hh7节译：旧夜的基因恐怖

Many human mythologies, both ancient and the product of the collapse of civilisation on thousands of worlds during the Age of Strife, carry legends of the apocalyptic wars of the gods in whose aftermath terrible weapons are left upon the desolate battlefield for the gods' inheritors to find. Many scholars liken these legends to the fall of past civilisations and the discovery —or rediscovery— of some pivotal technology such as gunpowder, steel or atomantic force, but never has the mythic construct been more appropriate to the understanding of such a perilous rediscovery than in the case of the gene-craft of Terra. At the height of humanity's ancient dominion during the Dark Age of Technology, unbridled and recklessly potent human science had unlocked the myriad potentials within the human genome and even thought nothing of the terrible crimes of transgenic hybridisation, the fusing of human and alien biology, if it suited the whims of the scientist- kings of that lost age.

许多人类神话中——无论是古老的传说还是纷争纪元中数以千计的世界上文明崩溃的产物，都带有这样的传奇故事：众神之间爆发了末日之战，其后果是可怕的武器留在荒凉的战场上，供众神的继承者去寻获。很多学者将这些传说比作曾经的文明的陨落与某些关键性技术——比如火药、钢铁或原子能的发现或者再次发现的过程。但是，就泰拉上基因技术的发现过程而言，神话般的概念对于理解这种危险的重新发现（的技术）是再合适不过的了。在黑暗科技时代，人类远古统治的顶峰时期，人类那肆无忌惮且鲁莽强大的科学已经解锁了人类基因组中的无数潜力，他们甚至都不觉得进行转基因杂交配种是可怕罪行，他们将人类与外星人进行生物融合，如果它符合那个失落时代的科学家君王们的奇思妙想的话。

The descendants of some of the Dark Age of Technology's more stable flesh-works remain with us to the present in extremes such as the high-gravity adapted Ogryns and the Navigators without whom long-distance space travel would be impossible, while others are mercifully long perished. But when the Dark Age of Technology ended in an apocalypse of war and terror, as the masters fought their creations in the shapes known to us now in legend as the men of stone and the men of steel， and the anarchy and destruction of widespread psyker emergence brought the dominion of Mankind crashing down, the weapons of the gods were truly left strewn upon the battlefield. Nowhere was this more so than on Terra itself the seat and capital of that ancient empire, and storehouse of its secrets. For centuries such dread secrets slumbered; in forgotten bunkers and armoured vaults lay the masterless gene-looms and autosurgical chambers of the Dark Age of Technology, waiting for the ignorant and the power hungry to set them to work once more to bloody and ill-reckoned purposes. The end result of their inevitable rediscoveries was a world already plunged into violent anarchy and environmental collapse made infinitely worse by the abused powers of those lost gods and devils of ancient science unleashed, genetically tailored viral warfare, desperate schemes at blood-bought immonality and power, and a hulking grotesquery of once-human shock troops driven into battle by the ambition of crazed warlords. Mutation, monstrosity, pogrom, disease and death unimaginable were let loose by the warlords lust for conquest; such was Terra's long night.

在极端情况下，那些仍存在于于我们当中的黑暗科技时代某些更为稳定的血肉造物的后裔也会出场，比如适应高重力的欧格林人，还有导航者，没有他们的话，长距离太空旅行将是不可能的，而另一些此类造物已经幸运地早早死去了。但是，当黑暗科技时代结束于战争和恐惧的巨大灾变当中时，人类与他们的造物交战——我们在传说中称后者为铁人和石人，灵能者大量出现也带来了毁灭与无政府状态，这一切让人类的统治土崩瓦解，诸神的武器真的散落在了战场上。这种现象在泰拉——人类那古老帝国的首都与所在地是最为明显的，这个世界同样是旧帝国秘密的储存仓库。数个世纪以来，这些如此可怕的秘密们沉睡着，无主的基因编织仪器和黑暗科技时代的自动手术室躺在被遗忘的堡垒与带有保护层的地下室中，等待着无知者与贪图权力的人再次为了血腥和无法预料的目的而再次开启它们，而它们不可避免的再次发现也终将以这样的情形作为最终结果：古代科技创造出的失落神明与恶魔释放出被滥用的力量，让一个早已陷入暴力无政府状态和环境崩溃的世界情况变得更加恶化，基因改造的病毒战，为了进行人命堆砌出来的无道德战争和追求权力而制定的绝望计划，由庞大的怪诞造物组成的突击部队被疯狂军阀的野心驱赶进入战场的，而这些怪物曾经也是人类。渴求征服的军阀们释放出变异，畸形，种族大屠杀，疾病和无法想象的死亡；泰拉漫长的旧夜便是如此。

By the time of the coming of the Emperor to finally quell the endless war, splice-wrought and muscle-grafted warriors were the common currency of war amid the techno- barbarian tribes and mercenary clans which dominated much of desolate Ancient Terra, while degenerate gene-damaged mutants and abhumans haunted the ruins and wastes beyond the holdfasts of petty empires. The more extreme children of the Dark Age of Technology were also a fearful legend which haunted, all too real, the dreams of men, be they the Excubari Vivamorphs of Cahmarg, who culled the young for 'beautiful* flesh to graft to their own failing bodies, or the nightmare horrors of the Ghourmant clans of the deep sinks of Detra-Merica, whose terrible strength and longevity were bought only at the price of a far more indiscriminate and insatiable hunger. It was both to break the rule of these foul abominations and the unscrupulous masters of the gene-bred dogs of war, to see them purged from Terra, that the Thunder Legion was created. It was an act of fighting fire with fire. Just as it was that in the creation of the Space Marine Legions was a tool of unparalleled conquest fashioned so that humanity could reclaim the stars. Just as it was that with the Legio Custodes that a body of undying, indefatigable protectors was created, who like watchful demigods of myth would stand guard over the Master of Mankind until the stars burned cold. It was only the Emperor, in His wisdom, who could claim the inheritance of the gene-craft of the Dark Age of Technology, and turn it to these ends, to forge angels of flesh and blood where lesser men had created mutilated monsters and imperfect messiahs. It was only the Emperor who was able to see that relic lore safely contained and truly controlled, so that it might reach its apotheosis in His own works.

当帝皇的到来最终平息了无休止的战争之时，在针对那些统治着荒凉的古泰拉大部分土地的科技野蛮人部落和佣兵氏族的战争中，接受过拼接定制和肌肉移植的战士是常见的战争货币，而退化堕落的基因受损变种人和亚人类们则出没于那些微小帝国的要塞之外的废墟和荒地中。黑暗科技时代造就的更为极端的产物也是一个萦绕在人们的梦里的太过真实的可怕传说：这些人是Cahmarg（机仆：某个地名）的活体掠夺者，他们挑选出年轻“美丽”的肉体，将健康的血肉移植到自己衰弱的身体上；或者Detra-Merica污水深坑中高尔曼特氏族那噩梦般的恐怖，他们那可怕的力量和长寿只能以更为不加区分和贪得无厌的饥饿为代价。正是为了打破这些可憎恶物和基因育种的恶犬兽兵的无耻主人的统治，帝皇创建了雷霆军团来从泰拉上清除这些怪物。这是一种以毒攻毒的行为，就如同帝皇创造星际战士是为人类收复群星提供无与伦比的征服工具；同样，帝皇给予禁军军团不朽的身躯，创造出不屈不挠的保卫者，他们就像神话中警惕的半神一样守卫着人类之主，直到群星冷却。只有帝皇才能以自己的智慧声称继承了黑暗科技时代的基因技术，并且用这些技术来铸造血肉的天使——而小人物利用这些技术创造了残缺不全的怪物和不完美的救世主。只有帝皇才能看着遗迹知识被安全地包存和真正地控制住，这样一来，这些知识就有可能在他自己的作品中达到顶峰。