As the many Mechanical Units worked, Iax finally gained a deeper understanding of Lucius's condition.
According to Imperial records, Lucius's core had already been an artificial sun when the Emperor arrived during the early Great Crusade.
Ten thousand years ago, the Adeptus Mechanicus of that time had studied this artificial core in detail.
It contained numerous technological black boxes, and they did not even understand where the material burning within its core came from.
As time passed, more and more technology was lost. The Tech-Priests of Lucius continued their painstaking research and attempted to maintain the artificial core on which the entire planet depended.
Given the nature of the Adeptus Mechanicus, however, this was doomed to be a failed endeavor that only grew more confusing the further they researched.
The priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus treated knowledge as wealth and hoarded technology. Often, if a key member of a project died unexpectedly, all subsequent research would be severely affected.
Although their successors continued to work hard at their research, prerequisite technologies were being lost ever faster, leaving them capable of only crude repairs.
When the Mechanicus Fleet first reached the planet's outskirts, the many monitoring devices aboard its ships had already identified the state of this artificial planet.
Its stability could not exactly be called poor; the probability of containment failure was merely a little high.
The basic stabilizing structure had 37% remaining.
Containment field output had dropped to 44%.
More frighteningly, this artificial sun had no emergency shutdown device at all, and inspection suggested that this system had most likely been deliberately dismantled.
Although an artificial sun's explosion would not necessarily create a black hole, it would certainly deal a devastating blow to the surrounding planets.
Depending on the amount of matter involved, its effects could extend several light-years