2. Weaving Through the Threads

Echoes of the Great Crusade

The recovered chronicles, fragmentary as they were, revealed the Imperium undertook the assimilation of the Morologus system no later than the Great Crusade. Even then, the system was populated and technologically advanced. Scattered testimonies revealed a human civilization severed from the galaxy since the Age of Strife, yet one that had maintained a remarkable technological level through millennia of solitude.

Given the eagerness with which the Mechanicum appropriated the modest Forge World of Pyrgopolinices, little doubt could exist as to the nature of what was discovered there. Logs preserved in the Martian databanks betrayed a certain fervor in binary form.

Pyrgopolinices, though small in size compared to the great Forges of Mars or Ryza, was rapidly integrated into the Mechanicum's network. The techno-archeologists of the era likely unearthed lost construction schematics, fragments of standard templates, perhaps even intact data intelligences. The true scope of these secrets remained sealed, however, in the deepest memory-vaults of Mars.

The Harpax III Enigma

In a more unexpected development, the Mechanicum had established multiple research centers on the third moon of the gas giant Harpax. It appeared the work conducted there focused particularly on the noosphere—the network of thought and information which unites the servants of the Machine-God. The connection between this natural satellite or its planet and this technology was not established.

According to these accounts, the research evolved toward alternative means of communication during the Horus Heresy. These experiments, which the orthodox Adeptus Mechanicus would doubtless deem heretek, were pursued for many centuries.

Regular references to Magos Gero were found in the documentary remnants. This enigmatic figure was likely the architect of this research during—and perhaps even after—the Horus Heresy. Said records presented him as a brilliant but obstinate mind, pursuing his work with a determination that bordered on heresy—if indeed it had not crossed that line. Gero's precise objectives eluded all understanding, lost in the strata of corrupted data and deliberately erased records.

The abundance of Noctilith in Harpax's solid core was in all likelihood related to this prolonged activity. This rare material with its unique properties regarding the Warp likely represented a crucial element of the experiments conducted on Harpax III. The archeo-technological centers continued to function long after the rest of the system had sunk into isolation, testifying to a remarkable autonomy.

Forsaken, Forgotten

What became of Pyrgopolinices remained shrouded in inexplicable uncertainty. Surviving administrative archives evidenced a progressive decline in the Forge World's productivity. The last manufactorums went dark a few thousand years before the system's "rediscovery," leaving the world-spanning industries in a state of near-total dormancy.

Historically, Pyrgopolinices supplied the Imperium with numerous void ships through its belt of orbital shipyards, at least until M32. After that date, the documentation had become confused and contradictory. It mentioned production problems and dwindling workforce. Yet the chronicles of Ulmyllon indicated, on the contrary, increasingly substantial population levies for the benefit of the shipyards.

Mystery deepened further with naval production, which disappeared from one log entry to the next without explanation and from the planet itself. The immense orbital shipyards had simply ceased to exist. The Mechanicus databanks still described them as an "artificial orbital belt," yet no trace remained. Were they destroyed? Dismantled? Relocated? None of the theories put forward fully satisfied the investigators.

What Terra Never Claimed

Various notes recovered from the Administratum revealed that the world of Ulmyllon had failed, since the era of the Scouring at least, to meet its Imperial tithe quotas. Investigations should have been conducted, but no trace of them had been found.

That an entire world could have escaped the Administratum's wrath for millennia testified either to systemic incompetence or to deliberate concealment. Some members of the Inquisition, including Bredasson, leaned toward a combination of both: an initial error, perhaps, followed by intentional erasure of the records to mask this failure. After all, the Administratum often preferred to bury its mistakes rather than correct them.

Raiders in the Dark

Among the rare historical chronicles recovered in the ruins of the Hive Cities on Ulmyllon, most described numerous pirate and xenos raids. Dates overlapped, descriptions suffered from numerous inconsistencies, and the very nature of the assailants varied from one document to another. Where certain texts recounted incursions by human raiders, others spoke of stranger creatures, sometimes with slender silhouettes and shimmering armor, sometimes with monstrous forms. Disentangling reality from folklore proved impossible, but one certitude nonetheless emerged: when both the Imperium and the Mechanicum forgot the system, the resulting void had opened the way to their many enemies.

Pyres for the Damned

In the wake of these incursions, new evils soon emerged: demons, possessions, accursed sorcerers. Coherent sources were scarce but all spoke of witch hunts of harrowing scale and violence. A purifying frenzy set the entire system ablaze. None were spared, on any world, any moon, any station. Psykers—Navigators, Astropaths, or simply innocents falsely accused—were hunted relentlessly. The chronicles described pyres fed for years, purges that emptied entire sectors of their populations, summary trials where mere accusation equaled condemnation.

If these accounts were to be believed, the extermination was so complete that it sealed the system's fate. Without Navigators to guide ships through the Immaterium, without Astropaths to transmit messages across the stars, Morologus found itself cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Silence fell, absolute and final, and Morologus drifted alone in the darkness, prisoner of its own paranoia.

Necromancers of Iron

From the ashes of this purge arose a new obsession. Its echoes still resonated in the minds of the people, and fear of the Necromancers still gripped them. These metallic figures were said to have reanimated the dead, hunted the living through the depths of the hives, torn souls from bodies to imprison them in cages of iron and cold light. Descriptions varied considerably, with no concern for coherence—sometimes robed humanoids, sometimes skeletons with glowing eyes, sometimes confused forms of intermingled steel and flesh.

Inquisitor Bredasson, over the course of her investigations, had concluded that these "Necromancers" likely constituted a traumatic amalgam of several distinct threats. Deep resentment toward the Adeptus Mechanicus—particularly virulent on Ulmyllon—mingled with the ancestral terror of the Abominable Intelligences from the Dark Age of Technology. Perhaps other xenos entities had even found their way into these superstitions. Whatever the case, this visceral fear of "machine-men" had profoundly marked the system's collective psyche.