So, I have volunteered to start covering the Monday night open thread slot.  I am going to be doing a series of Warhammer posts and decided to start with the Necrons, one of the wild card factions, their motives are murky and will fight any of the factions, but will also fight with the other factions on occassion, particularly against the Tyranids and Chaos Gods.

Sports are probably on tonight somewhere, but I am lazy and it is so easy to find the schedules online.

Per Usual: Images and links are from Lexicanum or the Warhammer 40k wiki 

So today we are going to cover the genesis of one of the scariest factions of the 40k universe, the Necrons.  The Necrons are the remnants of the ancient race called Necrontyr who lived billions of years before the first human appeared on Holy Terra.  The Necrontyr evolved on a heavily radiated, mostly barren world, a harsh environment that helped form the Necrontyr view of the galaxy, that and the fact that every moment of existence was one of intense pain and agony.  From the moment of birth till their inevitable death, the Necrontyr knew nothing but intense suffering.  Their lives were short and brutal, with each day being a fight to try and leave something of themselves behind, becoming immortal in their history, usually by doing something incredibly brutal to other Necrontyr, since their lives would be so short.  Being as they lived in constant agony, well, they were not entirely sane.  They filled their home planet, above and below, with gigantic tombs to themselves, living in small spartan homes as living did not matter, only what you could leave behind in death counting.  Once their science advanced enough they tried to adapt themselves to their home world.  When that did not work, they created huge slow moving space ships, housing future colonists in stasis crypts and sheathing the ships in living metal to combat the rigors of space.  Unfortunately, no matter the environment of the planets that they settled, nothing helped against the constant agony of their existence.

At this time, the galaxy was ruled by the Old Ones, a race even more ancient than the Necrotyr.  The Old Ones were a race adept at controlling the warp and created the webways for instantaneous travel anywhere in the galaxy.  The Old Ones were extremely adept at genetic engineering and many of the races at the time were either uplifted or created by the Old Ones.  Now the Old Ones were nature oriented, a hopeful, helpful race that mentored younger races – space hippies.  When the two races met, well, it was, like a really bad scene all round.  Especially when the Old Ones refused to help the Necrontyr with their genetic issues, basically because they did not like the Necrontyr’s “aura”.  Why would they want to do something nice for some nasty people who will probably not change their ways and would still complete shits?  As you can imagine the Necrontyr did not take this well, so they immediately attacked the Old Ones.  This, this did not go well as the Old Ones were well, ancient with tech way beyond the Necrontyr and the ability to basically travel instantly to anywhere in the galaxy.  After getting their collective ass kicked back to their core systems the Necrontyr sulked and shook an impotent fist at the Old Ones.  So after being imprisoned in the Halo Stars for several millennia the Necrontyr’s hatred went from just the Old Ones to all life in the galaxy.

About this time, Necrontyr scientists made an incredible discovery, the reason their sun gave off such debilitating energy was that it was inhabited by a being, a very powerful being from a race even older than the Old Ones.  They were incorporeal and little understanding of the material universe.  After somehow discovering a way to communicate with these Star Gods, or C’tan, the Necrontyr made them an offer to build the C’tan a material body to allow them to understand and interact with the material universe.   Aza’gorod, the Night Bringer was the first C’tan to gain a physical form.  The Necrontyr were hoping to enlist the C’tan as weapons against the Old Ones.  Due to the C’tan’s immense power, the Necrontyr started to worship them allowing themselves to be enslaved and being ruled by beings who became extremely cruel and viewed their slaves with disgust.

The Necrontyr were readying to restart the war with the Old Ones when the C’tan made them an offer they could not refuse – immortality.  Bodies of living metal would be created for each member of the Necrontyr and their minds would be uploaded into their new bodies, casting off the flesh which caused them so much pain.  They would now have that which they had requested from the Old Ones, bodies which would not cause them pain.  Of course there would be no new Necrontyr since without flesh there would be no reproduction.  The Necrontyr jumped on this chance to not only rid themselves of their painful diseased flesh, but stick it to the Old Ones by getting what they had wanted without the help of the Old Ones.

So the Necrontyr jumped into the bioforges to be remade, coming out as immortal beings, but ones that now had no emotions, intelligence, or free will.  The C’tan stripped all of that away in the process of creating the bodies, creating the perfect servants for their purposes.  Only a select few were allowed to keep their intelligence and agency, although it was limited to some extent.  Not even the Necrontyr remember if that was part of the deal or not as many memories were stripped during the forging process.  The Necron race had been born.  Ironically, it was the presence of the C’tan around their star which caused the mutations and diseases that plagued the Necrontyr.  At least the C’tan kept their promise and started a new war against the Old Ones.

Next time the different units of the Necron race will be covered – their forms, their abilities, and their uses.