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Hi all, yet another half-finished piece of fiction which will be added and amended to over time. Hopefully this will be the first of a series of such stories.

A TREATISE ON THE ELDAR WAVE SERPENT

By Magos-Ultima Yvan X-3

With great fortune, the Omnissiah has blessed me greatly this day.

It was with great rejoicing that the unmodified men of the Jouran Dragoons XXXVI heavy infantry defeated a force of the Biel-Tan Eldar. My Skitarii regiments arrived almost too late to engage the enemy due to a temporal distortion caused by our own warp-wake. The human soldiers felt that we had delayed our arrival in order to preserve our own life-functions, which is patently false: we were prepared to suffer damage or termination of our life-functions alongside them.

The humans were reluctant to share their spoils with us: many of them wished to utterly destroy the grounded Wave Serpent, believing it to be a potential moral threat. However, blessed as I am by my high standing within the holy order of the Mechanicus, I am above the corrupt machine-taint of xenos technology. Nevertheless, I and my servitors spent two point one hours blessing the Eldar machine before we made physical contact with it.

The Wave Serpent is somewhat analogous to our Razorback-class infantry fighting vehicle in function. It is heavily armoured for an Eldar vehicle. Wraithbone, pound for pound, is lighter and stronger than plasteel, but the Eldar favour mobility above physical protection, and the Wave Serpent’s armour could potentially be penetrated by a direct bolter shell.

This is where the Wave Serpent differs from most infantry fighting vehicles, including all the IFVs used by the Imperium. For protection, it not only utilises a sophisticated gravity-repulsion drive which increases its mobility, it also generates an electromagnetic field which can be used to repulse enemy firepower, directing it back against the foe. There are a number of emitter vanes along the Serpent’s exterior hull which generate this field.
If we could somehow replicate the electromagnetic field, we might be able to increase the effective defence of otherwise vulnerable vehicles such as Rhinos and Chimeras.

It appears that the Wave Serpent’s shield can be propelled towards the enemy, sacrificing its defensive capability for an additional attack. This attack is highly damaging, with Imperial Guard survivors describing it as a “jolt” which fling them back or inflicts crush injuries, sometimes fatally. This leaves the Wave Serpent unprotected until the shield vanes can generate another defensive field.

The Wave Serpent I examined was brought down by a Jouran heavy weapons team after it had propelled its shield. Xenos overconfidence, perhaps: once its shield had gone, the Serpent’s wraithbone hull did not hold against repeated autocannon impacts. My investigation of the slain Serpent was hindered by this damage, and has robbed the Mechanicus of the chance to investigate many of the Serpent’s cogitator systems.

The Wave Serpent was piloted by two crew whom the Imperial Guard refer to as Guardian Shieldbearers. Both crew members had suffered terminal damage from autocannon fire. One of the crew members had also suffered lasgun damage as vengeful Jouran troopers forced entry to the wounded vehicle and attacked the dying Eldar.

The interior of the Wave Serpent is too small and cramped for humans to comfortable use. Standard Imperial Guard squad deployment is ten souls per squad. There is only room for approximately four adult human males to travel in any semblance of comfort. The Eldar, being small and lithe, are able to fit up to six warriors inside.


...report continues...

Its construction would be regarded as aesthetically pleasing by the xenos, though any right-minded human would find its sculpted curves to be disturbing and offensive. Even the battle damage has not marred the alien perfection of its construction. Clearly, the Eldar feel they have the time to turn their war vehicles into works of art. This is not a mass-produced craft, as our Chimeras are by necessity.

There are various artefacts build into the hull which will require full evaluation. However, many of them are battle damaged beyond salvation.

The cockpit section is tight and appears to be sculpted around the pilot and gunner. They enter the cockpit through the windshield, which raises up and can apparently be detached in extremis by a mechanism on the inside of the cockpit. The windshield is extremely light and can resist bolter impacts. It appears to be constructed from some type of plastic rather than wraithbone. We were unable to mist or craze this substance even after attempting to graze it with a chainsword and spraying it with liquid nitrogen: it appears to resist all environmental conditions and does not need cleaning, nor does it require any kind of heating or wiping mechanism. This substance would be incredibly valuable to the Imperial Guard if we could replicate it. With it in place, the cockpit is hermetically sealed and the vehicle could theoretically be deployed in a vacuum or underwater, although the crew would be extremely vulnerable to hull breaches and we know wraithbone degrades in salt water, which are excellent reasons why the Eldar would not deploy a Wave Serpent in those environments.

The pilots wore standard Eldar mesh armour which we have removed and taken away for separate evaluation. Each xenos wore a large gem set into the front of their armour. The Eldar are known to refer to these as “spirit stones” and they believe the soul of the wearer enters it when they die. We do know these stones are impenetrable, but emit a faint warmth, though they are not a useable energy source. Please see addendum #1.

The Serpent’s flight controls were intact. The pilots place their hands on a large orb-like protrusion which apparently allows them to control the grav-tank in three dimensions. Damage to the Serpent’s flight mechanism means we cannot attempt to test this until repairs are effected.
The flight drive appears to be a gravity repulsion system which generates and directs a wave of controlled gravitic force. This frictionless drive would allow very smooth and rapid progress. It requires a lot of energy to generate, but on balance the energy consumption would be considerably less than the fuel used by a Chimera travelling the same distance over the same time period.

While our skimmers tend to use suspensors based on standard construct technology for lift, and motive power is generally provided by turbofans or rocket engines, the Eldar grasp of gravitic repulsion provides both of these functions.

To be continued...

We cannot replicate the wraithbone substance. It seems to be a strange composite of substances which resemble bone, metal and wood in appearance, texture and strength, yet preliminary analysis conducted under admittedly primitive, battlefield conditions, reveals no chemical similarities to any of these substances.

We could potentially forge a similar vehicle from plasteel, although even this relatively light substance would result in a vehicle three times heavier than the Wave Serpent, and the propulsion and lift systems would take up most of the passenger area, rendering the machine worthless as a troop carrier.

We already possess Land Speeders and other skimmers which perform more than adequately in the infantry support role; it appears that we must simply be prepared to pay the financial and logistical cost of supplying them with the necessary fuel.

The secondary weapon system is discussed in Addendum #2.

Addendum #1: Spirit Stones
The so-called spirit stones are of no value to the Mechanicus or the Imperial Guard, and despite our hostilities with the xenos, I have requested my servitors and members of the Jouran Dragoon medical corps to pile all the intact stones they retrieve at co-ordinates 10034.78871. We know from prior experience that soul stones are always retrieved, usually via mysterious means, as the Eldar place great value upon them, and appear to regard the idea of spirit stones being damaged or lost with great horror.

The Eldar, treacherous and illogical though they are, did not attack the nearby civilian populations, confining their assaults to military units, and they offered the planetary defence force and the Jouran Dragoons several chances to end the conflict by surrender. While no Imperial force would ever willingly submit to the xenos, it seems correct that we repay the Biel-Tan’s unusual efforts to avoid war by returning their stones and it may help to avoid further retaliatory action by the Eldar.

Primaris psykers of gamma plus level or higher believe they can sense the essence of Eldar souls trapped within the stones. Two Primaris psykers who I consulted have informed me I am doing the correct thing by returning the stones as they said a great and terrible evil would be done by breaking or confiscating them. Neither psyker was able to define the nature of this threat.

Addendum #2: Wave Serpent secondary weapon system

The vehicle was fitted with a turret-mounted, twin-linked shuriken catapult system. The turret is extremely light and I am currently uncertain as to how power is supplied to it. I believe a small wraithbone nodule within the turret’s construction may house a power source.

Shuriken catapults are extremely effective anti-infantry weapons. A carbon block within the weapon’s magazine is instantaneously cut into waver-thin slices and hurled by frictionless electromagnetic propulsion along the weapon’s fluted barrel. These shurikens, as they are called, can easily sever an unprotected human limb, and can potentially penetrate reinforced flak armour. Personal armour of carapace level or better is required to effectively deter shuriken fire, but even power armour could theoretically be penetrated if a weak joint or vulnerable area was hit.

While we can replicate Eldar shuriken technology, the technological requirements to equip the massed infantry formations and vehicle divisions of the Imperial Guard would be unthinkable. The thrice-blessed lasgun lacks the penetrating power of shuriken weaponry, but it is rechargeable in the field which grants a much higher ammunition capacity, and the lasgun possesses better accuracy and longer range. The lasgun can be used in a variety of situations in which the shuriken catapult might be useless or dangerous such as in a vacuum, and its design and construction are more robust. Logistically speaking, many weapons forges within the Imperium are already set up to mass-produce las weapons, so we would not need the time, inconvenience or expense of re-tooling. Human soldiers are all trained to use the lasgun and changing even a single regiment’s standard armament would require to much time and re-training.

Quite enjoyed that actually

Enjoyed that very much, well done

That was great. Write more stuff!

Thanks very much chaps, I enjoyed writing this but have noted a number of mistakes, d'oh!

I'll write more stories in this series.

You can probably tell, but I was inspired by the original X-COM games when I wrote this - the Xenopaedia idea is directly based on the UFOpaedia.

Please omnipotent master, dont keep us waiting for too long

Thanks mate, I have got a couple more up now

I am actually using my own thought process for the Magos, as I am diagnosed with aspergers, so I am used to thinking bluntly and recording observations in an analytical way. Very, very helpful when writing Ad Mech