Out of the Dark

Out of the Dark. A Warhammer 40K fic by Derain Von Harken. Over 300 pages of discussion on Spacebattles. Apocrypha and the occasional canon chapter by other authors. And, as always, Warhammer 40K level of awesome.

Premise

The Men of Iron rebellion was not accidental. Turns out, one Eldar Farseer had foreseen the future. She saw the arrival of Slaanesh. And she saw what paths might lead away:

• First path. Humanity grows aware of the coming threat. It decides to take measures; read, a massive attack on the Eldar Empire. The pointy ears, decadent in their perversions, lose and are exterminated except for some quarantinned Exodites. Slaanesh, lacking the souls, dies before birth.

Win for humanity, win for the galaxy.

The Farseer didn't like the idea. She saw another path:

• Second path. Start the Iron Wars. Robots go full Necron, kill all humans (with backups to restore once done) and go to fight the Eldar to stop Slaanesh. The Eldar win, realize from the costs that the current lifestyle makes them vulnerable, cut down on the decadence. Slaanesh dies.

Win for the Eldar, win for the galaxy.

The Eldar decided to implement the path. Of course, she slightly underestimated Humanity. The Iron War was won, if narrowly, and so we have our infamous, nobody wins Grimdark galaxy.

Plot

However, the Emperor wasn't the only one to get wind of things to come. A good friend of his, General Perturabo (no, not that one. The better known Perturabo grew on the older guy's books, so he named himself in his honor). The guy caught that idiot Farseer, blew her head apart by giving her a glimpse of the coming Hungry Bitch, and started preparing.

Now, it was too late to prevent the Falls, both of Eldar and the human civilization. Instead, Perturabo decided to get the fuck out. He assembled whatever forces and civilians he could, put them on a remote planet named Tartarus (its sun long since stolen by the Eldar), installed some engines on the planet, and off we go...

The snag

A sabotage by some villains flung Tartarus off its path, and right into the Warp. Now, Perturabo's scientists did manage to work out some substance which repelled Warp, so they weren't all instantly corrupted. Instead, what they got was constant rainfalls of both daemons and Warp lost humans. The humans, of course, were welcome (so long as they followed the rules), but the daemons had to be dealt with. As you can guess, it was a long session of level grinding by the human armies.

And then?

Eventually, through some agents outside, Tartarus did manage to get out. Perturabo tried to set course back into another galaxy (after sending off whatever Imperium refugees who wanted back home with a few near-Imperium level toys for Admech), but after running into a Tyranid fleet, decided to go back. Milky Way must be saved.

And so they come back. With Golden Age of Technology gear, battle-forged armies, thousands of refugee Marines, both from Loyalist and (pre-uncorruption) Traitor Legions, AIs (including an enormous ancient troll named Oldumare), some friendly xenos...

Oh, and there is a surprise guest.

Gottfried "Guts" Perturabo Jr.

Primarch of the 2nd Legion.

What you won't find

Now, make no mistake. These guys aren't Imperium. They aren't idiots. But they are NOT nice. You don't survive in the Iron War or the Warp by being nice.

These guys are from the Golden Age of Technology. Doesn't mean they have all the gadgets Mankind ever made. Quite a bit was lost in the Iron War. Also, Perturabo's units were away from Terra, so some discoveries never had time to arrive.

And, while these guys may be more tolerant toward xenos, they by no means welcome them with open arms. They remember all the races that refused to help them during the uprising.