Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets (section)

== Prospero ==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">''''' The Lost Crown Jewel of the Imperium '''''

Prospero was first settled by mankind in M23, shortly before the Age of Strife. Its original colonists were primarily composed of psyker refugees, fleeing from the persecution and witch-hunts of psykers that had gripped the rest of the galaxy. Prospero was chosen because of its isolated location. Although it was relatively close to Old Earth in terms of realspace, Prospero was an arid planet with little water or arable land that was relatively off the beaten path in terms of warp currents, making it ideal for people that did not wish to be noticed. The psykers of Prospero pooled together what little knowledge they had and were soon progressing in psychic technology by leaps and bounds, inventing such things as psychic-assisted medicine and crystals that dampened psychic powers allowing psyker children to learn how to control their abilities without the threat of daemonic possession. For a scant few centuries, Prospero was a paradise for psykers.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Unfortunately, along with the Age of Strife came Warp Storms and psychic predators. Prospero became host to one particularly nasty form of psychic predator called the Psychneuein, who were attracted to the planet by its large population of psykers. The Psychneuein were an insectoid species which reproduced by laying their eggs inside a psyker’s brain, which would later burst out of the psyker’s head to produce more Psychneuein. On a planet full of psykers, one Psychneuein could rapidly turn into a plague, and many times the inhabitants of Prospero were nearly wiped out. Only the fortress-city of Tizca, situated on a central plateau between the three highest mountains on the planet, was naturally well-defended enough to reliably fend off attacks from the Psychneuein. Over time, the depredations of the Psychneuein would wax and wane and the people of Prospero would try to recolonize the wastes once more, but were always beaten back to the walls of Tizca by the Psychneuein.

To the inhabitants of Prospero, the appearance of the nascent Imperium in their skies in 935.M30 must have seemed like a godsend. At this point in time the inhabitants of Prospero had once more been forced back to the safety of the walls of Tizca by the Psychneuein, and this time its inhabitants were not sure the walls would hold. Although the Imperium was unable to completely destroy the Psychneuein, as seen by their presence on planets like Mara later in Imperial history, they were able to eradicate the threat of the Psychneuein to the people of Prospero.

The discovery of Prospero was a boon for the Imperium as well. Here was a society possessing all sorts of psychic technology and knowledge the Imperium desperately needed, either saved from what little was known of psykers during the Dark Age of Technology or created de novo on Prospero itself. What's more, this knowledge was specifically tailored to human psykers, as opposed to the advice the Imperium had previously only recieved from the Eldar who had to figure out what aspects of Eldar psychic abilities did or did not apply to human psykers. Prospero was of special interest to the Thousand Sons, who as a legion of psykers were interested in any way to better hone and control their gifts. In particular Ahzek Ahriman, although Terran-born on Achaemenidia, rapidly rose to prominence in Prosperan society as a teacher and eventually came to consider the planet a second home.

With the help of the Imperium, Prospero was rebuilt as never before. With the destruction of the Psychneuein, cities once again spread across the planet’s surface, reflective plated obelisks and hive-pyramids gleaming in the sunlight. Tizca itself particularly prospered, with the greater reaches of the city expanding off the plateau of the city center all the way to the sea. The sheer size of the city and extent of gleaming hive-pyramids on Tizca eventually led to the city being referred to as the City of Life. Psychic research also continued on Prospero, its inhabitants always interested in ways to refine their powers, only this time with the resources of the Imperium at its back. The Great Library of Lexandra was said to be the greatest repository of psychic knowledge in the entire Materium, second only to the Eldar Black Library hidden in the Webway. At its peak, Prospero was the prime center for the psychic arts and biggest exporter of psykers in the galaxy, eclipsing even Old Earth. The planet had gone from pariah to one of the crown jewels of the Imperium.

Unfortunately, this wealth of psychic knowledge made Prospero an ideal target for the Fourth Black Crusade (late M33). If the Black Crusade could reach Prospero, it would cripple the Imperium's ability to train new psykers, possibly even interfering with the maintenance of the Astronomican itself. The people of Prospero and the Imperium fought valiantly, but the forces of Chaos steadily gained ground, until eventually the two factions were fighting in orbit around Prospero itself, nuclear weapons bombarding the planet’s surface.

It was at this point, in an act of desperation, that a small cabal of sorcerers led by Ahzek Ahriman cast what would later be known as the Rubric of Ahriman. Ahriman’s intention was to seal the populace of Prospero away in a pocket dimension, keeping them safe until such time as the Black Crusade could be beaten back. Although the forces of Chaos might be able to claim the soil of Prospero, they would be unable to harm its people. However, something went horribly wrong. Instead of neatly transporting Prospero and its inhabitants into a pocket dimension, the planet’s inhabitants were violently torn between dimensions, disappearing in a torrent of ash and smoke.

Worse yet, the counterspell to the ritual did not seem to work. Although Ahriman and his cabal had created the ritual, they only had a limited idea of how it actually worked, having created it in haste from incomplete, limited sorcerous knowledge in the Great Library due to the impending threat of the Black Crusade. Like much of the rest of the Imperium, Prosperans looked down on sorcery as extremely dangerous (doubly so since the planet was full of psykers), and it was only desperation that led Ahriman to resort to using it in the first place. Ahriman was devastated by the loss of his adopted home, and vowed to undo the effects of the Rubric, even if it cost him his own life. Those few who survived the burning of Prospero, mostly aboard refugee ships, primarily emigrated to Old Earth. Old Earth was the biggest cultivator of the psychic arts in the Imperium now that Prospero was gone, and the remaining Prosperans wanted to be amongst their own kind.

Today, Prospero is a quiet world, the only movement on its surface being the fall of crumbling masonry, its only sound being that of the wind blowing through the canyons. However, Prospero might not be as dead as people think. Some visitors to Prospero claim they can sometimes still see the city of Tizca, the glory of the City of Light glowing on the horizon like a mirage. Many in the Imperium say that the blasted surface of Prospero is cursed, that the ghosts of the dead still haunt the half-destroyed ruins. However, others point out that these rumors are almost always started by looters and grave robbers, and that many have visited Prospero to pay their respects and have returned unmolested.

The people of Prospero may be gone, but their ghosts might not rest easy.

</div>
</div>

Additional Note: Legion of the Damned in this timeline are supposed to be quantum space ghosts of the Space Marines and Imperial Guardsmen on Prospero during the Rubric, who have become trapped between the Materium and Immaterium.