Solaris

Solaris, Primarch of the Supernal Seraphs, solar branch of the Celestial Host, XIXth Legiones Astartes is known by many names; "The Lightbringer, "The Supernal Son", "The God of Noxim", "The Fallen Star".

The Black Star Rift
Since the earliest days either of them could remember, the two Primarch’s of the XIXth Legion had stood apart, in word, deed and, while neither of them knew it, metaphysical composition, a subtle sense of wrongness rolling out from both Primarch’s to the other, only sensible due to their prestigious psychic powers. It is of little surprise then that the pair never formed any bond but one of enmity and hatred, even as they walked the near pitch black surface of Noxim together for decades, keeping their own company and remaining away from the humans who scurried in the darkness.

This all changed when Solaris, or at least the being who would come to wear that name in time, first discovered the Mantle of Deliverance, a ball of perfectly sculpted crystal hanging in orbit around the world of Noxim, forged in an age long past with the express purpose of amplifying psychic abilities. Were a mortal psyker to stand upon its surface, their powers would be increased drastically, but for a primarch, the effect was extraordinary. Solaris’s powers were magnified to unthinkable levels, allowing the Primarch to change the Mantle of Deliverance into a facsimile of a star, giving light and warmth to the world below.

While the Primarch who would soon be named Nocterra by her followers focused her attention on what had awoken as light covered the world anew, Solaris instead set about examining the Mantle of Deliverance, seeking to unlock its power while his subjects below fell to worshipping him like the god on high he truly was. Such an artefact as the Mantle of Deliverance had infinite secrets, one could spend a lifetime there and only scratch the surface, but there was one that Solaris found that would change everything, not an inanimate object, but an entity of the Sea of Souls; Tuchulcha.

Tuchulcha was a fickle being, never one to give its power simply to anyone, but while it did not trust Solaris, it did see into the skeins of the future with ease, parting the potential and the certain to arrive at a single conclusion; Solaris would take it where it wished to go. Solaris was unaware of Tuchulcha’s duplicity, the warp entity clever and subtle enough to give the Solar Deity no reason to doubt it, and so, Tuchulcha became the trusted confidant of Solaris, feeding the Primarch a censored version of the truth, never enough to provide all answers, but always enough to build trust and force the Primarch to return time and time again, wishing to hear more of what Tuchulcha had to offer.

None within Solaris’s court, nor his legion after the arrival of the Imperium, knew of Tuchulcha’s existence, a special chamber constructed on the Sol Invictus by servitor drones, Solaris erasing their minds from existence the instant upon its construction, their bodies burnt away to nothing soon after. For decades, Tuchulcha would remain a secret, Solaris believing himself its master. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

As the Great Crusade wore on, Solaris’s questions began to take on a different feel, no longer about what he would do, but of what he was, a question Tuchulcha had waited to answer since the first day the pair had met. Solaris asked what he truly was, knowing he was not like his brothers or sister, and in his own way, Tuchulcha answered truthfully, never telling a lie, but never telling a full truth. Worlds were selected by the warp entity, worlds that it said would hold answers for Solaris, and without hesitation, Solaris followed the path laid before him, the Supernal Seraph’s criss-crossing the galaxy seemingly at random, keeping to no military path and subjugating worlds seemingly at random. At times they would assist Imperial Forces, like they did upon the world of Carnaum with the Imperial Wardens Army Group, while at others they would land to subjugate entire worlds without support, often worlds assigned to other legions that they simply had not yet reached, such as the world of Brakanal IV, where Umbral Blades operatives had been preparing the world for a seamless and bloodless takeover, the Supernal Seraph’s arriving and invading far in advance of the IIIrd legions own planned compliance of the world. This earnt them no small amount of enmity amongst the other legions, who saw the legion as flaunting common strategy and Imperial High Commanders orders, but Solaris cared little for this, continuous requests for reports and updates on his actions going unanswered, the Supernal Son seemingly already a master unto himself, a cold reflection of what was to come.

Each of these worlds held nothing for the solar Primarch, and yet each world unlocked a door just the same, steering him further along the path Tuchulcha desired. A choice word here, a subtle stroking of the ego there. For all his pomp and grandeur, his correct viewpoint that he was indeed a god, Solaris was not omnipotent, putty in the ancient warp entity’s hands. Eventually, after nearly a decade of random jumps, Imperial High Command teetering on the verge of declaring the entire legion renegade and calling them to account by force if required, the Supernal Seraph’s fleet arrived above the world of an ancient people; Xenobia, of the Interexine Star Empire.

The Interex were a noble people, one whose ambitions for unity rivalled the Emperor’s own, but where the Emperor used conquest, the Interex used diplomacy, bringing others into their fold peacefully, even xenos breeds such as the kinebrach within their ranks. Where one of the more moderate Primarch’s of the Imperium to have encountered the star empire; Ayenwathaa of the Storm Riders, Eshmun Kadluk of the Keepers of the Flame or Alexios Justarion of the Paragon Order, peace might have been a true and viable option. Instead, Solaris made war upon these people without hesitation or parlay, Tuchulcha spilling the great purpose of the Interex Empire; to fight the force of Kaos.

Kaos, or to give it the true names that Tuchulcha ascribed to the force, the Primordial Truth or simple Chaos, was a word already known to Solaris, Tuchulcha having used it many times to further goad the Primarch into action. Tuchulcha knew its true purpose however, but Solaris remained blissfully unaware of such things, believing Chaos to simply be a force within the galaxy such as gravity, both the Supernal Seraph’s and the despised Angelis Noctem understanding that the warp was far more than simply an other realm, knowing that it was inhabited by creatures of pure thought and emotion. What neither grasped however was that the Warp was sentient, Chaos no more a force of nature than the Orks were. It was an entity more than capable of malevolent thought, and it had been Solris’s true creator, splitting the Primarch from Nocterra at the moment of their scattering.

The Interex were powerful, their ornamental arms and armour easily able to cut through Astartes Power Armour and resist bolt shells, though the warriors within were mere humans and often died from the concussive qualities of the legions weapons, even as their armour remained intact. They were no match for a legion at war however, and in short order, their empire was put to grass, Solaris careful not to damage their history and knowledge, finally coming to understand the truth of Kaos.

This was the final spark that lit the fire within Solaris, his mind opening to the galactic truth of the Primordial Creator. Like a dam being broken, one piece of knowledge spiralled into two others, and from there each piece into two more. For close to a year, Solaris and the Supernal Seraph’s remained within the Interexine Empire, delving deep into all the vaults of the now dead empire, bringing their wealth of knowledge to Solaris. Imperial high Command would not stand for this, finally sending an Investigation Fleet to bring orders to Solaris and the Supernal Seraph’s to report to the nearby staging ground of Kalo III, there to answer for their actions and to accept a new assignment. The Investigation Fleet would never return, Solaris and his sons slaughtering the Imperial forces without hesitation or remorse. Imperial high Command was shocked by this, the act of a legion publicly murdering loyal Imperial soldiers utterly unprecedented.

If they believed that would be the worst of Solaris’s transgressions however, they were sorely mistaken. In possession of all the knowledge he required, Solaris and his sons struck at Imperial Worlds, close to a dozen burning, most of their populations slaughtered, those with Psychic Prowess or potential dragged back to the legions fleet in chains. The Legion was quickly declared Traitoris Maximus, but aided by Tuchulcha, none could bring them to battle, the fleet performing impossible warp jumps from inside systems, easily escaping the warriors of the Imperium. At the height of his insanity, Solaris and his sons struck at one of the nigh on mythical Black Fleets, those vessels crewed by the Silent Sisterhood that stalked the void lanes of the Imperium, gathering psykers as tithes from Imperial Worlds. The Silent Sisters were amongst the greatest warriors against Psykers, and yet even they could not stand before a massed legion, their ships seized, their precious cargo secured.

With this final conquest, the Supernal Seraph’s return to their homeworld of Noxim, Solaris transferring Tuchulcha to the surface of the Mantle of Deliverance alongside the thousands of psykers he had taken captive. Arranged upon the Psy-moon in geo-centric patterns, these slaves were tortured, their souls flensed away as their flesh brunt, their powers siphoned from their bodies and prepared to inhabit a new host; Solaris.

This ritual would have allowed Solaris to ascend to the realm of the gods, a prince of Chaos itself, but such would not come to pass. Nocterra and the Angelis Noctem struck at their twins, arranged in a single mailed fist that struck with characteristic speed and brutality. They held nothing back in their assault, determined that either they would end Solaris’s insanity, or they would be ended by it, either way absolving themselves of their links with the traitor.

The fighting was brutal even before the Angelis Noctem reached the surface, Nocterra managing to guide much of her fleet into the system in secret, bypassing the larger Supernal Seraph fleet and achieving high orbit around the Mantle of Deliverance, battle joined by hundreds of warships, chief amongst them Solaris’s own flagship, the Sol Invictus. Nothing could stand before the Gloriana vessel, even as Angelis Noctem ships launched boarding torpedoes filled with tens of thousands of drug crazy servitors or Ogryn Charonites, expendable fodder that could not be ignored, allowing Nocterra’s own flagship, the Blade of Salvation to close the gap with her counterpart.

In a straight fight, the far larger Sol Invictus would likely have triumphed in the clash of titans, but commanded by Nocterra herself, the result was different. Psychic runes along its surface were empowered beyond the norm by Nocterra herself, using her undeniable might to make the enemy ship all but invulnerable to any incoming fire, but more importantly, to anything seeking to leave the vessel as well. With a thought, the psy-fuel that powered the ships plasma weaponry, making up nearly all of the warships weapons, detonated, consuming the entire flagship in a fireball that should have destroyed every ship for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Only the shield Nocterra still held in place prevented this, only dropped when the Sol Invictus was no more than atoms floating in the void.

The blow to the Supernal Seraph’s morale was immense, the Angelis Noctem capitalising on this to effect a landing upon the Mantle of Deliverance itself, fully thirty thousand Astartes deploying from the full range of the Angelis Noctem’s armoury. Nothing was held in reserve, the fleet withdrawing to ensure they themselves were not boarded now they had no Astartes left to repel such a threat. None of the Angelis Noctem believed they would return alive, Nocterra herself proclaiming this would be their final action. They had a single goal; the death of Solaris himself, those Supernal Seraph’s who followed him could be hunted down by other legions at a later date. The Angelis Noctem would strike the head from the serpent, clean their own house, even if it cost them their lives.

Cost them it did, hundreds perishing in the first instant of the landing, the number only continuing to rise, and yet like a speartip the smaller force punched into the Supernal Seraph’s, led by the Lunar Guard and the newly created Nullifactors. Finally, a gap was opened, the terminator armoured units of the legion turning to hold it as Nocterra streaked through, cutting her way through the elite of her brothers forces, before finally coming face to face with Solaris once more in the heart of the great crystalline moon, a vast empty cavern continuing naught but Nocterra, Solaris, and Tuchulcha itself, the cold but whole corpse of a child standing before it, having apparently been speaking to Solaris only moments before.

No words were spoken between the two Primarch’s, even as a flurry of psychic communication leapt between the pair. To an outsider, it would have seemed like Nocterra required no preamble, charging her brother with blades drawn, furthering her reputation as cold and merciless, willing to kill even her twin without an utterance. This view was not true, but it was something Nocterra never disputed ether, using it to her own advantage to spread more misinformation about herself.

The pair clashed with a thunderclap that cracked the walls, centuries of enmity finally finding a vent on the other as sickle shaped Divining Blades were met with pure psychic manifestations, Solaris proving once more why he was regarded as the greatest psycker of the primarch’s, not Nocterra, his power manifesting outwardly with consummate ease. As skilled as she was, Solaris countered every move she made, launching hundreds of psionic bolts at her and forcing her to dodge and weave, not able to continue her uninterrupted flurry of attacks as was her way.

While Solaris was powerful however, his sister was near his equal, also empowered by the Mantle of Deliverance and further pushed onwards by rage and righteous fury. Solaris required more strength, more than the human slaves he was still draining of their essence, and luckily for him, he had a far greater reserve at his disposal. It may cost him ground in the battle outside, but this fight was all that mattered. The Supernal Seraph’s had always been an oddity of a legion, spawned by what was now clearly chaos-tainted geneseed, they had suffered from none of the abnormalities of the Angelis Noctem that had so hampered the other part of the Celestial Host. They were made strong by their geneseed, but that power was not theirs, the legion simply borrowing it from their lord, repayment now coming due.

Across the battle sphere, thousands of Supernal Seraph’s screamed in pure agony and terror as their souls were ripped from their bodies, leaving naught but lifeless, shriveled husks behind, Solaris swelling with this reclaimed power. For all Nocterra’s skill, she was unable to match her brother now, thrown to the floor, her blades skittering away from her, Solaris laughing as he sauntered forward, arrogant as always and utterly sure of his own supremacy.

Finally, Tuchulcha spoke, its voice ringing out not to Solaris, but to Nocterra. This had always been its end goal, a way for the warp entity to make contact with one it would truly serve, and with a whispered word that only she could hear, Tuchulcha spoke of the path to victory, Nocterra having no option other than to attempt what it suggested.

Though he had been the first to discover it and harness its powers centuries ago, and though he hated to admit it, Solaris knew that the Mantle of Deliverance had always resisted his touch, far more than it had Nocterra’s. Perhaps it was his way of demanding power rather than working to unlock it as an equal, Solaris’s cocksure attitude of utter supremacy working against him in his endeavours. Perhaps it was Nocterra’s more focused attitude towards her psychic ability, Solaris preferring to expand his mind in all direction while Nocterra delved deeper in fewer subjects. Perhaps it was simply the metaphysical nature of Solaris claiming to be a Sun God, while Nocterra was the Goddess of the Night, the Mantle of Deliverance a Psy-moon, not a Psy-Sun.

Whatever the reason, Nocterra used this to her advantage now, plunging her hands deep into the well of psychic energy she could call upon and unleashing it in a searing beam, any looking upon it save the two Primarch’s finding their eyes burnt from their sockets, their very comprehension of sight itself vanishing in that instant. The power was unimaginable, the white crystal of the Mantle of Deliverance darkening at her touch, becoming pitch black, and yet Nocterra did not take it into herself, instead focusing and directing it straight at her hated brother.

Solaris let out a roar of agony as the power overwhelmed him, his body expanding and cracking, mutating under the baleful energies Nocterra forced him to absorb. He could not control the power she directed at him, and with a final scream of impotent rage, he exploded, the power tearing him apart, a tear in the fabric of reality opening from his passing.

All across the galaxy, no matter their distance from the Mantle of Deliverance, Supernal Seraph’s let out a scream of their own, even the now imprisoned warrior of the Crusader Host on distant Terra not spared. Souls were ripped free and dragged into the warp, until all that was left of the once mighty Supernal Seraph’s were withered and shriveled husks, night but once full shells. It was believed that none survived the event, Nocterra and her Angelis Noctem still not grasping the truth behind Chaos, seeing it simply as a new name for the Immaterium, failing to see the true sentience that lay beneath.

Personality
Were one to describe the personality of Solaris in but a few words, it would be loud, bright, and grating in the extreme. While he does not often seek to put his brothers and sister down on purpose, he is always seeking to place himself at the top of any given pile, and will self-aggrandise or downplay the achievements of others to ensure he always looks to stand head and shoulders above the rest. This trait makes him insufferable to many, but also has made him an extremely well known figure amongst the Imperium, many civilians and even officers of the Imperial Army swept up in the words that surround Solaris.

This is not to say he is all talk however, far from it, as Solaris is still a Primarch, and the greatest Psyker in their ranks, only Nocterra coming close to his power. Buying into his own legend, Solaris shows his power at every opportunity he gets, using his psychic might even for tasks that do not require it, refusing to even wear power armour or carry weapons, stating that a being such as him does not require such mundane forms of protection, conjured kine shields or weapons of aetheric energy conjured into being by thought alone. The fact the Emperor, the one being who is undoubtedly greater than Solaris, does wear armour and carry physical weapons, is apparently lost on the lord of the Supernal Seraph’s.