Solace of Wisdom

The Solace of Wisdom is an ancient relic-fortress created by Mankind during the Lost Age of Technology created for the explicit purpose of containing an equally ancient threat. Lost and abandoned due to unknown causes during the Age of Strife, it would later be re-discovered by the Obisidan Wyrms Legion during the early years of the Imperial Compliance, with enough of its secrets unlocked to eventually bring its systems back online. From that point on, it would become the crux of the Obsidian Wyrms' armadas and take part in countless major space battles throughout the Imperial Compliance and the subsequent Inter-Legionary Wars, surviving both conflicts.

## History

### Origins

Much is still wreathed in mystery as to the origins of the colossal space fortress that now bears the name of Solace of Wisdom, as even its original name remains lost to time. What is known was extrapolated from the mostly intact data archives and logs within its central cogitator banks through logical inference and contextual clues. Of these, it has been assessed that the station was first constructed somewhere between the 22nd and 24th Millennium. The lower bracket was determined by the fact that knowledge of Psykers was not believed to be cohesive enough to create such a relic before them, while the upper bracket was determined by the fact that the resources required to build such an enormous project would likely no longer exist in the waning years of the last millenium before the Age of Strife. Interestingly enough, not a single reference to Artificial Intelligence is present in these logs, suggesting it either was made after the bans from the Cybernetic Revolt of M23, or that it never participated in it.

Whatever the exact dates or details, the Solace of Wisdom is of distinctly human origin and was constructed by a branch of human civilization which was theorized to have settled a region of space neighboring the permanent Warp Rift known simply as the Maelstrom. This assessment is made due to the nature of a singular threat referred to again and again throughout the station's logs with almost feverish amounts of equal reverence and terror. A threat which these same logs reveal the whole station was designed and constructed for the sole purpose of containing, with entire star systems' resources being completely redirected to the task and barren planetoid strip-mined of resources in a manner so aggressive and thorough as to have been rarely seen before, or since. It all spoke to a primal, generalized fear on a level similar to that of the Cybernetic Revolt itself.

And not without reason. This threat, abundantly described, yet defying description, could only be defined as an abomination against all things natural and logical. From within the roiling storms of the Rift, the data-logs state, a Leviathan of impossible proportions - somewhere between a large moon or small planetoid it is not clear - suddenly and ponderously lumbered out as if some sort of collective hallucination. The creature seemed to have no greater purpose and no defined goal, with humanity being so beneath its notice that it cared little for its worlds, but its countless tendrils did shatter voidships along its path as if they were but buzzing flies.

Humanity of the time rallied to try and fight the Leviathan with the awesome power of the weapon systems known to the Lost Age of Technology; weapons that could shatter whole worlds and extinguish stars. And yet, for all of this power, nothing seemed to so much as hurt the Leviathan, as if it existed according to rules and laws that were beyond that of our reality. Nothing was achieved but terrible losses, and the creature eventually lumbered back from whence it came, never to be seen again as if this entire rampage had been but an exploratory stroll for it. if no weapon of the time could damage the creature, then new weapons needed be developed, and if It dwelled within the Warp, then the Warp itself was what needed to be studied to try and comprehend it. For this purpose and this purpose alone, the Solace of Wisdom was created: A last desperate gambit to keep at bay a nightmare too terrible to be stopped by any conventional means.

### Imperial Compliance

How the Solace of Wisdom came to be abandoned was not revealed by the records of its Cogitators, whose logs simply stop overnight with no explanation and no buildup or warning signs. It was not until the early decades of the Imperial Compliance in the Later 39th Millenium that it would be found again by a mixed tasked force of the Obsidian Wyrms and Thousand Sons during an otherwise routine and unremarkable cleansing operation against the Orks which had infested the system in which the station had drifted. The Orks had also attempted to take over the space fortress and make it their own as Orks always do, yet they found themselves uncharacteristically unable to do so, with the station refusing attempts to be altered.

After cleansing the Greenskins within, the Solace came under the jurisdiction of the Second Legion with the Primarch Elias Dammerung quickly enacting a ban to limit access and experiments. The Primarch had sensed that something of immense power -but also danger- was contained within the fortress and was remiss to accidentally unleash some terrible force or calamity upon an unsuspecting humanity that was just starting to recover from the Age of Strife and to reach out for the stars again. For about twenty years, whenever not caught up in this or that battlefield, Elias deeply studied the mysteries of the Solace, attempting to crack them in a safe manner with none else allowed save Magnus the Red and the Emperor themselves.

In the later half of the the 9th century to the 39th Millenium, a breakthrough was achieved, with Elias managing to determine a safe method of activation and proceeding ahead with it. From that day onward, the Solace of Wisdom would become the new mobile headquarters of the Obsidian Wyrms throughout the Compliance campaigns and would go on to participate in just about every single major naval operation the Legion was a part of, including the dreaded Rangdan Xenocides and the triumphant Ullanor campaign.

## Design

### Construction

The Solace of Wisdom is a relic-station unlike anything else in the Imperium, and this shows quite visibly to anyone who lays eyes upon its labyrinthine hallways. So esoteric is it that it was first suspected to be a Xeno construct until the archives of its cogitator banks were re-awakened. The near entirety of the fortress seems to be made of a single, homogeneous material with the appearance of obsidian, without flaw and faintly reflecting light from within its shadowed interior. Whereas the average space station would be dotted with piping, conduits, cables, vents and maintenance panels and hatches, the Solace's halls remain uniformly sterile, with seemingly nothing breaking the flawless, reflective surface of its dark metal.

Likewise, there are no lights or lumens in the classical sense. When powered, bands of mild purple light radiate out from the walls to each side, around about mid-way in height. No humm or buzz accompany this ethereal light, only silence, a bathing, yet not overwhelming glow and - according to some Psykers - the uncanny feeling that it's alive. In a similar manner, all cogitator terminals aboard the Solace appear like empty obsidian boards when unpowered, coming to life as the station does. The terminals are dancing lights functioning as a combination of multi-function display and touch screen, with the options and data seemingly re-arranging themselves whole to the user's needs.

The station's unusual appearance comes from the fact that it was made of the same material that the Imperium would forget then later re-discover as the Blackstone Fortresses and the Cadian Pylons. The whole of its superstructure is made of Blackstone and psychically charged, and while most of its terminals can be operated by non-psykers just fine, the station's most core systems cannot. Deep within its hull in the strategium that could tentatively be called a bridge rests a large crystal sphere that seems to contain a captive storm of energy roiling inside. It is through this crystal sphere that a Psyker may awaken the whole of the station from its slumber and direct its weapon systems. The process is largely instinctive, but it is surmised that anything less than Alpha-grade would not be able to resonate strongly enough with the esoteric device to rouse it obey.

## Characteristics

### Power Generation

Baffling Imperial and Mechanicum scholars alike, the Solace of Wisdom possesses nothing recognizable as Plasma Drives - or most important starship components for that matter - and appears to be powered by nothing less than a captive warp storm held contained by arcane means. Considering that the touch of the warp usually destroys or warps anything it comes into contact with, the only working theory is that a shell of negatively-charged Blackstone essentially functions as a the Psychic equivalent of a magnetic containment field where the sphere's warp-repelling properties force the expanding storm inward, causing it to fold onto and resonate with itself, producing theoretically infinite amounts of power for the station's subsystems.

How it was possible to trap the energy in the first place or how it can be harnessed if its shell repels it utterly is a further enigma for which the Mechanicum has no solid answer - and which bestowed its name of 'Enigma Drive', or alternatively 'Enigma Engine' - with the only the only theory, and a far-fetched one it is, being that the ancient savants of the Lost Age of Technology devised some sort of way to locally invert the Psychic Polarities of Blackstone as they saw fit, drastically altering its properties from containment to amplification as suited their need. How this could be accomplished, however, not a single lead exists at current time.

### Weapon Systems

In essence, the Solace of Wisdom features only one weapon, which Imperial scholars have tentatively categorized as a Refractive Lance Battery. From the outside, there is no visible turret or cannon, only trenches within the Relic-station's four arms that dive deep into its superstructure and glow with distant energy. From these trenches, the Solace is capable of sending forth collectively hundreds of Lance-like energy beams in every direction. The nature of these 'Lances' as raw projection of Empyrean energy from within its Enigma Drive is the only thing that has been confirmed with absolute certainty. Though they are individually slightly less powerful than the average Imperial Lance, their sheer number and their relatively rapid rate of fire makes them able to inflict enough damage to hold off entire Battlefleets at bay. Most perplexing however is these 'Lances' ability to twist and curve rather than following a single direct path, allowing them to hit targets from unexpected angles. Again, no proper explanation was given for this phenomenon, though it is tentatively theorized that the flares of raw Warp energy may be directly controlled in some capacity by the Psyker at the heart of the station.

Further cause for concern is the belief by the Mechanicum that the Relic-station is capable of even more devastating attacks whose secrets have yet to be uncovered. The rationale behind this conclusion is that while its rapid-fire Lances are quite capable against Voidships, their efficacy against the planetoid-sized Leviathan it was supposedly built to combat is dubious. Therefore, it is the Mechanicum's logical conclusion that the Solace should have - at least at a point in time past - featured an Exterminatus-grade weapon capable of inflicting damage to targets of such unfathomable stellar masses. Whether this weapon still exists, however, is unknown...

### Motive Force

Much like the station features no distinctive or identifiable weapon banks, it also features no easily visible engines to propel it in Realspace. Careful observation of the Relic-station from outside when it moves discerns trails of energy fanning out from the very same deep trenches within its arms that seemingly produces its Lance-like weapons, suggesting these core systems fulfill both purposes. It is believed that individual 'trenches' may not simultaneously propel the station and fire at hostiles. In any case, the widespread distribution of these trenches across the Relic-station's arms grant it significant maneuvrability, if albeit at slow speed, as it can alter its course freely at any time and towards any direction.

It is no small amount of irony that the means by which the Solace of Wisdom travels through the Warp is perhaps the -least- mysterious aspect of it. Given its unique method of power generation, it is quite easy for the Enigma Drive to pull double duty as a Warp Drive. While the fortress does not seem to make use of standard Gellar fields, it is theorized that its Blackstone Hull may invert its polarity when entering the Warp, turning the very structure itself into a Warp-repelling bubble. Moreover, the presence of the storms within may act as ballasts of sorts, helping in navigation, though this field becomes so wildly theoretical as to be little more than conjecture by the more 'creative' of the Mechanicum's adepts.