Editing Nobledark Imperium Member States (section)

== Demiurg ==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''The First of Many'''''

The Demiurg, in the present day, are known as a nomadic race of stocky, silicon- based humanoids, noted for their superb craftsmanship and sharp business sense. As ever, the true story is more complex. The Demiurg once had a homeworld, an empire. But no longer. 

The foundations of the modern Demiurg were laid almost eighteen thousand years ago, in the age before the Fall, when they were a young race first expanding out into the stars. Their homeworld, now long gone, was located in a star cluster of intense stellar activity, which produced vast amounts of mineral wealth but also great radiation storms that sterilized all carbon-based life which tried to arise. It was not until a silicon based ecology arose that the cluster knew the touch of life, and after millions of years of evolution the demiurg were able to develop civilization and take their first steps into the stars in (relative) peace. 

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Their first colonies were founded on their closest neighbors using slower-than-light ramscoops, but their expansion only began in earnest when they built the Kybernetes. 'Invented' would not quite be the right word, for the Demiurg maintain that the design was revealed to their finest craftsmen by their forge god Faruul in a dream. The Kybernetes are the Demiurg equivalent of humanity's Navigators, although naturally there are a great many differences between the two. The silicon-based biology of the Demiurg is exceptionally well suited to the addition of augmetics, and it by this technology that they navigate the depths and currents of the Warp.

A Kybernetes, once selected, undergoes radical and irreversible modifications, binding them on the deepest level with their ship. In a very real sense they become the ship, their sense of self expanding outward into the metal. They feel auspex arrays as their eyes, hull plating as their skin, magnetic and gravitic field projectors as their hands, plasma jets as their legs, air recyclers as their lungs, fusion furnace as their heart. They will never again be able to walk on the surface of a world, but very few Kybernetes mourn the loss. And, most importantly, the gain the ability to see into the Warp without going mad, and guide their ship-body along its currents. Compared to Navigators, Kybernetes have their strengths and weaknesses. They're slower on average and are slightly more dangerous; a Kybernetes cannot peer as deeply into the Warp as a Navigator and thus are occasionally blindsided by dangers a Navigator would see coming. On the other hand, any Demiurg could become a Kybernetes with sufficient training and the necessary modifications.

With this gift from their god, the Demiurg began their expansion in earnest, colonizing the many systems of the stellar cauldron in which they had been born. It was not an easy expansion, for all the worlds around them were scorched and lifeless, but their craftsmanship was up to the task. To bind the many colonies of their growing empire together, they created the first of the great Trade Ships; cathedrals of industry, designed to be almost entirely self-sufficient on their years-long tours of the outer colonies, each almost a city unto itself.


For over a millennium, the Demiurg methodically expanded. They breached the boundaries of the tortured region of space they called home, and discovered for the first time complex life besides their own; a joyous occasion, one still well remembered by the modern demiurg despite the millennia of tragedy since. They encountered a few other intelligent species, established trading relationships, and fought a few small wars. They even encountered the Eldar a few times; although by this late point in the Empire's history these points of contact all ended in tragedy. But a few small raiding bands boasting of having a vast galactic empire were not enough to halt their steady rise. The demiurg were emerging onto a wider galactic stage.

Then it all ended.

Once more the forge god spoke in their dreams, this time not bearing a gift but a warning. Soon a great, divine catastrophe will overtake this entire region of space. None will survive. Board your ships and flee while flight is still possible.

So they refitted their existing ships and built new ones for the longest journey any of them would ever undertake, packed them full of as many people as could fit, and sent them out. Thousands of tiny metal seeds scattering into the bleak void, running as far and fast as they could. The billions upon billions left behind burrowed into deep bunkers and prayed.


Mere weeks after the last ship left, the Eye of Terror opened. Behind them the fleeing ships could see everything — their homes, their families, everything they had ever known — swallowed up by the madly yawning chasm, consumed by the cosmic abortion wound. Everyone left behind, they hoped, died swiftly. If there is any mercy in the universe, they died swiftly.

The survivors were separated from each other by the turbulence of the warp, scattered across the length and breadth of the galaxy, tiny and alone in a universe going mad. Many, most, would have been overwhelmed by the myriad horrors, and indeed many of the trade-ships-turned-arks vanished without trace. But the Demiurg as a whole adapted and endured.

They adapted to lives of strict rationing and harsh discipline. They forged their weapons into tools and their tools into weapons. They traded with those sane enough to talk to and, when necessary, fought with those who weren't. They sifted through the ashes of cinder worlds, scavenging for useful technology or resources — the Mechanicus is still a little piqued about this, even though they handed over any STCs they found as part of the terms when they formally joined the Imperium. They perfected the methods of quickly and efficiently strip-mining asteroids and minor planets, to extract the maximum amount of resources before some imminent threat forced them to flee once more. When the warp was too turbulent to risk transit, they took the long way, crawling through the long darkness between the stars with Bussard ramscoops.

Some of them turned to darker paths to try and ensure their survival. Some turned to piracy, looting peaceful and defenseless worlds. Some dug up technologies they really should not have. Some even made deals with the very dark powers which had destroyed their homes. None still persist; the Demiurg made a special point of hunting them down.


As the centuries and millennia passed, the scattered arks were able to find each other once more. The Demiurg would never really be a unified state again; there had been too much cultural and political drift during their long isolation. Even if that wasn't a factor, they were simply far too scattered for any sort of central authority to exist. Still, they raised their sights higher than mere survival and began to recover. To forge a new society in the voids between worlds. 


The circumstances which lead to the inclusion of the Demiurg into the Imperium arose during the Imperial Civil War, which had left the Imperium otherwise indisposed. That indisposition made the Imperium blind to a combined force of Chaos Orks and Crone Eldar, massed for a campaign into the Imperium while the Imperium's forces was too busy fighting itself. The Demiurg stepped in to assist the beleaguered defenders along the Imperium's borders — if not for entirely altruistic reasons, as the Imperium usually acted as an effective buffer against the bigger threats in the galaxy. The combined efforts of the Imperium and the Demiurg saw the hordes of Chaos driven back, and in gratitude the Demiurg were offered the place they now occupy in the Imperium.

The Demiurg were the first non-human, non-Eldar race to join the Imperium. Though other species, like the Watchers and Kinebrach, had been admitted as vassal states, the Demiurg were the first to come in as an independent power in their own right. The Demiurg received the invitation for inclusion in gratitude for the aid they rendered to the Imperium during the Age of Apostasy, and were admitted in the midst of the post-Vandire political restructuring. That said, the treaties for inclusion had to be negotiated individually, on a brotherhood-by-brotherhood basis. The offers were accepted with great enthusiasm, as the Demiurg saw the bountiful mercantile opportunities in joining.

Today, the Demiurg retain both their nomadic natures and metallurgical prowess, with many of their great ships plying their trade across the stars of the Imperium. Though the days of their great empire are long behind them, this is hardly a singular trait amongst the peoples of the Imperium; and in this, they find an odd kinship. They are eager contributors to the efforts to push back the hordes of Chaos, their flight from their homeworld not forgotten. Though their recovery has been long and arduous, they are beginning to see the fruits of their labors; fruits they are eager to share with their erstwhile allies in the collective, unending fight for a better future for all.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Demiurg were the first non-human, non-eldar race to join the Imperium. Other species like the Watchers and kinebrach had been admitted as vassal states, but demiurg were the first to come in as an independent power in their own right. Demiurg got the invitation for helping the Imperium during the Age of Apostasy and were admitted in the midst of the post-Vandire political restructuring. However treaties for inclusion had to be hammered out on a brotherhood-by-brotherhood basis. The best idea for the reason the Demiurg were invited so far is that either the Orks or Crone Eldar massed for a big push on the Imperium while the Imperium was too busy forming a circular firing squad due to the Imperial Civil War. Demiurg stepped in to help fight because the Imperium usually acted as a buffer against the big threats and if they went down all hell would break loose. Accepted the offer because they saw the mercantile opportunities in joining.

=== Faruul ===

The identity of the Demiurg's now-dead forge god Faruul is a matter of some debate. Some Eldar believe it to have been Vaul, pointing the the Demiurg's proximity to the Crone Worlds of the Old Eldar Empire, the mastery of the warp demonstrated by the Kybernetes, and foreknowledge of the birth of Slaanesh.

Some heterodox Mechanicus sects suggest it was a facet of the Omnissiah, pointing to the massive adoption of cybernetics among Demiurg society, whereas Vaul was never associated with such augmentation in the slightest. Such an opinion is considered heresy by many on Mars; to them the Omnissiah is a god of human technology and only human technology, not Xenos. 

Although whether all technology or only human technology is the holy domain of the Adeptus Mechanicus per the will of the Omnissiah is a subject of theological debate still argued over by Mechanicus tech-priests to this day, the Demiurg are still forbidden entirely from approaching within a million kilometers of Mars, officially to preserve its holy sanctity. Since similar restrictions apply to nearly all Xenos species, nobody regards this as unusual. 

The Guardians of the Dragon take no chances.