Editing Nobledark Imperium Member States (section)

=== Helith ===
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While the Ulmeathians did their best to erase all the works and identity of the Nameless Enemy, there is one piece of their legacy that could not be stamped out- not without crossing a line they could never uncross. Thus, some semblance of a legacy lives on within the race known as the Helith.

The Helith are a strikingly alien species, bearing close resemblance to an old-Earth jellyfish in some respects, with a series of air-bladders they use to float above the ground and four tentacles that split into fine cilia on the ends, similar to fingers, which they use to manipulate tools and pull themselves along. Their "head" sits on a thick, prehensile neck, and possesses six nostrils and four eyes. Their initial homeworld was a Gas Giant whose gravity was heavy enough to form a solid core but not quite enough to form a proper planet. The exact location is both lost and irrelevant, for they had only just begun to take their first steps into the Great Void when the Nameless Foe found them.

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How long they were enslaved is unknown; none of their records survived, and information had to be passed on by word of mouth. It is known that at some point, their captors pulled enough of their ancestors from their homeworld to have a stable population, then forced every last one of them to watch as their homeworld was bombarded, the weaponry intentionally igniting the planet's gasses and turning the entire planet into a raging inferno bright enough to illuminate every vessel within several hundred kilometers. Some stories tell of transmissions being kept on and forcing them to listen to the screams of the dying, others tell of complete silence as they watched their home burn. As none who witnessed the event survived to be liberated, the accuracy of this tale cannot be verified. What came next, however, is all too observably true.

Flesh-crafting must have been a hobby for the Nameless, as they turned it on the Helith with unspeakable glee. The gas-people were already of a delicate biology by the standards of other races; the Nameless broke them and twisted their bodies into something grotesque, organs vital to their survival made dependent upon mechanical implants to continue functioning, if not replaced entirely. Their genetic code was altered, curled around the finger of their masters before a yank snapped it in twain, ensuring that their children would be born broken and deformed. While the exact method has been lost and forgotten, the consequences paint a grim picture of how the Nameless Foe violated them. Where once the Helith would have used their gas-sacks to float through the sky, now they require thrusters to compensate for the weight of their mechanical augmentations. The thrusters were added by the Ulmeathic; apparently the Nameless took great amusement in watching the Helith be forced to drag themselves along the ground.  Several organs simply do not form for them anymore; when a new Helith is born, the delivery doubles as a surgery to install their first mechanical parts before the newborn's body dies. Without a healthy specimen to determine the makup of these organs, or what they once were, replacing them is all but impossible.

When the Ulmeathics first found the Helith, they did not immediately recognize them as sentient beings, thinking them some form of twisted fleshy design to amuse the Nameless, though whether this is a reflection on a propensity for flesh-crafting as their main technology or simply indicative of their personal tastes can only be speculated at. Upon discovering that the bloated blobs dragging themselves upon the ground were not only sapient, but fully aware of their condition, it was debated on whether the greater kindness would be to simply put them out of their misery. The Ulmeathic were not cruel, but it was late into their campaign; their renowned endurance was wearing thin, their soldiers growing weary and their ranks tattered by their ceaseless advance. The resources simply could not be spared to care for those who could not lift a weapon or constuct fortifications when their own forces were beginning to wear thin.

It was when members of the Helith were brought to Ulmeathic medical wards in order to better study their physical state that their propensity for medicine was discovered. The Helith would seek out any injured they could reach, at first by dragging themselves through the halls, then carted along by nurses once their intentions became clear. Using the multiple fibrous cilia that are their analogue to fingers, they could delve deeper into wounds than fingers could dare go, stitching veins and tissues with a precision most would require tools to achieve. Shattered bones were reassembled and properly aligned, and soldiers thought to have been put out of action for good were able to stand and take up arms once more. While they were not miracle workers and could not save those beyond saving, the Ulmeathics were quick to flood their hospitals and regimental medical staff with their newfound workers. When the Nameless counterattacked, they found the forces that should have been breaking bolstered by troops thought eliminated, and resistance stiff enough to hold out for reinforcements instead cracking from the pressure. In thanks for ensuring their campaign could continue, and seeing them through to the end, the Ulmeathics and Passeri did all that they could to help improve the Helith's lot, and restored them to at least some semblance of a normal existence.

The Helith appear to have grown kind from their suffering; their entire race knows basic medicine as a necessity for their condition, and have become known as gentle and caring healers, treating each patient as precious as family. They are meek, yet when first the Ulmeathic found them, they wasted no time in seeking to treat the wounds of their liberators, enabling those initially deemed combat-ineffective able to return to the fight. They became the League's respected doctors and flesh-weavers, growing renowned for their compassion, gentle nature, and skill at the mending of injuries. Yet for all their knowledge and skill, there was always a quiet melancholy for the Helith, for they could not find a way to fix themselves.

Considering their subservient, empathetic natures, it is shocking to note that these passive, amicable xenos were also the source of the greatest diplomatic incident between the races of the Ulmeathic League and the Imperium.

The Admech officially arrived soon after the refugees from the League were accepted into the Imperium, eager to convince their new clients of the superiority of Mars-approved designs, especially when it came to their downright-primitive augments. For a time, all went well; the Helith were well aware of their augment's failings, having started from the worst possible designs and working their way backwards towards pure functionality. Admech's insights into the craft was already revealing flaws they had not realized needing fixing, and the techpriests were pleased to have such a rapt audience willing to accept their teachings without question- or at least, without contest; the questions were many, but in pursuit of elaboration, and there are few topics as appealling for a techpriest to discuss as the virtues and details of mechanical augmentations. The relationship was shaping up to be very pleasant and amicable.

Then one of the techpriests made the mistake of replacing his own biological arm with the servo-limb he'd been preparing, to give a demonstration.

The Helith were utterly horrified. They had thought the techpriests a race like their own, twisted by others or necessity into reliance on augments, or the injured and sickly of humanity who sought to overcome their sacrifices. That they removed their own flesh willingly to replace it with wires and welding, that they SMILED as they brandished the twisting of their form into something of oil and steel instead of flesh and bone... It was an insult, a slap in the face, a dismissal of the suffering of their race, the pain they had to endure, the sense of being 'wrong' that they still felt every time the thrusters did not respond as quickly as inflating their sacks would have, the itch in their flesh from atmosphere missing something that had been abundant on their homeworld, when flight that should have made them feel free instead made them feel the downward tug of the metal within them dragging them away from the sky that was their home. Why, they asked frantically, desperately, searching for something, anything to explain why these beings hurt themselves so, Why do you do these things to yourselves when the flesh is still good?

"The flesh is weak," said the befuddled techpriests, unsure why such a normal thing had disturbed their new clients so, "and thus we forge ourselves anew, that we may be better." For surely these beings who also sought the strength of the machine, who could not have traveled the stars if not for the augments within their flesh, surely they understood the importance of improving yourself by excising the limitations of your flesh?

''("Your flesh is weak," said the cackling horde that dragged them from their clouds and strapped them to tables, "and thus you are nothing. but rejoice," their hushed taunts carrying over the whirring of saws that smelled so strongly of wrong. "For we shall forge you anew- to better suit your stature.")''

The main reason no Mechanicus died on that day is because the Helith are utterly unsuited for violence. Weapons drag them to the ground, and they cannot compete the swing of a blade or handle the recoil of a gun. All they had was the grip of their tentacles, knowledge of the workings of the body, and a furious, hysterical rage. The cogpriests lost many of their parts, including the offending arm, before managing to lock themselves within a room the Helith could not enter. Intervention was slow in coming; it took several hours of argument, transmittion of shaky holovid recordings, and a relating of the sequence of events from one of the clearer-headed techpriests before any authority could be convinced that the Helith, of all people, were rioting.

When it was finally accepted that the Helith were on the warpath, Nakaidos' response was swift and brutal; the Ulmeathic may not be unkind, but they have little tolerance for rebellion or disorder, even from a race such as the Helith. This did much to soothe the Mechanicum's ruffled feathers, as did the ban placed on Helith access to Imperium technology for several year's time. That this was done in part to prevent further contact between the Helith and Admech goes unspoken by those in power, both in the Ulmeathic League who wish to protect their fellow member-race, and by those in Imperial governance who recognize that the Mechanicum is at least partly at fault for skimming over the details of exactly how the Helith came to their current state. As for the Helith, their care is now handled by the Adbio, with whom their relationship has proved much less turbulent.

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[[Category:Nobledark Imperium]]