“We cannot live through this. Mankind cannot live through this. In a single day they have covered this planet with a flood of living blades and needle-fanged mouths. Kill one, and ten take its place. If they are truly without number, then our race is doomed to a violent death before every shred of our civilization is scoured away by a force more voracious than the fires of hell themselves. Death! By the Machine God, Death is here!”

— Last writings of Magos Varnak, Warhammer 40,000

Previously, we covered the initial discovery and manipulation of the Ether. In this post we’ll cover the pushing back of the Westfallen and further advances into Khey’s new state of existence.

Westfallen, Push and Retreat

The abuse of the Ether by the Non-Westfallen wouldn’t go unpunished however. As the Empire continued to grow, Ethercraft and Ethertech continued to increase on a large scale, and with people’s eyes turned towards these new bastions of hope, it was easy to be blind to the growing masses of Westfallen.

Westfallen territory increased every day, even if just by an inch, as it continued to plague, twist, morph, and claim the landscape. One day a massive horde of Westfallen creatures flooded into Empire territory, decimating and killing survivors on a scale not seen since the Exodus. They poured from the Cursed Lands enveloping the lands in chaos once again; however, this time the Empire could fight back.

The newly developed weapons and technologies, combined with Hexcrafters forced to serve with the military, was capable of not only resisting the Westfallen but achieving victory. Battle after battle was fought against the creatures, but they still kept coming, unknowable numbers of beasts each hungering more then they had in years.

Then they stopped.

They turned around and fled, retreating back into the cursed land, and as they left they were followed by an amazing sight - the morphed landscape began to unravel and fall back into it’s original form. In the years to come, lands that were once covered by the Westfallen hives would now be home to trees, grass and civilization.

In the distance, a man could be seen with one hand raised into the sky, seemingly glowing with a mysterious white energy. In his other hand, he embraced the hand of a child. As the Westfallen began to retreat, his form was met by hundreds and thousands of other forms, all standing behind the man and the child. And then, as the white energy disappeared, the man collapsed. The crowd of people picked up his body, picked up the child and marched westward.

That boy would one day become the leader of the Kingdom of Gnosis.

This man would become the first new Emperor of the Infinite Solar Empire.

The Kingdom of Gnosis

The suppression of the thousands of Hexcrafters had forced them into the Cursed Lands, where they had gathered their forces and tried to etch out a living. It wasn’t until the Nameless One, as they call him, and his son began to kill off the Westfallen landscape that they were actually able to reach levels of civilization close to what the Empire had. Farms began to grow, and cities even began to modernize.

The Kingdom of Gnosis was formed to be a Kingdom of Free-peoples; all were welcome under her flag, and she would fight to protect them from the supposed tyranny of the Empire. The Boy-King, as he is called, led his people on a path of self-reflection, meditation, study and personal training. Freedom, the capital of the Kingdom of Gnosis, serves as a beacon into Ethercraft research.

Though the Kingdom’s peoples follow a pacifistic route and are very relaxed and peaceful, they are still enemies of the Empire. Though not in direct conflict with them, fights, skirmishes, and even full out battles occasionally happen, fortunately drawing both sides closer to declaring a full war so that the Kingdom of Gnosis can finally be wiped off the face of the earth.

The Westfallen accepting citizens of Gnosis are still capable of fighting, however, and should not be taken lightly. Their warrior monks especially are quite dangerous. There are even reports of some citizens becoming Westfallen themselves or controlling armies of lesser Westfallen.

It should go without saying that any situation with the Kingdom of Gnosis should be handled in a “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality and all force should be used, even if common sense would dictate that doing so would be outright overkill.

The Rediscovery of Noxum

Seventy years ago, a new material was discovered. Named “Noxum”, it is an almost completely transparent dark blue crystalline material. Noxum is what could be called a “nanological processing accelerant”. When used with nanobots for construction or deconstruction the process not only has increased speed and efficiency but the Noxum taken to complete these actions is next to nil. In fact, less then a microgram of Noxum is used to construct an entire two building facility. This breaks the laws of physics, as Noxum is more then 100% efficient in this regard. It is held in high secrecy where and how it was found and or made.

Due to these facts, processing of Noxum is held “above classified” by the Empire. It is available to the business public at large, but large amounts of stipulations, papers and monitoring are applied when it is in use.

Noxum is used for all facets of construction with the Empire around Sun’s Throne, producing things much faster then ever before. Many citizens view this as a mixed blessing, as the most produced objects are weapons of war, designed to be effective against Gnosis and Westfallen alike.

Nobody knows where Noxum is found and whether it is mined, processed or just “found”. The Empire isn’t revealing it’s secrets and one would have to go through hell to find out the truth.

“Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We’ll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today.”

— Ralph Merkle