Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

==Oscar and the Silent King==

When the Necrons began awakening en masse and the Silent King arose to represent the majority of them, the Emperor and much of the human parts of the Imperium wanted to try to parley with them. Before the Imperium and the Necrons had adopted a mutual “stay off our lawn” policy, which the Eldar weren’t too happy about, but it was clear the Necrons could no longer simply be ignored as a local concern. The Eldar freaked out about this, with many suggesting the Eldar jump ship if humanity was going to do something so blatantly suicidal. This was the closest the alliance between humanity and Eldar ever came to dissolving. Isha and Oscar had a bit of a falling out over this and argued for many nights, with Oscar essentially sleeping on the equivalent a space couch for several nights because of this. He eventually persuaded Isha to his side of the matter and at least give them a chance by telling her that it's better to have them in here pissing out than out there pissing in. He did not mention that this was the same line of reasoning he had used on the High Lords of Terra to get them to agree to the Eldar alliance. Isha agreed to give them a ''chance'', though she still refused to go anywhere near them and still won't go near the independent Necrons that are sort of friendly to the Imperium like Zahndrekh or Trazyn.

It is also important to consider Oscar’s mindset at the time that this occurred. In M40, Oscar’s social circle consisted of his wife, Eldrad, Cegorach, Bjorn, Eldrad, Trajan, Galadrea, and a handful of others. Oscar has made new friends since then (most notably among those mentioned Sebastian Thor and Alicia Dominica), but he has had trouble building relationships due to the fear of loss ever since his original family (the primarchs, Malcador, Taranis, Krole, Mu, and the like) started dying. Even some of his longest-lived friends have passed away. Magnus is dead. Vulkan is dead. Ferrus Manus is dead. Constantin is dead. The possibility of anyone, even the bloody king of the Necrons, being a positive long-term social influence at this point in his life is an avenue worth pursuing. On top of that, Szarekh is an immortal being with massive amounts of power who rules over a massive empire and therefore knows firsthand how hard the decisions required of that are. He’s possibly one of the few people in the galaxy who could potentially empathize with Oscar’s situation.

So Oscar wasn’t exactly going into the situation with an open mind. When he went to parlay with Szarekh, he hoped that all the things Isha told him about "Oscar, this is a bad idea. I'm serious, those people are psychopaths" is just an exaggeration from the days when the Eldar didn't rule the roost and the Necrons were their personal boogeymen. It didn’t help when the Silent King introduced himself with the self-deprecating, very Oscar-esque “They call me the Silent King. Well, they call me that, but I suppose I haven’t been very silent these last few millennia”.

And Oscar thinks he might just be a little bit less alone in the galaxy. Only for it to be ripped away like a cruel joke. It didn’t matter whether the Silent King meant anything he said. It still rubbed salt in the wound when Szarekh made his ridiculous demands.

There are several possibilities as to why Szarekh behaved the way they did. One is that Szarekh was simply stalling for time, waiting until the point where enough Necrons had awakened and he could strike. Another is that Szarekh genuinely liked Oscar, though the Man of Gold would of course have to be shown his place and bend the knee to the Silent King. Finally, Szarekh could have assumed that Oscar was just as savvy a player of the game of politics as he was and was playing by the same rulebook. He knew that there could be only one and any positive behavior was just part of the politeness judo and political maneuvering that characterizes the game of kings, rather than genuine.

However, regardless of the Silent King’s intentions, any relationship between the Silent King and Emperor of Mankind was doomed to fail for two reasons. First, Szarekh’s personal history had given him a very specific idea of how the world works. Emperor means The Ruler. There can only be one Emperor because that's what Emperor means. He is the one to whom the man you are bending a knee to bends a knee to. There are no Emperor"s", only Emperor's. Not plural but owned. Szarekh owns you, he owns you because you exist and he exists and he is Emperor and you are definitely not. When Szarekh acknowledged Oscar as Emperor of the Imperium it was to buy time or in mockery (and with that deadpan who can tell if it wasn't both) because here can be one and only one ruler. The failure of the Triarchy in ages past had taught him as much.

The other was the goal of the Star Empire. In order for the Necrons to atone for their mistakes in the War in Heaven and make the galaxy safe for organic life again (most notably them), Chaos had to be destroyed. The only way for Chaos to be destroyed was for all higher life to be destroyed to deprive the cancer of its food supply. There could be no half-measures. The galaxy was almost stripped of life during the War in Heaven (key word being almost), and yet enough life survived that Khorne, Malal, Nurgle, and Tzeentch managed to scrape by. To this end, any relationships the Silent King made in this era, regardless of how he felt about them, would by definition be temporary. The inhabitants of this time were nothing more than passing ghosts. The walking dead who did not realize they were dead yet.

Ironically, at the same time all this was happening, another immortal who fit Oscar’s criteria, Aun’Va, was desperately hiding in his corner of the galaxy hoping that the Emperor would never find out he was immortal in a mistaken belief that the Imperium would retaliate if they knew.