Within the grand Forge Temple, the Fabricator General—no longer a hulking mass of steel and scant flesh—worked inside his massive laboratory. In just a few days, the space had transformed from a modern facility into something ripped from a sci-fi film.
At the moment, Bastion stared at a small device no larger than a bedside clock. Though inert to the naked eye, the screen beside him displayed data even his bionically enhanced body couldn't perceive.
This was the fruit of weeks of labor during his supposed seclusion as Fabricator General. A simple sensor, yet its underlying functions were something Bastion, with all his intellect, considered groundbreaking.
"Your Eminence, your order has been passed on," a voice rasped over the vox-comms.
Bastion suppressed the sudden urge to command every last one of them to fling themselves into a reactor. How could humans despise their own flesh so deeply that they'd distort even their voices?
Switching to standard AdMech binary-speak, he replied, "Excellent. Now inform every Archmagos on the planet to convene within the next week. The Omnissiah speaks."
*"Yes, Your Eminence,"* the voice crackled before heavy mechanical footsteps signaled the tech-priest's departure.
For weeks, he'd been maneuvering like this. The Mechanicus, as he'd learned, operated as a near-independent empire within the Imperium—thanks to an ancient treaty between the Emperor and the first Fabricator General. They had their own laws, religion, and hierarchy.
Bastion doubted the Omnissiah's existence, but he'd uncovered truths in his time here. Though rare, tech-priests *did* receive visions—not divine revelations, but subconscious breakthroughs after decades of obsessive tinkering. Their minds rejected innovation beyond anointing machines with sacred oils, yet their neural implants amplified fleeting epiphanies into "divine guidance."
He exploited this. Through it, he'd established black sites, secret defense grids, and soon, a planetary surveillance network powered by the unassuming sensor on his desk.
Progress was steady, but one critical challenge remained: engineering flora with the adaptive resilience of Ork spores. He'd devised plants that could metabolize anything or thrive in lethal environments, but merging those traits eluded him.
To truly reform this world, he needed to:
1. Restructure the government… a task for his original body, aided by the sensors on the table
2. Reform the Mechanicus and integrate it into the state… This was his own personal duty and one he was very close to accomplishing
3. Rewrite the Imperial Creed… its core tenets, as far as he'd heard, glorified oppression. He still needed the *Lectitio Divinitatus*, the holy text that codified this poison.
4. Rebuild the military.
5. Solve food and pollution crises.
As Planetary Governor, he wielded absolute bureaucratic control, and his newfound status as a living saint had eclipsed the noble houses' influence. Yet haste was folly.
A proper government required understanding the planet's ailments and designing systems to address them. The Mechanicus could be reshaped with a single command from his position, but forced compliance was brittle—what happened in thirty years when their biological instincts eroded his programming?
The Ecclesiarchy posed the thorniest problem. Entrenched and tied to the Inquisition, an organization he grudgingly respected, given the galaxy's horrors.
They wielded faith like a weapon, the Ministorum didn't just influence society—it controlled it. And faith mattered.
This world's arcane currents responded to belief, and the Emperor's worship provided a fragile bulwark against Chaos.
But Bastion refused to tolerate dogma that shackled humanity. Reform was necessary.
And it wouldn't be easy.