Quoted By:
The Blackstone Fortress was covered in the blackened metal that was trademarked by the men of Lucius. Such a material thanks to its blackened colors had easily blended in with that of the Blackstone itself in a sort of tasteful way. TalOS knew that while Lucius helped him create the Acillians they were a Forge World of Artisans in their core.
He took another moment to look around and study the area. He was alone except for the few Servitors tasked with serving the Astropathic Choirs. In one of the rare moments in his recent life the Steel Wardens were not steps away from saving his life.
The reason for that was simply that few of his Lucian sons were with him these days. Now that TalOS had the Blackstone Fortress his fears about being jumped upon by psychic means were impossible. Standard teleportation was also impossible as the Blackstone Fortress had the shield systems active. After that, well, TalOS had the tools on his personal body to survive.
Such were the reasons he finally found it amenable to allow his sons to either rest or go to war.
That did not mean the Blackstone Fortress was empty of life. That was far from the case as it could be.
When the Primarch arrived upon one of the more central levels of the construct the sounds of industry were all about him. In just one hallway was an entire detachment of nearly quarter of a million Skitarii living, relaxing, eating, and preparing for their moment to come down upon the planet.
The fortress itself was several hundred units and held dozens of these conclaves of personnel. Each and every one of them holding hundreds of Tech Priests who were drilling their Skitarii as well as Skitarii just talking amongst themselves. Among them TalOS was aware of hundreds of different connections, let them be programmed or socially created by the Skitarii. The fact that he placed a limit on the amount of Psi-Candles allowed caused the unintentional effect of the cyborgs getting closer to one another.
Such a thing was a symptom of being human. Such events had happened when the myth of humanity attaining fire took place. A time where theologians debated whether humanity had the Machine God’s influence or not. There was a running tale that the Machine God was the one to give fire, while a great many others argued that the Machine God did not take an interest in man until he left the soils of Terra and settled upon Mars.
Either way it had been when fire was made humanity began standing around it. By doing so they began to interact more heavily, forming social circles and eventually civilization. What the Skitarii did was a healthy recreation of what it meant to be human in the eyes of TalOS.
