Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-3416287-20140306195559/@comment-6134883-20140306220355

XI Rama ‘Son of the Twin Suns’ was the 19th Primarch to be discovered in 902.M30. Warp currents swept gestation capsule XI to a dual star system on the fringes of the Segmentum Pacificus and the Primarch Rama was deposited by the Ruinous Powers upon the world of Onuris where cities of luxurious decadence dotted the deep cloven river valleys and the shores of the five sea basins, co-existing with the Spartan tribal nations of the high deserts. His capsule floated down the Great River Hapes and into the pleasure lake of the Imperial Princess and Mater Genetrix Iset, Regent of Wadjet a major city of the Empire of Qeb. Entranced by the exotic beauty of the golden infant the princess declared him a gift from the Suns and adopted him as her own conferring upon him, as was her right, the dual rank of a Prince Imperial and Heir Select. Onuris was a world of constant warfare; city state against city state; empire against empire; desert tribe and nation against one another and the valley people alike. It had been settled back in the Dark Age of Technology by eugenicists intent on creating the acme of human perfection. Over innumerable generations masters of the biological sciences worked to engineer genes and breed them into human flesh, testing and culling their subjects through constant and deadly competition until their labors culminated in the magnificent Black and Red races of Onuris

Black males average two meters in height and the females are only slightly smaller. Their black skins have a mauve sheen and their hair is similarly colored but their eyes are either violet or silvery gray. The minds of the Blacks are as perfect as their beautiful bodies; brilliant, inventive and unfortunately ambitious in proportion to their gifts. Males of the black race are completely intent on personal aggrandizement by force or intrigue. The women on the other hand are educated to consider the wider picture, trained as geneticists and entrusted with the ancient and sacred duty of reproducing and improving the race.

Matres Genetrices sitting on the reproductive councils of imperial and noble houses are responsible for the reproduction of the highest genotypes possible extracting genetic material from the members of their Houses, mixing and splicing it as seems best to themselves and incubating the result in gestational capsules. Noble and Imperial children are reared in the House creche under the eye an adopted mentor (who may or may not be one of their biological parents - they usually have far more than two). The title of ‘Select’ distinguishes a child marked out for the highest offices including the Imperial throne itself.

The reproduction of lower ranked and by definition genetically inferior Blacks is governed by Matres Genetrices on the Municipia reproduction councils. When a citizen comes of age he or she contributes their genetic material to the city genebanks where it is studied and tweaked by the Matres. After establishing themselves and taking a spouse the citizen then petitions the Matres for children, the number and sex of which is negotiated between the two parties. Only the peasant agriculturalists reproduce naturally and are looked down on because of it. They are periodically culled by the Matres Genetrices resulting in genetically flawed outcasts who sometimes breed among themselves and form an underclass of laborers for the most undesirable and despised jobs.

The Red tribes and nations of the high desert are even more splendid physical specimens then the Blacks; the men measuring an average of seven feet and the women not much smaller both superbly fast and powerful. Their skins are a rich, ruddy bronze and their hair dark red. Their eyes are usually black or brown. Some have darker skins, black hair and violet or gray eyes due to descent from captured Blacks. They are in no way inferior to the city men in intelligence but they have quite deliberately embraced a demanding primitive lifestyle that requires them to constantly test themselves against their harsh environment and each other while raiding the river cities for loot and amusement.

As the favored son of the Mater Genetrix Senioris of the Imperial House of Qeb and the favorite also of the Great King Chaema of Qeb, Rama should have succeeded to the latter’s throne. Physically he surpassed even the splendid men of Qeb. And his brilliant mind had been cultivated by the best scholars and technologists Onuris civilization had to offer. But he was not of the Imperial genome and so was rejected by the Empire of Qeb. The Matres and other Selects formed an alliance against him and Rama was forced to flee for his life into the high deserts. But of course a Primarch was not to be so easily defeated. Rama, by the might of his arm, rose rapidly to the leadership of the Ephame tribe that dwelt in the deserts above Wadjet. He then proceeded to conquer the other tribes of the nation of Issus and after that the twelve other nations forging them into a mighty weapon of war which he brought down like a storm upon Qeb. Once established upon what he considered his rightful throne he proceeded to unite the Seven Empires under his rule. His mother’s city of Wadjet became the capital of all Onuris.

And then the Emperor came. His found Rama to be a man in the fullness of his strength and beauty but with the wisdom and maturity that comes only with the years of which he had fifty standard. Rama was golden skinned and golden haired with features of classic regularity, square and powerful jaw and deep set eyes of lucent and brilliant gold. His gigantic limbs were so perfectly proportioned that his true size was often unrealized until one stood directly before him looking upward. The Emperor was delighted in his new son but considerably astonished to learn that Rama had taken a wife, the beautiful and deadly red War Chiefess Devera, upon who he had sired five sons and five daughters. Rama was the only one of the Primarchs to beget a family.

The Emperor recovered from his astonishment eventually and accepted both the marriage and his grandchildren for he loved his sons and felt no little guilt over his failure to protect them and thus was more than ready to grant them anything that would make them happy. He even went so far as to administer genetic treatments to make the lovely Devera as ageless as her mate and her offspring. The Great Queen Devera was a magnificent creature worthy to be the bride of Primarch; at seven foot three she was taller than many men of the tribes and surpassed them in strength and puissance as well. Thus she scorned to unite herself with any man - until she met Rama upon the field of battle and was, for the first time in her life, bested. As she surpassed the men of the tribes in might so she surpassed the women in beauty. Her skin was a glowing bronze; her face was shaped to aquiline perfection as was her sleekly muscled body formed in goddess-like proportions. Her long, curling hair was the dark red of smoldering coals and the long lidded eyes she’d inherited from some Black ancestor were the deep violet of Onuris’ sky when the white sun shone. Mating even this paragon of a woman’s genes with the genome of a Primarch had required all of the Genetrix Iset’s considerable skill and pushed the genetic science of Onuris to its limits. When finally she had succeeded Devera insisted on nurturing the embryos in her own body as was the Red tribes’ custom. The gestation period was but half that of a normal pregnancy and only a woman of Devera’s great strength and vitality could have survived the stress it put on her system even with the medical support available to the mistress of the Imperial house. Proudly Devera endured the strain eight times giving birth to ten children:

Ashera was the firstborn, followed by the twins Ahkira and Ahkiva; then two more daughters; Hadassa and Vashti; a brother Baruk; another pair of twins, Ramassu and Chaemassu; another daughter, Mariam; and finally Jael. Glorious were these children with the height and strength inherited from both parents, tawny of skin and green of eye with hair mingling their mother’s red and their father’s gold into the color of leaping flames. Some possessed the straight, elegant features of their father and others their mother’s fierce, falcon-like beauty.

Rebellion: Later the Emperor was to blame Devera for Rama’s rebellion but this was unjust. The true cause of his disaffection was far more subtle. Having begotten a family he was no longer merely a son, like his brothers, but a father with all the responsibility that implies and as a father he began to question the Emperor’s wisdom. It has been suggested that being reared by mothers also contributed to Rama and Talyesan’s rejection of the Emperor’s patriarchal vision. When Talyesan stunned his Imperial Father by requesting permission to withdraw from the Crusade Rama stepped to his side and seconded his plea. Rama was weary of war and wished to return to the many projects he'd left unfinished on Onuris and he wanted to see his children settled with mates and children of their own rather than constantly at war.

The Emperor was deeply dismayed and imprisoned his dissenting sons in the apartments deep beneath the Imperial Palace but the two soon escaped with the help of Great Queen Devera. Then the Emperor waged war upon them hoping to capture and turn them back to the Imperial Vision. Rama led the combined II and XI legions holding off the Rout and the Custodes with the Emperor himself at their head while Talyesan worked on the trans-dimensional gate that was to furnish their escape. In 963.M30 Talyesan succeeded, nearly losing his life as he slammed the door shut in the face of the Emperor.

There is reason to suspect Rama is not quite through with his father’s Imperium. The 1st century of the 39th millennium was an era of disaster building upon the disasters of the late 38th millennium. Early in the 2nd century five mighty warrior heroes arose simultaneously in all five Segmentum to drive back the foes of the Imperium, and heal and rebuild the wounded worlds. Fifty years later, their work done, the five disappeared as mysteriously as they had appeared. Those few who know the lore of the Lost Primarchs suspect these were the five sons of Rama.

The XIth Legion: Rama took command of the Legion carrying his geneseed after a crash course in the ways of Galactic war. The XIth had been called ‘the Fatherless’ but their Primarch renamed them the Children of the Suns. Rama recruited from both the Red tribesmen and the Black city-folk. Aspirants were tested for genetic soundness instead of undergoing the customary ordeals, it being taken for granted that genetic analysis would tell the examiners all they needed to know. Rama adapted his Legion’s structure to match that of the army he’d used to conquer his planet. Chapters became ‘Phalanges’; Battalions ‘Tribes’; and Companies ‘Bands’ commanded by ‘Chiliarchs’, Great Chiefs, and Chieftains respectively. The Primarch was advised by the Strategoi headed by the Diarch – ie: Devera - and defended by an honor guard called The Braves, as was his Diarch and Chiliarchs. Companies were recruited from a single tribe or city to avoid trouble with cultural differences and blood feuds. The Children specialize in massed formations and shock battle but weren’t above laying a trap or an ambush. Former tribesmen had a sometimes embarrassing tendency to collect pieces of the enemy as trophies. City men were notorious looters with a special fondness for art objects. None of which bothered the Emperor and the other Primarchs half as much as Rama’s female Marines. Accustomed to mixed sex war-bands Rama had his mother Iset use her genetic knowledge to fabricate female geneseed from the DNA of his daughters. The Emperor recovered from his shock eventually and decided to countenance this deviation too but the only other Primarch to make use of female Astartes was Talyesan who had also been reared in a sexually egalitarian society. Rama further shocked father and brethren by appointing his wife as his second in command and putting his sons and daughters at the heads of the XIth’s Phalanges.

The Children of the Suns wore shining black power armor adorned with orichalcum and gold mail vest and an apron-like loin guard both adorned with semiprecious gems and the latter worn over a flaring, pleated green kilt. Helmets were adorned with elaborate crests and Marines from the tribes often sported the desiccated heads or hands of fallen foes. The mail and the kilt also served as the Children’s uniform off the battlefield. Their heraldry included the gold and silver dual sun-disks flanked by wings as the Legion emblem. Band insignia was based on the totems of the recruiting tribe or city. Tribal or Phalange symbols were taken from the personal heraldry of Chiliarch or Chief.