Warcaster – Faction Overview: Empyreans pt 1 Destiny Manifest

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by Jason Soles

The Empyreans are alien to the human consciousness in every sense of the word. They are so ancient as to defy human comprehension of time itself, both individually and collectively. Effectively immortal, the Empyreans have shed their flesh for a permanent mechanistic existence. Many even chose to eschew their physical forms completely to join the Chorus of the Great Constellation. Their guiding philosophies and beliefs so completely dominate every aspect of their civilization that it remains little changed in the countless millions of years since they came to dominate the galaxy and create the Hyperuranion.

Their fanaticism for their cause is all the more remarkable because the Empyreans are not originally constituted from a single intelligent species. Instead, they are made up of an array of xeno species whose civilizations are said to have once spanned a thousand worlds across what would become the Hyperuranion. Human explorers have found ruins from extreme antiquity left by these pre-unification, pre-Empyrean alien cultures, and they are as diverse as the many worlds they once flourished on.

And yet the clarion call of the Architects bound all these races together so tightly as to convince populations to stand by as the Empyreans committed acts of genocide against their own people. Upon their arrival on a new world, the Empyreans would offer a simple proposition: Join them in the Great Constellation and become one with Cyriss for eternity…or die and face oblivion. The Empyrean cause required complete purity of thought and form. Those who refused to accept the Empyreans’ proposition were banished or destroyed, leaving a Hyperuranion free of outside influences and orthodoxy.

When humans first arrived in the Cyriss galaxy as refugees of an apocalypse engulfing their world, the Keepers tell us that humanity had already come to know Cyriss as the Clockwork Goddess. The Empyreans recognized Cyriss as the divine essence of the galaxy, of which they were a part. To them, Cyriss was not a goddess whispering to them the hidden secrets of the universe but was instead a permanent state of being to be perfected and meticulously maintained. For the Empyreans, Cyriss is all things, and all things are Cyriss; this permeates every aspect of existence, an existence to be protected at all cost.

While the differences in these articles of faith between the human Cyriss worshipers and the Empyreans were shocking to the new arrivals, some among them, the most zealous among the Keepers, actually consented to join the Empyreans and become part of the Great Constellation. In time, some of these Keepers would leave Cyriss Prime to return to human space and lay the foundations of passive diplomacy between the two peoples. These Keepers returned with a deep understanding of the Empyrean philosophy and the events that precipitated the foundation of the Hyperuranion. All of humanity’s deeper knowledge of the Empyrean comes from them and the few Empyrean renegades who have sought safety and solace in human space.

From them, we learn that the Architects were the first to recognize the truth of the existence of Cyriss. In that epiphanic, brilliant moment, they foresaw a new order to the galaxy in which the mechanisms of the natural world could be reorganized to sustain a perfect, pure, and eternal existence. They saw a galaxy without death, in which entropy was banished for all time and the people lived in continual and everlasting peace.

It is worth reminding those not intimately familiar with the Empyrean view of the galaxy that the whole of the Hyperuranion exists primarily not as a transportation network but as a method of regulating the flow of Arcanessence throughout the galaxy to Cyriss Prime.

The key to the whole system was the precise circulation of Arc throughout the galaxy, which would be channeled through a vast series of void gates directly to Cyriss Prime, where it would power a vast complex dedicated to sustaining the eternal existence of the Empyreans. This would become the Great Constellation, the sanctuary home of the Empyrean people. Its success, however, rested on the reliability of the system and the constant flow of Arcanessence to Cyriss Prime. Any disruption to the flow of Arc would have dire repercussions, both to the Empyreans and the whole of what would become the Hyperuranion. The harmony of the galaxy continues to depend on this continual flow of Arc.

They recognized, however, that their vision of a perfect and organized galaxy would not be immediately accepted by the countless races that occupied the countless worlds of the Cyriss galaxy. While they were certain of life elsewhere, the void gates remained theoretical. The Architects had never before left their own world, but the void gates were vital to the foundation of the network that would circulate Arcanessence throughout the galaxy, which in turn would serve as the breath of Cyriss. Such a system required precise calibration so the timed opening and closing of void gates would operate in concert with the cosmic ephemerides to draw Arc from across the Hyperuranion to power the Great Constellation.

In their mad genius, the Architects struck upon a path forward. Having already gained a masterful comprehension of the ephemerides that bound the universe, they tapped into this secret language of the cosmos to send hidden messages across time and space to countless worlds.

In the epochs that followed, there were those who heard and understood the Architects’ call. Having deciphered the inherent and absolute truth of the Empyreans’ mimetic message, these lone individuals gazed for the first time upon the face of god and sought to bring others into their confidence and spread the word of Cyriss. It played out time and time again across countless worlds over untold eons, the inspiration of Cyriss sparking technological and theological revolution until the door to immortality was opened, offering eternity to those who would pass through and oblivion to those who refused.

And so it went. As their numbers grew, the fledgling Empyreans on each new world would set about developing the technologies and knowledge required for the creation of their first void gate, often times without perceiving the purpose of the structure they were creating. The Empyrean message was so captivating and infectious that it could hold the rapt attention of vast numbers of intelligent alien species for the hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of years required for the construction of the star-spanning portals. While there can be little doubt that harnessing an entire world’s fortune, resources, and population for such an esoteric endeavor would be unlikely to find universal acceptance, the conflicts that arose in the early construction of the Hyperuranion are not recorded in the Empyrean consciousness. They were, simply, part of the process.

When a void gate was finished for the first time and made operational, a great host of Empyreans would arrive to greet their new brethren and to explain to them their role in the cosmic order.

In every case the Empyreans arrived with a simple proposition: Leave your flesh and join us in eternal peace and communion or consign yourself to oblivion.

There is no record of how many accepted this offer and how many refused, but even in the Empyrean psyche—buoyed by religious zealotry and unquestioning faith in the great work—the indoctrination of each new world was bound in a terrible, but not necessarily regrettable, loss of life. This was no simple expedience to unify the galaxy; the Empyreans saw and still see intelligent life as a direct threat to Cyriss and all their achievements. They foresaw that any adequately advanced people would learn to master Arcanessence as a power source and thus disrupt their carefully planned and perfected vision for the galaxy. In return, lacking divinely inspired order, these races would always descend into wasteful and destructive conflicts, further jeopardizing the stability of the galaxy.

With the opening of each void gate, a new world was added to the system that would become the Hyperuranion. Over time, new gates were strategically added, which expanded the network and made the worlds of the Hyperuranion increasingly interconnected. After many countless millions of years, the network grew strong enough that the Empyreans could move on to the next phase of their work.

While the Aeons—the dedicated souled warriors of the Empyreans—continued to indoctrinate each new world into the fold, the Architects led vast numbers of the faithful to begin construction of the Great Constellation around Cyriss Prime. The human mind has little capacity to comprehend the scale of the organization, labor, and resources required to construct such a vast and complex structure (not that any living human has ever gazed upon Great Constellation or Cyriss Prime).

Those Keepers who joined the Chorus on the Great Constellation and returned from it tell of a vast realm, both physical and of the spirit. While large numbers of Empyreans have joined the discarnate chorus of souls in the Great Constellation, many robotic Empyreans still walk its halls, manage vast automated factories, and conduct other important work requiring corporeal forms. The impression is of a bustling, mechanized holy sanctuary devoted to great, important, and ongoing work.

It is worth stating again, however, that Empyreans reckon time very differently than humans do. Truly eternal, the Empyreans who continue to serve Cyriss today are the same Empyreans who helped construct their world’s first void gate hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago. Many of the original Architects still remain vital voices with the Chorus of the Great Constellation. There is even a difference in the perception of time between the robotic host of Aeons and the formless souls of the Chorus. While the Aeons are no less immortal, they travel through the physical realms of the Hyperuranion and must mind their passages through the void gates with the same precision as any other void navigator. Free of any such temporal or physical constraints, the voices of the Chorus may not recognize the passage of time for thousands of years or more.

Once the Hyperuranion was expanded to the point it could fulfill its purpose and the Great Constellation was complete, the Empyreans had effectively fulfilled the Architects’ vision for a mechanistic and perpetual galaxy. Their work all but concluded, untold millions shed their robotic forms for the freedom of the Great Constellation. The Hyperuranion was still occasionally expanded as new worlds signaled their intention to join the Empyreans with the creation of their first void gates, albeit such events now occur with increasing infrequency. With no enemies left to fight, over time, even some among the Aeons laid down their weapons and joined the Chorus, settling in to the promise of eternal peace.

And this was the state of the Hyperuranion upon humanity’s arrival. Having vanquished or exiled all who did not heed their call, the Empyreans held absolute dominion across the galaxy. So secure were they in their authority and so long did they reign unopposed that conflict itself had begun to grow unfamiliar with the passage of eons.

Humanity arrived with a great number of preconceived notions as to the nature of Cyriss and her faith. For their part, the Empyreans were absolutely unprepared for the arrival of the dynamic humans and, most dangerously, their command of the arcane arts. While the Empyreans had long ago mastered their own Arcanessence-based sciences, the new arrivals knowledge of mechanika gave them an unprecedented edge unknown to the native races of the Hyperuranion that proved instrumental in their early defeat of the Empyreans.

In truth, however, the Empyreans recognized no such defeat. When their initial overtures for peace and inclusion where effectively rebuffed, and the humans turned to violence unfamiliar to the Empyreans, the Empyreans simply closed ranks and returned to Cyriss Prime to plot their course forward. While the Chorus debated action, the Aeons began to move. Ancient factories once more began churning out the required weapons of war.

The Architects in turn debated the value of the Aeon soul and determined them to be irreplaceable assets to their cause. With the risk of losing such assets in direct conflict with the humans thought to be too high, the Empyreans set about devising a new robotic army of automatons that would follow smaller numbers of Aeon commanders into battle.

In the meantime, the Empyreans began to play a cat-and-mouse game with humanity across the Hyperuranion. They tracked human movements from the shadows and sensed the passage of their sky ships through the void gates according to the ephemerides. Overriding the careful calibration of the Hyperuranion, the Empyreans strategically opened and closed void gates, choking the life out of this colony or denying entrance to that world. For thousands of years, and at great risk to all they had achieved, they secretly and quietly steered human settlement across the Hyperuranion, in the process ensuring both that humanity never reached Cyriss Prime and that humans settled the Marches in great numbers.

The Iron Star Alliance’s Section 7 has made an extensive and ongoing review of the Empyreans’ ability to manipulate the void gate networks of the Hyperuranion. Their assessment was that the Empyrean hold on the void gate networks of the Hyperuranion has been slipping since humans first learned the secrets of opening and closing gates. Though the human science of void gate navigation is yet in its infancy and remains highly experimental, humans have managed to intentionally and successfully force open and close a small number of gates, against their careful calibration, straining Empyrean domination of the networks.

Section 7 is also painfully aware that humans have only mapped a small portion of the total void gate network. A recent report lamented that even humanity’s limited knowledge of the void gates was decentralized, with each nation, Faction, or bloc holding portions of this knowledge as highly guarded and valuable state secrets. Previous powers lost to the passage of time, such as the dreaded Mechanist’s Assembly, may have held more complete maps of the Hyperuranion that could be rediscovered someday, bringing the network into clearer focus. But for now, at least, the Empyreans hold a great advantage in their intimate knowledge of the entire network. Section 7 believes that, at best, humanity has yet only explored twelve to eighteen percent of the Hyperuranion.

The same report also explored the potential for Empyrean interference in the settlement and development of the Marches. A close review of seemingly random and spontaneous void gate openings and closures in the first and second millennia following humanity’s arrival in the Hyperuranion reveals that early settlers may have been corralled away from the galactic core toward the frontier at the edge of the galaxy. The report goes on to remind the reader of the history of strange disappearances and potential xeno activity that led the Caspian Federation to establish the original Marcher estates in the early third millennium. The report leaves open ended whether the xeno attacks that have plagued the region for the past four thousand years were actually the work of Empyreans or whether another hostile power was responsible.

Section 7 has also made a careful study of recorded Empyrean movements since the arrival of humanity. Their findings reveal a slow, careful, coordinated, and methodical approach to undermining human expansion throughout the Hyperuranion. They point to an uncharacteristically disorganized initial Empyrean response to the early conflicts with humanity and attribute this to an apparent weakness in the Empyrean perception of time, which slowed their response; a systemic failure to adequately assess the threat posed by humans; and a fading familiarity with the very concepts of war and conflict.

It is widely believed that by the time humans first appeared in the Hyperuranion, the Empyreans had no true army to speak of. The Empyreans’ available military forces at the time of humanity’s arrival in the Hyperuranion are now believed to have been limited to a small number of corporeal robotic Aeons and a small number of aging robotic servitors. Soon after the apparent defeat of the Empyreans, most of the Aeons were tasked with tracking down and exterminating the Keepers, those human Cyrissists whom the Empyreans saw as a direct and dangerous threat to their order.

Section 7 credits the Aeon leadership with convincing the Chorus of the Great Constellation of the true threat posed by humanity. As humans spread and began to manipulate Arcanessence away from the systems carefully engineered by the Empyreans, the Architects added their voices to the sounding alarm. Under such duress, the Empyreans made great efforts to rapidly develop and construct what would become the Saber army, which took a millennia by human reckoning to form but was memorably quick from the Empyrean point of view.

As this new army took shape, the Aeons became increasingly active throughout the Hyperuranion. They took great pains to keep their movements a secret, however, and only engaged in operations in which the outcome and secrecy of their involvement were assured. It is impossible to estimate the effectiveness of the Aeon counterinsurgency during this period or the effect it had on human settlement in the Hyperuranion. All that remains are the faintest signs of their presence and records of lost ships and “failed” colonies.

While the Empyreans were careful to avoid detection of their military operations by the human powers of the time, they acted with impunity against the Aeternus Continuum. While the majority of the Continuum’s holdings were hidden on worlds occupied by the other major powers, they also established secret temples on lonely, otherwise unsettled territories far from the bustle of the galactic core worlds. The Continuum’s agents also frequently operated on distant and uninhabited worlds with sites of xeno ruins where they would establish temporary bases for research and investigation. The Empyreans could strike such sites at will, having sensed interlopers passing through their gates.

And so it was that before the other Factions of the Hyperuranion became aware of the Empyreans’ clandestine military actions, the Aeternus Continuum had already faced off against them in secret battles for centuries. The Continuum’s internal records describe conflicts involving the Empyreans’ Saber forces, the Empyreans’ new robotic army, as far back as the 4320s. The Iron Star Alliance’s military forces would not encounter them for another six hundred years, and it was not until the last twenty-five or so years, in 4976, that the Coalition of Free States recorded their first known battle with the Empyreans’ Saber forces.

By the present age, at the dawn of the sixth millennium since humanity first arrived in the Hyperuranion, the Empyreans have thrown off any semblance of secrecy in their actions. They have moved from the shadows to once more strike across the galaxy with impunity. In the past five years, sightings of Empyreans have increased five hundredfold from the previous two centuries.

The Empyreans enjoy an incredible advantage in their military operations due to their command of the galaxy’s void gate networks. Not only do they have a complete map of the Hyperuranion, but they can they ensure the gates open and close at the moment they are required to do so. It is worth noting that while such minute disruptions to the operation of the Hyperuranion’s void gate network may seem trivial to the uninitiated, for the Empyreans, even the smallest fluctuations in the flow of Arcanessence are considered matters of existential importance. Even stalling a single gate for a moment to allow for the passage of a single vessel requires painstaking preparation and tremendous concerted effort to mitigate the damaging effects.

Humanity’s reliance upon the Empyrean void gate network is increasingly looking like a dire vulnerability. While the Empyreans exploited such weaknesses in antiquity to starve distant colonies or to destroy lone vessels, now that their military forces are openly engaged in conflicts with humanity, the full implications of their control of the void gates is soon likely to be felt.

The Empyreans’ new Saber forces are the product of thousands of years of careful and meticulous engineering and development. Unlike the Aeons, who were once living beings before passing their consciousnesses into robotic forms, the Sabers are soulless automata. Lacking any true consciousness, these machines are limited in their higher thinking and situational awareness, intended as they are to be led into battle by the Aeons. While they are capable of operating sophisticated weaponry and possess lightning-fast reactions, they lack any true capacity for strategic or tactical planning.

The Sabers function and respond like living organisms, albeit without fear or a capacity for true self-preservation. In battle, they move without hesitation, striking simultaneously with their tentacles in melee combat even while whirling about to unleash salvos from their handheld energy weapons.

If there is one trait all works of Empyrean design seems to embody, it is a slavishly pragmatic approach to efficiency. To be Empyrean is to be free of waste.

The fine hand of Empyrean design is perhaps best manifest in the Sabers in their arcanum modules, so named by the Aeternus Continuum grafters who first tore open the remains of the machines to learn their secrets. The arcanum module seems to work by drawing on the residual Arcanesscent energy from Cyphers cast on a Saber squad to charge it. Similar technologies have been discovered to be integrated into most Empyrean fighting machines. It is all but certain that the Continuum is devoting resources to reverse engineer this mechanika for their own applications.

While the Sabers seem to be the most recent addition to the Empyrean arsenal, they also field a number of military assets with origins dating back to greater antiquity. There is evidence the Empyreans have employed robotic weaponry with limited artificial intelligence since well before humanity first arrived in the Cyriss galaxy. The Factotum, Fulcrum, Oculus, and Zenith, among others, seem to have preceded the arrival of humanity. These early servitors were created to fight alongside the Aeons rather than replacing them en masse like the Sabers.

The Empyreans developed their current generation of warjacks at the same time as the Sabers, with Daemons and Sentinels appearing on the battlefields of the Hyperuranion for the first time alongside the newly minted robotic forces. While human explorers and researchers have yet to make public the discovery of any previous examples of Empyrean warjack technology, it is likely if any such examples have been found, the Aeternus Continuum is aware of them due to their long history of secret conflicts with the Empyreans and because of their investigation of xeno ruins across the Hyperuranion.

The Empyrean warjacks possess a similar degree of intelligence and awareness to those of the Saber forces. They too are programmed to accept orders from the Aeons they fight alongside, though most often they will be slaved directly to the will of an Empyrean warcaster. Such warcasters are invariably Aeons, who have served the Empyrean cause for countless millennia.

Empyrean warcasters are ranking members of the Aeon hierarchy. They are active in the planning as well as the execution of missions. Command authority over military operations, however, is largely invested in the ranking Aeon on the battlefield, as the Empyrean warcasters still operate from their battle carriers like human warcasters.

The Aeons themselves represent the warrior elite of the Empyrean host. While the Architects devised the Hyperuranion and the Great Constellation, the hard work of pacifying the universe was left to the Aeons. As both irreplaceable military assets and as individuals moored more closely to the temporal condition, the Aeons hold a special and singular place in Empyrean society. While the discarnate masses contained within the Great Constellation are largely free of the constraints of the passage of time, the warriors of the Empyreans must maintain a constant awareness of the events transpiring across the Hyperuranion. It often falls upon them to bring matters of temporal concern to the Chorus of the Constellation, sometimes repeatedly until their warnings are recognized.

Though the Empyreans have all faith in the martial strength of the Aeons, they are simply too few in number to counter the growing human presence across the Hyperuranion. And even if their numbers were great enough, it is unlikely the Empyreans would willingly risk losing many Aeons, as their experience and strategic knowledge will certainly be required for the countless millennia to come. For this reason, even now the vast majority of Aeons either remain on high alert at the Great Constellation or at the site of one of the Empyreans’ many hidden complexes throughout the Hyperuranion. Despite the Empyreans recent upsurge in military operations, only small numbers of military commanders and warcasters have yet faced human forces in open conflict. As the wars spread through the Hyperuranion, the numbers of Aeons in the field seems certain to rise, even while remaining within the Empyreans’ acceptable threshold for loss.

The Aeons themselves are stoic, skilled, professional, and zealous soldiers, albeit housed in flesh of steel. They move with a smooth, robotic grace that has been interpreted by Alliance officers as the height of xeno arrogance. While utterly fearless, these warriors have been conditioned to value their own existences as valuable assets of their people, and they will not risk certain destruction unless the outcome of such an action justifies their sacrifice.

The Aeons possess armament and technological advantages that are the envy of the galaxy. Though humanity has made great leaps in the sciences and arcane arts since first arriving in the Hyperuranion, the Empyreans hold secrets of the universe that make the fruits of human engineering look like child’s play. While humans can mimic aspects of Empyrean technology, they are thousands of years away from constructing their own void gates, let alone comprehending an Arcanesscent circulatory system as complex as the Hyperuranion.

While the Aeons are generally considered to be valuable military assets, they are also intelligent beings with their own independent thoughts, beliefs, and points of view. The dedicated warriors of the Empyreans, the Aeons are charged with fighting their wars and safeguarding their holdings from harm. Conversely, this has made them the most likely of Empyreans to venture far from the Great Constellation and witness alien societies and the wonders of the universe firsthand.

For their part, while they are soldiers utterly devoted to their cause, the Aeons do not relish the wanton extermination of life. While they may take pride in their work and their victories in battle, the Aeons see themselves simply as the servants of their people, doing their part to ensure the order of the galaxy.

Existing outside the bodiless confines of the Great Constellation, the Aeons have a long history of bristling under the glacial pace of decision making by the Chorus. In rare instances, this has led to Aeon commanders taking independent action without coordinating with the Great Constellation, actions previously unprecedented in Empyrean history. While such actions are seldom punished, there have been more egregious examples of Aeons operating beyond the pale of Aeon society.

Over the countless millennia of their existence, some Aeons have come to question the choices they have made and the actions they have taken in support of the Empyrean cause. Despite their apparent fanaticism—or perhaps because of it—the Aeons, and the Empyreans as a whole, are not single-minded in their devotion to Cyriss. While all are unquestionably devoted, that devotion can take many forms. There are factions within the Empyreans, and the Chorus is constantly host to lively and energetic debates.

For some, their devotion requires them to focus on perceived flaws within Empyrean society that hinder the path toward divine perfection. Others have come to see themselves as the caretakers of the Hyperuranion, willing to risk their own immortal existences to safeguard Cyriss from any threat.  And there are those who never agreed with the methods used to pacify the Hyperuranion before the arrival of humanity and, as a result, are not pleased to see the old conflicts repeated. Some, like the renegade Corebus, have become openly sympathetic to the plight of humanity over the past five thousand years and have questioned the right of the Empyreans to subjugate alien species throughout the Hyperuranion.

While these voices are neither significant nor growing, they are still noteworthy in that they show even Empyrean society is still changing after millions of years of virtual stasis. Such thoughts are cold comfort, however, for the soldiers of the ISA and Marches who have to face the continuous threat of seemingly spontaneous Empyrean attacks throughout their territories.

In conclusion, the Empyreans are an ancient and advanced power possessing godlike power. They subjugated the whole of the Cyriss galaxy and created both the Hyperuranion and the Great Constellation in orbit around Cyriss Prime. And despite all their power and knowledge and technological advancement, they have never faced a threat like humanity. The Empyreans were utterly unprepared for the speed at which humans spread across the stars. The dynamic nature of the human condition is anathema to even the Empyrean perception of the passage of time. In one blink humanity arrived, in the next they had scattered to the far corners of the Hyperuranion, and with the third they are drawing Arcanessence away from Cyriss Prime and jeopardizing the whole system.

While the Empyreans are certain to bring down the full weight of their military, industrial, and technological power upon the upstart human powers, the outcome of the impending wars is far from certain. And the Empyreans still watch for threats beyond their dominion to reemerge, potentially plunging the whole galaxy into disorder and chaos.

Insider, Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika, Web Extra
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