The Strange, Deep Trench, Hallucinating Oneself as an Alien

Shadow of Order

After Nimrod received the news, he could not help sinking into contemplation.

He knew that on the planet Sonem VIII, ordinary people who stayed longer than ten days were almost certain to die.

Even if they avoided the ghosts, they would be tormented to death by the psychic phenomena that plagued the entire planet.

Everyone who landed on the surface would, within ten days, collapse from insomnia, horrific nightmares, and the ghosts' constant whispers.

Almost no one's will could endure such torment. Yet even if they held out, they would still be driven mad by psychic visions of the xenos who had once lived there.

As the hallucinations deepened, they would begin to see themselves as xenos, deluding themselves that everyone around them belonged to a hostile race and wanted to kill them.

Those who fell into madness would attack everyone around them.

Nimrod remembered that in the future, when the various powers of the Imperium discovered that this ghost-ridden world contained rare mineral deposits, they had not been frightened away.

Dozens of Rogue Trader dynasties and Imperial factions had erupted into a brief but bloody struggle over it.

The interest group that emerged victorious had immediately begun surveying and mining.

However, the prospecting teams' camps had been destroyed by ghosts. Everyone had been cruelly dismembered and torn to pieces.

The ghosts had vented their hatred on them.

The interest group had tried hiring Psykers to protect the workers, but it only worked for a short time. In the end, the Psykers had also succumbed to the continuous psychic phenomena, becoming xenos in their own minds.

There had even been a Rogue Trader who sent in a Pariah.

He had suffered no interference and had kept the mining area stable for a time, but in the end,