wild data stores

Deathwatch Involvement
The Data-mechanics of Syracuse have another duty that they carefully conceal from the general public.  The Imperial citizenry, and the servants of the Adeptus Mechanicus alike, are ignorant of the role that the Data-mechanics play in the service of the Adeptus Astartes.  Although it would be well outside of the jurisdiction and remit of the Space Marines of the Emperor to involve themselves in the internal affairs of the Techpriesthood, the Techpriests themselves have made the role known to the Deathwatch.  Like many of the relationships between the branches of the sprawling Imperial bureaucracy, it is transactional, at heart.
Data-mechanics, deep in the colossal and untamed data-stores of Syracuse, have made frequent discoveries of information lost to the rest of humankind.  Usually, it is of no value beyond its theological weight to the data-fixated Syracuse Techpriesthood, but on occasion, scraps of important knowledge are reclaimed.  This has included starmaps, blueprints, and even a few tiny pieces of STC design and production data.  As the Imperium has expanded into the Tri-Sector’s neighboring space over the millennia, the Data-mechanics have become aware that not all is static within the Wild Data Stores.  When reports filed by the Adeptus Astartes on the campaigns and Crusades they have undertaken in the time since the Horus Heresy has entered the cogitators and servers of Syracuse, that has developed a startling pattern of triggering inexplicable reactions within the Wild Data Stores.
Many of these discoveries seem to be simple cause-and-reaction responses to triggering data from the data entries themselves.  At the time of the entry of a report by the Celestial Knights about a great battle between themselves and an allied Knight House in the Naxos Sector against a horde of Chaotic raiders, Data-mechanics found themselves suddenly having access to a previously-encrypted cogitator detailing blueprints for a discontinued ship the raiders had used.  No Data-mechanic had requested the information; the notification of clearance simply arrived on the great data-terminal the Data-mechanics used.

Years later, a force of the Deathwatch engaged in battle against an unknown race of serpentine xenos that had attacked the Drumnos Sector from the Oldlight Exo-zone.  When their mission reports were filed with the Inquisition, an Inquisitor cross-searched the Wild Data Stores for mention of the beasts.  When he did so, several random Data-Mechanics found their permissions level for the world’s Noosphere dramatically increased, and discovered information about the aliens that they could scarcely have known before.
Other puzzles arose over the millennia as the Wild Data Stores expanded.  While the technology level of the Imperium decayed, the data sieves and server banks of the Wild Data Stores grew, in danger as well as size.  Eventually, the data-obsessed Syracusian Techpriesthood lost all control of its scale and depth, and now, only the bravest venture within.
Some suspicious Inquisitors have noted that the Wild Data Stores seem to disgorge information more freely now than they have before the millennia-spanning rot of the Imperial technical literacy set in.  As the Data Stores grew, they even seemed to contain information that could not have possibly preceded their expansion, such as details about the Cloudburst Sector, which did not exist at the time.
These Inquisitors are increasingly certain that the Wild Data Stores contain an autocthonic, wholly holistic Abominable Intelligence.  Perhaps one was stored on a server or cogitator bank that was sacrificed to the Wild Data Stores as they outgrew their housing in the great underground tunnels of Syracuse, or perhaps it arose, immaculately birthed by the exabytes of information that have entered them.  More likely, the algorithms that thousands of years’ of Techpriests have installed on the data sieves to index them have taken on a life of their own.
Whatever the origin of the helpful but bafflingly unpredictable nature of the random data triggers of the Wild Data Sieves, they are undeniably more common now than they have been before.  As the Deathwatch expands into the Greater Tri-Sector, Inquisitors of a more Radical nature have begun releasing Deathwatch reports, only cursorily redacted, into the Wild Data Stores, simply to observe the results.  Data-mechanics, superstitious and fearful creatures at heart, have taken the sudden release of new information into their dala-looms resulting from these reports being uploaded as bestowments of divine favor.  Indeed, they are eager to share their findings with their superiors in the Tech-clergy.  It is child’s play for those self-same Inquisitors to pass along any pertinent information to the Deathwatch.

This has, at times, led to massive activity on the part of the Deathwatch’s field-deployed Kill-teams.  Whole Watch Companies have taken flight to do battle against previously-unknown forces of xenos that were revealed by the intercepted Inquisitorial reports.  On the very rarest of occasions, the Wild Data Stores and their mysterious guiding hand have even revealed archaeotech cached in their buildings to questing Data-mechanics.  When this happens, Inquisitors typically hear of it from Data-mechanics they have subverted to their cause, or simply from observing the religious ecstasies of celebrating Tech-clergy on Syracuse.

Physically obtaining samples of this archaeotechnology is another matter.  There are many Deathwatch facilities that employ archaeotech, of course, given their nature and incredible sensitivity, but outside of facilities manufactured for the specific purpose of interacting with it like Watch Fortress Erioch, the Deathwatch can rarely simply reach out and collect it.  Syracuse is no different.  Convincing members of the Data-mechanics to simply forfeit or even loan archaeotech their Wild Data Stores have produced would be a tall order indeed.  Thus, the transactional approach.  Inquisitors who believe that artifacts uncovered from the Wild Data Stores’ maps and hidden compartments foretell dangers for the Imperium trade for them with the Adeptus Mechanicus, usually for large sums of less significant archaeotech, or for test subjects for Syracuse’s weapon research.
This leads other, more puritanical Inquisitors to the brink of madness.  The brazenness of these more Radical Inquisitors, the Puritans insist, is a sign of incredible danger.  The mere idea that there could be an un-curtailed Abominable Intelligence loose in the most important data-stacks in the Segmentum Ultima must be faced with the utmost seriousness.  Yet, these Puritans are unable to act.  They can’t involve themselves in the attempts of the Radicals without being tainted with the same crime.  They can’t confront the Radicals without cause, but they can’t confirm their suspicions.  They can’t go to the Techpriests and ask them to put a stop to it, because that would mean admitting that they knew it was happening, and did nothing.  They can’t simply ignore it, because the Radicals are occasionally right, and the Deathwatch has put a stop to genuine threats to the Imperium, by acting without awareness upon the dark knowledge of the Wild Data Stores.  They can’t destroy the Wild Data Stores, because that would cause instant and terrible war between the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Inquisition that the Inquisition would lose.  They can’t report the existence of an Abominable Intelligence to Mars, because they have no proof.  Finally, they can’t simply report the transactions to Syrcuse’s High Fabricators, because many of them are former Data-mechanics themselves, and would surely refuse to act against their oracular sources of knowledge.
Thus, the Puritanical Inquisitors find themselves in the grip of the same clutching frustration that drives so many of their number to extremes and Radicalism in Conclaves across the Galaxy, and simply hang on to their sanity with their fingers while praying for a miracle.

When the Radicals who have performed this surveillance and data-injection do find themselves in the possession of actionable intelligence or archaeotech from the Wild Data Stores, they make for Watch Fortress Dascomb.  High Inquisitrix Lerica’s close scrutiny of the Cold Trade and the xenotech of the Cloudburst Sector means that she has little patience for the mysteries of the Radicals, and even those from other Sectors, outside Cloudburst, must take care when interacting with Lerica.  Her terrible power, with the presiding Lordship of the Conclave Cloudburst and psychic might she can bring to bear, makes lying to her about the sources of their knowledge and hidden treasures untenable.  Yet, by presenting clearly human archaeotech and verifiable information of the justly-respected Data-mechanics of Syracuse to the Deathwatch, they can often gain aid from the Vigilant without invoking the Inquisitrix’s scorn.  Inquisitors have pursued their errands, even to the extent of doing what the mysterious intelligence of the Wild Data Stores implies they should, with the Deathwatch’s full co-operation.
Watch Commander Domack has his own suspicions about the seemingly-inexhaustible sources of the intelligence and archaeotechnolgical trinkets of the Inquisitors who hail from Drumnos.  Domack was chosen as Watch Commander because of his sterling reputation for insightful and decisive leadership, not investigative skills, but he is no fool.  He has not failed to observe that the Inquisitors bearing gifts have all come from the same place, and that many of the leads that they send his subordinates to chase have been sequential – reports he has filed with the Inquisition have produced subsequent investigations ‘coincidentally’ addressing parallel topics.  Nor has Watch Commander Domack failed to note that many of the archaeotechnological items these Inquisitors bear are of ancient Adeptus Mechanicus make, yet are outside the Techpriests’ apparent control.

For now, given the successes that the Kill-teams dispatched alongside these Drumnos Inquisitors have attained, he is content to simply keep a watchful eye on the situation, especially given the immense demands on Sector resources that the Glasian Migrations present.  If these diversions continue, however, he may choose to take more direct actions.