- - -
POV: Arthur Sinclair.
I once more poked at my nose, only to wince as the cartilage shifted under my ministration. I returned my hand to my side as I followed Elder James into the room. Inside, Arriston and Arktos were waiting.
Ma'chello was busy working on other projects. He had begun research into growing Goa'uld crystals, since he was the second most familiar with their technology. As such, he had decided against joining.
I once more took my seat. Arriston nodded to me. "Alright, Arthur, what do you have?"
I nodded and began explaining the three perks that I could choose from. The room was quiet for several moments. Arriston nodded. "Arthur, tell us your thoughts."
I pursed my lips. "The perk I know the most about is Bonesinger. The technology that the Aeldari have available is extensive. All of it is based on wraithbone, a material that is probably among the strongest substances in existence. The perk seems to hint that it will include some psionic abilities. The biggest issue with this one is how the Aeldari will react to the secrets of their technology being known to someone who isn't an Aeldari."
Everyone frowned, but no one had any rebuttals. I continued. "Frankly, I know nothing about this Okami. The technology it offers is… well, the unbreakable robot body sounds good on paper, but mechs would be effectively indestructible to someone in the Iron Age. No. The real issue here is this… Yami. Taking this perk will probably either summon this being or give him an entrance into this universe. I think, for that alone, I want to disqualify this option."
The others all nodded, a round of agreement going up. Just like that, the perk was disqualified. "This one is appealing. The ability to recreate supernatural phenomena with pure science would be… amazing. The issue is that I don't know any purely supernatural phenomena. All the more mystical lantean based techs – the Stargate's wards and the sarcophagus – are closer to magitech. I don't know how well this perk would apply to those. Even if I could apply the theory behind the wards, what would we use it for? We have yet to detect any form of demonic entity. It's clear that something happened to the Warp Gods to cause them to disappear, so that just leaves enhancements to the sarcophagus at the moment."
I stopped to take a breath. "So, we have two options. Access to an entirely new realm of technology, with a possible but low potential for danger, or we gamble. We get essentially nothing at first, but a lot of potential options in the future."
The room was silent for several moments. Elder James nodded. "Alright. I'll vote for Bonesinger. I hate to say it, but the telepathic abilities are too good to pass up. Anything past that is just a bonus."
Arktos nodded along. "Especially if this Comstar truly exists, you will need a method to guarantee that anyone we bring back to Kaelastrum isn't an infiltrator; else we would have to push for much more drastic action on that front."
Arriston nodded as well, clearly in agreement. I looked around once more. "Alright. I get the feeling that this will be a pretty drastic change. I should probably do this at a hospital."
We took a quick walk down to the hospital, where several people had been asked to wait. Lieutenant Moretti was among them, along with several Dendredan doctors. They had me lie down on a medical bed. I selected the bonesinger perk and immediately passed out.
- - -
All across the galaxy, for the first time in nearly nine-and-a-half million years, since Tzeentch was dragged kicking and screaming into the Deep Warp and the Sea of Souls calmed, Aeldari Farseers, across the aging remnants of the Aeldari Empire, awakened.
As far as the Aeldari themselves could tell, who awakened was totally random, but it didn't last for long. As one collective, ten thousand spoke as one. "A stranger to our blood, but a keeper of our Ways, shall save the Aeldari from the long night."
Then, as one, they all perished. Their souls, already damaged by the loss of the Warp Gods, shattered, each of them giving their lives. The rest remained in slumber, hoping one day to be healed of their losses.
- - -
POV: Arthur Sinclair.
I awoke with a groan. Everything hurt. I slowly opened my heavily crusted eyes to find Lieutenant Moretti standing over me. "Arthur, how do you feel?"
A second groan escaped my lips as I tried to speak. It took me just a moment to get a hold of myself and reply. "Like I got run over… multiple times."
The doctor nodded lightly. "Well, frankly, I have no idea what happened to you. You've been lying in this bed for a week, and during that entire time your eyes, nose, and ears have all been bleeding. You've lost enough blood to kill you about a dozen times over. From the few times I could get X-rays, it looks like your brain has expanded by about 20%, and your skull has grown slightly to accommodate the changes as well."
She was silent for a moment. "I don't know what you did, but I'd say you should be glad it didn't kill you."
All I could do was let out a sigh. "Not really like I have much of a choice in this case. I needed to pick something."
The doctor just raised an eyebrow but said nothing further on the subject. "The President wanted to see you. He'll be here in a few minutes."
It was after the doctor had left the room, and everything was quiet, that I finally noticed a buzzing. At first I thought it was the lights, or maybe something in a nearby room, but as I listened, it quickly became clear that it wasn't. It was a cacophony of whispers. I couldn't focus on any single thought, but it was there, in the background of my mind. It definitely hadn't been there before.
I just lay there, listening to the whispers. I didn't even notice the President and Elder James entering the room until the Elder spoke to me. "Arthur, are you okay?"
I quickly blinked my eyes a few times. I looked between the two of them and nodded. "Yeah, I'm alright. It seems like telepathy is definitely kicking in."
Arriston raised an eyebrow. "Can you read my mind?"
I stared at him hard for several long moments. The whispers seemed to get louder for just a moment, but they were still too indistinct to be understandable. "No. There's something there, but I can't tell what's being said yet."
The two looked at each other. "Alright. What about the included knowledge?"
I blanked out for a moment as I thought about it. The knowledge had been sitting there at the back of my mind, just waiting for me to peek at it for it to come forward. For a second I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of technology, but I gave it a moment to pass.
The obvious stuff was the small things. Aeldari infantry weapons, such as the Sunrifle – though I was surprised to see the Heat Lance there as well, something I now knew was a device used most commonly by the Dark Eldar – were the first things I saw. Then there were the large-scale Starcannons – very similar in principle to the Goa'uld Staff Weapons, though much more powerful.
Then there were the vehicles I could make. Smaller fighter craft, but also other things; walkers such as the Wraithlord. Finally, I felt my mind settle on the warships; from escorts like the Shadowhunter, to Aeldari battleships, though I was also rather surprised to find Dark Eldar warships along with the normal Aeldari vessels.
Above even the battleships, the knowledge and experience of creating Craftworlds. That was much stranger since it wasn't a single class of ship, but a general term, but if I had enough time I could make one.
Finally, my attention turned to the last of my new memories; the Isitha Kasra. It was a musical instrument, sure, but it also allowed Bonesingers to communicate with wraithbone with much greater ease. They could only be made by Boneseers, and I had a feeling that I would need one.
I opened my eyes and nodded. "There is a lot… actually, I think I have more than the description seemed to suggest. There is a lot of Dark Eldar technology as well."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "Elder, I'm going to try to make some wraithbone."
The two looked at each other before looking back at me. Arriston nodded. "Alright. If you think you're up for it."
I nodded and closed my eyes. With my new memories, I knew that the singing was sort of optional. The Warp energy reacted to emotions, and songs were just about the easiest way to push that emotion into the Warp. A sufficiently experienced Bonesinger could just force their emotions into the wraithbone to form it.
Although I was fairly confident I could make some wraithbone without the song, it would be much easier with it. With a deep breath, I brought my hands together and started singing. It was an Aeldari tune, something that had come along with my new memories. It was a fairly simple song about growth. Nothing complex.
I repeated the song a few times, only stopping when someone shook me. I looked up to see Dr. Moretti standing over me. "Your food. You need to eat."
I blinked a few times. "Ohhh. Thank you." I looked back around the room to find no one but myself and the doctor. "Where did the President and Elder James go?"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow as I took the first spoonful of soup. "They left a few hours ago. You were to remain undisturbed."
"You've been humming away for the last eight hours." I froze for just the briefest of moments.
"Incredible. I thought it had only been a few minutes." I looked down into my lap. Lying there were three cubic inches of wraithbone. I picked it up to find it was incredibly light, but it didn't seem to warp no matter what I tried. Hopefully, wraithbone would live up to all it claimed to be capable of.
I smiled brightly. Bonesinger had been an excellent perk, as far as choices went.
- - -
I was discharged from the hospital seven days later and was immediately moved off the space station project. Most of the station had already been designed. Strictly speaking, I wasn't needed, though I still planned to go in and look everything over every couple of days.
Experimentation with the new perk began immediately. I could produce approximately two kilograms of wraithbone a day, but that was only if I focused on nothing but making the material itself.
Attempts to make more complex shapes and patterns ran into issues immediately. I was still a human, despite what my new memories showed me. Most of the techniques that were meant for use by an Aeldari just didn't work. There were some things I couldn't do no matter how hard I tried, and other things had more unpleasant side effects. The most annoying of these was the headaches, though I also just blacked out sometimes.
Apparently, my soul was not the same as that of an Aeldari. The perk had changed my soul just enough to use the most basic of Bonesinger techniques, but for the more advanced ones I would have to change them to work for a psychically active human.
As a start with the experiments, I began by making different forms of wraithbone. The base form of wraithbone is a perfectly rigid material, so it was useless unless I sang it into its initial form from the very start.
The very first test we performed was whether I could produce wraithbone sand. As it turned out, yes, I could. In fact, the finer the sand, the more easily I could produce it. It took me almost two weeks of experimenting, but I figured out how to produce atomic-scale wraithbone.
When producing sand at this scale, I could create almost 50 kilograms a day, twenty-five times as much as with just hardened wraithbone. The main issue was containing the material. At that scale, wraithbone acts like a liquid, so several large tubs are needed for storing it.
This was just the start of the experiments. Initial attempts to anneal this wraithbone variant with iron produced a form of steel that was ten times harder than endosteel. One kilogram of wraithbone dust could produce a little more than a ton of this wraithsteel as Ma'chello had dubbed it.
There had also been attempts to combine it with all the heavy elements we had access to. All in all, Wraithbone was turning out to be a wonder material.