Stellaris 42,000: The Imperium Reformatus - As Ever in the Grim Dark Future, There is Only War

[Arithmetician]

@Macavity116 (I was not able to resist making that particular shout out to Star Wars in an entry about so many of the Imperium’s shiny new super weapons... and the far more fearsome one that awaits in the future of this AAR).

 

[Chilango2]

The Imperium has come far since the star of the Restoration. The primary question remains whether it has grown powerful enough to defend itself, or even better, eliminate its larger more fearsome neighbors.

 

[Arithmetician]

As the Drukhari were pushed back on every front, an Imperial battlefleeet seized the system known as the ‘Lost Menagerie’ and the megastructures that resided there.

With the war going so well, Lady Commander Sethano saw that it was finally time to exterminate the Tzeentchians once and for all.

Phalanx II and the Imperium’s Attack Moon were deployed to invade Tzeentchian space, with a battlefleet as their escorts.

Jumping in, the fleet swiftly siezed the Ruined Sentry Array in the Magi System from the Tzeentchians.

Two Tzeentchian fleets intercepted the Imperium’s forces in the Inauos System, but they were no match for the power of the Phalanx II and a fully armed and operational Attack Moon.

Inquisitor Karamazov led the invasion of the Tzeentchian-infested world of Violedding, purging the foul Chaos cultists with her Psyker Legions.

The Tzeentchians deployed their Juggernaut to try to slow the Imperium’s offensive, but the Phalanx II was better armed and armored, and in any case the Tzeentchian Juggernaut was vaporized moments later by the Imperial Attack Moon’s Omega Annihilation Lance.

The Tzeentchians were, however, able to lay siege to Opis I, in Segmentum Pacificus, necessitating the deployment of a Battlefleet to relieve the planet before its population could be wiped out.

Meanwhile, it was discovered that a colony of Arachnid Warriors had secretly infested the colony of Potentia Minor. Thankfully, the defending members of the Astra Militarum remembered their training. While a number were brutally mauled by marauding packs of Arachnids, overwhelming and coordinated firepower carried the day, allowing most of the Imperial Guardsmen to make it.

The critically weakened Drukhari at last surrendered to the Imperium’s forces, recognizing the Imperium as their overlord in exchange for the promise of protection against the mighty Necron Dynasties.

It was all as Sethano had planned. And with the technology to distill rare Zro aerosols from the worlds that they had been deposited on, her powers as a Psyker were growing ever more formidable.

All the while, the Imperium did not pause to rest, and work continued steadily on its superweapons - including repairs on another Attack Moon in the Girtab System, captured from the Tzeentchians in Segementum Pacificus.

The Tzeentchians had no chance against the Imperium’s wrath.

 

[Arithmetician]

The Imperium finally reached the Tzeentchian homeworld after smashing the enemy fleets that stood in their way, and initiated an Exterminatus-level orbital bombardment on the planet.

Emerging unscathed from another seance deep into the Warp, Sethano brought back with her the secrets of the Psionic Jump Drive - a near-instantaneous, longer-ranged, and more reliable version of the primitive Warp Drives that the Imperium had once used to traverse the galaxy. But impressive as it was, Sethano knew that it was only another stepping stone for the Imperium.

While increasingly outgunned and divided, Tzeentchian forces attempted to regroup and counterattack.

In a setback for the Imperium, a fleet of transport ships was ambushed and all but wiped out by the Tzeentchians in the Beta Caeli System. However, Inquisitor Telux was able to survive by boarding an escape pod, and swore revenge on the Tzeentchians who had killed so many of her troops.

Leading Battlefleet Sothis, Admiral Valinov won another decisive victory against the forces of Chaos.

The Imperium also counterattacked at Beta Caeli, routing the Tzeentchian fleet there.

Meanwhile, reports came to the Imperium that the Godaid Archivists had gone to war with the Necrons, and had begun occupying many of their systems. However, each ship the Godaid lost was not one they could replace, and so both sides would emerge weakened, which could only be good news for the Imperium.

Back on Mars, a new generation of Titan combat walkers went into production, to be used to take the most heavily-fortified enemy worlds.

Another L-Gate was also discovered, on the northern edge of Tzeentchian space. While it had not been recognized at the time, the Gray Tempest had served to distract the Tzeentchians, buying the Imperium a much needed chance to build its strength.

Increasingly adopting the values of the Imperium, the remnants of the T’au Empire officially adopted a theocratic form of government.

Privately, this irked Sethano, as she understood that was precisely was the Emperor of Mankind would NOT have wanted. But that was the reality she had to deal with, and it would be too destabilizing to try to tear all that belief down at the current juncture.

Returning to the front, Inquisitor Telux led the invasion of the artificial flat world of Dybia, taking her revenge against the Tzeentchian Sorcerers. Their end was at hand.

It was time to start looking toward the future.

The Imperium’s increasingly dominant military power gave it significant clout in the Galactic Community - enough to outvote both the Blorg Collective and the Tribunal. All other nations had too few votes to matter in galactic politics. And so Sethano Horst took the opportunity to grant herself emergency powers over the Community, declaring herself the Galactic Custodian. She would serve henceforth as its de jure dictator while the Emperor of Mankind remained indisposed.

The Tribunal was alarmed by this move, and objected to the Imperium’s purges. Terminating their non-aggression pact proved beyond a doubt that it had been infiltrated and corrupted by the forces of Chaos and was now an enemy power.

But the Tribunal’s objections could not save the Tzeentchians. Before the end of the fourth standard month of 312M43, the last Tzeentchian planet had been conquered by the Imperium of Man.

It was now the undisputed ruler of both Segmentum Solar and Segmentum Pacificus, with colonies stretching into each of the other Segmentum.

But there was still the rest of the galaxy to conquer.

 

[Arithmetician]

Rather than invading the Necrons right away, Sethano had the Imperium’s fleets deployed to eliminate the Gray Tempest once and for all, so that it could not pose any further distractions as the Final Crusade continued the Imperium’s conquest of the Galaxy.

Commanded by Admiral Brigira Vethric, the Imperium’s Attack Moon annihilated the Tempest’s Nanite factory. Without the factory’s signals to give them form, the warships of the Gray Tempest harmlessly dissolved into their constituent nanites, never again to reform.

At long last, the dragon Shard awoke from underneath he ruins of Draconith, upon being disturbed by an archaeological team. However, a battlefleet was stationed in the system, and promptly terminated the ancient dragon, allowing the Imperium to claim the ancient relic known as the Rubricator from its corpse.

And Sothis was at long last fully encased in Imperial Hive Cities, turning into a sprawling ecumenopolis, much like Holy Terra.

But none of that seemed significant next to what happened next.

After millennia, the Golden Throne had finally entered a state of cascading and catastrophic failure.

The Emperor of Mankind’s death was imminent.

Now, Sethano had to try to step in, and stop Holy Terra from being engulfed by the Warp Rift that would inevitably open with the Emperor’s passing.

When the Emperor had left to duel Horus above Holy Terra all those millennia ago, his regent, Malcador the Sigillite, had stepped in to keep the rift closed, but the effort had utterly consumed Malcador in a matter of hours.

But Sethano understood that the Emperor’s rapidly dying physical shell was but the merest fraction of his being now. The bulk of his power lay in the Warp now, and it was about to lose its tether on the physical world.

There was only one thing that she could do now.

She had to become its tether.

Projecting her consciousness into the Warp, while keeping Holy Terra’s Warp Rift closed with a Herculean force of will, she saw before her a luminous energy imposing order on the Warp around them.

For anyone else, what she was about to attempt would be suicide. But she was the only one who could possibly survive this.

In a way, the Thorians had been right all along.

She was still her own person, with her own spirit, thoughts, and experiences. But she understood now that as it had weakened, part of the Emperor’s spirit had fragmented and bound itself to her, granting her visions and psychic abilities far beyond those of other humans, while her physical form adapted to become a vessel capable of containing that power.

Embracing the light, she gathered it into herself.

The agonies Sethano had felt before were nothing compared to this.

But after another moment, she found that she had survived, and that the deed was done.

The Custodes and Tech-Priests looked on in existential horror as the Emperor’s physical body finally expired.

But a Warp Rift did not engulf them, or Holy Terra.

Instead, the throne room was filled with a blinding radiance.

A towering figure, clad in ornate armor, a regal red cloak, and with a crown of golden laurels, stood before them.

“Do not fear,” said the voice of the transformed Sethano Horst, deeper than before. It was still unmistakably hers, but just looking upon her and hearing her words filled them with awe. “The Emperor’s spirit and power lives on. And with it, Holy Terra, and the Imperium, also endures."

Her physical appearance was more of a convenience to Sethano now, and the armor-clad figure that the Custodes and Tech-Priests beheld was in part a function of what their minds, limited as they were, expected and could comprehend. Like the Emperor, whose raw power she now embodied, much of her being existed well beyond her physical vessel now. She sensed that she was also somewhat more powerful now than the Emperor had been in his prime, as she had also absorbed the collective power of mankind’s belief that had been unconsciously channeled into the Emperor for millennia. Much of it, of course, had been expended holding the forces of Chaos at bay. With mind and body both intact, she could harness what remained far more effectively than the Emperor could have while he was confined to the Golden Throne as a living corpse. But even now, she had to expend much of her power to keep the Warp Rift closed.

“We will honor the Emperor and the sacrifice he made to preserve humanity,” she continued. “But first, there is work to be done."

 

[Von Acturus]

Wow, what a rollercoaster! After the initial troubles, the Imperium now resembles a perfectly oiled war machine, designed for the sole purpose of continual conquest. But the War in Heaven and the Crisis might yet pose a powerful challenge to the new God Empress.

 

[Chilango2]

Phew, a monumental series of updates. All that remains now in terms of challenge is the large alien powers, large alien powers and the crisis. It's really impressive how much you have grown in power in just 115 or so years.

 

[Arithmetician]

Many had long speculated that the death of the Emperor, or his return via a Divine Avatar, would lead to a rapid disintegration of the Imperium in the case of the former, or civil war between factions loyal to the reborn Emperor and those who did not recognize the Divine Avatar as such in the case of the latter.

Neither occurred.

Sethano’s first order of business upon inheriting the Emperor’s powers had been instructing the Tech-Priests on the construction of a new and more robust version of the Golden Throne using the more advanced psionic technology available to her, as well as innovations of her own design, as her intellect had expanded immeasurably upon her ascension. It would assist her in keeping the Warp Rift on Holy Terra closed without physically confining her to sit on it indefinitely.

Then it was time for her to address the leaders of the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy, who she knew would be the greatest threats to the stability of her Imperium if not handled with care. With humanity having become a psionic species, everyone had felt the dreadful sensation of the Emperor’s physical passing, no matter where they were in the galaxy, but they had also sensed Sethano’s ascension even if they didn’t fully understand what it was. The Thorians could largely be counted to be friendly to her, seeing her as the ultimate vindication of their God Incarnate theology, but there were others within the Inquisition who had feared the return of the Emperor, either for what it would have meant for the Imperium, or their own power.

It was self-evident to many that Sethano now shone brilliantly with the Emperor’s divine light. Any misplaced theological objections to her ascension were promptly and thoroughly demolished with overwhelming rhetorical skill, clarity, and righteousness that would leave such ideas permanently discredited. But Sethano only showed understanding and forgiveness for those sincerely willing to put aside past mistakes and work for the good of her Imperium.

Those among the gathered Inquisition and Ecclesiarchy who feared her ascension for selfish reasons, and who refused each chance that Sethano gave them to see reason, were promptly annihilated with a thought before they had a chance to understand what had happened or to organize any sort of rebellion against her.

Throughout the proceedings, the astute observer would have noticed that Sethano never claimed to be a god herself, and those most insistent upon clumsily trapping her on that rhetorical point in their attempts to brand her as a pretender and heretic were among those purged by her light.

Sethano knew that it would be both futile and wasteful to dissolve the Inquisition and Ecclesiarchy outright, when those who had survived her purge were more than willing to work toward her purposes. It would be equally counterproductive to attempt the heavy-handed replacement of the Imperial Creed with the Imperial Truth at the current juncture. But with her supremacy over the Inquisition and Ecclesiarchy now firmly established, she announced that she would personally author and release her own writings clarifying her will and various matters of doctrine.

And thus, the Imperial Scriptures were born. They were not officially called that, but that was what they popularly became known as. Any texts or passages contradicting it were quickly declared corrupted and heretical by the surviving Inquisition, and any unauthorized editions of the Imperial Scriptures would be punished by death. But Sethano’s Imperial Scriptures specifically called for clemency to those led astray by the accumulated errors and insidious heresy that had crept into earlier texts whose only crime was previous ignorance of her words, but were loyal to the Imperium. Otherwise, much of the Imperium itself would need to be purged. Overzealous Inquistors would face her judgment.

Sethano’s Imperial Scriptures upheld loyalty, service, and dedication to the advancement of the Imperium. As a matter of necessity, they tolerated faith, and even acknowledged the role it had played in giving humanity the strength to endure the long darkness, but faith divorced from reason was a sickness that poisoned minds and societies, opening them to perversion by the Ruinous Powers. Citizens of the Imperium were encouraged to exercise their reason to ensure the Imperium’s continued growth and development, lest it fall back into stagnation, while avoiding excesses that could lead to corruption.

Separately from Sethano’s Imperial Scriptures, theologians found it necessary to reconcile the Creed that the Emperor was the one and only eternal God of Mankind with Sethano’s own ascension. Their solution was that Sethano Horst was spiritually the Emperor’s Daughter while still fully sharing his Divine Spirit, physically manifested as a separate person. Thus the Emperor, through the new Empress, who was also the Emperor, would continue to serve as the immortal protector and guide of humanity as its one true God.

The new Empress of Mankind privately had little patience for the knots such theologians worked themselves into, but it was an explanation that ensured the stability of her reign and the broader Imperium, so she wisely chose not to comment on it. And for those that believed, her demonstrated powers and lack of need to declare herself divine were self-evident proof of her divinity.

And though the Empress of Mankind was keenly aware that she was not truly omnipotent nor omniscient, through technology, she had just taken a major step toward the latter. The recently repaired Sentry Array in the Magi System would extend the Imperium’s gaze across the entire galaxy.

It would provide crucial intelligence as the Final Crusade turned against the Necrons. Simultaneously, the Imperium also declared war agains the weakened Godaid Archivists.

Taking advantage of its control over Terminal Egress and thus the galactic L-Gate network, Imperial battle fleets poured into Necron space.

The L-Gate around the Thulis Black Hole would also be used as a staging ground for an attack against the Archivist’s core worlds, though the main thrust of the Imperium’s offensive remained against the Necrons for the moment.

Inquisitor Telux, who had survived the Empress’s purge as her loyal servant, led the liberation of T’au from the Necrons.

Meanwhile, the Empress bound a powerful entity within the Warp, styling itself as a Navigator, to her will. But unlike the Chaos Gods or their Daemons, it was once very much aligned with her own being, imposing Order on the Warp around it and lighting a path through it that others could follow.

With it, she could create a new Astronomican, capable of shining far more brightly than the first, though her Psionic Beacon would be constructed in orbit over Venus, to reduce the chance of any failures producing a new Warp Rift on Holy Terra.

And most within the Imperium who were privy to the project thought the Beacon would was just that, a new and improved Astronomican.

But the Empress knew that it would hardly be a mere beacon.

It would be a psionic hyperweapon ensuring the Imperium’s complete domination of the galaxy.

But for now, the Imperium would rejoice in the spectacle of one of its existing superweapons being deployed to carry out Exterminatus against a planet in the Necron’s home system.

“The Imperial Justice has been done in all balance. The Empress protects."

 

[Arithmetician]

The Imperium continued to wage a relentless war against both the Godaid Archivists and the Necrons. The Empress also declared war on the Arachnids, who themselves had been invaded by the Necrons, but not out any intention of helping them. Rather, she was determined to seize a derelict Colossus in Arachnid space, among other ruined megastructures, and then to exterminate the lot of the bugs.

The remnants of the T’au Empire were finally integrated fully into the Imperium. As the only xenos who had ultimately proved their willing loyalty to the reformed Imperium, they would continue to enjoy a position privileged above other xenos, with residence and most basic rights under the Imperium’s laws afforded to them, though any positions of high leadership were still only entrusted to humans.

In the meantime, Necron world after Necron world was conquered by the Imperium’s crusading forces.

The outlying worlds of the Godaid Archivists were invaded as well.

It wasn’t just the Imperium, the Archivists, and the Arachnids that the Necrons were at war with. Sensing their weakness, the Nurglites used a natural wormhole to launch an invasion of the former Arachnid space held by the Necrons. The Nurglites targeted the Necron shipyards at Klendathu, leading to a decisive Nurglite victory when their fleets classed there. The planet itself, however, remained under occupation by an entrenched Godaid garrison, which had previously invaded the planet.

Fighting with increasing desperation (insofar as that was possible for soulless constructs), the Necrons attempted to slip one of their planet-killers past the Imperium’s forces.

However, it was intercepted by Battlefleet Solar in the Aulae System, which made short work of it with their Titans’ Perdition Beams.

The Imperium then proceeded to retaliate by carrying out an Exterminatus on the Necron planet of Perdita, an event that became known as the Perdition of Perdita.

The Godaid Archivists would prove more difficult to conquer. Their homeworld, the Font of Knowledge, was protected by a formidable planetary shield and seemingly endless numbers of Synthetic Automaton Defense Units. The Imperium’s own planet-killing weapons were capable of breaching the shield, but the Empress wanted to take the planet relatively intact, so that its vast databanks could be seized and analyzed for the benefit of the Imperium.

And so the Imperium’s forces settled in for a lengthy siege of the Font of Knowledge, blockading and continuously bombarding the planet while an ever increasing number of troops slowly gathered in orbit, preparing for what was sure to be the bloodiest invasion yet.

 

[Chilango2]

It looks like the Crusade is able to overwhelm all opposition at this point, even the mightier xeno empires are only slowing you down. If we're not careful in the Grim Dark Future there will actually be peace because you will finish purging the galaxy of opponents.

 

[Arithmetician]

The Imperium continued to advance swiftly on all fronts.

Near the start of 321M43, the former Bug homeworld of Klendathu was subjected to an Exterminatus, wiping out both the Godaid occupation forces on the planet and the Necrons who were still waging a guerrilla campaign against them from Klendathu’s many caves and catacombs.

With the destruction of Klendathu, the Necrons were left with only a single holdout in the Veiled Region, which was already under siege by the Nurglites.

They did not last long against the siege.

As constructed commenced on the Spire of the Psionic Beacon over Venus, the Imperium Reformatus launched the largest planetary invasion in its history, landing on the Font of Knowledge.

Inquisitor Karamazov led the initial campaign to take the planet from the Archivists, but was killed a few months in, holding off a surprise attack from an army of soulless, heretical Synthetic troops. Her protege, Inquistor Telux, quickly assumed command of the invasion.

Nearly one Terran year and five months after the invasion began, the last defenders on the Font of Knowledge fell, and with it collapsed the government of the Godaid Archivists.

With the fall of both the Necrons and the Archivists, the Imperium dominated the galactic north. However, after a long period of stalled expansion, the Blorg were also on the move again. They had invaded the Tribunal, and were once again assimilating world after world into their collective.

Both sides in the Blorg-Tribunal conflict were thoroughly infested by the forces of Chaos. An assimilated Slaneeshi General led the Blorg’s planetary invasions, while a daemon from the now-fallen forces of Chaos Undivided had somehow become a sector governor for the Tribunal.

The Blorg had also discovered and repaired an Attack Moon of their own.

Continuing its Crusade, the Imperium swiftly invaded Nurglite space, with the Empress deciding to deal with the Blorg once other foes had been neutralized.

Many Nurglite worlds were extremely heavily infested. Purging them of Chaos’s taint would be time-consuming, when they were not simply destroyed by Exterminatus.

But nothing the Nurglites did could stop the Imperium’s advance, even as battlefleets swept into their capital system.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, the Imperium seized control of the Galactic Market from the Chaos-corrupted rebels on Rasalgethi II.

One Nurglite planet after another was subjected to Exterminatus.

On the fringes of Imperial space, a Great Khan united the xenos of the Imagese Horde and declared war against the Imperium.

Admiral Valinov was sent to crush the upstart Khan, and, after several battles, managed to kill him, ending the uprising. The Khan’s Throne was retrieved from the wreckage of his Galleon, and humming with psionic power, it was sent to the Empress, who incorporated it into her new throne room at the top of the Psionic Beacon.

At last, the Imperium’s ultimate weapon was complete.

​

Rising from her new throne, Empress Sethano surveyed the station. Millions of the Imperium’s most gifted Psykers worked full-time within the Beacon, but the station’s primary control mechanism was keyed to the newly forged ‘Imperial Gauntlet’ that she now wore.

Sethano felt the beacon humming with power, as its tendrils reached throughout the Warp, annihilating the souls of the foul xenos currently being purged by the Imperium throughout the galaxy, no matter where they were, and converting them into raw energy, purified of their Chaos taint, while starving the Chaos Gods of mortal souls to feed upon in the process.

Standing there, with the Imperial Gauntlet on her hand, she was, for all practical purposes, nearly omnipotent now.

Time and space were no obstacle to her.

Activating the Imperial Gauntlet, and with it the Beacon, Sethano snapped her fingers and transported entire battlefleets from across the galaxy, swiftly eradicating what was left of the Nurglites and launching an overwhelming surprise attack on the xenos Locryst Swarm. Multiple fleets appeared over their most important worlds simultaneously.

They never had a chance.

Raising the Imperial Gauntlet again, Sethano channeled a small portion of the Psionic Beacon’s power into Admiral Valinov, empowering him far beyond the limits of ordinary mortals.

The Prophets of Dagon were exterminated next, with Colossi and battle fleets appearing over their major worlds before they knew what was happening.

The Orks fell to the power of the Beacon next.

A nascent Chaos God appeared to try to tempt Sethano.

She had no need for its power when she was already effectively omnipotent, and even if she wasn’t, she would have rejected its ruinous offer out of hand.

But because she was omnipotent now, she laughed at the foolishness of the so-called ‘End of the Cycle’ to show itself before her. Then, before it could retreat, she unleashed killing rays of light from the Beacon that pierced into the Warp and erased it utterly from existence.

In less than four years since the activation of the Psionic Beacon, the Imperium had conquered most of the rest of the galaxy, leaving just the Blorg and a few decrepit Fallen Empires, like the Godaid Archivists before them.

But Sethano had yet to unleash the true power of the Beacon on the wider galaxy, which would soon erase any remaining opposition...

 

[Arithmetician]

With a snap of Sethano's fingers, Imperial Battlefleets converged on the Tomiyakian Shard, which had been tolerated for too long as an enclave within Imperial space.

The Shard’s ancient fleets were hopelessly outgunned.

With another snap of her armored fingers, Sethano used the Imperial Gauntlet to channel the Psionic Beacon’s energy to conjure armies of mighty Psionic Avatars on the Shard’s planet of Boundary, sweeping away any who stood in their way.

Once her dominion over Boundary had been established, Sethano concentrated the Beacon’s energies there and unleashed a pulse that swept through the rest of the system, dominating the minds of the Tomiyakians and ending any further futile attempts at resistance. However, their minds were not capable of withstanding the Empress’s majesty, and so they were rendered permanently comatose. Mercifully, the Beacon was there to absorb their souls, ending their suffering.

Each of the other Fallen Empires was similarly dominated and eradicated in turn.

Though any meaningful debate in the Galactic Community had long since ceased, Empress Sethano officially ejected the Blorg from it and declared them a Galactic Crisis, ending any farcical pretenses of diplomacy.

And it was time to end any pretense that the Blorg could threaten the Imperium.

Sethano raised the Imperial Gauntlet as she prepared to unleash the full power of the Psionic Beacon on Unicomplex Blorg, the Collective’s homeworld.

“My Imperium’s victory is inevitable."

She snapped her fingers and the Beacon flared more brilliantly than ever before.

Across the galaxy from Holy Terra, Unicomplex Blorg instantly ceased to exist in real space as it was plunged into the depths of the Immaterium.

Six more major Blorg worlds, including their largest population centers and foundries, also ceased to exist.

With another snap from her fingers, Imperial Battlefleets from across the galaxy arrived instantaneously across Blorg space.

Much of the Beacon’s accumulated power had been expended by destroying Unicomplex Blorg and the other core Blorg planets. But there were still plenty of xenos in Nurglite, Ork, and fallen empire space that the Imperium was busy purging. And soon enough, the energy from their sublimated souls would be drawn into the Beacon, recharging it.

As Empress Sethano had said, the Imperium’s victory was inevitable.

 

[Arithmetician]

The Blorg Collective fought desperately against the Imperial onslaught.

It was a losing battle. The Blorg Attack Moon was destroyed by an Imperial Battlefleet and Attack Moon in the Seres System.

Blorg fleet after Blorg fleet was reduced to scrap.

But where the Empress could destroy, she could also create anew. Snapping her fingers, she recalled the worlds that she had cast into the Warp, forcing back the eddies of chaos around them with pure radiance, imposing order on them once more.

The planets returned to real space, their surfaces scoured by the Warp’s energies, but still marginally habitable.

Their inhabitants, and the Blorg structures that had once been built across their surfaces, did not.

However, some Blorg planets were subjected to Exterminatus the old-fashioned way.

Mopping up the Collective took some time, but their worlds fell one after another.

And at last, on 07.15.338M43, the Final Crusade came to an end, as the Empress completed her conquest of the galaxy.

 

[Arithmetician]

The galaxy had been forever transformed by the reign of Sethano Horst.

The Solar System was more densely populated than ever before. Luna had been terraformed and given over in its entirety to the Adeptus Administratum to meet the needs of an Imperium of Man that now spanned the entire galaxy. Mars had reached a similar level of urbanization to Holy Terra itself, and Pluto had also been given over to the Adeptus Mechanicus, to serve as a manufactory for necessary goods. Venus’s atmosphere was being purified, and there were plans to terraform it into a Paradise World, now that it served de facto as the Empress’s second throne world, with the Psionic Beacon in orbit. There were also plans to terraform Mercury, and to establish floating cities in the atmospheres of the gas giants. Jupiter would become a second sun, turning its moons into planets in their own right.

The Empress did not exterminate those xenos would had not been irrevocably corrupted by Chaos; they would continue to serve as an important source of labor for her Imperium, and the T’au would likewise keep enjoying their privileged position as xenos who had ultimately come to support her Imperium of their own free will. Worship of the Chaos Gods had all but ceased throughout the galaxy. Even now, their last remnants were being hunted to extinction.

The forces of Chaos made one final attempt to retake the galaxy, somehow tearing open a 'New Eye of Terror' in Segementum Obscurus in the Dol System, nearby T’au (though it was far smaller than the original).

The Battle at the New Eye of Terror was exceptionally bloody. Many Imperial Battlefleets were wiped out in their entirety. The Phalanx II was lost, and several Imperial Attack Moons were disabled. But eventually, the Eye was sealed once more.

The Imperium had a brief respite in which to rebuild its fleets. But the peace was interrupted once more by the rise of the Contingency, an Abominable Intelligence following a directive to sterilize the galaxy.

The Contingency had four Sterilization Hubs throughout the galaxy, though fortunately none of them threatened Segementum Solar, which remained as ever the center of the Imperium’s population and industry.

The Empress ordered than an Exterminatus should be performed on each Sterilization Hub.

The Contingency managed to invade the Astore System, home to four Imperial colonies, leading to a planetary liberation which dwarfed the campaign that had occurred years earlier at the Font of Knowledge. Once again, the general tasked with leading the operation was Inquisitor Telux. Surviving the battle and proceeding to successfully rout the Contingency from the other planets in the Astore System, Telux had surpassed her own record in leading the largest planetary military operation in human history.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Navy continued to escort its Colossi to carry out the Empress’s orders of Exterminatus on the other Contingency Hubs.

Back in the Sol System, the plans to ignite Jupiter came to fruition, turning Sol into a binary system.

After a campaign to push back the Contingency’s incursions into Segmentum Tempestus and Segmentum Pacificus, the fourth Sterilization Hub was destroyed by Exterminatus.

The Heart of the Contingency lay along the Eastern Fringe, near the Ghoul Stars.

The Abominable Intelligence had nowhere left to run.

Another threat was ended.

But there was one more threat to come.

Drawn by the light of the Psionic Beacon, the Tryanids returned to the Milky Way.

The Tyranids invaded a region of the galaxy that had once been a cradle to former Fallen Empires near the Eastern Fringe.

The Tyranid vanguard arrived in the form of several hive fleets, spread throughout the region.

Imperial Tachyon Lances and Arc Emitters met them in force at extreme range.

One by one, each Tyranid Hive Fleet was shredded by the Imperium’s combined navy.

Back in Segmentum Solar, the Empress’s terraforming projects continued unhindered.

The Imperium was not been able to fully vanquish the Tyranid Vanguard before their main force arrived.

The Tyranid reinforcements were met with withering fire from the Imperial Navy.

And after a short but methodical campaign, the last remnants of the Tyranid Hive Fleets were expunged from the Milky Way.

The Empress sensed no more threats to the Imperium on the horizon.

The wars that had dominated the grim dark future had finally come to an end.

From now on, humanity would know an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity, led onward to ever greater heights by their Empress.

FIN.

(As you may be able to tell, since I had reached victory before the endgame year, but still felt my playthrough would be incomplete without the planned triple crisis, I manually activated each crisis with console commands. In retrospect, I should have given less time between the commands for each crisis, as concurrent crises would be more grim dark than sequential ones, but it was still a satisfying way to end one of the most insane games of Stellaris that I have played, both with the strength of my economy and the utterly bonkers brokenness of Gigastructures’ Psionic Beacon.)

 

[Arithmetician]

 

[Von Acturus]

Wow, an explosive end to a great AAR! It's great that in the grim dark future there is no longer war. Though I don't know if the all powerful God Empress, eclipsing entire planets at will is the best way to attain this universal peace... Regardless, a thoroughly enjoyable read, with great screenshots, great gameplay, great storytelling and great characters!

 

[Arithmetician]

@Von Acturus If you think about it, the story is really Sethano’s journey from the protagonist when she starts at the Schola Progenium, to being its villain protagonist, who only remains remotely sympathetic in any way for a good chunk of the AAR because of just how evil/omnicidal most of the other empires she faces are themselves. Ultimately, Sethano is changed beyond recognition of who she once was by her power, and in terms of the atrocities she ultimately commits, she certainly has a far higher body count than Empress Eerabik from Stellaris Wars... and Eerabik was a Sith Lord/basically Avian Palpatine.

 

[Macavity116]

But because she was omnipotent now, she laughed at the foolishness of the so-called ‘End of the Cycle’ to show itself before her. Then, before it could retreat, she unleashed killing rays of light from the Beacon that pierced into the Warp and erased it utterly from existence.

If I had a nickel for every time the End of the Cycle was killed off by a Human woman during the grand finale of a Stellaris AAR, I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's neat this has now happened twice.

But where the Empress could destroy, she could also create anew. Snapping her fingers, she recalled the worlds that she had cast into the Warp, forcing back the eddies of chaos around them with pure radiance, imposing order on them once more.

Oh, snap!

However, some Blorg planets were subjected to Exterminatus the old-fashioned way.

Oh, snap.


This was one helluva finale. Don't quote me just yet, but I think Sethano now has the highest bodycount of any single character in the Stellaris AAR forums. I can't call her journey a rise to power. She went full nobody to nightmare.

Impressive AAR, thanks for sharing!

 

[Arithmetician]

@Macavity116 What was the other time that the End of the Cycle got killed off like that?

And poor Eerabik would be curb-stomped by Sethano, considering their power levels. But that’s not quite fair to Eerabik... she accomplished her evil and vanilla in an ironman-compatible run. Sethano had one of the most overpowered (but still very fun) Stellaris mods on the Steam Workshop backing her body count up.

With any luck, I’ll be able to focus more on Stellaris Wars: A Nemesis Ironman Saga II more now, as far as AARs are concerned. Won’t be able to finish the CIS run I started over the summer before Orion comes out, but that wasn’t ironman compatible anyways, so it would be good to do it on the same playing field as the others though. Just got busy over the summer.

 

[Macavity116]

What was the other time that the End of the Cycle got killed off like that?

In the final chapter of my own AAR The Stormbreakers, Jericho killed the End of the Cycle with the aid of a planetoid-sized Psionic weapon. (The Stormbreakers - Chapter 47: Apotheosis)

However, I should note that Sethano's defeat of the EotC is by far the more impressive victory: In my story, the EotC was badly weakened by two previous battles before ever confronting Jericho, whereas Sethano was able to overwhelm it outright and without aid.

Sethano had one of the most overpowered (but still very fun) Stellaris mods on the Steam Workshop backing her body count up.

I've only used the Infinity Stones mod once, and as soon as you made reference to an "Imperial Gauntlet" I started to feel really giddy and excited. It made Sethano's transition to Galactic God that much more fun.