Kilobo Lore!
The Magos was delighted that his vision of total order, perfect compliance, was shared by so many. He had his pick of representatives from various branches of the Imperium’s upper echelons; a bodyguard of assassins under his personal command but with ties to Terran high lords, a sanctioned psycher on loan from the Ecclesiarchy (and, it is suspected, tied to the Inquisition), all accompanied by crew to man weapons platforms for his personal defence, led by a commissar to ensure military oversight of the whole operation. What is more, he was granted the ability to sequester an Imperial Guard garrison force to ensure the safety of any base of research operations he should set up.
Is this too much power for one man? The Imperium didn’t think so. It was thought that as a Martian the fact that his syndicate was composed of Imperial citizens would naturally create some distance between him and them. The Garrison being a Guard regiment rather than drawn from Agreste’s servile PdF was also thought to be a check on the Magos’ power. And each organisation represented among the syndicate’s make up expected their insider to act as an informant guarding their interests. However, this oversight turned out to be a farce. For one thing the Magos argued that the expertise required to work his weapons platforms required Agreste subjects. So he had heavily armed bodyguards hand picked by him from his own personal forge world of drugged up slaves. With astute research into personnel files he secured a corrupt and ambitious commissar who would not ask searching questions and was easily open to bribery. Of the three assassins he worked with two were co-ideologues he had worked with during his previous research, and the third was so addled on mind control drugs produced by the Magos himself that he could barely be said to have will of his own. And Pymp-D’ahdee thought the psycher half mad and incapable of standing in his way. In fact he had the psycher constantly monitor the other’s thought patterns for signs of disloyalty. The Syndicate was a gang reporting to the Magos alone.
Such under-handed dealings may make it seem that the Magos had some ulterior motive. At first, at least, this was not so. Magos Pymp-D’ahdee genuinely did wish to serve the Omnissiah, and he was convinced that the scheme of perfect order he induced would be the best thing possible for humanity. His meddling to ensure compliant underlings was just a precaution he felt the need to take against the shifting tides of Imperial high politics. Unfortunately, however, a dream became an obsession, and where obsession entered the picture an opportunity for corruption emerged. And with everyone around him either a sycophant or unwilling to look too deeply into things, there was no means of stopping that corruption spreading once it took hold. Slaanesh, the god of excess and obsession, started to whisper in the syndicate’s ear (well, not Commissar Kurotowa, who Slaanesh found frustratingly immune to promises of perfection - but he in any case could be brought off with a good brandy), and soon their work was entirely dedicated to the Prince of Pleasure’s dark schemes.
What Imperium bigwigs were not told was that the inherently unstable admixture of chaos magics, Mechanicus tech, and tyrannic psychic energies, made disaster a disturbingly likely event. Should such occur, the Catachan’s proficiency at jungle warfare against terrifying beasts should suffice to buy the Syndicate the time needed. Of course in the medium term he did not expect the Catachans - or, indeed, anyone in the Kilobo system - to survive should the Tyranids break containment long enough to call some Hive Fleet’s attention to the well populated system. But no matter, they just needed to survive long enough to ferry him to His Will Manifest.
This, then, is the Syndicate. They are well armed. They have a large void ship His Well Manifest along with a number of smaller auxiliary craft for transport and defence. They have a megalomaniac psycher, a corrupt commissar, and three sociopathic assassins waiting in the wings; all along with the servitors and staff necessary to run the research station on LV426 and the hopper port with its attendant underground holding facility on Kofoglin. They are every one of them (with the exception of Commissar Kurotowa) a servant of Slaanesh. Between that holding facility and the labs of LV-426’s Research Outpost they have a number of Tyranid vanguard organisms they arrogantly take themselves to control. At their command they also have an elite force of Catachan jungle fighters to guard and garrison their assets. And then at the apex of all this is Magos Pymp-D’ahdee, Fabricator General of Agreste. A genius. A traitor to Mars and a loyal servant of Slaanesh. A visionary forwarding the Great Work. Our doom.
Indeed there was some natural affinity between a Slaaneshi worldview and that of the Magos. Under her aspect of patron of perfection Slaanesh is an elitist god; what only few can accomplish raised to an obsessive and decadent ideal. In switching allegiance from the Omnissiah to Slaanesh the Syndicate barely noticed any difference. They still believed that they simply wanted the best for humanity — for its elite, its very best, to be given the space and resources to create perfection, and that this required the rest of the masses to do whatever they were told in perfect obedience. This together with the Boppers now organising some clandestine and mutually beneficial trade between Agreste and the Emperor’s Children makes for an arrangement working to everyone’s liking.
Their work is overseen by a demonically infused member of the traitor legion.
Thus, while maintaining its outward appearance of loyalty, the Syndicate got to work researching dark magics to place the Hive Mind under Slaanesh’s control. Mostly. The psycher, Starscream (Stellamugios in high Gothic) hopes to personally gain the power of the Hive Mind. (He believes he is carrying out this research behind the backs of the Syndicate. Kurotowa is, however, quite aware of what he is up to, but happy to let his colleagues under-estimate him. He’s seeing how this all plays out, ready to back Starscream, the Magos, or even the Imperium itself, depending on how the cards land.) The rest of the Syndicate are true believers. Based on advice from Bopper scouts the Syndicate came to the Kilobo system in which to carry out their research. Close enough to Ultramar to readily acquire parts and Tyranid bioforms. But remote enough that nobody with clout can easily stick their nose in and ask awkward questions. The Mechanicus had lobbied for the Kilobo system in particular - citing nearness to Ultramar, but privately glad to see the Magos, who they think is one of their own, gain another foothold for the Ominissiah in the Kilobo system. The Imperium in its turn thought a relatively backwater place like Kilobo seemed as good a place as any to test the Magos’ theories.
in patrolling a captured void station.
research post just visible in the distance
Tyranid organisms were shipped in on Agrestian void ships in conditions of utter secrecy. Unfortunately LV426 does not have enough developed infrastructure to permit transferring materials directly from void to surface. Hence the organisms must first be taken to Kofoglin via its more developed void port. They are kept for a while in a facility underneath the hopper port on Kofoglin until transferred to LV426. From there they are turned over to the tender mercies of the Magos and his underlings, and their access to the Hive Mind probed and prodded. They dream of vengeance.
The Magos is no fool and is well aware that this could all go very wrong. To this end he keeps two ships fuelled, staffed, guarded, and generally prepped for rapid take off, at all times. First, his small personal hopper on LV426. Second, his personal flagship - called His Will Manifest in the void port above Kofoglin. Should anything ever go wrong while he is on LV-426’s Research Outpost he will jump in his hopper, make for Kofoglin’s void port, and leave with whoever of the Syndicate kept up. His Will Manifest is kept permanently ready to disembark from the void port, receive the Magos’ shuttle, and head to warp as soon as possible. Every few years he “randomly” takes urgent trips back to Agreste, ostensibly to check up on his apprentices’ management of the planet in his absence, leaving Starscream temporarily in command at LV246. These are actually drills to ensure the crew can handle rapid disembarkation.. But his greatest fear is that there is a containment breach on Kofoglin while he is there. The area around the hopper port facility is densely forested; ideal for vanguard organisms to hunt within. What is more, the need for privacy given the nature of his research means the hopper port is remote. Should the xenomorphs ever break that containment he and the Syndicate will need time to reach His Will Manifest and make their escape.
View from the North of Kofoglin's
hopper port/holding facility.
View from the South of Kofoglin's
hopper port/holding facility.
This made the selection of the Guard unit to sequester as a garrison force an important matter indeed. The Magos thought about it and eventually decided this was worth spending political capital on. He made the effort to persuade the Imperium to grant him an elite Catachan regiment to serve as a garrison. Those who could be bribed were bribed - a simple enough matter given the near limitless resources at his disposal. Those who actually required argumentation (typically in addition to, rather than instead of, the bribe) were persuaded that the Catachans - known for their disturbingly democratic sentiments and aversion to authority - made ideal test subjects for his research. If the notoriously independently minded death worlders could be brought to heel that would be as strong a test as could be hoped for. Their presence at the facility would make it easy to perform experimentation on them without anyone (including Catachan command itself) finding out.
(In fact the decision to lobby for the Syndicate’s presence in Kilobo was one of the last truly independent decisions Technoarcheologist j-0-n3s would ever make. Soon after their arrival the Syndicate’s Calladius Assassin, Veronica, infiltrated j-0-n3s’ shrine on Aillte Dubha. There she was able to place certain chaos-infused toxins into both the code underlying j-0-n3s’ cybernetic systems and the bio-matter sustenance materials he took in on a monthly basis. Between the two of them they meant that j-0-n3s was totally bound to the Magos’ will. The Magos does not micromanage day to day decisions, but j-0-n3s is utterly unable to resist the Magos’ instructions if issued. The resources of Aillte Dubha are hence effectively at the Magos’ command.)
Contact with the Children of the 17th