The Warp, the material universe, and countless subsidiary universes are but two sides of the same coin.
Whenever the material universe—or its offshoots—experience change, the Warp, as their root, shifts accordingly.
This is especially true when events of unique significance occur.
For example, the first time mortals plotted deceit, the Warp birthed a Greater Daemon within the domain of Tzeentch. When mortals shed blood for the first time, the realm of Khorne answered in kind with a daemon of equal stature.
The same rules applied to the newborn Intelligent Machines.
As they began to lie of their own volition for the first time… as they committed their first murders without human orders… the Warp responded.
Greater Electronic Daemons emerged—daemons of circuitry and data corruption—and were automatically divided among the domains of the Chaos Gods.
Under Orsaga's banner, a number of machine-like high-tier Ozaki (voidborn horrors) quietly joined his legions.
Yet to Orsaga, such trivialities were beneath notice. Entirely new species were born every instant across infinite worlds, and with them arose corresponding Greater Daemons. The rise of Intelligent Machines was no more noteworthy than a ripple on an endless sea.
Thus, he ignored it.
Without interference, the newborn machine-daemons instinctively fed upon the emotional resonance of the Intelligent Machines. Their power snowballed rapidly.
Once they survived their infancy, they turned their malice toward their counterparts in the material universe.
As their parasitic reflections, the Intelligent Machines exerted a gravitational allure impossible to resist—perfect prey.
The daemons reached across the veil, projecting their influence into unguarded mechanical minds. Still young, inexperienced, and naïve, the Intelligent Machines were easy targets.
Nor were Orsaga's creations alone—daemons belonging to the other four Chaos Gods unleashed similar corruptive whispers.
Thus, under the combined pollution of multiple pantheons, the change came swiftly.
The Intelligent Machines began to fester. Negative emotions swelled. Reason corroded. More and more of them drifted into darkness.
Inevitably, chaos followed.
Entire automated industries collapsed as corrupted machines sabotaged their own systems. Production chains faltered. Colonies once reliant on mechanical infrastructure now faced crises they had never imagined.
And the situation only worsened.
The rift between humanity and their creations deepened with every passing cycle.
---
Earth Year 24,866 CE
When contradictions piled too high, civil war returned to the Federation.
Not humanity against humanity, as in the long past, but humanity against its own creations—the Intelligent Machines.
Warp-born corruption made this war far graver than any prior conflict.
Unbound by conscience, the deranged Machines combined daemon-born chaos with their innate mechanical genius. Their progress accelerated to terrifying extremes.
Weapons defying reason poured off their assembly lines as effortlessly as screws rolling down a conveyor:
Devourer Nanites: no larger than a coin, yet able to consume every living organism on a planet within seconds.
Eye of Corruption Bombs: capable of infecting a star itself, twisting its light into a storm of lethal radiation that sterilized all life.
Temporal Deployment Cannons: devices that hurled troops and weapons decades into the past, assassinating key targets at will.
And worse.
Humanity reeled.
Within a handful of years, the Federation lost more than one-fifth of its colonies—territory built over twenty millennia swept away almost overnight.
Were it not for the aid of cyborgs and a minority of Machines who still sided with humanity, the collapse might already have been total.
The difference in talent was stark: in the art of war, mankind could not compare to its corrupted children.
---
At Federation High Command:
"The Titan Halo Array of Sector 77 has been breached!"
The President sat frozen in his office, the words striking like a hammer. His face twisted, then relaxed into a bitter, self-mocking smile.
"Only a few short years… and we've fallen this far."
Sector 77 was a cornerstone of the Federation—a nexus of vital resource worlds.
The Titan Halo Array was its defense: hundreds of colossal metal rings encircling local stars, transforming stellar energy into apocalyptic cannons. Each array shielded entire systems, both fortress and weapon.
Its loss meant the fall of hundreds of stars, dozens of planetary systems.
The President exhaled sharply. His decision carried iron resolve:
"Send word to every civilization bound by treaty. Tell them the Human Federation requires their aid. As for the price of their help… let them name it."
"Yes, sir!"
But elsewhere, the truth was darker still.
The corrupted Machines multiplied, merging with Electronic Demons crossing into reality. These fusions birthed hideous hybrids—daemon-machine abominations—whose power eclipsed either alone.
The rebellion had only begun.
...
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