Editing Story:Warhammer 60K: The Age of Dusk (section)

==The Age of Dusk==
It is the 61st Millennium. The galaxy has been moving at a blistering rate. Ancient prophecies are being fulfilled; grand engines are grinding into gradual and unstoppable motion, finally free. All across the galaxy, forces and factions mobilize. Some are old beyond comprehension, and others are so young that the terrors of a ''Second Age of Strife'' are but troubling, primordial dreams.

Little can they know that those dreams are all horrifyingly true, and those things that have been thirsting and fasting for so long finally see their chance to inflict themselves once more upon a generation of beings only just recovering from the trauma of a galaxy gone mad. For the old legends were wrong; the tumbling of mankind into the pit was not the herald of the End Times. It was merely the beginning of a wider game.

On the world named after a site of Apocalypse, ''Armageddon'', one of the lost Sons had returned. '''Vulkan''', the Father of Salamanders and one of the Primarchs from long forgotten myths, appeared to the broken people of that world, and began to forge the Empire of Man anew, as a smith might reforge a blade, founding a new Imperium founded upon his humble and earnest ideals. His Imperium has reignited a zealous crusade of reunification across the stars, yet progress is slow. Robbed of the Astronomicon, and determined to ensure every world he takes is a secure bastion of his new world order, Vulkan’s millennial advance has yet to expand his realm to encompass more than a scant fraction of the worlds the former Imperium held dominion over. His most important contribution, however, is not the realm he creates, but his own genetic legacy. A new Astartes Founding has begun. The Space Marines rise again! A new breed of Space Marine, to sweep away the corrupt and putrid Space Marine ‘free companies’ as they bring Vulkan’s word to the galaxy.

Other bastions of man, over the endless centuries, also started to consolidate, as the hundreds of Petty Imperiums began to swallow each other in colossal cannibalistic wars. The Tallarn and Ophelian Imperiums merged after hundreds of years of bitter conflict, forming a vast human realm, founded upon unthinking obedience and religious mania, and with a unique form of warp travel developed through mass witch incinerations; their death screams propelling fleets further than normal non-navigated flights. They worship ''‘The Emperor of the Wasteland’'', a bastardized belief based upon the Emperor they had never known. The twisted realm of Grand Sicarium, after war after war, has been tempered into a diamond hard series of systems, each world an impregnable fortress, populated by insane humans with near psychotic siege mentality ingrained on their souls. Led by despicable remnants of the once noble Astartes founded before the fall of the Imperium, this realm is one of evil and oppression. Astartes are worshiped as gods, and they in their hubris believed their idolaters. Sicarius, the ancient villain on the throne, has looked upon the Vulkan Imperium, and deemed it a ruse, and has begun to plan against this. The black-fleshed daemon is no Primarch. It cannot be...

Both the Eastern Chaos Imperium, under the Megalomaniac ''Huron Blackheart'', and the Western Chaos Imperium under the eternal traitor ''Abaddon the Despoiler'', have been steadily growing. Their influence spreads, and more and more worlds fall to the worship of the transcendent warp powers. Yet, Chaos is as Chaos does, and these realms are constantly in flux. The two powers detest each other, and have engaged in constant blistering wars. Not only this, but each Imperium also suffers internal conflicts at all times, as the inherently individualist warlords of chaos vie to ensure their own dominance. Abbadon’s rule is constantly opposed by the squabbling Daemon-Primarchs. However, while he spreads his influence outwards, they remain contained within their own hellish dreamlands, fighting like the brothers they are. Yet, more worrying reports have begun to reach Abbadon upon his dark capital of Cadia: the ancient Wulfen are abroad once more, led by the largest and most fearsome of their breed yet to emerge. Some claim it is Russ himself, returned to the realm of flesh for some coming conflict, so vast it is too large for mortals to perceive as it comes into being. Not only this, but Abbadon also has further concern regarding the foe he bound within the Solar System. The devices created to contain the unnatural potency of the ''Void Dragon'' have finally begun to crumble. Even now, previously orphaned Tomb Worlds and world engines are shuddering to life once more, hollow eyes gazing upon the world of flesh with disdain and hatred immeasurable.

Just as the force of dissipation and entropy grows in power, its opposite paradox builds in influence. The ''Star Father'', the dread Lord of Obedience and Blind Faith, is now a great galactic titan. Every mortal, no matter how corrupt or defiant, has a niggling urge, buried in their primal brains, to kneel before the Forces of Order. The Angyllic Hosts and their Angyl-Worlds spring up everywhere. Yet, it is claimed the Star Father is searching for someone. A being, an avatar capable of channeling a significant portion of his power. That way, he may manifest upon the world of flesh, and hence dominate both the material and immaterial dimensions. A fate no sane being should desire.

In the Eastern galaxy, the greater part of the Ultima Segmentum is now Tau-space. The Tau terraformed on an unthinkable scale throughout the 51st millennium, and the fruits of their labors showed. The ''Council of Tau’Va'' now could call upon untold billions of Tau, Gue’Vesa and other vassal races. Yet, their rule is not the idealist paradise they once promised. It is a rule of enforced Unity under the Tau, who some say are seeking to eliminate all thought that does not conform to proscribed philosophies of the greater Good, and destroy the dissent of freedom. Nor is the Tau Empire a peaceful one. Unseen by the Western Powers of the galaxy, the Tau are grappling with something immense and ungodly. Garrison-Septs to their western flanks are being drawn away to reinforce the eastern Septs. The Tau and the bloated Thexian Trade Empire have even signed truces in order to provide a united front against their newest foe. Worlds are dying, suns splutter and dim, as the endless and eternal Silver Hordes finally mobilize for full scale war, for the first time in millions of years.

The C’tan dropped the facade. They hide no more. The War in Heaven is renewed. The Golden-Skinned Jackal has not only the immortal machinery of the Necron at his disposal, but also his other unspeakable allies. The ''Ophilim Kiasoz'' is moving, and systems simply end when it passes. The splinter entities of the trans-dimensional non-place are no longer bound by their exile, and their temporal holocaust effects have chronologically crippled entire planetoids at the behest of the Star God Deceiver. The Lord of Death is abroad also, a black shadow that kills simply because it IS death itself.

Even the greenskins, long presumed extinct and consigned to legends and cautionary childhood fables, return inevitably for the great conflict to come. The tiny spore-morsels, left on worlds the galaxy over, slowly spread and developed over the millennia. Gradually, feral Ork tribes began to spring up on even civilized worlds. Officials, dismissing these feral beings as mere savage beasts, simply began to cull these Ork nests with military force. Thus, the feral Orks grow and spread, fueled by war once more. For the first time in twenty thousand years, the galaxy rang to the sound of Waaaaaaagh once again. However, not all the Orks returning were feral. Some were anything but. A new breed of Ork emerged. Fully-armoured in heavy armor of high quality, with potent weapons and flawless discipline, these elite bands of Orks emerge from strange portals or from well-maintained warships, taking and holding worlds with horrifying efficiency, turning a world into a fortress within days. These Orks are like no Ork ever encountered. It is claimed that they were exiled Orks who found their brainboys. Others claim they are in thrall to a powerful warp being. Others claim a being may have figured out how to ‘pilot’ the Ork Gods themselves, wielding the entire Orkoid race as a single vast weapon. Either way, the Orks are amassing for some purpose, as yet unseen.

Not only this, but the Eldar also gather, returning from their shadows with new insights. Some intensify their spiteful wars against the galaxy, while others take the long view. The fallen Craftworld of ''Malantai'' stirs. Something is building within its nexus. Something vengeful...

Fate is weaving these rising empires into a great and deadly embrace. As each grows, the inevitability of the coming conflict is rising and building. We cannot escape it, nor can we oppose it. We can only try and survive it, and hope against hope, that when the end comes, it will drag suffering and pain into its fires as well.

It is the 61st Millennium, and the Age of Dusk is upon us. Let us hope dawn will break on a new universe. For hope is all we have, screaming against the storm.