For seventy long years I have laboured as Master Finnias laboured before me, and Master Shadiel before him, through eight hundred and thirty six generations of Keepers of the Library Sanctus of Terra. It has been our endeavour, our life-long aim, to compile a history of the majesty of the Human Race from the archives which are our worship. In his benevolent wisdom, the Emperor has granted me the singular and great honour and pleasure of completing this sacred task in my own lifespan.

Through copious notes and periods of cogitation I have pieced together the history and pre-history of Mankind into the greatest antiquities of time. Here I have revealed my findings for the first time, for as it was in the time of the First Keeper, Solomon, our knowledge has passed by oratory and not written word. However, in these changing times there are none worthy to succeed me now, and so it is fit and rightful that I, the Last Keeper, Cripias, records our Great Works to these pages for eternity.

And so it was that in the First Age of Man, the Golden Age, there is the Emperor Unseen and unheralded he prepares the Old Earth for the coming of Mankind and he watches and he waits. He is joined by the First Men of the Golden Race, fine of limb and strong of mind, yet still the Emperor is content to wait in shadow. To watch and learn from Mankind, the Golden Race spreads across the face of Old Earth, multiplying and establishing Order and Civilisation on the anarchy of Nature. In time, the Second Men of the Stone Race appear, and in their wake come many miracles and marvels of technology that strengthen to Sone Men’s power, but are also harnessed by those of th Golden Race. Although physically inferior to the Golden Race, and not of philosophical temperament and disposition, the Stone Men have in them the conjurations of great artifices and mechanisms. In time, the Golden Race looks to the stars to expand their dominion. The Stone Race builds great machines of power that send both Men of Stone and Men of Gold into the Ether. However, once the burgeoning race of Mankind has taken its first steps into the greater cosmos, the Golden Race dwindles in influence through their dependence on the artifices of the Stone Race. This the Golden Age comes to an end and the Stone Men prevail.

Our calculations, from the most distant and archaic records, and through constellar comparison, have dated the end of the Golden Age at 20.000 years previous to our present time.

For the next 5.000 years, the Stone Race lives through the Dark Age of Technology. Little can be determined from the Dark Age of Technology, for the majority of existing records concerning that period are gathered in the Librarius Omnis of Mars, and none outside the highest ranks of the Adeptus Mechanicus can gain access past its most determined Guardians (Keeper Malrubius tried once, but to no avail. We have surmised that during the Dark Age of Technology, the Men of Ston create the Iron Men to help them in the building of their Great Empire. At first, the Iron Men are as servants, willing to do the bidding of their masters with no thoughts.

However, the Iron Men, as all creatures do, evolve and grow until they are the equal of the Stone Race and beside each other they set about conquering the galaxy. The Dark Age of Technology is an era of machines and artificial devices, used by the Stone Men, and later the Iron Men, in their endeavours. Many of the technical marvels that the Priesthood of Mars sustain can be traced to their origins in the Dark Age of Technology, and itt is at the end of this period that the great organisation know now as the Adeptus Mechanicus was founded. During the Dark Age of Technology, the austere ancestors of the Imperium’s Navis Nobilite are born, and through their unique prowess, mankind forges through the stars. Weapons of great destruction cow the aggression of alien enemies, pushing back the frontiers of Mankind’s dominions.

The end of the Dark Age of Technology is the most obscure region in mankind’s evolutionary tale. For whatever reasons and differences in ideology, the Stone Men and the Iron Men fell to warring with each other. The Iron Men are possessed of no Soul, an anathema to any true Man. The Stone Men in their final acts of self-preservation, annihilate the Iron Men who have turned from ally to foe, and even those of the Iron Race who retain their former loyalties ot theor one-time masters are destroyed in the fiery crucible of battle. Still the Emperor, in his eternal wisdom, awaits the moment to reveal the true path to Mankind’s destiny. Thus the start of the Age of Strife is heralded. The Age of Strife sees the collapse of the ancient Empire built by the Stone Men. Mankind is split asunder, there is no Race of Man, just warring factions contending with each other in the direst perils the galaxy could offer. Seeing humanity’s weakness, alien dominance grows in power oce again, the arms of the Stone Men left to ruin, the protection of the Iron Men destroyed in the last years of the Dark Age of Technology. For five millennia, the human race exists in the twilight of its former greatness, bickering and fighting for the scant resources to hand. With no guiding will, no manifest destiny of lordship, mankind is left in turmoil. Even Earth, the bedrock on which humanity’s Empire was founded is gripped in the throes of generation-long intercine war. The foul aliens who had been held back by the might of the Iron Men and the Stone Men surge forth from their havens and lairs, destroying mankind’s defences, killing or enslaving the Emperor’s wards. Mankind is engulfed by a plague of mutation, physical deviants and men possessed of psychic talents appear throughout the galaxy bringing more havoc with them. With no over-reaching authority, these lost souls and psykers sprawl unchecked across the human race. It is at this time that the Emperor reveals his true nature and sets about his plans of delivrance from anarchy.

For the last ten thousand years we have been in the glorious Age of the Imperium, the Reign of the Beneficent Emperor of Mankind. Using his vast intellect and knowledge of ages past, the Emperor creates a race of warriors to quell the warring factions on Earth, renaming our Homeworld Terra and affirming its place as the centre of the known galaxy. Having established ruleship over Mankind’s birthworld, the Emperor sets about to the re-creation of Mankind’s righteous fate. With his Legions of Space Marines, the Emperor leads the Great Crusade of Reconquest. It is a long and arduous war, but world after world, seing in the Emperor the rightful rule of mankind, falls to his service. The Space Marines, now numbered in their many thousands, establish outposts in the far reaches of the galaxy and from these bases on asteroids and moons and planet, launch forays into the darkness, bringing the Light and Word of the Emperor with them. Through this turmoil – the base treachery of the Warmaster and sacrifice of the Emperor, the contact with the noble offices of the Priesthood of Mars, the establishment of the Navis Nobilite and other noteworthy assemblages that we now take for granted as well as the purges of mutants and psykers – the Imperium is forged in blood and death, on a thousand thousand worlds the rightful and just rule of the Emperor is reasserted.

And so it is, ten thousand years since the Great Crusade we are able to live under the guiding Light of the Emperor, we have the guns of the Imperial Navy, Imperial Guard and Adeptus Astartes, to guard against betrayal and foul aliens.

But the stories do not end there. For in our research, the Keepers of the Library Sanctus on Terra have uncovered many forgotten secrets, hidden lore, tales of treachery and heroism. Although we have not become, by no means, omniscient, we know many things that should not be known. For example, who few outside of this stone chamber have learned of the Betrayal of Luther, the Curse of the Red Thirst, the dark shrouded founding of the Sisterhood. Who has recited such tales of woe as can be found in the Legacies of Gathalamor, the unseen mysteries concering the origins of the Space Marines Legions, the dark perils that await those who passed beyond the Gates of Varl, the names of the sinister architects of the Ymga Monolith.