Imperium Ascendant

Chapter Thirteen: Children of Mars

The Emperor looked across the Crater that formed the inverted peak of Olympus Mons and smiled internally, so far it lined up with his visions and future memories. Tens of thousands of Priests, Skitarii and Servitors watched from the crater's rim and about half a Dozen Knight-Walkers were in combat positions around the exit ramp. Slowly stepping towards the first Knight the Emperor touched his mind and spoke:

'Your machine is damaged, Taymon Verticorda,' the pilot mind was overtaxed by being in the Emperor's presence and was not capable of forming a complete sentence let alone attacking. Speaking again the Emperor asked 'May I?'

Not waiting for a reply the Master of Mankind reached out to touch the Walkers knee joint while working to keep his presence from utterly overwhelming the pilot. Controlling his aura had been one of the first skills the Emperor had mastered when he left his village after killing his uncle. Over the eons as both his power and embedment into the human subconscious increased the effects of his psychic light had become more pronounced. At first, it simply transfixed and soothed Humans who viewed it, now it could cause strokes if he was not careful.

The minute he touched the Knight-Walker he could feel the machines pseudo-soul. Along with telekinetically healing and realigning the machine's parts, he soothed what the Martians called a Machine Spirit. Speaking with a voice that could make entire worlds kneel if he so wished he spoke to the Knight. 'Machine, heal thyself,'

It followed its masters wish and the Knight-Walker was returned to perfection. Still stunned the pilot asked quietly: "'Who are you?'

The being known across the ages as Atham, Revelation, Yeshua, Abriel, Gilgamesh and so many more names declared himself a title only he could ever truly claim 'I am the Emperor'

That simple phrase would be repeated countless times by Atham of Pessinus throughout his conquest of the stars and the response he received was not the first nor the last of its kind 'Welcome to Mars, my lord, All praise to the Omnissiah.'

Omnissiah: The Physical manifestation of the God in the Machine. A mythological figure of Mars that rose out of the same trauma and horror that created the Cult Mechanicus. Mars had once been the technological and industrial powerhouse of humanity. This made the rebellion and Old Night all that much more horrific. The War against the Machines had damaged its people in ways more severe than practically anywhere else in the countless domains of man.

The multiple Martian apocalypses of the Iron War and the Singularity Purging deleted not just the ASI silica-gods of the Neurosphere but the Standard template constructs databases. Basic knowledge of even maintenance became rare. Yet the survivors scavenged the corpse of the greatest manufacturing and research world of humanity to jury-rig new technology and machinery through a mix of trial, error and sheer luck.

Over the centuries this credo of mechanical reverence, superstitious paranoia, and genuine genius consolidated into the Priesthood of Mars. This strange cult managed to rebuild the surface and topmost layers of the Red Planet into a working Forge World. They had also managed to send colonial expeditions to other fallen Forges across the galaxy in order to rebuild and reignite them.

The Martians considered themselves the rightful inheritors of the Machine God's will and destined to reach the perfect union of steel and soul. This was more than simple self-ordained manifest destiny. The Martians through some quirk of fate, or possibly natural selection had discovered one of the few avenues of technology still open to humanity after the calamities of the Iron War. The Martian Mechanicum had discovered how to make and harness Machine Spirits.

They were different and far far more primitive than the work of art known as the Cognatu-Ferrum. Where the Emperor had installed a soul echo into a machine to create a Psi-AI protected from both Warp and Dragon the Martians had grown mutilated chunks of brains and used them as computational units.

Since the discoveries of both the Soul and Stable Cloning, a debate had raged throughout human civilization on whether a clone would possess a soul. Numerous rather grizzly studies conducted during the Golden Age had answered these questions and started the Replicae Rights movement. Clones do indeed have souls but they were lesser than the originals. A colleague of the Emperor had described it as "a faded copy of the original"

Yet they still had souls and when the Martians started using cloned tissue to replace silicon and circuitry they inadvertently created billions if not trillions of lobotomized souls that infested the machinery and subtly influenced them. These aptly named Machine Spirits protected whatever they inhabited from the Dragons dominion and they were such broken things that only the most driven Neverborn could latch onto the pseudo-emotions they felt to control them. Even then layers of ritual, belief and half-understood warding equations protected the Machine Spirits.

The Mechanicum may have been flawed but they were the rightful heirs they claimed to be. Similarly, the Emperor did have a claim to the title the Knight Pilot had called him. Ages ago he had bested the true Machine God and sealed it beneath Mars surface to help his species master the Material. While his connection to humanities Oversoul and existence as the ward of the faithful dead made him beloved to the Machine Spirits. The Emperor was the Omnissiah and he had come to Mars.

The Knight-Walker and the rest of its squad formed an Honor Guard around the Emperor as they left the crater. More and more citizens of Mars joined the procession. Soon thousands followed the Emperor in a grand river of Mechanicum Red and cybernetic grey. Binary whispers filled the air and a few particularly brave Priests moved in between the Knights legs to catch a better view of the Golden Stranger.

Each of them reported back to there cadres and workmates that what they had seen had to be the Omnissiah. This climaxed when a brash Tech-priest whose barely earned Surface lung implants rasped with the effort of filtering Mars atmosphere rushed up to the Emperor and touched his cloak as if it ensure it was real. A Knight leveled its weapons against her and she fell back in fear, her rapture replaced with horror at what she had done. The Emperor stopped and helped the young women to her feet and gestured for the knight to stand down.

She twittered countless apologies and prayers in binary while trying to back into the crowd. The Emperor touched her shoulder, a soft glow filled the women's vision and her cybernetic lungs inhaled a deep quiet breath of Martian Air. Internally the Emperor sighed and thought "Another cult, another miracle, another punishment for my mistake"

He intensely disliked it but centuries of trying to harness humanity obsession with faith had made the Emperor very good at playing the savior. Eventually, the Mechanicum would be subtly reformed to become a better breed of institute, not shackled by dogma and superstition. Yet now first things first. The Parliament of Mars awaited.

The First of the Knights crested the Craters edge and with each step, the skyline of Tharsis became more and more visible. The great industrial Forge-Cityscape spread to the horizon and as he finally exited the crater the Emperor diluted and expanded his Aura into a golden corona visible from low orbit. Another touch to help the coming negotiations.

The first knight, the one who the Emperor had healed stopped. The Emperor could feel the Walkers machine spirits swarming into its Vox and Hailer systems as the pilot redirected power into them. In a shout that ruined unaugmented eardrums in five square kilometers, the Knight known as the Ares Lictor broadcasted its message. "Hail! Children of Mars! The Omnissiah has come!"

With that, the procession continued and swelled millions of Martians of all walks of life joined the throng in hopes to catch a glimpse of the Omnissiah. Religious fervor brought on by the Emperor's aura stopped any attempts to attack or waylay the parade and slowly but surely the Emperor of Mankind reached the Temple of All Knowledge.

The Martian Holy of Holies was carved into Olympus Mon and its grand gate reached nearly a kilometer in height. On either side of the Temple-Caverns entrance where Super-Titans. In another existence, they would be known as Imperator Titans, in honor of him. As of now the Twin behemoths that were nearly half the gates height were aiming City-devastating Weapons at the Emperor. With an imperceivable psychic pulse, the brutal Machine Spirits of the two titans submitted to there master and to there Preceps shock the Titans each knelt before him.

Flanked by the supplicant God-Machines the Emperor of mankind entered the Temple of All Knowledge. Within a year he would exit the grand sanctuary with a first copy of the Treaty of Olympus Mons in hand. Unified at last the Children of Terra and Mars would stand together in the face of a galaxy of woes.

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