This is the Liber Astartes, PART II

[Aqui]

The problem is we can't do an invasion or really anything without the rest of the BnC being affected, and the only problem with that is the rest of the BnC hasn't been given much recognition or effort beyond what Shinzaren laid down in the very first post that started this. If we're going to do a different story, we're going to need some kind of conflict, but as to what, that's for all of us to decide. I say we start writing up some bits about the various forums here, in this thread. Does this sound like a good idea to everyone?

 

True enough, but perhaps we ought to get members from those forums involved.  After all, if we're going to write about them, then they should at least know we are ;)

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

Some of them are already here. However, this is mostly a fan-made scenario we have here, and as such it is entirely possible to do this without them. Again, it's your call.

[Messor]

I'd also like to see something new, or get in touch with the roots of 'This is Liber'(though it seems like our personas have rather usurped the role of venerable Scribe Mausland). Also, in line with DAT's reasoning, we must all have connections, if not roots with some other parts of the Legio. Our Chapters are successors of someone. Perhaps a Liber Crusade parallel to the LPC, pitting us against our brother Chapters in an effort to train up the most new troops. We probably took some losses during the typo war.

[Aqui]

I'd also like to see something new, or get in touch with the roots of 'This is Liber'(though it seems like our personas have rather usurped the role of venerable Scribe Mausland). Also, in line with DAT's reasoning, we must all have connections, if not roots with some other parts of the Legio. Our Chapters are successors of someone. Perhaps a Liber Crusade parallel to the LPC, pitting us against our brother Chapters in an effort to train up the most new troops. We probably took some losses during the typo war.

 

Sounds like a good idea that, although to be fair for those of us with more than one DIY, they'd probably have to choose one and focus on that :lol:

 

If this is the way forward, I have exactly the DIY in mind...

[Messor]

Who was it that made a DIY automaton to follow them around during the Typo war? Could have a contingent of those made up(secret or not), set the stage for an 'avatar uprising' further down the road. The Liber would probably get in trouble with the rest of the Legio for something like that.

[Aqui]

Who was it that made a DIY automaton to follow them around during the Typo war? Could have a contingent of those made up(secret or not), set the stage for an 'avatar uprising' further down the road. The Liber would probably get in trouble with the rest of the Legio for something like that.

 

Yes.  Yes they could.

 

I'd have to let that idea stew in my mind for a while, but that is a hell of an idea ^_^

[Olis]

Also, in line with DAT's reasoning, we must all have connections, if not roots with some other parts of the Legio. Our Chapters are successors of someone.

 

After reading this particular sentence I thought about having "emissaries" visit the rest of the Legio in turn, so say someone visit the Black Library often. Send him off with a delegation over to there for some reason or another.

 

And now the conversation has left me behind... derp. :rolleyes:

[Messor]

'Course not, no reason it can't all be part of the same story. Maybe the emissaries are a front so we can see how much LPC(Legio Purity Crusade?) progress our brothers are making. Or we could just be genuinely curious. Most of my Chapters aren't first generation successors, Hounds included, so I'm sure Messor could learn something in the halls of the IA about his gene legacy. Any other IF/otherwise IA bound brothers who would like to undertake a trip to the halls of our forefathers?

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

I/DAT made the avatar. What with being Chaos and using it to create Angelos Ferrum (the avatar), I could definitely see a rebellion going down, especially among the ITs that could be made

[Reyner]

I/DAT made the avatar. What with being Chaos and using it to create Angelos Ferrum (the avatar), I could definitely see a rebellion going down, especially among the ITs that could be made

This must be done. And I still need to get my flamer...

[Messor]

I/DAT made the avatar. What with being Chaos and using it to create Angelos Ferrum (the avatar), I could definitely see a rebellion going down, especially among the ITs that could be made

There you go. In our eagerness to outclass everyone in the LPC, we turn to a power we 'don't fully understand', and get a host of avatars. Things go swell for a while, and then those age old 'what am I?' questions come along and make a mess of things.

[Ace Debonair]

I/DAT made the avatar. What with being Chaos and using it to create Angelos Ferrum (the avatar), I could definitely see a rebellion going down, especially among the ITs that could be made

There you go. In our eagerness to outclass everyone in the LPC, we turn to a power we 'don't fully understand', and get a host of avatars. Things go swell for a while, and then those age old 'what am I?' questions come along and make a mess of things.

Speaking as an apprentice techmarine with an unfortunate habit of adding overkill modes to various bits of technology, I think I can help cook up a device to speed up production of said clones.

And despite everyone else's pessimism I honestly don't think anything could possibly go wrong.

Also I totally call the role of 'guy who cannot tell clones from originals despite even glaring differences'.

[Aqui]

All seven of me are currently having a headache :lol:

 

I want to be the Liber's existential psychologist.  "I am what I am, but I am also him, and him.  And him, and him, and him, possibly her as well.

 

And them." :lol:

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

Thirst sat down in his sanctum for the first time in a long time, or at least it seemed so to him since the end of the Typo War. What with organizing repairs across various sections of the Liber, working as an adviser for Messor and Olisredan on how to deal with Hall 8 and managing the rather spacious garage shop known only as the HGR, the moderator had been busy of late. Fortunately he had had Angelos Ferrum with him every step of the way and with the construct's aid much more work and progress had been achieved. The avatar almost didn't deserve to be called such anymore, as he had begun to grow past the limits of the Angels of Adamantium.

In fact, Angelos was behaving much more like a Raven Guard now, hiding somewhere in the rafters supporting the vaunted ceiling. As a Dark Apostle, Thirst's sanctum was formed in the shape of a cathedral, and the looming darkness that existed beyond the candles gave his construct the advantage of stealth, something a true Angel would never use. Again, it was a sign of progress to the moderator and he felt nothing but pride in his creation. It seemed appropriate to reward him.

Turning towards his personal bio-mechanical slave, Thirst smiled. "Servitor. Bring me the latest Mark of jumppacks, and a new suit of Mark Eight armor."

"As you command, moderati" chorused the thrall before disappearing into the shadows.

A moment passed, and the Dark Apostle pulled up a fresh datapad from his dwindling stock, regretting not asking for more as he did so. It was a tough decision which chapter should be next. Then a gauntlet rapped on his shoulderplate, interrupting his thoughts.

"The Krakens. They've been recorded the most." Angelos' voice was not entirely unexpected, nor completely devoid of excitement. Clearly he had heard the order for a jumppack.

Thirst waved the suggestion off as he replied. "Actually, the Wraiths of Darkness have been the best documented, despite their intentions otherwise. They would have escaped my attentions too, except for a certain traitor who owes me his life. Have I told you that story yet?"

"No,' the construct said slowly, 'but you never finished the last one either. Also, the Wraiths are traitorous themselves, and hardly reliable. A servant to the Throne would be better."

"Indeed, however they can be counted on to preserve their own lives at any cost,' the moderator explained, 'while the Krakens have not given me a chance to pen out their beliefs. Thus their avatar would be easily impressionable from any source, and I'm almost afraid of what would happen if he fell into the wrong hands in that condition."

For a minute there was silence. Then the servitor trundled back with the requested items in tow, and Angelos pounced on his new toy and strapped it onto his powerpack.

"Careful!' The Dark Apostle called. 'You don't want to waste too much energy flying around, else you might not be able to move until I get you a replacement."

Angelos nodded his acknowledgement. "Of course, creator. I'll be fine. And if I cannot convince you, ask Messor for what he believes."

With that, the construct promptly flew off. Thirst sighed, and activated his vox unit.

"Brother Messor, I hate to tear you away from your hard work..."

[Aqui]

Good start DAT ^_^

[Messor]

While the hypnotherapy and conditioning had its place, the single mindedness that consumed Messor of late was beyond the scope of any Imperial indoctrination. The Typo War weighed very heavily on his mind, and he could only find stillness at one of three places. His quarters, in which he spent minimal time. Whenever there, he would first place the gold-plated meltagun of his predecessor on the wall above the rest of his weapons, and then invariably debate with himself on whether or not to ever take it down again. He could never decide, and usually ended up changing between the meltagun and any of the other pieces of his arsenal every day or so. He justified the inconsistency with countless visits to the firing range, where it was easy to get lost in the exercises. Sight, compensate, squeeze, repeat. Or if he was particularly lost in thought, a few thousand rounds from a heavy bolter usually cleared his mind. More often than not, however, he was somewhere in the vicinity of the Wall. Fortunately, there was still a lot of work to do in the area, and keeping busy helped distract him from the plaque adorning it. Messor was a comparatively young transfer to the Legio, and the changes that had followed the Typo War had been supremely unexpected. No Hound seconded to the Legio or the Deathwatch had ever risen past the rank of Battle-Brother, and now he was asked to fill the boots of a Moderati. The shock was wearing off, slowly, but surely, and he was becoming acquainted with more Frater than he had ever met. He had just dispatched the latest work crew to the relieve those restoring the halls surrounding Hall Eight, and introducing Sergeants to new rectuis when the background reports from his vox were interrupted by a direct transmission.

 

"Moderati Thirst! I'm sure the Purity Crusade can do without me for a moment. What do you need?"

 

Messor had already begun walking towards the Dark Apostle's chapel, but the more he listened, the slower he went, until he at last stopped, mag locking his Stalker Bolter and giving full ear to the Moderati's explanation. Wheels began to whir in his mind, questions and ideas sparking like firing pistons. "Eh, I'll be right down Brother Thirst. I think I can help." Breaking into a jog that caused had the chain of bones and ornaments around his collar bouncing against his chestplate, Messor made for Thirst's cathedral, giving no heed to the strange looks he caught along the way. He had a feeling that the luck of the Liber was about to change.

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

Thirst smiled as Messor arrived. "Good. I'm glad you arrived personally. Now I've been thinking about this more and more and I think this construct should be made with one of the IAs you've written down and act as your assistant as Angelos acts as mine. Also, should Olisredan come into contact soon he'll receive a message that he'll get a similar aide. This should lighten our workload quite a bit, though you should be careful what chapter you start out with as a base."

 

The other moderati grinned and shook his head. "Dark Apostle, I think we need something more large scale than just a few assistants."

 

"What do you mean?' The Chaotic marine asked quizzically. 'I'm not going to put the IAs in dreadnoughts if that's what you're asking."

 

"No no no,' the loyalist said. 'I'm talking about an army. We need more marines, brother. What if we had these to fight during the typo war? Think of how much we lost, Hall 8, seventeen brothers and numerous scribes...and one of the greatest mods we will ever see."

 

Thirst bowed his head at this. "May his spirit find an island of peace among the Great Ocean.' Sighing, the Dark Apostle looked away. 'I can't believe he's gone either. But how will creating these avatars do anything but add to the loss? You know that people get attached to their Indices, and these are hardly the automatons that are all that remain of the Thousand Sons."

 

"I have a plan,' Messor declared. 'If you leave the Indices without a belief section, then they will not have the true spirit of a chapter, simply its tactics. Then they will simply be intelligent machines dedicated to destroying whatever we point them at."

 

"We'll need to run a few tests, but if you're right...' There was silence for a moment as the Chaos marine trailed off and both thought of the implications of this plan. 'Alright, we'll try it. I don't want to lose anyone else, especially not with the latest crusade sweeping the Liber. We need to be careful however, and some of them need to be real instead of robots to lead the others. Also, contact Ace. He's good at making weapons on a large scale."

 

The loyalist nodded. "Done. I'll leave you to your testing. I suggest you start with the Krakens by the way."

 

Angelos was right... Thirst thought wistfully as his peer left. I hate it when he's right...

[Demus Ragnok]

Brothers I hope my contribution is not out of place here.

 

 

 

 

Each hammer blow worked to lessen Demus' ill temper. This new peace was coming together wonderfully,

just as he new it would. Demus found clarity in the hammer, balance in the anvil, purpose in iron. Iron,

iron for weapons, iron for the great halls, iron for the Legio. Demus had been rancorus since the ending of

the Typo War. He felt as though he had let his brothers down. Perhaps had he fought harder things

would have ended differently. It was that thought that had driven him into the tunnels beneath the Liber

in hunt of the typos that lingered. He had forsaken his beautiful scimitar and taken up a short, blunt chain

blade. The better to fight in tight tunnels he thought. The better to bare the emblem of the Legio into

battle against a hated foe.

The first typo he had come upon was a hulking brute, wounded but still intact. Demus had reached up

and uncoupled his helm. The stinch of typo filled his nose, he could taste the typo filth on the air and feel

it on his skin. The blood of the Gorgon howled through his veins, hot like the volcanic heart of the

primarch's homeworld. Demus dropped his helm to the floor with intent and the typo turned to face new

prey.

"Hello jabberwok, I am Demus Ragnok son of Creigthos, child of the Gorgon Ferrus Manus, servant of He

who sits on the Golden Throne and Frater of the Legio. You have polluted the halls of my beloved Liber

and cast down my brethren. Come now unclean thing, BRING YOUR PRETTY FACE TO MY BLADE! No

typo had ever suffered at the hands of a Frater the way that one suffered at Demus'.

Demus returned from his thoughts of scouring the tunnels, alone and full of hate, to look at the iron he

held before him. A fine chainblade this will be he thought, the first of its kind. A chainblade to cast down

those that would stand against the Legio. A chainblade to bring the name of a fallen brother to the mind

 

of every Frater that would carry one of its same pattern.

Demus laid the forging aside and looked around him. Everywhere sons of Manus, and Vulkan and even

Dorn and Guilliman worked at the forges of the Legio, working to rebuild that which had been cast down.

Demus turned and walked from the smoke filled iron works out into the open air. A pack of menials

huddled around a great bronze basin filled with water. The menials scattered at Demus' approach. Demus

took a cool draught of water from the basin and then poured a second over top his shorn head. Water

gathered in the marines great black beard and he huffed blowing the liquid into a fine mist that sparked in

the light. Just then across the way Demus caught sight of Moderati Messor moving at a brisk jog.

"Odd." Demus said aloud to himself.

The Moderati was obviously in a hurry, but his manner displayed no stress markers.

"Oh well."Demus shrugged dismissing the trotting Moderati and turning back to forge.

"BACK TO WORK!" he bellowed at some loitering menials causing one to faint dead away. The hulking

marine, his broad frame naked from the waste up, shook his head in disgust and returned to his anvil.

[Messor]

Here's a thought, since there's getting to be some vague semblance of canon regarding these constructs. Help me keep this train of logic on the rails: Most IA's do have a beliefs section, but that gets in the way of creating an insta-army. Frater, as DAT mentioned, are extremely attached to their work, and would be loathe to do what's necessary, i.e. erase the beliefs to further the crusade. So index author's [independently] preserve their beliefs sections, cut them out of the indices, but keep and hide them somewhere. As a result, the constructs are disconnected from their beliefs, but not completely, and so control is not complete either. Does that make any sense?

 

I might be thinking too far ahead, and it could certainly work other ways, but there's an idea on the table.

[Reyner]

Logic in a Liber story? Don't be silly Messor!

 

That is a good idea though which may lead on to the uprising...

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

Indeed. Regardless of whether or not they have a beliefs section they will eventually develop their own character and perspective, though how much time is uncertain and possibly different based on the IAs in question, which is probably going to create some... interesting situations ;)

[Ace Debonair]

Ace was lost. The Liber was always a labyrinth, but recent renovations and a sudden construction rush after the destruction of Hall Eight had left parts of the Liber completely unrecognizable.

"Blast."

This corridor never used to end in a T-junction, Ace was fairly certain. Ignoring the path he'd just come down, there appeared to be two options. One was a corridor of bare, yellow-brown stone, lined with high windows and brightly lit. The other was dank and grim, dimly lit with flickering lanterns. The sound of dripping water echoed down the corridor, and there was a scurrying noise in the far distance.

"Looks like someone left a tap on," he mused under his breath. "I'd better go fix that."

Ace stumped away down the corridor, muttering about his leg.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

If this machine isn't built in a mad-scientist-style lab, we're doing it wrong.

So, off I go.

[Olis]

Olisredan listened to the menial relay his missive from Moderati Thirst. The plump little man gabbled from the flowing script imprinted on what suspiciously looked like skin. An assistant? Of what manner of man would this be? The Mod listened to the rest of the message. It would be cast from his own creations? This would be... problematic. Truth be told, none of his creations were submitted nor sanctioned by the rest of the Liber yet. Sure, he had two IAs but neither had walked these halls, even as prospective ideas.

 

He stroked his chin, rubbing the stubble there making long scritching noises. He looked at the chisel and hammer sat beside his Culinarium prepared meal. He could do without. Leaving the platter of brown and black lumps, Olis headed to Thirst's catherdral with the rotund menial in tow. 

[Dosjetka]

Black and brown lumps?! Why, you... nerfherder! :lol:

 

Anyway, time for me to chip into the story!

 

* * *

 

The sealed oven was one thing; while bothersome, Ludovic had managed to open it with relative ease after he had gotten the required motivation. Blocked pipes was an altogether different matter, and he hated to think what was blocking the rusted pipes running through the dark corridors of the Liber into the Culinarium. After sighing heavily, he got up from the upturned pot that he had been sitting on.The damned uncormfortable thing had not even been dented by his massive weight. Solid stuff, he thought.

 

The unusually tall Astartes bellowed down one of the doorways that led to his inner sanctum.

 

"Forkus, get in here! NOW!"

 

A small menial, not much taller than the aforementioned pot, clad in greasy robes that used to be white many decades ago, scurried in, head bobbing up and down as he went.

 

"I'm going to check out the damned pipes out in the corridors, you'd better keep this place in shape while I'm away. If anyone complains about the food, you know what to do."

 

He finished the sentence with a small, impish wink. The kitchen menial paled, then stammered a short reply.

 

"Y-y-yes, m'lord. I'll k-k-keep things in sh-shape and take the correct m-m-measures."

 

His head was bobbing up and down furiously, as if to emphasise his point. Ludovic thought it was pathetic but said no more. Another sigh and he trundled off, rubber plunger in one hand and a massive spanner in the other.

 

He hated doing these kind of jobs...

[Olis]

Black and brown lumps?! 

 

Well, it's up to you to tell me what they are. I didn't have a clue. Just be thankful I had picked up a plate of Culinarium cuisine. :P