Editing Slaugth (Hektor Heresy) (section)

===The War in Heavens===

Wait until dark, put your cogitator aside and walk up to your window. Look skyward, and, if the heavens of your world are not enveloped by heavy clouds, you will see hundreds upon hundreds of stars punctuating the celestial tapestry. If you're especially lucky, you will even see a magnificent river of lights flowing from one edge of the night sky to the other. Let pride fill your heart when you see it, for this is the domain of our glorious race, our blessed Galaxy. Our realm is colossal beyond imagining: it harbours hundreds of billions of stars, measures an entire tredecillion of kilograms in mass and a hundred thousand light years in length. To a casual observer, it may almost seem infinite. And yet, sixty million years ago, two ancient races found it too small for the both of them.

One of those two was the Necrontyr, a race of brilliant scientists and engineers whose stride towards progress was only hampered by their brutally short lifespans, physical frailty and vulnerability to afflictions of all kinds - such was the dubious gift of their merciless radioactive sun. But, possessed of an unbreakable determination and will to live, they eventually managed to leave the confines of their untender homeworld and forge an empire amongst the stars. Alas, this empire was not to last, for the same stubbornness and inability to concede that guided them to greatness eventually led to a diplomatic breakdown between the numerous dynasties that formed the realm of the Necrontyr, and it wasn't too long before a full-fledged civil war broke out between them. To put an end to this infighting that threatened to spell doom for the entire race, the supreme ruler of the Necrontyr, known as Silent King, decided to find a common enemy for all of his subjects to unite against. The search wasn't very difficult, for another ancient star empire thrived just outside of Necrontyr space - that of the Old Ones.

The reptilian Old Ones were as different from their scientifically minded neighbours as day from night. Unlike the Necrontyr, who played obediently by the strict rules set by the laws of nature, the Old Ones believed that all laws existed only to be broken. Peerless psykers and explorers of the Immaterium, they revelled in doing the impossible and fighting the inevitable. Unable to travel faster than light, they created the Webway, a network of stable tunnels in the Immaterium connecting the farthest corners of the Galaxy. Discontent with the inevitability of death, they discovered a secret of immortality through gene engineering boosted with Warp sorcery. Wonders and miracles were their trade, and they truly excelled at it. Whereas for the Necrontyr the life was an unending, relentless fight for survival, the Old Ones saw the Galaxy as a magnificent canvas to express themselves on, a wonderful plaything. It shouldn't be too hard to understand why there never was much love between the two ancient empires.

Looking for a casus belli, the Silent King demanded from the ruling council of the Old Ones that they share the secret of immortality with his people. Both parties understood full well that this was out of question, for immortal Necrontyr could become a major rival for the Old Ones, and the reptiles had no desire to shoot themselves in the leg. Satisfied with the response he got, the ruler of the Necrontyr declared a total war against their arrogant neighbours, a war for the secret of eternal life. He had hoped that their clearly superior technology and weaponry would make short work of the Old Ones. He couldn't have been more wrong, for no amount of technical superiority guarantees a victory over an enemy who refuses to play by the rules. Using the Webway for logistics, the Old Ones managed to outnumber the Necrontyr dramatically in almost every battle they fought, until the aggressors were pushed to the far northern fringes of the Galaxy, their star empire shattered and their glorious fleet reduced to dust. Thinking that finishing the enemy wasn't worth the effort, the Old Ones decided to leave the humiliated Necrontyr to their own devises. This grave mistake sealed not only their fate, but also that of the entire Galaxy.

Hundreds of years later, few remembered the war with the Necrontyr - it became little more than a curiosity, one of the many in the history of the ancient reptiles. When Necrontyr ships were spotted in the northern provinces of the Empire, the Old Ones were greatly amused by the unexpected persistence of their ancient enemy, rather than shocked. However, the first skirmishes with the new Necrontyr army shattered the ivory towers of the arrogant Old Ones. These new enemies were not like the Necrontyr they fought before. Sure, they used the same technology and employed the same tactics, but from creatures of flesh and blood who could be killed, they turned into soulless immortal constructs that kept getting back to their feet and fighting on relentlessly no matter how many times they were killed. Nightmarish shadows shrouded in clouds of liquid metal followed these new Necrons in battle, displaying awesome powers befitting of gods. This time, the roles reversed: the Necrons were capturing system after system, while the Old Ones were permanently on the retreat, looking frantically for any means to stop the implacable enemy's unrelenting advance.

It was then that one of the members of the ruling council suggested to use their superior gene engineering to design a number of allied races as a last desperate measure. Running out of both ideas and resources at this point, the other councillors supported this plan unanimously, and so the great xenurgy began. Many of the races that still inhabit the Galaxy were brought into being by the geneurges of the Old Ones as a last ditch effort to stem the iron tide of enemy advance or at least slow it down. Although multitudes of sapient species were spawned back then, most of them were in fact just variations around a few basic concepts. One popular idea was to give a new warrior race an instinctive understanding of technology at the expense of true intelligence - this is how the savage Krork and the simian Jokaerro were born. Another was to make the new allies psykers, similar to the Old Ones themselves, so that they could exploit the weakness of the Necrons to Warp-based sorcery. The Eldar were one such race, though they weren't the most powerful psychic race designed by the ancient reptiles. That honour goes to their unlikely siblings, the Slaugth.