Ikaros Contingency
The Ikaros Contingency was a secret agreement between the Emperor of Mankind and the First Legion devised by the Emperor to counter a potential uprising by the Mechanicum during the Great Crusade.[1]
Overview
The Mechanicum sat at the heart of the Emperor’s new Imperium. It was the beating heart of its military and industrial base, supplying the industrial might by which the armies of the Great Crusade were forged and maintained, its far flung Forge Worlds were the cogs around which the campaign to liberate the galaxy turned. Without the Tech-Priests of Mars there could have been no Great Crusade, for the Mechanicum had become an essential part of the Emperor's plans. It was also the greatest threat to them in the years before Horus turned to treachery, for the Mechanicum stood apart from the careful order the Emperor had established. Of all the Imperium's institutions, they still worshipped a god openly, worked to their own rituals and creed that had little to do with the Imperial Truth. Worse, should they ever rise up against the Emperor, they could turn to their own formidable armies to prosecute a war against Him and turn the very technology of the Great Crusade against His servants. Such a war would be the end of the Imperium.[1]
To counter such a threat, the Emperor had established a number of contingency plans, several of which remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Of those known to history, the Ikaros Contingency is perhaps the most dire. A directive issued only to Lion El'Jonson and the warriors of the First Legion, the Ikaros Contingency consisted of two distinct clauses. The first was an Imperial warrant empowering the Dark Angels to keep in their possession a number of relics from the period of history known as Old Night, technology that had long been forbidden to any other institution as dangerous and unstable. It was, however, a technology that shared few similarities with that of Mars and as such was resistant to the wiles of the techno-magi and anathematic to their machines of war. The second clause, had it become common knowledge, would have been cause enough to start the war the Emperor sought to avoid, for it empowered Lion El'Jonson and his warriors to conduct pre-emptive combat operations to neutralise elements of the Mechanicum deemed to have become 'contrary to the needs of the Imperium'. This final clause is known to have been invoked eight times in the history of the Imperium, though details of most of these incidents remain sealed within the vaults of the Dark Angels, with the encounter at the Traitor Mechanicum Forge World of Galatia during the Thramas Crusade being the only openly acknowledged occurrence at this time. It would not be the last, for the Lion would not stay his hand now that open war had consumed the Imperium, and would bring censure to many more Forge Worlds he deemed 'contrary to the needs of the Imperium' before the end of the Horus Heresy.[1]
Sources
- 1: The Horus Heresy Book Nine - Crusade, pg. 37
