Event · M0–M40
Silent King Exile
The Silent King Exile is the long absence of Szarekh, last sovereign of the Necrontyr, who withdrew from his dynasties after the War in Heaven. Szarekh led the Necrontyr through their war against the Old Ones and the C’tan bargain that brought biotransference, and he later turned against the Star Gods and helped to break them into shards. The Necron dynasties then entered the Great Sleep, recorded as lasting roughly sixty million years. Szarekh did not remain among his subjects, and the title Silent King reflects his withdrawal from the courts he once ruled. Accounts differ on where he travelled and what he did during the exile, and Orrery does not assign him a documented residence. The Terra anchor serves as a Solar reference point on the map, not as a recorded site of the exile. What is established is the consequence: the Triarch’s central authority lapsed, and the awakening dynasties, under phaerons and Nemesors, developed separate ambitions and rivalries. Contemporaries of the fragmented Necron realm, such as Imotekh the Stormlord, Anrakyr the Traveller and Trazyn the Infinite, acted in the absence of any acknowledged sovereign. The exile is not treated as permanent. Later tradition holds that Szarekh re-emerged in the era of the Indomitus Crusade, when the Imperium was already stretched by the Great Rift, and that his return began to draw the dynasties toward a common purpose. The present consequences remain unsettled, since the loyalty of individual phaerons, and the intentions of the Silent King himself, are still recorded as uncertain. On the timeline the exile links the War in Heaven and the Great Sleep with the modern Necron awakening, and it explains why a faction of such age and power has acted in so divided a manner.
See where Silent King Exile occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.