THE AGE OF REDISCOVERY

It was some time following the great Daewar-Ork war that the first Imperial scout ship discovered the Homeworlds. A Rogue Trader by the name of Dauson discovered the world of Ember, and although the Daewar recognised him as human immediately and made him welcome they paid no heed that they were a people much changed from those colonists that first arrived so long ago. Ready to brand them as mutants and request that the planet be scoured by the Inquisition, Dauson's hand was stayed by the discovery of the Daewar's advanced level of technology.

Although the Inquisition at first sent a series of research teams to evaluate the level of mutation amongst these newly discovered worlds, it was eventually decided that the changes were stable, and the Inquisition declared the Daewar fit to live. This turned out for their benefit however when the Daewar gave the Imperium exclusive trade rights to their store of mineral wealth, and (unknown to the Imperium) restricted access to their technological database. The Adeptus Mechanicus liasons gleefully took the STC information given to them by the Guild back to their Forge Worlds, and thus the Daewar were responsible for the greatest advance in Imperial technology since the Dark Age.

These two factors bought the Daewar the right of self-rule, and thus they remained ruled by their Leagues of Strongholds as they had before meeting the Imperium. This suited the Daewar well, as they had been in need of a trading partner since their betrayal at the hands of the Eldar and Orks. The extra food and other resources they traded the Imperium for their minerals were of great use in the rebuilding of the Homeworlds after the Age of War.

It was whilst checking Daewar conscripts for the Imperial Guard that the Inquisition first noticed a disturbing deviation from the norm amongst the Daewar. It was discovered that rather than worshipping the Emperor as is believed right, they instead worshipped their dead ancestors!

Indeed so long had they been paying homage to the deeds of their ancestors that their Ancestral spirits had actually gained the power to speak to them, and chose certain individuals of great age and wisdom as their conduits to the Daewar people. Called Living Ancestors, these Daewar were able to converse with the spirits of their dead Ancestors, and thus their wisdom was beyond compare.

All this was unknown to the Inquisition, who immediately declared the Daewar heretics, and brought it to the attention of the High Lords of Terra. The High Lords however were loath to give up the valuable resources they received in trade with the Daewars, and the Fabricator General of the Adeptus Mechanicus objected strenuously to the genocide which the Inquisition was suggesting, unwilling to lose the single greatest source of new STC information in the Imperium.

Together, but without the consent of the supposedly self-ruled Daewar, the High Lords of Terra decided upon what course of action they would take about the Daewar, and eventually a compromise was reached.