Amanshai

Beyond the malign veils of the Thetys Rift dwells a civilization in defiance of the Imperium's holy mandate to claim all worlds of the galaxy as its own. In-human creatures, foreign entirely to Terran evolution, raised an empire of their own from the alien worlds of those uncharted regions. The Pillar Worlds, they were called by the astrographers of the imperial age, the place where there dwelt the Amanshai, natives Xenos to Subsector Cambria.

## Astrography

Much of the vast galactic abyss beyond the Thetys Rift eludes the scholars and stellar cartographers of the Imperium. Even the most ancient records recovered from the height of humanity's expansion to the Sector Gondwana give little indication as to the nature of those distant constellations. And any information they do contain would say little about the expansion of the Amanshai civilization many millennia hence.

### The Uncharted Regions

Expanding to the galactic west and north of Subsector Cambria, the Uncharted Regions contain vast domains presumingly claimed by the Xenos Amanshai. Those regions have been known to experience a number of abnormal phenomena, distortions in both space and time caused by the roots of the Thetys Rift reaching far toward the galactic rim. Relatively stable lay lines of strange singularities are believed to divide the different domains of the Amanshai, potentially even providing them with corridors of unimaginably quick passage within their expanse of space.

### The Pillar Worlds

Much like the Imperium, the civilization of the Amanshai seems to be centered still around the light of stars. Four systems still in the vicinity of the Subsector Cambria are counted by imperial scholars to the core of the Amanshai's might. These are the Pillar Worlds, of which any record is highly restricted and redacted from any common stellar chart.

Never in officially recorded history have vessels of the Imperium ventured into such a system, and thus only extreme long-range observations have been the basis of all accounts about the nature of these Pillar Worlds. To the knowledge of the Imperium, the Amanshai have erected growing structures around each individual star, steadily reducing the output of escaping energy. Though the exact nature and purpose of those structures remain a mystery, they are regarded as a major stronghold of the Xenos civilization.

### Indomitable Pillar Worlds

Assessments made during the 35th Millennium as to the possibility of finishing the work of the Great Crusade projected the conquest of the Pillar Worlds as an insurmountable task for the existing imperial forces of the Sector at the time. To great would be the effort for a single swift advance to emerge victoriously and the Thetys Rift would not allow for a continuous, sustained effort as it would rip through supply lines and leave the forces of the Imperium open to be flanked from any incursion of the Ruinous Powers. Thus, the matter of military action against the Pillar Worlds has not been considered for nearly five Millennia by the mighty authorities of Sector Gondwana.

### Mysterious Holdings

Other holdings of the Amanshai are presumed to exist throughout the Uncharted Regions and as far south as the Erinnyenmere. Indeed, the possibility of an Amanshai passage penetrating the Thetys Rift has long been considered a notable likelihood by the strategical administrators of the Imperial Navy and Administratum World Trantor. It is believed that through such channels, the Amanshai maintained continued secretive holdings on the imperial side of the Thetys Rift, coming threateningly close to the fortifications of the Limes Gondwana or perhaps even undermining them entirely.

Though official contact with the Amanshai had not been made for Millennia before the end of the forty-first, there were dozens of notable instances where imperial forces had met with unknown entities coming through the rift. Some of these might very well have been Amanshai Expeditions and no-one could say how much of such contacts would have been kept silent altogether.

## Civilization

To the commoner of Sector Gondwana, the very existence of the Amanshai is, at best, a mystery. Any closer understanding of the Xenos threat as a civilization, nation or anything of some equivalence to the Imperium of Mankind, though it might exist in the minds of the common citizenry, has never been endorsed by official channels.

### Assessment of the Ordo Xenos

Highly redacted and inaccessible to the common folk are the reports compiled by several inquisitors of the Ordo Xenos to have served near the Thetys Rift over the course of the Imperial rule over the sector. They vary wildly, illustrating a long and complex history of imperial interaction with the Amanshai at the highest and lowest level of military action and governance. For the most part, these are accounts of a very singular nature, ascribed to interactions of certain individuals, reflecting little on the disposition of the Xenos civilization as a whole.

However, in their multitude, the assessments of the Ordo Xenos may still be compiled to form a broader picture of a complex, multifaceted civilization that has undergone extreme and drastic changes in its internal culture and structure compared to the ever-lasting monolithic nature of the Imperium. The only constant throughout these changes in leadership and technology has been an acute awareness of the Imperium as a threat and a strong drive to utilize every accessible resource left to the Amanshai for their continued advancement, with the inclusion of archeotech leftover by the Dark Age of Technology in those now long-lost domains.

### The interest of the Adeptus Mechanicus

It is this what concerns the servants of the Omnissiah the most. For all their in-human nature and strange nature, the Amanshai have been known to display a certain reverence toward the old technology which the humanity of old has left behind. This was noted not only in reports of some inquisitors but also in the tightly guarded reports of explorators who made their way toward the Pillar Worlds during the last stages of the Great Crusade. Because of this, some radical elements in the Mechanicus presume that the Xenos might indeed be a viable source for acquiring new knowledge about archeotech and even understanding its nature. Though this particular view is highly contested among the Cult Mechanicus itself, the Adeptus as a whole has shown interest in further campaigns deep into Amanshai Territory.

### Dealings with the Crimson Queen and Rogue Traders

For all the secrecy on both sides of the interaction between the Imperium and the Amanshai, not all rumors and legends of strange occurrences were ever stifled. There are stories about Amanshai Mercenaries and traders taking their business deep into the Fiefdom of the Crimson Queen. She and her corsairs are said to have made use of the Amanshai's intimate knowledge and experience with ancient technologies on more than one occasion, and there are many voidsmen in the taverns of Port All swearing to have fought either against or side by side with the Amanshai. Some contact clearly exists, although this particular variety would never be documented in any way.

## Culture and Technology

### Mysteries and Legends

The capabilities and traits of the Amanshai and their Technology are the subjects of countless tales and legends among the more illustrious travelers of Sector Gondwana. Those who have come far enough to learn the name of the Amanshai inevitably have accumulated enough interest to speculate about the entirety of their civilization. Many such rumors may also come from those with true knowledge about the Amanshai, maybe even the Xenos themselves, with the exact purpose to dilute any actual information to a point where it would be impossible to tell the tales from facts.

The most ludicrous tales depict the Amanshai as god-like beings of technological energy, with the ability to move stars and worlds at their very whim. Others would see them bee techno-savages trapped in the remnants of a greater civilization once founded by humanity. The truth lies most certainly somewhere in-between.

### Artifacts

The only concrete evidence of Amanshai technology exists in the extremely rare artifacts leftover from previous incursions or ancient battles, or perhaps some items of trade acquired by the most accomplished of rogue traders. These artifacts, it seems, often deal with the manipulation of force and matter, displaying an advanced understanding of artificial gravity, repulsion and material science. However, even the most advanced machines ever cataloged as Amanshai Artifacts seem to be working in an extremely analog fashion, utilizing an absolute minimum of computing power as if to avoid any large degree of digital spheres and automatization.

### Speculations

The core tenants of any speculative history of Amanshai Technology written over the past millennia by scholars and tech-priests alike are the Xenos' influence by human archeotech and their strong emphasis on manual operation. The latter is often tied to the same source as the archeo-technology.

As to the upper limit of Amanshai technological advance, it is believed to be somewhat equivalent to that of the Imperium, though its focus in specialization and design is shifted toward a more precise manipulation of energies rather than the raw industrious prowess displayed by the Imperium.

### Fluid Cultures

The cultural spheres of the Amanshai are even more shrouded in mystery and false tales as is their technological advance. The Xenos of the Amanshai seem to be, by all accounts, no necessarily united force, and though evidence of large-scale conflicts within has never been found, it has been speculated that each pillar world may, in fact, be an entire nation of its own, at odds with the others. This at least would explain radically different experiences made by different inquisitors

when coming into contact with the Amnashai, who at some points appeared as religious zealots, and at others as enlightened warriors.

## History

### Deep Past

It seems unlikely for the Amanshai to have originated from the space which they now inhabit. In an ancient, deep past preceding even the first rise of humanity, the Thetys Rift was opened far wider and a gateway into a different, exotic, but not malevolent realm. At that time, a cosmo-ecological system of unimaginable magnitude spanned much of the uncharted regions and what is now the No-Man's-Land of Subsector Cambria. For another species to naturally evolve under such circumstances has been deemed all but impossible by the wise of the Imperium.

Instead, it is far more likely the Amanshai reached the Pillar Worlds at the end of a long migration. Some even say their species had encountered the Imperium further to the core and simply wandered outward, just out of reach, until the Great Crusade came to an end and they settled close, but safe from the Imperium.

### Archeotechnological findings

On the worlds they had settled, the Amanshai likely first encountered remnants of humanity's old civilization, archeotechnology leftover from the Dark Age, when mankind had ruled the stars. This event left a stark impression on the Amanshai, shaping their own understanding of technology from that on forward. At the very least, they seem to have adopted a strong avoidance toward automated systems and computerization, to a stronger degree even than the Imperium itself practices its abstinence from machine intelligence. How the Amanshai circumvent the need for automatization on some scale remains unknown.

### Old Sightings

Following the advent of the Imperium, the Amanshai kept largely to themselves, leading to only a short list of confirmed sightings, of which then again most were redacted and erased from the chronicles of imperial history. Thus, while many an individual fate may be interwoven with the fate of the Xenos, the Imperium at large does not acknowledge more than half a dozen sightings of Amanshai vessels from afar during the past five thousand years.