New chapter. As always, the next chapter is up on my P-a-t-r-e-o-n, here: h*t*t*p*s :/ w*w*w . p*a*t*r*e*o*n user - ? - u = 52718582 (remove the spaces and stars)
"-the psychic resonance of the geneseed with the Primarchs is likely the cause of the corruption."
"You believe your sons may be corrupted?"
"No. If they had been, I would know. Chaos would flaunt it in my face, they could not possibly resist the opportunity to do so."
"True."
"I believe the flaws in the geneseed are merely an unfortunate side-effect of my sons being exposed to the Warp as children. The protections I wove into my sons themselves should be enough to counter any adverse effects, but the psychic resonance with the geneseed and the Marines, who lack those protections…well."
"That does seem to be the most likely theory." Isha agreed, looking through the results of the tests the Emperor had run.
Sitting opposite the table from her, the Emperor nodded curtly. Despite his outwardly calm demeanour, his agitation was obvious in the Warp, frustration and annoyance roiling below the surface.
"It does not extend to all the Primarchs, at least." He added after a moment, standing up to stride over to one of the windows of his study. "Most of the geneseed is fine. The flaws seem to be in the Sixth, Ninth and Fifteenth. For the former two, the flaw is a corruption of the existing traits that I included in their genetic code, but the Fifteenth…it is entirely new. I did not not modify their geneseed to have any special traits."
"Hmm." Truth be told, Isha did not quite understand the modifications to the Sixth Legion. The special ability of the Ninth, an enhanced version of the Omophagea organ which allowed them to absorb the strength and knowledge of their fallen comrades to the point it could be considered reincarnation in some ways, was morbid and brutal. But she could see why the Emperor had included it and the practical benefits in war.
The Sixth Legion's bizarre affinity for wolves, however, seemed completely pointless.
But seeing the Emperor's mood, this was probably not the best time to ask.
"I can craft a cure for the flaws, of course," Isha said instead, opening a new file on the dataslate and inputting information.
"The panacea fruit will not do?"
"I'm afraid not," Isha replied as she began crafting the theoretical cure. "The gene flaw in each of the three Legions is different, and I will need to craft a different cure tailored to each."
The Emperor hummed in acknowledgement, not looking away from the window. Usually, looking out at Bai-heng seemed to calm him, his temper soothed by the vision of his world being slowly healed, but today, it did no such thing.
Not that Isha could blame him. She did not have his level of personal investment in the Space Marines, but the whole matter felt uncomfortably familiar, all the same.
This was like the Krork all over again. Even as one part of her mind focused on the cure, another part drifted to memories of the ancient past.
The Emperor's creations were strong and swift, cunning and resolute. They were a testament to their creator's genius and mastery of both the material sciences and warpcraft, and how he had combined both to forge warriors capable of challenging the greatest horrors in the galaxy.
The Krork too had been living weapons borne of the extraordinary genius of their masters, made to fight the greatest war the galaxy had ever seen. They had been ferocious yet loyal, with power and cunning beyond imagining.
And like the Space Marines, the Krork had possessed a fatal flaw in their gene code, one which had seen them fall far and hard, succumbing to madness to become little more than beasts.
She wondered if the Four had been inspired by what had become of the Krork, if they had thought it would be funny to repeat that tragedy with the Emperor's soldiers.
At least the Space Marines were something that Isha could actually cure, unlike the Krork.
Having finished inputting the data, Isha willed the dataslate to hover over to the Emperor. "It is done, your majesty. I can begin production of these as soon as you wish."
The Emperor turned around and took the dataslate, analyzing the hypothetical cures she had sketched out. A few minutes later, he nodded, directing the dataslate back to her. "I wish to test them before we commit to large scale-production and application. Craft a few of the cures, I will have some Space Marines brought to the labs tomorrow."
"Understood." Isha hesitated for a moment, before forging ahead. "However, the issue of the genetically programmed loyalty to the Primarchs remains."
The Emperor said nothing for several moments, and Isha wondered if he would just ignore her entirely before he finally spoke. "I know. I have…slowed production of the Space Marines for the moment, and reactivated production of the Thunder Warriors. I will need time to come to a decision, but this should suffice as a stopgap measure."
Truth be told, it was more than Isha had expected. She had thought she would need several more months of arguing to get him to even consider producing new Thunder Warriors.
The Emperor smiled thinly, noticing her surprise. "I am no fool, Isha. I realize the risks of having the Space Marines as the Imperium's primary strike force." He walked back to his desk, settling into the large chair. "I am not ready to give up on the Marines entirely, but denying Astarte's arguments any longer would be idiotic."
Isha accepted this with a nod. "If I may ask, what do you intend to do going forward?"
The Emperor sighed. "Horus will be my test, so to speak. As he grows to adulthood, we shall see how he interacts with his Legion. I will keep a close eye on his progress, and if I cannot find a way to ensure the loyalty of his Legion to me or the Imperium over Horus himself…I will suspend production of the Space Marines entirely."
"A good plan." Isha agreed, dipping her head in acknowledgement even as she tried to conceal her inner turmoil.
Young Horus and his connection to his Legion reminded her even more of Gorkamorka and the Krork. Or even of herself, her family and their connection to their children.
The Old Ones had moulded them to create generals who could command the instinctive loyalty of their soldiers, and it seemed the Emperor intended something very similar.
The parallels were bitterly familiar, and in a way, it felt like history was repeating.
Would this all end as disastrously as the War in Heaven had? Or would it be worse, this time with no hope of recovery?
"I have another matter to discuss with you," the Emperor said, regaining her attention. "That offer you made, concerning the Navigators while we were going to Cthonia."
"Yes?" Isha asked cautiously. "Have you given thought to my request?"
"I have." The Emperor replied. "I will not launch any assault against any of your people who might come to the Sol system, unless they provoke me first. And if they ask after you, I will permit you to speak with them."
Relief flooded through Isha. "Thank you," She told him.
The Emperor waved a hand dismissively. "It is a small thing to ask. I do have one change of mine, however."
"Yes?" She asked, wondering what it was now.
"Along with the creation of new Navigators, I would like your help in devising a set of psychic techniques that will let ordinary psykers guide ships through the Warp. I would rather have multiple options for handling interstellar travel rather than being completely reliant on Navigators."
"I can help you with that," Isha said slowly. "I am not Lileath, so I am afraid there are limits and the techniques will require testing and refinement, but it can be done."
The Emperor nodded. "I expected as much."
Something else occurred to Isha, and she paused for a moment, wondering if she should dare to broach it. It could possibly endanger the progress she had just made.
But she was so very tired of standing by as atrocities occurred.
"What will happen to the Navigator Clans if we successfully devise techniques that make them redundant?" She ventured. As she learned more of Terra, she also learned of the attitude and discrimination towards the so-called mutants and abhumans.
One of the human scientists from the Biotechnical Division had once dared to suggest the creation of a variant of the panacea fruit which would not merely purify Chaos corruption and heal illness, but forcibly alter the bodies of humans whose gene code was outside of the human baseline due to natural or artificial evolution which had nothing to do with Chaos, changing them back into 'true' humans.
Isha had rejected the idea and limited her interactions with the scientist, but the fact remained that such attitudes existed and were uncomfortably widespread. A large number of the Biotechnical Division did believe in such things, and so did much of the Imperium.
As far as she was aware, the Emperor did not believe any such thing himself…but he had also not done anything to change such attitudes.
The Emperor's eyes narrowed in response to her question. "They will be treated as any other. If they submit, I will allow them to continue on and give them a place in my empire, they will merely not be a pillar of it. If they do not, they will be crushed."
"That is not what I meant, and you know it. Will they be treated worse than an enemy which is made up of baseline humans?"
The Emperor steepled his fingers. "And what will you say if I say they will?" He asked softly, a warning undertone to his voice.
Isha refused to be cowed. "I will not help you devise a replacement for them, then. You should know that, after all these years."
The Emperor was quiet for a moment before he spoke. "Yes, I suppose I should." He said eventually, with a sigh. "Worry not, I have no intention of treating them any worse simply because they do not fit normal human parameters."
Isha searched his face and aura for a moment, searching for any hint of deceit.
She found none.
"That is good, then."
The Emperor leaned back in his chair. "You are extremely sentimental." He observed dryly. "You were willing to sacrifice the promised safety of your people for a human group you have never even met."
"If you are willing to exterminate a group of your own people simply for being slightly different from normal humans, how can I trust you to keep your word concerning my children?" Isha countered. "I am sentimental, yes. But better to be sentimental than blindly trusting."
A faint smile crossed the Emperor's face. "A valid point. Yet, sentimentality can be a crippling weakness. Hard decisions are necessary quite often, especially in the galaxy we live in."
"They are not as necessary as often as you might think." Isha retorted. "I have thought the same at times before, and always have regretted it. Compassion is no weakness. The War in Heaven might not have occurred, if the Old Ones and the Necrontyr had more of it."
"Perhaps." The Emperor allowed. "And yet, we live in a galaxy where the War in Heaven did occur, and which has been irreparably broken because of that. In such a world, compassion and mercy are the privilege of those who are strong enough to risk it."
"Yet strength alone rarely leads to either," Isha said dryly. "Those who place too much value on strength are more likely to be cruel than kind."
"And those who place too much value on compassion are often unable to act decisively and rationally when it is required." The Emperor pointed out, arching an eyebrow.
"That may be so, but those who disregard compassion entirely are not rational either. Many tyrants have done things that were foolish and cruel and which led to their demise because they thought that to cast aside kindness was to become perfect rather than to become a monster." Isha snapped back.
"True," The Emperor acknowledged. "Yet, it is necessary to put aside kindness at times to stamp out a threat before it can harm you."
Isha scoffed. "Your Majesty, I suggest you ask Khaine what throwing aside kindness to stamp out a threat before it could harm him accomplished."
This startled a laugh out of the Emperor. "A fair point. But I am not advocating for the same extremes as Khaine, merely caution and logic."
"Caution and logic untempered by compassion can easily become paranoia and stupidity." Isha said, crossing her arms. "Asuryan meant well, but his Edict was one of the reasons we were ultimately destroyed."
The Emperor leaned forward at that. "I must admit, I have always wondered what the logic behind Asuryan's Edict was. It always seemed entirely pointless and counterproductive to me, to cut off your pantheon from your people, but allow the other warp entities a free hand."
Now, it was Isha's turn to sigh, unpleasant memories surfacing. "Asuryan's Edict was meant to cut off all warp entities from the Materium." Isha corrected him. "It was not for us alone."
"I find that hard to believe," The Emperor said, his tone politely skeptical. "The Three have been active throughout my entire life."
"They have. But you must understand, Asuryan's power had been waning since before your birth, just as the power of Chaos had been growing. When the Edict was first issued, it cut off all gods from the Materium. Us, Chaos, even Gork and Mork. That changed as Asuryan lost his strength, but he was not as much of a fool as you might think." Even if I would prefer him to be. It would be easier to hate Asuryan if she could believe he had only ever been driven by malice and stupidity.
The Emperor stared at her and she could feel him probing her aura, trying to find the truth.
"That is…amazing." The Emperor said, clearly astonished by the information. "I did not think such a thing was even possible."
"We were once the mightiest powers in the Immaterium, much as the Four are now. There is much we could do then that is not possible now."
"But you still think it was a mistake." The Emperor noted shrewdly. "And not merely for the consequences it has had now, but even at the time."
"Of course I do." Isha said bitterly. "My children had been betrayed by Khaine, and when Asuryan forced us to abandon them, they fell apart. They had never been without us before. It took them a very long time to recover. And when they needed us most, the Edict had become so engraved in their minds and culture that Asuryan could not revoke it even when he wished to."
"But perhaps that means your children were and remain too reliant on you." The Guardian commented. "And that they could not function without you."
Isha stiffened at the implied insult but tamped down on her first response. "I have no desire to discuss the necessity of gods with you once more." She said evenly. Her children would not have fallen if her family had been able to guide them, true, but it was hardly as if the Eldar had fallen into madness and insanity the very instant they no longer had the guidance of the gods. Their fall was a process that had taken millions of years.
But saying any of that to the Emperor was pointless.
"Fair enough." The Emperor conceded. "This conversation does seem to have gotten away from us somewhat."
"It has," Isha said, letting the conversation redirect to less controversial topics. "Is there anything else, Your Majesty?"
"Not right now." The Emperor said, shaking his head. "I have other matters to tend to, but be here at dawn, and we will begin work on the psychic navigation techniques."
"I will, Your Majesty," Isha said, standing and bowing. "By your leave."
The Emperor nodded, and Isha left the room, mulling over what had just happened.
Their debate just now had been…surprisingly civil. The Emperor had still been infuriating, of course, and they disagreed on much, but it had been a debate, not an argument.
And he had asked her to work with him. Not merely to craft something for him which he would check and then decide whether or not to utilize, but an actual collaboration.
It wasn't much, but it was a sign of progress.
Isha could only hope it would continue.