Commissar41.0 wrote:Ok just want to let everyone know that I do not play Crons....not yet but Ive read the codex and heard other people talk abou how Necron Overlords and those that are named are always on the lookout for new upstart rulers that may eventually overrule them....ok I get that but last time i checked the Necrons are souless (more or less) creatures that cannot think for themselves because that was the trick that the C'tan played on them. so why would one want to go higher up when the C'tan control them.

Over many millenia, the Necrontyr, then still a young and aggressive race, grew to become a dominant force with a galaxy spanning empire. During their expansion, they had often encountered the Old Ones, ancient beings even then. The Old Ones were many in number then but preferred a nomadic lifestyle which allowed them and the Necrontyr to live in relative peace as the Old Ones had no territory to conquer. Their nomadic lifestyle suited them well as they went about the galaxy, finding overlooked planets that could support life but had little or none, and then creating intelligent beings similar to themselves in being in tune with the Warp. However, such a peace between this ancient race and the young hot blooded Necrontyr could not last. As the Necrontyr empire grew in size, the encounters between the two species greatly increased and the Necrontyr soon took notice of the longevity of the Old Ones. Being creatures damned to walk a brief life, the Necrontyr attempted to barter with the Old Ones for the secrets of their biological immortality. The Old Ones were unobliging. Being ancient and long lived, they moved through life with a cool temperament and few, if any, desires for things beyond their reach thus were unimpressed with the technological feats of the Necrontyr and had no need to barter with the Necrontyr. Perhaps the Old Ones would have eventually given consideration to the pleas of the Necrontyr if it were not for another factor; the Old Ones were disgusted by the mere presence of the Necrontyr, a species that had no connection nor presence in the Warp. The Fates had cast their die, the galaxy was doomed to burn.

The Necrontyr, their patience worn thin and their desperation for life consuming them, decided to launch ambushes upon some of the many small nomadic fleets of the Old Ones in order to capture and study them in hopes of discovering the secret to their seemingly limitless longevity. They, however, underestimated the power of the Warp and the Old Ones who wielded that power. The psychic screams of the Old Ones who were experimented upon resounded across the galaxy, alerting their brethren to their crisis. The Old Ones, normally slow to anger, quickly united, and in the defense of their brethren and protection of their own species, launched a war that of the likes would never be seen again. Thus what would come to be known as The War in Heaven began.

The War in Heaven

The Old Ones were well aware of the technological marvels the Necrontyr were capable of and knew a direct march against the Necrontyr Empire would place the odds against themselves. They found their answer in the Webway, an amazing piece of technology in itself, it was a subspace, a sprawl of tunnels that lay between the Warp itself and reality that allowed one the ability to cross the span of the galaxy within a blink of an eye. Herein lie the key to the Old Ones' initial victory. Using the Webway, the Old Ones launched a series of surprise assaults upon the very worlds ruled by the Necrontyr, decimating planet after planet before the might of the Necrontyr military could be brought to bear. For two solid centuries, the Necrontyr were damned to fight a defensive war that they could not hope to win. In hopes of retaining their empire, they tried to press for peace with the Old Ones sending ambassadors to plead on their behalf. It was all for naught. The Old Ones, as slow as they were to anger, were equally, if not more so, slow to allay. There was no room for mercy for the Necrontyr.

Ceasefire

The light of hope against the Old Ones' relentless onslaught lay within the minds of a now forgotten group of Necrontyr scientists known as crypteks. These crypteks had been studying and experimenting upon the few Old Ones that the Necrontyr had been able to abduct and had stumbled upon the discovery of the Warp and through further interrogation, the Webway. Understanding the nature of the Warp and what the Warp truly is, they abandoned the project for immortality, as what use is long life if they could not stay or counter the devastating campaign of the Old Ones? Now, they began trying to discover a method wherein they could take away from the Old Ones their source of power. After many experiments and the deaths of all the Old Ones the Necrontyr held, these crypteks had successfully created an arcane engine that could severe the connection between reality and the Warp. Quickly, the Necrontyr erected massive obelisks that housed these arcane devices upon the meager few worlds they were now crowded upon and successfully created a relatively small sphere of influence in which the Old Ones could no longer access the Warp. The advance of the Old Ones had been halted, within the Warp dead sphere of influence of the Necrontyr, the Old Ones had lost their one key advantage, now they began patrolling the new border of the Necrontyr empire, ready to pounce upon any Necrontyr ship that dare stray across the invisible line. The war had been brought to a pause.

The Era of Despair

The Necrontyr were not given much time to relax, though now safe from the Webway borne assaults, they now faced a grave internal crisis that threatened to finish what the Old Ones started. The entire Necrontyr race was trapped in the area of real space they had severed from the Warp, any vessel that tried to leave the area was quickly destroyed by the Old Ones and now increasing amounts of the races the Old Ones had created including the Eldar. Being thus trapped upon a few increasingly overcrowded worlds and vessels, the Necrontyr now faced a silent enemy they had long since forgotten of: Famine. Quickly dissent grew within the Empire and soon Dynasties began rebelling and striking out at one another in hopes of gathering enough resources to sustain themselves. The Triarch, the triumvirate of Necrontyr Lords that ruled the Empire, could only sit by and watch silently, quietly cursing the Old Ones as did all Necrontyr. Utter destruction loomed upon the horizon for the Necrontyr and all seemed hopeless and lost. But in this dark hour, the crypteks once again found a ray of hope, the C'tan.

Coming of the C'tan

The crypteks had turned to the stars with desperation in search for a method in which they could save the Necrontyr. Somehow, they discovered the C'tan, immortal behemoths of cosmic energy that feasted upon the stars, and somehow, they were able to attract the attention and interest of these beings who had gone through billions of years of only moving from star to star in search of sustenance. The crypteks were convinced that they had discovered the gods themselves, and in order to better interact with these star gods, they crafted necrodermis shells that could house the immense essence of the C'tan. The C'tan soon learned of the plight of the Necrontyr and like gracious gods, went out and pacified the Dynasties, seemingly pulling out from thin air all the resources the Necrontyr were desperate for and more. After quelling the insurrections, the C'tan sent one of their own, now known as the Deceiver, to speak to the Triarch who had become known as the Silent Kings for their inability to do anything when their people were caught up in utter despair. The Deceiver wove a tale of tragedy of the C'tan, that they were once a race like the Necrontyr, doomed to walk a brief existence who found hope in the seemingly immortal beings the Necrontyr knew as the Old Ones. Just like the Necrontyr, the had attempted to barter for the secrets to immortality but the Old Ones would have none of it and had viciously attacked them in a war that doomed the C'tan to extinction. The C'tan however, found a ray of hope when a scientist of theirs had discovered a way to both gain the immortality they so longed for and an escape from elusive yet deadly Old Ones in the forms they held now. Alas, only a few million had been able to obtain this form of energy when the Old Ones had come about in full force and in one decisive blow, had wiped out the billions of C'tan that had yet to obtain such godhood including the genius who had made the current form the C'tan held possible. The Triarch were deeply moved by this tale, not knowing the deceitful nature of the C'tan. The Deceiver, well aware that the Triarch were now pawns to the C'tan brought forth a plan that would ensnare the Triarch and damn the entirety of the Necrontyr Race.

The Heavens Burn

The Deceiver, after telling the false tale of the C'tan to the Triarch, then offered a deal that the Triarch could not refuse. The C'tan were thirsty for vengeance and with their knowledge of real space and the numbers and technological prowess of the Necrontyr, it would be possible for them to bring the Old Ones to justice once and for all. In return for their revenge, the C'tan would gather their best minds to try and discover a way in which the Necrontyr could ascend to immortality. The secrets of how to ascend to the level of the C'tan were lost, the Deceiver said, but he was certain that his brethren would be fully capable of discovering a way to give the Necrontyr a different form in which they would obtain the long life they were so desperate to have. The Triarch were overjoyed, it seemed that the Fates had finally chosen to graciously reward the Necrontyr race after millenia upon millenia of what had seemed to be fruitless struggle. If they had only known then what so many of their kind know now.

With the wealth of knowledge of the C'tan and their reality altering powers, the Necrontyr launched a new assault upon the Old Ones. With the knowledge provided by the C'tan, the crypteks of the Necrontyr were able to construct faster than light engines that could compete with the lightning speed of the Webway. Rapidly, the Necrontyr were able to advance and reclaim the empire that had once been theirs with the help of the C'tan who could annihilate entire fleets of the Old Ones within moments. However, the Old Ones had allies of their own in their creations such as the Eldar and the Krork and quickly brought to bear the immense numbers of these creatures in tune with the Warp. Once again the galaxy was set ablaze in a bloody standstill between the immense might of the weaponry of the C'tan and the Necrontyr and the raw numbers of the Old Ones and their creation along with their Warp spawned powers. For decades the galaxy burned in a flame of war that seemed to never falter and would go on forever, but every war must come to an end.

The Birth of the Necrons

The breakthrough in the war came when the Deceiver proclaimed to the Triarch that they had found a way to grant immortality to the Necrontyr race, if the Necrontyr were willing to give up their flesh, the C'tan would then place the essence of the Necrontyr into bodies of living metal much like the ones the C'tan themselves now inhabited in which they would be able to recover from all but the most devastating injury within moments. These shells also had a series of back up systems so in the event that a Necrontyr was damaged beyond the recovery capabilities of the necrodermis, the scraps of their body as well as their mind would be teleported back to a factory in which their conscious would enter a new body. The Triarch were greatly pleased and sent out a verdict to the Necrontyr to inhabit these new immortal bodies. Many came willingly in joy of eternal life. Few others rebelled as it was not the form of immortality that they had wished for but were quickly subdued and forced into the roaring furnaces the C'tan had constructed to transfer the minds of the the Necrontyr. Little did the Necrontyr know that they had in fact been betrayed by the C'tan.

The Necrontyr could not have known that when they inhabited these bodies of metal, they had surrendered their will and life essence to the C'tan. The C'tan had always planned to enslave the Necrontyr but during the war they had discovered a tasty morsel the raging stars they had fed on for so long could not compare to. The essence of life. The C'tan had stumbled upon this discovery quite by accident when destroying a large fleet of the Old Ones when one of their kind had detected some form of energy leaving the bodies of the Old Ones, snatching it up, the star god had discovered a delicious treat that invigorated his entire being and increased his powers greatly. For years he had hidden this secret from his brethren until he believed he had reached a point that would be untenable by his brethren. Then did he reveal this secret to the other C'tan who in glee joined him in his feasting of the essence of life, this C'tan was none other than the Void Dragon. It was the Deceiver however, who brought to the attention of the C'tan that their allies, the Necrontyr, were in fact a meal in waiting. The C'tan then had almost turned upon the Necrontyr except for that the Deceiver also pointed out that they could easily be turned into legions forever bound to their will. Thus did the C'tan devise the bodies the Necrontyr, now Necrons, would inhabit stripping them of their life essence while giving them that immortality the had been so desperate to obtain. The C'tan had also realized that they only needed the minds of the most capable of the Necrons, but they needed these minds to remain loyal to themselves. From here they crafted a devious plot in which they inserted a program into every Necron body that would override the will of the Necron when given commands by their new masters that the Necrons would be unable to detect as they would think it was their own choice to follow the advice of the C'tan. As to not arouse suspicion early on, all the Necrons were allowed to retain their minds, but even here the C'tan had come up with a scheme that would only allow the most brilliant and capable minds to be retained. In the bodies inhabited by the average citizens of the Necrontyr, their minds would slowly decay into those of subservient slave with no will of their own and an incapability to think for themselves. The soldiers the C'tan believed needed to be able to make decisions but had no need for individuality nor personality and their bodies were infused with a program to slowly destroy that. Those of higher rank and intelligence the C'tan left them their personalities to varying degrees to allow them to be able to still be effective upon the field of battle. With their new Necron slaves, the C'tan began a bloody harvest of life in the galaxy.

A Galaxy in Ashes

With the bodies of living metal the Necrons now possessed and the ever growing powers of the C'tan, the Old Ones were thrown into desperation. They began creating life forms to counter the Necrons such as the technologically savvy Jokaero, but it was all for naught.Over many millenia, the Old Ones were pushed towards extinction and desperate measures. They disappeared into the Webway, a safe haven they were certain in which they were unreachable by the likes of the Necrons and the C'tan, and began working on one last desperate project to counter the C'tan.

With the Old Ones gone, much of the galaxy was damned and entire species were annihilated by the C'tan and their slaves. Knowing the Old Ones had hid away in the space beyond space, the put their minds as well as the best minds of the crypteks together in order to discover a way to break into the Webway. After many years, they created the Dolmein Gates, a technological masterpiece that allowed the C'tan to rip into the Webway and chase down the Old Ones. The Old Ones, knowing full well that defeat and extinction were close at hand, set their project into motion. When the last of the Old Ones fell, a powerful psychic scream was released across the Warp birthing god like beings and planting seeds for more to come in the ensuing chaos that engulfed much of the Warp. The chaos resulted in Enslavers, beings that naturally live within the Warp, bursting through the boundary that seperates reality from the Warp, feasting upon the minds and souls of those in tune with the Warp, driving them into hiding. The C'tan soon realized that the Old Ones had devised a plan in which if they were to die, they would also take away from the C'tan their source of food, the galaxy had become a wasteland with hardly any life left.

The Long Sleep

The C'tan, though tremendously enraged at having been foiled by the Old Ones in their death, were not in a state of panic. Being the ethereal creatures they were, they had been born when the universe was created and knew that life would bloom once more from the ashes of the galaxy, for that was the very nature of life itself. Quickly they and their Necron servants constructed tombworlds throughout the galaxy in which they would slumber until the galaxy was once more filled with life ripe for another harvest. Suddenly, the galaxy was at peace. Those who arose from the ashes first were the Eldar and the Krork, and soon new life began to grow once. They would have millions of years to themselves before the Necrons would arise to plague the galaxy once more.

Awaking to a New Galaxy

After millions of years of slumber, the Necrons began to stir, making themselves known to the galaxy once more. The Awoken Lords discovered a galaxy teeming with life and war, and that they indeed had not been able to purge the galaxy of the warp tainted scum they so deeply had grown to loathe. The waking Necrons quickly began reestablishing their empire, taking back what was their from the warp tainted scum, the creations of the Old Ones. The galaxy, already quaking with violence, precariously teetering on the edge of utter collapse, had now a new menace to face.

Splitting of the Empire

As the Necrons awoke, they discovered their godly masters remained asleep. Try as they might, the Necrons could not waken the C'tan. After a prolonged time of operating without the C'tan, the protocols the C'tan had implanted in the Necrons - which bent their will to the C'tan - shut down in many of the Necrons. Suddenly regaining their willpower, the overall empire of the Necrons began splitting. Some loathed their bodies of living metal, preferring their old mortal bodies of flesh to the callous cold metal bodies they had now, and began recruiting crypteks to find a way to reverse the biotransference. Some had found their bodies to be a great boon, the pinnacle of evolution even. However, they were as disturbed and enraged as their brethren who craved the old bodies of flesh at the C'tan for imprisoning and destroying their minds. Others decided to remain in line with the will of the C'tan afterall, who were they to question the wisdom of such ancient and powerful gods? However, for every Necron Lord that had regained their will and mind, there was another that remained bound to the C'tan's will, a massive relentless wave of merciless slaughter.

The Sleeping Gods

In their initial search for a way to awaken the C'tan, the crypteks had stumbled upon a way in which they could isolate relatively small shards of the essence of the C'tan and forcefully awaken them. With this technology now in hand, the many dynasties began utilizing it for their many purposes. Some enslaved these shards as their entirety had done to them, using them as weapons against the warp tainted creatures of the galaxy. Though nowhere near as powerful as a C'tan as a whole, these shards remained as devastating as ever to the enemies of the Necrons. Other Lords had their crypteks begin to break apart the sleeping C'tan, imprisoning the broken up essences in the tesseract labryrinthes, inescapable dimensional prisons. However, those that still follow the will of the C'tan use the shards in order to fight alongside their masters and lead them into battle like the days of old.

Nonetheless, no matter how much of the essence of the C'tan has been seperated from the whole, they remain sleeping with no sign of stirring. Whether this was by accident or design, no one knows. Some say it was a boon from the fates to reverse their betrayal unto the C'tan. Others say that the C'tan are well aware of the situation of the galaxy and have deemed it not yet ripe for a new red harvest. Few speculate that the gods are waiting until the Spawn of the Old Ones have succeeded in wiping themselves out before waking and creating a galaxy they see fit for themselves. Whatever the reason may be, there is one thing the Necrons are certain of; the C'tan will sleep for many more millenia.