Editing Archaeotect Collective (section)

==The Outer Systems Alliance & the Formation Wars==
While the sons of the Old Imperium continued their Brothers' War across the breadth of the galaxy, the dark starways beyond the edges of known space were experiencing a renaissance - one of a kind not seen since the burgeoning years of the Dark Age (referred to by the Archeotects as the Age of Enlightenment). The knowledge embedded into Vanth and his crew, along with the technology that had made them more than mortal, was lighting up the dark between the stars. For the first time in over a thousand years, a feasible infrastructure was beginning to form between the disparate refugees and seeker fleets that would come to comprise the Archeotect Collective, forgotten insights into the nature of Warp travel and the mechanics of the materium allowing for a growing spider-web of spatial relays and waypoints that connected world after world and fleet after fleet. Progress was slow at first, stemming solely from Vanth's parent fleet, and the systems where habitable worlds were to be found were few and far between out beyond the light of civilized space, but every connection made was an explosive step forward, each success building upon the last, and soon Vanth's message was spreading at an incredible speed.

The first steps toward the establishment of a united governing body were tentative at best. Many of the vast flotillas that had fled out into the dark during the turmoil of the Imperium's fall were wary of any outside authority, and rightly so - it was a point of agreement between all that no one man could be enthroned as lord over all, and no tribe could be allowed to direct another, for to accept such a state was to invite the failures and horrors of the Emperor's ill-fated reign. There was also the matter of Vanth, and the growing sect of 'Vanthians' that advocated full integration with the technologies discovered on Phenex Prime. The Outer Systems Alliance, as it was called in those days, had spread from Phenex Prime, much as it has spread from the efforts of Isador Vanth, and many leaders among the colonies and flotillas looked on at the progression of affairs and worried over the centralization of power. They saw the Isador's growing following as a cult in the making, saw how Phenex Prime sat at the center of all outer-system affairs as an uncomfortable reminder of Terra and its absolute sovereignty over the Imperium of Man. There were many, too, that doubted the origins of the technology that pulsed in Vanth's veins; whether it was truly the remnant of a lost human civilization, or something wholly alien in nature, and these ideas were adopted by many of Isador's political detractors as points of contention.

One of the greatest factors keeping the Outer Systems Alliance - and in turn the future of the Archeotects - whole during this time of upheaval and suspicion was the existence of an outside enemy. The human remnants of Imperial civilization were not the only refugees to have fled out into the cold dark beyond the galactic rim. Many alien species, each one determined to survive the calamitous fall of mankind into Chaos, has eked out their own niches amidst the outer stars. Few of these xeno species were amiable to intrusion by humanity. The Imperium had not been an ally to them, and its disastrous implosion at the hands of the Warmaster had annihilated millions of xenos worlds. To most alien refugees seeking to scrabble together an existence amidst the stars, the presence of mankind was akin to a ticking time-bomb. A hundred small but costly wars were fought on a hundred more fronts, every new foray into the black expanse risking the discovery of some new alien species that would likely be less than content to share the sparse words of the outer systems with mankind. It was during this endeavor to secure humanity's place in the dark of the outer rim that the prowess offered to those that embraced Vanthian thinking was most evident - these enhanced humans were more than a match for any foe, and they responded to new threads by adapting and innovating at an astounding pace. The Formation Wars, as they were called, were instrumental in keeping Outer Systems society at large united, their combined might necessary to ward off the predations of xenos and worse, but they also confirmed that if a violent schism were ever to occur, those that denied Vanthian thinking would need a sizable advantage in order to achieve victory.