Found in the time-vault on Cypher after the Hadex Anomaly had been tamed, hidden away by Inquisitor Hybris centuries ago, before the death of the God-Emperor, the Doomsday Clock is a strange and fearsome artifact.
Whoever controls it has power over time. Power, but no control, unless they happen to be a powerful psyker, versed in temporal matters and in possession of Hybris's "manual." Barotta happened to fit both requirements.
The manual speaks of a "mechanism" that is the power behind the clock, and offers a great many theories as to what that might be. In the end, however, Hybris concludes than the nature of the mechanism cannot be known or understood by a mortal mind - only madness and corruption wait for those who try. He's tried, and now realizes it's too late to turn back.
The book hints that Hybris may have designed the clock, or perhaps he merely improved upon an existing design. It can also be inferred that this Inquisitor, although a powerful psyker and a great mind, cannot possibly have come up with the design himself.
The clock itself is a massive piece of what seems to be wood, but is, in fact, warp matter frozen in time chaos made solid if you will. There are several time faces, dials, levers, and control items (manual required). Inside the clock can see glimpsed an infinitely intricated set of cogwheels, bars, and pendulums, glowing faintly in otherworld colors as the clock is manipulated.
When correctly set, the clock can transport a person, a room (like the contents of the time-vault), or an entire ship back and forward in time, with great accuracy. It can also move the subject through space, for time and space are one. Unlike the mad journeys through the time rift at Vanity, the clock seems impossibly precise and safe to use. But other than a cooldown period, which can be many years long if great leaps of time and space were undertaken with a large subject, there seems to be no ill effects associated with the clock.
Why then did Hybris lock it away, dispose of everyone who knew where and what it was, then sealed it away behind impenetrable wards?
No comments:
Post a Comment