Chapter 36: The Types of Gods
A week later, Omega carved through the mega-fortress streets with his power sword, cutting down black cyborg monsters that emerged from every shadow.
Behind him, Alpha Legion soldiers fired explosive bolters in continuous volleys. Missiles and artillery shells hammered enemy positions from long range while Thunderhawk gunships screamed overhead, weapons raining fire upon the defenders.
Through heavy firepower and systematic dismantling of mechanisms by the Mechanicum, they captured half the fortress in days.
Omega had obtained crucial information as the gene-code's original creator: an alien artificial intelligence controlled the entire fortress. But the facility devoted its energy almost entirely to research rather than weapons systems.
The reasoning was twofold. First, the Rangdan likely feared losing control of their creation. Second, and more significantly, the fortress functioned as a production facility for war-beasts over ten meters tall, half mechanical and half biological.
Omega discovered a chilling pattern: the greater the number of these war-beasts, the higher the collective intelligence of the horde. When the super-large monsters had stretched thousands of kilometers, they displayed remarkable intelligence.
Now, with their numbers reduced to hundreds of thousands, that intelligence had vanished. They behaved like beasts controlled by simple programming, nothing more.
It reminded Omega of neurons in a brain. Each individual neuron possessed only a single function and no intelligence. Yet when billions connected together, intelligence emerged.
Artificial intelligence operated on the same principle: as processing units accumulated, consciousness might spontaneously develop.
This emergent wisdom was not something the Creators had initially conceived. It arose spontaneously from sufficient complexity.
Just as the concept of water differed from that of the ocean, the properties of the ocean and those of individual water molecules were completely different, so too did the colossal monsters created by the Rangdan possess unexpected intelligence.
Their creators couldn't estimate what their creations might become. Out of fear, they had taken precautions.
Based on this analysis, Omega decided to adopt a methodical approach.
By continuously stripping facilities from the artificial intelligence's control, working from the periphery inward, the team spent half a month shrinking the fortress from thousands of kilometers down to a core area with a one-kilometer radius.
Then matters deteriorated.
A powerful energy shield contracted around that final kilometer, enveloped by the artificial intelligence. Superimposed within it was an extremely powerful psychic field, a spiritual assault of terrifying intensity.
Anyone who approached suffered immediate consequences: splitting headaches, hallucinations of their deepest desires materializing before their eyes, trembling minds, and memories that became confused and fragmented.
Some members of the Mechanicum legions launched unprovoked attacks on the Alpha Legion soldiers. Others seemed to have lost their memories entirely, staring blankly at the Alpha Legion forces suddenly appearing around them.
Still others had their memories altered, their minds rewritten to believe they served the Endless God.
Faced with these inexplicable phenomena, Omega and Alpharius made a tactical decision: they ordered their legions to retreat. Instead of a direct assault, they would use missile bombardment to deplete the enemy's strength gradually.
Missiles continued their assault, slowly weakening the energy shield and psychic field with each detonation.
The truth was undeniable: the artificial intelligence created by the Rangdan possessed terrifying psychic power. Neither commander knew the full extent of its abilities, but its power was frightening, comparable, perhaps, to a Primarch.
Conventional missiles proved insufficiently effective against the energy shield. Omega escalated to orbital bombardment, channeling the full power of their void-capable weapons.
During the bombardment, the massive psychic field resisting the energy attacks was ultimately weakened far more severely than expected. Its defenses had been optimized for conventional warfare, not for the raw fury of nuclear fusion.
With Omega skillfully shutting down the energy furnaces powering the shield matrix, the fortress finally fell into the hands of the Alpha Legion.
Beneath a massive alien research building, within a kilometer-long underground cavern, Omega and his team discovered countless alien supercomputers resembling the Thinker arrays of the Mechanicum.
Both the Rangdan's and the Mechanicum's computers were constructed from biochips. The two civilizations had been at war for a century and had become familiar with each other's technology through countless engagements.
The tech-priests immediately set to work, deciphering the information in these computers to determine which technology the Rangdan had sought to research.
Meanwhile, Sage Russell discovered something far more significant: a massive library containing backups of much of the Rangdan civilization's technology.
Upon seeing it, Omega immediately recognized its nature, a template reminiscent of the legendary STC templates from the Golden Age of Mankind.
Both represented the same strategic impulse: when civilizations faced extinction, their leadership would back up their knowledge in preparation for surviving the Dark Ages and rising again. Compressed into these archives was the accumulated knowledge of entire civilizations, waiting for resurrection.
Alpharius stood before the backup archives, clearly conflicted.
Even if this was only a portion of Rangdan's knowledge, it was undoubtedly enough to create a functioning civilization from scratch. Yet the Emperor's decree was absolute: eradicate any Rangdan technology and prohibit its research.
Before, secretly researching their mimicry abilities and fragmentary knowledge might have gone unnoticed. But now, confronted with such vast alien technological knowledge laid bare before them, studying it all would surely trigger a major event, one that would cause a ripple of varied sensations throughout the entire Imperium.
Alpharius hesitated, watching the busy Mechanicum, then took Omega to a quiet section of the building to discuss their options privately.
Omega smiled slightly. "Your hesitation stems from believing this knowledge about aliens might hold great value, doesn't it?"
Alpharius responded with irritation, "You're the same way. You care about knowledge even more than I do. Don't lecture me about it. I haven't figured it out yet...I'm planning to destroy it all."
Omega offered his perspective carefully. "Let the Mechanicum cultists research only the mechanical technologies. Destroy all their biotechnology and alien cultural knowledge."
"After centuries of fighting them," Omega continued, "the biotechnology of the Rangdan isn't worth preserving. It might even leave future problems we can't predict."
Alpharius nodded slowly. The Mechanicum's technology and the xenos' science actually shared much in common. In the pursuit of technological advancement, every civilization followed similar paths.
The human Imperium had developed nuclear fusion technology, just as the Rangdan had done. For any civilization to enter the stage of interstellar travel, nuclear fusion was a threshold no species could escape. Force field shield technologies followed similar trajectories across different species and worlds.
After the two Primarchs completed their analysis, they consulted with several tech-priests.
Although the members of the Mechanicum were somewhat reluctant to destroy such knowledge, they honored their agreement with the Primarchs and systematically destroyed all technologies unrelated to mechanics.
Just as the Tech-Priests were selecting and destroying non-mechanical technologies, Apothecary Russell discovered the fortress's great secret.
Recognizing the significance of the find, the tech-priests, Omega, and the others returned to the space flagship to discuss the matter privately.
On the bridge, Sage Russell appeared visibly shocked and hesitant. The secret they had discovered was overwhelming.
Russell looked at the easy-going Omega, his voice trembling slightly. "Sir, do you believe that gods truly exist in this world?"
Omega, having destroyed so many religions throughout his campaigns, chuckled with dark humor. "Are you asking whether gods exist as a religious concept, a deified being, fictional characters from mythological stories, or unimaginably powerful entities? The definition matters greatly, Sage Russell."
Sage Russell, momentarily taken aback by the directness of Omega's question, found himself uncertain how to respond. He asked carefully, "There are so many kinds of gods. What kind of being do you think the Omnissiah is, sir?"
Omega replied casually, "I don't know, and I've never seen it. For the Cult Mechanicus, the Omnissiah functions more as a religious concept. Of course, if you believe the god Omnissiah truly exists somewhere in this starry sky, that's your business. I claim no knowledge of such matters."
"Precisely," Sage Russell said, seeming to settle the matter. "The members of the Cult Mechanicus do not seek the actual appearance of a god; the concept itself suffices."
Alpharius interrupted the theological discussion abruptly. The topic of gods made him genuinely uncomfortable, even though he believed in the Imperial Truth. He was, fundamentally, a true materialist, and conversations about divine existence felt alien to his nature.
"Enough," he said calmly. "Forget whether the god Omnissiah exists. Sage Russell, you were saying you discovered a god. What kind of being is this god? Is it also some kind of alien religious concept?"
"If it is," he added coldly, "we'll dispatch troops to wipe out that cult. We'll eliminate them completely, as we always do."
[End of Chapter]