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Jena Orechiel

2022-05-07T06:43:50Z

2600:6C46:6F00:136F:F828:83C5:2122:D29: /* As Heleana Jerico */ At least I got rid of one "at least".

[[Image:Jena Orechiel.jpg|200px|thumb|Inquisitor Jena Orechiel. Try asking her about the pistol. She'll likely let it [[Dakka|speak]] for her.]]'''Jena Orechiel''' is an [[Inquisitor]] of the [[Alienhunters|Ordo Xenos]] known for not really giving a shit about [[Heresy|the Imperium's laws regarding the use of alien technology]].

The estranged daughter of a noble. In her youth during her time in [[Schola Progenium|what I suppose you'd call the grimdark Warhammer 40,000 equivalent of boarding school]] Jena didn't really make many friends and constantly frustrated her teachers due to her stubbornness and fiercely held convictions. Normally problems with authority are beaten out of students pretty quickly but Jena was determined to [[Meme|fight the power]]. Eventually it got to a point when this old, retired [[Mordian Iron Guard|Mordian]] sergeant they had on staff named Belphus Meere decided he'd had enough of her rebellious teenager shit and made it his mission to teach her who was boss. Jena considered his arguments for exactly zero seconds before promptly telling him to fuck off. What followed were a series of ordeals Belphus set for Jena in an attempt to break her spirit such as all night runs and counting grains of salt but she refused to bend to his will and as the tasks grew more difficult she only became more determined to resist. It was all very dramatic but eventually the two developed a grudging respect for each other.

Originally her teachers intended to give her to the [[Sisters of Battle|Sororitas]] where she might prove useful but quickly decided she wasn't prepared for such a responsibility and held her back. Working down their "Careers for aggressive assholes" list the teachers contacted the Inquisition and told them they had a possible recruit. When a curious Inquisitor arrived they pointed him to Jena whom he spoke to before going "Hmmmmm. Nope" and telling her she needed to slow her roll, let the poor cafeteria servitor out of that headlock and get her pride in check before she might make a good Inquisitor. Unlike her teachers Jena actually listened to this guy and their meeting served as something of a wake-up call for her. She started taking her studies seriously, stopped punching people out for making fun of her [[/co/|Rogue bangs]] and, when she had sufficiently matured, she was inducted into Inquisitor Dargasto's retinue as an acolyte.

The thing with Jena is that she has some [[heresy|pretty interesting opinions]] regarding aliens in that she believes they can sometimes be collaborated with and learned from for the good of the Imperium rather than despised indiscriminately and eradicated wherever they're found (meaning she is probably with the Xeno Hybris, a small group within the Inquisition who operate under those beliefs). Inquisitor Dargasto shared her fascination with xenos species and culture which led to the two of them getting along quite well and, when Dargasto was killed in a gunfight with some [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Mechanicus]] tech-priests (you know how they get with xeno-tech users), she basically took his place as a full Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos inheriting both the remains of his retinue and his vast wealth. One of her first actions as an Inquisitor was to return to her old school to see if that old coot Belphus was still around. When she found that he was she extended to him an invitation to join her retinue which he accepted.

The following decades saw her grow into a pretty kickass Inquisitor hunting down enemies of the Imperium left and right. While it is true she is willing to employ diplomacy with aliens she believes can be reasoned with where other Inquisitors are not, she knows when a situation is beyond words and someone needs to get shredded by her shuriken pistol. Speaking of which, while the Radicals like her, the more Puritan members of the Inquisition are getting increasingly butthurt over her ignoring their complaints about her casual use of xenos equipment and rumoured association with the Eldar (she is even said to have had one in her service at one point). Some have even begun hunting her convinced she is a heretic but she just sneers and trolls them by frequently changing her name so they can't find her.

Unfortunately her old friend Belphus was eventually killed securing valuable knowledge about the [[C'tan]], a foe that had a tendency to sit securely at the top of Jena's hit list.

She also acquired a [[Kroot]] bodyguard named Mordak by defeating it's former master in a death duel so her skill with a blade is probably higher than most (her good weapon skill in the [[Inquisitor (role-playing game)|Inquisitor]] game supports this).

== As Heleana Jerico ==

At some point during her career she found herself in the upper spires of the Primus hive city of the planet [[Necromunda]] under the name Heleana Jerico (an almost-anagram of her real name) having a dalliance with the Planetary Governor leading to her giving birth to his child who would grow into the renowned underhive bounty hunter known as [[Kal Jerico]] (basically the Jack Sparrow of 40k). It wasn't long before she left the planet and resumed her Inquisition work seeing it as far more important than helping to raise her son. Kal didn't stay in the upper spires for long and soon went below to begin his bounty hunting career causing Jena to label him a disappointment not worth her time.

Yeah, open-minded xenos policies or not it's important to note she's still kind of a bitch. When she eventually told Kal who his father was she flippantly described the whole thing as "one of the many disagreeable things she had to do for the good of the Imperium". One can only guess how many bastard children this woman may have left scattered across space (remember that Eldar association I mentioned up there? Let's just say I doubt [[Lofn]] is the only halfbreed around).

Years later Jena returned to Necromunda and ordered an [[Adeptus Arbites|Arbites]] cull of the Primus underhive (basically when the Arbites get bored they head down to the lowest part of the hive city and just start shooting random people on the off chance some of them are actual criminals) to flush Kal out of hiding and had her daughter Merelda abduct him and bring him to her in the upper spires (Merelda's father is unknown but it is stated she is only Kal's half-sister. Whether Jena gave birth to her before or after Kal is also unknown. She refers to him as "little brother" several times but it could simply be an attempt to demean him). Following a sort of awkward reunion and a "get your shit together" lecture from Jena she told him she was hiring him for a mission she needed help with before taking him to meet her team and [[Troll|waited just long enough for Kal's head to fill with dirty thoughts about Merelda before telling him she was his half-sister]].

[[Image:Jenashoot.jpg|300px|thumb|Silly Kal. Hopes and dreams are for heretics.]]She led the group to a [[Space Hulk]] called Kronos that had recently re-emerged from the warp claiming it was filled with priceless archeotech she intended to [[Ork|loot]] for the Imperium. After boarding the hulk they journeyed through its depths fighting various mutated creatures and evading traps until they ended up face to face with a large group of Necrons which they defeated. Jena then decided it was probably time for Kal to know the real reason they had been creeping through the bowels of a gigantic heap of space-garbage for hours. She told him the abridged story of the C'tan and the Necrons (the old one) and that one of the most powerful Necron constructs ever created called The Setekh (basically an incredibly powerful Necron the size of a [[Wraithknight]]) rested in its sarcophagus within the Space Hulk which she intended to make sure did not fall into the wrong hands. Obviously things didn't go as planned and Jena's retinue arrived at the sarcophagus only for her second-in-command, Vanyan Kloss, to betray her and refuse to allow them to destroy something he believed could be beneficial to the Imperium. He revealed he had been spying on her for a rival Inquisitor named Malva who quickly turned up with a shitload of [[Deathwatch]] Space Marines to apprehend her and announced his intention to dismantle the sarcophagus and take it with him. Having actually done her research Jena knew The Setekh was far too dangerous to be diddling around with and told Malva he was a nutcase and that it needed to be destroyed. Both Inquisitors turned to the [[Raven Guard]] captain of the Deathwatch like children arguing over a toy who told both of them to shut the fuck up and that he was arresting everyone including Malva but, by this point, The Setekh was getting really sick of all these tiny flesh-things bickering in its bedroom while it was trying to sleep so it got up, wiped the metallic crust from its eyes and started murdering everything in sight.

The Deathwatch attempted to retaliate but it quickly became clear they were out of their league as The Setekh slaughtered them with ease while taking no damage in return. Kal frantically asked how they could possibly kill it to which Jena replied it would be impossible [[What|even for an entire Space Marine chapter]] and, instead, pointed him and her daughter at the thing's sarcophagus claiming The Setekh was still drawing power from it and wasn't fully awakened yet. Kal and Merelda tried to make their way through the chaos to the sarcophagus but Vanyan still refused to allow them to destroy it (apparently not noticing the giant robot gleefully vaporising Space Marines nearby) and shot Merelda in the back. Jena was super pissed at this and rushed to her fallen daughter's side before furiously screaming at Kal and Mordak to kill the traitor but, after a brief fight, The Setekh kindly took care of that for them.

This shit was getting ridiculous to Malva so he pulled out his teleport homer and requested the Deathwatch ship to beam him aboard immediately which it began to do before Kal sent a las bolt through Malva's wrist and severed the hand holding the homer mid-teleport resulting in Malva being hurled screaming into the Warp. Jena grabbed the homer, severed hand and all, and made the same request. Meanwhile The Setekh killed the last of the Deathwatch and advanced on their position as Kal and Mordak rained ineffective las pistol and kroot rifle shots into it in an attempt to slow it down to no avail. If it had any kind of personality it probably would have laughed at their efforts but instead it just silently charged a final gauss blast the Deathwatch ship barely managed to beam the four survivors away from in time. Jena commandeered the ship and ordered them to Exterminatus the fuck out of the Space Hulk. A full load of cyclonic torpedoes later and the hulk was crumbling and falling back into the Warp. Jena figured The Setekh is probably still in one piece but at least this way it was out of the galaxy's hair for another few thousand years.

Anyway it turned out Merelda survived taking a bunch of heavy bolter rounds in the back somehow (to be fair they only really clipped her a bit). Jena and Kal went to visit her as she recovered and, impressed with her half-brother's performance, Merelda gave him the cyber-mastiff she used to abduct him earlier. Equally impressed Jena offered Kal a permanent position in her (now very empty) retinue but he declined preferring the comparatively less deadly world of the Primus underhive to which he returned.

Jena hasn't really been heard from since but she's probably busy pissing off the Puritans and kicking the asses of the Imperium's enemies as usual. It is unknown what she might think of [[Pokémon|the C'tan's current state in the fluff]] but odds are good she would welcome the opportunity to deal with [[Tyranids|more pressing matters]].

= Gallery =
<gallery>
Image:Enterjerico.jpg|Jena with her daughter Merelda (upper left), her son Kal (lower right) and other members of her retinue.
Image:EXTERMINATUSPLZ.jpg|Jena asking the question every Inquisitor lives to ask.
Image:Jenapissed.jpg|Caring more about your family than the Imperium? HERESY.
</gallery>

{{Template:Famous members of the Inquisiton}}

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Imperial]][[Category:Inquisition]]

Astronomican

2022-05-06T14:35:29Z

2600:6C46:6F00:136F:F828:83C5:2122:D29: /* Effects */

[[Image:Astronomican 3.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[John Blanche|Artist’s]] impression]]

{{Topquote|Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.|Napoleon Hill}}

{{Topquote|The amateurs discuss tactics; the professionals discuss logistics.|Omar Bradley}}

{{Topquote|And the madmen build a lighthouse in Hell!| Napoleon Bonaparte}}

The Astronomican is a psychic marker pen the [[Emprah]] used to mark his patch of the galaxy, which is basically all of it.

==History==
[[File:Emperors Thirst.png|thumb|left|300px|Psykers on their way to become psychic snacks for Big E.]]

The Astronomican is a device created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] in preparation for the founding of the [[Imperium of Man]]. Following the Golden Age of Technology, humanity was cut off from its colony worlds due to violent [[Warp]] storms and the loss of its own [[Scythes_of_the_Emperor|beacon grid]], rendering it unable to safely traverse the Warp. While the Warp storms died out around M29, it was all but impossible for [[Navigator]]s to safely guide space ships through it. To solve this, the Emperor created the Astronomican, a device which acts as a psychic "lighthouse", allowing warp-travel in a 50,000 light year radius of [[Terra]] (you can still go outside that, but it will be difficult to navigate and you better hope the Gellar Field doesn't fizzle out).The galactic core is 26,000 light years away from earth, while the whole galaxy is 105,700 light years, so the Astronomican can, roughly, cover half the galaxy. The Emperor eventually planned to phase out Warp travel completely with the construction of an Imperial [[Webway]], but [[Magnus|one guy]] accidentally ruined it, which led to an immeasurable amount of rage due to [[Not as planned]], both from Big E. himself and the fan-base alike.

Following his entombment to the Golden Throne, the running of the Astronomican fell to the Adeptus Astronomica. It's overseen by the Master of the Astronomican, who has a permanent seat on the council with the [[High Lords of Terra]]. Given the sheer amount of psychic power contained within the device, the Emperor's mind is used to direct the power of the Astronomican. To keep it running, one thousand [[psyker]]s are rounded up '''every day''' and sacrificed to power the Astronomican. Unlike the ones sacrificed to maintain the Golden Throne, these psykers are trained to keep it running and consider it a holy duty to sacrifice their lives... At least if you take things at face value like the Adeptus presents it. And while it is true their sacrifice is a vital necessity for the Imperium, a more cynical view is that the device is a trash compactor for unwanted psykers: those that are weak of mind, powerful but outright insane or just happened to piss someone off. By keeping it active, humanity has a guaranteed way of navigating the [[Warp]] but also an ostensibly laudable way of "depositing" dangerous psykers and keeping the Imperium "functioning".

[[File:Psyker Sacrifices.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Inside the Chamber of the Astronomican.]]

Also, the "thousand a day" is something of a misnomer: there's actually way more than one thousand psykers inside the Astronomican Chamber of the Hollow Mountain (the former Mount Everest) at a time. The mechanisms of that chamber gradually drain each victim of all memories, thoughts, emotions, and eventually the soul itself through a course of a few weeks, or in case of the most unfortunate ones, months, and all this time for them is filled with extreme, incomprehensible, mind-blowing, "I wish I was abducted by the [[Dark Eldar]]" pain, until all that is left of their souls ceases to exist (so no afterlife for them) and all that is left of their bodies [[Malcador_the_Sigillite|crumbles to dust]]. It is telling that even the Emperor refused to implement this solution when Malcador suggested it the first time and only reluctantly agreed to it when it became clear he could no longer both do everything he needed to do and power the Astronomican alone at the same time. Let that sink in for a minute: when the most ruthless warlord in the history of mankind, the guy with a lot of geno-/xenocides and war on galactic scale on his hands, when he thinks something is too extreme; you know you're in for a real treat on the [[Grimdark]] scale.

The Imperial Creed is a bit uncertain as to the exact theological nature of the Astronomican: the accepted line is that the Emperor maintains it by his sheer divinity, whilst the psykers are either purified of their sin and redeemed in death or are just not talked about. What few historians the Imperium has have learned not to point out that the Astronomican ran before the Emperor sat on the Golden Throne.

==Effects==

[[File:Dome of the Astronomican.webp|thumb|right|300px|The giant metal sphere that holds the Astronomican.]]

It lights up the warp, Council-of-Nikaea-beacon style, filling minds of psykers with holy singing, thoughts of martyrdom and images of [[Living Saint]]s of course. While sacrificing the trillions upon trillions of humans on Terra. Typical [[Eldrad|dickery]]- though on second thought, [[Mortarion|there]] [[Lorgar|are]] [[Perturabo|many]] examples. The fact that the psykers are sacrificed and are not allowed to rest between sessions is also a typical source of [[grimdark]].

The ''Talon of Horus'' book by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] describes... interesting side effects of the Astronomican activity. Where its light collides with a potent [[Warp Storm]], like the [[Eye of Terror]] or the [[Maelstrom]], the mix of both creates the Firetide: a rim of space fucked up so hard even daemons are afraid of it. Not only do they get quickly burned by its walls of holy warp-fire, these are also inhabited by warp-spirits that could be described as flaming angels; just like Chaos daemons, they don't mind slaughtering, raping, and eating chaos worshipers (who, if they are very lucky, will suffer this fate in that order). These "angels" are known to cleanse their territory of all life oldcron-style, no matter its allegiance, but unlike daemons, these spirits cannot be reasoned with, as they are as insane from millennia of intolerable pain and suffering, probably just like the [[God-Emperor of Man|source that gave them life]]. The Firetide engulfs multiple "Radiant Worlds", planets touched by the golden psychic storm without being burned by it. In these regions, the Astronomican can manifest an avatar of the Emperor's will known as Imperious, an actually way nicer chap than these postal-going "angels" described earlier, taking the form of a humble pilgrim wearing a Scream mask of gold and light.

There's only one real drawback to having the Astronomican (you know, aside from whole [[Grimdark|sacrifice of a thousand innocents per day]]): it's attracting the [[Tyranids]] to Terra (they were already on their way to the Milky Way due to the [[Imperium Secundus|Pharos]]) like a swarm of mosquitoes to an infra-red torch so it should really be renamed to the [[Derp|Astro-NOM-ican]]. Is this a drawback? Who knows? Maybe Big-E needs the 'nidz to set him free from his Golden prison. After all, their presence would likely close the warp rift in the Eternity Gate as it is so small and their Shadow in the Warp is so large. Additionally if you want an entire army to attack one point, you may as well have it attack the most heavily defended point you have. Holy Terra fits that bill so who knows how many planets are being spared because the nids are focusing on the Astronomican?

Another 'drawback' to the Astronomican is that it's a lighthouse, and every one can use it. In theory if the [[Tau]] or [[Q'Orl]] could develop the ability to 'see' the light the way Navigators can then they too could use it, though the effectiveness of the former might be limited due to their weak soul-presence, and the latter limited by their current existence in canon being dubious at best. This has potentially hilarious implications, as you would suddenly have a xenos species dependent on keeping the Imperium around in order to facilitate the expansion of their own empire.

There have been a case or two of chaos exploiting the light such as [[Shon'tu]] using a navigator, who of course would have had to have been using the Astronomican, to drop a hive ship within 100 light years (read: galactic spitting distances) of Terra.

==That Other Thing==

It's not mentioned much, but the Adeptus Astronomica '''is''' the single most important organization in the entire Imperium. Without it, there is no Imperium. Humanity is only able to leverage its numbers and make war on a galactic scale because of the reliability of its warp travel. Yes, sometimes ships are lost to the Warp or arrive two centuries too late. However, sometimes every successor chapter answers a call and arrives to bail out [[Baal]] or [[Terra]] all at once. Sometimes crusades of hundreds of ships go cleansing a path hundreds of star systems wide. No other race in the galaxy has the same combined [[Tyranids|numbers]], [[Eldar|reactiveness]] and [[Tau|coordination]], and it is owed to the Astronomican. The last time Mankind was unable to make use of Warp, the first intergalactic empire Mankind had (this was before the Age of Strife, in fact it was the same government that ruled at the time of the Dark Age of Technology, implied to be some form of corrupt but functional and effective democracy) fell apart, entire planets lost contact with each other, Terra became a shitpit (And THAT forced the Emperor to come out of the shadows and begin his preparations to end the Age of Strife), AND it was even smaller than the Imperium of Man, AND that time period didn't have all the nasty shit that plagues the galaxy today.

Also warp travel being what it is sometimes it fucks up in a beneficial way and [[What|the fleet arrives several years before it left]].

In all seriousness, the lore depicts response fleets arriving even while invaders are still off-loading troops or after the battle has peaked but before it can swing either way. This implies Imperial Warp travel is usually very reliable and extremely quick. The rapidity of the Great Crusade itself also supports this.

==The Imperium Nihilo==
New Black Library books by Guy Haley shed some more light (nerp derp puns) on the situation. The light of the Astonomican is able, sometimes, to slowly melt back the taint of lesser Warp Storms, and at one point Guilliman outright says that Warp travel in the post Great Rift era is harder in areas where the Astronomican isn't shining, even if there are no active Warp Storms going on. That implies that the light of the Astronomican itself is somehow, making the Warp less fucky to fly through, which might go some way to explain why the Dark Gods call Biggie E Anathema. He's been aggressively glowing at them for eleven thousand years or more. Remember, the Astronomican came online in M30.8**, and the book Plague Wars is set in M42.111, so that's eleven millennia of him peeing in their garden without stopping.

== Gallery ==
<Gallery>
Image:Warhammer 40k emperor s tarot fan cards set4 by dizman-d63x0ek.jpg
File:Emperor Lightbulb.jpg|Arguably the Emperor's most important job post-Heresy: psychic lightbulb.
</Gallery>
{{Template:Imperium}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Imperial]]