Project Daedalus

The **Daedalus Project** was a research off-shoot of the larger **Prometheus Project** and was an early Imperial super-soldier program aimed towards the unification of Terra. It was originally launched in the 88th millennium. The **I'cartes Units**, also sometimes referred to in ancient records as the **Sun Legion** and the **I'cartes Regiments**, and known in High Gothic as the ***Legio I'carion***, were the 10 regiments or legions of genetically-engineered, superhuman warriors of Terra spawned from the Daedalus Project and created by the design of the God Emperor of Man through alchemical augmentation, somatic gene-sculpting and muscle-grafting techniques.

They were the first genehanced warriors created by the Emperor and their purpose was to unite the homeworld of Humanity beneath the Emperor's rule during the Terran Unification Wars in the late 87th and 90th Millenniums. They would serve as the precursors to the present-day Imperial Marines and an ancestor to the later Luminous Marines, though they were created from only adult male supporters of the Emperor rather than adolescent initiates.

The I'cartes' legions were commanded by genetically-superior Daedalus warriors of particular skill, intellect and mental stability, who each held the technical rank of "Luminarch." Each legion was particularly focused on a particular tactical or strategic specialty similar to the later, more perfected pattern seen among the *Imperial Legiones Angelus*.

Wrought to become living weapons, the I'cartes were known to be physically much larger, stronger, more savage, more resilient and more potent in combat than the later Angelus but surpassed by the later Luminous, though they were not as long-lived and suffered from often dangerous mental instability and early metabolic collapse when their bodies began to reject their augmentations.

Imperial chronicles hold that the last of the legendary I'cartes died heroically during the final battle of the Terran Unification Wars at Mount Dennalia in 745.M89 that reunified Terra beneath the single rule of the Emperor and forged the government that would become the Imperium Dominus.

The truth of the matter was far different, for the I'cartes' fate was bound up in the terrible price that the Emperor proved willing to pay to secure a better future for Mankind.

Later, following the success of Dr. Nysa's Angelus-IIs, the remaining I'cartes became colloquially named as Angelus-Is by Imperial Historians, and this name took root to the extent that I'cartes such as Croa Idaeus referred to themselves as the Emperors First Angels. The Daedalus Project itself was also retroactively dubbed the Angelus-I Program.

## Background

The Daedalus Project was a Special Operations Force of the burgeoning Imperium. Administratively, the Daedalus project was under the control of Prometheus Section-II, the Special Projects section of the Imperial Biotechnical Division. However the I'cartes super-soldiers themselves were under the operational authority of Naval Special Warfare Command/Naval Special Weapons. The Daedalus Program was *mostly* an all volunteer force composed of the most skilled members of the Emperors Proto-Imperial Troop Regiments and special forces branches of the Imperiums military — the Daedalus Programs super-soldiers performed specialized, high-risk operations including: counter-insurgency operations, unconventional warfare, direct action and black operations.

The members of the Daedalus program were all augmented soldiers, using new training methods and the latest breakthroughs in biochemical developments. Augmentations to the Daedalus super-soldiers included alchemical augmentation, somatic gene-sculpting, muscle-grafting techniques, muscular enhancement injections, pulmonary respiratory enhancements, retina-inversion injections, and cochlea enhancement tuning.

In addition to the physical enhancements, mental augmentations were performed to enhance brain functions including enhanced learning capabilities to allow a subject to learn at a faster and higher rate and enhanced motor skills to improve body movements. The Daedalus training regime was very difficult and included many tests both mental and physical. Most of the six hundred initial volunteers made it through the training and augmentation procedures and were placed on active duty some time after completing their training. After their initial deployment and success, focus for training the next group of Daedalus super-soldiers had increased, and within a few years the Daedalus Program had 10,000 active duty personnel, divided into the 10 I'carion Legions.

## History

### Origins

The beginning of the Daedalus Project dates back to the 88th century, as an off-shoot of the much larger Prometheus Project when the newly-formed Imperial Biotechnical Division began developing bio-engineering protocols and experimenting with biochemically altering human soldiers. Although these performance enhancing substances were very primitive and nowhere near as effective as the bio-augmented chemicals used to augment the soldiers of the later Angelus and the subsequent perfection of the Luminous Programs, however they did show promise and gave results and served as the catalyst for future endeavors. Since then, human soldiers have used performance-enhancing equipment and stimulants for centuries.

#### Flaws

> "*Alas, for them, warriors of caged flame and with whom lightning and radiance would one day stride, they have burned the brightest and most resolute in his glory, but burned ever so brief in his employ.*"
>
>
> *-Attributed to Dr. Ino Polerion Nysa, before the final Conflict For The Forra'kiir Engine over Saturn*
>

Despite their many early victories in the Unification Wars as the conflicts continued to escalate, the I'cartes were far from perfect, the opposite in fact. Many had mental instabilities, and as time went on the Techno-Barbarian attacks became more effective, and insurgent personnel more difficult to root out, and over the ensuing decades to centuries, became more organized and difficult to combat, while the I'cartes themselves fell more and more to their own genetic shortcomings, many suffering catastrophic debilitating biological failure unpredictably after an unknowable span of years, their own superhuman physiques turning against them in the end.

It seems obvious in retrospect that the Emperor knew early on that the nascent Imperium Dominus needed a more permanent and stable force of gene-enhanced warriors, so even while the I'cartes waged war in the Emperor's name, He gathered about Him a team of savants and gene-wrights, some willing and others as captives taken from his foes, and constructed new genetics laboratories deep in the vast dungeons of his Terran fortress in the Kilminjaro (Kilimanjaro) Mountains. These scientists became known as the Alpha Biotech Research Team working under the larger Prometheus Project, one of the few Special Projects sections of the Imperial Biotechnical Division.

The labor there went on for solar decades in absolute secrecy and resulted in the creation of the Luminarchs and many other wonders of the Emperor's arcane and unmatched gene-craft, known and unknown. Yet the foremost of these creations were the twenty Imperial Marine Legions, the *Legiones Angelus* and subsequent *Legiones Luminous* of legend.

Into their creation went all the secret history and genetic lore of both the Golden Age of Technology, and Age of the Long Dark, hard wisdom gained through the success and failure of the I'cartes who were the Imperial Marine' prototype and the fruits of the Emperor's own inimitable genius.

The first among the Imperial Angelus Marines were hand-picked men from the Emperor's personal, mortal bodyguard. These volunteers were subjected to surgical, genetic and psychological modification. With rigorous training and appropriate mental conditioning they became not only immensely strong and tough, but iron-willed and disciplined, an unstoppable force whose loyalty to the Emperor was unflinching.

Quickly the process was refined and systematized, and the numbers of the new genetically-enhanced warriors, at first armed and armored as the I'cartes had been, grew swiftly. They were organised into ten distinct regiments numbering at first no more than a few hundred warriors each, much like the superhuman soldiers they were to replace.

Although it remained a dire secret at the time, it is now widely believed that this division was more than a merely administrative one, as each regiment contained a variant "genetic-inheritance" encoding drawn from a different primogenitor Luminarch.

This often manifested its influence in subtle and unexpected ways, not least of all in influencing and altering the psychological character of the genetically enhanced warrior. With the Angelus regiments expanding rapidly into legions with the intake of new blood from the areas of Terra that had already joined cause with the Emperor, the new warriors quickly eclipsed and replaced the mighty but far less disciplined and unstable I'cartes. With the Imperial Marines at the forefront of Imperial efforts, victory followed victory in quick succession.

Though the I'cartes were far superior in every physical aspect of their creation to the later Imperial Marines, they suffered from one flaw the later Angelus would not -- their lifespans were extremely short. The I'cartes were not created to live beyond the achievement of Terra's Unity.

This was a genetic flaw that may have been deliberately written into their DNA during their creation to assure that when their usefulness was at an end, these warriors would cease to exist so that they might be replaced by the more balanced transhuman warriors of the *Legiones Angelus*. The I'cartes were created to be a broadsword rather than a scalpel like the Angelus who would come after them.

Unlike most Imperial Marines, the I'cartes were cold-blooded, ruthless killers who possessed talents for nothing other than war. In many ways they represented the worst aspects of Mankind's nature rather than its best. As the Terran Unification Wars drew to a close, the Emperor knew that He would still need the superior skills of gene-modified warriors in order to carry on His "Great Crusade" and conquer the galaxy.

It was for this reason that He had moved to craft the genetically-engineered warriors who were truly superior in every way to average Humans -- morally, spiritually and intellectually as well as physically. These perfections of the transhuman warrior template would become the first true Imperial Marines of the *Legiones Angelus*. The I'cartes were discarded as imperfect tools that had served their purpose.

The present-day members of the Adeptus Angelus are not the ancient I'cartes' equals in the realm of pure combat. Yet, though the I'cartes were far stronger, larger, hardier and more resilient than the later Angelus, their genetic legacy was never meant to last beyond the achievement of Terra's Unity.

The proto-Angelus were a means to an end, the conquest of a single world, whilst their genetic successors were intended to travel to the stars and conquer a galaxy. The Imperial Marines were also to serve as living embodiments of all that Humanity could hope to achieve.

## Wargear

### Daedalus Super-Soldier Weapons System: Mark I Basalic Power Armor

Project: Daedalus had plans for a suit of power armor similar to the Angelus Powered Assault Armor.

Known by Imperial Historians as the Daedalus Super-Soldier Weapon System, The first pattern of power armor created for the I'cartes and few of the first true Imperial Marines was the Mark I Basalic Pattern Power Armour, though the name was later assigned by the Jovian Tech-Guilds after the fact and at the time of its use the suit was simply called "power armor."

The initial design plans were not completed until Dr. Nysa and Sr. Research Engineer Dr. Lethos acquired the plans for their Project: APAA and brought the armor into existence. Its design was developed from the rudimentary powered combat armor worn by the techno-barbarians that plagued Old Terra near the end of the Long Dark. It was used during the Emperor's campaign to retake and reunite the Terran solar system before the Great Crusade.

It was by no means unique to the first Imperial Marines though -- in fact, the techno-barbarian warriors the Emperor fought during the conquest of Terra wore it too, and the Emperor's early forces of genetically-enhanced I'cartes were wearing it even before the first true Imperial Marines were created.

However, because it was designed with fighting in a terrestrial environment solely in mind, it was not fully enclosed, with no means to support the wearer in a vacuum.

Only the upper body was powered, due in part to the fact that during the Emperor's conquest of Terra, ranged weapons were difficult to make due to technological constraints, and so a warrior's upper-body strength was his most important asset.

It takes its name from the fact it is the base of all subsequent Patterns and Marks of Imperial Power Armor. That fact gave the armor its most common present-day name -- Basalic Armor. This early armor was produced on a completely local basis. There was no standard design, individual suits varied heavily and their exact designs were often a matter of personal taste.

The main part of the armor was the massive powered torso which enclosed the chest and arms. Coiled energy cables beneath the armor plating transmitted energy from the power pack on the back to the arms, greatly increasing the warrior's physical strength.

The legs of this mark of armor were not powered at all though, but enclosed in tough padded breaches, though simple steel plates were sometimes also used. Although uncommon, the best-equipped warriors sometimes wore armored greaves and armored boots.

However, this ancient suit of power armor was noticeably noisier than later models, perhaps due to the unpowered legs, making stealth operations nearly impossible in it.

#### Weaponry

The I'cartes were armed mainly with crude patterns of mass produced melee weapons, but some with an archaic, but far larger and powerful pattern of the standard Imperial Arc Rifle.