Ragnath
Caelestis City
Mystery Vault
“What the hell was that, Dek?” the Nautolan spit out, angered by the events of the past day.
Dek Ironius II smiled, “It was a signal to the citizens of the Empire, and the Clan summit. Don’t worry, we’re not starting a revolution...” but he couldn’t get his words out before he was interrupted by the green skinned Proconsul again.
“We will no longer be subjugated? Strike the forge of our own destiny? Under a Force choke? Those sounds like revolutionary words to me!”
“But they are true. Like I’ve stated to you before,” Dek’s words echoed throughout the vast, empty chamber, “Kell made Imperium, and then became distant. Lexiconus brought us through our greatest struggles, but became obsessed with a personal mission. You were supposed to be different. You brought us to Caelestis City, and then started our reformation, and then midway through you took to a higher calling. I am finishing what you all started. I am making Imperium its own power in the Clan.”
Raiju rubbed his chin. His black drenched eyes keenly sought a better answer from Dek, as if he were reading the Human’s mind.
Dek continued, “I will not become distant. I will not go on a personal mission. And until I complete what I came here to do, I will not leave. I do not fault the others for leaving, but I do think that what I am doing is best for my House. I know it is best.”
“If you had asked, the Clan summit would have agreed with you,” Raiju calmly spoke. “The Emperor agreed, the Grand Admiral agreed, even I agreed. That is why we chose you to be...” but this time it was Dek’s turn to interrupt.
“You chose Mako, and he denied the position, and then you chose me,” Dek grimaced. “Don’t deny it, Raiju.”
Raiju sighed deeply, then continued, “Yes, Mako was next in line. But it would have been yours soon enough. What were your plans anyway?”
“We’re reshuffling our paths. We are no longer directly a part of the military. In fact, we will become a section of and beyond it.”
“Do you have the people in place that you need?” Raiju questioned.
“Yes, Arthur McElroy, Alphus Centaurus, and another contact of mine. I’ve chosen a special benefactor to become the Aedile. I’m not sure if he wishes to reveal himself or not, but time will tell.”
“It would be better if we knew who the latter two were,” Raiju cautioned.
Suddenly, Raiju felt something from out from the darkness of the leviathan vault. It was an eerily dark, as if the Force was peeling back its own skin and spurting blood all over the chamber. Raiju gulped. Dek frowned, knowing what was coming to them. It was a presence he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Raiju spun around, and chuckled a bit, “Nice mask.” The presence was familiar, but the being had ramped up his power quite a bit, showing off his emanating strength.
“How are they feeling? Your tentacles? Still receiving phantom pains from a few of them?” sarcastically spoke the entity, referring to Raiju’s lobbed off tentacle on his head.
“This is,” Dek started, “Darth Aeternus.”
“We know each other,” Aeternus returned. “We worked together in Clan Tarentum.”
The air was silent. The Force users both sent each other a single thought. Both nodded, and turned back to Dek.
Dek
Safe
Raiju was the first to speak, “This will work out for me. The Emperor...will be interested to know this. Who is the other being you spoke of?”
“I will need time before I reveal them,” Dek retorted, “Just know that Imperium will still be loyal, as long as we are given wiggle room.”
“Then I believe the Clan summit would support whatever you decided, Dek. Next time, though. Just ask.”
Welcome to my third Quaestor report. The above fiction follows not from the recent Imperium fictional update, but from my first report.
First things first, I’d like to welcome a ton of new members:
Glad to have you all here with us!
The first fictional update can be found here. The second one can be found here. I planned to have chapters 3 and 4 out at the end of the weekend. Instead, I decided to write out the old document.
If you’re looking to find out what happened in the entire past year, then read the following linked document. But be warned, it is a lengthy read of 21 pages.
Here is the Mass Fiction Update.
This project is the culmination of a 6 month long process. What started as a way to quickly update House Imperium after the GJW, turned into a drawn out process of trying to see how we could fit it into current events. I eventually just sat down and wrote the whole thing. Awhile ago, we had the specific characters’ permission to write about them. Raiju developed the basis of the story, along with a future plan involving an enemy of sorts. Working with Raiju, me and him developed what would now be called the Moldates.
When I first became Quaestor, I set out to accomplish a few things:
This Mass Fiction Update accomplishes all three. However, the story is not entirely complete yet, and because of that, I’ve posted an epilogue/questions piece below:
Epilogue and Questions
The surprise attack on the Iron Throne fleet turned into an all out war with a surprise enemy: The Collective. A combination of three groups (The Liberation Front, Capital Enterprises, and The Technocratic Guild), The Collective attempted to ruin the Brotherhood and all Clan forces. House Imperium was, therefore, pulled into the conflict as well.
Luckily, the combined forces of the DJB beat them back, but did not destroy them. House Imperium in return went through some changes.
Braecen Kaeth soon left the position of Grand Vizier.
Raiju Kang took the position of Grand Vizier.
Calindra left the Pallaeon intelligence operation, not being seen soon after. Rumor has it she went to work for House Excidium though.
Wagglehorn/Sparky, went on to leave Krennic, but soon rejoined into Pallaeon.
Lexiconus came back to Imperium after a brief journey to elsewhere, leading Pallaeon for a short time.
Reiden Karr, long time member of House Imperium and one of the Heroes of the Battle of Moldren 11, took up the mantle of Battleteam Leader of Krennic.
Dek soon filled the position of Imperator, giving him the ability to enact the plans which he had been building up to. His first objective was to revolutionize Imperium’s place in Clan Scholae Palatinae. His second objective is to win in a war against the Moldates. Calindra’s information lead to the discovery of the planet where the Helg Moldate is located.
If you did not read the fiction, or you did and are still confused, you may have a few questions:
1) What are these Moldates?
In trying to scout new planets for CSP, Shadow Guard lead by Dek came upon a new planet, where a cluster of war-like humans lived. They called themselves the Kleg Moldate. A Moldate is a form of clan oriented government, where different factions (or Moldates) vie for power. The leader of the faction has his or her name in front of the word Moldate. So the Kleg Moldate is lead by Kleg.
2) Why is the fiction so long?
Because we haven’t had a fiction update since the middle of last year. We have around 2 pages for every month of no fiction update, which isn’t a lot actually. But clustered together, it makes it quite long. I wanted to lay the groundwork for the rebranding, as well as show different characters within our House.
Because of the current length, we can now continue with new and modern updates quite regularly. And expect nothing this long in the future going forward.
3) Who is Arthur McElroy and Alphus Centaurus?
Arthur is Imperium’s first official NPC. Alphus is our second one. Our third one was mentioned by name, but not revealed. That’s for a future development.
4) A lot of time is skipped in between many of the chapters. Why?
Because this story would have been possibly 40 - 50 pages long if it were that way. No one is going to read it, and I could not write that in time for the end of the month, where I wanted us to be updated fictionally.
5) We are already fighting the Meraxis and The Collective. Why this new enemy, the Moldates?
Because it will be our first official House enemy. The Collective has yet to establish itself to the very core of the House story structure, considering it was and is a DJB-level storyline. The Meraxis are Clan-level, but we can’t exactly change that unless it’s through Clan events. Excidium has their own enemy of sorts that they beat down. Now we have ours.
6) What’s the next step for us fictionally?
Describing the end of the revolution story bridge-line, and then a special surprise next month run by myself and Alara.
Our military was just updated. Thanks to Eli and the rest of the Clan summit, we now have a military that Imperium can call it’s own, as does every battleteam. This allows us to flesh out stories for ourselves. In Eli’s words, if you are on a BT mission, you can use BT ships. If you are on a House mission, you can use House ships. It all makes sense. With input from multiple sources (including members at times), I developed a fleet along with the aid of Aeternus and Elincia that allows us to fulfill our mission rebranding while giving us a fighting force of sorts to go from. In the coming months, we’ll have competitions on how we’d name our things. They’ll be simple competitions for the House. I’d appreciate your input.
I first want to highlight three competitions. One by Jon (previously Arron Saylos) called Make a Wish. It’s a fiction competition.
The other is by our esteemed Emperor, Elincia. It’s a mapping competition where you’re charged with making a map for Caelestis City. It’s called Mapping out Caelestis.
The last is a joint TAL/CSP alliance competition, involving a fiction called A Collective Dagger.
Imperium’s main competitions this month include one, big House development competition: Burdens of Servitude. It has five sub competitions:
Philosophy – Fiction. How does your character involve themselves in the rebranding? How does it work for them philosophically?
Wiki – Wiki page. Create a new wiki page for Imperium.
Trivia – Fill out trivia entries about members in Imperium.
Graphics – Create a graphic/logo/symbol for the new Imperium pillars.
Motto – Imperium needs a new motto. Submit as many as you want in developing our new motto.
The competitions end on the 30th of May. Your entries will help form the House into what it will be in the future!
As mentioned, I set out to accomplish three tasks by the end of the month, and as my preliminary time as Quaestor. Going forward, I want to set some goals for the upcoming month of June:
I want further member input. If you like it, I want to hear from you. If you don’t like it, I want to hear from you. If you are extremely ‘meh’, I want to hear from you. If you are indifferent in all ways, I still want to know that. As the rebranding set out, I put a ‘pillar’ system in place, where battle, knowledge, and exploration came to be the center of our House. But this should not be the end of it. My hope is that within 1 – 3 years, those pillars will start to mold and form together to make something more concrete. This month provides an opportunity for members to help shape our current image with the competitions, but this image will eventually become more solidified in the long term.
This is always close to the top. I want people to be here and I want them to enjoy what they engage with. It is my hope that in the future, most Imperium development will be member driven. That involves increasing how the members interact with the House. Further, allowing members to learn about what it takes to be a leader works as well. This way they can someday take future leadership positions and not feel like they are going into something unprepared.
This almost goes hand in hand with number 1 and 2. Jorm has certainly been wanting me to include something about it in all of my reports.
For those who don’t know, the ECS was a regular posting I did when I was BTL, showing how members could fit their character sheet styles into the battleteam. It allowed members who questioned how they could fit into the BT an answer. To me, this is something I’ve wanted to do for awhile for the House. However, I knew that Imperium had to move further away from what they currently were before I chose to do any work on it. By the end of June, I hope to have a guide of sorts done on it, for characters in Imperium.
Jorm asks: Existential Crisis Simulator? Will it experience a similar development history as Duke Nukem Forever
I'm not sure they share the same addiction patterns :P (video games vs. Jorm's desire for written material). But that is next on what I want to accomplish.
Archangel asks: What’s your favourite breakfast?
Everything. Plenty of meat, eggs, toast, waffles, coffee, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, crepes. And a shot of raki. I also like cereal when I'm poor and lazy :P
That’s all for this month!
Glory to the Empire!
Dek Ironius II Quaestor/Imperator of House Imperium
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thanks for the story update!