refusal to acknowledge the political authority of the Council.
That independence comes at a price; the Terminus Systems are fraught with conflict. War among the various species and factions is common, as governments and dictators constantly rise and fall. The region is a haven for illegal activities, particularly piracy and the slave trade. Since the Terminus systems are disorganised and in conflict with each other they were highly unlikely to ever organise against me in any meaningful way. Even if they did their levels of firepower were so puny when compared to mine they'd never be a real threat. Not to a Lunar-class cruiser even without escorts.
Now if the more organised and more advanced Citadel races could be a threat if they all allied against me as they had fleets of ships that while not a threat to me on their own could be a problem if they came in the hundreds or even thousands, even a bear can be stung to death if you have enough bees. I would have to ensure that they would ally against me.
"Lord-Captain we have exited the warp within an inhabited system" reported my First Officer
One of the advantages of having closer ties to the Ad-Mech who brought along their own ship was that Archmagos Thea Maxid had access to more advanced scanners, or augers as they were called, and while the scanners were useless until the warp jump was fully over, that didn't prevent the red robed cyborgs from sharing data with us once we were firmly in reality.
"Both of our escorts and all of the Squat vessels made the journey" I was soon informed "Although I doubt any of the abhuman ships will survive a battle or another jump".
There was more than luck involved in that I felt sure.
"Lord-Captain we can be sure at ths stage, but it seems as if there may be a habitable planet in this system" I was told "The followers of the machine god tell me that there an 82 percent chance that the world can be colonised".
This news was well taken by everyone and I had to wonder just how good cogboys sensors actually were.
"The Emperor be praised" I said to the bridge crew "Once again he has delivered us to a world that we can bring into the Imperium".
While the crew chanted their thanks I noticed via the information that was fed directly to my command throne that the Ad-Mech vessel was picking up a ship on his scans, only for it to vanish. I knew that to be the vessel the Eldar had sent with us and that we were unlikely to ever see it again. My psyker senses weren't picking up any sense of hostility and the alien presence was moving away rapidly as they wished to be away from us as soon possible. The feeling was mutual.
"Are the Squat ships breaking formation?" I inquired.
It was soon confirmed that they were and this was as it should be. Squat were hardy frontier folk who preferred to keep to themselves and live underground. They'd settle somewhere in this system where there were plenty of metals to mine and sooner than many would expect they'd be sending me a small amount and selling more so as to get what they needed to turn their new homes into fortresses that even the Reapers would be wary of trying to crack open. Which was all part of my long term plans.
We still thousands of squats onboard my ship, wisely minding their own business, as soon as possible I'd have them ferried to their new homes with some equipment needed to help the space dwarves get settled into their new homes. I considered this to be a good course of action as it was a long term investment which would pay off later.
"A potenially habitable planet in this system is broadcasting a vox signal" a bridge officer informed me "It appears to be a distress call".
Assuming that we were in right place then the world sending out the transmission would be Aeia, the Earth like world that a human colony ship had crashed upon. Given that the signal was still going it seemed as if no one had answered it yet so we should have arrived well before the events of Mass Effect 2 and after ME1 as I'd planned. Hopefully we'd have some time to settle in and build some defences before anyone came calling. Hence why I'd chosen this remote part of the ME galaxy to travel to.
A vox transmission was just a fancy term of a radio signal and therefore was slower than light. I could only guess that the radio transmission was meant to guide a rescue effort to the crash sight once someone entered the system after having heard an FTL transmission. Both signals would have to be shut down as I didn't want anyone coming to check on this system.
"The vox transmission can be understood" I was being told "It is in a form of Low Gothic similar to that used by our allies on Holy Terra's twin".
In other words it was in English or close enough to make no difference.
"Then they are humans here" I said "distant kin of ours who are lost or in danger. We will go to their aid".
Since there was no proper colony on the world and we were outside of System Alliance space the human government of this galaxy would not kick up a fuss about us taking of the planet assuming that they ever found out about it.
I didn't wish to upset the System Alliance as I would need them on my side to combat the Reapers. I planned to butter them up with laser weapons, Fallout models not Imperial, and maybe a few odd bits of tech. In order to operate as I saw fit here in the Terminus Systems I could not have the Council races acting in a unified manner and so I'd need at least the Alliance to be on friendly terms with my expediation.
First of all I wanted to secure what was left of the crashed colony ship. Sure it was primitive compared to our tech, but it was human made and so the Ad-Mech would be itching to take it apart and we needed raw materials to help build our new colony.
Inquisitor Agatha du Gisaal arrived on the bridge before I finally decided on the best course of action. I wanted to secure what passed for a colony down there for House Thrax so I could then generously offer up the wreckage of the colony ship to the Ad-Mech in exchange for later favours. Without that I'd have to depend on existing goodwill to keep them supporting my efforts and even that had its limits.
"I want us in orbit of whoever is sending the SOS" I said, before the Inquisitor could speak "Dispatch some fighters to scout ahead".
My Lunar-class was much slower than the Dauntless-class I'd recently commanded so it would be good to have some nimble fighting craft out there in case something unexpected happened. Such as the Normandy turning up for Jacob Taylor's loyalty mission.
"With your permission Lord-Captain I would like the Death Watch to make first planetary landing" said Du Gissal "We have no idea why the humans of this world are sending out a distress a call. There could be an unknown xenos race attacking".
They weren't, but I should have no way of knowing that and I got the feeling that while down there a few interesting items would vanish to be traded with that Necron Overlord later on. Also requests from an Inquisitor were not really requests and keeping the Inquisition happy with me would pay off later with me not being declared a heretic.
I could well imagine Jacob Taylor's father ending up as part of a display set up by Trayzen. The acting captain who betrayed his entire crew just so he could live as master of his own little kingdom. A well deserved fate I figured.
"By all means my lady" I said "I'll hold my people back until you have secure the site".
Then once I had people on the ground I could talk the Archmageos about setting up a proper base. The planet we were all heading for had four moons so I could gift one to the Ad-Mech if it turned out to resource rich enough in minerals. Setting up a forge complex would keep most of the cyborgs busy while I focused on claiming as much of the planet that I would call Thrax Secundus just as Planetos was officially known to the Imperium as Thrax Primus was really owned by me.
(Line Break)
Thrax Secundus. The Terminus Systems.
The MSV Hugo Gernsback (registry BW4610034087) was a privately held frigate under the command of Captain Harris Fairchild and his first officer Ronald Taylor. Having been built off-world in zero gravity, the Gernsback was not rated for suborbital descent so it was impressive that the ship had held up so well after crashing onto the planet and then lying as a wreck for so many years.
In 2175, the Gernsback was sent on a survey mission to the recently discovered planet called Aeia, or Thrax Secundus as it was now known. While on approach to the planet, the Gernsback was impacted by an unspecified object resulting in damage to its sublight drive. The crew of the Gernsback was unable to control its descent and it was made to forcibly crash-land on the surface of Aeia. At least according to the records recovered so far.
Some of the crew, including the captain, were killed. Ronald Taylor was promoted to acting captain and his command was doomed from the start. Ronald Taylor was left in a bad situation, as among other things the only food to be found on this island was toxic and nothing the crew did could purify it. Something the Ad-Mech hopefully wouldn't have a problem with or we'd have to keep eating the ration packs until the farms started producing crops.
Realizing that any who ate the toxic food would go insane in some ways, Ronald Taylor and the other officers decided to reserve the food rations on the ship for themselves, forcing the other crewmen to eat the planet's toxic food. Unsurprisingly, many of the crew members rioted in response, forcing Ronald to become a dictator over the surviving crew rather than a leader. When his fellow officers also became rebellious or outlived their usefulness, Ronald killed them as well.
Eventually The Hugo Gernsback's crew developed a means by which to send a distress call for help, but Ronald deliberately chose not to do this, as he very quickly found that he enjoyed being in a depraved sexual fantasy and a position of power. So he did not send out a distress call until the surviving crewmen eventually became so feral and violent that he could no longer control them, or that is what would have happened if I'd not brought us here at this time.
The distress call sent over the vox was automated and by now would have only reached nearby star systems which were all uninhabited as far as anyone knew. They would not be heard by anyone local for hundreds of years if ever. Now that signal was cut off at the source and efforts were being made to turn the transmitter that could send a FTL signal into a receiver so that we could learn more about what was going on in the galaxy.
"Awarding this island the Adeptus makes sense" I was saying the Archmagoes".
I'd wanted to claim it for myself, but as it turned out this island wasn't large enough for my need and since The Hugo Gernsback was here the red robes would be around a lot anyway.
"Taking one of the moons shouldn't be an issue" I then added as I watched the waves crash against the beach that was littered with salvage taken from the ship by the cyborgs "I plan to turn over governorship of this world to one of the Imperial Guard officers".
The major wouldn't want to be tied down to this world because she wanted to be a Lady-General and that meant conquering worlds not just settling them and if I took direct control over the world it might look to some as if I was trying to forge my own empire. By placing allies in command of worlds I got my support network without anyone thinking that I wanted to make myself an emperor.
Plus I wouldn't have to spend all my time overseeing the development of this world. I could let others handle that while I reaped the benefits later on and later I could fly about in my cruiser doing what I wanted for the most part. I needed to raid pirates and slavers not just to fill my own coffers, but also to bring resources back to this world so that the Ad-Mech could use the materials to further fortify this planet and its moons.
A single world would not be able to withstand the Reapers even with orbital weaponry as they might still be able to overwhelm it with sheer numbers. We would need a few planets at least and there were human colonies within the Terminus Systems that I could offer to protect and if not directly control then at least heavily influence.
The justification for this would not be the threat of the Reapers, but rather the Geth because as soon as the Ad-Mech found out that there was an entire race of AI in this galaxy they'd would want to prepare a crusade against them. That would require more ships and troops than we had so we'd have to build a ship yard capable to producing at least some escorts and lots of guns.
We'd actually end up using them against the Reapers, but the average Imperial citizen who was under my authority didn't need to know that just yet, not when there were plenty of dangerous aliens in this galaxy to worry about and wage war upon.
"I must admit that your overall plan for this system is a bold one" commented the Inquisitor.
While I'd not told either the Archmagos or the Inquisitor the full scope of my plan they did know they basics and they approved.
"Rogue Traders need to dream big, my lady" I replied "And we know so very little of this new galaxy. It makes sense to prepare for an attack".
The Inquisitor nodded in approval.
"You are right to do so my lord" she said "l have taken Acting Captain Jacobs into custody so that he can repent for his sins by serving the Inquisition and its allies, including yourselves".
While the actions of Jacob's father were certainly immoral calling them illegal was another matter since there was no law and order in this part of the galaxy and while this was now an Imperial world he hadn't actually done anything illegal since we'd arrived. On the other hand he needed to be punished so forcing him to work for us made sense as he had mostly sinned against his own crew.
"Has he told you much of use to us?" I asked.
Looking around I noticed that my battle harem was ensuring that one was allowed to get too close to me and this informal meeting.
"His information is about nine years out of date, yet most of it was useful" said Du Gissal.
He wouldn't know about the geth attacks, Saren or Sovereign, but he would no much about overall galactic affairs, the different races, how they were organised and such. He should have at least a basic understand of mass effect technology as well since he was the second officer of a freighter.
"It will take time for the machine god's faithful to fully interact with the spirts of this wounded vessel" Thea Maxind let me know "When we have full access to the records we can verify the words of this Roland Taylor".
Sounded good to me.
"Roland has already told us much" Du Gissal was now saying "According to him we are a lawless and most unknown part of the galaxy".
Which is why I had brought us here.
"This planet is remote thankfully" she went on to say "So we have time to prepare for any slavers or pirates find us. Since the outlaws who control this part of the galaxy have no overall leadership or any reason to trust each other we have no trouble taking what we want from them".
I planned to play pirate-king and raid the raiders. Some might call that poetic justice.
"Our main concern is the Citadel races" Du Gissal warned "They are organised under the leadership of the council and have many fleets under their command. They like the Tau of our galaxy work to absorb races and worlds into domain".
I had no doubt that they'd sell out quite a bit to get their hands on my technology.
"They are cautious and are likely to avoid a large scale conflict unless their hand is forced" the Inquisitor informed "I suggest keeping them at distance at least until we have a secure fall back position. This world needs to be defended well enough to make it too costly to take as the Council found out when they tried to force the human run Systems Alliance into their dominion".
Du Gissal told us about how the Council had unleashed the Turians, their attack dogs upon humanity when the Alliance Navy was doing harmless exploring because humanity had broken some law they couldn't possibly have known about and didn't apply to then anyway as they weren't part of Citadel space. She was under the impression that the Council had sent the turians to fight the native humans to test them, and this could be Roland Taylor's view, and that when humanity proved to be too strong to conquer easily they were invited to place themselves under the rule of the Citadel as more than a mere client race.
"I have no doubt that if this System Alliance had refused the Council would have thrown their full might at humanity and conquered them after a costly war just as the Tau would have tried if they'd found the Imperium when it was young" said the Inquisitor "At least by joining on favourable terms they avoided becoming slaves or sterilised as a species called the Krogans were".
Unless this was an alternate universe very different from what I knew then what happened was that the turians overstepped in their authority and the Council got them to back off once they realised that the turians had almost pissed off a race that could actually bloody them.
"The race known as asari are clearly the Tau of this universe" the cyborg and I were informed "They are a long lived species that mate with anyone who takes their fancy yet produce only asari offspring they take and give nothing in return. The turians act as their war hounds while another race called salarians maintain their technology".
This was true only in some sense. Not all turians were warriors and not salarians were scientists.
"Then there are the geth" said the Inquisitor "Which we shall discuss later".
Yes best do that in private. There would be meetings, many more meetings before I left this system. Then I would have so much to oversee
(Line Break)
Thrax Secundus. The Terminus Systems.
After almost two whole terran years I was finally free to sail the stars once again yet I sat within a throne room inside a palace/fortress which had built for me on one of the many islands on this world because before I let I still needed to oversee a few matters before leaving.
Even with hard working serfs, a legion of servitors, and the machines of the Ad-Mech it took time to set up mines, houses, fishing villages and farms. I had thousands of labours and robots built in the style of those used on Fallout Earth who had not stopped work in two years so as to transform Thrax Secundus from an untamed world into a planet that could support my plans for this universe.
After we'd gained the means to feed, clothe and shelter everyone we'd focused on garrisons, airfields and fortress that needed to built. We hadn't even started to on the shipyards that the Ad-Mech planed for the second of the four moons they'd staked a claim to because the resources we gathered were being used almost as fast as we could process them. We had more than enough to sustain everything we had. it was just that we'd need more of everything if we wanted to expand further. Most our logicistcal concerns were due to a lack of manpower and high grade alloys.
So I would need to go out and get them either by taking or trading, and this meant travelling further than either the cobra raider or the Ad-Mech had gone. Without the Emperor's lighthouse no Imperial ship other than my own could travel a few lightyears before needing to drop out of the warp to get its barings, not the best way to travel if you need to cross entire sectors of the galaxy.
Due to the calmer nature of the warp in this reality that range got extended somewhat, but it was would take months for either the Ad-Mech ship or the raider to get anywhere unless they tagged along with my cruiser. Which allowed me to control where they went, helping me to stay in overall command of the Imperial expedition.
If not for the fact that humans in the 40k universe were used to matters taking time I felt sure that the raiders would have rebelled out of boredom by now. The waiting had been worse for me because I was still somewhat a 21st century person who was used to instant gratification. However I'd adapted and found ways to keep busy perhaps I'd adapted to having a longer life span that most humans. I could live for centuries more so there was no reason to rush anything.
Having another child with Dany helped with that. A daughter named Daenys Thrax after Daenys the Dreamer, the Targaryen who had foreseen The Doom of Valyeria and gotten her father to transfer the family to Dragonstone. Like her older brother Rhayger she had my dark hair and her mother's violet eyes which were seen as exotic rather than a mutation since an exotic eye colour wasn't a big deal even to the Inquisition.
Sarah had kept busy with training her Sisterhood, even recruiting new members so they she had nearly a thousand sisters ready to fight. The Sisterhood of Battle hadn't grown much in size because they rarely recruited adults, preferring to take in younger women so they could be inducted, now that people were starting families on this world I expected their numbers of recruits to start growing as people handed over daughters to the Imperial Church.
I'd not be giving Daenys to anyone as even if her mother allowed it she might turn out be a psyker or immune to fire and that would get her labelled as a witch very quickly which was not something I could save her from even if I was considered a minor saint. Best to keep my children on board my cruiser where they were easier to protect.
With me in the throne room was the Inquisitor and the Archmagos who made most of the big choices with me. I would call the rest of my council together later once I had better timetable for my departure not sensing pulling them away from their work when nothing had been decided for certain at this point.
The Inquisitor, who had her own small warp capable ship, had done her share of scouting and information gathering, had presented me with a list of targets as had the Ad-Mech, for both attacking and allying with. The red robed machine lovers had been able to get some information from the extra-net, the galactic version of the Internet, but we only received information we never transmitted anything. I had no idea how the Inquisiton got their info and was too wise to pry.
"Despite the dangers in this part of the galaxy, the Citadel races have not been deterred from traveling through and even extensively colonizing the Terminus Systems" the Inquisitor was saying "Humans, turians, salarians, elcor, asari, and volus all of them have a sizable colonial presence here. Since the Citadel Council's authority is non-existent out here, these colonies are often fully independent from any interplanetary government".
Meaning that if we attacked those colonies it wasn't likely that anyone in the Citadel hierarchy would do more than verbally protest our actions, at least at first. They couldn't even use trade sanctions because we didn't trade with them and nothing short of their combined military might would really be a threat.
"The Terminus Systems also encompass the home worlds of the quarians and the vorcha" said the Inquisitor "Or the quarians used to have their home world and colonies here. They are now all in the hands of the geth".
Had the Archmagos the ability to she would have spat on my nice marble floor upon mention of the hated geth.
"The Abominable Intelligences need to put to the sword" she stated.
If only it were that simple. I had no love for the geth and creating a peace between the geth and quarians simply wasn't possible for an Imperial citizen such as myself.
"We have discussed allying with the quarians against the geth" I said "Not a normal course of action, but we don't have the might to take on the geth directly, this is an expedition not a holy crusade force".
I had no issue looting and burning everything in the Terminus Systems, in fact it could be rather fun, however we didn't have the people or weapons to hold any of the colony worlds even if we could conquer them, at least not any colonies worth taking that we knew about.
"Working with xenos is slippery slope" warned Du Gissal.
She was right even if the quarians weren't to be trusted even if most of them were fairly decent people I well remembered one of their admirals firing on the geth dreadnought that Shepard risked himself and his ship to disable.
"The quarian fleet contains tens of thousands of vessels, and despite many of them being civilian in nature they have the biggest fleet in the galaxy" I reminded "They are a direct threat, but will be weakened by a conflict with the geth and they will be kept busy rebuilding their society for many decades to come".
We'd discussed this before and it made sense to aid the quarians in stomping out the geth and then letting them go home. It would keep the busy and out of the way.
"The aliens are unclean" said the Ad-Mech leader "The AI are must worse. If the geth are not crushed they will one day cleanse this galaxy of all human life. They have already tried once before".
Of course that was the heretic geth not the species as a whole, only there was no way I should know that and it hardly mattered. AI were forbidden and the Ad-Mech would never forgive me if I didn't at least try to stamp them out.
"I will attempt to ally with the quarians long enough to destroy the geth" I decided "And not a moment longer. I will not share our technology with them merely lend our firepower to the cause. Such is my right as the Emperor's emissary in this galaxy".
It was an acceptable compromise. The IOM had made sort term alliances with the Tau and the Eldar in the past to face greater foes.
"Do you still plan to ally with the System Alliance?" questioned Du Gissal.
They weren't aliens so she less jurisdiction in this matter.
"I do" I confirmed "I won't give them Imperial technology, instead I'll gift them with technology from Holy Terra's lesser twin. Laser weapons at least as they will be effective the alien menaces. I plan to drive a wedge between the Alliance and the alien powers if possible. To this end I'll be encouraging preachers to enter Alliance space".
Not only was the Imperial Church good at spreading the Emperor's word it would keep them from bothering me. The Emperor's most faithful already had too much influence on Thrax Secundus and by spreading the about I'd weaken their hold on the world I considered to be my planet even if it wasn't offically.
"Before the quarians will even consider an alliance I will need to gain a reputation" I told my two allies "And to make some friends. There is a human colony world that I believe may be under threat called Freedom's Progress that I want to make contact with and help defend".
No Imperial other than myself knew for sure that the Reapers existed however they were willing to believe the stories because they knew well how dangerous a galaxy could be. Very recently a little information on human colonies going dark had also reached our ears so I knew this was the time to begin making my moves.
"These colonies could be vital trading partners" said the Archmagos "We are need of high grade alloys and additonal serfs".
There were plenty of raw materials around we just didn't have the numbers required to fully exploit it all so it would be better to use some of what we had to produce laser weapons that we could sell in exchange for more allies and trade goods.
"So you will be travelling to Freedom's Progress" said the Inquisitor.
That was the plan.
"If the Emperor wills it" I replied "We can only guess at his plans so we will go where he guides us".
When the advanced warp drive took us to that world it would be seen as divine support for my plan as everyone thought that it was the Emperor's will that I managed to navigate the vessel. Since I was sure that Big E was supporting me somehow it might even be true from a certain point of view.
"This will be a chance to gather more samples of human made technology from this galaxy" reminded the cyborg.
Yes I'd make sure to bring them back something nice. I also had an idea of somewhere to stop over on the way. I'd have to claim it was part of Big E's master plan, and that was okay as it would a profitable stop over.