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by NoPoet

[20K] Revised 20K Timeline (updated April 2013)

17/03/2013 in 20K, Imp Lit News

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20K is the unofficial Warhammer 40,000 prequel series which I have been working on for a number of years. The following is a rough timeline including every 20K story that I am writing or plan to write. I have tried to remove as many spoilers as possible. Note that the timeline is subject to change and is undergoing constant revision.

This is “phase one” of 20K, a desperate time of derring-do. Phase 2, if I ever get that far, has a more mature and more adventurous tone with less of the grimness and grittiness of some of the earlier stories. Look for the crossovers and in-jokes as they appear. Fans of 40K as well as fans of general science fiction should find lots to be happy about.

Please ignore any repetitions or minor mistakes, this is the beta version and I already have the events right in my mind.

20K PHASE 1

40K’s mysterious and exciting history finally comes to life in tales of terror and adventure. Join the brave human pioneers of the Terran Empire as they begin their expansion into a galaxy where anything is possible.

KEY:
FRL = Fearless series
EW = Earthwatch series
SOL = Solstice series
Stories which do not have a series designation are independent stories (in TV parlance they would be “bottle shows”)

NOTE: Significant information is (deliberately) missing from the following timeline! Dates and events are subject to change.

===

20K Date Timeline

M21

975.M21 – Starships of the Alneran Republic, a hostile alien species whose territory lies within Solar Segment, encounter a mysterious alien being and take him prisoner. The strange hostage escapes when a Terran Navy ship attacks the Alnerans; the being will later turn up in Terran space, where his strange behaviour confounds his human rescuers. (“The Man Without A Past”)-

978.M21 – XMS Southern Cross encounters R’Shan, a member of an unidentified alien species who has been conducting unknown warp experiments within Terran space. (“The Man From Nowhere”)

978.M21 – The Fireblade prototype fighter begins its initial tests, intended to replace the Saxon class fighter. (“Flight of the Fireblade”)

985.M21 – The Centaur class light cruiser is commissioned, intended as a gradual replacement for the legendary Canyon class.

985.M21 – The Terran Empire discovers the first known Warp Gate within Solar Segment.

986.M21 – XMS Ontario and XMS Lexington are sent to investigate the Warp Gate. During the mission, a previously unknown problem with the Ontario’s Gellar Shield hurls the ship into a time-travelling, galaxy-spanning adventure, during which humanity makes first contact with followers of the daemon god Nurgle. (“Ghostwalkers”)

986.M21 – An expedition team of the Pan-Pacific Treaty, a coalition of coporations and nation-states who wish to remain independent of the Terran Empire, discovers a world belonging to the long-vanished Chinasian Bloc. The world has long been abandoned, but the expedition discovers disturbing evidence that the colonists had been conducting genetic experiments influenced by men who claimed to have travelled from the distant future – a time of terrible civil war. (“Legacy of the Future”)

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Banners Held High I – Recruit

05/12/2012 in Warhammer 40K

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BANNERS HELD HIGH I – RECRUIT

A Warhammer 40,000 story by RedPen1089

Over the smoke and the screams, atop even the mighty canyon pillars of the hive city’s incomprehensible heights, he could make out the banners.

The hab-lighting had been cut out or shot out.  From his crawlspace, under the largest single-iron lumin-pole, the dim figures clustering at the artery’s mouth was legion.  Beyond number.  Thousands upon thousands of figures, pressed together in a line two dozen men wide, and easily just as deep.  The Evernight of Mordian’s habitable half gave the milling figures presence.  Even at two kilometres, the roared commands and boot-thumps reached his frayed, dirty ears.

He couldn’t tell what time it was.  None of the decaying city-slum quarters had chronometers.  The buildings he sheltered beside weren’t full of the twinkle and glow of the Upper Echelons- they were dark, rust-ensnared shells of industries long dead, long decayed.  Faint cogs adorned the kilometre-high black-grey superstructures; the leavings of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

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[40K] FORGED IN FAITH: A story of the Imperial Hammers

05/12/2012 in Warhammer 40K

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“Arkus Prime was once a shining beacon of hope, in the dark endless void of space. It was a shrine world, and every inch was sacred and devoted to ‘Him on Earth.’ It was once one of the most sacred places one might ever make a pilgrimage to, apart from Holy Terra herself. As brightly as it once had shined,  it was now as equally desecrated. Blighted and fouled, Arkus Prime is now a charnel house. The world’s population down to the last man, woman and child, lay slaughtered in the defiled temples and chapels throughout the single continent of ArkusPrime…sacrificed in an orgy of death and blood in the name of Khorne.”
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[40K] Deal with the Daemon

11/09/2012 in Warhammer 40K

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Deal With the Daemon

A Warhammer 40,000 story by Maugan Ra

PROLOGUE

Warp light bloomed and the daemonic assessors of the Black Tontine stepped forth even as the sorcerer lay dying. They came because my actions have violated the Tontine, and their very presence drove needles into our minds. Shrine gates rattled and the Aquila wept molten tears.
- The journals of Inquisitor Lord Felroth Gelt

Samuel Krista staggered down the hallway, his steps unsteady and his mind clouded by the drink. Up until mere moments ago he had been fast asleep, but then had come the knocking. Loud and insistent, it had echoed throughout his tiny hab with enough volume to jolt his addled mind into wakefulness. He didn’t know who it was, but by the Emperor, they were going to receive such a beating for waking him like this!

“I’m coming, curse you!” He roared, spittle flying past yellowed and broken teeth, pausing to snatch up a heavy metal club from its rack by the door. He was an Overseer, damn it all, and you didn’t treat an overseer with such disrespect!

With a feral snarl, Krista wrenched open the door, raised the club above his head, and stopped dead. A cold weight settled in his stomach, and slowly he lowered his weapon, letting it drop to the ground with a clatter. Beads of a sweat formed on his brow, even though the air flowing in through the open door was achingly cold.

There were three of them, taller than any man he had ever met and clad in long black robes like morbid Administratum functionaries. All three of them stood a few paces from his door, their hands hidden inside the folds of their robes and their heads bowed. Licking his lips, Krista took a step backwards, thinking desperately of the window at the other end of the corridor. He could make it, he was sure, if he started running right now…

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Assassins Sextet: Nice and Subtle

30/11/2008 in Warhammer 40K

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‘Who are you?’

Nate’s gun wavered in his sweaty hand. He was not at home with violence, not visible violence, not the kind that was close up, close enough to see the blood, close enough to be anything like a fair fight for his opponent. The trigger was slippery on his finger, the gun too heavy on his wrist. He licked his lips and repeated the question.

The man smiled.

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by LIRR

Through the Eyes of a Traitor

14/11/2008 in Warhammer 40K

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Damascus, veteran sergeant of the 1st Company. Ultramarine. Four hundred and sixty eight years old. Four and a half centuries of loyal service and constant warfare. Now naked. Arms and legs stretched to their limits, locked in chains with adamantium and arcane powers. Putrid worms slowly slid across the flooring, leaving trails of slime in their wake. Hooded and hunched figures moved in the shadows, just beyond the powerful and bright white cone of light aimed down at Damascus from directly above. The hooded figures reminded the Marine of Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, reminded him of a warped and twisted mockery of their ancient and holy technologies. The hunched and robed figures mutated and deformed, mocking the sacred bionics of Mars with blasphemous genetic deviations.

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by Nemesys

Martyrdom!

17/10/2008 in Warhammer 40K

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Darius looked about him in wonder as he was escorted down the corridor. All his life up to this point had been spent in the darkness of the world of Mira, but now the Emperor had chosen him. Chosen him for a place amongst the Black Templars.

Darius knew that thirty generations ago the Templars had saved his world and built the Chapter Keep there, but never in his life had he set foot inside. Great, high walls, decorated with banners and trophies from a hundred Crusades. Stained-glass windows depicting Sigismund, the spiritual father of all Templars, or Rogal Dorn, the Primarch whose genes had created them, or even of the Emperor himself.

Always the images were of victory, of battle-scarred warriors in black and white winning through against impossible odds.

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by NoPoet

The Last Day

10/10/2008 in Warhammer 40K

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: Some of the following may not be considered canon, but you read it here first…

He’d always known this moment would come. Yet with the poisoned blend of defiance and ignorance common to every human, he had neglected to do anything about it, and now he was too late. Death is something no man would choose to face without a reason. It always seems so far away. It seems impossible, inconceivable, then one day it puts a knife in your gut and you fall to the floor while everything you built dries up and blows away, just more sand in a desert.

He always feared that what he had built would collapse. There was no satisfaction from knowing that he was right, that the time had finally come.

The last day.

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Nemesis Dawn

10/10/2008 in Warhammer 40K

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The luminous dial of my chrono disturbs the inky blackness of the chamber; dawn is little more than ten minutes away.

With a thought, the hatch in the floor clangs open, filling the bay with undiluted thunder. I stare into the star-filled void, feeling its call, only dimly aware of the flickering force-shields which hold back the hungry maw.

As the red light above the door blazes into life, I make the sign of the great eagle across my chest, muttering the catechism that has guided me across the long years.

My faith is my shield.

Imperator.

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