Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Vashtor is right.

The Golden Throne is indeed malfunctioning.

However, the malfunction of the Golden Throne did not begin suddenly from a single day.

It has been in a state of constant damage and repair.

After the Horus Rebellion ended, the Emperor was sent back to Terra by the Guard.

The body, so badly damaged it could hardly be called a body, was placed on this device, which was composed of humans, aliens, and Dark Age technology.

From that day on, it began to maintain the operation of the entire empire in a damaged state.

For ten thousand years, the Cult of Mechanics has done only one thing: mend and patch.

There's really only so much they can do.

Damaged pipelines were replaced, failed energy nodes were surrounded by more auxiliary reactors, and unrepairable core modules were forcibly bypassed by a set of similar but inefficient equipment.

One layer of equipment covers another, one shrine encloses another.

By the end of the forty-first millennium, the Golden Throne was no longer the mechanical throne that had been placed deep within the palace.

It expanded into a constantly growing underground mechanical world.

Countless energy pipes run through the foundation of the palace, the Thinker Array operates day and night, and tens of thousands of mechanical priests, servants and technical attendants maintain this machine.

The mechanical priest is not useless.

They can recite lengthy prayers, replace external cooling pipes while blindfolded, and keep a near-shutdown energy regulator running for decades based on ancient records.

But the most fatal problem remained unsolved.

They did not know why the Golden Throne could function.

They don't understand.

Many core components were already irreplaceable relics during the Great Crusade, and some key parts even belonged to fields outside the realm of human technology.

Mechanicus can only fill the ever-emerging gaps with generation after generation of replacements.

But alternatives themselves can create new problems.

Initially, only one auxiliary reactor was needed.

Thousands of years later, the number of auxiliary reactors increased to seventeen.

If one cooling line cannot handle the load, three more are connected in parallel.

When the neural interface could no longer transmit the psionic energy released by the Emperor, the Tech Priest connected the souls of more psionic beings to the system, using their lives to fill the gaps that the machine could not mend.

More and more psionicists are being sent to the Golden Throne.

Initially, it required burning about a thousand people per day.

Later, this number increased to several thousand.

The Black Ships fleet brought back untrained psionicists from all over the galaxy.

After being selected, they were taken to the underground palace, where their souls were burned in a ceremony to fuel the continued existence of the emperor and the golden throne.

However, the rate at which psychics sacrificed themselves still couldn't keep up with the rate at which the Golden Throne was decaying.

The first to discover the problem was Mars Forging General Ode Odia Laskian.

He was the ruler of Mars and one of the High Lords of the Empire.

When the first inexplicable energy gap appeared in the maintenance records of the Golden Throne, Raskian accessed the maintenance files from three thousand years ago, and then retrieved the original records from seven thousand years ago.

The seventy-two Thinkers arrays operated simultaneously, re-analyzing the damage to the Golden Throne's components over the past ten thousand years and the number of psionic beings involved.

Nine months later, he arrived at a devastating conclusion.

Raskian secretly summoned two other high lords closely associated with the Golden Throne.

Leopold, the Lord of the Star Torch, and Kania Danda, the representative of the merchant ship captains.

The meeting was held in a data sanctuary on the lower level of the palace.

The three Terra Highlords held a secret meeting here.

"The fluctuations of Star Torch are getting out of control. What exactly is the Cult of Mechanics doing?"

Frank looked terrible; he had clearly sensed something was wrong.

"The choir has collapsed more times in the past century than in the previous five centuries combined. If the throne continues to decline, how long can the Starlight endure?"

"Cannot be calculated."

Raskian shook his head. "We've done our best."

"Stop talking nonsense, give me the worst possible outcome."

"Within a hundred years at most, the Emperor will be unable to continue guiding the Starlight, and the Galactic route will be completely interrupted."

Danda asked, "Doesn't the Empire have any other alternatives?"

Frank looked at her: "You represent the entire merchant shipping system, so you should know better than me that without the Starbeam, Terra wouldn't even have a stable food supply."

Laskian opened a holographic light screen.

The underground structure of the palace appeared before the three of them.

The golden throne is at the very top, and deeper inside is a crack that constantly seeps out a scarlet light.

"The first two problems are not the most fatal."

He pointed to the rift, "The Emperor is suppressing the breach in the human network. Once the Golden Throne stops functioning, this rift will be out of control."

"The demons will enter Terra in countless numbers. The Royal Palace may become the second Eye of Terror."

Inside the sanctuary, the expressions of the other two high lords also turned grim.

Danda said in a deep voice, "You are the Forging General! It is your responsibility to repair the Golden Throne."

The mechanical general replied indifferently:

"Identity cannot create knowledge that has been lost. The core technology of the Golden Throne does not belong entirely to the Cult of Mechanics, and that is not our fault."

"Stop arguing."

Frank said, "Since the Mechanics Church can't do it, let's find someone who can. Perhaps we need external technology."

"You mean you want to ask the aliens for help?" Danda immediately understood what he meant.

"There aren't many alien races that have mastered the technology of the Internet and understand the structure of the soul and the body."

Frank didn't say his name, so Laskian said it for him.

"The Spirit Race".

"The Eldar of the Ark won't help us; it's useless to seek help from them."

Laskian replaced the image.

Twisted spires, floating city buildings, and a blood-red arena appeared on the light screen.

That's obviously Comoros.

"Dark Spirit Clan".

"Their Bloodwalkers possess life-reshaping and ancient Eldar technology, and may be able to understand the alien structure within the Golden Throne."

Frank countered, "They could also steal the Emperor's body after entering the palace!"

"Therefore, the involvement of the court is necessary."

A fourth person then joined the secret meeting.

Lord of the Tribunal, Adamara Lassilo.

Lassilo was quite shocked after hearing the plan.

"You want to bring a Bloodlust from the Comoros to Terra? Are you crazy?"

The Forging General said coldly, "This is a last resort. You know better than we do the consequences if anything happens to the Golden Throne."

“I’ve already planned it out. First, I’ll have that Bloodwalker inspect the outer structure of the throne to verify if it truly has the ability to repair itself.”

Lassilo shook his head and said, "It's no use even if I agree; the Imperial Guard won't allow it."

That's why I asked you to come up with a solution.

Frank stared at her. "Can you get around them?"

Lassilo remained silent for a long time.

If she is found to have led the Dark Eldar into the palace, no identity can save her life.

But the crisis facing the Golden Throne forced her to make a choice.

“I can set up a temporary, confidential passage.”

"The Bloodwalker can only access the outer components; all escorts are controlled by my Stormtroopers. If it tries to escape, I will kill it myself."

Thus, a deal was secretly conducted under the supervision of four top Terra executives.

A fleet erased from all imperial archives enters the network.

A Bloodwalker was sealed in a stasis cage and brought to the outskirts of the Golden Throne.

Hundreds of layers of armor, shrines, and energy barriers blocked out the view from the depths.

Even so, the power emanating from the throne still caused its body to tremble slightly.

The Blood Spirit extended his slender fingers and gently tapped on an ancient pipe, then observed the energy fluctuations and a strange component that had long since ceased to function.

A moment later, it let out a hoarse laugh.

“Interesting…truly interesting. You’ve turned one of the most sophisticated instruments in the universe into a corpse covered in tumors.”

"This is the Empire's Mechanicus? Hahaha..."

The mechanical sages' weapon interfaces all lit up, but Lassilo stopped them.

"Stop talking nonsense, can you fix it?" she asked.

"Of course. I can't guarantee a complete repair, but I can extend its lifespan."