Anfortas

The star machine of System Anfortas is a monument to the might old humanity older than most relics found on all other worlds of Sector Gondwana. It is the ancient heart of a once far greater creation, that, despite its fall, retained a power greater than even the forge-masters of the Adeptus Mechanicus dared image.

Its discovery opened a million worlds worth of ruin to the explorers of the Mechanicum and since the advent of the Age of the Imperium, an entire order of the Omnissiah has been devoted solely to their mystery's unraveling.

## Dyson Ruins

Anfortas is a star system of utter devastation, the ruin of a once-great crucible of human civilization. Where there once were marvels of cosmic engineering and megastructures, only twisted ruins and desolate wastes remain. Even in their ravaged state, the remnants of the Dyson Spheres are enough to block out the lightest of their sun, making the system all but invisible to telescopes and sensors from afar.

At the height of the Dark Age of Technology, three titanic shells wholly encompassed this living star and at their center lay the star machine, siphoning raw energy and matter directly from its heart. The power and riches so provided were very nearly endless and for many thousand years, they nurtured a thriving high culture of old. The ruins of those vast megalopolises still adorn the broken shells, now shattered and smashed into one-another, barely recognizable as the wonders they once were.

Of the outermost shell, only fragments remain, most of them buried in the lower structures, burnt into the cracking scrith. Its desolate fields form a cloud of shards around the inner two shells, who were fused by calamitous forces beyond all fathoming. They form a nigh impenetrable barrier, alive with evil energies and remnant code-demons left behind by the machines. Their inner side, should one ever come to see it, is absolute blackness, like a universe without stars. It was scorched by eruptions of the sun itself and left forever tarnished and cursed.

## The Star Machine

Against all odds, the machine at the heart of Anfortas survived. The Star Machine was preserved, caged in a tangle of its own ravaged creations. In this state, it was found by the Mechanicum during the advent of the Imperium. And since those early centuries, it was returned to a semblance of function, beginning slowly at first and then ever more rapidly to regain its strength and restore an echo of the golden age that had once facilitated its creation.

Since the thirty-eighth millennium, the Star Machine under the control of the Adeptus Mechanicus has resumed its intended function of siphoning both energy and matter from the star. The vast majority of its prowess and production in this time was directed purely at upholding humanity's bridgehead in the system and clearing the dangerous ruins and derelicts littering the inner system Anfortas. However, despite this monumental task, still, enough of a productive margin was left in excess for the clade of the Star Machine to produce formidable equipment, ships, and vehicles for the Sector at large.

## The Dyson Clade of the Star Machine

The Anfortas Clade of the Star Machine is an off-shoot of the expedition fleets sent by the Mechanicum during the age of the Great Crusade. It split from the main crusade around the same time as the Cult Mechanicus of Forgeworld Cambria was formed, forming a separate entity of the Martian Empire without a violent schism.

For most of its long history, the Dyson Clade was extremely isolated, pursuing only the resurrection of the Star Machine and its restoration to former glory. Much of their military and industrial efforts were spent on holding off the awakening horrors from the ravaged Dyson Sphere of their system, which kept trade and contact between Anfortas and the rest to the sector to a minimum.

The appearance of the Pale Blue Light in the waning days of the forty-first Millennium was one of the rare events of which even the Clade of the Star Machine took note. Promptly, couriers were sent to their estranged brethren upon Cambria to enquire about the beacon which had awakened the ancient foe.

For there is only one reason for which the Anfortas Clade would divert significant resources from its efforts of restoration: The re-emergence of the foe, the hatred, abominable intelligences which wrought this unimaginable destruction upon the wondrous spheres of Anfortas in the first place.

## Astrography

The imperial system Anfortas lies at the northern end of Pahmn's Strait in Subsector Cambria, but few star charts will include it, let alone show a precise location.

Nearly all light of the system's star is swallowed by the ruins of its megastructure, leaving little to no discernable signature for telescopes or sensors to detect. Because of this, the system's existence was forgotten on many worlds, and on those few who remembered, its position was a well-guarded secret, for it was considered one of the most dangerous places where nests of mankind's most dangerous enemy yet remained.

There are no merchant-routes no well-charted passages known to this place and any travelers finding their way there by chance would not be welcome by the Clade. Thus, it remains an enigmatic place, one of myth and legend more than tangible fact.

## History

### Origins

The origins of the Anfortas Dyson Spheres lie deep in the distant past, in an age when settlers from Terra had first set foot on Gondwana's worlds and begun to shape the universe to their own liking. Some say those humans of old wielded the power of gods, creating and destroying worlds on a whim and dealing with matters now relegated solely to the pantheon of legends.

Somewhere around the height of the Dark Age of Technology, the Star Machine was built and began to forge from the star's matter the Dyson Spheres that would encompass its star. The human civilization arising there would be a prosperous one, but even those denizens upon Anfortas of old would be isolationist ones. At least, no indications were found by the Adeptus Mechanicus, that Anfortas played a major role in these region's governance, despite its affluence in prosperity and culture.

### War against the Machines

When the war against the machines was fought, the people of Anfortas sequestered themselves from the rest of humanity. They might have considered their spheres an impenetrable fortress and wanted to wait out the war in its safety.

However, they gravely underestimated the might and indiscriminate wrath of the machines, falling victim to their assault after what must have been a long and terrible siege.

No details of this war survive. no weapons, ships, or machines were left intact in the devastation that followed. Only the ruins and broken shells of the spheres now speak to the power brought to bear on both sides.

### The Fall

The outermost shell was broken into countless pieces, sending them as the sky falling down onto the next. They scorched the inner realms, cracking them open and twisting them until the innermost shell was struck by the weight of the others, torn down and into the burning maw of the sun. Half of all matter in the system was consumed by the stellar fire, whilst the rest was flung back outward, as burning cinders crashing into the skeletal shells that remained. Their ruins fused and melded into one, leaving a twisted, deformed, and terrible carapace of scrith behind, forever closing away the burning star behind their black mass.

It is uncertain even, who was victorious in this fight. Both machines and the remnants of humanity could have been expected to make use of the captured Star Machine in some way. But neither side claimed the system Anfortas afterward and the star was left in ruin, to be untouched for countless centuries.

### Rediscovery

Anfortas was re-discovered by sweeper fleets of the nascent Imperium, who specifically looking to uncover hidden hold-outs of Xenos and old humanity alike. However, given the massive destruction and desolation of the broken spheres, Anfortas was afforded no priority mission initially. With no active human civilization to speak of and no Xenos infestation, the system was considered neither an active asset nor threat, and resources were allocated mainly to surviving human civilizations, to bring these back into the imperial fold.

While smaller missions to the site were granted, the Mechanicum's activity in Anfortas remained minimal until the end of the Great Crusade.

Following the massive schism and eventual reformation of the Mechanicum into the Adeptus Mechanicus, the situation in Anfortas changed dramatically. The new, compartmentalized power-structure of the Mechanicus allowed the dedicated priests who had spent their time researching Anfortas, to form their own Clade outside the authority of the Forge World Cambria. They did so by requesting resources directly from Mars, where groups more sympathetic to their cause were gaining in influence and power. In this way, the Dyson Clade was formed and an entirely new expedition fleet arrived in Sector Gondwana barely a century after the matter of Anfortas had been brought to the Attention of Olympus Mons.

Since then, the Dyson Clade prospered into a thriving endeavor of the Adeptus Mechanicus, providing a secretive but steady stream of artifacts and re-discoveries by way of Rogue Traders to the Imperium beyond the realms of Gondwana.