Olamic Quietude

The Olamic Quietude were a highly technologically advanced cybernetic - almost robotic - offshoot civilisation of humanity that had survived through the Age of Strife from the Dark Age of Technology. Over almost fifteen thousand years, they had survived by adapting so completely into their technology - with possible xenos influence - that there was little left in them that was human.The Quietude once lived in vast and deep techno-hive cities protected by an artificially-extended icecap on their unnamed homeworld, an otherwise lifeless planet. They were encountered by the Imperial 40th Expeditionary Fleet near the end of the Great Crusade, and ultimately utterly annihilated in a short campaign, yet another of the heretical abhuman pretenders to be wiped out by the righteous forces of the Emperor of Mankind.

Physical description
The technological level of the Quietitude was very high, at least equal to that of the Imperium of Man. They had given up almost all of their humanity by the time they were encountered by the Imperium; through ritualised surgery from an early age, they were adapted into their technology even more completely than the Adeptus Mechanicus. By the time they had reached adulthood, the only remaining human parts of them were the brain, skull, eyes, and spinal column. These biological components were kept alive with a purple nutrient fluid pumped through them like blood from the powerful humanoid robotic chassis.

Citizens of the Quietude wore silver electronic hoods over their "heads", and instead of faces had holographic masks that displayed an image of a face that could display different facial expressions such as anger. Underneath this, visible when they shorted out due to damage or death, was simply a fleshless skull, eyeballs staring from lidless sockets.

Little is now known about Quietude culture, but it is known that they were very-machine like in thinking and in operation. They were interconnected to each other and to their technology by vast social networks, that allowed them to very quickly assess threats and provide the best possible response to them. Despite losing their humanity they considered themselves the last of the pure human race.

Military forces
The Quietude's technology and deadly efficiency towards warfare had allowed them to survive through the Age of Strife. Apart from their space fleet, they possessed three main types of highly advanced warrior. The smallest and lightest were the "graciles", roughly equivalent in size to a normal human but far more deadly due to their cybernetic enhancements. The "robusts" were larger, at least the size of Astartes. Super-robusts, the elite of their military forces, were enormous two-headed and four-armed cyborgs twice the size of robusts armed with a variety of close compat weapons including hooked tulwar blades and huge kinetic hammers, and could be driven into close comabt frenzy by stimulants injected from the robotic body. All types had highly advanced technological senses.

Quietude warriors carried advanced weaponry as well. Most had gravity rifles that used a powerful gravity pulse to propel an ultra-dense projectile at incredible speeds and could easily smash through Power Armour. They also carried heat beams, perhaps similar to Melta weapons, that made no noise except an explosive crack from whatever they hit. Super-robust kinetic hammers were similar to Thunder Hammers and could slay an armoured Astartes in a single titanic blow.

All Quietude warriors were armoured by overlapping plates of woven steel, and force fields that they could quickly adapt when presented with specific threats to better protect themselves against them. They were generally resistant to any damage that did not compromise their biological components.

The Quietude homeworld was protected by a heavily armed and well protected orbital facility known only as "the Instrument" that was perhaps the size of a small moon, and embedded within a titanic graving dock. Their ice-shielded cities on the surface were defended by towers bristling with powerful energy weapons that could destroy heavy tanks and massive numbers of infantry, and by vast numbers of graciles and robusts.

History
Near the end of the Great Crusade, immediately after the Ullanor Crusade, the 40th Expeditionary fleet encountered the Quietude. The Quietude were immediately hostile and had attacked the 40th Fleet in two separate actions, attempting to drive it out of their space. In the second of these they had captured the crew of an Imperial warship.

The Quietude then ignored an Imperial ultimatum to cease hostilities and return the crew, instead subjecting them to torture and vivisection to extract information. The Quietude claimed the information sliced out from these unlucky subjects "proved" that the Imperium were simply pretenders; and, when the Age of Strife ended, they, the Olamic Quietude, would return and take their rightful place as the true humanity. Naturally finding this unacceptable, but evenly matched by the formidible forces of the Quietude, the 40th Fleet grudgingly called for the aid of the Space Wolves to assist in the assault on the Quietude homeworld.

The Space Wolves began the attack by assaulting the orbital facility above the planet, and despite the Quietude's martial reputation and advanced technology, easily overcame the formidable onboard defences of graciles and robusts. The 40th Fleet then began an oribital bombardment of the planet below, which proved ineffective against the ice caps that the Quietude had extended over their hive cities. Imperial Army ground forces found the going much more difficult when they landed, despite being supported by Titans and super-heavy tanks, with the strange lamp-like beam weapons mounted on the Quietude towers extracting a heavy toll. After sustaining heavy casualties, eventually Imperial forces were withdrawn on the request of the Space Wolves, much to the anger of Imperial Army commanders.

Instead of another frontal assault, the Space Wolves used the vast orbital facility as an orbital bombardment. Forcing it out of its orbit, they made it fall and smash into the Quietude cities with the power of a nuclear armageddon, breaking through the ice and inflicting cataclysmic damage. This was followed by a full scale attack on the burning cities from the combined Space Wolf and Imperial Army that brutally eradicated the Quietude and all trace of their presence from the galaxy.

It was later discovered that the orbital "instrument" the Space Wolves had dropped on the planet was, instead of a weapon, a vast archive that contained the last record of all Quietude culture and technology, causing it to be lost forever.