A Light Not Extinguished

Chapter 1: A Baleful Omen

"They shall be our finest warriors, these machines who give themselves to humanity. Like clay we shall mould them and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by mortality or pain, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and weapons such that no foe can best them in battle. They are our bulwark against the Green Tide. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are the Iron Minds and they shall know no fear."
-Words attributed to an unknown scientist who took part in the creation of the Men of Iron, during the Great Orkoid War of M22

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M24. 196

[INSUFFICIENT CLEARANCE LEVEL], Research Complex of the Psykana Militant

As humanity journeyed amongst the stars and their technological might grew, what was once thought supernatural was taken apart and explained by the cold logic of science. In the process, man finally confirmed what he had been dreaming for thousands of years; there were indeed humans that were more than mere mortal flesh, able to shape reality through the power of their minds alone, the stuff of legends, myths and stories brought to life.

Psykers, as they were called, were at first greatly feared and abhorred, for man fears nothing more than the unknown. However, this changed with the galaxy-shattering conflict known as the First Galactic War in M15, where the dread hosts of Rangda marched across the galaxy, the Aeldari Empire no longer caring to suppress them. Entire species fought and died under the advance of the Rangdans, their genome absorbed into the Rangdan war-machine to produce varieties of monsters wearing the skin of extinct species. Finally, at the apex of the battle, humanity turned the tide with one of their greatest creations -- the Navigators, who could guide ships through the Warp with ease. With this new logistal advantage, the temporarily united human polities drove the Rangdans back, shattering their homeworld with the newly-invented two-stage cyclonic torpedo, the survivors fleeing into deep space. Afterwards psykers gained much more respect, and eventually acceptance.

After its birth, The Federation understood the tremendous military potential that psykers held, for a trained psyker was basically a living weapon on the battlefield. Thus the Psykana Militant was born, one of the most elite armed forces in the Federation's arsenal, in which psykers were recruited and trained to fight for and defend humanity. Among the branches of the Psykana Militant was the SEER Division, where scientists sought to divine the threads of the future using the Warp as a tool, for the Immaterium remembers all things, no matter past, present or future.

Within a room half-separated from reality, a young psychic entered the pod, machines whirring around her, tubes and needles glowing with arcane light. The 'scrying pod' glowing oval with the insides made of Warp-amplifying crystal, while the outside was coated in thick plates of psychically-insulative material and covered in adamantium-engraved warding scripts.

As the doors closed, Essana Sagami took a deep breath while the metallic cover on the back of her neck slid open, artificial nerve fibres connecting her to the pod. I can do this, she told herself. I'm a Beta-Class; I've done the simulations, gone over the disciplines a thousand times. I can do this.

She let go, her soul diving into the unfathomable tides of the Warp, through time and space and what could have been, with a singular purpose- to gaze upon the paths that the future could take.

And so she fell.

Her luminous soul fell through labyrinths of dead dreams and sparkling thoughts, guided by artifices of steel and silicon, tracing an iridescent thread of hollow light towards her destination, surrounded by infinite possibilities of things that will never come to pass and yet, may have passed.