Editing Quest:The Long Night:The End of the Start

Problem is, a few years ago, Seamus Lin had requested a short leave to meditate. As far as he could tell, the Emperor was calling out to him. And now, as you prepare for celebrating the end of the Millennium, he calls for an assembly.
 
But it's not Seamus Lin who enters.
 
Instead, Lin, the Living Saint does. A being empowered by the personal will of the Emperor, in a fashion that doesn't allow you to doubt his words. And the words are clear:
 
'''''“Friends, comrades, I have gathered you here to give you terrible, world-shaking tidings of what is to come. You all know of the recent portents, the flickering of the Astronomican and the grim readings of the Emperor's Tarot. In my recent meditations, the Emperor has come to me, and shown me visions of what will come to pass. Two hours, fifty-seven minutes and twelve seconds from now, at the exact turn of the millennium on Terra... the Emperor will die.”'''''
 
That's right. The quest is based upon the [[Story:The Shape Of The Nightmare To Come 50k|Nightmare to Come]] setting. And the nightmare is here.
 
Now, it's not all bad news.
 
For one thing, the Emperor isn't quite dead. He's merely ''really'' exhausted from spending fifteen thousand years stuck as a Warp beacon, so He takes a break (until the year 50K-60K or so), and then He'll be reborn after resting in the deepest reaches of the Warp. Second, He gave Saint Lin some guides on what He wanted to see the Imperium like and how to reform the Church into a more reasonable form, currently dubbed as New Imperial Truth. Third, you seem to have relatively reasonable neighbours, and that's important, because with the Astronomican gone, the local subsector will be all you're dealing with for now.
 
Just under three hours isn't much, but you do what you can. You get your Psykers into secure rooms (or drug them into coma), warn nearby planets, warn whatever ships your Astropaths can reach in time... and, of course, Saint Lin explains the situation to the people. Then the Astronomican shuts down... and shit hits the fan in the Warp. Time to look at what you have.

==Current assets==
 
Now, planetside, you have yourself, the PDF (commanded by a Cadian general named Kenneth Drago) and Militia. The PDF are composed of regular troopers (the actual PDF), a smaller amount of Guard analogue named Helltroopers, and now you are working on a Stormtrooper/Grenadier analogue called Helguard. There are also some special units, like one Catachan regiment of mysterious but, somehow, utterly natural sneakiness, and the Black Irons; formerly a garrison that had to put down its own city when it went mad, now a constantly growing unit of orphaned suicidals to use instead of the [[Penal legion]].
 
You have your deputy, Henry Volkiss, a likely successor to your position who's like a son to you.
 
Next, you have Magos Explorator Tranth, the guy who found all those shinies. He also used to be the head of the planet's Mechanicus, but about fifteen years ago, Atlas sent a Forge Master named Britton, who took over those duties. Neither complained.
 
You have Munstrum [[Discworld|Ridcully]] ("Rids"), the head of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. A decent (if sometimes weird) guy and an excellent diviner. Lousy with paperwork.
 
You have Arbitrator Jane Oakheart, the head of your security forces (even if very few know that). A cool lady who gave you a number of swordfighting lessons. Not one to cross.

You have Aria, a Primaris Psyker who was abandoned by her parents as a child. Later, it turns out she's actually a genetic chimera of an Alpha Psyker and an Omega Pariah, giving her limited powers from both.
 
Three Inquisitors are stuck with you. One is your favourite Klovis-Ultan, one is fellow Ordo Malleus Lord Inquisitor Varquez, who used to be firmly opposed to the whole Hellworld settling idea and is now here to investigate the claims of the colony's absolutely ridiculous success, and one is an Ordo Xenos named Yang Yinn. Thankfully, you don't have any from the Hereticus, otherwise there would have been a lot of tension with the [[SoB]]s due to the unorthodox directions you intend to move.
 
Varquez didn't believe anyone else's reports about the Hellheaven of Avernus, so he even sent a squad of [[Grey Knights]] ahead of himself to investigate. Well, they both confirmed the reports and are stuck with you now. All the better.
 
Next, you have your Subsector neighbours.
 
You may have noticed that the two worlds already mentioned have names from Norse Mythology. Actually, all eight are. Should be nine? That's true. Your world used to be known as Helheim before it was devastated and abandoned in the wake of the [[Men of Iron|Men of Iron War]]. The rest are all here.
 
Asgard is a Knight World. Low population, but in charge. They take the news well, not being too big with the whole God-Emperor deal in the first place. There is the matter of a good portion of their forces being outside the sector, but nothing can be done about it.
 
Alfheim is the breadbasket. They handle the news well; the modest defences of the world are far more worrying for them.
 
Jotunheim is a regular civilized world. That is, aside from the fact that half its population is Jotun; an [[Ogryn]] variant with intelligence on par with regular humans. The Fall causes an actual revolt there due to a coup attempt manipulated by some cultists.
 
Midgard is a Hive World. Situation is bad due to expected shipping problems, but tolerable.
 
Muspelheim is a mysterious world with a few intact Dark Age factories and rather extensive records. The surface is covered in magma, forcing the population into massive floating fortress-cities. They aren't really surprised by the revelations, knowing a bit about what the Emperor was truly like. Their current leader is a mysterious man named Champion Surt, who appears more and more mysterious the more you learn about him.
 
Svartalfheim is a world of artisans and fortified cities. Takes it well.
 
Nilfheim. A frozen world of mystery (and, it turns out later, low-level [[Blanks]]). Advanced production. Plenty of Promethium. Doesn't care much about the Fall.
 
Vanaheim is an industrial world specializing in shipbuilding.  Very conservative, so it's hit the hardest.
 
Now, the current and most immediate problem is managing the transports. With the Astronomican gone dark, Warp speed is around a hundred lightspeed, a bit more with Navigators.
 
And, for better or worse, a Warp Storm has cut you off from the rest of the galaxy.

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