Jump 168: Warhammer 40,000 - The Imperium

Jump #168: Warhammer 40,000 - The Imperium
>The High Priestess (Education, knowledge, wisdom, and esoteric teachings. The forces of nature. Intuition, foresight, and spiritual revelation of the most mysterious and arcane sort.)
I know this is random, but... really? The same card here also? Well, at least a positive trump card means victory without having to roll, and this one remains very fitting.
>Location: Free Choice (Isstvan V)
Because in the grim derpness of the far future, there is only stupidity. I'm here to fix that.
>Identity: Techpriest (-100)
All joking aside, there really are reasons they do things the way they do. Chaos corrupts things. Even machines.
>Drawbacks: The Grim Darkness of the Past (0), Marked (+400), Dark Millennium: 10,240 years (10*2^10) (+1500)
It's the long road all over again ... wait, this actually explains several things--
Arriving in M31.006, leaving in M41.246, kind of a shame that I'm going to miss out on some things but I'll be there when the first of the hive fleets arrives. That will make life... interesting.
>Technical Training (Free, Techpriest)
Well, at least this kind of technology doesn't suffer from planned obsolescence.
>Arch-Magos (2550, Techpriest)
Considering all the technology I'm going to come across and how long I'm going to be here... yeah, being able to work with xenos tech and archeotech is rather crucial. I'm not just going to sit on my hands until we reach the present day, as it were.
>Cyber-Technician (1400, Techpriest)
This sounds like it is a thing that will be useful as time goes on, too. I mean, I already have such, but this gives it more versatility.
>Cyberdidact (2100, Techpriest)
NOW we're talking. To technology. And machine spirits. Which is pretty damn nifty. Definitely not going to just run around uplifting things to AIs though, that's a very bad decision.
>Blank (1700)
Sure, techpriests aren't very good psykers usually... but what about taking the other path and shutting down psykers instead?
>Restraint (1500)
And it's useful to be able to turn it on and off at will so people aren't perpetually influenced into hating me because of the plot.
>Culexus (1400)
Also, a 25 meter bubble is a LOT of space.
>Viator of Nullspace (800)
Being able to block warp energy isn't enough. Being able to change how much of it someone can draw on is an even better improvement.
>Mechanicus Implants (Free, Techpriest)
Kind of a given, yes.
>STC Printer (0)
Well, this will be useful. I'll be spending some free time encapsulating some idiot-proof technology and scattering it around to help out, in between cataloging all the tech here that I can.

So! The Drop Site Massacre is to start perhaps as many as three hours from when I arrive.

That's PLENTY of time for me to go visit Horus in full jumper-charisma mode, tell him exactly why daddy didn't love him (the dude's barely human but loves you more than literally anyone else), lay everything on the line as far as the path he's walking, and offer him a third path because emperor and chaos are stupid.

I used my massively amped-up purification blast to purge Chaos' taint from him and his legion to ensure they would listen beforehand, also, though they had no idea what the hell it actually was. This had some interesting effects on space marine physiology, but none of it was actually detrimental, it just amped them up a bit - pure positive emotion instead of negative - and acted as an overpowered healing beam, though it would probably not work on anyone but a space marine in such a way. (Also, it fixed Angron's brain damage, though it didn't remove the Butcher's Nails - had to do that myself.)

Also, while everyone wasn't looking (which was rather easier than I expected it to be) I took the Anathema from him and erased him from existence, because precognition said that despite being cleansed he still intended to go full Chaos. Screw that.

In any event, when the rest of the drop pods started falling... I hit them all with the Friendship Cannon too. Of course, it never has any effect on technology (except technology corrupted by Chaos, but I found that out later), but it confused the hell out of basically everyone for some white beam of light to lance out at every single drop pod that fell.

There was no massacre. I abused technopathy to hijack everyone's communications, called for a truce (and everyone else hunkered down but held fire), brought the eleven primarchs together (Star Trek teleporting for the win), and we sat down and we talked. And I told them everything. I told them exactly how things were, what the Emperor hoped to accomplish with the Imperial Truth, that he doesn't have perfect knowledge but was doing his best, and was trying to uplift humanity in general via other methods of FTL. Told each of the primarchs their stories from their conception to the present, why the Emperor did as he did, and what they could expect if they continued. Told each of them how they fell to Chaos, and more importantly, why.

Told them the real nature of Chaos itself, and why the Emperor didn't know - he doesn't know the history all the way back to the beginning, when the Warp was placid and smooth, and that quite honestly it was mostly the Eldar's fault that it was as it was because they didn't exercise any restraint. Basically... surprise, it's all the fucking elves' fault, but all the guilty ones are basically dead anyway. Except the ones in the webway.

But... let's skip way ahead for brevity's sake.

The long and short of it: as a result, and due to some seriously concentrated effort, Chaos lost its grip on the primarchs in the end. The Armistace of Isstvan replaced the Drop Pod Massacre in the history books. The Thousand Sons were, in time, given bodies once again; everyone who wasn't at Isstvan was cleansed of Chaos' taint as quickly as possible. In the end, the Emperor's sons were loyal once again, and when we arrived at Terra, we ALL sat down (and the Emperor frowned at me a LOT) and had a long, long talk. All cards were laid on the table. I was open about who and what I was, told them everything I knew about 40k, filled in a few blanks for the Emperor regarding the warp that changed his viewpoint a bit (sorry, athiesm doesn't work when there is LITERALLY A REALM OF SOULS), and offered up a great many proposals to make things not be so utterly fucking bleak.

In the end, the Emperor remained the Emperor and acknowledged that he was not the best father but was doing everything he could. That, in itself, did more to start healing the Primarchs' psyches than I ever could. The Primarchs became his princes - they all were granted control of a portion of the Imperium, administratively speaking. The legions were reorganized, not quite a matter of chapters, but they stood as guardians of the Imperium as they should have been. Sure, there was still always war, and there were still traitor marines, but they were never whole legions. I was happy to just facilitate these changes; my name stayed out of the history books, but I helped shape the Mechanicus into something not quite as silly. Research and development happened, even if it was not speedy. The future was dark, but no longer grim.

Chaos hated this by the way and tried to kill me as often as possible, but that doesn't really work so well against someone who can feel the shifts in the currents of the Warp and thus is hard to catch by surprise.

Just as planned indeed.

>Eh, atheism still works. It's just a branding issue. Egotistical demons lurking in the Warp may call themselves gods, but this does not make it so. Etc.

Right, but you can't just go 'oh, none of that EXISTS' unless you want an inquisition to be needed to stamp it out all the time. Imperial Truth got modified a bit, but at certain levels... people need to know. Otherwise, you get what happened to the Primarchs.

By the way, the chaos hordes? Rather underwhelming compared to canon. Yeah, sure, it still happened... but without the initial disruption and manpower boost of the Horus Heresy and the Emperor being struck down, the waves weren't as bad.

Also, the Webway project was a wash, but I helped Emps seal it. And then gave him stargates.

Sure, it doesn't work for anything but the smallest scale travel, but it IS safe.

>Oh, totally. Imperial Truth should have been all about "this is the true face of reality, and it sucks, but we're going to fucking conquer the shit out of it anyways."

Yeah. Basically Emps came around to realize that one size does not fit all. Also, that psykers shouldn't be anathema, but DO have to be controlled. There's no good answer to the psyker problem, but without the Heresy, things were actually safer. Only partially safer, but still safer.