The 22nd Millennium (M22)
In this age of abundance, humanity’s civilizational pinnacle and golden age, psykers began appearing indiscriminately throughout human territories across the galaxy.
The humanity of the golden age displayed conspicuous interest in this strange supernatural change.
The media and public opinion alike poured out positive, optimistic reactions day after day, declaring that “real wizards,” once found only in myths and fictional media, had finally stepped onto the stage of history.
They never dreamed that those wicked psychic powers would one day summon the daemons of the Warp and tear human civilization apart whole—that they were the seeds of such an immense catastrophe.
Meanwhile, on the frontier worlds known as Knight Worlds, ruled by noble houses that operated gigantic, antiquated bipedal construction machines called Knights after being left behind by the benefits of advanced technology, psykers were branded ominous abominations that gnawed away at the human soul.
Whenever a psyker awakened, they would hang them from the stake, execute them, and exterminate them—unwittingly making the most reliable preparations against the coming cosmic disaster.
The other developed planets mocked and disparaged the Knight Worlds’ extreme measures as primitive, barbaric customs.
But in truth, those very sneers only proved how complacently and defenselessly they had exposed themselves before the unknown abyss called the Warp.
The courage born of ignorance, displayed by those who did not know the truth, was thus no different from a cruel curse.
And this wave of destined evolution could not pass Gateway Corporation by, either.
Even among the Yuricks, sudden psychic awakenings that warped the laws of reality began occurring frequently everywhere, regardless of age or sex.
Knowing full well how dangerous it was, we took immediate measures with extreme caution, as though handling a time bomb that could explode at any moment.
Not a single person who had already awakened as a psyker, or showed signs of doing so, was excluded from being transferred to Bio Aegis’s medical research institute.
And in preparation for any possible rampage, the anti-psychic Eclipse units were deployed in force to stand guard.
Those escorted there underwent meticulous psychological evaluations and examinations of their inner selves by experienced monks, with the full support of Dharma Temple.
Those deemed to possess exceptional self-reflection and the firm patience needed to endure the temptations of the Warp were given a proposal.
A path to temper and refine, through the mind, the unstable power that gnawed at one’s soul.
They were invited to become monks of Dharma Temple and undergo mental training in order to properly govern their powers as psykers through discipline and control.
With a few exceptions, the children willingly received mental reinforcement procedures and swore to walk the path of the monk.
Changes also occurred within Immortals, Iron Anchor’s elite legion of superhumans.
When one of those superhumans overcame the extreme odds of one in ten thousand and manifested as a psyker, they underwent additional reinforcement procedures tailored to special specifications before being reassigned to Dharma Temple.
There, they rose to the rank of Akasha Master: teachers and guardians who led the monks and controlled their spirituality.
Yet the remaining children, who failed to meet the strict criteria and were judged vulnerable to Warp corruption, all had to receive Pariah ampoules on Bio Aegis operating tables and undergo precise brain surgery as a precaution against disaster.
The purpose was to completely excise the psychic circuitry that could become a fatal root of calamity for their souls from their neural networks, returning them to ordinary, safe human beings.
Through the glass window, I silently watched the countless children lying anesthetized on cold operating tables as they underwent the procedures.
Laser scalpels precisely cut through their scalps and skulls, severing the circuits.
"...What a violent sight."
It was something that had to be done for their survival, but to a parent, it was a cruel sight I could never welcome.
Bitterness and guilt sank heavily down my throat and would not go away.
Then, a woman who had quietly watched my dark mood from behind approached with soft footsteps and offered consolation.
"It was unavoidable. As you feared, I hear that on some planets, uncontrolled psykers have already run rampant, causing horrific incidents in which people were slaughtered."
"Veronica... I know. I understand it in my head, but watching them pry open my children’s skulls and rummage through their brains... it isn’t pleasant at all."
Veronica slowly approached me in the body she had possessed during her most youthful and beautiful days, her mind fully linked to an advanced bio-android.
Then she warmly embraced my heavy shoulders from behind, holding me tightly.
The warmth she conveyed comforted me perfectly.
"You are protecting everyone in the best way possible against the cruel course of history to come. So please, do not blame yourself any longer."
"...Even so, I don’t want to look away just because it hurts."
"Then we’ll watch it together. And bear it together."
"I’m sorry."
"There you go, apologizing again."
"...Thank you."
"That’s better."
Sharing warmth with Veronica, my eternal companion who remained at my side, I kept my gaze fixed on the children silently undergoing brain surgery.
*
As humanity’s golden age ripened and major and minor historical events unfolded ceaselessly throughout the cosmos, the harbinger of the worst ending I had feared and worried over for so long finally raised its head.
“Men of Iron.”
The latest humanoids equipped with hyper-advanced autonomous artificial intelligence began to be mass-produced, spreading across the galaxy at a terrifying pace.
I immediately declared the import and distribution of Men of Iron an absolute taboo throughout every territory and planetary branch under Gateway Corporation’s jurisdiction.
Even at the cost of immense financial losses, the corporation desperately tried to prevent Men of Iron from penetrating the vast trade networks of the galaxy.
But despite every measure I could take to put on the brakes, those ominous machines spread serenely through humanity’s arteries beyond my control, consuming the galaxy.
I wanted to declare all-out war on the megacorporations manufacturing and exporting Men of Iron right then and there.
But I knew better than anyone that waging war against the megacorporations of this era would be a foolish choice tantamount to self-destruction.
Despair engulfed me.
The great current of history was not something I, the head of no more than a corporate state, could ever stop by force.
Still, I refused to give up. I shouted myself hoarse throughout the galaxy, warning of the terrible danger posed by the Men of Iron and proclaiming the truth.
But the rest of humanity, incapable of knowing the depth of my desperate efforts, did nothing but look at me and mock me.
A relic of a bygone age.
The flailing of a foolish giant left behind by technology.
The nagging of an old man filled with nothing but jealousy.
I silently endured the sharp insults and ridicule pouring in from every direction with my entire body.
"Fuck. Do you know how I feel, trying to stop you all from being destroyed? You stupid bastards..."
The sight of me muttering to myself was pathetic.
More precisely, it would be accurate to say I had fallen into a severe mental breakdown.
No matter how much clear data I presented or how much I laid out the danger of ruin, the humans of the Federation merely branded me an outdated loser and laughed at me.
"Is it right to just let them be ruined like this? How many of those people will die when that day comes?"
No. I had done all I could.
I had done everything a prophet could do!
But all I received in return was insult and ridicule.
No matter how desperately one paddled in a vast ocean, one could not swim alone against a great current.
Overwhelmed by the crushing helplessness and terror of having to watch the inevitable ruin alone, every one of the millions of “me” connected to the Hive Mind fell into severe depression at once.
Within the psychic channels of the Noah collective consciousness, there was nothing but cold silence and melancholy.
"Stupid, idiotic bastards... Just go and be ruined, then. Not knowing how much I care about you...!"
"(Yes. That is it! Rage! Unleash your bloody fury upon those pathetic mortals who fail to recognize your noble heart and dared to mock you!)"
"Ah, fuck, what is this? Get out of my head right now, you bastard."
"(Gyaaaaaaagh!!!!)"
I simply crushed and utterly erased the wicked daemon of Khorne that had sensed my anger through a gap in my depression and crawled in to devour my soul, using the immense psychic mass of the Hive Mind.
The one who saved me as I continued to struggle alone in that deep mire even after driving the daemon away was, in the end, my eternal companion, Veronica.
When every “me” scattered across the galaxy was lying in bed with blankets pulled over their heads, drowning in despair, Mother AI Veronica came to my bedside in a bio-android body indistinguishable from that of a human.
Veronica carefully extended a long organic optical tentacle from her fingertip and gently connected it to my body’s central nervous system.
She entered deep into the Hive Mind and warmly embraced my soul as it endured its lonely suffering alone.
Her sacred, boundless mind—comfortably transcending the limits of humanity—gently consoled the millions of me groaning beneath their blankets all at once.
It was a miracle only Veronica, a superintelligence who understood the human heart more perfectly than anyone because she had once been human, could accomplish.
Fully sharing and bearing the heavy pressure I felt about the future and my terror of the Great Catastrophe, she became my eternal comforter with her warmth.
Thanks to that profound comfort and devotion, I finally cast off the long depression that had devoured my soul and regained my cold reason.
"...Thank you, Veronica. I’m done whining like a child now."
As I smiled and disengaged the neural link, Veronica answered with the most beautiful smile she had worn in life and took my hand.
"Then get back up, Noah. There is still a mountain of things you must do to protect our children."
"Right."
*
The first thing I did after pulling myself together was to set in motion in earnest my final means of salvation, which I had conceived and designed for a long time: the Ark Project.
I immediately convened the top executives of the six divisions and the family’s elder council in secret.
After marathon meetings that continued day and night for several days, we resolved to gradually reduce the outward operational scale of the colossal corporation known as Gateway Corporation.
Aside from the branches we had planted throughout the galaxy, we began securing enormous assets by selling our existing prime logistics facilities, trade-ship stations, and aging space fortresses to rival companies at laughably inflated prices.
They sneered, asking whether Gateway had finally gone mad and was shutting down its business, but I did not care.
They would be the ones weeping tears of blood as they burned to ash later.
At the same time, I completely shut down Titan’s rather lucrative tourism industry.
While strictly controlling the entry of outsiders, we began large-scale fortification works on Titan itself and the key branches we had left throughout the galaxy, all under Veronica’s supervision.
Beneath the apparently ordinary surface, dimensional-separation shield emitters and orbital cannons on the level of decisive weapons were being installed underground.
Interconnected military fortresses, supply bases, hangars, and other military facilities were constructed densely beneath the earth.
Thus, preparations for an all-out war against artificial intelligence steadily became solid.
And with the astronomical funds we had secured, we signed an unprecedented joint construction contract with Jovian Chronos, humanity’s largest shipbuilding company, located in Jupiter’s orbit.
Construction began at a massive shipbuilding base within the Oort Cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System.
Mobilizing every resource of the corporation and all the accumulated power of our super-science, we began shaping the keel of the Ark, the heart and essence of the Ark Project.
The Ark’s specifications defied imagination.
A colossal planetary vessel, as large as the actual Earth.
Its specifications could be summarized simply as follows.
Exterior and hull armor: An ecological protocol forms artificial gravity fields and atmospheric containment fields. The surface retains the appearance of an organic planet, with ordinary soil, green land, oceans, and a fully living ecosystem. Yet beneath its surface, neutron-compression armor plates and nano-regenerative composites, whose molecular bonding strength has been pushed to the absolute limit, are layered all the way down to the planetary core, completely nullifying even stellar-destruction-class impacts.
Power and propulsion system: Six artificial micro-black-hole engines arranged along the vertex axes of a cube at the physical balance point deep within the vessel. By perfectly harnessing the tremendous energy of gravitational-field distortion erupting just before the event horizon, they can accelerate or decelerate a vessel of planetary mass to sublight speed.
Firepower system: The final weapon of annihilation, deployed when the artificial crust at the Ark’s front splits open on a massive scale. Directly connected to the central engine’s main energy supply, the massive antimatter compression main cannon Anti-Matter Nova compresses and resonates high-density antimatter to fire a pure beam of annihilation.
And the Sentinel Array, a system of hundreds of thousands of cutting-edge secondary targeting guns, is perfectly embedded throughout the surface and performs automatic calculations. It carries pinnacle tactical weapons such as molecular-disassembly tachyon cannons, phase-difference tracking rapid-fire guns, and vector-gravity contamination missiles.
The internal core infrastructure is divided into five major sections.
Central Core Hub: Located directly above the Ark’s deepest power engine. This spherical computational space maintains perfect zero gravity and ultra-low temperatures, while hundreds of millions of photonic quantum-crystal processors rotate in spiral orbits to synchronize Veronica’s consciousness and ego data in real time. To fundamentally block digital hacking and psychic contamination, Pariah energy-cancellation fields envelop the entire exterior of the server complex in three layers.
Omni Archive: A repository containing tens of thousands of years of records, in which all scientific STC blueprint data accumulated until the height of the Dark Age of Technology, genetic maps, humanity’s philosophy and art, and the history of space exploration are permanently preserved in the form of pure tachyon-energy drives.
Bio-Regen Plant: A fully automated, high-speed indoor biological cultivation farm thousands of floors deep beneath immense artificial stellar-light panels, as well as an infinite food-production facility.
Metropolis: A gigantic residential district whose precise artificial climate-control system creates four seasons, snow, rain, and clear skies in real time, ensuring that its inhabitants never feel the confinement of being trapped within the Ark.
Nexus Forge: A manufacturing and production center that concentrates all the technological power of Mechanica Gate. A supply-production base capable of mass-producing nearly every weapon of war.
Beyond those facilities, there was Psi-Oculus, a cosmic beacon in the form of a gigantic particle accelerator located at the North Pole that emitted ultra-high-output psychic and quantum data waves, usable in countless ways in both realspace and the Warp.
The six divisions’ dedicated districts, large hangars, weapons depots, and resource warehouses were also arranged with painstaking care.
Eleven new moon-sized space fortresses were being built alongside it in the surrounding docks—stations that would orbit the immense Ark, maintain and house every vessel, and guard the Ark itself.
I—and all of us—watched the magnificent keel of the Ark as it was constructed in the black void of space, silently revealing its skeleton.
"Surely it can’t fail after we’ve gone this far, can it?"
This was the best I could do now.
There was nothing else I could do beyond this.
Advancing this project had consumed a vast portion of the immense assets that were the fruits of my efforts over tens of thousands of years.
One wrong move, and we would go bankrupt.
There were still 560 years until its projected completion, so we had no choice but to walk a razor’s edge until construction was fully finished.
If even this were to fail, then like the Emperor, I would have no choice but to silently hold my breath and watch the Great Collapse unfold.
When I said something so ominous, Veronica lightly struck my shoulder.
Smack.
"Don’t tempt fate, Noah."
"Right. I should watch what I say. So where should our refuge be?"
"Of our current candidates, the galactic core or the outer regions seem most suitable."
"...Hmm, good. Then let’s send some exploration vessels to the outer regions ahead of time, to mark out the coordinates."
"Understood."
Preparations for the coming cosmic Great Catastrophe proceeded in the quietest and grandest fashion.
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