Aprior Sector

The Aprior Sector is the home of the Knights Inductor, among others. It's way out on the edge of the galaxy (beyond the Tau Empire and Ultramar), where Imperial oversight is a bit lax, which allows a chapter of Reasonable Marines to make significant changes from mainstream Imperial policy. It was first mentioned in "An Investigation into the Heresy of the Reasonable Marines."

Note: "Aprior" is a name. "Apriori" is an adjective.

History

The Aprior Sector (named for its most powerful subsector, itself named for its most powerful [and first settled] star system) is deep in the Eastern Fringe, where the Astronomican's light pushes out against the intergalactic calm in the Warp, creating massive Warp turbulence. Sometime in M31, the colony ship "Icarus" was sent out to probe the furthest reaches of the galaxy. As their warp drive was of an early generation, the turbulence was too great for them to continue, so they were forced to make an unplanned Realspace transition, which left the ship damaged and unable to continue, so they made an emergency landing on the third planet of the star Aprior. The Icarus was built to run lean, in order to give it the range to reach the edge of the galaxy, and so the emergency strained its resources to their limits, which resulted in the colony fragmenting, falling into civil war; the violence faded with time, especially as the colonists fell into an uneasy truce in the face of the threats of the Fringe, but the divisions remained, and the colonists were never able to unite.

Explorators, pilgrims, and crusaders found their way to the Aprior Sector over the next few millennia, bringing new technology and news with them; these proved to be extremely valuable to whichever Apriori faction could get their hands on them. Even so, the end was looming and inevitable: each new find only delayed it a little.

Then, in 244.M40, the Knights Inductor fleet arrived in the Sector, their Crusade having taken them out to the edge of the galaxy. They immediately intervened on Aprior, offering the residents a deal: cooperate with us, and we will build a noble, bright future together. Only one faction accepted at first, but once the other factions saw how their lives could be improved if they cooperated, they started to come around. A few years into the pacification effort, the Warp turbulence became so strong that the Knights Inductor could not leave the Sector, and so they decided to put down roots and make Aprior their home system, a model of their ideals.

For thirteen hundred years, the Aprior Sector grew in isolation, but in mid-M41, the approaching Tyranid Hive Fleets and awakening Necron Tombs stifled the turbulence, restoring contact with the Imperium. Since then, Inquisitor Rightina Immam has visited the Sector twice to ensure their loyalty, and report to an Inquisitorial Panel on their irregularities. On her second visit, she decided that the Sector was too potentially valuable to the Imperium to be destroyed; Inquisitor Lord Damnos disagreed, and he responded by organizing a Crusade to burn the whole Sector to ashes.

For a detailed list of events pertaining to the Aprior Sector, see the Aprior Sector Timeline.

Worlds of the Aprior Sector

The Aprior System became prosperous under the Knights' guidance, and with that prosperity came growth, and soon, the Apriori were ready to colonize other nearby systems. However, the Warp was too turbulent for jumps longer than a dozen light-years or so. As such, contact with the Imperium would be nonexistent, and communication between systems would be risky at best. It was decided that each system would have to be entirely self-sufficient, just as Aprior itself was, and so the Apriori created a document listing their best practices, a sort of blueprint for creating other systems like theirs. After a few other systems had been colonized along this pattern, they formalized it into the Aprior Sector Charter. The Charter also created a Sector-level ruling body, the Aprior Sector Legislative Assembly, in order to coordinate trade and mutual defense. By now, the Sector has over four hundred inhabited worlds; each one is different, but they are all held to the Charter's standards of economic viability, self-sufficiency, and protection of the rights of citizens. Due to the aforementioned limitations on Warp jumps during the Aprior expansion period the "density" of colonized planets and systems in each given sector is a little higher than the Imperial norm, more analogous to the expansion of Tau Septs.

Aprior Subsector

Since the Knights Inductor rule the Aprior System, and they led the colony ships that settled other worlds, they have the legal option to directly rule every world in the Aprior Sector. Outside of dire emergencies, they limit their rule to the Aprior Subsector, the first few systems to be settled.

Aprior System

The Aprior System proper has six planets in it. Aprior Primus and Secundus are very close to Aprior and are used for mining and manufacturing; Tertius is in the habitable zone and houses the majority of the subsector's population; and Quartus, Quintius, and Sextus are gas giants, with moons used for manufacturing, military research and training, among other things (like the headquarters of Internal Security, on Aprior Sextus Echo).

Aprior Tertius is similar to Old Earth, although it is larger, with surface gravity almost twice that of Terra. Because it was the first world in the sector to be colonized, Aprior Tertius is the sector capital, and the primary base of the Knights. It is usually called Regius to set it apart from the other worlds. Regius is largely urbanized and industrialized, although the Regians have instituted environmental and social policies to prevent the pollution and decay normally associated with industrialized, highly populated worlds.

One major feature of Regius is the Torch, the Fortress-monastery of the Knights Inductor, buried within a ridge of extinct volcanoes.

Nyx

Nyx is a white dwarf from an eons-old supernova; its sole remaining world, Thanatos, is a dead, cold lump of rock notable for containing a metal with potent anti-Warp properties, which the Apriori forge into weapons. A Necron tomb was discovered in the process of mining; it seems that its presence is related to that of the metal, though it is unclear which came first. Subject to change, pending new Necron Codex.

Romulus and Remus

Romulus and Remus are a binary star with two planets: one gas giant orbiting both (Roma Dista), and one hot rocky world orbiting Romulus (Roma Proxima).

Tarquin

Tarquin is a star similar to Aprior, with a "double planet" orbiting it: two Agri Worlds (Tarquin Ventrus in front, and Tarquin Dorsus in the rear) in each others' Lagrange points. The remnants of Hive Fleet Draco orbit Tarquin Ventrus.

Marion Subsector

The Marion Subsector faces the center of the galaxy, so it faces the Imperium and the Tau Empire. As such, it receives the most Imperial and Tau traffic.

Marion System

In mid-M39, this system was settled by a Commandery of the Order of the Sacred Rose. The Eldar attempted to dislodge them, as Chatur-Marion (the fourth world) was a Maiden World, though the actual Commandery is on Dvi-Marion, the second world. When the Sisters learned what the Knights Inductor had in mind for the Sector, and especially their unusual (to say the least) policies, they decided to stage a coup, or failing that, to burn the whole Sector to cinders. They were stopped when the Knights' fleet destroyed their orbital assets and reformed them into the Order of Reason's Light; since then, they have used their expertise in hunting and destroying heretic cults to grow their influence, expand their numbers, and become the dominant institution in their system and Sub-Sector and a major player in Sector politics.

Norion

A border system that tends to suffer heavy losses from outside attackers, especially in the Tau Empire's Third Sphere Expansion. Its history, combined with proximity to the Imperium and distance from major population and government centers in the central Sector means that it is the most pro-Imperial system in the Sector.

Norion V is the most populous world in the Norion System. After an economic depression, resentment over the various non-human populations (inflamed by Puritan Preachers sent by the Ecclesiarchy) boiled over, resulting in anti-Sector protests, riots against Radical Preachers and their allies, and an attempt to withdraw from the Sector Charter. The Norion System was Inquisitor Lord Damnos's first target for his Crusade.

Subsector Lida

In M28, Lida was settled by some Eldar who sought to avoid the impending Fall. When the Aprior Sector was being settled by humans, the Apriori did not have sufficient firepower to dislodge the Eldar from Lida and withstand the inevitable counter-attack, so they left Lida with a whole subsector to itself. The threat of an Emperor's Children Strike Cruiser convinced the Apriori to reach out to Lida and assist in repelling the invasion; they parted amicably.

Organizations and Characters

The Aprior Sector is home to more than the Knights Inductor – it is inhabited by a trillion and a half human beings, not to mention millions of xenos (friendly and otherwise).

Aprior Sector Executive Council

After the Dark Eldar attack on Archos, the heads of the Imperial agencies in the Sector formed ASEC to coordinate their organizations' responses to future Sector-scale threats. ASEC has little formal power, but its member bodies take ASEC's resolutions very seriously.

Knights Inductor Chapter

The Knights Inductor are a Chapter of the Twenty-First Founding, descended from the Angry Marines, and commonly known as the “Reasonable Marines” because of their skill at conflict resolution. They are not afraid to use violence to end imminent threats, but after the immediate fighting is over, they work to build stability before they leave. A more war-like Chapter could end a conflict more quickly, but the Knights are of the opinion that their method has better outcomes.

Zakis Randi

Chapter Master of the Knights Inductor and Chair of the Aprior Sector Executive Council. He attained his post over his brothers because of his ability to forge a united front – very few could convince men as diametrically opposed as Isaac Rico and Roland Darren to work towards the same goal.

First Company consists of Veterans. They participate in ambushes, shore up critical defense areas, and strike vital points in the enemy's field, much like the veterans of any other Space Marine Chapter.

The Knights Inductor are somewhat unusual in that many of the Marines that they designate Veterans are not assigned to the First Company. Instead, they remain with their respective Companies, so that their brothers may benefit from their experience and wisdom. Occasionally, these veterans will form veteran squads, much as their brothers in the First Company do, to press the attack or anchor the defense at critical points. Companies bound for high-conflict zones are frequently granted a squad's worth of Terminator armor for their Veterans – which usually results in the unsuspecting enemy being unpleasantly surprised by a Terminator assault when they expected none.

Isaac Rico

Second Company Captain and Master of the Watch. As a Neophyte, Rico became known for being devastating in combat, if too willing to commit to it, and his Company has followed his example, coming to be known as “Rico's Roughnecks.” He was part of Roland Darren's (see below) training section; their disagreements about the time and place to use words or bolter shells have never ended, although they have gotten more polite over time.

Second Company specializes in aerial and orbital assault, using drop pods, Thunderhawks, and Land Speeders to strike enemy weak points and seize or reinforce critical objectives. Their Company Standard depicts a Knights Inductor Drop Pod making planetfall, with the motto “Death From Above”.

Roland Darren

Third Company Captain and Master of the Deal. He was a serious candidate for Chapter Master, but was passed over for his tendency to delay the use of force more than he should. It was decided that, while this quality was not desirable in a Chapter Master, it had its place among the Knights Inductor leadership, and so he was made Master of the Deal and placed in charge of diplomatic efforts, where his patience would be a virtue. Despite his disagreements with Captain Rico, he will admit that, at the end of the day, his ability to back up his words with violence (for all his diplomatic achievements, he is still a Space Marine!) is what gives him the leverage to negotiate at all.

Third Company often divides itself into detachments that are loaned to Imperial forces in need of Astartes assistance. They return with an impressive record of service and experience, as well as intelligence on the Imperium and its enemies for their battle-brothers. Each detachment consists of a minimum of a Tactical Squad and an Assault and/or Devastator demi-squad. Generally, they will be supported by a member of the Armory and Librarius for specialized intelligence-gathering and other tasks, and may be mounted in a Rapid Strike Vessel and equipped with a few vehicles, depending on the destination. Their Company Standard depicts a winged shield bearing the livery of the Knights Inductor, representing their mission of protecting the Imperium wherever they are needed, and bears the motto “In Harm's Way”.

Johannes Archer

Fourth Company Captain and Master of the Fleet.

Aeron Sacres

Fifth Company Captain and Master of the Marches. He was Rightina's guide on her first visit to the Sector (see "An Investigation into the Heresy of the Reasonable Marines"), though he was only a Sergeant at the time.

Joshua Xavion

Sixth Company Captain and Master of the Hunters. The jaded former Veteran Sergeant of the legendary Silent Hands Sternguard Veteran teams. He is acclaimed throughout the Knights Inductor for his uncanny skill with the boltgun, produced by a latent talent and malfunction in his gene-seed. He, due to some twist of fate, lacks the Null trait, still has the full set of functional extra organs, and can receive hypnotherapy like any other regular Space Marine. He as a result of his particular set of skills rose quickly through the Scouts, Incursion, and Suppressor squads before receiving his station in Phoenix Tactical squad of 6th Company. But fresh on this new tour of duty, he witnessed the wholesale slaughter of two Tactical squads and over 200 scientific and security personnel at the hands of former Sergeant Xerxes, who had been contained as a Null Knight. The first to be discovered and last to be attempted treatment on.

After witnessing such a horrific event he dedicated himself to the task of hunting down the Null Knights personally with the 6th Company at his side. However his lack of resistance to the Warp has the double effect of instilling a sense of unease when around his closest comrades, and the whispers of the Warp caress his mind, searching for a weakpoint in his soul armor. However he cares not for that. His mind is always focused on one goal: the freeing of his brothers from the Necron taint. His personal combat servo-skull, fashioned from the skull of Null Knight Xerxes, serves as a constant reminder of what needs to be done. Only then will his brothers know rest. Only when they finally return the dead to their rightful tombs.

Marcus Rallen

Lieutenant (second-in-command) of the Sixth Company. He generally acts as a spokesman for the Knights. Captain Darren has taken note of his facility as such, and suggested that he be considered for being the next Master of the Deal.

Sixth Company is trained in the use of bikes and attack bikes, in accordance with the Codex Astartes. Additionally, they have come to be the company with the most experience in dealing with Necrons, especially the Null Knights. In honor of their expertise, their Company Standard is adorned with the image of a Necron head impaled upon a sword, and bears the motto “Returning the Dead to Their Tombs”.

The Librarius of the Knights Inductor serves much the same purpose as that of any other chapter, but is altered in response to the incompatibility of their gene-seed with the psyker mutation. Because the Knights Inductor need astropaths and psychic interrogators, they still train psykers to be Librarians, but equip them with Trooper or regular Power armor, as they lack the Black Carapace to interface with the more advanced MkI Damocles. Fortunately, the Knights' gene-seed proved to enhance the strength of a Blank's psychic-nullifying field, and so the Knights were able to deploy psychic warriors in full Powered and Terminator armor, calling them Silencers. These were given their own separate department in the psychic warfare and defense area of the Librarius called...

The Nullarium, which over many decades of trial and error, developed implants and training methods that allowed a Blank to wield his null-field with as much control as any other weapon; though attrition and losses were high in the early days of the Silencer program, and Blanks are difficult to obtain, the Librarius now has nearly three dozen Silencers of varying potency, all anti-psychic warriors of devastating power.

Silencer Level Alpha, Rachnus Pacifus

Head of the Nullarium. While he technically is the head of the Silencer program as the most experienced and potent of Silencers in the Knights Inductor, his extreme Null Aura keeps him from much of his leadership duties. These have been passed on and taken over in part by the Silencer Deltas beneath him. It's not that he cannot control his Aura, he by far has the most experience being able to shape his Aura into a veritable mind razor as an extension of his own anti-soul; it is the sheer magnitude of it that even he cannot dampen it noticeably. It is speculated that his Blank potency would rival that of their near mythical Primarch, Rachnus Rageous, as his shadow engulfs his being far more than what a normal Blank's would be. Rachnus himself believes that the secret to controlling his Aura lies with his Primarch of the same name who is rumored to still be alive, journeying through Chaos in the Eye of Terror for over 10,000 years.

Aprior Sector Battlefleet/Imperial Navy

The Aprior Sector's detachment of the Imperial Navy is their first line of defense against external invaders, and it is their vessels which patrol interstellar routes to ensure that supplies and people pass safely.

Lady Admiral Annora Ollin

Commander-in-Chief of Battlefleet Aprior and a member of ASEC.

All ships are currently upgraded with inertial dampener gravity fields, auto-loaders (Mechanicus-grade), lux prismatic crystal lances, and mid-range gravitic mass driver batteries.

• 1 Tarrasque Class Super-Battleship - Roughly the same in external design as an Emperor class Imperial Navy Battleship. Features two bow-mounted Harbinger cannons, a bow-mounted conventional Nova cannon, multiple void-shield emitter arrays, multiple cold-fusion reactors and inertial dampeners (necessary due to the inferior modern structure of the ship coming out of production).
• 3 Battleships- Two Emperor class, one Oberon class
• 40 Cruisers
• ~600 Escorts
• 3 Phoenix Class Cruisers- armed with Harbinger cannons, multiple void-shield emitter arrays, multiple cold-fusion reactors, inertial dampeners, skimmer drives, auto-loaders, and one ship, "The Astrolux Dominant", features an apocalyptic prismatic lancing beam.

Adeptus Mechanicus

Instead of being based in several Forge Worlds responsible for all research and manufacturing of the Sector, Apriori tech-priests have over a hundred “Workshops” scattered throughout the Sector, with at least one (and often more) in each System. Many do specialize in one particular area of research or manufacturing, but they are all designed to be capable of taking on any role if need be. Apriori tech-priests do not interpret the Quest for Knowledge in the usual way: as they see it, their task is to discover the fundamental principles on which the universe operates. They primarily do so through study of the STC canon, but they are not above studying xenotechnology or performing experiments to fill gaps. There is much tension (to say the least) between Mars and the Apriori, but outright hatred is mostly limited to Magi and higher ranks; most Explorators and Enginseers are interested enough in what the Apriori have discovered to set aside their philosophical concerns.

Artisan Zora

A relatively high-ranking tech-priestess in the Aprior Sector, stationed at the Primary Workshop on Aprior Quartus Alpha (probably the closest thing the Apriori have to a true Forge World). She leads a team that develops new concepts for weapons and armor. Her point of view and motivation is somewhat different from most tech-priests: as far as she is concerned, her duty is to produce equipment which will help society, as opposed to prioritizing an abstract “Quest for Knowledge.” This is not to say that she ignores the Quest, but she sees it as a means, rather than an end. This view is partially shaped by the fact that two of her relatives were killed by malfunctioning plasma weaponry.

Technologies

In their long isolation, the Apriori have had to develop novel technologies to fill gaps left by lack of access to Forge Worlds and other STC patterns. While much of their technology is inferior to the ancient relics in size, mass, or performance, the losses are more than outweighed by the gain in other areas, like ease of repair and mass-production. A techno-relic may have better performance in a smaller, lighter package, but when it fails, it is gone forever; on the other hand, the Apriori counterpart may be restored to functionality or replaced by one if its siblings, while hundreds more are rolling off the assembly lines to be pressed into service.

STC's

The majority of novel STC's claimed by the Tech Adepts in the Aprior System are militaristic in nature, relics from the outermost reaches of the Great Crusade and more warlike times even before then.

Invisibility STC- The first one lays down the groundwork for superior visual stealth systems, though it is actually very costly to produce due to the STC being somewhat corrupted from time. The complete systems are utilized exclusively by the Knights Inductor for now until the relatively rare materials needed for the system's production can be simplified or replaced. Virtually all Knight Inductor power armor features a lesser form of this visual distortion technology while the Terminator armor alone has the space to house a complete stealth generator. Contrary to what most outsiders believe, the original stealth systems are not based off of Tau technology, though influences and later assimilation did later incorporate Tau aspects into the design to increase efficiency. It was this assumption that caused great tensions between the Apriori Mechanicus and their more traditional counterparts.

Impakt Armor- The second STC is for a lighter armor composite that can stand up to the penetrating power of bolt weapons, though it only has limited kinetic dispersal capabilities. Unlike the stealth system STC, this composite is very easy to produce and the Apriori Guard have completely phased out flak and carapace jackets in favor of the lighter and more durable Impakt Armor. The only drawback if it even is one is that there is little room for improvement to Impakt Armor, the design being highly optimized to begin with. Power Armor also proves itself to be more durable so Impakt armor finds little use amongst the Knights. Aprior Scientists find the way the composition is melded together to form a stronger whole more interesting than the components themselves, hoping to apply the technique to even more durable materials.

As with all technology the Apriori Tech Adepts would be more than happy to share their findings with the greater Imperium... were it not for the Adeptus Mechanicus mistakenly deeming such technology as heresy against the Omnissiah. They are well aware of the perversions of technology that the R&D departments of the Apriori Mechanicus makes on a daily basis and link that to the "STC" technology that the Apriori Armed Forces use.

Research and Development

The Apriori Adeptus Mechanicus has three major branches or departments in terms of developing technology. Simply put, there is Applied Research, Domestic Application Development, and Military Application Development.

For a simple example, we'll take the small headway into reverse engineering gravitic manipulation by study of the Landspeeder design. Enough was gleaned from the merest fragment of the STC to grant the Tech Adepts to apply the anti-gravity concepts and technology they learned to other things. This is Applied Research, testing and experimenting with what they had to work with to partially recreate a forgetten technology.

Domestic Application Development is the use of the knowledge taken from Applied Research to better the lives of civilians and planetary populations in general. The anti-grav trains running on the advanced planets in the Aprior Sector are an example of such. They are improved and function based off of the technology gained from Applied Research and are continually developed to be more efficient.

Military Application Development for the gravitic manipulation technology can be summed up in the massive headway made into the Gravitic Accelerator Cannon and its derivatives. The ability to fling a suitable projectile using a controlled series of gravity wells even faster than a Tau Rail Cannon is something currently being developed for widespread use in the Apriori Armed Forces. The Grav Mass Driver is a massively downsized version of the GAC, meant for eventual use with standard infantry not unlike Pulse Rifles of the Tau, though the materials needed to make it aren't cheap, and the massive recoil means it can only be used by those in Trooper armor or better. The biggest example of the GAC technology series would be the Harbinger. It is a bow mounted weapon of massive proportions that takes up much of the length of a Strike Cruiser, and it fires with the force and power of Necron technology. It currently out-ranges all Imperial space weapons and has such an extreme effective range that making it accurate for "space artillery" use is becoming an issue. Applications like these are what may save humanity from falling in the face of encroaching enemies...

Technological Breakthroughs

The following is a more comprehensive list of what a little over one thousand three hundred years of relative peace and hard research brought to the Aprior Sector...

• Skimmer Drives- Gleaned from the capture of a Tau ship and with help of the Underminer and other Tau engineers, it allows for limited but highly accurate semi-Warp jumps. The violent Warp currents makes even short-distance hops by Warp Drive extremely dangerous, but ships equipped with skimmer drives can jump without fear. Skirting the boundary between the Materium and the Warp, a ship so equipped avoids all but the very strongest Warp currents. While not quite as fast as a Warp Drive for the same reasons, skimmer drives execute much safer and more predictable jumps, capable of delivering entire fleets in close formation with little trouble. With improved cogitator logic engines and inertial dampeners, this provides devastating mobility in space warfare. It however cannot be mounted on ships of older designs, as they have proved too risky to modify so extensively.
• Multiple Void Shield Emitter Array- By using alternating emitters this array effectively doubles the number of Void Shields a ship can boast, or prolong the lifespan of its existing shield system considerably. However it is only able to be mounted on more modern Aprior ships, as the power required to maintain a system of fallback Void shields cannot use standard Plasma fusion generators
• Cold Fusion Reactor- Only three Strike Cruisers in the entire Apriori Armed Forces and the Knights Inductor Chapter Fleet boast the Cold Plasmatic Fusion Reactor. By meticulously lowering the required energy to initiate a reaction, the reactor is able to put out power roughly equal to a plasma reactor while being many times more efficient. So great is the power provided with multiple cold fusion reactors, that the current ships armed with this reactor run the reactors at quarter strength most times to avoid overloading current systems. Should the Apriori Mechanicus manage to implement this and other innovated technologies in the Chapter's Battle Barges or the largest ships in the AS Fleet, the possibilities are almost unfathomable.
• Lux Prismatic Crystal- Study of Eldar Fire Prisms have led to the development of the Lux Prismatic Crystal, which focuses light energy into a more penetrating and direct form that bores through adamantium armor with ease. Upgraded lasweapons of all kinds however have to put more charge into each shot, cutting down energy capacity to about half the amount of typical shots. The sheer penetrating power can be traded off for a higher rate of fire if presented with more numerous, lightly armored targets. The fact that the crystal is the only upgrade to the rifle and extensive modifications are not necessary, virtually all lasguns wielded by the Apriori Imperial Guard have the potential bring down an Astartes with a few well-placed beams. Replacing the bolt weapons of the Knights Inductor have been considered but most of the Astartes prefer the stopping power of a bolt and with Kraken bolts being standard, are not lacking in armor piercing ability either. However, the Knights do make use of the larger if more complicated Lux Cannon, a Lascannon with a larger version of the focus crystal installed, and the Beam of Undying Light which is an upgraded ship-based Lance weapon with the Lux crystal.
• Nanomite Booster Machines- Arguably the most controversial technology the Tech Master of the Knights Inductor has come up with, it allows for near instant internal repair of organs, tissue, and bones. Based upon nano-scarabs kept in stasis by the eccentric Master of the Forge and nearly a hundred years of intensive study, these machines are used exclusively by the Knights Inductor in deference to how expensive they are to make and the sheer superstition surrounding them. It has also been discovered that by binding the microscopically sized repair scarabs to a vehicle's machine spirit, they can be directed to repair the vehicle's "injuries" as well.
• MkI Damocles Powered Assault Armor- The current generation of powered armor used by the entire Knights Inductor, it is considered to be Tech Master Gajet's finest creation. It took over 200 years of development, 82 prototypes for testing, and several tons of oily recaf in order for this armor to be created. It features first-aid nanomite boosters incorporated into the armor and is linked up with the power armor's machine spirit to target the worst of the Knight's injuries, essentially a built-in narthecium of sorts. The gravitic impellers serve to reduce the weight of the armor, allowing the Knight to be able to move faster and longer in his armor, and includes small thrusters in place of the backpack's exhaust ports to provide huge bursts of speed. While initially difficult to control (the testing was highly amusing to the eccentric Master of the Forge), a practiced Knight can use the impellers to traverse great distances within the space of a few seconds. Scouts go into Incursion squads now not only to get close combat training out of the way, but also to get used to the general motion of gravitic impellers in the form of their jump packs. All of this is powered by a Cold Plasmatic Fusion Micro-Reactor, which provides the power necessary to use the Gravitic Impellers to their full capacity.
• Inertial Dampeners- While the Knights have never captured a Necron vessel and never have even come close to doing so, extensive study on their inertialess drives and the research data on gravitic manipulation have allowed the Knights to come up with a technological compromise. By creating an anti-acceleration field that can be manipulated as a fast moving object shifts direction or brakes on a second's notice, the Knights have been able to development a form of inertial dampeners that allow their vessels to make maneuvers that would've otherwise torn the vessel in two. While still a far cry from their Necron counterparts, this form of intertialess drive has been able to be implemented on virtually all ships in the Aprior Battle Fleet, giving them a huge advantage versus slower Imperial ships and helping them to keep on about average footing with Eldar and even Dark Eldar ships, much to the latter's surprise.

Vehicles

Cerberus Rapid Response Vehicle

A wheeled variant of the Chimera Armoured Transport employed by the Aprior Sector Armed Forces. It is slightly less capable of negotiating broken terrain than its parent vehicle, but it is much more mobile in urban and open environments, and its wheels require significantly less maintenance than heavy tracks. Unarmed Cerberus vehicles are often used by planetary governments and other non-military organizations as ambulances, firetrucks, and cargo carriers.

Fenris Battle Tank

The Adeptus Mechanicus guilds working in the Aprior Sector keep track of every maintenance report generated when their products are brought in for repair. That way, they can identify patterns of problems and improve future production runs. One of the workshops contracted to build Leman Russ Battle Tanks for the sector's Imperial Guard regiments, Staalus Armorworks, found themselves needing to make too many compromises when they tried to modify the Russ in response to post-battle reports, and decided to make a bold gamble. They spent years testing designs and retooling their production lines to create a novel battle tank that addressed every identified shortcoming. The result was the Fenris Battle Tank, a lower, sleeker vehicle that resembled a miniature Baneblade with some features of the Predator Tank. It was a marvel of engineering, superior to the Russ in almost every respect, but it was also more expensive to produce, required a much longer training program for crews to master it completely, and only shared a few common components with the Russ. For ease of maintenance and interoperability with other Imperial Guard regiments, the Apriori regiments stuck with the dependable Leman Russ. Staalus had not lost all of their Leman Russ production lines, and thus retained some of its contracts, but their gamble cost them a great deal of Russ production capacity, which forced them to surrender many of their contracts to other workshops. As for the Fenris, only Staalus's own Skitarii and their world's PDF chose to use it; the production lines lie cold and the majority of Fenrises produced wait in storage.

Sky-shroud Drop Pod

Sky-shroud Drop Pods do not carry Marines like regular Drop Pods, but break up in mid-flight, releasing decoys that look like Drop Pods to ground sensors and clouds of metallic sensor-blinding chaff. They are sometimes used to provide cover for an orbital assault, making it impossible for ground defenses to target arriving forces, or on their own, to feint the enemy into responding to a false attack, exposing their capabilities and drawing them out.

Valkyrie Avenger

The Knights Inductor saw a need for a vehicle for covertly delivering small power-armored strike teams – the Thunderhawk was far too big for the task, while the Land Speeder Storm was too small. The Apriori tech-priests of Apodidax Aeronautics created a variant of the Valkyrie to fill that role (as the Stormraven STC pattern was limited to the Grey Knights and Blood Angels, and unknown to the Apriori). Modifications include increased armor and engine capacity, as well as internal adjustments to accommodate powered armor. Unfortunately, the Stormraven STC was later released to all Space Marine Chapters who desired it; when one of Apodidax's competitors won the contract to build them for the Knights Inductor, Apodidax found itself in dire financial straits...at least until they got the contract to build Avengers and Sky Talons for the Aprior Sector's Imperial Guard and PDF regiments.

Weapons

Gravity-Manipulation Mass Driver ("grav-driver")

From their study of various anti-grav STC patterns (like the Land Speeder and servo-skull), not to mention xenos hover-vehicles, the Apriori have developed a general-purpose theory of gravity manipulation. Its latest application is the grav-driver, where a high-intensity localized gravity field accelerates a projectile to many times the speed of sound, while anti-grav plates in the barrel make it nearly frictionless. Besides the projectile, the grav-driver has no moving parts in the firing mechanism, which means it is more reliable and capable of a higher theoretical rate of fire than most bolt, auto, and stub weapons. Its solid slug is also less prone to losing energy over distance or through obstacles than a lascannon's beam, and its ballistic nature means that it can strike targets beyond visual range. The most common form of this is the Gravitic Accelerator Cannon or GAC, an ordnance weapon used for destroying fortifications and heavy armor. Other weapons of the same class include the infantry-portable Gravitic Mass Driver Rifle, the high-rate-of-fire Gravitic Repeater Cannon, a vehicle-mounted weapon which fires smaller slugs at an extremely high rate of fire, for destroying massed infantry and light armor, and even incoming missiles and rockets, the super-heavy Unity-pattern grav-driver, and the Strike Cruiser mounted Harbinger cannon. Combined with the skimmer drive, a flanking volley across a vanguard of battleships can instantly cripple a small fleet. The Apriori Armed Forces and the Knights Inductor together own three Strike Cruisers armed with the latest technology available at the time of the Damnos Crusade against the Sector.

Sagitta missile

Noting that most armored vehicles are less armored on top and on the bottom than they are on the front, several Apriori foundries have worked to develop missiles that target these weak areas. Missiles that flew low to the ground to attack vehicles' vulnerable undersides seemed promising in laboratory tests, but proved unfeasible in the field as no logic engine small enough to fit in a missile could execute the course corrections required to avoid hills, vegetation, and other obstacles. Other workshops experimented with missiles that tunneled through the earth, but found that such devices could only have a very limited range (the tech-priests who devised the mole launcher for the Death Korps of Krieg ran into the same issue, but because the Death Korps usually form siege regiments, their engineers would not be fighting at long ranges anyway, so it was not considered a problem). The design that caught the eye of the Apriori armed forces (and brought a great deal of good fortune for the workshop that made it) was the Sagitta, a missile that flies up immediately after launch, and then dives onto the vulnerable upper armor of its target. Many enemies that rely on heavy armor have found their advances halted with a storm of death from above.

(More to come.)