Two months later, Rapture City was complete. Every ship in the fleet had been interred into their underground tombs. All personnel had been moved into the city itself, where they would be put into cryostasis in groups of thousands.

The mood was somber and mournful, men and women did their daily routines and went to sleep, only to rise knowing that they were one day closer to leaving the world they knew behind forever. And they knew there was no turning back.

Admiral Kerensky now stood on a podium to address his people before the first person entered stasis, to say what needed to be said in an attempt to bolster their confidence for this endeavor, that their sacrifice was for the greater good of the human race.

He was garbed in full grey dress uniform, a myriad of campaign ribbons, and medals flowed over his left breast polished to a high sheen for the occasion. The first group stood assembled before him, each and every one had been randomly chosen from a pool of volunteers for the honor of being put into stasis first, to show their brothers and sisters in arms that there was nothing to be afraid of.

"Men and women of the Colonial Federation Defense Forces," he began, his voice amplified to fill the vast chamber, and broadcasted to be heard by millions, "Today I address you not as your commanding officer, nor as head of our fallen state, but as a citizen of mankind. Our race is faced with the most terrible of trials and tribulations. The Bible has labeled this time as Armageddon, the end of humanity as we know it. And that is why we are here, to prevent our own extinction."

He paused and scanned the width of the room, he saw only the faces of people hanging on his every word, needing to hear this madness justified.

"This is all mankind has left. The Iron War has left our people weakened and divided, petty dictators and would-be emperors now rush to Terra to fulfill their childish fantasies with armies of yes-men and fanatics on their tails. And now disaster of unimaginable magnitude is poised to make any possible resolution to this crisis completely meaningless."

His good eye watered slightly from emotion, the thoughts of what was to happen breaking through his stony facade, "Damnation has come to the galaxy, and everything good and wholesome will be gone."

Then his gaze hardened, "But we shall remain!" He exclaimed, making some flinch with the force of his proclamation, "The human thirst for excellence, knowledge, and will to endure shall continue on in the hearts of every man, woman, and child in this city, this time capsule, to a future that has none of those things!"

"Through all the chaos that has defined our history, through all the trials, through every step up the ladder of science, and every adventurous reach into the unknown from Old Earth and beyond, there is one thing that has nourished the cause of Mankind and carried our species from one planet to a million, and that is our courage! The will to never give in!"

He spread his arms wide for emphasis, "The hopes and dreams of our race will be carried upon our backs to save a future from madness and despair."

"May we all live to see mankind redeemed, God speed, and good luck to you! Company dismissed!" He saluted them, and they all, as one, erupted into cheers.


The lower levels of Rapture City were composed of millions of stasis tubes, each one meant to cradle a single human life through the ravages of time. One by one, men, women, and children were led into these imposing plasteel cylinders and put into a deep dreamless sleep.

Ryan Taylor had been stripped naked, and put into a line of likewise unclothed men and women, fellow enlisted and superior officers alike, herded into the tubes. Nobody spoke, or even acknowledged one another, after all the preparation, counseling, and reflection the true depth of the undertaking had finally sunk in. Their lives were over.

Everything that had been familiar was going to be nothing more than a comforting memory when they woke up; if they woke up at all.

All of these painful realizations were endured in silence however. As he was laid down inside of his assigned tube, he wondered if this is what lying in a death bed felt like. In the end, it isn't what one has done that comes to haunt a person in their final moments; but it is what one has not done that forms most of the regret.

As the lid of his tube lowered over his body, his memories flashed through his childhood on the farm. His tenure as a soldier of the CFDF. Memories of parents whose graves he will never see again, of a lovely girl named Anessa with whom he had never worked up the guts to ask out. But now he would never get the chance to do the things he had always dreamed of doing, because for all intents and purposes today he was going to die. And his afterlife would in all likelihood bring him only more pain.

As the cryogenic gasses flooded his tube, Ryan closed his eyes and whispered, "Mother," before he was embraced by the darkness.


The End came swiftly upon the winds of Chaos. Upon the millions of worlds that made up the Eldar Empire, a scene of absolute insanity was being played out upon every city, every ship, and every home. Fathers and Mothers turned upon sons and daughters, sacrificing them to a nameless deity. Wives wantonly threw themselves at other men, carelessly breaking lifebonds that have lasted centuries. Children roamed in packs on the streets, armed with knives and blunt weapons, bringing down adults and cutting them to pieces.

Innumerable cults dedicated to pleasure drowned themselves in their mysticism and fornication. The accumulated filth of their perversion and wickedness foamed about them and onto the streets where their kin hunted one another while cackling in idiotic joy.

The Eldar Empire had fallen.

The upheaval pierced all layers of society, and the darkest parts of the Eldar soul were laid bare for all to see. And none seemed to care, or have anything to say in their defense. The last of their sane kib had already fled. Born upon the wraithbone hulls of immense Craftworlds, or sequestering themselves at the very edge of the galaxy to pursue simpler, honest lives.

But the end had come. The depravity of these darkened, lost souls could be sustained no longer. For their sin had breathed new, terrible, life into the very fabric of the Warp.

In one moment, throughout the entire galaxy, everything was silent, everything paused in horrified anticipation. In that instant, trillions of ancient souls halted in their profanity, it was a moment of racial wide epiphany; they had seen the dark trails of their wanton indiscretions and foul blasphemous acts had led them to the Precipice at full gallop, they could see now over the edge and cried out in horror knowing that they could not prevent the inevitable descent over the edge.

Slaanesh had come.

The moment afterward was shattered by an orgasmic birth scream of incomprehensible magnitude that shattered the barrier between realities. Countless trillions of eldar souls were sucked into this gaping maw of the Warp to feed this newly ascended force that had risen to join it's three elders. The heart had been torn out of an Empire that had endured for sixty-million years in a single, monstrous, stroke.

Warp storms boiled into the gaps between stars, throwing countless alien realms into anarchy as ties of communication and trade were severed. On uncounted human worlds people possessing strange and unnatural abilities screamed as their minds were overwhelmed and their bodies transformed into portals for endless legions of daemons that swarmed across these doomed worlds and butchered the inhabitants.

An Age of terrible Strife had begun, one that would persist for thousands of years. Mankind would come to forget it's origins; but the Eldar, cursed as they were with long memories would always remember.

On a lifeless world on the other side of the galaxy, sixty-million human souls, the last of a forgotten age slept in blissful ignorance of the damnation sweeping over the galaxy. When they awake, they will find themselves in a nightmare, a galaxy that knows only war.


A/N: The Precipice chapters are over. Next chapter will bridge into the Grimdark future we all know and love to talk about, but few actually want to visit.