A/N: Thank you Naranka and Skyborne for reading through the setting information for Xozer.
A/N2: Apologies for the second REALLY long A/N, but since we'll be seeing things during the Age of Strife on Terra. Here are a few terms and technologies that might need to be clarified beforehand.
Nuclear weapons:
These are referred to as 'atomics' on Terra during the Age of Strife AKA Old Night. There are three major classifications of atomics.
1. Dirty atomics: Dirty bombs. These aren't actual nuclear weapons. They're just bombs with radioactive material stuffed into them to irradiate and poison as many people as possible. They are also used to 'ruin' the genetic codes of the nobility of various groups on Terra. This is not only done directly by the mutagenic radiation, but also done by damaging the electronic data of their genetic code that might be stored in data centers or cybernetic archives. Ionizing radiation can fry semiconductors at high enough levels, or given enough time. They can also be used to deny access to the quarters, artifacts, and possessions of these nobles by irradiating the area so badly it is near impossible to approach without suffering from severe radiation poisoning. This prevents the nobility from recovering their heirlooms and artifacts, effectively robbing them of their power and legitimacy to rule.
2. Atomics: 'Standard' nuclear weapons. This classification includes both nuclear fusion and fission bombs. To the ignorant, both are just really big explosions that release radiation. As a side note, mathematically, hydrogen bombs release as much radiation as conventional nuclear fission bombs and are just as likely to give you cancer or leukemia. These are used to utterly destroy a location, which is pretty much their intended use today.
3. Pure atomics: These are very rare Dark Age of Technology nuclear weapons that create a miniature star stabilized by using dark matter as part of the device's core. Their intended targets are usually protected by several layers of Dark Age of Technology void and ion shields, so the energy of the device needs to be applied for a continuous amount of time to penetrate all the layers of shielding.
To clarify, the three terms above were organized by myself after reading where these weapons were used and their effects in canon. The way pure atomics function is an entirely original creation by myself.
Volkite Weaponry:
I had the pleasure of talking with Red Flag about these weapons. After looking through table-top rules and codex entries, I've slightly re-touched how these weapons work. In canon, they are horrific to use on biological targets, but don't have the greatest armor penetration. The tabletop game rules reflect this. Las cannons, meltas, and plasma based weapons have higher armor penetration and sometimes greater strength than Volkite weaponry of similar size. Volkite weaponry only has a special rule that makes any wound a mortal (unavoidable) one on certain dice rolls.
To summarize how the Volkite beam functions in this story, they fire muons/higgisons within a laser column that acts like an enlarged set of optical tweezers. The laser burns or attempts to burn through armor, clothing, and the dry epidermis while carrying the muons/higgisons. When these muons/higgisons interact with heavily electro-positive hydrogen like those found in water, it replaces the electron of the hydrogen atom, creating a hydroxide ion and a heavy version of hydrogen with a greatly reduced atomic radius. When several of these modified hydrogen atoms get close enough together, they spontaneously fuse due to no longer being repelled by the electron clouds that are supposed to keep them apart.
So, the TLDR of this weapon is any meaty target that gets hit by the beam is turned into a miniature hydrogen bomb over time. The number Red-Flag came up with for handheld Volkite weaponry was conversion of 0.001mol of hydrogen should result in a 14 megajoule explosion. That's an explosion with a blast radius of 99% lethality at 3m and a 50% lethality at 3.6m assuming no shrapnel is generated. (Which there will be a lot of since bone and other pieces of personal belongings will be flying everywhere.)
This fits the portrayal in the game Boltgun. Any enemy that is exposed to the beam for long enough explodes, killing everyone in a small radius around them.
As a side note, a wet target is not easy to kill with a Volkite weapon. The laser column vaporizes the exposed water before the muons/higgisons can get to them, reducing the density of the water molecules. This results in a lot of smaller pops happening in quick succession, and not a single large explosion. Water that has been incorporated into protein crystals (like those in cells) are trapped where they are, and that buys the time for the muons/higgisons to convert enough of them to detonate the target.
It is also a very bad idea to fire Volkite weapons at any water source. It will blow up, sending superheated water and steam everywhere. However, if you can find your enemy's water supply, you could inflict a lot of damage with a well placed shot. You will also need significant personal protection/armor to fire this weapon in the rain.
In canon, all land-based Volkite weaponry fires beams. However, all orbital versions of Volkite weaponry are warheads or bombs that are deployed against planets.
I've put this down to Volkite weaponry being mediocre at getting through armor, which is what most ships are covered in. Their unique properties to convert water into hydrogen bombs is also not that useful, simply because you're not guaranteed to hit something that can be converted by the muons/higgisons in the enemy ship. Additionally, opening several holes in the hull is just as bad, and you only need a lance beam or macro-cannon shell for that.
Erda sat across from Leetu. The Space Marine and her were in the passenger section of their shuttle. One Shadowkeeper Custodes watched them while the other occupied the cockpit.
She smiled sadly to herself. Her son had returned to her and talked with her. He may have even gained a new confidant to talk to. But, here she was, once again being sent away in order to serve him as another part of his Imperium of Man.
Perhaps this was the way things were fated to be. Even if his personality had returned, he would end-up making the same choices as before. But, that should not have been surprising. He was the Emperor, the Protector of Humanity, and the Master of Mankind. So long as he kept those titles, he would never be free from his fate.
The geiger counter within the shuttle began to crackle and beep, indicating an increase in radiation levels within the ship. The Shadowkeeper Custodes in the passenger section turned his head towards her slightly, and Erda raised a hand in apology.
Slowly, the geiger counter grew silent as she let out her stress with a long sigh. Her mind replayed the events with Neoth almost an hour before.
'Was I unfair to him?' she wondered.
Erda did not lie when she said she could not ask for his approval to save a life. The lives that could wait for such approval were not the lives she was compelled to save. Thus, she could not make that promise.
She could have mollified him by simply speaking the words of obedience, but it was she who had said that 'a deity's word should always be kept'. It would serve as a poor example as a parent to not follow her own advice.
'In the end, was it foolish to hope that things could end differently, Neoth?'
Her hands clasped together tightly as she felt pain jab throughout her body with every pulse of blood through her veins.
There had been thousands of disagreements between them. There had been thousands of arguments, and during them millions of hurtful words had been traded by both sides.
Even then, she wanted to watch over him. She didn't have the strength to protect him anymore, but he was still her son.
Then again, he was just one of her many children.
He may be the one who was most like her, and one of the very few who could talk to her as an equal. However, if his life were placed on a scale against any of her other children, she would choose the ones which could not protect themselves.
Erda's figure blurred slightly, showing a mature woman and young girl sitting there silently with their hands clasped in their lap. She was unsure of what she could do now and what she should do from now on. However, the old hag pinched her chin between thumb and forefinger as she scowled to herself. Her thoughts were going back to the past. Bitter memories rose and sank back into her mind until she came upon the moment of no return.
The moment all of Terra's recorded history was burned.
The moment the majority of Terra's population was killed.
The moment all hope for a self-directed future and the restoration of Terra died.
The Fall of Xozer.
—-
In the time of Kalagann of Ursh, our most glorious overlord, long-forgotten cities were routinely sacked, or burned, or simply evaporated in nuclear storms. Seas were regularly stained with blood, skies with ash, and landscapes were often carpeted with the bleached and numberless bones of the conquered. When armies marched, they marched a billion strong. The ragged banners of a million standards swayed above their heads in the atomic winds. The battles were stupendous maelstroms of blades and spiked black helms and baying horns, lit by the fires of cannons and burners.
Kalagann's general, Shang Khal, had assembled a significant horde of irregular levies from the southern client states of Ursh with the help of Lord Martial Anult Keyser. These forces were used to support his main armed strengths, including the infamous Tupelov Lancers and the Red Engines during the invasion. The Nordafrik technogogues had preserved a great deal more high technology for the good of their conclaves than Ursh possessed, and sheer envy, more than anything, motivated the war. Kalagann was hungry for the fine instruments and mechanisms the conclaves owned.
Eight epic battles marked Shang Khal's advance into the Nordafrik zones, the greatest of them being Xozer.
-Chronicle of Ursh: The Fall of Xozer
—-
A woman of Arabian descent sat in the stern corner of the bridge of the Bucephelus. Her body and face were covered by a brown hooded cloak. However, the cloak did little to hide how unwell she was. Everyone on the bridge could see the material quiver as her body shivered under it, as if ravaged by a heavy fever. They could also hear her breathing; laborious and pained interrupted by the occasional pained gasp.
Commodore Agesilaus pulled his eyes away from her and turned to his Lord in golden armor standing beside him at the holomap.
"My Lord, the situation on Terra grows dire. Lady Erda's condition worsens by the minute."
The Commodore's brow was furrowed with worry, and nervous sweat dripped from his chin.
"She is my oldest companion." The giant in golden armor answered, and his head turned slightly as if to look at the much smaller man. But, before he could complete the movement, the giant's thick jaw clenched and he forced his eyes to focus on the holomap. "She knows my limits, and what I am capable of. She will tell me when the time comes, not you."
"As you will, my Lord." Agesilaus saluted, dropping the matter. The warning was clear in the tone the last two words were spoken with. He did not wait for a return salute. His Lord could not turn in his direction, for to do so meant he would have to look in Lady Erda's direction. His Lord was not a patient being under normal circumstances. Watching Lady Erda suffer earlier had frayed his meager temper to the breaking point. If he turned towards her again... If he saw what was happening on Terra through her, he would lose what remaining reason he had left.
"How far has the Omnissiah gone?" His Lord changed the subject. "We must determine what we can salvage, before there is nothing left."
"The God Machines Truth code has not received a new block from the remaining nodes of the federation's super-luminary communication network." Commodore Agesilaus answered. "Therefore, the Omnissiah still remains on a local network of less than star system size. That also means we have no means of tracing it back to its current location." The Commodore added a filter onto the holomap, displaying all of the systems that had been cut off from the human federation's networks. The blackout started from Sol, then spread out from system to system. Each one of them was removed from the list of possible locations the Omnissiah could transfer its data to. "Destruction of all network nodes proceeds as planned, so the avenues of its escape are decreasing as we speak. The only medium of communication left for these systems is the Warp."
Agesilaus felt a bitter taste in his mouth as he said the words 'as planned'. He was the 16th Commodore to say those words over and over again. Tearing down an interstellar communication network as well as all its redundancies while burning the backup systems and archives was a grueling task. The majority of his predecessors had died of old age while following that plan.
"Commodore!" One of the technicians on the lower bridge suddenly shouted. "Part of the fleet has been pulled out of the Warp by MoS (Men of Stone) null-fields! Transmitting details to central holomap!"
A list of ships and affected battlegroups appeared on the holomap, as well as the source of the null-fields that had diverted them out of the Warp. It appeared the Men of Stone ships that had obstructed part of their fleet belonged to the orbital defenses of a planet close to a region of 'Calm Space'. These regions were prime candidates for Warp gate construction due to the more predictable currents of the Warp that were linked to certain regions of the galaxy. Since there was no Warp Gate here, the planet must have been a more recent acquisition by the human federation.
"We don't have time for this." Agesilaus's Lord said quietly, then turned to the rest of the bridge. "I will be taking direct control of the situation." His voice boomed. "Order the rest of the fleet to reverse course and prepare to exit the Warp. All ships are to fire upon all non-friendly ships immediately upon return to the materium. We will attack the enemy fleet from two flanks; the ships that were pulled out of the Warp, and ourselves." He turned to the technicians in charge of the Bucephelus's internal systems. "Shift all power to the Bucephelus's shields and engines. Load all ordinance silos with Volkite warheads."
"My Lord, the ships pulled out of the Warp have not reported any attacks. They may have simply run afoul of the planet's automated defense grid." Commodore Agesilaus whispered to the giant after the orders were given. "We do not know whether the planet associated with the MoS null-fields has been affected by the Omnissiah or not. They may still be human."
"That term…" His Lord's voice was deep and rumbled like the growl of a great beast. "is reserved for all those who follow my path."
"As you will, my Lord." Agesilaus gave a salute, and the giant in golden armor returned to the holomap. Cold sweat drenched the Commodore's back. It was not easy questioning the being before him, but he had to make the effort. This was supposed to be a mission to save what they could of humanity, but with every passing day it seemed more like they were just burning everything to the ground. He turned around to the woman huddled at the back of the bridge, and saw a single tear stained eye pointed at the back of his Lord, begging him to stop.
—-
Xozer, the heart of the Nord Afrik Conclaves, and the site of Terra's rejuvenation. Massive solar arrays, protected from the abrasive sand filled winds by built in miniature ion shields, provided the heat energy necessary to distill vast quantities of well water. Heavy metals and radioactive particles were removed from the toxic liquid drawn up from ancient mines with this method. Further filtration removed the organic solvents and chlorine compounds that could not be removed by the distillation process. Finally, special centrifuges were used to separate out the toxic heavy water from the normal water. The heavy water was electrolyzed to form breathable oxygen and deuterium or tritium for their nuclear fusion reactors. The more important normal water was used to wash away the toxic fallout from the dirt that came from Terra's nuclear apocalypse. It was only after this long and arduous cleaning process that the rejuvenated soil could be shipped out to the agricultural zones outside the city walls, and placed back down to be reirrigated with more purified normal water to restore the vitality of Terra's soil.
To protect all of this from the elements, special resins were molded into protective sheets that could cover Xozer's farmlands. The airtight seals protected the plants and microbiome from the rad storms while holding in the precious moisture Terra's desiccated winds threatened to drink dry.
Yet, even with all these technological marvels, it was Xozer's religious hierophants that retained control over the city. They proclaimed these technologies to be gifts from ancient gods, for although they could operate these machines, they did not understand them. Investigation into how they worked was forbidden. Religious reverence was one reason, but there was also a fear that attempting to disassemble any of these machines to figure out how they worked would result in the destruction of an irreplaceable artifact and nothing else.
Ofcourse, as all things, economic interests also ensured that no efforts were made to replicate the devices. Artifacts are priceless precisely because they are unique. Once an item can be regularly replicated, it is only artificial scarcity that keeps the original's value.
This concept of forced or artificial scarcity has long been with humanity. When the world still ran on fossil fuels instead of Promethium and nuclear fusion, oil cartels reduced production and refining to strangle the market of the energy it needed to run. Hence, by decreasing the effort they put into their work, they increased the value of the oil they had already siphoned out of the ground. This paradoxically lazy way of increasing the wealth they already had ensured they had a larger voice in global politics than they deserved.
Naturally, the hierophants' monopoly on the rejuvenating technology of Xozer could not be released from the hands of those with vested interests. Like a fat water seller in the desert, the hierophants of Xozer and the oil cartels drip feed their customers with a resource they were lucky enough to inherit from the earth.
Thus, it was for these three reasons of religion, practicality, and economics that Xozer never shared or expanded the methods to rejuvenate Terra's lands.
Yet, despite the pride, greed, and sloth of those in power, Xozer and its Nord Afrik Conclaves were a prosperous region of Terra.
Not only were they lucky enough to retain much of the technology of the ancients, they were also protected by the lands around them. A natural fort created by pollution and nuclear fallout kept them safe from invaders for decades on end.
Their northern borders with Europa were separated by a body of caustic sludge that was once called the Mediterranean sea.
Steep cliffs that used to be hidden by the ocean deterred any invasion from the west.
The southern borders, where much of the African continent's flora and fauna had once existed, were radioactive wastelands; so irradiated by atomics that even mechanical circuitry would short out from the ionizing radiation.
Their eastern border was the least defended, for the only thing between them and any invader was a massive desert. Unlike all their other natural defenses, this one had always been there. The sheer lack of life within this region had spared it from atomics and other weaponry that had decimated all the other regions.
It was from here that Shang Khal invaded.
—-
Over a period of nine days and nights, the war machines of the Red Engines blasted their way across the cultivated agroponic pastures and reduced them back to the desert, from which they had originally been irrigated and nurtured. They cut through the laserthorn hedges and the jeweled walls of the outer conclave, and unleashed dirty atomics into the heart of the ruling zone, before the Lancers led a tidal wave of screaming berserkers through the breach into the earthly paradise of the gardens at Xozer, the last fragment of Eden on a corrupted planet.
-Chronicle of Ursh: The Fall of Xozer
—-
Tolu Abdullahi was a guard upon the walls of Xozer. For more than a week, the sounds of war had echoed from beyond the horizon. The cries of monstrous creatures and the roar of colossal engines rumbled through the ground, interrupted only by the boom of atomic explosions that rang like the footsteps of a giant marching towards them.
Endless streams of refugees from the farming colonies on the outskirts of the conclaves' territory continued to enter the city through the gates below them. They were a mass of hooded cloaks and baggage from the height he observed them from; swarming to the city like lines of ants.
The walls he stood upon shined under the harsh sun, covered in diamond-like crystals. These were the focussing lenses for the laser defense system of Xozer. It was one of the few designs remembered by the technogogues from before the Age of Strife.
He looked back towards the 5th and 6th defensive walls which were within the original void shields that kept the city safe during the Age of Strife. The shields were at their highest strength, tinting everything inside with dark blue and purple hues.
Between each defensive wall was fertile farmland. He could see the dark brown of the tilled and watered soil.
That was what these walls had been made to protect. New ones were erected whenever the population of the city grew beyond the old. They served as both the first line of defense, and a preventative measure for conflict. Hiding the arable farmland Xozer created kept the jealous techno-barbarians and raiders ignorant. That was how Xozer had kept itself safe originally.
However, that changed in the past several decades. The sale of clean fertile soil beyond the walls had slowly allowed information of what Xozer could do to leak out to the outside world. Of course, it was not simple greed that motivated the hierophants to do so. A great famine had once ravaged the city due to a crop blight. Livestock starved to death, and it was only a matter of time before the people did the same.
The low ranking progressive Upashtar had attempted to overcome this crop blight by gene-breeding livestock. These genetically enhanced organisms could survive with less food yet would grow quickly to replace the animals that had died already.
As a result of their efforts, the Upashtar no longer walked the streets of Xozer.
In the end, thousands starved to death or died in the ensuing riots.
To prevent this from happening again, Xozer now dispersed its food production to several thousand satellite farms. The geographical distance separating each farm would ensure future blights would not kill all the crops. It also dispersed the risk of any future disasters. If there ever was another food shortage, all who bought Xozer's soil were bound by contract to share what they produced with each other and the city.
Tolu turned back to facing outside the city walls, only to have his ears assaulted by the megaphones built into the walls. They had begun blaring the hierophants' tri-hourly sermons.
He sighed as the same story of how Xozer survived and grew was repeated by the slow, droning voice of the hierophants. According to them, it was thanks to the divine will of god and the faith of their forefathers, but Tolu was skeptical of their claims.
The stories that came from the speakers every three hours stated that god had kept this single city safe. They were the only ones free of the genetic taint that had brought down divine wrath upon the people of Terra.
As a society, Xozer's fixation upon genetic purity separated their population into genetic classes. Each one was based on the degrees of deviation from the self-proclaimed 'originals'. The hierophants and nobility occupied the highest rank with their unmodified genetics. All others proceeded downwards to the next level. Greater numbers of so-called mutations and modifications relegated individuals to a lower class. Yet, despite 'pure' genetics being the only barrier between the classes, class-warfare still existed in Xozer.
This was the crux of the problem for the Upashtar. Their solution of gene-breeding was both a solution to the famine, and a way to improve their class's standing. Yet, the concept that gene-breeding or sculpting could lead to a positive outcome clashed heavily with the main-stream ideology within the city. It also provided an opportunity for the more conservative Xozerites to exploit. They accused them of attempting to feed the embodiment of sin to all of Xozer, and pervert the purity of their genetics with their invention. An incited mob killed all those who worked on the gene-breeding project. The Upashtar fought back, as expected, and that was all that was needed for the Xozerites to label them as heretics and condemn them all to physical and spiritual exile. Every Upashtar was rounded up, and sent into the underground factories. There, their gene-codes were re-written, destroying their intelligence and leaving them little more than dumb brutes who followed any order given to them.
As the ones who instigated the original mob, the Xozerites accepted the 'punishment' of dealing with what remained of the Upashtar. All of the mentally incapacitated men and women were sold into slavery. The Xozerites' coffers became full that day. As for the people of Xozer, they were distracted from their hungry bellies for a time. They celebrated for 'evil' had been destroyed.
At least, that was what Tolu's old commander had told him once. That man had always loved conspiracy theories. His lips grew loose during the long campfire nights they endured in the cold desert. He heard that particular tale during one of their patrol missions, when all other topics died out.
Regardless, of the veracity of the man's stories, the majority of Xozer's populace ascribed to this genetic hierarchy and the divine origin story of the city's birth.
Tolu was not one of them. He had seen too much of the realm of the ancients.
He and his company had been deployed on the border patrols in the past. Once, a sand avalanche forced them to take a treacherous route through the ruined wastes of the outer regions of Xozer's territory. There, he had seen the remains of megalopolises far larger than Xozer.
The skeletons of skyscrapers jutted out of the desert sands like the ruined tombstones of giants. Row after row they stood side by side, like the marker stones in a heavily occupied cemetery. Gutted remains of what must have been cannons of impossible size lay with barrels half-buried in the ground on the outer limits of a city tens of hundreds of times the size of Xozer. Centuries after being exposed to pure atomics that replicated the sun, the remains endured; showing that they were made of alloys that not even the technogogues of the Nord Afrik Conclaves could forge.
After walking through the ruined city of the ancients, Tolu could not help but be overcome by a massive sense of loss. This was what they used to be able to create, and now they could only stand and gawk at what their ancestors had once done instead of adding to their legacy.
When he returned to Xozer after that patrol, he found a burning question in his mind that almost clawed its way out of his throat.
What god protects a single city after allowing such ancient marvels to fall?
But, to speak out was to be silenced, just as the Upashtar were. So, he held his tongue, picked up his gun, and followed his orders.
Suddenly, Tolu's communicator beeped in his ear. He pressed down on the earpiece to make sure he would not miss what was to be said.
"EGD(East Gate Defence Group) 5-3-9 this is control. Bogey at East Gate. Bearing 65 degrees. Altitude 6km. Confirm visual. Over."
Tolu pulled down the optics attached to his helmet and checked the direction reported, as he spoke into his communicator.
"5-3-9, control. Wilco. Break."
His eyes found the target, and he finished his report.
"Visual confirmed. Roma patrol plane. Over."
"Connecting cam. Maintain visual. Over."
"Wilco. Over."
There was a short pause then the communicator crackled again.
"Dim sight. Maintain visual until Tango loss. Out."
Tolu hurriedly increased the opacity of his optics, darkening the image as he covered the bottom half of his face with a light brown scarf.
There was a flash of light as several of the crystals embedded in the wall let loose beams of photons focussed on the Roma patrol plane. The glare of the lasers made Tolu wince both from the heat, and the explosion that appeared in his optics as the plane was pierced from several directions at once.
"5-3-9, control. Return to guard duties. Out."
A sigh escaped his mouth as he unwrapped the bottom half of his face and returned the optics back to their default settings.
The armies of Ursh had located Xozer. That only meant one thing.
The gates below him groaned as they began to lower, and panicked screaming began to come from the people still outside the walls. Rapid gunfire followed, as the guards below unloaded their magazines into the remaining refugees trying to enter. Gas grenades were mercilessly thrown into the crowd to blind and confuse them, so they wouldn't be able to overwhelm the guards below by running in all at once.
Tolu looked off to the horizon so he could avoid staring down at the scene unfolding below him. Yet, he still heard the clang of the gate slamming shut and locking into place as well as the increased screaming of all those who had been locked out.
His eyes caught something moving, and he maximized the magnification on his optics. Brass beasts spewing smoke and fire walked forwards on clawed legs, followed by hulking brutes in thick metal armor carrying swords, spears, and guns.
"Control, 5-3-9. Over."
"Go-ahead 5-3-9. Over."
"Red Engines spotted. Bearing 87 degrees. Over."
"Connecting cams. Maintain visual. Over."
Tolu continued to stare at the approaching army as control took longer than usual to reply.
"5-3-9. Deny Kalagann his skulls at the East Gate. Over."
A grimace crossed Tolu's face, but he only shouldered his weapon as he answered his communicator.
"Wilco. Over."
"Roger. Out."
Tolu flicked off the safety, pointed his weapon downwards, and began firing Volkite beams into the crowd below.
Several meters to his left and right, he heard the other men in his platoon begin to do the same.
