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Terra was a planet that TalOS had seen thousands of records about. Such records gave TalOS a rough idea that the planet had gone through a series of phases in the time that humanity lived upon its soils.
The first was the time in which Terra was known as Earth. This era was when the planet formed the federation and reached out into the stars with gleeful abandon without care for the xenos and things out there. During this time the planet was green and blue with the precense of fauna and water comparably. This, according to TalOS’s previous research, was the time that Terra was at its height.
The second time available was Long Night, when Terra and Mars were both cut off from the rest of their empire. Through the grace of the Machine God the Mechanicum emerged from the red dunes to fire off a series of Ark Mechanicus into the stars. These ships were built to help support and settle planets so that the knowledge of the Universe could be acquired before anyone else.
This time there were plenty of references to Terra but as a Ruin World. Within its walls there were a plethora of lost technologies and locations that Mechanicum Expeditionary Forces came to retrieve or pillage for lost archives. The planet itself was a desolate wasteland where the humans all gathered up in the few hospitable locations.
If TalOS read those records correctly as well he had a suspicion that the talons of the dark gods were slowly sinking themselves into the planet. A taint of witch kings and covens whose magics allowed them to rule unopposed.
What TalOS saw when he landed upon the oddly golden planet was not a land of death, decay, and heresy but instead a growing vibrance. Looking around the Primarch noted a massive assembly of buildings freshly built to immense architectural standards that placed them above most other non-Mechanicum structures.
Looking forward from his landing zone was five golden guards. TalOS had heard the reviews and systematics of the Custodes but to see one in person caused his genetor mind to alight with new ideas.
But that was not what he was here for. He was here to meet the one who invited him to Terra. As the Primarch could feel that his Creator was not here, he was curious what kind of person had the kind of authority to truly invoke the authority of the Emperor of Mankind.