Editing Nobledark Imperium Xenos (section)

=== The Ilmaea ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''The Blackened Heart of Commorragh'''''

At the heart of Commorragh are the Ilmaea (lit. black sun/stolen sun), the twin suns that power the Dark City. Commorragh could accurately be described as a set of dual Dyson spheres, two spherical outgrowths of the Webway stacked one on top of the other (Upper and Lower Commorragh, respectively), each with an Ilmaea at their center. Each star artificially crushed to the size of a red dwarf by the Old Eldar Empire at the height of their power using technology now since lost. Because of the technology used to shrink their size, the Ilmaea also have an extremely long expected life span, comparably to that of an actual red dwarf. Although Commorragh was originally founded as a Webway port and became a haven for the Old Empire’s rich and famous before becoming what it is now, it also performs a remarkably good job as a disaster shelter. In theory, one could outlast the end of the universe inside Commorragh.

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Approximately 1640000 years ago, the Old Eldar Empire went to war with and defeated an unknown, now-extinct alien species. This was not an uncommon event in eldar history, every few million years or so an external threat would arise that would actually threaten the supremacy of the Children of Isha. Sometimes these enemies were resurgent Brain Boyz, sometimes they were extra-galactic or extra-dimensional species like the architects of the Harrowing, and sometimes they were simply native Milky Way races, occasionally fellow children of the Old Ones, that bit off more than they could chew. At first the eldar fought these wars based on the half-remembered wishes of the Old Ones, believing themselves to be safeguarding the existence and self-determination of their fellow sentients, but at some point things took a darker turn.

According to legend, the race that fought the eldar 1.6 million years ago had been a true threat to the galaxy, believing themselves to have a manifest destiny over the Milky Way. The eldar beat the would-be galactic conquerors back to their binary-star home system and then, as punishment for their hubris, stole their two suns, leaving the species to scream in anguish as they slowly froze to death in the darkness. It is uncertain how justified the actions of the eldar were, given their tendency to self-glorify and distort their own history, but the accounts of the Black Library (which are considered to be less biased) do seem to support the idea that the species . However, the fact that they were willing to resort to such draconian means of ensuring their dominance, destroying an entire biosphere of an already defeated foe, already showed the rot seeping into the heart of the Old Empire.

In the years after the seizure of the Ilmaea and their placement as trophies within the biggest Webway port of Commorragh, the Ilmaea became an important symbol in eldar society. The Ilmaea became seen as a symbol of eldar righteousness, an indicator of how the chosen of the Old Ones and Asuryan could do no wrong. Depictions of the Ilmaea became common in Old Empire art, and many wealthy Sidhe lords sought to have Ilmaea of their own. Most were artificial mock-ups made of fusion reactions, but a few were real, stolen from life-bearing systems to complete the symbolism. The Old Empire at least had a fig-leaf of justification for confiscating the original Ilmaea. The nobles…did not. The Craftworlders and Exodites do not think highly of the Ilmaea, considering them a symbol of the Old Empire’s hubris of the highest magnitude.

Each of the Ilmaea are modulated to give off the perfect amount of light and heat to the surface of Commorragh below, giving them a sinister black color when viewed through solar filters. This allows Commorragh to be kept habitable for life without the need of expensive artificial blinds. There is no day or night cycle on Commorragh, only a perpetual twilight, the time when light still exists despite the coolness of the oncoming night…and also the exact time when the shadows are longest and predators find it the easiest to hide. The similarities have not gone unnoticed.

Although the technology to create the Ilmaea has since been lost, the technology to keep the stolen suns modulated still exists. The size and intensity of the stars has been ever so slightly tweaked over the years to balance growth as the Webway pockets of various Kabals have been stitched into Commorragh. Indeed, if the containment were ever to fail, the stars would most likely violently expand back to their former size. The Lord of Commorragh, Asdrubael Vect, has used this to his advantage at one point, deliberately dropping the shielding on one section of the Ilmaea to scour an entire district of Commoragh clean in order to burn one infamous rebellion to the ground, sending a message to all of Commorragh of the sword of Damocles Vect has hanging over their heads.

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