Dr. Ophylia Hahgmen

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**Dr. Ophylia Hahgmen** is an esteemed Aularan born virologist who aided in pioneering 77th millennium viral weapons research. One of the founders of The Kahltehk Engineering Syndicate, she held the position of Director at the company's executive training school and was among those responsible for the creation of the Pyskel-Phage. A perfectionist, Hahgmen became obsessed with never-ending research while neglecting her other responsibilities. When she became twisted in her obsession to the point of using captured human, abhuman, and xenos slaves in her research.

### Early life

Virtually nothing is known of Hahgmen's early life. It is known she graduated from a prestigious Aelgeist university in M76, and became a close friend of the Kahltehk Executive Inheritors Dr. Wilhelm Kahlbach, and Dr. Mahrkus Vohn Houtyn. In their adult life they would become part of a Vyctocyst eugenics circle who believed in scientific methodology for creating the Rei'kharch Vycter Vohn Alexands *Übehrgeisen*.

### Precursor Strain Discovery

During the early 77th millennium, Hahgmen worked in the laboratory of a Military University studying palaeo-xenovirology. Hahgmen became fascinated by Izahk Röhr's late 64th millennium opus, the *Natural History Codices*, which Kahlbach was a keen reader of. An entry on the alien race of TZ-08 detailed an elaborate flower-eating ritual mimicking a supposedly true tale of a potent flower which, if the consumer survived, would be awarded superhuman abilities. Hahgmen hypothesized that, if the account were true, a mutagenic virus would be involved. In the second half of the year, Hahgmen left her university in search of the flower.

Over a period of some seven years, the two tracked down the secret entrance to the derelict Xenos Kingdom, and the Lunar Garden where the *Lunar* *Rose* grew. In spite of repeated xenos attacks, the two scientists succeeded in isolating a retrovirus within the roses in the year 77,004. Returning to the orbital Lükhyt university with Precursor cultures, it was noted that it was altering the DNA of the tissue media. The seeds brought with them blossomed successfully into viable *Lunar Roses*, but it was discovered they were not producing more of the virus, indicating very unique environmental conditions were required for the roses to actively produce it. Around this time, Hahgmen was indirectly linked to a results forgery scandal, and she was ostracized by the university research team and her funding cut, with the university being reluctant to fund it either.

In year 77,009, Hahgmen finally left the university, having given in to an offer by Kahlbach to use Kahltehk Industries instead. The conditions however were that she performed all research solely at Kahltehk Research Estates, and not disclose findings outside Kahltehk circles unless previously agreed upon. Beginning her research on bacteria, Hahgmen perforated an ancient *e. coli* cell by exposing it to 0.1ppm of chlorine. Exposing it then to the Precursor, the cell was revived, mutated, and reproduced. This feat in using a virus to repair cellular protein should have been impossible, and also went above and beyond the ancient Mihl'yer-Uhry experiment findings. Immediately after this discovery, Kahlbach chose to rebrand Kahltehk Industries into the Kahltehk Engineering Syndicate as another means of funding the project, and while Hahgmen was disinterested in business she accepted the role.

Faced with a shortage of Precursor cultures, Hahgmen made plans to return to TZ-08 in an effort to extract more from the *Lunar Roses* there. On Kahlbach's suggestion, however, she stayed behind and hired a team of mercenaries to drive out the TZ-08 Xenos warriors instead, and after 2 years they had captured and were defending the Temple of the Lunar Garden. On Kahlbach's insistence, however, Hahgmen left instead for the inner worlds of the United Aularite Sovereignty to chair the newly opened Kahltehk Executive Training School, which had a purpose-built laboratory for her research. While Hahgmen had no interest in returning to a university-type environment and simply wanted to research the Precursor Strain, he soon understood it was the best thing to do, as there would not be an appropriate lab in the ruins.

### Pyskel-Phage Project

The Kahltehk Syndicates three founders were able to work with a steady supply of Precursor coming in from the TZ-08 labs Lunar Garden. With work finally ready to move towards creating the *Übehrgeisen*, data accumulated over the previous 4 years indicated the naturally occurring Precursor to have a near-100% fatality rate in Aelgeists. Consequently, it was decided Kahltehk would obtain the necessary data while creating mutant strains that would be marketed as Aularan military weapons. Kahlbach ran the company side of things, while the inner worlds XO-2 Laboratory led the so-called "Pyskel-Phage Project". Vohn Houtyn and his sons, Al'xahnder, Yahnnick, and Ehrwyn, would take part in a competing project aboard the Houtyn Applied Genetics (HAG) orbital lab, until Vohn Houtyn's unexpected end only 3 years into his research in an accident arranged by Kahlbach. Hahgmen meanwhile continued her side of the research at the training school, having her assistant directors handle the education of students.

The following millennia of research by Hahgmen used a steady supply of abhuman test subjects, with the facility capable of storing them for long-term study. To some degree the students, child prodigies headhunted by the Kahltehk Syndicate, assisted in the research, but Hahgmen typically avoided them, deeming them to be worthless to the syndicate's plans due to personality traits she deemed poor.

Among the rare exceptions to this rule, where the 78,282-283 class were Dr. Yahkob Strauch and Dr. Rhieke Berthold, two Aularan child prodigies who had been headhunted during their excelled university studies. Their ruthless dedication to research quickly earned Hahgmen's respect, and she urged her assistant directors to make them as competitive as possible.

Soon into the school year, Hahgmen made a breakthrough on her side of the Pyskel-Phage Project. By splicing xenoform leech DNA into the virus, she succeeded in creating a Precursor strain that would become useful in weapons research, and would later bring her findings to be known to the syndicate. In the years after, she moved on to humanoid experimentation, with subjects ranging from xenos abductees, to abhuman and '*Üntergeisenen*' slaves. Though she maintained a fascination in studying the virus' effects on the leech xenoforms, she was met with ever-growing interest in moving research on to Aularan experimentation.

In her ruthless quest for results, Hahgmen turned her eyes on to the students as a source of research data. While it is possible she performed research on students in earlier year groups, they would not have survived infection from earlier Pyskel-Phages. Students were infected by having them be tricked into touching her leech specimens while working at the laboratory, and bloody sheets in the dorm rooms would suggest some were left in their beds to mutate. Hahgmen would be able to restrain infected students to the walls with reinforced chains, force them to sit on iron chairs, be drowned by dunking cranes, or impaled by an iron maiden.

In one of her many laboratories, students were forced into gas chambers to study their survival abilities. At the main laboratory complex itself, Hahgmen's research continued. In an operating room, students were subject to vivisection, with their organs removed and preserved in culture fluids in the auxiliary research rooms, with students being preserved whole for study. Hahgmen's main lab room also contained its own gas chamber. Dead students were taken to the nearby morgue for storage, but due to Hahgmen's disinterest many were improperly stored. Citizens are also known to have been killed in the training facilities of her research stations, likely built to train anti-B.O.W. combat for the Kahltehk Security Service branch.

### Censure

A rift between Kahlbach and Hahgmen grew in prominence in the millennia since the start of the Syndicate, and the two were for a long time paranoid of one another, with Vohn Houtyn himself being killed in a lab accident devised by Kahlbach. At the end of the 78,282-283 school year, Kahltehk HQ ordered the immediate closure of the training school and its laboratory, with surviving personnel diverted to other facilities, with Berthold and Strauch quickly moved over to the inner worlds XO-2 Laboratory, denying Hahgmen even her trusted apprentices.

Already suspicious that Kahlbach was trying to steal her data, Hahgmen instead remained in her laboratory to continue experimenting. She planned to present the conclusion of her research to Kahltehk's executive directors, believing this would win her the necessary support to take control of the syndicate. However, in spite of her isolation, Kahlbach deduced Hahgmen's intentions and moved to eliminate the threat Dr. Hahgmen posed.

In the year 78,293, a Kahltehk Security Service team infiltrated the lab but were met only with the empty Laboratory, with Hahgmen nowhere in sight. Berthold and Strauch accompanied the kill squad, and quickly recovered any research data of relevance for their own projects within the Laboratory. Ophylia Hahgmen's unwanted specimens, such as the Leech Matriarch, would be incinerated by the Kill team. And by the year 78,294 Kahltehk had almost completely wiped Hahgmen from its company history, save for remaining material to indicate he was dismissed early on.

## Legacy

Despite her complete disappearance Hahgmen had set into motion the events that would lead to the absolute desolation of the Sovereignty's outer worlds when Hahgmen's iteration of the Pyskel-Phage would spread throughout the outer worlds in the 78th millennium in the middle of The Second Aularan Expansion Crusade. This contagion would threaten to bring the Sovereignty to its knees as the mutated creatures spread rapidly throughout the already warring rim-worlds. The AUS would be caught dealing with the contagion for another 4 millennia before finally overcoming it.

But during these millennia the ascendancy of the Kahltehk Syndicate had become quite apparent as Kahlbach, the last of the trio still active was the only scientist capable of creating a long-term solution to the terrible contagion. And as such Kahlbach would soon become a chairman of the Aularan Sovereignty's Senate, the Kahltehk Engineering Syndicate would become a bastion of genetic and bio-technological research.