>Welcome to the Confederacy Central Database!

Thought of the day: In the Emperor's name, we stand united.

>You are accessing: Public Records.
>Your Query: General Sector information

>Results are as follows:

Earthborn Confederacy Public Record: Core worlds.
Initially settled in the earlier half of the 41st millennia, four planets in our sector were colonized for their resource value. Hellion was the first to be populated, habitation modules and ore refineries being dropped prefab onto its mineral rich surface. Though dangerous and unpredictable, industry ultimately boomed thanks to volcanic currents and tectonic activity replenishing once depleted ore supplies, effectively giving access to the planets entire reserve of metals over time, rather than merely ores in the crust.

Pandora came next, its abundance of water and mountainous terrain making it suited for hydroponic agriculture. Towering cultivation spires form the centerpiece of the hives that blend in with the landscape. Only after major colonization happened did the presence of large ore deposits become known, allowing the hives’ foundation access shafts to be used for mining purposes. Conflict with Hellion traders shipping ore back for refinement revealed the existence of so called “Stardust”, a massless crystal that seemingly alters gravity in response to electrical stimulation. It’s manner of function is not known, but both psykers and mechanicus magos assert that it does not draw upon Warp energy.

>>>Security override 2401, input accepted.
Excerpt from After Action Report of MTF-Epsilon:
Contact with the… individuals at the Sphere has revealed that this planet is not the first place where humanity has encountered Stardust. The “realspace sorcery” exhibited by some Pandoran inhabitants was seen in humans as early as the 3rd millennium, falling out of usage after the First Fall.
>>>Returning to Public Records…

With both a mining world and (technically) an agriworld in the area, as well as additional sub-colonies being founded, a garrison world was deemed necessary. And so began the deployment of troops to Rakashan. By some dint of administratum procedure, the starting recruits were taken entirely from Carlos McConnell, a planet populated by Felinid abhumans. Seeing that the Felinids were unused to large-scale warfare, Captain Neal Foster, the Rouge Trader who volunteered to transport the troop population, had his crew train them over the course of the journey, and when the job was done, left the STC blueprint for the 1230 Folly Pattern Bolt-shot to make sure the soldiers were easily supplied with the weapon they had become so familiar with.

Pinnacle was settled later on, as the first secondary colony in the area, though at this point it is enough of an economical and political force that it can be seen as a core world.

Earthborn Confederacy Public Record: Local Mutations

>>>Playback: Pict-log, Governor Blackwood’s office.
"How bad is it Genetor?" Asked the Planetary Governor Joeseph Blackwood, agitated by the red-robed specialist's hesitation.

"Please, be patient governor." The Magos pleaded, worry evident in his metallic, flanged voice. "We carried out every calibration rite we knew, wanting to ensure only the most accurate results. As you yourself said, this is a case of damnation or righteousness. But every time, the results were the same: the machine spirits of our sacred equipment are interested only in the truth."

"And what would that truth be, Genetor?" Blackwood peered at a shimmering blue orb, contained in a magnetic field above a baseplate on his desk. Stardust, they called it, a substance with properties never seen before by Imperial science. As soon as the colony's few sanctioned psykers found the substance free of Chaos energies, the Mechanicus and Manufactoriums began to extract the strange, massless crystal along with the rich ore veins deep beneath the jungle planet.

"That there is no salvation, even with a stringent eugenics program. The changes wreaked by this planet's seeming bounty," The Magos gestured to Blackwood's stardust orb, "have, over the years they have gone unnoticed, become too great. Already, more then half of this city's population alone could technically be considered abhuman, including yourself. As the years go by, some more conservative Magos would be willing to call you Xeno."

"So what now?" Blackwood peered suspiciously at the subtle pinpricks of light running along his arm. "I'm not about to put a lasgun in my mouth and pull the trigger, let alone order an exterminatus on my own planet. Emperor on the Throne, how did this happen!?" He exclaimed, pounding a fist on his desk.

"Not all mutagens are Chaotic, governor. What is happening here is a natural, if regrettable, response to a natural substance." The Genetor explained. "We speculate that the powder form of stardust, thrown up by this planet's mining operations, infiltrated developing fetuses and began to alter their biology, generation after generation. Not unlike Hellion atmospheric toxins causing their own adaptations."

Sighing, Blackwood came to a conclusion. "Well, this damnable warpstorm could abate tomorrow, or it could last another millennia. Either way, by their own definition the rest of the Imperium isn't going to consider us loyal." He stared into the Magos' optical augmentics. "But that doesn't mean we're going to loose our faith and loyalty to the Emperor."

The events in the above pict-log from Pandora's governmental office were hardly unique. It started with the Hellions, spurred to take a long, hard look at their own populace after a Hellion delegate keeled over and died not five minutes after exiting his shuttle. Eventually, all the core worlds did the same, as small changes in their populations became increasingly noticeable.

The Hellions:
Hailing from only a couple stars over, the Hellions are a people as grim as their planet, a sooty ball of rock were volcanic activity belched noxious fumes into the atmosphere, added to by the refineries processing the heavy metals and composites pounded out by their manufactorums. Over the years, their bodies had become resistant to the chemicals in their air, but the Hellions’ immune systems had lost all resistance to conventional microbes, depending on the toxins of their homeworld to keep them at bay. Anything other than their own noxious atmosphere or a completely sterilized one would cause a painful, choking death by septic and anaphylactic shock within fifteen minutes.

The Rakashani:
With Rakashan's initial population being entirely Felinid, one could argue that it was only a matter of time before fewer and fewer human traits were seen. The harsh necessities of the frontier and the designation of Rakashan as a garrison world had hardened a once peaceful people, their entire society becoming militarized. That same militarization, with an emphasis on strength and combat, had selected for increasingly bestial traits, the Felinid's catlike features becoming more pronounced, and as their strength and agility grew, so to did fangs and claws, appearing with increasing regularity alongside tiger-stripes and leopard spots.

The Mentis:
In the course of the investigation into the changes of it’s populations, it was found that the colony “Pinnacle” had been erected above arcotech ruins, minuscule amounts of power flickering through thier systems slowly acting on the colonist's genomes. Gradually, their physical forms regressed, devolving to be more primitive and apelike, and yet their mental capabilities increased greatly, giving rise to generation after generation of learned mechanicus tech-priests who could piece together the mysteries of ancient STCs, insightful preachers who's new interpretations of the Imperial Creed inspired faith anew, and if conflicts with nearby WAAGH's were any indication, brilliant strategists and tactical geniuses.

The Pandoran:
The Pandorans’ eventual changes were no less radical, perhaps even more so. As the planet's Stardust built up in each generations children, nodes of the substance began to develop in their nervous systems, the light given off by the crystal showing as pinpricks of light from beneath their now sky-hued skin. Under constant electrical stimulation by the nervous system, its gravity-defying effect became very apparent, the Pandoran's bodies becoming tall and lanky under their own reduced gravity. But as small groups eventually found, their own mass and gravity was hardly the only thing that could be affected, finding ways to use the Stardust nodes to lift, pull, and throw objects. Initially feared as psykers, these groups were ironically enough acquitted by real psykers, their gravity manipulating feats a form of “realspace sorcery” as opposed to sorcery of the Immaterium.

But rather than being driven apart, we have found common ground in our respective changes. Thanks to the efforts of figures like Governor Blackwood, the people of these colonies, molded and shaped by their worlds, stood united. Though no longer wholly human, these people have not forgotten their roots. They have not forgotten their mother planet. They have not forgotten their Emperor. They are the Earthborn.

Earthborn Confederacy Public Record: 1230 Folly Pattern Bolt-shot.
Brought to the Confederacy when it was still a collection of Imperial worlds, the 1230 bolt-shot was first re-discovered by a rouge trader named Neal Foster when he came across an old cache of human-made weapons. One of the few guns in the stockpile that could be reverse-engineered by his onboard mechnanicus personnel, it quickly became standard issue on board thanks to its mix of firepower and versaility. Sporting semi-automatic firing and a rotating assembly of five ammunition tubes of six shells each, a variety of shotgun munitions and even bolter rounds could be used in the weapon. An unusual arrangement, but since neither the bolt rounds nor the gun require post-manufacture adaptation, the tech-priests saw no reason to engineer out the capability.

In order to strengthen the region, Captain Foster was willing to share the STC blueprint with our worlds. The 1230’s simple, auto-gun like mechanisms keep it cheap enough that it is now a staple weapon in the Confederacy alongside the already ubiquitous lasrifle. A common shell loadout would be one or two tubes of bolter rounds, with the rest being solid slugs or flechette shells.

>End Session?
>Session ending...
>Thank you for using the Confederacy Central Database!

“Mobile Task Forces Alpha to Theta, report to the ready room! Tee-minus fifteen minutes until we reach Texia orbit!”

The shipwide voxcast was MTF Epsilon’s cue to head to the armory. Five uniformed individuals walked in, already clad in steel grey carapace armor with red trim, signature of the Mobile Task Forces that represented the elite of Earthborn Guardsman. Each of them exchanged glances before going to their equipment lockers.

On the right was Jakkar-2401, loading his heavy stubber with a large box of manstopper rounds. Between his seven-foot height and powerful Rakashani physiology, he could wield it as though it were an autogun or lasrifle. Slung over his back was a trusty 1230 Bolt-shot, load cylinder filled with flechette rounds.

Nearby, the team’s enginseer Delta-3431 fiddled with his servo-arms, recalibrating them in case combat was needed. Each one held a hotshot laspistol for a grand total of four hooked into the Hellion cyborg’s power supply.

On the next bench, Jacob-2340 strapped on a bandoleer of high energy capacitors for his “Wreck-Town” laspistol. He didn’t need any other weapons, being the team’s Duster. Hailing from Pandora, Jacob had been trained to use the star-aura powers granted to him by Stardust nodes in his nervous system, able to bend gravity to his will without resorting to the Warp. Between throwing enemies into the air and pinning them to the floor, his pistol was all he needed.

Rounding out the team were Joanna-4257, already waiting for the rest of the team after loading up her bolt-shot and lasrifle, and Caius-4107, the Mentis meticulously adjusting the scope of his longlas. A little too meticulously, given the time they had.

“Come on monkey boy, hurry up!” Jacob cajoled his teammate as he shut his locker door with a gravitational shove, getting his nodes warmed up. “We don’t have all day!”

Caius’s cultured tones belied his brutish appearance. “For the record, my covering fire has saved your arse more times than I bother to count. Ungrateful blighters, you lot.”

“Really? Then what about that time we defending Curio outpost from those Orks?” Jacob asked as they made their way to the ready room. “I had to levitate your sorry arse back to high ground after that gretchin…”

“That my good sir, was indoors.” Caius interrupted. “Hardly an ideal situation for a sniper like myself.”

“Can it, both of you.” Jakkar growled as they got to the ready room. “You’re all supposed to be better than that.”

The briefing was just that: brief. Tau ships had been sighted in system, and had given the orbital defense guns the slip by deploying swarms of jamming drones to overload the auger-arrays with junk data. Landing in a valley outside of the Twin Fortress manufactorum, their forces were shielded from ground flanking by mountainous desert terrain, and considerable anti-air defenses were already online. Already, fire warriors, drones, and battlesuits were fighting it out in and around the city-sized factory. They had made but one transmission: Give us Commander Farsight, or watch your worlds burn. One of the Twin fortresses had already fallen, the stubborn skittari warriors overwhelmed by the combined volleys from Tau fireteams. It was the task of the Helldiver teams to get inside the Tau-controlled fortress and plant a teleport beacon, enabling a group of princeps to bypass any remaining Tau warriors and blast their way out after reclaiming their titans.

“So, fighting through a factory filled with little Tau bastards. And here I was thinking we’d get a hard mission.” Jacob quipped as they made their way planetside, the Valkyrie shaking slightly as they got in atmosphere.

“A Tau pulse-rifle transfers proximately 50% more kinetic energy to a target than a bolter shell, and 300% more thermal energy.” Delta specified, his tone flat and even through the vox-grill on his respirator. “Caution is advised.”

“Nah, their pulses can’t be that bad.” Jacob shot back, letting a gravitational barrier flicker into place around him. “Not if you don’t let them hit you.”

This time, Jakkar said nothing. Jacob might have been cocky, but also had the skills to back it up, especially when it came to using his star-aura. Instead, he turned his attention to Joanna. “You have the beacon secure?”

“As secure as it can be, sir.” The newest on the team, she still wasn’t used to the fact they were technically all equals. “Though I don’t get why Delta isn’t the one carrying it.”

“He’s got his servo-harness loaded for combat, not speed. Push comes to shove, you’ll be able to get this thing the furthest.” Jakkar explained.

All too soon, they were on the ground, the crack of lasbeams and whine of pulse fire audible through the ship’s hull. Landing on the human side of one of the bridges between the Twin Fortresses, the Helldivers jumped out and into the fray. Caius snapped off a shot from his longlas, blowing out the optics of a battlesuit that was trying to jetpack across, sending it spinning out of control.

“Come on chaps! Last one to get a kill buys the after-action drinks!” He shouted, ducking into cover and sending more lasbolts through Tau heads.

Taking stock of the situation, Jakkar decided on a plan of action: A tauros rapid-assault-vehicle was mostly intact partway across the bridge, but a battlesuit on the other side was keeping most of the troops pinned down by burst cannon fire. Zooming in with his helmet’s optics, he could see that the missile pod on the Tau vehicle’s other arm was empty.

“Jacob! Put your barrier to use and haul ass with Joanna, grab us that tauros!” Jakkar shouted, turning his heavy stubber on a group of advancing fire-warriors who had been advancing from cover to cover. Their light fio’tak armor had nothing on Jakkar’s manstopper rounds, barbed adamantium spikes mounted in combustible sabots. Burning away in a characteristic Y-shaped muzzle flare, the sabots unleashed their payload of high velocity adamantium spikes, punching through the fire-warrior’s armor and shredding them on the spot. “Come on, move!” He shouted to his teammates, as he ducked back into cover.

Jacob and Joanna crouched behind a ferrocrete barricade, pulse-blasts hailing down all around them. In the open space between them and the tauros lay the broken bodies of confederate guardsman and skittari alike, gunned down by the battlesuit on the other side of the bridge.

Jacob lit up his star-aura: “Barrier in three.”

“Acknowledged.” Joanna nodded.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three!” Jacob threw his hands out as they broke cover, a azure corona glowing around him as a bubble of gravitational energy expanded around him and his teammate. Disrupted by the barrier, the pulse blasts dissipated harmlessly a full meter away from them. They’d barely made it to the vehicle, Jacob letting his barriers drop as they climbed in. Joanna was already bringing the grenade turret around, devastating clusters of fire-warriors with a generous but precise application of explosive power. Thinking fast, Jacob gathered up more aura energy, and threw a ripper blast at the battle suit as he gunned the tauros’ four engines.

The battle suit pilot barely had time to register what was going on. One moment, he was the dominating presence on the battlefield, and the next he was hit by a bolt of blue energy, the ripper blast unfurling into twisting and tearing gravitational fields. The suits shields glowed under the strain before flickering out, and crystalline fio’tak started to flake away as if it were an ablative layer. And then a barrage of grenades blew the suit wide open and turned the pilot to blue paste.

“Come on people, let’s move!” Jakkar yelled, seeing the battlesuit get turned to smoking wreckage. Caius wasted no time in abandoning his sniper perch, scrambling down even as a fusion blast slagged the supports.

“Good show lads!” He commented, climbing into the tauros. Delta showed up a second later, having given what blessings he could to ensure the functionality of the sentry turrets he had set up in the area. “The tactical integrity of this sector is adequate. We must move on.”

Galvanic motors humming, the tauros sped into the captured manufactorum’s conveyor-road. The great machinery within was still, the forges cold. Delta shifted uncomfortably. “The machine spirits are silent…” He trailed off as a distinct whine, separate form the tauros’ electric drives, became apparent.

“Tetras, two of the blighters!” Caius snapped, turning around and ramping up his longlas to maximum power. Lining up a shot before they could get in range, he put a lasbolt through one of their thrusters… Only for the tetra to disappear in a blur of static: a decoy produced by a disruption pod.

“spanker…” Cauis spat bitterly as he ejected the smoking power pack from his gun. The real vehicle had started firing its pulse rifles, and he had no desire to take a burst of plasma to the face.

“Damn disruption hologram, cowardly gakkers!” Shouted Joanna as she tried to target the flickering, shifting craft harassing them. Sometimes it genuinely seemed as though there was more than one Tau speeder, weaving between grenade blasts that were always just a little too far away. But in the second that the hologram stopped playing tricks on her eyes, a krak round blew it to smithereens.

“Omnissiah forgive me for such heresy.” Delta muttered. “I assumed it worked?” he called out to Joanna.

“Assume what worked?” Joanna called out, bringing the turret back around in case new threats presented themselves.

“I crafted a crude murder-spirit and had it assassinate the machine’s foul xeno-born intelligence to disable its countermeasures.” Delta explained. “Oh, the things I do in the Omnissiah’s name…”

“Heresy or not, that took far too long.” Jakkar growled. “Tau response teams are going to be here any minute.”

“Ah, feth. Looks like the spankers picked this minute.” Caius called out. “Here they come!”

A devilfish transport glided up behind them, spinning up it’s burst cannon as the troop doors swung open.