Editing Nobledark Imperium Xenos (section)

=== Necron Titans (Stalkers) ===

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For many years, after the reemergence of the Necron Star Empire, there was considerable debate among Imperial scholars as to what a Necron Titan would look like. Many theorized that a Necron Titan would simply look like a giant Necron. Others hypothesized that the C’tan were the Necron’s equivalents of Titans, and after the War in Heaven the Necrons may have had no need for Titan-scale weaponry. This was all before the Necron-Imperium Conflict, that brief period in M40 when tensions between the Imperium and the Necrontyr Star Empire ran hot after the Silent King demanded a trillion subjects for biotransference experiments before settling into the quasi-cold war state that it has today. It was during this period that the Necrons brought out some of the heavy weapons they had to bear, and Imperial scholars learned they had been wrong. Completely, horribly, wrong.

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In contrast to nearly all other races, Necron Titans, or Stalkers, are distinctly non-humanoid, almost arachnid or insect-like in appearance. This is perhaps best exemplified by the most commonly seen Necron Stalker, the Tomb Stalker. Rather than standing upright on two large limbs, Tomb Stalkers support their weight via dozens of insectoid limbs, resembling Earth centipedes. These limbs are not only effective in carrying the construct’s weight, but also in burrowing through the ground and tearing through the armor plating of opposing vehicles and titans. This is true not only of the generic Warhound-sized Tomb Stalkers most commonly seen, but also of the larger Scolopendra class Tomb Stalkers, which can be the size of an Imperator Titan.

Compared to other Stalkers, Tomb Stalkers use little in the way of quantum shielding, which is thought to be the Necron’s answer to Void Shields. Instead, they use the very earth as their shield, burrowing beneath the ground in order to ambush their prey. In doing so, Tomb Stalkers are able to achieve something very few Titans are capable of performing: stealth. The effectiveness of the Tomb Stalker’s burrowing strategy became clear during the Necron-Imperium Conflict, when a Tomb Stalker burrowed a circle around an Imperator Titan before erupting from the ground, using the unstable substrate to drag the Imperial Titan and its Princeps to their grave.

Surprisingly enough, Tomb Stalkers are thought to be weaponized construction vehicles. Records obtained from the Imperium’s Necron contacts report that Tomb Stalkers were originally used in constructing the vast tomb complexes that the Necrons inhabited in their heyday. The Necrontyr apparently evolved on a world with blistering levels of stellar radiation, which would kill most lifeforms over an extended period of time. As a result, the only logical place to build cities on the Necrontyr homeworld was underground, resulting in an architectural style that resembled increasingly ornate bunker complexes. The Necrontyr found this architectural style to be highly effective in protecting against meteoroid strikes and orbital bombardments, even after they spread off their homeworld to planets less affected by radiation.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Crypt Stalkers, which resemble gigantic versions of the Terran daddy longlegs. The control center and weaponry are all mounted on the central body of the Crypt Stalker, allowing them to instantly change direction in response to new threats, even capable of rotating their heat rays 180 degrees and suddenly reversing direction without even having to turn. Crypt Stalkers have a sensory array which gives them a nearly 360 degree field of vision, and their long legs allow them to simply step over most obstacles in their path. Crypt Stalkers make much heavier use of void shielding, mainly because their small body and comparatively narrow legs would make them otherwise easy targets for anti-titan weaponry. Triarch Stalkers are similar to Crypt Stalkers, except are smaller with a distinct pilot (closer to tank-sized) and are not capable of omnidirectional movement. They compensate for this with huge melee appendages they can use as melee weapons.

It is still not entirely clear how Stalkers work. It is clear that Stalkers have some kind of intelligence, given their ability to react to changing conditions on the battlefield, but whether that consciousness is a pilot or intrinsic to the machine itself is unknown. The kneejerk assumption would be that Stalkers are operated by an uploaded Necron consciousness, or otherwise powered by a C’tan shard. However, evidence indicates that Tomb Stalkers were around in nearly their current form (minus the heavy weaponry) before the First Wars of Secession, given their use in carving out the underground complexes the Necrontyr called home, long before the Necrontyr had developed biotransferrence or discovered the C’tan. The current running hypothesis is that the Stalkers are controlled by some manner of artificial intelligence, similar to the Scarabs, Canoptek Wraiths, and Crypt Spyders, except on a much larger scale.

Nemesor Zandrekh is known to treat his personal Tomb Stalker like a beloved pet, but it is unknown if this is typical or just another one of the Nemesor’s…eccentricities.

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