TaranCloud
The Emperor
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(12/18/03 6:48 pm)
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Adeptus Astra Telepathica
The Adeptus Astra Telepathica, is dedicated to the recruitment and training of psykers for service throughout the Imperium. The headquarters of the organisation is on Earth, but its spaceships travel the Imperium and its offices extend over most of human space. Its chief responsibility is to train psykers to serve as Astropaths.
HUMAN PSYKERS IN THE IMPERIUM
Most humans do not have psychic powers, although it is generally accepted that all humans have at least a limited potential for psychic activity. A small but growing minority of humans develop tangible powers - these people are called psykers.
Psykers are dangerous individuals whose powers can only be tolerated when safely harnessed within the Imperial organisation. After all, the psychic universe is the universe of Chaos and therefore perflous. It is a universe inhabited by daemonic aliens that care nothing for living creatures and wish only to use and destroy humanity. All psykers, even the most powerful, offer these aliens a potential means of entering and affecting the material world.
Every world in the Imperium is bound by law to control its psychic population. Persecutions or witch-hunts are an everyday part of life on most worlds. The same laws oblige rulers to set aside a levy of young and relatively promising psykers for transport to Earth by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. It is from this levy that the Adeptus Astra Telepathica divides those who will live and serve from those who will be sacrificed to the Emperor.
THE ASTRONOMICAN
The Astronomican is the psychic homing beacon that allows Navigators to traverse warpspace. It is the duty of the Adeptus Astronomica to maintain the Astronomican. To this end the organisation recruits a proportion of the young psykers collected by the psychic levy of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. This is the main source of recruitment for the Adeptus Astronomica and consequently the vast majority of its senior members are psykers. A smaller proportion of its staff are not psykers, but are drawn from the ranks of those slave-families which have provided menial workers for the Adeptus for thousands of years. The Adeptus Astronomica is a small organisation based in a remote complex known as the Forbidden Fortress. Uninvited access to the Fortress is not permitted - even Judges and Inquisitors must seek permission before they can enter.
The Forbidden Fortress is built in a sheltered crag near the tip of a vast mountain range in a land once known as Nepal. To outside appearances the mountains remain unchanged by the hand of man but in fact the Forbidden Fortress extends deep down into the rock and throughout the entire mountain range.
The leader of the Adeptus Astronomica is the Master of the Astronomican. His task is to oversee the organisation and to represent it on the Senatorum Imperialis as a High Lord of Terra. The object of the Adeptus Astronomica is to teach and train young psykers so that they can serve in the Astronomican.
The organisation is really a vast teaching institution controlled by a class of older members known as Instructors. Some Instructors are accorded the title High Instructor and entrusted with the guardianship of certain aspects of the organisation's teaching. Its day-to-day affairs such as maintenance and provisioning are taken care of by a body of administrative functionaries.
Young psykers are initiated as Acolytes. They are taught how to control and use their powers in much the same way as psykers taken by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, but in addition they are introduced to the Lore of the Astronomican. They learn the value of their lives, study philosophy and are gradually brought to an inner understanding of the universe and the nature of the warp.
Only those who achieve this mystic state can become members of the Chosen, those who will give their psychic energy to the Astronomican. The rest, those whose studies fall short of this ideal, remain within the organisation and become Instructors or are absorbed as administrative functionaries of the Forbidden Fortress.
THE CHAMBER OF THE ASTRONOMICAN
The Chamber of the Astronomican is a huge hollow sphere carved from a single mountain peak. Its outward form is a giant dome, the lower half of the sphere being buried under the rock. Ten thousand multi-tiered seats cover the entire inner surface of the sphere. Each seat faces the very centre of the sphere where a raw ball of psychic energy dances in space.
This ball of energy is created by the Chosen as they release their powers into the Astronomican. In this way their psychic power is drained into the energy-ball and then through the warp, directed by the mind of the Emperor himself. As the energy of the Chosen is drained away they slowly fade and die. The average psyker lasts for about three months - with hundreds dying every day with their places are taken by new Chosen.
"Okay Vikings, remember we don't want yesterday's incident to occur again. So loot then burn, loot THEN burn" - Viking Briefing
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