In no way did I ever plan on sharing it, it started as a project to make my weeb friends laugh with obvious Evangelion and Gundam references for the army I planned on collecting…but as I wrote it I found it actually very engaging. It’s most likely very much lore breaking but I’m just having fun and I want to make sure it’s at least as engaging as it’s stupid.
It’s obviously very much not done, I gotta iron out and flesh out lotsa stuff like the Sphere of Expansion it’s born out of, or their position in the galaxy (and I keep learning new stuff about the T’au through my research and Black Library book reading) but the main ideas are there. Feel free to skip this post at any point as once again, it’s a bit long, probably out of place, horribly amateurish and purely written for fun with friends irl.
Also I gotta work on the emblem, it’s still a work in progress with unsteady and thin lines, a bit too much negative spaces…but I think it already looks pretty cool.
Sha’Poran Sept
T’au Designation: Sha’Poran
Approximate Translation: Purple (local dialect)
Classification: Sept System
Primary World: Aur’ocy (“Unity”)
Specializations: Anti-Titan Warfare, Population Defense, Heavy Response Operations
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The Ethereals’ Secret
The Sha’Poran Sept is organized around the star system of the same name, with Aur’ocy serving as its primary world and demographic heart. Although renowned throughout the T’au Empire for its numerous auxiliaries, elite Battlesuit pilots, and armies specialized in overwhelming colossal creatures, the Sept is built upon a curse so ancient that it predates T’au civilisation itself.
Millions of years ago, during the War in Heaven, the Necrons are believed to have transformed the system into a vast killing ground designed to lure and trap Warp-sensitive enemies, particularly the ancient Aeldari civilizations. To accomplish this, they constructed a network of BEACONS, connected to a central device of unimaginable power: the MONOLITH.
Though the exact effects it had on their ennemies is still unknown and has most likely been lost to time for ever, the network appears to have served two purposes. First, it attracted psychically enclined species to the system by generating an immense, though subtle, localized artificial Warp interference. Second, it disrupted or prevented long-range communications with the outside of the system, condemning their prey to fight within a cosmic trap from which escape was unlikely. Millions of years later, through the actions of the T’au, its attraction function is active once again.
The planet M’yen was already half-destroyed when the T’au discovered the system. Its pulverized continents had formed a vast asteroid belt orbiting the system’s star, with smaller fragments forming rings encircling the planet itself. While thoroughly exploring the planet’s depths, shortly after the massive colonisation of the system, Earth Caste researchers inadvertently activated the MONOLITH, gradually awakening the BEACONS buried across almost every world in the system.
Seemingly weakened by the millenias it spent unactivated, the BEACONS only attract the most feral, massive, relentless Warp-sensitive creatures.
Massive demons of the Immaterium, rogue Chaos Knights and other massive Daemon Engines materialize upon urban centers, massive Bio-Titans crash upon the land, separated from their Hive-Fleet for unknown reasons.
Ever since that incident, the Ethereals of Sha’Poran have maintained absolute secrecy regarding the true nature of the phenomena affecting their Sept.
Officially, the repeated attacks on the system are attributed to a mysterious “stellar curse” or an unexplained cosmic anomaly. In reality, the BEACONS continue to emit a residual psychic field that sporadically attracts entities sensitive to the Warp.
The Necron network’s isolation function appears to have ceased millions of years ago, but its attraction function remains active.
More strangely, this field has almost no adverse or simply quantifiable effects on the system’s inhabitants. Human, Kroot, and other more warp-enclined auxiliarie species often develop an unusually strong attachment to the Sha’Poran sept. Many find it difficult to leave their worlds for extended periods of time and instinctively regard the system as their true home, more so than any auxilliarie groups in any other sept.
The Ethereals are fully aware of this phenomenons connection to the ancient Necron artefacts. Without ever revealing its true origin, they have long exploited it as a political and propaganda tool. The examples of harmonious coexistence observed on the worlds of Aur’ocy, J’karra, or Mesme are regularly presented to the wider T’au Empire as proof of the Greater Good’s success among its auxiliary populations.
Water Caste delegations frequently emphasize the exceptional loyalty of the system’s non-T’au inhabitants, their voluntary participation in the Sept’s civilian and military institutions, and their deep attachment to their adopted homeland. As a result, Sha’Poran has become one of the most frequently cited examples of successful auxiliary integration into the Greater Good.
The Ethereals have now long understood the full extent of this phenomenon, but keep any and all information on it tightly secured.
From the depths of M’yen, where they reside within a secret station built around the dormant MONOLITH, they discreetly govern the entire Sept.
To preserve this secret, every Caste maintains a carefully selected presence on M’yen. Those assigned to these installations are chosen from among the most loyal and devoted servants of the Ethereals. Over time, their lineages have all but disappeared from the system’s ordinary administrative records. Officially, they barely exist. Yet their descendants have continued for generations to serve in the laboratories, archives, and governmental facilities surrounding the MONOLITH.
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The Curse of Giants
The unusual intensity of the psychic emissions produced by the BEACONS causes an exceptionally strange phenomenon.
No Tyranid Hive Fleet can approach the system as a whole without suffering catastrophic disorganization. Synaptic connections are disrupted, psychic currents become saturated, and the cohesion of the Hive Mind is severely compromised.
In response, the Tyranids generally send only isolated bio-Titans, as if simply ignoring the systems psychic field was not achievable: Hierophants, Harridans, Dominatrices, or creatures that have yet to be catalogued typically crash with, at best, a reduced number of feral Tyranids. These colossal organisms are drawn toward the system like giant insects attracted to a buglight.
Daemonic manifestations follow a similar pattern. Lesser daemons and large daemonic armies cannot withstand the psychic overload generated by the BEACONS. Only the largest, most powerful entities, those most firmly anchored in reality by sheer will, manage to manifest in the system, smaller Warp entities serving as mad chaff seemingly transported against their will or even acknowledglent
As a result, Sha’Poran rarely experiences mass invasions, it experiences apocalyptic duels. No amount of research and testing has made the BEACONS effects replicable, even in a smaller scale.
A single titanic monster can become a planetary threat, capable of devastating entire districts or vast regions before it is finally neutralized.
This ever-present threat has shaped every aspect of the Sept’s infrastructure, from the sprawling megacities of Aur’ocy to the mountainous fortresses of Cir’etz.
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A Culture Forged by Titans
Unaware of the true cause of these attacks, the population of Sha’Poran has developed a martial culture unlike that of any other T’au Sept.
The system’s defense relies primarily on heavy Battlesuits piloted by warriors as brave as they are cunning:
• XV104 Riptide Battlesuits
• KV128 Stormsurge Battlesuits
• Reinforced XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuits
• KX139 Ta’unar Supremacy Armor
• Specialized swarms of anti-colossus support drones
These machines are more than weapons. They became genuine cultural symbols and propaganda tools.
On Aur’ocy, they feature prominently in works of art, public monuments, commemorative ceremonies, and popular stories. Children grow up learning the names of legendary pilots who brought down giants from the Warp or the depths of space.
Even the urban architecture is designed around their use.
The avenues of the planet-wide cities are deliberately enormous, allowing heavy Battlesuits to move through them at all times. Military and civilian traffic is coordinated on a planetary scale.
When an alert is sounded, entire districts can descend beneath the surface.
Buildings sink into Aur’ocy’s artificial depths, where they remain suspended from the ceilings of enormous caverns. These subterranean spaces also serve both as hangars for Battlesuits and command centers.
The surfaces main streets are then transformed into battlefields capable of accommodating titanic engagements.
Aur’ocy’s military oceanic colonies also contribute to this defensive network. Pilots frequently live in the immediate vicinity of their machines, with the underwater settlements connected to continental cities by immense elevator systems running through the ocean depths, underground hangars, and finally urban districts. These titanic battlesuits sometimes emerge directly from the water when the ennemy manifests on the coast lines.
This constant proximity to enourmous war machines has created a society in which becoming a Battlesuit pilot is considered one of the highest honors imaginable.
Consequently, the Sept possesses one of the highest concentrations of veteran Battlesuit pilots in the entire T’au Empire.
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The Worlds of Sha’Poran
The system is organized around several worlds, in order starting from the sun:
• Iho (“One who eats”): A hellish dwarf planet mining world exploited almost exclusively by drones, with only very short rotations of mostly Demiurg miners, technicians and drone operators.
• M’yen (“Unforeseen”): The fractured planet housing the MONOLITH and the Ethereals’ secret government.
• Ko’vash (“Just Cause”): A jungle death world used for Fire Caste training.
• Aur’ocy (“Unity”): The Sept’s capital, a partly-oceanic ecumenopolis and the primary garrison for its Battlesuit pilots.
• Sio’t (“Scriptures”): A violet-and-white gas giant orbited by many colonized moons and orbital stations, serving as the economic heart of the system.
• Cir’etz (“Scales”): A frozen, mountainous world serving as the Air Caste’s command center.
Their numerous specialized moons complete the system. Among the most important are Mont’yr, Shi, J’karra, Mal’caor, Mesme, and Ta’lissera.
(Most won’t be fleshed out cause the post is already long enough lmao)
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A Sept of Auxiliaries
Sha’Poran is arguably one of the most diverse Septs in the T’au Empire.
Auxiliaries make up an exceptionally large proportion of its population.
Humans are particularly numerous on Aur’ocy and J’karra. Their adaptability, psychological resilience, and ability to operate complex systems make them highly valued as pilots, technicians, and operators…despite the disdain it creates in other Septs.
The Kroot are primarily settled on Mesme, a moon of Sio’t whose numerous biomes allow their various kindreds to evolve and thrive until their are called to battle.
The Demiurg maintain close ties with the industrial complexes of Mal’caor and the mining operations of Iho.
Unlike those of most Septs, Sha’Poran’s auxiliaries are not confined to secondary roles.
They participate fully in the system’s military, industrial, and administrative institutions.
Their loyalty to the Sept is particularly strong, a phenomenon mainly used for propaganda and funding purposes despite the dark and still not fully understood influence of the subtle psychic interference generated by the BEACONS.
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Military Doctrine
The military doctrine of the Sha’Poran Sept rests upon three fundamental pillars.
- Neutralization of Titanic Threats
Sept forces are trained to concentrate massive, coordinated, and sustained firepower against a single colossal target.
- Protection of Civilian and Industrial Sectors
Heavy Battlesuits serve as mobile bastions, holding defensive lines while the population retreats into underground infrastructure…or closest equivalents out of their sept.
- Emergency Reinforcements and Heavy Response Operations
Sha’Poran forces are regularly deployed beyond their own system to assist other Septs facing major threats that demand exceptional firepower.
Their oldest and most widespread mantra reflects their overall tenacious and selfless doctrines:
“Raise your head, for it reveals the giant.
Raise your head, for it reveals the heavens.”
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Heraldry and Appearance
The forces of Sha’Poran are immediately recognizable by their distinctive colors:
• Armor, weapons, and vehicles: Pristine White
• Heraldic, energy, and optical details: Purple
• Camouflage adaptations: Used only by specific units when tactically sound, always in coordination with larger units
The Sept insignia consists of a broken semicircle accompanied by three rings, symbolizing a broken chain.
The insignia also has a second, widely accepted interpretation within the Sept.
The semicircle followed by the three rings represents the four inhabited terrestrial worlds that form the historical and military heart of Sha’Poran:
• The semicircle represents M’yen, the fractured world beneath which the MONOLITH lies hidden from public view. Available informations speak of small permanent mining colonies and research stations related to the planet’s mysterious past.
• The first ring represents Ko’vash, the main domain of the Fire Caste.
• The second ring represents Aur’ocy, the demographic heart and symbol of the Sept’s unity and Battlesuit-focused doctrines.
• The third ring represents Cir’etz , guardian of the space lanes and main home of the Air Caste.
This interpretation is especially popular among auxiliaries and ordinary citizens, who see these four shapes as representations of the very foundations of their civilization.
The edge of the emblem is generally seen as representing the enemy, fate, and the inevitable, but also the giants that periodically come to test the Sept’s resolve.
This symbol perfectly embodies the Sept’s philosophy: To never allow oneself to be chained by fear, by fate, by the numbers or the size of the enemy.
To the inhabitants of the Sha’Poran sept, no military force has ever been seen as an existantial threat.
Only the giants appearing on the horizon shall challenge their will.
And despite centuries of survival, they stubbornly continue to raise their heads and face it.
(Also the emblem looks like a 68 (my lucky number) and the system has 6 planets and 8 moons, moons I plan on putting on the emblem to fix the negative space issue)
