Fabius Bile shows up on a ruined maiden world with a webway gate, and Dark Mechanicum people come to him to make a deal. Apparently, Bile is looking for Belisarius for some reason. Kolumbari-Enas, the First Among Equals (I'm just gonna call him Kolumbari-Enas) and Alixia-Dyos are Disciples of Nul - and if you're also a Horus Heresy fan, you'll know Sota-Nul is a tech-priestess of the Dark Mechanicum. This will be significant here.
Kolumbari-Enas knows how to find Belisarius, and he offers the knowledge to Bile, in return for a robot. Unfortunately, right now Bile only has a bunch of beastmen and a single cloned New (Wo)Man named Porter, who's like this genetically enhanced hybrid human assassin. Dunno what happened to his Creations of Bile. No sign of Igori from the previous books, so we have Porter and Brutus (the leader of the beastmen) instead. No Bile-modified Chaos Space Marine or Renegades. Just beastmen. Huh.
Anyway, because of this, Bile knows he doesn't have the forces to invade the Zar Quaesitor and get what he wants. So Kolumbari-Enas proposes they seek the aid of the Lord of Ghordrenvel, Dandimus Thrule. Thrule, by the way, is a Lord Discordant, so he has plenty of daemon engines. Bile goes along for now.
Belisarius receives a message from Roboute Guilliman, telling him to hurry up with the noctlith research so that they can close the Great Rift (on a small scale, anyway). He then talks to the Guilliman Inferior for help. Yes, the Guilliman Inferior is a simulacrum of Guilliman's mind, but not exactly a clone. More like an AI, actually, designed to simulate his responses, but he's also different from the real Guilliman.
Frenk Gamma-87-Nu-3-Psi arrives at the forge world of Accatran, as a servant of the Inquisitor. Archmagos Hryonalis Anaxerxes is a renowned Tech-priest Dominus, and he plans to represent Accatran at the meeting on Pontus Avernes, an artificial world in a quadruple star system. Apparently, Frenk wants to arrest Belisarius on charges of heretek and treason.
The other two are Lector Dognis Kalisperis (who later is revealed to be a traitor, and Alixia-Dyos hiding inside the box that is supposed to be Kalisperis) and Archmagos Logis Magnacomptroller Covarix Sestertius.
Belisarius plays regicide with a cryptek, AsanethAyu, trying to convince her to help him seal the Great Rift. Obviously, she doesn't agree. Being a necron, AsanethAyu looks down on humans and just wants to annihilate us. Lovely. On the bright side, it seems like Belisarius and Trazyn the Infinite are pals. Heh. AsanethAyu isn't very fond of Trazyn and thinks he's too compassionate.
Bile shows up at Thrule's place, and is not impressed. He offers Thrule gene-seed in exchange for his services, and Thrule "tests" Bile and his beastmen by sending a bunch of daemon engines at them in some arena. Needless to say, Bile, Porter, Brutus, Kolumbari-Enas and the beastmen wreck the daemon engines, impressing Thrule, and he agrees to help them.
The Zar Quaesitor arrives in the Avernes system, which as I said, is a quadruple star system, but during the Dark Age of Technology, humanity built a habitable space platform in the Goldilocks zone. Nice. The holds of the Ark Mechanicus have been emptied because Belisarius has given the majority of his military assets to Fleet Primus when he left the Indomitus Crusade. He used to have macroclades of Skitarii, an entire household of House Taranis Knights, Primaris Space Marines and armies of Magi. Now, he just has like a single macroclade of Skitarii, led by Marshal Melissima Artos-Septus Iota, two Lances of House Taranis Knights led by Scion Magnus Baron Roosev Maven Taranis - a descendant of Raaf Maven, I bet, and Datasmith X99 Bolus, who has five Kastelan robots with him. Also, Oswen, a cartophraser, happens to show up with a map to the barely explored Pontus Avernes. Suspiciously convenient.
They land on Pontus Arvenes, to meet up with the Tech-priests from Accatran, Tigrus and Metalica. While Belisarius, Qvo-89, X99 and his Kastelan robots attend the meeting, the Knights of House Taranis land to provide further security. Alpha Primus and the Skitarii remain aboard the Zar Quaesitor but remain on standby.
The Knights of House Taranis include:
Scion Magnus Baron Roosev Maven Taranis, pilot of the Cerastus Knight Acheron, Iurgium
2 Armiger Warglaives
2 Armiger Helverins
Questoris Knights, Danubia, Vanitas and Foebreaker
Scion Waldemar, pilot of the Dominus Knight Castellan, Salutatia
First Knight Allacer Maven Taranis (Roosev's brother), pilot of the Cerastus Knight Lancer, Contegris
Yes, I'm a Knight guy. Of course I'm going to give inordinate attention to the Knights. Too bad. Add them to the Lexicanum or Warhammer 40k Wiki, that's fine.
Anyway, while the Taranis Knights patrol, Alixia-Dyos releases some warp-tainted Dark Mechanicum tech to signal her allies. Roosev notices something, but can't find her. Oh dear.
At the meeting, Frenk makes accusations of Belisarius, but he counters every single one of them with cold logic, and thus Anaxerxes - who assumes the role of judge and arbitrator - dismisses Frenk's accusations and basically tells him to shut the binharic up. Then Belisarius shares his plan: there is a region of space called Calligan's Maw near a supermassive black hole, and a world is caught at the very edge of the event horizon. Thus, time has slowed to a crawl for that world, which the necrons call Irtanathep. On that world, Belisarius believes, is a pylon control nexus that can serve as an integrated control system for his devices to close the Cicatrix Maledictum.
By the way, Belisarius received this information when the Pharos was destroyed during the events of Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, so you probably want to read that book because Genefather makes references to it. And To Speak as One, if you want to know what AsanethAyu the cryptek is doing on Zar Quaesitor and why Frenk and the Inquisition are so pissed off at our dear Belisarius.
Anaxerxes and the other magi from the various forge worlds discuss what to do after hearing all this, and Belisarius leaves them to it. In the meantime, Alpha Primus has a psychic premonition, and Belisarius returns to his ship, while leaving Qvo-89 and X99 to explore the pyramid where the tech-priests and magi had gathered, to map the place out. Unsurprisingly, Oswen shows up with his map and helps with the exploration, though Qvo-89 is reluctant. The presence of a webway gate and certain Aeldari aesthetics have Belisarius and Qvo089 speculating that Pontus Arvenes was a place of alliance, where the old humans of the Dark Age of Technology held peaceful meetings with the Aeldari here, and that the artificial world was built to cater to xenos visitors.
Bile shows up to tell Belisarius to hand over the Sangprimus Portum. Naturally, Belisarius refuses. Then Bile blacks out his ship, using Qvo-89 as a conduit. Apparently, Alixia-Dyos - who left the box that was supposed to be Kalisperis - grabbed Qvo-89 when he was down exploring the webway gate below the pyramid and thrust a dataspike into his eye, using his connetion to the Zar Quaesitor to shut down systems. At this point, Qvo-89 was separated from X99 and the Kastelan robots, so that's how he ended up abducted. This allows Bile and his forces to land on the ship and wreak havoc, though the beastmen end up getting slaughtering by the Skitarii (with the exception of Brutus). They are only a distraction, though. While Iota and the Skitarii muster in force to protect the Sangprimus Portum, Bile heads straight to Alpha Primus.
Meanwhile, Bile's trap has unleashed the cryptek, and now a vengeful AsanethAyu is hellbent on killing Belisarius. Of course, our dear Archmagos Dominus outwits her, grabbing a plasma carbine and blasting her head off. Heh. He grabs her head and rushes toward Alpha Primus, realizing Bile's true intentions.
Thrule's renegades and deamon engines show up on Pontus Arvenes, and engage the Knights of House Taranis in combat. Roosev leads a charge, and the Knights absolutely wreck the Chaos Space Marines and daemon engines...until Thrule shows up and disables Iurgium. Uh oh.
Meanwhile, servitors pour out from the webway gate. Qvo-89 slowly musters his will and fights back against Alixia-Dyos's intrusion, severing the Dark Mechanicum's connection and reactivating the Zar Quaesitor. The Kastelan robots and X99 show up, pulverizing the servitors and demolishing the webway gate after Alixia-Dyos and her servitors flee through it, ensuring they won't come back. The Skitarii push back and slaughter the remnants of the beastmen, and Alpha Primus slays Brutus in combat before confronting Fabius Bile. Porter attacks, but is defeated by Alpha Primus, though he underestimates her and leaves her be instead of finishing her off once and for all, eager as he is to apprehend Bile. Unfortuantely, this proves to be his undoing, for Porter springs once more and dishelms him. Though he handily smacks her away, Bile sprays him with toxin to incapacitate him.
Bile also senses Magnus's gene-seed in Alpha Primus, and realizes how amazing he is. He's a chimera, a blend of several geneseeds, though only Magnus's is confirmed so far. He proceeds to take Alpha Primus's progenoid glands.
Belisarius finally arrives, a bit too late, and Bile holds Alpha Primus hostage. Belisarius admits that Alpha Primus is his son, and Bile doesn't kill him. Instead, he and Porter leave, and with a heavy heart, Belisarius orders the Zar Quaesitor not to fire on his ship and allow him to leave, because Bile has some toxin syringe jabbed into Alpha Primus. Fortunately, it'll disable once Bile escapes to the warp, so Belisarius is able to remove that and save his son.
Meanwhile, Thrule hacks into Iurgium, and this is where the ghosts in the Throne Mechanicum come into play. The long dead Elder Maven shows up and banishes the data daemons and scrap code that threaten to overwhelm Iurgium's systems, and Roosev is able to regain control of his Knight before defeating Thrule. With that, the battle for Pontus Arvenes ends in the Mechanicus and House Taranis's victory...though admittedly, Bile got away and achieved his goal, so it's Bile's victory over Belisarius. Oh, well. Anaxerxes and the other magi and their Skitarii were able to keep the daemon engines, servitors and Chaos Space Marines at bay too, defeating them with the help of the Knights.
In the aftermath, Accatran and Tigrus support Belisarius's endeavors, but Metalica refuses, and help Frenk petition Mars to declare him a heretek and have his rank revoked. Kolumbari-Enas and the Disciples of Nul now have the robot from Bile and they proceed to revive Sota-Nul in the robot, using it as a vessel for her. Bile admires the artistry in Belisarius's creation of Alpha-Primus's gene-seed. Belisarius fails to persuade the beheaded AsanethAyu to help him and seals her head inside somewhere. Fortunately, he now has Qvo-89 to play regicide with.
That's where it ends, and I think this is basically the outcome:
Bile has Alpha-Primus's gene-seed and will create new Space Marines for Abaddon.
The Disciples of Nul might revive Sota-Nul.
Belisarius Cawl and the Tech-priests of Tigrus and Accatran are heading to Calligan's Maw to steal Necron tech and test out his machines to seal the Cicatrix Maledictum for good.
I probably wasn't ever gonna read genefather, at least any time soon. BUT HOLY FUCK, Bile getting the Alpha Primus geneseed is terribly bad for like.... Everybody.
ReplyDeleteYeah...it's gonna turn the whole galaxy upside down. I shudder to think what he can create with his New Men now.
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