So the God-Emperor did not turn to armies to cast away the dark.

Rather, He turned to the boldest and most daring of His servants before tasking with them a cruelty unlike any other. “The pain of old night must needs be assuaged,” He said. “But it cannot be done by hammer or scalpel, for they are too specific a tool for so nebulous a purpose. So now I come before you and ask of you something that would break lesser men and women. In order to reclaim what we have lost, to cast aside this pervasive darkness that has befallen us, I ask of you to be free—be free and strike out into the unknown.”

Then, by His will, those among the many He called forth that had not shied away from the burden of freedom were granted a writ unlike any other. Each of them was freed of the shackles of societal bondage. Each allowed to conduct themselves in a manner they saw most befitting of the task set before them, never to be held in account as the teeming masses would again. By parchment, ink and drops of His very ichor, the Saviour of Mankind did breathe life into the first Rogue Trader dynasties.

Unto each, He bequeathed the first Warrants of Trade.