From the hand of Captain Josiah Patternock Merriweather von Helvik
As we begin to chart this bubble of space, I feel compelled to provide a brief chronicle of the various ships of my glorious fleet so that whoever may read this record, hopefully long after I've returned and lived a full life[1], will have a better understanding of the ships and their unique peoples who helped to chart this unknown reach and further the glory of the Von Helvik family.
While the first inclination would be to explore more of my own ship, I feel delving too deep into the Acquisition as of now would be too much for most readers of these annals[2] and would unnecessarily distract from the glories of my various subordinates. Let it never be said that a Von Helvik denies glory to others who are more deserving.[3]
So instead, I will allow the Mechanicus's technical descriptions of the ships in my fleet to precede these logs of ship history[4] to give the reader a better understanding of how these mighty ships operate before you understand their glory.
HIS MIGHTY RESPLENDANCE- DAUNTLESS CLASS LIGHT CRUSIER
Captain: Shanice Calgar[5]
Age-Unknown, the ship archives indicate that parts of the hull date back as far as M34.
Dimensions: 4.5 KM Length, .5 Km Abeam at fins, .78 KM Height (Not Including Aquila Pennant)
Population: Approximately 67,000
Acceleration: 5.1 Gravities[6]
Equipment:[7]
Power Plant: Jovian Pattern Class 4.5 Warcrusier Drive
Warp Drive: Strelov 2 Warp Engine
Void Shield: Castellan-Class Shield
Armored Command Bridge
Clan-Kin Quarters
Augmented Retro Thrusters, Reinforced Prow/Power Ram, Barracks, Broadband Hymn Caster, Field Bracing, Fire Suppression System, Storm Drop Pod Launch Bay
Weapons:
1 Titan Forge Lance Battery Mounted in the prow of the ship
2 Pyros Melta-Cannon Macrobatteries (Port and Starboard)
In terms of battle tactics, the Resplendence has one preferred method of attacking; ramming the enemy. From their armored prow affixed with an ancient up scaled power array, to their large bank of capital class melta cannons, the Resplendence and her people revel in up-close engagements with their foe.
The typical attack pattern for the Resplendence is to identify a target, and then broadcast on all vox channels various hymns the God-Emperor while playing their battle horns at maximum volume. They'll close in and wear down the target's shields or armor with lance battery fire, housed in reinforced forward sections of the ship's bow. Once they've reach terminal distance, the ships crew will activate the power couplings on the bow, turning their titanic bludgeon into a starship sized power sword. Upon slamming into an enemy, the Resplendence will then make a hard port or starboard and bring their melta cannons to bear; incinerating whatever is left of the ship they've just attacked.
Obviously, this places an enormous strain on the structure of the Resplendence, and the presence of so many melta weapons is a giant fire risk. As such, between the initiative of the ship's clans, and by upgrades made by my family over the centuries, the ship sports a number of field bracings which help to support the ship's structure in battle and fire suppression gases allow for the extinguishing of many flare-ups which tend to arise spontaneously on the ship.
History:
The early history of the Resplendence is mostly lost, and the clans of the ship refuse to share them with anyone save their keepers of memory, an esoteric order of record keepers who keep station near the ship's Gellar field generator. Tended to only by servitors and the rare outsider tech-priest granted permission to join the order. This group releases only the records they wish to be released and guard the rest of the ships history with a fanaticism not seen outside a Sororitas abbey.
What is known is that sometime, claimed to be in the Late Period M34[8] the Resplendence was part of a force known as the Garvanius Crusade, whose task was plunging into the Segmentum Obscurus and reclaiming several dozen imperial worlds rediscovered in the northern portion of the galaxy beyond the Eye of Terror. The Resplendence had just been constructed on the feudal world of Moorslandis, a planet dominated by feuding petty kings, dukes and other men and women of small repute who opted to waste time and energy fighting over some parts of dust on an insignificant mudball. The men and women who would go on to crew the ship were drawn from the ranks of the various hill clans who the lordlings frequently fought with. Ironically, considering how these situations usually go, it was the hill folk were more devoted to the Imperial Truth[9] than the lordlings and their "civilized" folk.[10] After a tumultuous war, the surviving hill folk were loaded into transports and sent to work on the ship in orbit, along with other supplies. For almost a century, they worked, becoming accustomed to space and the ship, and slowly making it their own.
Records after the launch are sketchy. While it is said the ship fought in the crusade previously mentioned, few logs or other bits of information are available. Whether this is due to a legitimate forgetting by the ship's crew or a deliberate obfuscation by the record keepers I do not know. Information about this time in Imperial history is scarce as well and often steeped in myth, but a few books recovered by my family seem to indicate that the crusade was an abject failure, with almost every ship being recorded as lost or listed as missing.[11]
Clan lore talks only about a period of time called "The Great Darkness", which seems to coincide with the long gap in records. Each clan will tell you a different story, but the general gist of it is that: following some cataclysmic attack on the ship which saw the extinction of many of the clans at the claws of the "Red Devils" and "Warriors of Rust", the ship spent an indeterminate period of time drifting through space, making only intermittent warp jumps and relying on high thrust and auto provisioning to make journeys initially. Surviving clans fought one another for resources, power, influence and command of the ship; it would appear the original imperial officers that commanded had died long prior.
Eventually, a mighty warrior named Herwin Macterra united many of the clans following a nine day contest of strength, wits, cunning, and war to become the first clan captain of the ship.[12] Finding a forge world near their position, they made haste and set about repairing the ship. While they sat in port, a minor Ork WAAAGH appeared in system and the ship helped defend against it. As thanks, the forge world gave the ship a few special upgrades.
After that, the records become fuzzy again, Herwin perished not long after[13] and the ship moved around the edges of Imperial Space. The clans apparently took to raiding xenos ships for supplies and traded with various Rogue Traders, becoming something of experts in boarding and slicing ships.
In M38, my ancestor, Calgar Von Helvik made contact with the Resplendence. Fresh off an assignment to the Maelstrom Zone, he was looking to add new ships to our family fleet. Upon finding the Resplendence and its strange independence, he sought to add it. After several tentative contacts and deals, he eventually gained an audience with the ship's crew in person having only dealt with intermediaries and vox comms beforehand. Teleporting over, he then immediately challenged the captain to a contest for control of the ship.[14] Following a strategic use of murder servitors, he won the ship, and after a fight against an untimely demonic incursion, won the loyalty of the clans too.[15] In a sign of respect, he offered to let the clans pick their captains so long as they swore fealty to the family. The captains, thereafter assuming their rank, took the surname Calgar in honor of my august ancestor.
Since then, the Resplendence has been an integral part of the family fleet. Fast enough to be a scout, but tough enough to be a fighter thanks to a number of upgrades, it's more than proven its worth in a number of situations. The Lance of Hawk was taken largely because of the warriors clans of the Resplendence and many of our finest shock troops come from this ship. In several planetary engagements, shock troopers from the Allclan Volunteers will rocket for the surface in drop pods, causing maximum havoc on enemy lines and landing sites to ensure our second and third waves of troops can land safely. Often the Resplendence will coordinate with Foremost Effect during these invasions to ensure the strongest deployment of their drop pod infantry.
The current captain, Shanice Calgar of the clan McDoogin, is a fiery green haired[16] woman with a penchant for charging into combat guns blazing and a sword clenched between her teeth, a good fit for the ship. The machine spirit of the Resplendence seems largely similar to this in personality, eager to charge into battle, guns firing with all haste and engines pushing themselves even more so to reach ramming speeds and close the distance.
Culture-
The Resplendence is divided among six major clans. While they have their own secondary clans that were subsumed by larger clans following the myriad of disasters and conflicts which plagued the ship, this record will look only at the major clans. In order:
Clan McDoogin-
The McDoogins control the bow of the ship, stationing themselves where the ancient power ram and lance batteries are. Traditionally the McDoogins are the toughest warriors on the ship, charging into battle with all haste, chain swords in hand, and las pistols at the ready. With a reputation for bravery, but also bullheaded stubbornness, the McDoogins are responsible for some of the greatest triumphs, and disastrous losses incurred by the ship. When deployed planeside, McDoogin volunteers make up one component of the Resplendence's shock forces, often charging enemy lines with chain swords, belting out war cries. Veteran McDoogins will wield the larger two handed eviscerator chain swords.
Their clan color is green and typically wave a battle flag with a green hawk on a white field shooting a red beam from its skull eye.
Clan Yatani-Havish-
Lords of the Port, this clan, like their rivals the Westlandamani in the starboard, are masters of one of the pyros melta cannon arrays. As such, they've developed an affinity for fire, much like their rivals and other groups on the ship as well.
Earlier in the ship's history, the port side of the Resplendence was split in half, with the northern half controlled by the Havish clan, while the south was controlled by the Yatani clan. For generations these two clans fought one another for control of the port, with clashes occurring almost every day as men and women would throw themselves over the line to fight. Today the old border is highlighted with a line of gold that was poured into the gouge where the demarcation line once was carved into the hull, to symbolize the conciliation between the clans. The molten gold was originally poured by Lysander and Hektor, the two clan leaders who married to unite their peoples and bring unity to the port. Their marriage was fortuitous, for not long after, a Westlandamani surprise attack with McDoogin assistance almost wiped out the port peoples, but with newfound strength in unity, the attack was repelled.
The Yatani-Havish clan colors are copper and silver, their battle flag is a repeating batter of squares alternating in color between the two.
Clan Westlandamani-
Lords of the Starboard, the Westlandamani are known for their wine, women and raiding. Due to a genetic fluke from time immemorial, the Westlandamani produce a high number of females in birth, to a ratio of almost ten girls to every boy. After the first male clan leaders of the Westlandamani tried to use this to their advantage to create polygamous family units, the women of the clan quickly tired of that arraignment and overthrew the men.[17] Unfortunately, the men of the clan had spent so much time living sedentary lives that they were incompetent in all assigned tasks. Frustrated, the women took to raiding in order to acquire people who could actually do things needed to support the clan and fill the ranks with more workers. These were the first of the famous Westlandamni slave raids and the women of the Westlandamani discovered that they were quite good at it, so much so that even once their men shaped up and learned useful skills, they continued to raid and slave.
For generations, the She-Wolves of the Starboard were a scourge on the ship; fighting, plundering and slaving their way across the Resplendence. Their attacks only ended after Herwin Macterra defeated the bulk of their fighters in the Battle of the Twisted Deck.[18] After their defeat and integration with the ship, the starboard became known as the main center of alcohol production, particularly known for a vintage of wine made from one of the strains of algae produced in the food extruders.
Never forgetting their fighting ways though, the warriors of the starboard are known for their use of small chain axes and hand flamers, both for their intimidation factor (such tools are useful in cowing potential slaves) but also can be quite useful in close combat on the ship. Second only to the McDoogins in melee combat, the Westlandamani often accompany the bow clan in drop pod assaults on planets as part of the Allclan Volunteers.
The Westlandamani color is red, their flag is a golden goblet with a red ax embedded in it, set against a black backdrop.
Clan Gettoutt:-
A highly secretive clan, not much is known about the Gettoutt; save for they control the ship's reactors and fire suppression system. Rarely seen outside the power core, the Gettout who do leave always travel in groups of five, all wearing golden cloaks with face concealing cowls and all but one have their lips ritually sewn shut. The unsewn one is the speaker for the group of five.
In battle, the Gettout make frequent use of las-carbines and are known for their tight squad discipline, They always arrange combat units with multiples of five. Many seem to communicate in some kind of archaic hand gesturing.
The clan flag is a golden sun on dark blue background. Their clan color is gold.
Clan Salvadorantus:-
Masters of the engine and other parts of the ship's aft; the Salvadorantus are decedents of the thralls who once served the original Mechanicus crew of the ship before it vanished during the Great Darkness. After the old tech priests died, their servants were forced to try and keep the engines running using only their memories of the multitude of small, mundane tasks that they'd been given for the purpose of keeping the engine rooms running. In addition, they tried to replicate the actions and jobs of the decaying servitors in the ship's aft. From inserting a rod, to turning a nozzle to mopping in the floor, the people of the aft tried to recreate the protocols and rituals needed to placate the temperamental engines. From this, they eventually came to live a heavily regimented and ritualized life, even after new tech priest were finally added to the ship and could resume running the engines. Nowadays, their rituals and rites encompass everything from social greetings, mercantile exchanges, to even proclamations of love.[19] The clan leader of the Salvadorantus is known as the Master of Ritual, and he ascends to the position once he is able to perform the Rite of Leadership.[20]
In combat, the Salvadorantus make heavy use of various gas grenades mixed from potent cocktails of chemicals found in their portion of ship, which stores promethium and other byproducts. They also make heavy use of large flamer weapons and projectors when not lobbing noxious or hallucinogenic grenades. A strong pattern of trade has developed between the aft, port and starboard as all three need fuel for their flamer weapons.
As part of the Allclan Voluenteers, the Salvadorantus are known for being behind the lines and specializing in firing their grenades as their fellows charge the lines of their enemies.
The Salvadorantus clan color is orange; their clan flag is three interlocked yellow gears set to a grey background.
Clan Chetnin-
Masters of the bilge, tunnels, and ducts, this furtive clan in the smallest, but one of the most influential. Largely absent from the typical clan politics, the Chetnin are a neutral force which act as intermediaries and go betweens for inter-clan conflict. This comes from being the maintainers of the various tubes and pipes which carry water and air through the ship.
While the clans fought one another, a subset of the clans realized that the wanton slaughter of the crew could endanger the critical life supports that ensured everyone's survival. To prevent one clan from stupidly and irreversibly damaging portions of life support to eliminate another, a pact in secret was forged by the smallest members of many clans. They had one goal; defend the pipes and ducts. When a McDoogin raiding party tried to sever a Gettoutt air duct, they were fallen upon by cloaked figures wielding wrenches and short spears. After other raids by different clans were also thwarted, the Chetin revealed themselves and after repelling several more attacks, were given clan recognition when the other clans realized the utility of no longer needing to worry about protecting life infrastructure. After the Great Toxic Spill of M38, the Chetin were also ceded control of the bilgeways and waste disposal units after a Westlandamani attack caused toxic waste to flood Decks BC 01 though BX 99 and rendered those sections uninhabitable for more than seven hundred years.
While outsiders tend to be disrespectful of the Chetin due to their lower deck ways, they are held in the highest esteem by the other clans. From this clan, air and water flows to the others, and wastes are removed without any interruption, while all stand secure in the knowledge that their pipes and tunnels will be clear of attack or intrigue. A Chetin also means that another clan was willing to talk or negotiate and so were sending the small smelly man or woman to be the go-between for diplomatic engagements.
Being shorter in stature than the members of other clans, yet confined in the narrowest parts of the ship where swinging a weapon is impractical, the Chetin make heavy use of shotguns to secure their holdings on the ship. When deployed planet side, Chetin volunteers make up infiltrator and commando teams that support landing sites for the rest of the Von Helvik forces.
The Chetin Clan color is brown, and their flag is a brown mongoose on a black background, a yellow shotgun and a spear cross each other behind the mongoose.
Other Organizations onboard the His Mighty Resplendence
The Allclan Volunteers:
After Herwin Macterra united the Resplendence, he set about creating an armsman detachment for use and service on the ship, both to maintain order and to project small arms power outside the ship if needed. Not wanting to solely rely on McDoogin warriors, least a disaster devastate his clan's fighting potential, he sent a call for all the clans to send warriors to serve for the collective good of the ship. These first warriors tended to be second rate, castoffs, rebels and other malcontents from clans that were foisted off to so the clans could keep their best fighters.
It was only in M38, after my family took control of the Resplendence that this changed. With the ship no longer wandering, it found its-self deploying its armsmen in larger engagements. One of which was the Battle of Redwater Ridge, where several of our forces had been ambushed by our hated rivals, the Juneati family. Plunging to the planet below in newly installed drop pods, the Volunteers were themselves ambushed and nearly wiped out, but a single squad survived[21]. Trekking for hundreds of miles to reach an evacuation point, they arrived only for the main thrust of the Juneati attack to fall on the spaceport where the evacuation was ongoing. Charging in, swords and flamers in hand, they cut a bloody swath at the rear of the Juneati lines and fought their way to the spaceport entrance where they managed to catch the last evacuation transports out. Their surprise attack had allowed many transports to lift off as enemy forces focused on the surprise attack.
Acclaimed as Heroes of the Redwater, the Volunteers became a symbol of pride for my family and subsequently, for the Resplendence as well. Warriors of all cloth worked for the honor of being placed in the regiment to prove their mettle in combat and receive similar honors. Today, the force is often used as a shock attack force when Von Helvik forces are landing on planet, falling from the heavens in drop pods and launching vicious hand to hand attacks on everyone in range.
Blessed Blowers of St. Balthazar
Attached to the ship's primary shrine of the God-Emperor is a curious vox caster array that can pipe messages across an entire solar system with ease. This array has proven quite useful for the ship, as when it charges into battle, it prefers to broadcast loud proclamations of faith to the Emperor for all to hear. In addition to the great one hundred man choir who performs the ever noisy hymns of encouragement and war, there is a small order of men and women who, upon training their lungs to use such devices, blow loud horns created from the stomach of groxes and other animals and are attached to several pipes. Playing either in harmonious synchronization or in disturbingly off key haunting screeches these horns are blown and their sounds are carried to every vox comm in the system. Several servitors specially constructed will occasionally play instrumentation to accompany the horns. There are currently fifteen blowers in the organization currently, as the apprenticeship process can take a generation to train a new blower.
The Ghosts of the Resplendence:
Few will openly talk about these specters, but I know they're there, stalking the halls. You can feel it, chilling or scorching sensations that overwhelm your body for a moment, the ghostly flicker of the outline of a man, the whispers…
What archeologists and few brave adventurers I myself and my family have hired to plumb the depths of the Resplendence further can only tell us that the ghosts first appeared following the Great Darkness and that their influence over events in the real world can be difficult to pin down, both in motivation and in intent. On one hand, often people report seeing odd visages, a sighing of a man here, the flicker of a light there to the occasional leaking of blood from the wall.
Yet legend tells of crews on the auger and auspex feeling a hand guiding them and their minds as they scan the distances. Often small flickers can lead to important sightings of enemy ships, incoming dangers and other things that sometimes are missed on a first past. Several half mad borders from other times also reported wisps leading them astray and carrying them into traps or dead ends on the ship, with the malcontents only realizing this after following what was assumed to be running light into said trap or dead end.
Stories speak of the half broken image of a one handed man stalking the halls, though this is dismissed as heresy.
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this little tangent into the one of the ships of the Von Helvik fleet. I figured once in a while I'd do a profile to help flesh out the ships that came into the ME universe since 40K ships often have histories and legacies of space travel going back further than many of the races in Mass Effects entire time being in space.
[1] In the event: My damnable brother Abraham, that accursed Inquisitor Ermelanth, my murderer from the Officio Assassinorum, Planetary Governor Sanna Rob Mancuso, the Eldar Farseerer known as Obin or that arrogant groxfarmer Chaddius is reading this journal without my permission I say Keep Out! Also enjoy the toxin I've laced this parchment with!
[2] And being a Mars Class Battlecruiser, the Acquisition has a lot of space to cover!
[3] Though obviously, being the leaders we are, its of course expected that we take as much of the glory as is warranted for leaders of our caliber.
[4] Which will hopefully provoke no open arguments and debates in the ships taverns like the previous round of ship details did? The last thing we want is another shipboard civil war on the Acquisition.
[5] Of Clan McDoogin
[6] Thanks to several modifications made by itinerant tech-priests and changes wrought by the ship clans, the safety margins of the ships engines were overclocked at least three thousand years ago.
[7] Only listed is ship components not in standard Dauntless's, though thanks to the changes my family and the clans have made, few standard parts remain.
[8] A rather poor millennium for the Imperium, between the Interregnum, that nasty business with the Howling subverting more than a thousand words, and the three century period where impractically large stovepipe hats made a return as the main go to fashion statement for many.
[9] Having only just been made the faith of the Imperium that Millennium.
[10] Who opted to practice something called Thelmic Mahayana Judaism, whatever that was.
[11] One thing we discovered was a rather grim series of children's fairy tales using the tale of the crusade as a parable for explaining human overreach and the folly of trusting people with impractically large stove pipe hats.
[12] I'm told one of the rituals involved pulling a chain sword out of an engine cooling unit. Another said that he climbed outside the hull without a space suit to clean the view screens of the bridge.
[13] Stories range from fighting a warp incursion during a jump, to a fiery explosion in Reactor 2, to coups, and to strange ghosts rumored to lurk in the ship.
[14] Thanks to the machinations of several of his crew and an enterprising undercover mission to the Resplendence earlier, he found several loopholes in clan law. One of which was a challenge for personal combat between a Clan Kill Team and Challenger Kill Team. This was generally avoided as clan kill contests tended to take months of hunting and killing which disrupted life on the ship. The murder servitors took five minutes to hunt their prey.
[15] Family records indicate the sudden disappearance of a pair of the Acquisition's astropaths at around the same time.
[16] A common dye among the McDoogins.
[17] To this day, the phrase "make your own damn sandwich!" is a stand in for "go screw yourself" and other similar phrases among the Westlandamani.
[18] According to lore, Macterra's forces and the Westlandamani fought a vicious close quarters fight in vacuum near a tear in the ships hull. An old child's rhyme says "Floating around Hull C, Macterra fights the Banshees, load up, load up, and destroy the Westlandamani!" Apparently propaganda efforts were a tad cruder in the past.
[19] Which involves first turning six knobs, polishing a diode, forging a small gear from scrap metal and scrubbing the floor of someone's living quarters before being permitted to approach a man or woman family for approval of said proclamation. If permission is granted, they when assist in hauling nine fuel bricks before approaching their beloved and then performing sixty three push-ups and standing to proclaim their love. If at any point they fumble this ritual, they must perform the scrub of penance which involves donning a void suit and going out to clean the sensor arrays on the outer hull.
[20] A tiresome seven day ordeal which involves memorizing many of the rituals of the clan and writing them down, the records must match perfect the previous Master of Ritual's book. It is not unheard of for rituals to have "totally matched" after particularly long periods of people trying and failing to performed the ritual.
[21] Though in truth it was actually seven squads worth of arms men who survived, but they all constituted themselves into one fighting unit.