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For those unfamiliar the Auretian Technocracy were an independant human colony in possession of atleast 2 STCs, able to produce power armour and bolters but not as into gene augmentations as their Imperial Cousins. In the days preceeding the Civil war, seeking to cement his power base and barter the STCs get some mechanicum onside Horus staged a "justified" assault upon the planet under the pretence of a thwated assassination by their Fabricator
My added lore is that the observatories and academies of the Auretian Technocracy, studying a bi-centenial Void Whale migration on the edge of their system dispatched a scientific expedition prior to the horus encounter to utilise the natural warp transversing slipstream in the wake of the oid Whale Pod to travel the deeper galaxy in the wake of these majestic creature. This team of scientists and explorers (including an STC bearing innovation barge) would use the warp slipstream of the pod to go further than any of their kind had travelled, not as masters but passengers in the natural migration of the beasts.
As they were entirely reliant on moving in the wake of the Void Whale pod, even had word reached the Scientific Migration Fleet of the Imperiums attack upon their homeworld they would have been powerless to return. Instead they would have to wait the two centuries for the pods natural migration to take them to the outer rim of their home system, by then even the communication echoes of their planets demise had ceased and all that their ancestors had spoken of had become dust.
Instead they would head deeper into the galaxy using the chaos and disarray of an Imperium that sought to cleave itself in two to mask their escape. Here they resorted to salvaging xenotech and picking clean the floating hulks left in the wake of battles of the Heresy in order to retrofit fleet designed for 2 centuries of service to become their new home. Instead of making a new world that could be found and conquered once more should the Imperial warmachine ever recover from their civil way the Auretian Migration instead expanded and adapted their fleet within the Void Whale pod, their comms signals adapted to echoe back the calls of their companions and project an energy signature akin to the calves of the Pod. This served twofold, to ensure that the Pod would not abandon any vessels dispatched on salvage expeditions during respites in warp travel and as a defensive measure should they come under attack, the Bulls of the pod would respond in force to any aggressive vessels.
This change is perhaps the most defined element marking them apart from the Imperium, travelling the galaxy not as conquerors seeking to bend it to their own idea of perfection but as passengers on another species journey, taking from the scraps of others to expand their fleet and ensure their culture survives long into the void.
The L-O.C.S.T
The 50th Orbital Covert Salvage Team (abbreviated to the L-OCST) form the elements of the Migration most often encountered within active warzones. Whilst not a strictly military regiment they are the scientists tasked with hostile environment salvage recovery should the migration emerge from the warp within an active warzone. With each exploration period providing precious opportunity to recover Xenotech and Imperial remenants to assist in maintaining and expanding the Migratory fleet the Fabricators cannot allow something as minor as active war to deter them and in these circumstances the LOCST are dispatched.
Prior to the fall of Aureus their culture had been in possession of a number of active STCs, though these provided the technology to manufacture bolters and power armour outside of the Imperium they would prove insufficient to prevent the purging of the homeworld. When word reached the Migration of their peoples demise the pursuit of newer and more potent forms of "hostility deterrence".
Unlike their Imperial cousins the Fabricators of the Migration hold no fantacism around the "purity" of their technology, instead employing pragmatic experimentation in the integration of salvaged (or bartered) Xenotech in the maintenance and expansion of their arsenal.
L-OCST MARKINGS
Whilst sharing a common origin it is typical for all L-OCST pilots to customise their salvage rigs to better suit their unique styles on the battlefield. One common thread however is the favouring of certain marks of provenance or battlefield accolates upon the armour.
Any Pilot dispatched as part of a recovery that encountered a Tyranid Bioform, most often found to be genestealers aboard hulks being salvaged will honour this encounter upon their armour.
Each wields a Lightning gun either manufactured aboard the fleet or salvaged from Mechanicum derelicts, for those utilising salvaged weaponry marked of provenance are etched into their rig incase of malfunction allowing all pilots to be aware of succeptibilities of gear from that particular salvage mission.
Finally the Rig Number is added, this is excursion and squad specific, allowing the squad commander to identify all members of their expedition at a glance.
SALVAGE RIGS
COMMAND RIG
Sleeker and more refined than the Salvage Rigs the commanders of the L-OCST integrate some of the more prominent xenotech in the functions of their Rigs. Notably here a xenotech power source and phase blade supplement the advance rig.
Unlike their Imperial cousins the officers of the Migration seek the tactical benefit of a smaller command rig, able to disappear behind a wall of ceramite salvagers should battle commence
SAHARDUIN BLADES
One of a handful of minor xenos races in the Migration, a recent meteor storm ruptured the hydrogen bladders on the Saharduin (Canon 40k Fish alien) vessels. Utilising bartered Necromunda technology the Auretians converted as many as possible into cybernetic bodies before they suffocated.
The undermounted gun marks this Saharduin as a blade (as opposed to the engineers/navigators of their fleet. The guns origin may be tied to the Auretians recent ability to convert an entire fleet in short order.
These models will be used as Tomb Blades in my counts-as Necron conversion force
AURETIAN BATTLE ANDROIDS
Whilst once common place in the galaxy since their fall into disuse appearance of Battle Androids have now commonly been mistaken for Necron forces or dubbed "Chaos Androids" by the Imperiums fear of Abominable Intelligence. Many cultures have dabbled in the utilisation of automated warriors from the hover drones of the Tau Empire to the Robo-mastiffs of the Adeptus Arbites though all fall short of the strength of biological warriors in a galaxy where life is often cheaper than technology.
For the Auretian Migrations however their biological numbers are heavily constrained by their fleets size and life support capacity, if they were to expend significant swathes of that population in battle it would herald the end of the last of the kind. In the salvaging of Tomb World Perditus their scientists recovered incomplete conversion technologies capable of integrating biological hosts within a mechanical shell, however the flawed technologies could not sustain the consciousness within their new forms as Auretian processors struggled with the breadth of the human mind. Centuries of experimentation yielded mixed results, following the Saharduin fleet catastrophe a hybridised form of the technology allowed the integration of printed biological components and a mechanical shell saving their kindred xenos.
Unwilling to accept that as the limitation of the technology the Auretian academy of engineering instead used it to develop Battle Suites, short term conversion pods that sustained a biological host in a comatose state whilst constantly mapping their minds and duplicating them within the mechanical form. This live connection prevented the previous breakdown of the neural patterns within the Android form whilst allowing the biological host to operate from great distanced without risk of physical harm.
Numerous trials sought to expand upon the capabilities of the Battle Suite, often attempting to have a single biological crew members mind cloned over a number of Battle Androids in a single instance. However the mechanical duplicates rapidly succumbed to paranoia and rage around their duplicates, the mind instinctively rejecting the presence of itself in another form, in the Argentium Incident an entire battalion of Battle Androids were lost to friendly fire as the duplicated minds turned upon each other in a rejection of the abomination of cloned minds.
Similarly there is a restriction on the duration a biological Auretian can sustained a single Battle Android without lasting physiological effects, postulated to be linked to the souls tether to their biological form prolonged exposure to a cold and unfeeling metal form so far from their tether drastically reduces emotional attachment and for want of a better word, Humanity. To ensure the psychopathy that ultimately claimed dozens of test subjects in prolonged trials all members of the fleet are rotated through mandatory Battle Suite shifts as part of their military service to the fleet.
STALKER DEFENSE TURRETS
Salvaged from a Tomb World rent asunder by millenia of deeprock mining the Stalker Defensive Turrets integrate degraded canoptek technology with Dark Age weaponry. The passive regenerative capabilities of the stalker components help sustain its primary cannon in a state of overload without real risk to the pilot.
Whilst deployed in limited numbers to warzones the Stalker Turrets primary cannons have to be salvaged from defunct frigates in the rapidly evolving fleets of the migration, ever limited by the need to keep enough ships in service for their growing population.
This technological hybridisation results in a myriad of weapons borne forth by the Stalker Turrets whilst ensuring a highly lethal payload bringing fleet weaons to bear on the battlefield.
CODEBREAKER BARGE
What Do They Count As
The primary motivator for this force is to be able to produce a doubles force to play with my brother at Warhammer World events, as he is playing Necrons primarily my drive was to create something that could work with Necrons but be visually unique. Part of the reason the military is the LOCST is because they largely represent Lokhust dataslates.
The lighter rigs being the normal Lokhust
The command rigs being Lokhust Lords
The heavy rigs being Heavy Lokhust
Which then leaves the Codebreaker Barge as the Command Barge.
All models are based appropriate to their dataslate.
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