Due to the growing size of the Story Notes and for easy review, you'll find a copy of this batch of updates below.

  - Brian

  Herald of the Stars Table of Contents updates:

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  /

  Aldrich Isengrund page updates:

  Characters and Groups page updates:

  Balphomael, the Horned Darkness (aka "Bad Penny") - A Demon who first attacks Aldrich on Mote. (c0031) --- Balphomael attacks Aldrich a second time from the Tau base on Marwolv. (c0051) --- Baphomel is defeated and marked with a tracker by E-SIM. (c0052) --- Destroyed a third time by the Emperor's Golden Ankh emerging from a Necron Dolmen Gate at the Kinbriar Necrons' home world, which also destroys the gate, its blast sending the Stellar Fleet 300 years into the past. (c0110-c0111)

  Brigid Mac'Ille na Brataich - Stellar Fleet Purser (c0057) --- Starts seeing Aldrich (c0089) --- Offically dating Aldrich (c0104) --- Stellar Fleet Chief Finance Officer (c0105)

  Eire Lobhdain - First Officer Eire Lobhdain of the Distant Sun (c0057) --- Is the High Factotum, an Imperial Fleet Administrator, Diplomat, and Trade Officer. (c0105)

  Imperial Cult - Representatives are allowed only in civil administration. They have no place in making military decisions in the Stellar Fleet or Stellar Corps, per Aldrish Isengrund. (c0105)

  Machine Cult - Representatives are allowed only in civil administration. They have no place in making military decisions in the Stellar Fleet or Stellar Corps, per Aldrich Isengrund. (c0105)

  Maeve Muire - Promoted from Commander to Herald Primarus. It's a similar rank to an Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Legion's Legion Master. A Skitarii Legion has four macroclades, equal to a brigade in the Imperial Guard or my Stellar Corps. Each macroclade has four cohorts, equivalent to a regiment. A cohort has three maniples. A maniple is comparable to a battalion and comprises multiple companies of varying sizes and numbers, depending on their role. A Skitarii Legion is quite different from the Stellar Corpsis arrangement, which features ten companies per battalion, ten battalions per regiment, and so on, progressing from brigade to division to corps. A whole corps would have 33.6 million Heralds. Maybe one day! Probably not before someone cries heresy for using a ten, rather than twelve, to organise everything, though. For now, we have nine battalions on Distant Sun, twelve companies between the four Adder-Class vessels, and one company on each of the ten Moth-Class vessels. Iron Crane holds three regiments. We have a total of four regiments, one battalion, and two companies, or one hundred and thirty-eight thousand, four hundred and thirty-two Heralds. The Aeronautica has twenty squadrons of strike craft and four flights of torpedo bombers on the Adders. There are ten squadrons of strike craft on Distant Sun, though these are not available for rapid launch like those on the Adders. The same caveat applies to Iron Crane, which has forty squadrons of strike craft across four hangars, two in the Cathedral superstructure, and two in the Castellan superstructure on the opposite side. Iron Crane also holds two flights of torpedo bombers. Not including the D-POTs reserved for the Stellar Corps, who have their own hangars and strike craft, we have seventy squadrons of D-POT strike craft and six flights, or two squadrons, of class three D-POT torpedo bombers across the fleet. A total of one thousand and eighty craft.

  Quaani Saade Rey'a'Nor - Discovered in a stasis chamber aboard the . At that time, he was just a nine-year-old Junior Navigator. He wears robes in the Rey'a'Nor grey and red with a blue sash with a sea-green buckle. A platinum, diamond-shaped ornament rests on his forehead, set with a large, black opal. (c0028) --- Quanni returns to the stasis chamber in the chapel until mutations can be dealt with. (c0062) --- Cured of extreme Warp mutations in E-SIM aided ritual by Aldrich (c0107-c0108)

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Stellar Fleet - Aldrich created the Stellar Fleet to match the Stellar Corps. Vessel Prefix: SF (i.e., SF Distanat Sun). Stellar Fleet Command has five members, each with two liaisons who assist with day-to-day administration. Brigid, Eire, Thorfinn, Maeve, and Aldrich occupy the positions. Fleet Command is likely to expand in the coming decades, once the fleet has acquired more vessels. (c0105)

  Thorfinn Ursus - A Marwolv citizen, introduced as the Fourth Captain of the Marwolv Skyguard. (c0033) --- Fleet Marshal and in charge of internal security. While this is a derivative of an Arbites rank, there are no Arbites aboard Stellar Fleet vessels, as they are civilian enforcers, and the Stellar Fleet is a private military. The civilians within them are subject to most of the same regulations and undergo the same compulsory safety and regulation courses as fleet members. (c0105)

  E-SIM page updates:

  Enlightened Self-Interest Abyss-Class Void Ship - In the distance hangs a voidship, its almost an incomprehensible bulk. Fifty kilometres long, sixteen kilometres wide, and twelve kilometres tall, the vessel is unlike any Imperial vessel known. Its central beam is sword-like, with a pronged hilt that gives the vessel a distinctive trident-like appearance. Defensive turrets line its spine and keel, and a mighty lance hangs beneath its central prow. The Cathedral and Castellan structures are more like a cluster of hive spires than a single structure. The batteries of lances and macro cannons lining the two outer prongs of the front third of the centre hull are as numerous as they are gargantuan. The spine-mounted turrets are equally imposing. In this case, the E-SIM vessel is actually a data structure or an artificial Warp entity, a concept rather than a true vessel. (c0106 - c0107, c0306)

  Fleet Information page updates:

  - Stellar Fleet updated (from Marwolv to Kinbriar)

  Distant Sun (Lathe Class Monitor Cruiser)

  - Erudition's Howl (Adder-Class Destroyer)

  - name? (Adder-Class Destroyer x1)

  Iron Crane (Origami-Pattern Mobile Shipyard)

  - name? (Adder-Class Destroyer x 2)

  - monitor ships (Moth-Class 1a Fuel x 5)

  - monitor ships (Moth-Class 1b Material x 5)

  STC Library page updates:

  Displacer Fencing — The Displacer Fencing is an additional and integral module of a Warpsbane hull, featuring Field Bracing, which is a molecular reinforcement technology. The Displacer Fencing works by creating fake material in the Warp, effectively blocking the 'line of sight' requirement on most teleportation technologies. For everyone but the Necrons, a teleport has a maximum amount of material it can bypass, as well as a height and weight limit. You can't teleport from one side of a planet to another, for example, or rather, you really, really shouldn't. Anything more than four metres tall and over three tonnes will usually destroy the teleporter and its passengers. The Displacer Fencing Integrant technology has two flaws. The first is shared with the Gellar Void Integrant, in that if either of the two primary components is damaged, it ceases to function. While this is a prize-winning statement from Captain Obvious, combining three separate facilities for a vital defence is inherently unreliable and foolhardy. The Displacer Fencing differs from the Gellar Void Integrant, as it is merely an expensive boost, not the core of vital shielding. It is, however, a quick and cost-effective solution that requires minimal space and power to implement and maintain, as well as an excellent starting point for researching teleportation denial technology. The second flaw is that it is a metaphorical and literal fence. The Displacer Fencing goes both ways. So long as it is running, you can't teleport people and objects onto other vessels, stations, or planetary facilities. It is worthwhile, though, and you can always risk depowering the Displacer Fencing when the risk exceeds the payoff. (c0090)

  Gellar Fields — There are three types of gellar fields: structural, mechanical, and organic. (c0102)

  1. Structural gellar fields rely on the hardness of the material engraved on, usually an adamantium alloy. They are incredibly sturdy, use almost no power, aid navigation, and hide the vessel from greedy eyes. They are the superior option in all cases until your hull becomes breached, at which point performance degrades rapidly. Only the most desperate of captains will rely on one after a tough battle or bad collision without patching the hull first. The Imperium calls them Warpsbane hulls. (c0102)

  2. Mechanical or the Origami Pattern Gellar Field. Mechanical gellar fields are a marvel of Dark Age Technology that requires no psyker or stable hull to maintain function and, consequently, are the most reliable of the three types. (c0102)

  3. Organic gellar fields rely on the dreams of imprisoned psykers to maintain the field. They are easier to make, slip through the Warp quickly, and leave few disturbances for predators to detect. The downside is that you need psykers, a rare resource in most of the Imperium, for them to function, and they are prone to failure, becoming increasingly feeble the faster you try to slip through the Warp's grasp. It isn't a pleasant existence for the poor fuckers who are often decapitated, stuffed in a box, and kept in a coma for their entire existence, either. (c0102)

  Mezoa Void Gellar Integrant — The Mezoa Void Gellar Integrant is an additional and integral module of a Gellar Field that dampens a void ship's Warp Signature. (c0104)

  Monitor Ship, Moth-Class Mining — The design was a collaborative work between E-SIM, Aruna, and Aldrich. Using the hull template of the Distant Sun and shrinking it massively, then using a fraction of the material processing machinery from the original Cargo Container satellite designs, and using miniaturised components adjusted from the Iron Crane. Originally, the satellites were structures the size of the Federation research station, where Aldrich was revived. Now they are a new class of ship, the size of a Viper-Class Scout Sloop, the Imperium's smallest void-capable ship, measuring 0.95 kilometres in length and 0.25 kilometres in beam. The Moth Class is a monitor ship (no FTL capabilities), with most of the space previously required for the Warp drive, high-speed thrusters, and sensors being replaced with storage and processing machinery. They're small enough to fit inside void ships like the Iron Crane, rather than being towed through the Warp or leaving vital fleet infrastructure behind. When their collection machinery is deployed, they resemble a lionfish, though the rest of the time, they are more like a miniature version of a Lathe-Class Light Cruiser. Their small capacity is their downside. For example, the Hazy Meditations, a "cloud miner," can hold fifty thousand cubic meters of metallic hydrogen pellets, one of the Distant Sun's main fuels, which occupy one percent of the Distant Sun by volume. Zero point five percent goes to lithium, atomics, and other fuels. Three-point-five percent of the Distant Sun is filled with tanks containing super-critical and hyper-compressed water used as reaction mass for the thrusters, or heavy water if hydrogen pellets are scarce. The heavy water tanks are even more armoured than the macro-cannon ammunition storage. Fifty thousand cubic metres might sound like a lot; however, it is only zero-point-three percent of the Distant Sun's hydrogen capacity, and it takes a month to fill, manufacture, and transfer the fuel from Hazy Meditations to Distant Sun. In orbit, and without the weapon's firing or stressing the void shields, that amount of fuel provides decades of power from a single trip of the Hazy Meditations. Run the ship at full capacity, and a full tank will get less than fifty years or a score of engagements. From full to empty, it will take the Hazy Meditations almost twenty-eight years to fill the Distant Sun at the current rate, not including the reaction mass for the thrusters or mining atomics. These Moth-Class ships are about as difficult to construct as the Iron Crane, requiring a similar quantity of rare elements. Being able to synthesise rare elements instead, the Voracious Light is going to accelerate ship production speed drastically. (c0058)

  The fuel synthesis vessels (Mark Ⅰa) can create hydrogen pellets, promethium, acids, the base chemicals for explosives, and many other chemicals. They gather gases from solar plasma and gas giants, and mine comets, asteroids, and hydrocarbon-rich oceans on freezing worlds. These materials are processed through kilometres of pipes, plasma distillation machinery, condensers, vats, centrifuges, and presses into tens of thousands of tonnes of industrial goods every day. (c0252)

  The Mark Ⅰb is the secret of Aldrich's success, as it can syphon material from a star and then fuse it into any element required. Typically, a base ore, such as iron, silicon, or carbon, is added to the plasma to reduce energy costs. Even so, the costs are still obscene, and it is almost always cheaper to find a proper source. That isn't always possible, as some of the produced elements are artificial or require rare celestial phenomena to appear naturally. The Mark Ⅰb can produce any pure element or alloy, including artificial elements, and it really means anything, including Warp-infused materials. That means the vessel to create the exotic matter used in Warp drives as well as create the materials required for Warding electoos, Warpsbane hulls, Mechanical Gellar Fields, and other aetheric technologies without which the Great Enemy would rapidly infiltrate and rip apart my fleet from within and without. (c0252)

  To summarize, the category of materials each vessel can produce is fixed at the time of construction. They can either make fuels and chemicals in a conventional manner from normal materials (Mark Ⅰa) or they can artificially create any element or alloy in small quantities at a great energy cost (Mark Ⅰb). (c0252)

  Aldrich almost always uses the Mark Ⅰb to produce super-rare materials, like Warp Drive fuel, or metals that have been harvested from debris floating in the Warp. Without the Mark Ⅰb, the fleet would not be able to build as much arcanotech as they do. The Mark Ⅰb uses the same technology as the Necrons, mass manipulation. The difference here is that Aldrich needs a ship that can tap a sun, and a Necron needs a single scarab for the same effect. It can recreate materials from samples, but there are exceptions, such as Blackstone, Wraithbone, Phase Iron, and Necrodermis. (c0252)

  Source Chapter: “(c9999)”

  Thank you for reading.

  Please leave a review, share your thoughts in a comment, or send me a note with any suggestions you may have.

  Thanks,

  Brian