| rdfs:comment | - The Sicaran Battle Tank is one of the rarest of sights on the blood-soaked battle grounds of the late 41st Millennium, for precious few examples of this highly advanced, and ill-understood, engine of war survived the Horus Heresy. Some tech-savants hold that the Sicaran was the most common of a family of armoured vehicles that entered service at the end of the Great Crusade, and that it was commissioned by the genius of no less a being than one of the Emperor's Primarchs. If this is true, it reveals a dark heritage indeed, for it appears that those Legions that remained true to the Emperor received scant quantities of the Sicaran, while those who stood by the Warmaster received the vehicle in greater numbers. So rare is the Sicaran, in fact, that numerous Tech-priests and even Techmarines
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| abstract | - The Sicaran Battle Tank is one of the rarest of sights on the blood-soaked battle grounds of the late 41st Millennium, for precious few examples of this highly advanced, and ill-understood, engine of war survived the Horus Heresy. Some tech-savants hold that the Sicaran was the most common of a family of armoured vehicles that entered service at the end of the Great Crusade, and that it was commissioned by the genius of no less a being than one of the Emperor's Primarchs. If this is true, it reveals a dark heritage indeed, for it appears that those Legions that remained true to the Emperor received scant quantities of the Sicaran, while those who stood by the Warmaster received the vehicle in greater numbers. So rare is the Sicaran, in fact, that numerous Tech-priests and even Techmarines hold that it is nothing but a myth. Others link it to the enduring legacy of Arkhan Land, identifying the Sicaran as the nigh mythical missing link between the Predator and the Land Raider. Those few Adeptus Astartes Chapters in possession of the Sicaran know that its Machine Spirit slumbers fitfully in their relic chambers and when awoken appears haunted by the dire events of the Horus Heresy. The Sicaran is possessed of the most advanced and therefore ill-understood machine systems, and it is the subject of deep-rooted awe and superstition, even amongst the most venerable Masters of the Forge. Even when held in stasis, the Sicaran must be ministered to constantly by its overseers, never less than a score of servo-lectors combining their efforts to ensure the machine's continued rest, as should the Sicaran awake before being called, its Machine Spirit is prone to behave in an unpredictable manner. Some witnesses of such a premature awakening have reported a baleful, all-too aware glow emanating from the vehicle's cyclopic primary Auspex block. Others have heard garbled battle-cant from an age long passed sputtering from its Vox systems, clipped orders and vengeful oaths flying back and forth across a non-existent Vox net using terms unknown to the warriors of the 41st Millennium. Stasis chambers housing slumbering Sicaran battle tanks are therefore commonly sealed with the most potent of wards, their blast doors smothered in blessed wax and fluttering Purity Seals, and the air all about is heavy with the most sacred of incense and continuous chants of the servo-lectors echo down passageways where few dare to tread without the express leave of the Master of the Forge. Restlessness and baleful Machine Spirits must be equally true of those Sicaran Battle Tanks in the possession of the Chaos Space Marines, yet the effect must be magnified by the fact that many reside within the Eye of Terror and other Warp-touched realms, or upon the surfaces of Daemon Worlds. Where the Techmarines of the Adeptus Astartes go to great lengths to ward their fellow Sicaran Battle Tanks from baleful influence, the Warpsmiths of the Chaos Space Marines are unlikely to feel constrained by such concerns and they may even expose their charges to the unadulterated taint of the Ruinous Powers with deliberate intent. The Machine Spirits inhabiting Chaos Sicaran Battle Tanks must be hateful things indeed, possessed of a darkly self-aware anima forged in the crucible of the Ruinous Powers. Some hold that such spirits require constant supplication and appeasement, lest they turn upon their crew or their allies, and certainly the archives of the Inquisition include accounts and pict-captures of Sicaran Battle Tanks whose flanks gleam with dark arterial blood applied in ritual patterns that strike terror into the hearts of all who lay their eyes upon them.
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