DEATH SQUAD

INTERLUDE I

Eight colonies are the Machine.

Eight nightmares. Eight deaths.

Each one a pit of darkness indescribable by the tongues of men.

Eight citadels of pain, war and hate, where anything with a soul is ground to dust beneath iron treads, for whom each day is nigh indistinguishable from the one before, and the next, and the next after that.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In the Rigging, in the first, monoliths of black metal are planted in the earth. Desert winds consume the wastes and roving packs of Jackal squads patrol Machina's territory. The bodies of raiders, renegades, techno-barbarians and the forces of rival Demon Lords can be found stripped bare of all but their bones despite being freshly dead, doubtlessly the work of Skineaters. The monoliths are gigantic drills that sink their claws into the earth and dredge up oil before cyclically plunging the oil back down into the ground, rendering the work of the slaves forever unfinished. Desolate wasteland is all that awaits those fortunate enough to escape.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In the Rat Race, in the second, the people and the vermin are not dissimilar in the eyes of the Machine. All supposedly "free" men and women work from five in the morning until nine in the evening, writing paperwork that means nothing and attending meetings that are nothing. It is a place of such desperation that its citizens will stab one another in the back just to get a few more scraps of disgusting rations. Like rats they scurry and swarm, like rats they rip one another apart, like rats they die slowly from disease and are not missed. Many perish simply because they could not navigate the oceans of people in time, and were left trapped outside of their homes to die of starvation, or thirst, or illness, or worse.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In the Plaza, in the third, lights blind and burn away any form of freedom that may remain. The air is eternally filled with bright and cheerful music, produced by artificial super stars known as Vocalettes. These android idols are looked upon as demigods, their word infallible, even when contradictory. Adoring fans will butcher one another to prove that their favourite robotic pop singer is superior to any others. Hundreds of Vocalettes rise to stardom and fall into obscurity every day. Every note they sing is accursed with mind controlling magic that erodes the listener's free will, and truly makes them believe in their heart that the only thing that could possibly make them happy is to buy products from Rush Co. (Who "coincidentally" also manufacture all Vocalette music.)

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In the Forges, in the fourth, all is a sick joke. The Demons who reign supreme there take great pleasure in dashing the hopes of mortals. Ten times throughout its history, an uprising has taken place where the ruling class was overthrown and a new government installed. A new government which acted in the exact same manner as the old one and answered to the same Gods. The people fall for it. Every. Single. Time.
All to send a message to the people.
"Don't resist. Nothing ever changes. Give in. Die."
Industry holds a literal iron grip over the forges. Cauldrons of molten Praetorite and Mithril are hauled by chains from factory to factory. Nearly every worker has lost some body part to an industrial accident or contamination, and had it replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic. It's been said that the Forges are fifty percent metal and fifty percent pain, as are its people. Such a cruel idiom can only be rooted in truth.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In the Reactor, in the fifth, the suns are forever obscured by a blizzard. The unforgiving snowy lands are populated by primarily underground communities, living out of bunkers and only surfacing when necessary. The heart of the Machine's power, producing far more power than a typical sun, burns with cold, bitter anger. A Demonic, self aware nuclear plant giving its Godlike reservoirs of power to Machina. Nucleon, they call him. The Burning Prince. He lends his fire not just to the Machine itself but to the smoldering wrath of its armies. The Kaltsoldats carry the heat of a meteor in their gaze, the spirit of a soldier in their hearts and about four liters of highly flammable Orcusine in their flamethrowers. Very little withstands their cold resentment, and those who cannot survive the flame aren't just burnt, but melted.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In the Vats, in the sixth, the Machine gives horrible birth. Darktroopers are grown in glass encased vats and extracted like creatures being hatched from unfeeling metal eggs. Priests bless and curse their bodies, ripping their genes apart and brutally forcing them back together in new shapes to create the sort of soldier they need, in mind, body and soul. The Kaltsoldats are given blood that is warm like a human's. The Pestilenz are given such powerful immune systems as to make them virtually impervious to disease. The Silver Dragons are imbued with compulsive kleptomania and greed to encourage their mission of dark piracy. Poisonous fluids pump like blood through foul machinery and fallout stains the air to the point of almost inhabitability. Beaked masks made from Demonic flesh leather cover the faces of the priests and Darktroopers who make their home there. This is however very deceptive, for though they wear the mask of a doctor, they are not here to heal, but quite the opposite.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In the Vaults, in the seventh, pirates come and go under the watchful, avarice filled gaze of the Silver Dragons. The starports of Machina surround a massive quarry of Praetorite, beneath which lies a subterranean complex full of unimaginable treasures pillaged by the Dragons. Not a single one would dare to steal even the slightest fragment for themselves under penalty of death. These riches belong to Carnifex and Carnifex alone. The Silver Dragons swoop on mutated wings like gargoyles or board powerful starships. Very few walk ordinarily, at least not too often. Every citizen keeps a close and swift hand on their belongings lest some outsider snatch it away for their own greed. In back alleys illicit market trades take place. Unstable power armour. Outlawed weapons. Stolen ships. Anything that the dark imagination of a criminal could dream up or desire.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

In Admiralitus, in the eighth, evil is God. Sin and vice rule the world, and treacherous indulgence has rendered the once vibrant city into Elizabeth Carnifex's personal playground of malice. Gangs murder one another in the streets over grudges long forgotten by anyone alive. Anything is considered fair, for there's no honour among thieves, and they all chase the same thrill, the same feeling of being alive that was so violently stripped from them under the Machine's tyrannical rule. Even the Darktroopers of Admiralitus, the Crossbones, are almost more of a crime family than a military branch, and they frequently commit extreme intergalactic felonies outside of Demonic territory. Crossbones defile the universe, and as its people look on in horror, the Demons whisper.
"You can do nothing. We answer to no authority but that of cruelty itself."
And there is nothing more cruel than Machina.

I tell you this because I have seen this nightmare in full. I have seen everything. I have seen things you couldn't possibly comprehend. I tell you this not because I want to extinguish your hope, but to beg you, truly and shamelessly beg you, to never give up your hope. Never let them take it from you. That is the only way that the Machine can win, is if you give up.

Eight colonies are the Machine.

Eight nightmares. Eight deaths.

But you cannot let them break you.

They were made to break you.

~ Excerpt from an unidentified wastelander's journal found by a traveling merchant in the Abyssal deserts