From Out of the Dark - A Star Wars/40K Crossover

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

From Out of the Dark: A Star Wars/40K Crossover

Prologue: Bumps in the Night

24 BBY

Joria looked behind herself, then forwards again. This world was dead, utterly lifeless, with a thin, poisonous sky under a sun that was naught but a white speck in the dark heavens. She and her colleagues were walking toward a massive black pyramid, one of many and yet a thing that made every structure she had seen before look tiny and utterly insignificant. In its monolithic, cyclopean vastness, one could easily fit the Jedi Temple. For most of her life, Joria had dedicated herself to the study of extinct civilisations, but this was strange. Nothing known in the galaxy could ever have lived here, so who had built this? Furthermore, the sun was eleven billion years old...but the planets orbiting it were only five billion years of age.

She reached a structure in the side of the pyramid, noting the strange runic sigils outlined in green crystal on glassy-black stone. She had absolutely no idea what they represented, but they seemed to disquiet some of the fellow explorers. They tried torches, lasers, and every other means of opening it, but the stone remained cold. Finally, one of the expedition guards took his hand out of his suit, and touched the structure. It opened, revealing a darkness beyond. Joria stepped on the smooth stone surface, the expedition following behind, and the corridor lit up.

This was not a good thing. The runic green lighting began to glow, and Joria could feel that they were being watched by some malevolent intelligence. It seemed impossible, absurd even, yet still it was there, a disquieting sensation that would not stop. Furthermore, the angles of the corridor were plain wrong - the walls just didn't...add up. Nevertheless, Joria simply kept looking forward. It was the easiest way to avoid sensing the angles. Then, after what seemed like hours, they reached a balcony, and Joria realised something truly horrible.

The corridor led directly down. Some manner of artificial gravity had misled them into believing that it went sideways, but in fact it went down. This chamber was immense, at least as big as the planet...then she realised that it was the planet - which had been hollowed out. She could see its walls stretching, seemingly into infinity, into an indistinct blur the further she looked. The geometries of this place were hurting her eyes as well as they instinctively tried to follow them and...failed.

This was most definitely not a good place. Far below her, alcoves held strange Droids, things that looked like human skeletons, hunched and altered. They carried weapons, or what she guessed were weapons, rifles glowing with green light. She looked up, and saw a green glowing light, powerful, washing all the area in a sickly green glow. Incomprehensible machines whirred and whined everywhere.

That was when she heard a scream, and the clatter of footsteps. She looked, one of the five expedition guards was screaming. Tiny insectoid robots had surrounded him, and were ripping at his flesh. The others had drawn weapons, and were firing at the insectoid things. There were simply too many though, and before long his throat and eyes had been torn out. They kept firing at the robots, which fell.

Then, a horror came out of the wall, something long and skeletal that floated off the ground. Three blaster bolts came at it, but simply passed through. It lifted her fellow explorer off the ground with scalpel-fingers hooked into his flesh. He screamed, but then the scalpel-thing reached his heart and he went quiet. The...thing then vanished into a wall. Then, something rose up to the balcony.

It was a regal being, its eyes glittering green, like the other Droids but somehow much more terrifying. Hung on its back was a black, tattered cape, like a funeral shroud. In its hand it bore a staff, its end edged in a way that made Joria's eyes bleed. It uttered something incomprehensible, then raised the staff. The four remaining guards rose. Then it slammed the staff on the ground, and they fell down, dead.

She tried to run, but she felt some force pulling her back. She looked back. The figure pulled her towards it with a motion of its staff. Looking right into its cold, unholy eyes, she felt more terrified than she ever had before. Then the figure thrust with its staff, and it struck through flesh and bone and lung into her heart. There was a moment of pain, and everything went black.

23 BBY

The freighter pilot looked at the screen with worry. The sensors were showing ghosts. Not that this was unusual, but it tended to happen with older sensors, and this was a new ship. Furthermore, the ghost seemed to be getting closer. Suddenly, the computer screens faded. They went online a few seconds later, but that was still something they weren't supposed to do. Then, emissions from the ghost increased. It was real, and it was moving towards them.

The pilot was worried. Due to the unusual gravitational properties of this area, they couldn't go to Hyperspace right now. The ship was shaped like no vessel he had seen before, and now he realised a worrying thing - it was as big as the freighter. Then, light shone in through the windows as the ship suddenly rocked. What was this? The light faded, but all power was gone. The pilot only saw a light forming on its surface before an explosion rocked the bridge, obliterating him instantly.

[MysteriousDarkLordv3]

20 BBY? 21 BBY? So the bit with the Necron's temple takes place 20 years before the Battle of Yavin, and the two paragraphs with the freighter takes place one year before the temple scene?

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

20 BBY? 21 BBY? So the bit with the Necron's temple takes place 20 years before the Battle of Yavin, and the two paragraphs with the freighter takes place one year before the temple scene?

No, as I understand it the last bit takes place 1 year before the start of the Clone Wars. The Tomb World bit takes place before the Freighter bit, as I understand it. Nevertheless, if it doesn't make sense I'll change it. Blame me for using Wookieepedia.

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

That Does Not Sleep...

22 BBY

Raviex Prime

The cold wind blew through the desolate landscape, passing a single figure on a high mountain-top. Its cloak-shroud barely moved, even though the winds sent forth great storms of black dust, wrenching them loose from the stony ground. If one looked closely, one would see that this figure was not biological, but mechanical. The vivid, glowing green eyes and the dark grey metal, the way it moved without the slightest noise, inculcated a feeling of unease and outright terror. The figure was silent. It had seen electrons dance, suns die, worlds annihilated. And if there had been emotion, it had been a quiet arrogance and the knowledge that all things must end.

This world was tectonically dead, even the mantle was cold, its core burning only weakly. The very vitality of this world had been utterly drained, it now belonged only to the Necrons. No earthquakes, no volcanic eruptions, no chance of a sudden cataclysm. It was stable. Tranquil even. The grey clouds moved, driven by terrific winds, but they did not harm the structure the being was looking at. A series of immense machines as tall as skyscrapers, arranged in a series of concentric circles around a massive black monolith that dwarfed them, stabbing out of the ground.

The figure raised its terrible staff to the sky, green lightning striking from its edges, striking the clouds and filling the sky with a terrible light. Then, it quite deliberately struck it on the rocky ground, breaking through layers of dust and rock to find what it sought, a green glowing gem which soon glowed with light. Power exploded outward, the earth being thrown as the green glow spread to the 'city'. Blasts of unnatural green light rose skywards, and the green lightning thundered across the skies and to the ground.

Long-dormant machineries activated. The whirring of great engines was heard as the Tomb World came into full mechanical life. Deep below, signalling machines sent messages to other worlds part of the great network, activating them as well. The great tombs the quiescent C'tan slumbered within were as yet undisturbed. But there was a worry. The machines that maintained the Warding had decayed. Not enough to detroy it, but enough to disrupt it, to weaken the perfect shard of pure real-space, the barrier between reality and hated Immaterium the C'tan had created, possibly enough to allow Psykers to exist once more. Furthermore, signals and messages recently analysed showed that there was interstellar civilisation, a strong one too. The Platinum-level commanders thought on this matter, then concluded that it was of little import. They would fall, it was inevitable, for all things died in time.

The Necrons merely hastened their demise.

Coruscant

Yoda was worried. Skywalker was a Padawan now, Kenobi's to be precise, but Yoda had always felt unease around him. He had joined the Order too old, and even if he was spoken of in prophecy, the shroud of the Dark Side was blocking his visions, making it hard to see the future clearly. Then something happened, the Jedi Temple fell away around him.

He was now on a cliff, overlooking a vast black monolith. A procession of hundreds - no, thousands - of humans poured into it through a doorway that was little more than a slit. Green lightning flickered overhead. The monolith was pulsing with energy constantly, and something was most definitely wrong about these humans - like they had an invisible mark on them, something that made them...abominations to all that beheld them. The monolith virtually screamed, an aura of pain surrounded it, and Yoda knew that whatever was happening there was not pleasant in any way.

He then saw an endless parade of countless hunched forms, forms he eventually realised were droids - but not like any he had seen. Strange pyramids floated in the sky, and Yoda noted that parts of them were glowing, before he saw another vision. The Jedi Archives. But different. Smashed data holders were scattered around, skeletons of Jedi were everywhere. There was no roof, and he could see the sky swarming with many pitch-black clouds. Aisles and walls had collapsed, and he could dimly see the ruined and scattered skyscrapers of Coruscant.

Then, flashes. A hooded figure clutching a scythe, looking like the Grim Reaper of old legends. A being of gold, floating above the ground, energy sparkling around it. A vast metallic serpent, surrounded by clouds of tiny robots. A being of no defined form, constantly changing, faces ocassionally forming on it only to fade away. Yoda knew that to be in this being's presence was to go mad.

Then the Jedi Temple appeared again, and Yoda knew that this future could be prevented, and that it could not be allowed to come to pass. A Knight looked at him, confused. An expression of fear gradually formed on his face, and Yoda knew that he had had that vision as well.

Yoda knew, deep inside, that this was but the calm before the storm.

[MysteriousDarkLordv3]

So this is even further into the future, perhaps around 300,000 AD? The God-Emperor is long dead and the Imperium of Man is utterly forgotten. The Necrons won in the end, from the sound of it by sealing off warp-space from real-space - no warp-access, no psykers, and without psykers, the God-Emperor and the Astronomicon are shut down. It would explain the mysterious scattering of humanity through the Star Wars galaxy.

So i take it you're dumping the "midichlorian" stuff and making the Force a manifestation of the Warp, like psykers?

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

So this is even further into the future, perhaps around 300,000 AD? The God-Emperor is long dead and the Imperium of Man is utterly forgotten. The Necrons won in the end, from the sound of it by sealing off warp-space from real-space - no warp-access, no psykers, and without psykers, the God-Emperor and the Astronomicon are shut down. It would explain the mysterious scattering of humanity through the Star Wars galaxy.

So i take it you're dumping the "midichlorian" stuff and making the Force a manifestation of the Warp, like psykers?

I'll give you a spoiler, if you want to look:
Spoiler

It's even further into the future of 40K. Like, millions of years further.

Midichlorians still exist, but only as a measure of Force/psyker ability - they are high in Force-users, but have no actual bearing on the capability to use the Force.

[Eternal_Freedom]

This is looking pretty sweet. Glad to see the Outsider and the Void-Dragon, I've never come across them in a story before, should be interesting.

And FYI, the dates you've got should probably run 22, 21, 20 BBY instead of 20, 21 and 22.

Keep going!

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

Thanks for the comments!

...Which Dreams in the Deep

The Deep Core

A small planetoid orbited. That meant little, unless one considered the object around which it orbited. The black hole, the singularity at the very centre of the galaxy. Uncounted millions of solar masses, warping space and time to such a degree they no longer had any meaning. Around it, a whole galaxy orbited. It was surrounded by a hell-red glare, emitting radiation that meant the non-existence of life anywhere near it. But to the most important occupant of the planetoid, the killing radiation meant a steady source of food and ensured a lack of visitors.

Deep within, the Nightbringer stirred in slumber. For untold eons it had slept, but no more. Soon it rise, and the galaxy would know the face of death once more.

Coruscant

A figure slipped through the crowd before the Galactic Senate building with the ease of a natural, rapidly becoming lost in it with the ease of somebody who wished to become lost. That didn't matter, he was still going to be admitted, but he found it to be enjoyable, the vicarious thrill of lying had never been abandoned in all its eons of existence. It walked up to the gates of the Senate building, to the special path for Senators only. A guard put a metal armband round its wrist, it was supposed to separate truth-tellers from liars, but the Jackal God could manipulate the machine any way it wanted.

'Are you Senator Janus Maltheen?' the guard asked.

'Yes,' it uttered, although communication via sound-waves had never been something it particularly enjoyed. The machine showed the affirmative with a green light. Seeing via mere photons, the Deciever admitted, that had never been something it particularly liked either.

Mustafar

Mustafar burned. It was a planet of fire, of undying volcanic activity. The air was a poisonous fume and the ground was burning hot. Looking at holograms of the Separatist leaders, Dooku privately admitted that he had never really liked them. Dooku knew that the plan required them. To back down now, after so long, would be uttermost folly. But still, something seemed to be happening, he had a strange feeling under his skin. His recent dreams had been filled with horror.

But still, Dooku would keep it hidden. He feared the wrath of Sidious. If the plan failed, Dooku would be held to blame, and Sidious would most definitely not be pleased.

'Keep to the plan!' he ordered.

'But the freighters...' a Nemoidian said.

Dooku nodded. A freighter convoy to Geonosis carrying over a million war-droids had vanished without a trace. Factories had easily replaced the losses, but shipping them would be difficult.

'The freighters don't matter. If you don't stick to Sidious' instructions, he will have your miserable hides for a trophy! Understood?'

'Understood, Tyrannus.'

Dooku turned off the holograms.

The plan would continue.

Jedi Temple

Yoda was conferring with the Jedi Council, who had had largely the same visions as him. The feeling of fear they had was terrible, the knowledge that they had to act moreso.

'Skywalker...he is the key to this,' Mace Windu said. 'The key to preventing the destruction of the galaxy.'

'The key Skywalker may be, but how?' Yoda asked.

'I myself am not sure...' Windu replied. 'But he is definitely more vital than any of us had foreseen.'

Unknown Place and Time

The twin powers watched what was happening in the material realm. One was a maelstrom of congealed raw emotion, famished, always hungering for more. The other was a vortex of order, of calm and coldness, opposed to the raging inferno that was the other. They were both watching, waiting. Eons they had seen only death, now the galaxy bore new life. The latter had weaved many fine webs; even in its material death it had been victorious, before Long Night had fallen.

Soon, they knew, ultimate victory or final defeat would come. But for what side of the coin, immaterial or material, nobody could truly foresee.

[Darmalus]

I like the premise of this. Is hyperspace what the Necrons have always been using, or is it what the warp is like in it's current ultra-calm state? I can't wait to see how Necron tech stacks up against SW tech.

[LadyTevar]

Ok, I'm interested. Show me what you got.