Void Trekkers

Void Trekkers
Battle Cry	Don't Panic
Number	42
Allegiance	human
Colours	Red, Blue or Gold

The Void Trekkers are a heretical group of Imperial citizens who are currently located on a world near the edge of the Halo Star region that they named Magrathea. While undoubtedly heretical to the established orders of both the Inquisition and the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Void Trekkers see themselves as striving to fulfill the Emperor's vision for mankind. The group is comprised of various subgroups of outcasts from many different Imperial institutions and different worlds across the Imperium. As previously mentioned, the group's primary goal is to fulfill the Emperor's vision for humanity, which for them includes returning humanity to the days of unquestioned superiority in regards the internal and external pressures. The philosophy behind this effort, and indeed the heresy, was formulated by a man by the name of Petarca who was once a initiate studying under an savant of the Inquisition. Petarca's philosophy was formed while working across the Segmentum Obscurus where he mistook archived data from The Sigillites as historical records. Using these "Records" as a guide, the Void Trekkers strive for the betterment for all Humanity, with the mentality of Humans first.

Fluff

History

A Fundamental Misunderstanding

A initiate of the Inquisition by the name of Petarca served as a under clerk for a traveling savant. His superior's work involved verifying documents and conducting audits for the Inquisition. Cleaning boots, scrubbing floors, and retrieving any item the savant required was the least of Petarca's duties. While carrying out these duties at a hiveworld, Petarca's superior was sent to inventory a collection of salvaged cargo from a recently discovered space hulk floating near the Eye of Terror. There was indication that this cargo belonged to the Inquisition but was mistakenly sent to the forgeworld of Belacane.

Upon arrival to Belacane, Petarca's savant wasted no time and started his inventory of the cargo. It was immediately clear that the Adeptus Mechanicus had already examined every bit of the cargo before they realized to whom the cargo belonged to. While examining the containers, which seemed to contain mostly mundane items like clothing and candles, the savant's interest was mute until he came across a relatively inconspicuous container. The markings did appear similar to that of the Inquisition but the container was ancient and completely out of place in this cargo. The savant speculated that the container was well over 10,000 years old, and if that being case was most likely to be originally belonging to The Sigillites. The savant was deft of mechadendrite when handling the artifact from another age and was able to confirm his speculation upon opening the container and finding the contents being data-recorders that predated the Imperium of Man. All the while this investigation was conducted Petsrca was holding his savant's tools and taking notes. The savant had his own language, which Petarca did not understand. did very little explaining. Thus Petarca was completely uneducated about what exactly he was helping investigate.

Upon the realization of how old the artifact was, the savant began to immediately suspected that the Adeptus Mechanicus had deliberately opened this container in search of some forgotten or forbidden knowledge. This only fueled his interest to the contents of the data-recorders, which were contained a catalog and appeared intact. The savant and his retinue took possession of the cargo and scheduled passage on the next void ship off world. Unfortunately the next ship going to Valon Urr was not scheduled to depart for several standard months. The savant became increasingly worried about being stranded on a forge world with potential galaxy changing technology. He was completely flabbergasted when the Adepts of the Machine God simply let him go and take all the contents to a secured Inquisition envoy facility.

During the months of wait, Petarca further assisted investigation of the data recorders. It took over a month of the savant and his retinue to adapt their existing cogitators to a compatible format with the ancient data recorders. The end result of their work was a device that consisted of a view screen visor and audio output which was fed directly into an ear. While the savant no longer possessed ears he could have adapted the technology to his enhancements but was ultimately worried about scrap code from a forgotten age ravaging his body, mind and soul. This meant Petarca was going to be the human guinea pig. Of course, none of this was explained to Petarca, and his understanding for this great honor was due to him being the closest person physically near the savant at the time that still had flesh and blood ears.

As the machine powered on, Petarca had a moment of existential aghast that gripped him as he stared into the black screen. Instantly the display lit up as the savant began to access the data. Petarca was exposed to sights and sounds he sounds that were unimaginable. It appeared to be audio and visual records of a past age of man. In it there were wondrous sights of humanity's triumph and endeavors through many different times and places. They mostly contained an unknown language to Petarca but sounded extremely familiar. After what seemed like hours of having Petarca viewing and listening to the recordings the savant powered down the device to hear what Petarca had to report.

Petarca was completely taken a back by what he had witnessed. There was an early time in humanity that humans traveled the stars in void ships much smaller then our current understanding of a void ship, with one of their largest being only 600 meters or so. He saw the exploits of a particular captain as he traveled from system to system for the betterment of humanity, which was usually done at the expense of Xenos. The captain had a xenos servant that was clearly an Eldar, as in the Eldar were under control of humanity at one point of time. The captain was a military leader the united federation of humanity. There were no signs of A.I. and humanity was capable of solving all the problems that came across them.

The savant was skeptical of everything he had heard but his interest in the data recorder had reached a zenith and he decided to access the data himself. After approximately a standard hour of time the savant took off the device and began cursing the Adeptus Mechcanicus, the recorders, and everything else in between. Petarca was worried and tired to figure out why his superior was so upset. The savant informed him that this data is useless and there was good reason the tech-priest gave no resistance to the savant taking possession of the recorders, it is futile and the data was useless. Petarca was very confused at this and became deeply panicked when the savant ordered him to dispose of the recordings. Petarca held back any emotions he had over this material and collected it to bring to waste disposal. When he finally reached the waste disposal, Petarca realized that he could not bring himself to destory the recordings of humans in their natural, superior, state. The seeds of heresy were planted.

If Petarca disobeyed the direct orders of the savant there could be only one way for him to avoid being converted into an servitor or being outright killed. The savant wasn't a deliberately cruel man but he would utilize the most effective methods of controlling his retinue. Petarca fled in the middle of the night carrying only the clothes on his back, the adapted cogitator and the data recorders themselves. Having no money or status on this world, Petarca had ended up in the lowest of low in society. He was homeless and begged for scraps of food when he could. Besides sleep and hiding from authorities searching for him, Petarca spent all his time continuing to review the data recorders. They became a obsession for him to the point where he didn't care about anything but trying to understand what he had witnessed.

What Petarca did not understand was that the data recorders did not contain historical records but fictional stories from the very early days of humanity. This would have been apparent to the data examining tech-priest (who could see the obvious failures to properly simulate reality through effects and deception) and the savant (who by his nature his extremely well versed in history and past cultural experssions), but to a relative lay-person in the current Age of Man it was indistinguishable from reality. The level of production of false recordings would have been unimaginable to Petarca. While he did have a concept of fiction, Petarca was completely unprepared for the level of effort of story telling. To Petarca, the inconsistency of graphics & sounds, current hypothesis of the historians for that timeframe, and seeming lack of well known omissions from the records were explained away by the sheer age of the recorders, (Indeed some of the recordings he thought hailed from the 3rd millennium). In short Petarca's mission was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the recordings he held so dearly.

The Voyage Begins

Being penniless and unpopular in the mists of a forge world will not get you very far and this was Doubly true for Petarca. He wandered the slums and uninhabited infrastructure unsure what to do. Fortunately for him, the Adeptus Mechanicus was not a monolithic organization that communicated their findings with each other. A curious tech priest who was left out of the loop of the investigation of the "Inquisition's" cargo eventually was able to track him down. While Petarca was understandably reserved about opening up with this tech priest, he had little options. He started laying out all that he has witnessed and studied while in hiding, telling of the greatness humanity once was and all the glory that went into it. He spoke with such passion and optimism that the tech priest was taken a back from the cold mechanical thinking that has been instilled into him throughout his life, at least for a moment. Cold, logical pessimism quickly reasserted itself but he did see some value in Petarca.

The tech priest, who was unable to access the historical documents due to not having natural eyes and ears anymore, had to take Petarca at his word for what he witnessed but still thought he would be able to make use of Petarca, in a similar way to which a person relays directions to another. He took Petarca to the forge to which he was assigned. His prestigious assignment had to do with delegating and supervising the rites and rituals to maintain the waste extractor servitors attached to the exploratory fleet. Petarca was hidden away in one of the crew dormitories, along with falsified papers and a cover story. While the standard of living was comparable to what he had been accustomed to while working for the savant, if not a little worse, Petarca was in a state of culture shock living among the worshipers of the Machine God. The lives of the devotees he was living with was completely regimented and strictly followed. Petarca tired the best he could to fit in but it was clear to his new living mates that he was not one of them. While you might expect this to create some sort of divide between him and the lowest servants of the Machine God but one they figured out that he was in the same powerless position as they were they wanted to know more about Petarca. At first Petarca tired not to divulge too much information but eventually he couldn't help himself and started to talk about his "historical records". Now Petarca had not exactly been educated in any kind of artistic expression growing up but his passion and zeal brought life to his description of the records. This had an even more profound impact on the servants, who were virtually unexposed to any kind of lively story telling, and they became enraptured in Petarca's endless stories. This put Petarca in a position where he was rattling off a story or two whenever the servants were not engaged in their religious duties, which was not a lot of the time but it dominated their interest. Whenever they were engaged in their religious duties, Petarca simply plugged in the historical records and continued his studies. The tech priest at first tired to minimize this interaction until he noticed a 1.5% increase to his servants' productivity, which he attributed to their increased knowledge, rather then any kind of happiness. On a regular basis Petarca also prepared lessons for the tech priest who took him in. These lessons would then allow the tech priest to gain a better understanding of how the Machine God had blessed humanity and how humanity might once regain the Machine God's blessings. This went on for several months until the exploratory fleet they were all attached to was set to launch into the unknown space.

Petarca was no stranger to space travel but had never traveled on an Adeptus Mechanicus ship. The tech priest, himself, and his living mates were all assigned onto a cargo freighter attached to the exploratory fleet that was sent to explore the regions beyond the Halo Stars. In the long journey out of the system Petarca developed a reputation as a historian and wise in the ways of men of a better age. When the Exploratory Fleet finally reached the translation point a twist of fate change Petarca's fate as well as every soul on his ship. Upon the translation into the warp the warp currents picked up greatly. At once the fleet was broken up and scattered along the currents. The cargo freighter's navigator tired to stay in formation with the rest of the fleet but due to their engines being ancient was tossed into more and more into the tempest of the warp. In the lower decks where Petarca was, everyone was being tossed about in a way all too similar to the historical documents that he has become an expert to. The navigator tired his best but was getting more and more lost. Eventually any further traveling in this flow became untenable and the navigator ordered the ship to translate into real-space. Just before the ship translated it collided into an unknown object.The ripples of the Gellar field failed for a spilt second and explosions occured all over the ship. All seemed lost but this was not the case.

The freighter entered real-space deep into the void, far from any system or recognizable location. One thing became apparent to the crew of the freighter, the ship had translated far more then just the freighter. It seems that the freighter had collided with and pierced another ship of unknown make but definitely not made of the Imperium. As the voids-men and tech priest did a damage assessment they made a shocking discovery. The navigators' quarters was completely destroyed and to make matters worse, the navigator on the bridge had been incapacitated in a coma. This along with damage to the sensors and the engines spelled doom for people living on the ship. The sensors came on first and further compounded their problems.

The other vessel, to which they were currently jammed into was a Tau battleship. The ship was apparently uttly disabled and had only erratic power readings. The tech priest set out to open access to the Tau ship. They found what they believed an area where both ships were connected and still maintaining the life support systems. Everything was going well until the Tau's haul was breached. At once a swarm of demons attacked the servitors that were working at the entrance. A battle alert was at once through out the ships and Petraca's living mates went straight to the armory. Petarca was forced to go along and was issued a lasgun. Given that the vast majority of the servitors were destroyed upon the demonic breach, the tech priest were herding towards the entrance of the Tau ship where they were to give support to the surviving Skitarii. As soon as they crossed the threshold into the Tau ship, Peteraca's companions became visibly shaken and sense of morbidity came over them. Petarca had a fair amount of education about the nature of demons, how to deal with them and a small amount of firsthand experience dealing with demons and possessions; and as such was much calmer then his companions. He ventured to the front of the group and began to offer advice to the people around him on how to deal with the crisis at hand. From a darkened cooridor a single pair of red eyes appeared to glow from with in it. Seeing how his comrades were frozen in fear he screamed with all his might, "Don't Panic!", and rushed into the unknown. Whether if he actually inspired the people around or if his comrades were simply wanting not to be the first into the fray the results were the same, they followed him. The lasgun arcs lit up the cooridor to show a beast at least 2 meters tall and wielded ungodly sword. Petarca fired his gun to the best of his abilities but was knocked down by this beast. His gun was scattered into the darkness and Petarca went scrabbling back from the demon that focused his attention the brave or foolhardy human. Petarca was reaching out into the darkness for anything to pick up a weapon and to his luck picked up a weapon, reached up to aim it, and fired. The fire from his companions as well as the point blank range of this unknown weapon finally rendered the demon into a flaming husk of flesh burning away until there was nothing left. Petarca's comrades rushed to Petarca, assuming he was dead and were shocked to see he was okay. The immediately began preying to the omnissiah their link to a time where man was more intuned with thee omnissiah.

The continued looking for the Skirtaii but would only find a odd demon or two of a lesser nature. The demons seemed to becoming progressively weaker and unfocused until it got to the point where they simply walked up to the demon and shot it at point break range. Petarca's party finally reached a point in the ship where a tapping could be heard. It would have been easy to miss the sound but this tapping was rhythmic in 3 sets of 3 taps: 3 short taps, followed by 3 long taps, and finally 3 short taps. Petarca's companions were unsure of any meaning to this tapping but it was being carried through a piping along the sides of the walls. Due to the extensive nature of Petarca's studies he was able to determine that the pattern meant one word from humans of the past, help. Petarca insisted they investigate this and his party followed the piping until they found a barricaded door. The opening mechanism had been disabled but the tapping continued. With a little bit of explosives forced open the door. Inside were a large grouping of humans but were all in a queer attire and how they carried themselves. To petarca and his companions who were unaware of the nature of the ship they collided with assumed the clean looking humans in sharp and advance tech they had aimed at them meant they were from a pervious age. The adapts of the Machine God instantly began to believe that Petarca was place here by the Machine God to bridge the gap between them and these people. Once these people saw that Petarca was not a part of the demonic horde that had infested their ship they cheered and greeted him as their hero. This only reinforced the adapts beliefs in the matter. These new humans had an unusual language and described themselves as Gue'vasa and were slaves to the xenos known as the Tau, whom were mostly still in stasis.

Petarca claimed that these humans would never again be slaves to anyone and that Petarca and his companions would help them rid themselves of both xenos overlord and demonic intrusions. The ability to rally complete strangers to their missions raised the morale of the tech adapts to a fanatical level and they viewed their mission with religious righteousness and conviction drove them onward. Room by room, deck by deck, the group of humans cleared the Tau ship of any demons still left on the ship. Most of what they found was demons gasping for the strengthen to continue existing in real space but were being pulled back into the warp. When ship was cleared Petarca asked the Gue'vessa to take them to their xenos overlords. The Gue'vassa took him to an area of the ship that contained countless stasis chambers that contained several different groups of xenos but most of them were blue creatures of small stature. Petarca insisted that these xenos be left slumbering for now, lest a new battle to begin. He explicitly stated it would be a bad idea to kill these xenos right now as their freighter was heavily damaged and may not be able to be repaired. He did allow the remaining Gue'vessa to be awakened and prepared to return to the freighter.

While the group did not expect a trimuph to their returned what they found was horrendous. Some of the demons from the Tau ship had made their way to the freighter and begin to slaughter the tech priest. Petarca's party made their way to the bridge and was able to flank the remaining the demons that were beseiging the bridge.

More later

Heterodoxical Beliefs

The Void Trekkers have developed an understanding of the galaxy that is very different from the rest of the Imperium over their development, including:

• That Terra was invaded/destoryed/nearly destroyed several times but was always quickly repaired or rebuilt by the people living at the time.
• That the planet they named Magrathea was where these repairs to Terras were made.
• In the late second millennium the original xenos inhabitants of Mars rose up to conquer Terra and was sent into extinction by the common cold.
• Warp tech was developed in the third millennium.
• That there was an Imperium, around the 10th millennium, before the current Imperium where the Emperor went by name Atreides and periodically will intervene with a faltering humanity to ensure they remain on the "Golden Path".
• Even earlier in history, humans were united in a federation that dominated the nearby space around Terra. This federation extended to the region of what is now the Eye of Terror and had conquered the Eldar, among several other xenos that have gone extinct by the 41st millennium.
• The Tyranids are from this galaxy, hailing from a long lost planet called "Klendathu", until they were sent into exile by the human federation.
• That women are the weaker sex, this is demonstrated in the historical documents where, in humanities golden age, women are shown to be irrational, deceptive, and largely focused on personal relationships. The vast majority of leadership positions and positions of power are predominately filled by men.
• That the majority of people in the past were light skinned. This did not prevent people with darker skin from participating but they were not numerous at the time.
• That the Emperor is the first of the "new man", essentially they believe they can ascend to the capabilities of the Emperor.
• All xenos tech has its origins with humanity and thus should be rehabilitated by proper reverence and therapy. For tech that was lost but still used by xenos, humanity must force the xenos to submit so they can properly care for the tech.
• Deviations from humanity, including abhumans, psykers, and space marines, do not count as humans and should be subservient to humans. (much like a Squig is used as live stock by Orkz).
• Necrons are the Men of Iron, whom they believe to originally be humans that transferred their consciousness into a machine. This is what they consider "Abominable Intelligence". Abominable Intelligence can also be created by creating an intelligence without the capabilities of emotions, especially altruism, which is used to manipulate the intelligence to conform to the wishes of humanity.
• The ultimate goal of the Men of Iron was to capture humans into "zoos" where they could live vicariously through the humans and yet still retain absolute control and immortality.
• Cogitator-based intelligence was what the savants call "The Men of Stone". This intelligence was directed by a set of laws to ensure they did no harm to humanity.
• There was a distant galaxy a long time ago that humans inhabited, making humans older than the Old Ones, the Necrons, and the Eldar.
• The Orkz and Eldar (among others) were created by a race of xenos to fight humanity. While this did not prevent their annihilation, it only caused them to die at the hands of their own creations, (which was carried out with stolen human tech), rather then humanity's.
• All Tau are rapist and criminals.
• Xenos are aware of the invincibility of humanity and will try to undermine it any way possible, including through radical xenos terrorism.
• Creed is not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. The Void Trekkers like people that weren't captured.
• Xenos hate humans because they hate humans
• The Truth is not the truth (and capital letters mean something actually).