Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

==The Harrowing==

The Harrowing was an event in M33-M34 in which an entire dimension full of magnetic life forms that did not obey the conventional laws of physics tried to forcibly impose itself over the Materium. The problem was the inhabitants of this universe brought their laws of physics with them which made them a pain to kill. What's more, no one had any idea what the Harrowing was. The Harlequins, who have access to nearly the entire sixty-five million year history of the Eldar, were asked if they knew what it was and they shrugged and said it beats them. The Harrowing literally threatened everyone. The Olamic Quietude got smashed. [[That_Guy|''Trazyn'']] teamed up with the Imperium to make it go away. Chaos even helped out in a fashion (seeing the Harrowing as the more immediate and more existential threat), creating the Hadex Anomaly as the biggest middle finger they could give to the Harrowing that screwed over the surrounding sectors with Warp Storms as a side effect.

The Imperium ended up blasting it for a split second with the full light of the Astronomican in the hopes of making it go away. Before this, turning the Astronomican into a giant death-laser was believed to be theoretically possible, but the Imperium was never desperate enough to actually try it. Actually doing so killed two-thirds of the astropathic choir (nearly breaking the Astronomican permanently), doomed hundreds of ships to being lost in the warp when the giant psychic lighthouse suddenly went out, and the beam itself tore through realspace and the Immaterium alike and caused madness and mutation in every system it passed by. The beam did something to the Harrowing, but whether it actually banished it or softened it up for the kill is unknown.

Overall, given the resulting side effects, the Steward/Emperor considers shooting the Harrowing with the Astronomican a huge mistake that was not worth it and wishes he had found a more conventional and less destructive solution to the problem (whether anyone would have in time is a question for historians). The Harrowing wasn’t wiped from the history books in this timeline as the Imperium is generally less into outright erasing its history and the Imperium wants to be sure to remember the Harrowing for the simple reason of having information on them if they ever come back.

Bjorn fought in the Harrowing. He considers the current situation as of 999.M41 to be worse, but that might be hindsight talking.