Editing Slaugth (Hektor Heresy) (section)

===The Compact of "Equals"===

The Ethereals and the Vespid Foremen were surprised when they received an invitation by the Board of Principals. Much to their puzzlement, they were treated as equals aboard the Vermidrome housing the ruling council of the maggot men. And, of course, they could hardly believed their ears when Principal Txont himself asked them to accept the Slaugth into their alliance. Instead of a Tau-Vespid pact, he proposed a much grander structure - the Compact of Free Galactic Interchange, a pan-Galactic organisation focused on trade and self-defence, open to any race that would like to join it. Within the Compact, any Xenos race could strive for prosperity and enrichment without its bare existence being threatened by the darker forces of the Galaxy, such as the Ruinous Powers or the Imperium of Man. While the Tau were greatly suspicious of their former masters and rushed to decline the proposal, the Vespid Foremen got extremely agitated on mentioning of the Imperium - it seemed that the speech of Principal Txont hit a nerve with them. They immediately agreed to the creation of the Compact and put an ultimatum to their Tau allies - either they join together, or they abandon their alliance. Ultimata were, after all, the only form of diplomacy the Vespid recognised. The Tau realised that without support from the Vespid they would have to face the brutal vengeance of their former overlords, and so they begrudgingly agreed to join the new Galactic alliance. 

"If you can't defeat them, lead them" - so says an ancient Slaugth proverb. After realising that they stood no chance in an open confrontation with the Tau-Vespid alliance, the Slaugth opted to pull the same trick on them as they did on the Eldar millions of years ago - become their trusted allies and slowly usurp the real power in the alliance through a combination of shrewd politicking, intrigue and a liberal usage of mind control. Once in the familiar position of the shadowy mastermind, they could easily manipulate both the Tau and the Vespid into doing their bidding without ever realising they're being used. Of course, posing as equals to savage primitives was extremely humiliating to the ancient Slaugth, but at this point they were willing to sacrifice their pride to achieve their goals. 

Several decades after the founding of the Compact, its armed forces were put to test for the first time. The enemy came from the Galactic North East, carried by ships that used advanced Abominable Intelligence rather than Navigators to plot a safe course through the Warp. After the first skirmishes with the mysterious foe's relentless robotic hordes, the Slaugth started suspecting that the Necrons had awoken to reclaim the Galaxy as their own. But the truth was much more bizarre than that: the Compact was attacked by the forces of the Grand Reconquista, a large scale campaign of conquest conducted by the humans from the world of Terra. This may sound familiar, but there is a catch to it: this Terra was located in the Scutum–Centaurus Arm of the Galaxy rather than in the Orion Arm. Although these humans abhorred genetic modification and relied on robogogy instead, they were every bit as belligerent and well-versed in the art of war as their namesakes from Segmentum Solar. Even the combined forces of the Compact found this foe too strong for them, and, for a time, many Principals believed the Compact had outlived its usefulness and needed to be abandoned. However this war was eventually interrupted by a well-timed invasion from the Imperium of Man. The Xenos and the Humans of the galactic East were forced to band together to stand a chance against the might of the Imperium. When the Imperial forces were repelled, the Compact had one more member: the Empire of Humanity. 

The expansion of the Compact continued when the enigmatic Saharduin decided to join the organisation. The Slaugth were appalled by their blatant worship of the C'tan, which they still hated and considered the greatest threat to the Galaxy even sixty million years after the War in Heavens. However, the Tau and the Humans insisted on accepting the Saharduin into the Compact, not least of all in order to weaken the Slaugth influence. Their calculations proved correct, and the accession of the Saharduin ended the era of Slaugth dominance. The Principals realised, much to their annoyance, that the Compact was slowly turning from an asset into a hindrance. Perhaps it was finally the time to leave this ridiculous spectacle behind and move on; time to pit the other Compact members against each other and enslave those who would manage to survive in this conflict. The age of subtle manipulation was nearing its end; the dawn of the Neo-Slaugt Empire was about to break...