WIP: A Brief History of the Ahrment'il (Elementals)

[Cameron]

The following is a work in progress. When completed, it will contain a (mostly) complete history of the Ahrment'il, Cameron's race. I'll be adding to it as I have time.



The enigmatic race of beings known as the Ahrment'il, or Elementals, are mostly forgotten in history, and virtually unknown outside of the Imperial Plane of the Multiverse. Those within the Imperial Plane who had encountered them during their prime describe them as powerful allies or dangerous enemies, due to their nature. Most have described their abilities as almost magical. But few are aware of the origins of these abilities. And none but a select few know that they are actually a distant cousin of humanity themselves. This document aims to provide a better understanding of this once proud race and their place in the history of the Imperial Plane. But before we can discuss them, we must discuss their origins, and thus briefly touch on the origins of humanity in the Imperial Plane.

In ancient times, well before the Age of Technology, the Age of Strife, the Age of the Imperium, the Great War of the 41st Millennium, and the fall of the Emperor and the Ecclesiarchy, humanity was isolated to one planet within the Sol System of the Milky Way galaxy. This planet is now known as Terra, the source and seat of humanity in the Imperial Plane. But at this time, it was simply known as Earth. No Imperial records of this time period remain, as they were all lost during the Age of Strife. But a recently uncovered cache of documents found on the remnants of one of the Ahrment'il homeworlds has finally shed some light on this critical stage of humanity.

Humans had only just discovered the means to travel faster than the speed of light, and were unaware of the existence of the Warp. Their attempts at space travel had been mostly restricted to their moon and the nearby planet of Mars. Colonies had formed on Mars successfully, but all travel beyond this planet had been limited to probes and other unmanned craft. This changed in the Earth year 3000, when a planetary-wide effort known as the Ark Project was initiated to attempt to colonize systems beyond their own.

3 decades of preparation ensued, and in the year 3030, The first space-crafts in the Ark series were launched from a space station orbiting Mars. The vessels were the biggest space-faring craft that had ever been constructed by humanity and were designed to survive the rigors of deep space travel. There was concern that the passengers would not survive the amount of time needed to travel to another solar system, so the vessel was equipped with cryogenic suspension chambers which would keep the crew in stasis until they had arrived at their destination.

This destination was a planet known at the time as Kepler-186f, though it is now known as Cecilia. Long range scans and drone flights had marked this planet as the closest habitable world to Earth, 490 light-years away. The trip, which would have been impossible prior to Earth's 30th century, would only take 50 years thanks to the Ark ships experimental FTL drives. Both ships were launched a day apart from each other, to much fanfare. The second ship entered orbit around Kepler-186f 48 years later, actually arriving two years ahead of schedule. They expected to find the first ship there waiting for them, but it was nowhere to be found. The crew of Ark-2 managed to establish communications with Earth and soon made landfall, establishing the colony of Cecilia. The planet remains inhabited by humans to this day, though it's population, like the population of all other human controlled worlds, was devastated during the Age of Strife.

Ark-1, the lead ship, was never heard from again. No records of it exist in Imperial Record. Earth records of this time are vague, and refer to the planet itself suffering an extinction level event at the hands of an individual known only as Balok. Much of the records after this show the humans in the outlying systems focusing mostly on rebuilding their civilization on Earth. So no effort seems to have ever been put into locating the missing Ark vessel.

The ship had encountered a Warp storm. It was thrown off course and missed the Keplar system entirely. Because it had never reached it's destination, the computer system never shut down the engines or woke the crew. The ship simply kept flying, getting further and further away from Earth by the year. The fusion plant of the ship was designed to keep running indefinitely, so the internal systems kept running, and the cryo systems never faltered. But eventually the engines did give out, leaving the ship drifting through deep space in the very outer edge of the Imperial Plane.

There is no record to indicate how long the ship drifted aimlessly. What we do know is that it eventually drifted within range of a planet known as Inferia. This planet was not named in any Imperial records, but this name is apparently the name it gave itself. The planet itself was sentient. No one is quite sure how the planet managed to achieve sentience, or how it maintained control over things that should have been naturally occuring, like it's orbit or it's gravitational pull. But these are all things that the Ahrment'il have records of it doing during their time there. And it was these abilities that allowed it to rescue the frozen travelers from their endless fate.

This planet had been inhabited once before. That race had also referred to themselves as the Ahrment'il, which is a name they apparently got from the planet itself. They were a race of bipedal lizards, reportedly evolved from a species of lizard that were native to the planet. The planet had evolved their physical capabilities and intelligence and granted them with powers over the elements. But the lizards had been naturally aggressive before their evolution, and although they coexisted fine at first, they eventually broke into small tribes and began warring with each other. After some time, they had all but wiped themselves out. Only two elderly members of this original race were still alive when the wayward ship Ark-1 eventually passed close enough to Inferia to notice it.

When the planet spotted the ship, it was apparently able to reach out to the sleeping minds of it's sleeping passengers. Upon determining that they were alive and intelligent, the planet shifted it's own orbit and gravitational pull to capture the ship inside it. The ship soon crashed on the planet's surface. Recognizing the sudden impact, the onboard computer woke itself from it's slumber and activated emergency protocols, waking the passengers.

Of the over 500 colonists, only 90 of them woke up that fateful day. They emerged into a large grassy plain with pleasant temperatures and breathable air. They initially assumed that this had to be Keplar-186f, and thus began to proceed with their mission. They started building their settlement and attempting to contact both the planet Earth and their sister ship, Ark-2. But they soon realized something was very off. The on board computer was filled with errors and failed systems, and could not indicate their location or even tell the colonists how long they had been in stasis, Any requests for the current date or time were met with gibberish numbers. They had found fresh water nearby. But all of their food stores, which had been rated to last at least 100 years if stored properly, were either rotten or completely decomposed, leaving them with a tiny amount of freeze dried material that would not last them more than a week. And the star charts they were supposed to use to chart their position on Keplar-186f appeared to be useless as none of the stars in this night sky were in the proper positions.

The situation was made worse by the fact that the colonists kept hearing a voice in their minds. They couldn't understand it at first, and they were convinced that it had to be a mass hallucination. Eventually some of the colonists claimed that they could understand parts of the message, but these men and women were quickly quarantined from the rest in case the hallucinations were some kind of sickness. The colonists seemed to be doomed to starvation or insanity. But 4 days after their arrival, the last three surviving reptilian Ahrment'il arrived in the camp.

The colonists initially produced what weapons they still had and prepared to defend themselves, but the Old Ahrment'il had brought wagons of food with them, and thus were quickly able to establish peace. They had also brought a strange crystal staff. When this was placed in the ground in the center of the settlement, it cleared the jumbled messages that the humans had been hearing into one coherent line of thought. Inferia could now speak to it's new inhabitants. And it and the old Ahrment'il were able to explain the nature of the planet to the colonists.

At first, the colonists were skeptical. Many of them were scientists back on Earth. The idea of a sentient planet was not something that any of them had considered possible. But over time, the planet was able to convince even the most stubborn of them that the planet was actually a living entity. It still took them some time to believe that the talking planet was actually benevolent and not trying to feed on them like cattle or turn them into more lizard people. But even with the lingering suspicions, the colonists were willing to accept the help of the being known as Inferia, and listen to the wisdom of it's former disciples.

The lizard-men possessed strange powers which they claim to have gotten from the planet itself. One of them could produce and control fire at will. The second could summon water from the earth and control it, and even freeze and thaw it at will. The third could manipulate the earth itself, shaping and forming it with ease. Using these powers, they were able to help the colonists build a permanent settlement in the flat-lands where their ship crashed. They showed them which game was safe to hunt and which plants were safe to eat. They passed on as much knowledge as they could in the weeks and months that followed. And all the while, the planet's influence silently benefitted the colonists as well. Each morning that the humans awoke on the planet, they felt better than the last. Chronic ailments disappeared in a few days. The older colonists felt younger and more energetic, while the younger colonists felt stronger and more agile than they were. But the planet wasn't just healing them. It was preparing them for what was to come.

[Soul Reaver]

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Document classified at level Omega, as authorized by Ordo Hereticus.  Strong evidence of heretical 'retcon' content.

All unauthorized access to be punished by excommunicatus, followed by death.

"Let His divine will guide your hand"

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(Looking foward to reading the rest, this has been long overdue!)