The power station technology on Chemos was incredibly ancient.
Tracing it back, this Thinker from the technological age of humanity's Old Night represented just how unimaginably far human civilization had once advanced.
Old Night referred to the era when humanity had relied on its own technology to roam the sea of stars.
But as Warp Storms grew ever more severe, communication and transport between different human sectors, star systems, and planets became severely obstructed, while vast amounts of technology and creations were lost.
Human civilization was thus scattered among the stars, with some even regressing directly to the primordial age.
Chemos was one of those civilizations that had continued to decline.
Had the one who descended upon this planet not been the Primarch Fulgrim, the human civilization here would likely have been buried beneath the cold yellow sands alongside the ancient technology it contained before long.
And saving these human civilizations scattered among the stars was the responsibility of the God-Emperor of Mankind, the Primarchs, Kasgar, and every human.
But, Kasgar.
Were you really human too?
Kasgar silently looked at the screen, which had erupted with even more red text than Ahriman.
An unforeseen situation had arisen.
His genes could not be recognized by the Thinker.
What did that mean?
Either the machine itself had malfunctioned, or Kasgar's human content, like that of the Primarchs, had been mixed with far too much Warp nonsense.
But if that were truly the case, why had he never felt different from others over the past twenty years?
As Kasgar, a pure human without any mutations, he questioned his identity for the first time.
He might have been human, but it also seemed a little impossible for him to be human.
Genetic identification successful!
The Thinker's collapse did not last long.
For some reason, it abruptly recovered in an instant from its state of frantically spewing garbled code.
Green lights flashed brightly, and it ran smoothly.
As though nothing had happened.
"It... it's fixed?"
Fulgrim, who had been about to start repairing it again, was momentarily at a loss.
"Did the machine just glitch out?"
Fulgrim had yet to return to the Imperium, so the concept of a Machine Spirit did not exist in her knowledge base.
Faced with such illogical errors followed by an even more illogical recovery, she could only do her best to explain it.
"Maybe. This Thinker might just be too old, causing poor contact in the identification interface."
Kasgar chimed in.
"That's right."
"It probably couldn't recognize my genes before because of the same problem."
"Exactly, exactly. We're obviously both human!"
"It's all this Thinker's fault for being so old and developing such a strange malfunction, making us suspicious of each other."
The two of them tactfully and wordlessly placed the blame on the only one present that could not speak.
Management access successfully acquired. Attempting to retrieve management access for the power generation chambers.
Progress went very smoothly after activating administrator privileges.
"It has been a long time since things were this convenient."
Fulgrim sighed.
"Back when I repaired the fortress system in Karax, the nobles were constantly wary of whether I would obtain control over the fortress."
"Not only did they restrict me from restoring the fortress's various functions, once I successfully repaired certain facilities inside, they would frantically demand that I hand over the permissions for them to manage."
As she spoke, Fulgrim helplessly curled her lips.
The old ruling clan system was complicated and convoluted, and she had been forced to navigate it while guiding them.
What had turned nobles, who ought to have been noble, into what they were now?
"That feeling was like..."
"Like a miserly hoarder who, even on the verge of death, still clings to trivial gains, unwilling to let go even while knowing they are unworthy of their position."
Kasgar answered as he watched the rapidly scrolling fields on the Thinker.
"Indeed."
"That is a very vivid description, Kasgar."
Fulgrim pressed the button one last time.
"All right. Although the power station has suffered severe damage, several generator units are currently still intact and dormant."
"Reactivating the dormant generator units will not be difficult. As long as we can add the appropriate high-purity Promethium fuel, they can operate again."
"Promethium fuel? And high-purity at that?"
Kasgar froze. "Where are we supposed to find that?"
In the Warhammer World, most spacecraft and power devices operated by relying on Promethium as fuel.
This abandoned power station was no exception.
After Chemos had endured a long period of civilizational regression, the already limited supply of high-purity Promethium on the planet had been exhausted thousands of years before they were born.
Even though the planet's underground mineral veins still contained large amounts of unmined Unrefined Promethium, expecting the two of them to build the necessary detection, mining, separation, and refining technologies from scratch was little more than a fool's dream.
Even if a Primarch could accomplish it with her innate abilities, they did not have that much time.
"Oh, right. Did I forget to tell you?"
Fulgrim calmly pointed into the distance.
There, beneath the focused beam of a searchlight, lay the wreckage of a pale-purple pod.
"This is where I descended upon the world back then."
Twenty years ago.
A purple comet came from the horizon and fell into the mountains.
"Here again... Last time, male."
"Golden light... fire."
Amid the intermittent complaints, the footsteps of three people drew closer, and one of them let out a female cry of surprise.
"...A child, Colin."
"This time, it's a baby girl."
Silence lasted for a moment, followed by the sound of a blade being drawn from its sheath.
"What are you doing, Surax? Put that knife down!"
"She's an orphan. By the rules, we have to kill her."
"But she clearly..."
"Move aside, Torelia. Unlike those noble lords, we do not have enough resources to raise a bastard child. He will become a burden to us."
"No, give her to me!"
Struggling, cursing.
Footsteps clattered, and shouts rang out noisily.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out, and someone fell into a pool of blood.
Water trickled softly. It was impossible to tell whether the liquid quietly flowing was blood or Primordial Water.
Everything returned to silence.
The recorded segment ended there.
The Purple Pod that had carried her into the world came equipped with recording functions, and everything was replayed as images on the Thinker.
Kasgar knew that this purple wreckage was a Primarch's incubation pod.
"The two workers you saw, who decided to adopt me, were my adoptive parents, Torelia and Colin."
"Not long after I was born, I hid this pod wreckage away."
"After that, I kept studying its structure, hoping that one day I could uncover my true identity."
"But the level of technology it contained far exceeded the limits of my understanding."
There was a hint of frustration in Fulgrim's voice.
"Still, it was not entirely without results."
As she spoke, she took a transparent fuel canister, still half-filled with liquid, from the wreckage.
"Holy Promethium."
"An interesting name. But its purity truly deserves the word 'holy.'"
Fulgrim smiled faintly.
"Get ready, Kasgar."
"It is time to reclaim everything that belongs to us."
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