Medusa V
"Medusa V is a world that burns with the heat of battle and shudders beneath a million marching feet. It is a doomed planet, with a cataclysmic Warp storm descending upon it. All life will soon be scoured from its blighted surface. Only you, through your games of Warhammer 40,000, can determine if victory can be salvaged from this planet's death. Make no mistake — Medusa V will die."
- – Games Workshop letting us know the score up front.
Medusa V was an Imperial Mining World in the Segmentum Ultima. It existed purely to be blown up in an epic and grimdark fashion for the 2006 global summer campaign.
Overview[edit]
Medusa V was first settled in the 37th Millennium as a waystation for ships attempting to run Van Grothe's Rapidity, a Warp Storm on the Eastern Fringes. If entered correctly, the storm could shorten Warp journeys by months or even years, making it invaluable to Rogue Traders, Mechanicus explorators, and others in the region who needed to get places quickly; this earned it the name of "Hell's Slingshot". The man who discovered the storm in question, Carral Van Grothe, was assigned to find a habitable world that could be used as a staging ground for ships attempting to run the storm. Accompanied by an Iron Hands clan-company and a Mechanicus fleet, Van Grothe found a system with two habitable planets. The Iron Hands took the lead in purging the planets of their xenos inhabitants, and in return the planets were named Medusa IV and V in honor of their homeworld. While Medusa IV was settled by the explorators and quickly grew into a major colony, the Iron Hands were called away before they could finish securing Medusa V, and the Mechanicus and the Imperium decided not to settle anywhere beyond the single continent that was already under their control. Thus, while Medusa IV grew into a populous and productive Hive World, Medusa V remained a small and unremarkable colony, though its shipyards saw a constant stream of traffic from Imperial vessels preparing to run the Rapidity.
The Medusan Schism[edit]
Because of their proximity to the Rapidity, the two worlds were frequently cut off for years or even decade by fluctuations in the storm, but every time the storms died down the same message went out: all is well. All this changed in 750.M41, with the beginning of what would become known as the Medusan Schism. During the latest period of isolation, two of Medusa IV's largest hives abruptly declared independence from the Imperium. When the planetary militia responded, they were met with a colossal Chaos uprising. Soon the entire planet was consumed by civil war, as hordes of Chaos cultists emerged from hiding to attack the loyalist forces and more hives declared their allegiance to Chaos. With the system still cut off from the Imperium, the loyalists' distress signals were heard only by Medusa V. The planet's tiny PDF assembled an auxiliary militia from the miners and laborers and charged to Medusa IV's aid. This barely trained, ragtag force fought the Chaos cultists to a stalemate for two and a half years, turning back every attack on the remaining loyalist hives with fury and faith in the Emperor. Despite this show of badassery, the Medusans knew they couldn't win outright, even when the Warp storm subsided and the Smurfs' 2nd Company showed up to help. This became doubly true when the Inquisition got wind of the whole thing, came to investigate, and decided it was time to headbang the Big Red Exterminatus Button. In an uncharacteristic burst of good sense and practicality, the Inquisitor on-scene was convinced to hold off for a week by the Mechanicus and Administratum, who wanted to save as many loyalist civilians as possible so that they could be put to work elsewhere. The Ultramarines and Medusa V soldiers held out for a week while the civilians were stuffed into cargo haulers and agri-ships and packed off to Medusa V, then withdrew and let the Inquisition burninate the planet with cyclonic torpedoes.
The gigantic influx of civilian refugees on Medusa V were housed in hastily constructed "refugee cities" while the Inquisition rooted out any remaining heretics and Medusa V's government tried to figure out what to do with them all. Ultimately, many of the new arrivals were put to work in the planet's mines and factories, and Medusa V's production rates spiked. Things seemed okay for a couple of centuries until 999.M41, when Van Grothe's Rapidity began to fluctuate and then expand at an unprecedented rate, destroying everything in its path. Mechanicus observers ran the calculations and came to an inescapable conclusion: Medusa V was doomed.
The Fall of Medusa V, AKA Galactic Battle Royale: The Bruiser on Medusa(er)[edit]
Almost as soon as the Mechanicus had reached this conclusion, all hell broke the fuck loose as everyone in the galaxy found a reason to show up at the party. The Tau rocked up and started trying to negotiate for the planet, as they wanted a base from which they could study the Warp. Descendants of the refugees from Medusa IV started rioting and ultimately revealed their allegiance to Chaos. Strange flares of energy were detected on Medusa VII and near one of the hives on Medusa V, and soon rumors were proliferating that said hive was under siege by mysterious metal xenos. An explorator fleet was attacked and all hands disappeared under mysterious circumstances, though signs indicated that it might have been the work of the Dark Eldar as they came to the planet for raiding and slaving. An Eldar strike force from Craftworld Alaitoc landed on the planet with the goal of closing its hidden Webway gates to keep Chaos from getting in and mucking the place up. An Ork WAAAGH! led by Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub showed up and started trashing the farming settlements on the northern side of the continent, scaring off the farmers and threatening the planet with starvation. The Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos popped in to warn that a splinter of Hive Fleet Kraken was on the way. Cato Sicarius and the Ultramarines' 2nd Company returned for Round Two, followed by detachments from dozens of Space Marine chapters, including the Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Fists, Howling Griffons, Black Templars, and Dark Angels. The Imperial sector command sent in an entire crusade force, led by Lord Marshal Graf Harazahn of the Vostroyan Firstborn. Ygethmor the Deceiver showed up with a gigantic warband of Chaos Space Marines from six of the nine Traitor Legions and renegade Astartes from the Maelstrom Warp Rift, aiming to make a sacrifice to the Chaos gods that would elevate him to daemonhood and allow him to claim Medusa as a Daemon World of his own.
Medusa V promptly turned into a colossal free-for-all, with the Imperial forces trying to hold off everyone else long enough to evacuate the still-loyal civilians while the other factions all pursued their own goals and beat the hell out of each other in the process. In the end, Medusa V was swallowed by the maw of the Rapidity, with everyone and everything still on its surface lost forever to the Warp. The Imperial forces could technically call it a victory, since they'd accomplished their goal despite heavy casualties. The Eldar also succeeded in closing the Webway gate and killing Ygethmor at the cost of their Autarch. Many of the Chaos Champions who'd come to the planet earned the favor of their patron gods and committed great butchery on the planet. Nazdreg and his Orks had a proppa' scrap and escaped the planet, but everyone else ended up various degrees of screwed: the Tyranids were thoroughly spanked due to being forced to adapt to every playable faction in the game at once, Ygethmor's followers were abandoned to die by the rest of the Chaos forces, the Tau concluded that the Warp was a dead end and pulled back to consolidate the Third Sphere Expansion, the Necron leader failed to contain the Warp storm and was punished by the Deceiver, and the Dark Eldar leader, who'd been trying to amass enough power to overthrow the big-dick player himself, found herself outwitted and nearly wiped out by Vect and his loyal troops.