Earth Time, Year 20,337 AD.
More than two centuries had passed since humanity's first encounter with the Aeldari.
The Cyborg Experiment had long since borne fruit. In fact, through countless revisions by generations of scholars, it had undergone several iterations.
At the core of every cyborg's system, one principle had been etched in permanently: "To serve humanity."
By now, cyborgs were no longer experimental prototypes but a mature technology, fully capable of mass production.
They were not only industrial machines.
As the technology advanced, they gradually entered private homes as mechanical servants and caretakers.
Faithful, efficient, incapable of betrayal.
In time, vast numbers of human jobs were replaced by cyborgs. Humanity was freed from drudgery, able to dedicate itself to leisure or more meaningful pursuits.
With each passing decade, cyborgs grew more versatile, fulfilling every conceivable need.
Eventually, apart from their rigid logic and lack of emotion, they had become almost indistinguishable from a new species of intelligent life.
A race that was wise, powerful, and unbound by biological reproduction.
With the flick of a switch on a production line, their numbers could multiply endlessly.
Thanks to them, humanity leapt forward in only two centuries.
Countless technological barriers were shattered, the Federation's domain nearly doubled.
The Human Federation was now vastly stronger than it had been two hundred years earlier. Against the Huain, they could have crushed them with ease.
But their fear of the Aeldari — that mysterious, godlike civilization — had never faded.
Thus they avoided all regions where Aeldari had been sighted, expanding instead in the opposite direction, all while gathering intelligence.
Centuries of expansion carried them deeper, until they reached the Galactic Core — the richest, most resource-laden region of the Milky Way.
To the Federation, it was paradise itself.
They longed to claim it, to grow yet further.
It was then that the name returned to their lips:
The Aeldari.
Through records from other races, humanity finally understood what Children of the Old Ones meant.
They were the creations of the universe's first civilization.
For tens of millions of years, the Aeldari had never fallen from the apex of the food chain.
Their only rivals had collapsed millennia ago.
And the more information humanity gathered, the more dreadful the truth became.
The Aeldari were not merely powerful — they were cruel, arrogant, and mad.
Every one of them was a psyker of immense strength. Among other species, such talents were rare elites. Among the Aeldari, they were average citizens.
And they had long since mastered soul reincarnation. With cloned vessels, they defied death itself.
They were a race of immortals.
Even the lowest of their kind might rival champions of lesser species. Stories of an Aeldari civilian destroying entire primitive worlds alone were not myths, but all too plausible.
Such overwhelming power had bred arrogance.
With their last true enemies destroyed, they indulged themselves without restraint.
For sport, they massacred entire civilizations. For amusement, they toyed with stars like marbles.
Cruel gods and demons, enthroned above the galaxy, worshipped in fear by countless lesser races.
Against such magnificence, humanity's pride shriveled.
Their history and technology — things they boasted of — were, by comparison, like the fumblings of infants before giants.
The Federation's leaders, who had grown complacent in the success of the cyborg program, now felt as though doused with ice water.
In truth, humanity was at best a mid-tier species.
Before apex predators like the Aeldari, they could be extinguished in an instant.
Once more, a deep crisis gnawed at their hearts.
Determined to survive, they redoubled their efforts to advance.
But instead of coveting the galactic core — already claimed by the Aeldari — they turned their gaze to the barren, overlooked regions of the galaxy.
"If paradise has already been claimed, then we shall transform the wastelands into a paradise of our own!"
Under this rallying cry of the Federation President, humanity embarked on a new era of frenzied colonization.
To meet the Federation's growing demands, cyborgs continuously upgraded themselves, becoming more efficient, more capable.
During this period, even the once-precious warp jump engines grew common.
No longer priceless, they became affordable even to ordinary households.
Interstellar travel grew routine. Distances of light-years, even dozens of light-years, were no more troublesome than taking a long-distance bus.
Humanity's incursions into the Warp grew more frequent.
Yet the daemons of the Warp scarcely cared.
The Chaos Gods awaited the awakening of the Fifth, and so the Warp remained relatively calm.
To them, mortals were merely livestock. The faster they grew, the fatter the harvest would be.
When the appointed time arrived, then the slaughter would begin.
For now, Warp travel was left unchallenged.
And under the subtle influence of Warp energies, more and more human children began to awaken rare psychic gifts.
Telepathy. Telekinesis. Bolts of psychic lightning.
Lifespans lengthened. Power spread.
Before their very eyes, humanity itself was beginning to change.
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T/N:
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