History FanFic / OutOfTheDark

* NamesTheSame: General Julius Augustus Perturabo and Primarch Perturabo, for good reason: the latter was either modeled, or modeled himself, after the former.

** During the heroes stay in Warp, there is a part lifted from [[Film/LordOfTheRings the siege of Minas Tirith]]. The Federation is Mordor.

** After the planet Tartarus got [[spoiler: dumped into the warp]], its population, almost all of them veterans of the Iron War, learned real quick how to fight against the Legions of Hell. This resulted in humans killing Greater Demons - the sort of gribblies that habitually devastate planets, and require special forces of Grey Knights to banish.

** Derain himself has cheerfully ripped off ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'' when creating [[spoiler: the Second Primarch]] -

* HordeOfAlienLocusts: Tyranids. In a terrible confirmation of canon suspicions, an extra-galactic expedition is prevented from leaving the galaxy because of interference from the energy structures that Tyranids use as FTL. Then they find there is no way of going around said structures - there are too many of them. So they return to the main galaxy, predictably annoyed. This kicks off the third act of the fic.

* ReferenceOverdosed: standard operating procedure for the Order of the Sigilites and the Stone Men. The first are historians who organized during the Iron War to keep as much of Mankind's culture intact, the latter start out sub-sapient and take centuries if not millenia to 'spark' into full sapience - thus they are ''bloody old''. Most of the references they make fly over the head of other people, though...

* ThreeActStructure Spread out over 20,000 (ish) years. The first act was set during the Iron war, around the 25th millenium - or M25 in canon Warhammer notation. The second act was restricted to Tartarus, in more ways than one, after it was [[spoiler: plunged into the warp]]. The third act is set in M42 and counting.
* ThrowItIn: the author has canonized numerous side-stories and tech files written by other board members. The very name of the faction - Federation Remnant - was cooked up in a side story.

** the Chronostrife: a massive act of sorcery, orchestrated by the four Chaos Gods themselves, through their mortal servants, to create [[spoiler:a weaker form of a StableTimeLoop, guaranteeing that ''some'' form of the Heresy will take place - but not necessarily the Heresy that happened in canon; other options were available, what was absolutely certain was that a Heresy was sure to happen.]]
** Lastly, there's the Dawn Blade. A semi-sentient, shape-shifting weapon, which has traveled across millions of years, been wielded by some of the greatest sophonts in history (including the Emperor), and is one of the most straightforward ways to kill a demon - you 'just' need to cut it twice. It was also nigh-impossible to analyze - those who tried (including the Emperor), could only conclde that the weapon itself was resisting attempts to study it, and was outright ''trolling'' its researchers. [[spoiler: It was created on Tartarus, during a knock-off Chronostrife, at the same time that it was shattered. It made itself from a blade of demon-killing psychoactive crystal, imprinted on a shard of General Perturabo's own soul, which it obtained because the man was stabbed through the eye and into the brain with it. It kills demons after two cuts because on the first cut it reads their True Name, then sends it back through time to properly descipher and unravel it, and on the second cut it 'reads' it inverted, which in this continuity unravels a demon]].

[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/out-of-the-dark-daot-remnants-in-40k.444343/ Out of the Dark]] by [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/derain-von-harken.310282/ Derain Von Harken]] is a Warhammer 40k fic about a vestigial civilization from humanity's Dark Age of Technology coming out into modern 40k.

* DeathByPower: It's mentioned that an Endbringer Titan once used its harvester weapon to drain the WAAAGH energy of a Super Gargant. Without it, the construct promptly collapsed into its component junk.

** after the planet Tartarus got [[spoiler: dumped into the warp]], its population, almost all of them veterans of the Iron War, learned real quick how to fight against the Legions of Hell. This resulted in humans killing Greater Demons - the sort of gribblies that habitually devastate planets, and require special forces of Grey Knights to banish.
** then, Feds pushed their Warp research further, and figured out how to [[spoiler: permanently obliterate demons; not merely banish into the warp, which is Imperium's standard operating procedure, but perma-kill]].
* Expy: Exacerbated by having multiple authors:
** Derain himself has cheerfully ripped off the manga [[Berzerk]] when creating [[spoiler: the Second Primarch]] -

** A pariah fighter named [[WebAnimation/RWBY Ruby, using a gunscythe]].

** One of the infantry weapons from the same package is called [[{{VideoGame/Doom}} BPG]] [[9000 VideoGame/QuakeII]] and uses [[{{VideoGame/Unreal}} tyridium]].

* SympatheticMagic: How Aldrea managed to corrupt the Iron Men

* IKnowYourTrueName: As per canon Wh40K, extremely important when having anything to do with with demons. In this fic, it's expanded as being the very identity of a demon: demons don't ''have'' their names, demons ''are'' their names. Furthermore, demons can be undone by using their name backwards, which is also how [[spoiler: the Dawn Blade kills demons]].

** after the planet Tartarus got [[spoiler: dumped into the warp]], its population, almost all of them veterans of the Iron War, learned real quick how to fight against the Legions of Hell. This resulted in humans killing Greater Demons - the sort of gribblies that habitually devastate planets, and require special forces of Grey Knights to banish. ''Banish'', not kill.

* KillItWithFire: The Federation developed a nasty little weapon called Banefire, which is essentially super-phosphex that can kill daemons. It's also sentient and hates everything.

* TimeyWimeyBall: Again, there are a few:
** Tartarus [[spoiler: in the warp]]. It behaves as a [[spoiler: reverse demon world of sorts, and it has its own time flow separate from the rest of the Universe]].
** Further complicating matters, there is no consistent time flow on Tartarus itself; portions of the planet experience time at different rates, and its greatest expression...

** Lastly, there's the Dawn Blade. A semi-sentient weapon, which has traveled across millions of years, been wielded by some of the greatest sophonts in history, and is one of the most straightforward ways to kill a demon.

* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ambadassador: Ambadassador]]: Astartes tend to be the interface between Federation and Imperium, in large part due to them being the only ones who don't immediately flip their lid when faced with people who don't worship the Emperor as a god.

Now, thousands of years later, they have emerged, and they've got some major bones to pick with several factions

Including the Eldar.

A collection of humans learn of this and decide that there's no hope in saving their own empire now. The best thing they can do is grab as much of Mankind's glory and get out of the Galaxy, to colonize the neighboring galaxies where the Eldar have not reached. But of course things don't go as planned; sabotage and treachery have been been afoot, and the expedition goes to Hell. [[Spoiler:Literally]].

* Ambadassador: Astartes tend to be the interface between Federation and Imperium, in large part to them being the only ones who don't immediately lose their marbles when faced with people who don't worship the Emperor as a god.

** after the planet Tartarus got [[spoiler: dumped into the warp]], its population, almost all of them veterans of the Iron War, learned real quick how to fight against the Legions of Hell. This resulted in humans killing Greater Demons - the sort of gribblies that habitually devastate planets, and require special forces of Grey Knights to banish.

** Planned but [[Averted]] for [[spoiler:a young Gottfried]]. For around a year, he was entrapped by a Nurgle-corrupted band of raiders; when Fed forces have closed in on them and were about to exterminate them, his at-least-halfway-demonic overseer tried to posess him, and succeeded in infesting his left arm; Perturabo had to cut it off. Helluva first meeting...

* TimeyWimeyBall: Tartarus [[spoiler: in the warp]]. It behaves as a [[spoiler: reverse demon world of sorts, and it has its own time flow separate from the rest of the Universe]]. Further complicating matters, there is no consistent time flow on Tartarus itself; portions of the planet experience time at different rates. This has been used and abused by the Ruinous Powers to create [[spoiler:a weaker form of a StableTimeLoop, guaranteeing that ''some'' form of the Heresy will take place - but not necessarily the Heresy that happened in canon; other options were available, what was absolutely certain was that a Heresy was sure to happen.]]

A collection of humans learn of this and decide that there's no hope in saving their own empire now. The best thing they can do is hunker down in a pocket dimension with whatever they can hoard and wait out the storm. Now, thousands of years later, they have emerged, and they've got a major bone to pick with the Eldar.

* TheFederation: The remnants that follow Perturabo (not the Primarch, but a guy whom he is named after in this story) call themselves this.

* ScrewYouElves: A good portion of the Federation's society is essentially based on this. Since the Eldar (or rather a small group of them) was responsible for dismantling humanity's empire so that it could be used as a therapeutic punching bag for the rest of their race, it's not surprising that the remnants are dedicated to screwing the Eldar over however they can.
* SuperweaponSurprise: Since the Federation has access to all the technological feats that humanity had at its zenith, it would have been more surprising if they ''didn't'' have a veritable armory of OP superweapons.

* ArchEnemy: The Eldar to the Federation. As a result of a group of them essentially causing their empire to fall and reduce them to a shadow of their former glory in the hopes of having a punching bag for their own race, the remaining humans of Dark Age have a boundless hatred for the space elves.

"Oh Eldar, we're baaaack. '''NOS AUTEM TENEBRAS!'''

* ArchEnemy: The Federation's hatred of the Eldar is boundless.