Editing Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos (section)

=== The Indigo Crow ===
[[Image:Indigo Crow.jpg|left|thumb|]]

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">''''' The Enigma: '''''

The Indigo Crow. The Indigo Crow. What can be known about the Indigo Crow?

Well, first of all, the Indigo Crow does not exist, and yet does. For Tzeentch is Lord of Paradox as well as Change. The foremost servant of the Lord of Change can have no unmoving 'I', can have no solid core of an identity; all must be flux. So there can be no "person" (for lack of a better word) which is the Indigo Crow. And yet, Tzeentch itself changes hardly at all, identity changing on geologic timescales. So, too, its many daemons, and so too must the Crow. 

How are these two states reconciled? The secret is that the Indigo Crow is always changing, shifting every second into a totally new and random form. But, every time, that new and random form is the Indigo Crow. A set of unloaded dice coming up all sixes every time, millions upon millions of times in a row. Constant change resulting in no change. The Lord of Paradox is pleased. 

What mind resides in this form of ever-shifting static? Its form is its function is its thoughts, and thus its mind must likewise be both ever-changing and changeless. It can only know either what it is doing, or why it's doing it; never both. While the Indigo Crow knows what it is doing, its motive is in flux; all possible motivations that could lead to its action in a state of superposition, even- especially- those which are mutually contradictory. While it knows its motivations, all possible actions flowing from that motivation are in superposition, less than real but more than imaginary. The Indigo Crow's 'mind' is a pair of quantum waveforms, forever locked in opposing amplitudes. 

Perhaps as a result of this, the Indigo Crow either does not or cannot perceive the world with normal senses. Instead, its only method of perception is divination, foresight and hindsight, pre- and post-cognition. It 'sees' the world as a haze of probability, innumerable possible futures; and for that matter, possible pasts. Although this divination is exceptionally powerful, the Crow cannot see the present. It can see close to the present, very close, but for a second around itself it is blind. This is rarely a problem for it, usually it can see threats coming from far enough away to avoid them. Usually.

As a consequence of this unusual mode of perception, the Indigo Crow frequently acts or reacts in relation to nonexistent stimuli; things that could have happened but didn't, false pasts. Sometimes this is revealed to be another play in a deeper plot. Sometimes it's just delusion. 

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And sometimes it's something stranger still. There are indications that the Indigo Crow is capable of time travel and causality manipulation to some degree. That, just as a skilled pre-cognitive steers the course of history towards his preferred future, the Crow can steer the course of fate towards his preferred past, bringing plots and plans and schemes into being retroactively. Constrained by the need to be consistent with the rest of the universe in the present, but that is not as much of a constraint as one would hope. 

The Indigo Crow, although foremost among the Tzeentchian Crones, does not lead them in any conventional sense. It does not issue directives or prophecy. Instead, on its eternal winding path between the webway academies around the rim of the Eye, it has accumulated a vast parade. Hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of sorcerers and madmen follow the Indigo Crow, obsessively examining every syllable that spills from its mouth and every twitch of its limbs for encoded commands and hidden lessons. Many are obsessive in this regard; even on the Crow's rare ventures to real-space battlefields they follow, ignoring artillery shells and laser fire for the sake of their observations, continuing to observe and speculate even as they die in the crossfire. 

On occasion, a Crone who believes they have accumulated enough power and knowledge will challenge the Indigo Crow for its position and secrets. Whoever wins, when the smoke clears the Indigo Crow remains. Its form is its function is its thoughts; the foremost Crone follower of Tzeentch is the Indigo Crow. Always.

The normal forces of the Imperium (for values of 'normal' that include most of the Inquisition and Astartes) have little to fear from the Crow. They are beneath its notice. Not for it the direct clash of steel and sorcery on the battlefield, or even the subtle weaving of plots that cripple whole sectors. In all honesty, the Indigo Crow may not fully realize the Imperium at large exists. Its focus is wholly on the strangest and most rarefied levels of the Great Game. Its opposition is the Alpha and Omega Legions, the Illuminati, Eldrad, Oscar and Isha, Magnus when he was still alive. Be'lakor, [[Nobledark_Imperium_Writing#Just_As_Planned|Tzeentch's oldest foe]]. The Deceiver and Orikan the Diviner with their magic pyramid scheme. Cegorach and his Harlequins. Sometimes Trazyn the Infinite or Ahriman and the Daemon Breakers when they're at the top of their game. And, of course, itself. These are the chosen foes of the Indigo Crow, and its private wars take place on a level most citizens of the Imperium do not even realize exist. 

This might be for the best. On the rare occasions the Crow exerts itself against the pawns, planets die. Or perhaps not; at the level it operates, success and failure is measured in far stranger and more important things than the lives of planets. 

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