#thane solcar von valancius

[wearepaladin]

If you do end up writing that scene about your RT, please share it with us!

Orphic Hymn 64 to Nomos (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) : "Hymn to Nomos (Law). The holy king of gods and men I call, heavenly Nomos, the righteous seal of all: the seal which stamps whatever the earth contains, and all concealed within the liquid plains: stable, and starry, of harmonious frame, preserving laws eternally the same. Thy all-composing power in heaven appears, connects its frame, and props the starry spheres; and unjust envy shakes with dreadful sound, tossed by thy arm in giddy whirls around. 'Tis thine the life of mortals to defend, and crown existence with a blessed end; for thy command alone, of all that lives, order and rule to every dwelling goes. Ever observant of the upright mind, and of just actions the companion kind. Foe to the lawless, with avenging ire, their steps involving in destruction dire. Come, blest, abundant power, whom all reverse, by all desired, with favouring mind draw near; give me through life on thee to fix my sight, and never forsake the equal paths of right."

It always begins and ends with numbers. In a material universe, there are laws written unto the foundation of everything, from the most ancient stars to the machinery of atoms, the edicts that dictate the fundament are written eternal. In this place absent of meaning, walls of metal and the hollow men who loomed over the lost and the damned, did Thane Solcar fortify her mind with numbers, the digits providing rhythm, the equations lyrics, and solutions a chorus.

Estimated population of the Imperium between (10 to the 15th power) and (10 to the 24th power).

Thane Solcar had been someone small as opposed to negligible value in the Imperium of Man. The younger daughter of a minor nobility, an off shoot of some distant ancestor of greater significance whose wayward progeny had used their inheritance to separate from the greater dynasty to find their own way as a merchant noble making their travails among the stars. Not content to settle into a sedentary life upon anyone one location in the Empire of Humanity, they had been wayfarers upon the void. And her parents had ensured she'd never lacked the respect in the machine spirits and their codices on the proper maintenance and direction, and she had taken well to it, learning keenly and adapting what could be safely learned for one technically not part of the Followers of the Omnissiah, but like any of the voidborn, their ship was the world, the galaxy distant compared to the great emptiness that fills it. And the reliance upon the Light that allowed one to navigate it.

Tithe requires 1,000-4,000 subjects daily. In a single year, 365,000 to 1,460,000 are brought to Holy Terra. They are brought...

The Astronomican, the Light that spanned across the Imperium, allowing The Imperium to exist, was known to any Voidborn who bothered to use their ears. The need to have it and the Navis Nobiliti, who alone could used that Light as a point of reference across the infinite. Thane knew the Navis were psyker mutants, and thus not trusted by many of the ground walkers, but the necessity of them, both in the immediate wellbeing of her family's fortunes and mankind as a whole, went a long way to smothering the hatred that Thane was told she should feel for such beings. What use was hate for something that you needed to live? This thought process proved beneficial, a passive acceptance of the need of psykers. It helped when she learned that she herself was one.

...before the Astronomican, and aid in its care, under the gaze of His Divine Majesty. This has been the case for the last 10,000 years. Therefore...

It began innocently enough. Thane thought she heard choruses outside the hull and tried to imitate them, trying to find harmony, and Things began listen to and object to the harmony. The discordance (Chaos) overtook so much, and only the harmonies that sought brought a notion of defense even as ice began to freeze her surroundings. The Caretakers of the Black Ships thus found her, lost in the harmonies and the numbers she mumbled like a shield, even as everything else was lost. ...those brought to the Astronomican in the history of the Imperium thus number between 3 to 8 billion depending on the consistency of those provided by the Black Ships. But....where do they go, the numbers of people, they need somewhere to go...where are...

Thus it had been for the days of the journey on Black Ship, the vessels whose purpose was to find and transport the Tithe, the psykers the Imperium could provide. That the Imperium needed. She could not trust her newfound senses, but Thane had been using the far more trusted sense of her ears, and listened to what little the guardians on the ship had said. She knew they were going to the homeworld of mankind, to serve The God Emperor in some way related to the Astronomican. Unknown to her, two women observed her briefly as they studied Thane and the other Psyker prisoners. They spoke with their hands, having long ago made an oath of silence. (This one?) (Too weak willed. Mumbling throughout the journey, insane due to what happened to her kinsmen aboard the ship we found her. She will serve the God-Emperor by providing him the kindling He needs) And with that, her fate decided, they walked by, moving on to determine fate of the next imprisoned, and Thane Solcar was sentenced by the servants of The Emperor. And that should have been the end of it. -----

The Golden Throne is often invoked by the denizens of the Imperium of man, nearly as synonymous as their empire and the god they are devoted to as the emblem of the Aquila, the icon of their empire. But the Throne itself is often less depicted beyond a simple chair that the iconography of the Emperor at rest. In truth, it is more than that. Housed in the holy mountain that had once been known as Everest as a sign of human pride or Chomolungma for those who'd been born under her shadow and thus knew her as Mother of the world, the Mountain had been hollowed long ago, and it was here and among the sister mountains that the Imperial Palace resided, respledent with a majesty that silenced the past natural beauty in favor of the crafted golden glory of the relatively recent Imperium of Man. It was here, that Thane Solcar was brought, her newfound senses blinding her to any notion of Imperial Opulence, as the Light of the Astronomican burned so brightly, making even the sun seem a distant comparison to the Light that crowned this world. And beneath that crown sat Him, The Emperor. She could not see Him, hidden away in a labyrinth of gold, iron, and stone, but as she was laid out among the rows upon rows of other Tithed, she could feel Him, like a crystaline spike that all reality seemed to twist through. One by one, then multitude by multitude, she watched as the Tithed became part of that light, their souls as bright as myriad stars, were taken, absorbed, added ot the conflagration that was Him. Death, she realized. Death was what awaited those sacrficed before Him on Earth. With comprehension did not rouse panic, not yet, but as she hummed her harmonies, her soul beginning to be dragged into the cosmic bonfire that was Soul of the Master of Mankind, she dared something that some would consider blasphemy as her soul made contact with the Emperor.

Why?

The Light overtook her, and Annihilation or Consumption did not claim her. Instead she Saw, her single question answered in the form of a galaxy long burning. Thane Solcar saw the galaxy burning over a period of fifteen thousand years and humanity and xenos alike lost to that conflagration. Once great nations and dreams forever lost, be it to Man's own Folly, the machinations of dark powers from within and without reality, or the simple cruelties of fate. She saw the Emperor's dream of uniting mankind after the Long Night, a belief in the destiny of her species, their species, for He spoke to her now in a way that rendered others to embers, a fire she was now, and yet still herself.

She saw the events leading to the Great Crusade, the Crusade itself and the endless wars that followed, of Heresy, of Conquest, of Glory and Purpose. She saw why He had decided the neccessity of it all, paid in blood and lives uncountable.

And yet she counted. It pained her to, counting not only the psykers given to bonfire that was the Astronomican, but those lost to war and pogrom, genocide, betrayal, and hatred. So much hatred. She saw the nations that had been rebuilding before the Emperor had forced Compliance, and how many could have built back the lost empires and federation of humanity, not as a single beast with a emperor deified, either in faith or reason, but the lost cultures and hopes of peoples across countless worlds. She counted them all, considered them all, and this, more than anything, became a new flame that burned bright in her chest, the lost harmonies finding a home within Thane Solcar.

Thane looked at the Emperor, what remained of the man upon a dying throne. And named him Demiurge, master of much but not all, wise but flawed, alive but dead. More hollow god then broken man. She left the mythology he'd created with the Imperium as its spiritual demesne, and took her own faith with her, seeking Nomos elsewhere. Thus she was found, strange and heretical notions buried deep, alone alive among thousands given in blood and spiritual sacrifice, the mark of the Aquila branded in gold upon her brow. The sanctity of the Emperor, it was decided, and all the better for it. A Rogue trader house, distant ancestor of the Solcars, had been seeking this one errant psyker. Perhaps there she could be made to serve the Emperor and all His great works.

#rogue trader #warhammer 40k #long post #thane solcar von valancius #nomos