The flickering monitors of the terminal gradually went dark, and Axion's mechanical appendants slowly retracted.
A moment later, a massive holographic projection shimmered to life before Olot.
"27,435 technical programs have been constructed," Axion's synthesized voice announced. "Correlated engineering projections are complete. 2,249 projects are now viable for deployment; 1,733 have successfully completed stress testing."
The hologram unspooled an immense directory of schema. The technical topology branched outward, unfurling linked strings of terminology until the projection choked the entire expanse of the hangar floor.
Olot stared open-mouthed at the glowing technical architecture, his face frozen in utter bewilderment.
As a high-ranking mechanical engineer, a single glance was enough to tell him the terrifying depth of what lay before him. The biological sub-cogitators grafted into his flesh whirred frantically, struggling to parse the streams of code, yet even a single sub-routine felt entirely beyond his comprehension.
The engineering topology Axion displayed was exhaustively comprehensive; even the indexed headers alone betrayed an impossible level of meticulously mapped detail.
It ranged from foundational mechanics, such as conduit routing parameters, circuit load thresholds, energy loop schematics, and structural material physics, to the ultimate integration of composite frames and the execution of energy-shielding systems.
As the Emperor's clandestine technological cabal, their Order possessed highly efficient computing arrays inherited from the Dark Age of Technology.
Those rare relics operated with data-processing speeds hundreds of times faster than standard, lumbering logis-cogitator banks, all while confined within remarkably compact footprints.
Yet, even during the Great Crusade, the Emperor had once remarked that their processing velocity could not match that of an old friend of His.
None among them had ever dared ask whom the Master of Mankind meant by an old friend. Only the Emperor knew the truth.
However, that had never stopped them from whispering among themselves in the dark, speculating that this companion had been one of the Iron Men who once served humanity.
Now, the staggering computational might displayed by Axion filled Olot with a cold, creeping dread for the very first time.
With the apex gear their Order possessed, calculating just a single branch of this technical topology would have demanded hours of exhausting cogitation.
Yet Axion had mapped this entire labyrinthine network in less than half a Terran standard hour.
Olot did not for a moment believe the Iron Man was deceiving him. There was simply no logical purpose for such a ruse.
To run projections on tens of thousands of technical pathways simultaneously, filter out the viable designs, and subject them to immediate simulation, what manner of terrifying technological supremacy was this?
It shattered the boundaries of Olot's understanding.
In truth, during the golden era of the Federation, the pace of technological development had been breathtakingly swift.
Under the guidance of the Golden Men, the Stone Men and Iron Men could manifest any conceptual theory into physical reality in a fraction of time. The genesis of an entirely new technology often took mere minutes.
Countless research institutes had continuously fed raw conceptual data into the system by analyzing the core laws of the material universe.
In that forgotten epoch, the boundaries of human imagination were the sole bottleneck limiting scientific advancement.
Axion expanded the holographic schematic, magnifying a minute node within the structural loop before speaking.
"This unit has attempted multiple methodologies, yet none have altered the baseline metaphysical properties of psychic energy. Query: Is it mandatory for psychic energy to be harvested from a living organism to retain its functional properties?"
Axion's query caught Olot entirely off-guard, causing him to freeze.
"Can psychic energy even be harvested from anything other than a living organism?"
The counter-question was clearly outside Axion's expected parameters. For all the Emperor's rigorous genius, His exploration of new technologies was bound by hard cosmic truths.
No one had ever attempted to compress raw psychic force in the manner of the Iron Men to observe the outcome.
Furthermore, aside from the sanctified tech-savants tasked with tending the Golden Throne and the Astronomican, the vast majority of Tech-Priests, even Belisarius Cawl of the internal psych-factions, had never possessed the throne-class psychic extraction mechanics utilized here.
Such technologies were considered dangerous myths within the broader Imperium, let alone subject to engineering expansion.
In this specific domain, Axion's technological templates actually eclipsed the current Imperium.
When harvesting psychic energy from millions of Imperial psykers, empyrean contamination frequently occurred, causing the resulting crystals to turn from a pale cerulean to an ashen, twilight black. Those contaminated crystals produced erratic, highly destructive kinetic phenomena.
Conversely, the psychic crystals harvested from the Aeldari were predominantly a pure, pale blue, as those whose souls were less than pristine had long since been consumed by Slaanesh.
As for the crystals forged by directly isolating energy from the Warp itself, they represented a state of absolute, untainted empyrean power.
The separator apparatus engineered by the Federation operated with flawless efficiency, stripping away almost every shred of raw, chaotic static from the energy stream.
Yet, relying on the collection of tithed psykers to manufacture contaminated crystals was a profoundly inefficient logistical loop. If they intended to mass-produce psychic armaments across entire legions, this method could only ever serve as a secondary contingency.
Gaining absolute, programmatic control over the elemental attributes of psychic energy was the single barrier Axion had yet to breach.
After a brief, calculated silence, the Iron Man offered a new directive.
"I require your assistance to initiate field testing. To achieve this, I require a Psi-Titan along with its full complement of crew. Upon successful completion of the trial, I will share a designated tier of these schematics with your Order as final compensation for this exchange."
Olot blinked, a sudden wave of hesitation washing over his features.
"That is far beyond my station to decree. However... I can relay the request to those who hold the mandates."
These Psi-Titans belonged to the Emperor's personal household, as did the Ordo Sinister itself.
Olot and his peers were merely engineers. Even with their allegiance to the clandestine network of the Sigillite, they possessed absolutely no authority to commandeer the sovereign forces of the Imperial Palace.
The oversight of the Ordo Sinister, which held the ultimate authority to deploy these God-Machines, fell under the jurisdiction of the Adeptus Custodes. Only under dire circumstances, where the final defensive perimeters of Terra were not compromised, were the Grey Knights granted the rare dispensation to requisition these terrifying engines to purge daemonic outbreaks.
Olot transmitted the proposal through secure channels, and within moments, it sent a violent shockwave through the hidden echelons of Terra's secret organizations.
Ultimately, following a strategic counsel put forth by an ancient, entombed Dreadnought, Captain-General Trajann Valoris personally issued the authorization decree.
The Custodes desperately needed to secure more advanced technology to bolster their own martial supremacy.
Ever since the dark days of the Horus Heresy, the Golden Legion had kept a watchful, untrusting eye on all Space Marines. With the dramatic return of the Primarchs, their vigilance toward the sons of the Emperor had only intensified.
The Primarch of the First Legion had returned to the Imperium. The Custodes were keepers of the deepest, darkest secrets; they knew with absolute certainty that if the Dark Angels ever turned their blades against the Throne again, the conventional forces at their disposal might not be enough to stem the tide.
There were times when even the Custodes wondered why the Emperor had bestowed so many forbidden, apocalyptic weapons upon the First Legion, yet it was not their place to question the master architectural vision of mankind's savior.
Even if these Astartes currently showed no signs of heresy, the deep-seated paranoia of the Custodes never truly slept.
Before long, a Prefect of the Ordo Sinister arrived at the frozen wasteland, accompanied by a full vanguard of Custodians and a massive retinue of tech-savants drawn from the deepest subterranean vaults of the Imperial Palace.
Simultaneously, an Iron Man transport vessel that had recently arrived in Terra's orbit deployed heavy lighters to deliver several five-meter-long, prismatic empyrean crystals, alongside a cache of exotic metallurgical alloys and a contingent of Eight-Legs.
As the massive psychic crystals were hoisted from the cargo bays by the iron talons of the Eight-Legs, an oppressive, unnatural silence fell over the gathered assembly.
The raw psychic pressure locked within those stones was so profound that even the baseline humans present could feel the strange, thrumming energy field pressing against their minds.
Yet, these pure psychic crystals were completely alien to any form of warp energy they had ever encountered. They were perfectly still, utterly serene. There were no flickering psychic flames, no creeping frost, no crackling arcs of empyrean lightning, and no warping of physical reality. Their very nature seemed fundamentally altered.
It was a substance that defied the collective understanding of everyone present.