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Nobledark Imperium Imperial Forces

2018-07-07T06:34:03Z

2601:602:9A01:56E0:9DFF:BA8B:71FC:7FE8: /* The Five Flagships */

'''This page is part of the Nobledark Imperium, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the [[Nobledark Imperium|Nobledark Imperium Introduction]] and [[Nobledark Imperium|Main Page]] for more information on the alternate universe'''

TO DO:
*Finish arguments over how the military is structured
== Imperial Guard ==

=== Standard Imperial Tactics ===

Standard Imperial infantry composition is to field a battalion of Imperial Guardsmen combined with a detachment of Eldar Guardians as auxiliaries. Unlike previous mixed-forces regiments throughout galactic history this arrangement tends to work rather well, because unlike these previous combined regiments both sides feel fairly safe that the other side isn't going to shoot them in the back. Both groups can and do fight on their own, but work spectacularly together. In theory, the regiment structure works by Imperial Guard forces taking the brunt of the enemy fire, and the Eldar acting as flankers. In practice, the more fragile, but heavier-hitting Eldar like this arrangement because it means they won't be the primary targets of enemy fire, whereas the Imperial Guard like this arrangement because even though they start out taking brunt of the blow, the Eldar auxiliaries will tear through enemy forces fast enough that they never become the targets of focus fire. As with everything in the Imperium, this varies from world to world. Specialist forces like Catachans, Kriegers, Harlequins, or Aspect Warriors function differently, and follow their own rules.

If there is any weakness to this arrangement, it's that Eldar and humans tend to only take orders from their respective species, which causes there to be two people in charge of a given regiment. If the two commanders can't come to an agreement, the army sputters, which can lead to one or the other going in alone.

After the Tau Empire was absorbed into the Imperium, Imperial commanders were eager to try to incorporate Tau Fire Warriors into this formation. The Imperium had seen how effective the Tau were at long-ranged combat, and saw great potential in their ability. In theory, the idea was to have a third group of Tau Fire Warriors providing long-range support fire from behind the Guardsman infantry, and if all worked as planned then half of the enemy army wouldn’t even be able to show up to the battle in the first place. However, in practice, this did not work for several reasons. First, the Tau were essentially a combined-arms force already (save for close combat), and didn’t appreciate being shoehorned into a long-range only role, even if they were talented at it. Secondly, much like Eldar and humans, Tau like to be commanded by Tau, so in an Eldar-Tau-human battalion you end up having three arguing commanders instead of just two. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Eldar and humans have worked together long enough to trust that one is not going to shoot the other in the back. This is not true of the Tau, especially given their attitude towards the Imperium for much of their history. When you factor in that in this arrangement the Tau are supposed to be in the back of the formation and thus in the perfect position to potentially shoot their allies in the back, the other soldiers start to get paranoid and morale drops. Eventually, it was decided to keep Tau divisions as their own separate forces, called in particularly for any enemy that has started to work out a viable counter, however soft, to the traditional Guardian+Guard one-two.

Eldar opinions on human weapons, like just about everything else in the Imperium, vary from Craftworld to Craftworld. Craftworlds like Alaitoc would sneer if offered human weapon as a sidearm, whereas Ulthwé Eldar would take two in addition to their own weapon and then ask if you have any more. Most Eldar see human weapons like modern soldiers do knives. Crude, simple, and inelegant compared to their primary weapon, but if you're stuck in the trenches in a do or die moment, it's better to have the other guy get shot than you. Therefore, Eldar that use human weapons use them as a sidearm or last resort weapon, if at all. It helps that many human-made weapons are based on STC designs and therefore easily replaceable and about as fragile as a brick (being designed for maximum durability), in contrast to the more delicate, precision-made (though still pretty tough) weapons of the Eldar. Therefore, an Eldar can be less careful with their sidearm and make sure their primary weapon is at maximum efficiency.

=== Imperial Infantry Command Structure ===

Due to the fact the Imperial Guard does not enforce specific organization for anything below battalion level, the vast different cultures and traditions that exist in the Imperium changes the size of the smaller units as they see fit. Terra did set minimum sizes on how large units must be before it could be recognized as said self-declared units by the wider Imperial Guard.

The lowest level of the Imperial Guard is the squad size. Guardsmen often operate in pairs for specialized tasks to keep confusion as low as possible between other in the same squad. The smallest recognized size for these squads is 10 soldiers per squad further broken into 5 pairs, although a command squad might only have 6 men. At least 4 squads form into a platoon with one of the squads being a command squad bringing the total amount of men in platoon to at least 36 Guardsmen. Examples like the Kriegers use 7 squads in a platoon bring their size to 76 Guardsmen.

Eldar squads attached to Guardsman platoons come in the smallest size of 5 Eldar per squad but their size can be bigger depending on their world of origin. Notably the Maiden world Eldar tends to be organized into larger sizes as they experience more attacks on their homes compared to the Craftworlds.

For the platoons to form into a company there must be at least 4 platoons with a company command squad, thus bringing the number to at least 150 men. The Cadian Shock Troops often deploy around 300 per company. The Kriegers use 10 platoons per company then adding the Company HQ with at least 1 Grenadier squad totaling in at least 704 Guardsmen, not counting transports which they are often deployed with.

The smallest size battalion uses at least 2 companies and battalion HQ before being deployed, bringing the numbers to 306 Guardsmen per battalion. The expected regiment holds at least 3 battalions and 1 support platoon which have 7 squads and 1 HQ totaling to 1.000 men. More often than not regiments like the Vostroyans use 3 infantry battalions and 2 standardized (organized not by 7 squad and HQ but like the infantry 3 squad with 1 HQ) support battalions coming up to 1.536 men. The Krieger regiments far pass these expectations by using 4 standardized support battalions and 6 infantry battalions jumping their numbers to 14.146 men including the regimental HQ.

The Corps used to garrison a world often use the smallest size with only 5 regiments totaling to at least 5.000 Guardsmen and these troops are used to raise PDF than to actually keep the peace. If there are still insurgents who disrupt the peace and not accept the Imperial Truth, these garrison corps can double or triple in regiments. This puts the tripled Corp to at least a small 15.000 to a gigantic 200.000 Guardsmen. The PDF used to aid the garrison Corp would be raised to around a low 400.000 and up to millions at a time like on hive worlds.

On the more peaceful systems the lax Guardsmen army deployed to ‘guard’ the place would only be using the tinniest size, thus only have 20.000 at any one time if a majority of it on reserve. At the more active systems the numbers would go up to around 40.000 to 60.000 troops in garrisoning systems not too far from a front. When the Imperial Guard does deploy an army to the frontline the commanders always request at least 100.000 for the more daring but normally uses 180.000 if they are luck.

- Additional info in thread XI, including number of troops in each Segmentum. Actual number of troops never agreed upon, left here as placeholder.

=== Forces of the Imperial Guard ===

==== Cadian Shock Troopers ====

[[File:Cadian.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Typical Cadian combat uniform.]]

Most “Cadian” Regiments are in fact not from Cadia or even have a drop of Cadian blood in them. “So why name them Cadian?” I hear you say. The Cadians were one of the few who proved themselves in the Great Crusade as the most versatile and adaptable troops the Imperial Army can deploy on most fronts. The organizational structure and equipment used by the Cadians were introduced to many different worlds as the original Cadian regiments toured the modern Imperium and beyond in the Crusade Era. The 200 year expansion period saw diverse traditions of regiments being used all over the galaxy as newly integrated worlds threw their armed forces to join the Imperial Army, and be sent to the far-flung reaches of the Imperium. The War of the Beast saw almost all Cadian regiments be recalled to the defense of Cadia or Terra if they were close enough. With the absence of many regiments from Ultima Segmentum and Segmentum Tempestus the worlds in these places were forced to raise totally new regiments from scratch for self-defense or as requisition to be deployed to the fronts.

Many of the Forge, Argi, and Feudal worlds used traditional local organization and equipment for planetary elite troops to form their own Guardsmen regiment at that time. Imperial, Hive and Fortress worlds on the other hand, saw the effectiveness in Cadian regiments as they fought against or with the Cadians during the Great Crusade. The industrial capability to manufacture standard Cadian equipment was already present on many Imperial worlds, but the Forge worlds refused to form Cadian regiments as these worlds dismiss the lack of artillery and armored vehicles and rather form the Skitarii armies. Argi and Feudal worlds lack the industry to produce and equip a Cadian regiment.

The adoption of Cadian regiments on so many different worlds shows the versatility and efficiency of the Cadian doctrine. After the War of the Beast, the original Cadian regiments would be sent to refortify the Cadian Gate. Many of the displaced Cadian civilian people would be reorganized to colonist groups leaving their homeworld. The same adaptable traditions carried over to colonize and frontier worlds when they raised their own Cadian regiments.

Cadian infantry regiments from Cadia are known as “Cadian Shock Troops” while off world or imitation regiments are known as “Cadian Foot Troops.” These Cadian Shock Troops would often have at least two detachments from other branches of the Imperial Guard, for example the 203rd Cadian Shock Troop has self-propelled heavy artillery and armored detachments. The Cadian Foot Troops often don’t follow this rule and only deploy with one detachment.

In a Cadian infantry regiment, a squad is made of 10 people that operate in 5 pairs. The Sergeant keeps up moral and plans out tactics with the Lieutenant who can operate as a vox-caster; they can also be equipped with melee weapons. The heavy weapon team is included to allow long range suppressive fire on the battlefield usually with a heavy stubber. The Medic works to keep the soldiers in fighting condition with the help of their underling that tags along into battles. The rest of the squad is made up of two pairs of weapon specialists normally being Lasgunners.

The Sargent is equipped with a chainsword and las-pistol for leading charges or CQC. Alternatively the Sargent can be armed like the Lieutenant who is given a las-carbine for self-defense. The heavy weapon team normally uses an offensive heavy stubber that fires 12.7mm rounds or a lighter defensive stubber firing 7.92 rounds. In the heavy weapons team the first member carries and fire the weapon while the other member feeds ammo, spots targets, guards the gunner, and act as a makeshift bipod. Both members are also equipped with a Lasgun and a las-pistol. The medic fights with a Lasgun and heals with the medikit which comes with medical drugs, chemicals, surgical tools, sedatives, injectors, bandages and a medical cogitator which can detect almost every known aliments. To help the Medic is the underling who carries extra supplies, guard the Medic, or help in surgery depending on the conditions. The weapon specialists mostly carry Lasguns although one or two of the four might have flamers instead. These specialists can really be armed with any weapon that can be held by two regular human arms, some can also serve the dual role of vox-caster as well. The specialist act as either a flanking force while the heavy weapon team suppressed the enemy or the center line that lay down fire.

==== Fenrisian Line Regiments ====

Seeing the effectiveness of Cadian troops after encountering them in battle during the Great Crusade, Fenris adopted the Cadian Doctrine and deployed Cadian Foot Troops to the front. Yet the War of the Beast changed the outlook of the Fenrisians on the Cadian Doctrine with the lack of mortal manpower when faced with the Ork threat. During the war, several Cadian Foot Troops were entirely wiped out within the first week. The Death world breed heroes for the Space Wolves, not infinite manpower for many Foot Troops. Fenrisians abandoned the Cadian Doctrine after the war and switched to the Fusilier Doctrine that the famous Mordian, Praetorian, and Scintillan use. Sacrificing quantity for quality, the Fenrisians can always request Space Wolves regiments to merge with a Line Regiment. The Flak Armor for the Fenrisian Line Guardsmen uses extra metal plates compared to Cadians. The infantry under the Fusilier Doctrine would stand shoulder to shoulder forming into lines facing the enemy before firing. The Fenrisian Line Regiments took this tactic and expand it with the introduction of self-propelled artillery to provide mobile defense and keep up with infantry on attacks. In these regiments the Fenrisians officers are encouraged to outgun the enemy via volley fire and if that fails just charge them. Fenrisian line infantry are better trained than Cadians in melee combat with some even wielding swords into charges.

Fenrisian Line Regiments often differ in tactics depending on whether they come from one of the Fenrisian colony worlds or Fenris itself. Old World Fenrisians are more wild and less coordinated in their approach, and typically operate in 5-10 man squads for the best kill-to-loss ratio. New World Fenrisians are more ordered and coordinated though they are still wilder than anyone outside your average Death Worlder. The two groups work best together, with New Worlder regiments holding the line and securing targets and Old Worlders scouting ahead and harrying supply lines.

==== Armageddon Outriders ====

[[File:Rock_rider.png|300px|thumb|left|Common 'uniform' of a biker scout for the Outriders.]]

Everybody knows the Steel Legion. Reflections of their world in microcosm. Steel and fire and ash; unstoppable waves of armor, Basilisk barrages like monsoon rains, choking clouds of lung-burning gas.

Less well-known is the fact that there are two parts to the Steel Legion. The first and largest are the heavy mechanized infantry they are famous for. The second is the Outriders.

The Outriders are all crazy. The infantry regiments of the Steel Legion recruit from inside the hives, the factory and forge workers, but the Outriders recruit from outside the hives, and there are only two ways to make a living out there.

The first is prospecting and wildcat mining. Delving deep into ancient and much-abused Ork-built structures with jury-rigged and second-hand equipment in search of veins of valuable materials. Everything from gold electrical circuits to adamantine armor plate. Most valuable of all is components of the old teleporter system. The Mechanicus has decided it wants planetary teleporters more than it hates Ork 'technology', and pays staggering sums for the smallest scraps. The description alone should tell you everything you need to know about how hard and dangerous the job is.

The second is Ork hunting. The Administratum and PDF will pay good thrones for Ork skulls. Two for a squig, five for a grot, and starting at forty for an Ork, more for larger or special types like Weirdboys and Brainboys. Reimbursement is included for promethium spent burning the bodies, and the PDF doesn't check too hard to make sure you're not claiming driving-around promethium as Ork-burning expense.

Outrider legend tells of Billy-Joe Hammerlord, who drove through an entire warband on his bike to take the head of the Warboss and earned enough to retire. The story grows every time in the retelling, so by now the old stories claim the warband stretched from one horizon to the other, the Warboss carved paths through the rubble for his army to march through just by dragging his axe along the ground behind him, and Billy-Joe earned enough to buy himself a fleet and became a Rogue Trader and went on adventures with Prince Yriel.

Officially, all the Orks on Armageddon are Feral. Most places, that means stone axes and weird squigs. But this is Armageddon. The world still remembers in her bones when she strode among the stars and slapped aside Battlefleet Solar like so many children's toys. A lot of the Orks are just waving around scrap-metal axes. Depending on what armories they've broken into, they might be tossing around vortex bombs.

The point is that Outriders are all crazy. In some ways they sort of resemble Orks themselves. They move around in a wide assortment of walkers, fat-tired buggies, and motorbikes, made of scrap metal and spare parts. Most of these vehicles started life in a Mechanicus factory but after generations of repairs and modifications nothing of the original vehicle is to be found. And most of them are that old- a good vehicle is a heirloom, passed down from father to son, each generation adding a bit more to it. They stick spikes on the vehicles and stick Ork skulls on the spikes, and judge each other by how skull-laden their bosspoles are. When an Ork warband and an Outrider clan are fighting it sometimes gets hard to tell which is which.

Outriders prefer las-weapons over slug, so there is that.

A common rite of passage among the Outriders is for the father to cripple an Ork with shots to its limbs, then for son finish it off with a knife. This marks the transition from childhood into adolescence. True manhood is often not considered to begin until the son repeats the ritual, as the father. It is important not just to kill Orks, but to ensure that Ork-killing will continue into the far future.

The point is that Outriders are all crazy, but they are Ork-killing crazy so they make excellent candidates for the Imperial Guard. Sometimes entire clans get recruited into their own regiments. Sometimes restless young men come in on their own to the recruiting office and get incorporated into the regular Steel Legions as scouts and cavalry. Most of the time they insist on bringing their own vehicles and most of the time the Munitorum lets them. It just insists that they repair their vehicles with standard issue parts. Since most of the time their vehicles are kitbashes of Sentinels and Chimeras this is usually not hard.

For all their skill and lunatic courage the Outriders are not famous, for the good and simple reason that there simply aren't as many of them as the normal Steel Legions. Armageddon outside the hive walls does not support high population densities. They just fade into the background as 'specialized auxiliaries' of the Steel Legion. But those who have met them have given rise to a proverb- “Armageddon has many faces, and all of them are lethal."

==== Elysian Drop Troopers ====

Elysium does, in fact, produce forces for the Guard beyond its famous Drop Regiments. There are Elysian tank regiments, Elysian artillery regiments, Elysian footslogger regiments. They are all, universally, nursing a mild grudge against the universe in general and the Drop Regiments in particular for the way everyone is continually surprised by their existence. "I thought Elysium did, you know, drop troops." "FUCK YOU."

But nobody cares about them. [muffled FUCK YOU in the distance] Let's talk about the Drop Regiments.

The Elysian Drop Regiments are somewhat unique in the Imperial Guard for being descended from a naval boarding force. Elysium was and is a major trade hub in a sector unfortunately plagued with human pirates, Ork Freebootas, and a superfluity of places for them to hide. As a result, Elysium committed much of its PDF force to anti-piracy operations, stationing regiments on board merchant vessels and escort ships for boarding and counter-boarding operations.

However, no war can be won with defense alone, and the Elysian PDF regiments assigned to anti-pirate duty began experimenting with methods of striking at the pirates in their lairs. Thus, the modern Drop Regiments began to take shape. The first attempts were amateurish and improvised, in some cases using civilian shuttles and Void Maneuvering Packs instead of proper assault ships and grav-chutes. Still, a couple of victories proved the concept worthy of further development, and Elysian high command invested in additional training and equipment.

The first battles of the Drop Regiments were void-borne affairs, fought in microgravity in and around hidden asteroid bases. As more and more pirate bases were expunged, however, they were forced to track down their opponents in ever more diverse locales, from fairly conventional planets to burning Mercurial environments to floating gas-giant bases. But, in the end, it was mostly done. The pirates would never be fully expunged from the sector- fucking Orks- but it was safer than it had ever been before. Trade was flourishing, new worlds were being colonized, and the Elysian PDF found itself somewhat underemployed. So, when the next Founding came around, the course of action was obvious.

The modern Elysian Drop Regiments distinguish themselves from the usual run of air cavalry in three ways.

First, they continue to train for operation in a very wide variety of environments. Zero-g and vacuum, high gravity, extreme temperatures, toxic atmospheres, they have the tools and training to operate in them all. Most drop regiments only train to operate within the usual 'human-habitable' range of environments, giving the Elysians a distinct niche and edge.

Second, they have very good relations with the Imperial Navy due to their past as, essentially, naval armsmen hunting pirates. Thus, they have an easier time securing air and orbital support, and have the doctrine and training to make the maximum use of it. They are comfortable with inter-service cooperation in a way few regiments are. This includes good relationships with the Void Wolves, with joint training exercises being commonplace.

Third, general superiority of training and equipment. The Drop Regiments have become a point of planetary pride, and as a prosperous trading hub Elysium can afford to ensure they are equipped and trained to the highest standards. And with far more volunteers than they can accept, the training academies can accept only the best recruits.

Combined, this results in the Drop Regiments being frequently deployed to the stranger battlefields of the Imperium, executing their distinctive lightning strikes in environments an unprepared human could not even hope to survive in, much less fight in.

==== Lucifer Blacks ====

Humans in general have a tendency to survive in places where they aren’t intended to go. Such is the case of the Lucifer Blacks, one of the original regiments of the Old Hundred, the original one hundred regiments that were not disbanded at the end of the Unification Wars and would serve as the basis for the Imperial Army. The Lucifer Blacks were one of the last people on Old Earth to be discovered by the outside world, living deep underwater in pre-Strife underwater habitats at the bottom of Old Earth’s Great Ocean (also known as the Pacific) in a region controlled by the Pan-Pacific Empire. It is thought that these habitats were originally meant as simple habitats or research stations during the Dark Age of Technology. However, by the time of the Age of Strife the Lucifer Blacks were cut off from the rest of the world until their rediscovery by the horrendous contraptions of the Pan-Pacific Empire. This lifestyle in the inky darkness, surviving off of mesopelagic fish and geothermal power from hydrothermal vents, is what gave the regiment their name.

Living underwater in an environment where literally one wrong seal could mean the difference between life and death tended to foster an extremely calm and measured attitude in people. To the Lucifer Blacks, a crisis was the absolute worst time to panic, panic is what led to rash decisions and rash decisions are what got you killed. This led the regiment to be infamously known for their ability to be calm and think clearly under fire, as well as a very dark and (ironically) dry sense of humor. Additionally, living nearly 4000 meters below sea level in conditions where most light was artificial tended to make one very good at fighting in the dark. The Lucifer Blacks often used this to their advantage in battle, using smoke grenades and other implements to approximate the low-light conditions in which they had the advantage over their foes.

However, at the same time the Lucifer Blacks were not the most numerous people. When one lives in such a hostile, enclosed environment, the primary constraint on population size was not food or materials, but simply living space due to the number of habs present. When the Lucifer Blacks were first discovered and subjugated by Narthan Dume, Dume decided that one of the best ways to use the highly disciplined, but not very numerous Lucifer Blacks were as elite shock troops. The calm, detached nature of the Lucifer Blacks in high-stress combat situations made them especially hard to break. The fact that the Lucifer Blacks preferred to fight in the hermetically sealed all-black bodysuits they typically wore for extra-habitat activities only added to their intimidation factor.

When the Pan-Pacific Empire fell and the tyranny of Narthan Dume finally toppled, the Lucifer Blacks were one of the first regiments of the Pan-Pacific Empire to pledge their loyalty to the Warlord. The Warlord was somewhat suspicious of the Lucifer Blacks at first, but as with the Assassins of the Salt Wastes he wasn’t fool enough to deny himself potentially useful resources. And the Lucifer Blacks more than delivered on their promises of loyalty, even serving in a secondary role alongside the Night Lords during the Vhnori Resurgence as the two fought against the attempted resurgence of the Pan-Pacific Empire.

Eventually, in return for their exemplary service, the Warlord, now the Steward, granted the Lucifer Blacks settlement rights on extrasolar worlds. The Lucifer Blacks mostly chose to settle on Ocean Worlds that approximated their old home. Even today many people on Ocean Worlds have distant Lucifer Black Ancestry. As part of the Old Hundred, the Lucifer Blacks also still exist on Earth, living in the same oceanic trenches as their forefathers, though ten thousand years of gentrification and integration into Old Earth’s infrastructure mean that the modern Lucifer Blacks have lost a lot of their original culture and aren’t as incredibly stoic and tough-as-nails as their forefathers. Imperial nobles often like to have Lucifer Black bodyguards when they can’t get someone like a member of Terra’s Children, though in reality having a Lucifer Black bodyguard usually amounts to little more than a display of prestige.

===Doctrines of the Imperial Guard===
In addition to the famed Cadian Doctrine, many regiments have also developed their own unique methods of fighting which have then spread throughout the Imperium. While this is hardly an exhaustive list, it provides a decent look into the sheer diversity of the Guard.

====Infiltration Doctrine====

Infiltration doctrine is a light infantry doctrine focused on stealth and mobility. It omits vehicles and heavy artillery from the TO&E almost entirely, relying on crew-served weapons that can be dismantled and carried by an infantry squad for heavy firepower. On the offence, infiltration regiments use their stealth and lightweight equipment to close with enemy formations undetected and from unexpected directions; once all elements are in position, they launch an overwhelming surprise attack from close range, using their crew-served weapons and snipers to suppress the enemy and ensure they cannot mount an organized defence. On the defense, they use the same qualities for hit-and-run raids, whittling down the enemy and melting away into the night when the enemy tries to bring their firepower to bear.

Infiltration regiments are usually equipped with specialized equipment such as camo-cloaks and night-vision goggles, but these are less important than how the regiment is trained. The nature of their operation requires that officers and NCOs be trained to a higher standard of independence than normal, as units as small as squads will often be trusted to maneuver individually in support of the overall objective. This usually cultivates a sense of being elite; combined with the looser chains of command infiltration regiments usually operate with, other regiments usually consider them insubordinate and undisciplined.

In combat, infiltration regiments are used to secure and move through terrain that mechanized regiments cannot. They are also used in combined-arms strategies to scout out enemy positions, assassinate officers, and destroy enemy strongpoints in advance of the main armored thrust. Infiltration regiments also maintain their effectiveness easier in the face of enemy air and orbital superiority thanks to their ability to fight while remaining hidden and dispersed. Finally, infiltration doctrines are popular among PDF forces incapable of maintaining large mechanized armies.
However, as powerful as they are within their specialty, their lack of vehicles and artillery makes them perform poorly outside of it.

====Armageddon Doctrine====

Armageddon doctrine is a maneuver- and terrain-focused mechanized infantry doctrine. Developed by the Steel Legion in their endless battles against the Orks, Armageddon doctrine TO&E is extremely vehicle-heavy, with sufficient Chimeras to carry the entire regiment, strong organic artillery support, and at least a modest tank detachment. Mechanized scout detachments- Salamanders, Sentinels, and bikes (preferably jet-) are common, but can also be delegated to other specialized regiments. (The Steel Legion itself uses the Outriders for this purpose, but other regiments have other solutions.) Likewise, organic combat engineering support is common, as are air defense vehicles; Hydras in particular are valued for their ability to sweep aside Ork hordes in addition to aircraft. Soldiers are heavily armored in carapace.

In combat, Armageddon doctrine is often described as 'operationally offensive, tactically defensive'. Using the scout detachment to scout out the terrain and enemy dispositions, the regiment seeks to seize vital terrain features before the enemy and fortify it, forcing the enemy to assault a fortified position on terrain of the Imperium's choosing. To this end, Amageddon-style regiments usually carry copious amounts of barbed wire, mines, and other defensive implements; vehicles are equipped with dozer blades to dig out entrenchments. This is where the engineering detachment comes in. The scout detachment, if present, harasses the enemy on its approach, although this is not a vital component of the doctrine.

At the level of individual squads, Armageddon doctrine emphasizes close cooperation between infantry and armor; full mechanization means each squad has a Chimera, which they are responsible for defending from threats and vice versa.

Few worlds adopt the Armageddon doctrine in full. Although many other mechanized infantry forces adopt its emphasis on mobility, terrain, and forcing the enemy to attack fortified positions, few worlds can afford to equip their regiments with the same weight of metal as Armageddon, and thus do not adopt the full TO&E. In addition, the emergence of the Brain Boy caste has thrown the doctrine into flux; with the Orks no longer throwing themselves as eagerly into near-suicidal charges, the strategy has lost some of its effectiveness. Although the core of the strategy remains sound, the arguments at Steel Legion HQ about how to adapt to a changing galaxy continue long into the night.

====Fast Attack Doctrine====

A light-armor and occasionally bio-cavalry doctrine focusing on the use of speed and maneuverability as weapons.

There is no standard TO&E for Fast Attack regiments, due to the wide variance in equipment used. Salamander scout tanks, Sentinels, motor- and jet-bikes, a thousand varieties of armored car and riding beasts. A very few forge-worlds even have super-heavy fast-attack companies, equipping tanks as heavy as Baneblades with antigrav units to allow them to keep up with lighter forces.

Whatever the equipment, all Fast Attack units operate similarly, using overwhelming speed to strike at an enemy's weak points before an effective response can be mustered. The 'classic' pattern of attack is to punch straight through the enemy line and rampage through the rear areas, but that is hardly the only tactical possibility. Outflanking maneuvers, hit-and-run raids- speed opens many possibilities.

Fast Attack regiments are usually deployed as part of combined arms strategies, scouting for slower units or exploiting breakthroughs created by heavier ones. On their own, while fast and generally well-armed, they are also more fragile than a true tank unit and lack staying power. This varies, of course; the dynamics of a horse cavalry unit differ from Sentinels and Salamanders which differ from jetbikes. But the general principle holds; as with so many other things in the Imperium, there is strength in diversity.

Fast Attack units, like Infiltration units, are often popular among PDF forces which cannot sustain heavy tank formations but can build light tanks and armored cars or breed horses, which contributes to the wide variance of regiments following the doctrine.

=== Weapons of the Imperial Guard ===

==== Lasguns ====

The first instances of las-weapon technology came from Terra itself. It is thought to be a recreational weapon used in mock battles during the Dark Age of Technology. At that time these las-weapons beams had the power of 4mm stubber pellets where even thick cloth was effective armor against it. These relics were present on Terra and other worlds during the Warlord Era but it was the Emperor who reshaped it to become a lethal weapon. The Emperor’s scouts had presented him with some prototype weapons when preparing for the unification with Mars. One such weapon was the proto-Lascarbine that was superior to stubber carbines in all but firepower. The Las beams still had the power of a 4mm stubber pallet thus the Emperor in his intelligence recrafted the weapon so that it fired with the power of an 8mm stubber round. The Lascarbine first saw service as the replacement for the Autorifles which was the standard weapon for the Imperial Army in the unification of the Sol system. Next was the Laspistols which were design to replace the stubber pistols. The mass use of Las-weapons saw that the Lascarbine barrels started to warp after 5.000 shots and the Laspistol barrels warped after 2.000 shots. When these barrels warped, what would have been unmodified hitscan fire devolved to lose of accuracy where Guardsmen had to fire two or more times in the same place to get a hit. Even worst, when the Laspistol barrels warped soldiers had to fire at point-blank range to get hits.

The Imperial Army Handheld Weapons Development Bureau would develop the Lasgun which had a longer barrel and limited the power to 7.9mm stubber round strength. Then changed the iron sights of the weapon to allow attachable optics and added a stock for increase accuracy. The first Lasguns were deployed to the front during the Hunting Era where it was noted that these weapons had effectively the firepower as the Lascarbines but the barrels didn’t warp until after 10.000 shots. When the Apostasy Era started Guardsmen on both sides reported the Lascarbines and Lasguns in night-time fighting left noticeable muzzle flashes thus making the shooter an easy target. The Weapons Development Bureau would again work on the Lasgun and Lascarbine just after the Apostasy Era, to create the attachable flash suppressor for better night-time combat. Then they also created the light attachable stock for the Lascarbine.

==== Flak Armor ====

There was no such thing as a standardized armor used by the Imperial Army during the Great Crusade. The closes thing to such a concept came in the form of the Solar Pattern Void Armor used widely by the Solar Auxilia but that was a carapace-reinforced void suite rather than Flak Armor as we know it today. The first documented instances of what could be considered Flak Armor was when Cadian Shock Troops started equipping troopers en masse with light anti-shrapnel armor near the end of the Great Crusade. Cadian officers found out on the battlefield when Cadian Guardsmen attacked entrenched positions most of their losses sustained were from artillery or random bits of debris thrown into the air by artillery. The different regiments from Cadia phased out the traditional metal plate armor for Flak Armor, all future campaigns used Flak Armor once manufactorums switched production lines right before the War of the Beast.

The breastplate, shoulder pauldrons, knee plates, and greaves all used the same material and layering as each other. The helmet has considerable more armor and the fabric connecting the armor is much weaker or lacks any sort of plating. Most of the actual armor in Flak Armor uses an inner layer of shock absorbent gel with metal plating between the gal and outer ceramic layer. All three of these layers are connected and interwoven with carbon-fiber, metal-fabric, and nylon strings forcing the layers to stay together under most conditions. The ceramic plate was designed to deflect shrapnel or at least cause it to be stuck in the plate. The metal layer was placed to stop lasbolts or stubber rounds from fully penetrating through the armor in case if the shot passed the ceramic plate. The gal is there as either the last ditch effort to stop shrapnel from fully penetrating the armor or prevent internal bleeding from receiving a direct hit. Flak Armor fabric is made from different carbon-fiber, metal fabrics, and thick cloths to prevent shrapnel from cutting through or a blade from ripping it. Flak Armor helmet tend to have extra metal plating to ensure that not all shots to the head are fatal or random falling debris didn’t kill the Guardsman.

The first major combat test of Flak Armor was seen in the War of the Beast. On the frontlines Flak Armor proved to be basically ineffective in protecting against Ork weaponry. The Orks had used unusually large stubber rounds up to but not limited to 10 or 12mm that would slice right through Flak plating. What would be considered dangerous Ork rockets would often miss even with flam ammo, Flak armor was more than enough protection against most Ork rocketry short of city block leveling size. Crone Eldar and Dark Eldar weapons of both Saw and Splinter ammo had difficult times penetrating Flak plating unless there was concentrated fire where even the Flak plating can only protect against so much. When the Fallen first turned on Imperial Army elements, blosters were used for the first time against Flak Armor. The bolter rounds would often penetrate Flak plating to only cleanly exit out on the other side then explode, if the Guardsman was lucky they would still be alive. When a Guardsman was even luckier the bolter shell would be deflected off of Flak plating and explodes prematurely in mid-air, unless the explosion was in their face the shrapnel would be mostly harmless. The flexibility, simplicity, and cheapness to produce Flak Armor instead of Void suits led to many Imperial worlds adopting the Flak Armor, quotas and resources were limited in the total economic mobilization that happened in the War of the Beast made Flak Armor even more popular.

During the Apostasy, Imperial Guard regiments openly fought against one another and this saw the first use of Flak Armor against massed artillery. Regiments would launch massive formations to charge at entrenched Guardsmen who were well prepared for such an attack. The defenders would fire blinding volleys of artillery shells to delay the charge. Flak Armor proved a Guardsman could survive an artillery barrage short of a direct hit right next to their feet they would be fine, if the shockwave from the explosion didn’t destroy the body’s organs that is. Artillery barrages could now only slow down attacks from Guardsmen thanks to Flak Armor. Field modifications noted to be used by regiments during the Apostasy was extra cloth being to prevent shrapnel from easily slicing the joints. Thicker ceramic plates are used by veteran Guardsmen against Orks to at least survive glancing shots from Ork stubbers. Regiments constantly facing Crone or Dark Eldar is deployed with extra metal layered Flak Armor to prevent enemy fire from penetrating Flak plating.

==== Leman Russ Tank ====

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''“We should've waited for the Fenrisian ale before rushing here just to find half a tractor. At least we'd've something that would lift the mens' spirits after such a disappointment.”''<br>
- Primarch Leman Russ, post-Imperial Compliance of Nova Borilia.

THE REGIMENTAL STANDARD: A HISTORY OF THE LEMAN RUSS TANK

In today's battlefield, almost all of the armed forces flying Imperial banners have either used or fought alongside the Leman Russ Battle Tank. Many view it with great relief, no longer having to be at the forefront of an advance on fortified positions, others call it their “ride,” and some view the Leman Russ as an inelegant and ugly hunk of metal that conceals brutal effectiveness and resilience worthy of the name. Its treads have rolled over thousands of battlegrounds, and its guns have shot down many foes... yet one wonders where the seeds for this venerable war machine were sown. If you have had the same question that we at the Regimental Standard did, read on to find out.

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The Leman Russ Battle Tank and its numerous variants has its origins early in the Great Crusades, and is not to be confused with Primarch Leman, who discovered it on Nova Borilia. Rumors of an STC for a tank dating from the Dark Age of Technology drew his attention to the campaign against the Noman xenos' planetary empire, already marked for destruction as Xenos Horrificus due to its brutal enslavement of the local human population and violent refusal of all diplomacy attempts. Fortunately, resistance was broken after a series of engagements that saw the Nomans and a disobedient slave army reeling from the hard hitting tactics of the Space Wolves and Solar Auxilia attachments. For the expeditionaries, what they salvaged from the last Noman stronghold was an immense let down.

The STC was, in fact, the fragments of a blueprint for an all-terrain tractor that started production sometime before the Age Of Strife, not the weapon the intel had suggested. Presumably it had been mistaken for a valuable human relic, and so it was situated in the most secure collection in the Noman fortress.

But the Imperial Army would not be denied their tank, and in the span of a decade several components of the discovery were incorporated into a new design, christened the Leman Russ Battle Tank, Mark I. It set a gyrostabilized Battle Cannon turret on top of a ceramite and plasteel hull with a steel-sprung suspension, while a complex transmission mated to an enormous twin-turbocharged V12 multi-fuel HL230 engine gave it a top speed of 80 km/h and 40 km/h offroad (widely considered ludicrous for a tracked vehicle twice as tall as a Space Marine). This ability was used to great effect, as commanders swung behind enemy positions and unloaded rounds into petty tyrants and slavers.

However, as the Imperium expanded further and encountered tougher opposition, the Leman Russ proved inadequate. Its main gun struggled to defeat more heavily-armored horrors and what was left often outmaneuvered the Leman Russ, and breakdowns ranging from burnt out turbocharger components to transmission failures intensified a growing logistics headache. This led to the replacement of the Mk. I with the Mk. II-V, similar variants that traded mobility for protection and ease of maintenance by bolting on armor, dropping the forced-induction chargers, and in the case of the Mk. IV and V, switching to a simpler transmission. This was deemed acceptable, as the Imperium couldn't afford the best equipment possible for all its soldiers in the immediate aftermath of the War of the Beast.

That is not to say desperation did not proliferate the loaded idea of 'innovation.' During and after the War of the Beast, new variants were hurriedly fitted with crew-operated sponsons to add anti-infantry firepower, and while still inferior to the Land Raider-killing Vanquisher Cannon, a long-barreled Battle Cannon increased muzzle velocity and was easier to mass-produce. Later, more improvements filtered through, like a hydropneumatic suspension and lifted armor skirts that allowed the road wheels freedom of movement and together provided better acceleration and a more stable firing platform. Other changes included light, replaceable composite rectangles attached to the sides (sanctioned for Chimera variants and Salamanders after APC crew entrepreneurs decided they too wanted more armor) and a set of wide-angle optics that replaced the glass visor slit in the driver's hatch and made it possible to drive the tank and fire the hull weapon without switching seats or controls.

The Mk. XVII, created in the late 36th millennium, was supposed to use a scaled-down version of the Malcador Heavy Tank's electric drive system. You will never see this outside the Mechanicus' basements.

[[File:NobledarkLemanRussMarkXXIV.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Mk. XXIV Leman Russ with Imperial Guardsman and eldar Guardian for scale]]

The Mk. XXIV Leman Russ Battle Tank is the most recent variant (see Remembrancer's sketch at left), created in response to reports of a spike in Leman Russ losses due to an increased prevalence of Crone Eldar and Necron tank analogues. The Imperial Couple had put pressure on Mars and the Fabricator-General to either keep the venerable tank a viable part of the Imperial Guard armory, or risk losing further contracts to Forge Worlds unaligned with Mars' branch of the Adeptus Mechanicus, many of whom were experimenting with unsanctioned tank designs. This was enough incentive to finally push the program into its final field tests and evaluation stage.

It carries over the extremely sloped frontal turret and glacis present since the Mk. XX, but replaces the original hull weapon's swivel mount with a ball mount in a smaller housing. To address the vulnerability of the Leman Russ to being flanked, particularly in urban warfare, the tank hull went from being 4.42 meters tall to a flatter profile 3.3 meters high. The front-facing plates of the widened and extended turret are angled to better resist side shots, and the Battle Cannon magazines were relocated to the back of the turret, so an ammo cook-off wouldn't be surrounded by critical systems and the crew. Blow-off vents further increase the chances a disabled Mk. XXIV can escape without Atlas recovery vehicles being put at risk, and two sponsons utilizing cogitators based off the Predator's and Tarantula Sentry Turret's are managed by a remote gunner seated by the driver. Lastly, a refined version of the Great Crusade's forced-induction setup and a weight reduction of 5 tons have allowed the Leman Russ to regain the nimbleness of the Mk. I, without the original's notorious mechanical problems.

While the newest Leman Russ might still be recognizable to an Imperial officer of the 30th millennium, it is not the same war machine your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents used. Keep an eye out for those shiny new Mk. XXIVs, and remember to report any issues to your commanding officer or a Commissar!
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=== Beastmen and Ogryn ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''The Ogryn Project:'''''

As the Imperium spread its borders past the boundaries of Sol, it rapidly began to encounter new strains of abhumans. Some of these strains were familiar, including Navigators and additional tribes of Void Born. Others such as the Ratlings, Felinids, and Nightsiders were novel, but genetically stable, having evolved through Dark Age of Technology genetic engineering and natural evolution, a testament to humanity's hardiness and ability to survive on almost any world.

For the most part, the Steward was unconcerned with admitting these abhuman variants into the Imperium. He already had one abhuman primarch, another nearly so, and he himself was only human in the loosest sense of the word. To him the abhumans were just one more drop of variation in the great sea of humanity.

However, then the Imperium discovered the Ogryn. And the Beastmen.

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Each race presented its own problems for the Imperium. The previous abhuman species were all genetically stable and essentially comparable to baseline humans in intelligence. The Ogryn were clearly of subhuman intelligence, being comparable to a mentally handicapped human at best, and behaved and looked like shaved apes more than people, fighting each other with their enlarged canine tusks.

The Beastmen were slightly more intelligent, but more in the manner of an extremely cunning predator than a civilized being, completely ruled by their instincts, and prone to additional mutations. When the Beastmen were discovered by the Imperium, their lives were brutish, nasty, and short.

Such was the Steward’s concern that he brought in his highest ranked geneticists and gene-wrights to consult on this matter. At this point in time the Steward’s various groups of genetic engineers had been merged into Adeptus Biologis, but had not yet adopted the trappings of the Mechanicum of Mars. The nominal head of the Biologis, a former genesmith, suggested the Ogryn and Beastmen were so unsalvageable that the Steward’s best options were either to wipe them out immediately and resettle the planet with humans of other stock or to sterilize them and then resettle the planets in 60 years or so after they had all died out, something that caused considerable consternation among other schools of thought in the Biologis.

The Steward made it abundantly clear that the suggestion of summary genocide on a world under the Imperium’s protection would not be tolerated and anyone found doing so without the Steward’s knowledge is grounds for immediate execution without appeal. The Steward argued the Ogryn and Beastmen were humans. Afflicted humans, but humans all the same. Their ancestors were no different than any other group that Earth but were merely dealt a bad hand by the universe through no fault of their own. Eventually, the Steward and the various factions of the Adeptus Biologis released an agreement. The Biologis would release carefully tailored mutations into the genepools of the Ogryn and Beastmen over thousands of years until the devolution in intelligence and sanity caused by the Age of Strife could be undone.

As of M41 Ogryn and Beastmen can be split into two broad categories: Primeval and Nova. Primeval Ogryn and Beastmen are rare, existing only on planets that have been just recently rediscovered by the Imperium. They are little different from the Ogryn and Beastmen first encountered by the Imperium in M30. Nova Ogryn and Beastmen vary in intelligence from little better than their Primeval ancestors to levels deemed acceptable to the Imperium (generally human intelligence or close to it).

Nova Ogryn have lost some of the strength and durability of their ancestors, but in general are much more intelligent (though less so than human on average). Combined with external artificial augmentations such as Biochemical Ogryn Neural Enhancement or “Bonehead Procedure”, some Ogryn officers are actually comparable to humans in intelligence.

Nova Beastmen are one of the greatest success stories of the Biologis, along with the Astartes and Necromundan eco-engineering. Out of all the strains of abhuman, the Beastmen benefited the most from genetic engineering, mostly because of how bad they had it to begin with. Some have theorized that the Beastmen were created via crude methods of genetic engineering by splicing in large amounts of non-human DNA (even moreso than other abhumans) during the Dark Age of Technology. When society collapsed during the Age of Strife, there was no way to correct the myriad mutations and glitches that cropped up over the following 10,000 years. Indeed, when the Beastmen were first discovered by the Imperium they were not even recognized as human-descended at first.

Although the Beastmen started off much worse than the Ogryn, their uplifting progressed much faster. The same shoddy genetic engineering that made the Beastmen prone to mutation in the first place meant that the new, stabler genes introduced by the Adeptus Biologis became established across the population very quickly. All Nova Beastmen as of M41 are essentially if human intelligence. Any Primeval Beastmen in M41 are all from very recently discovered worlds. Nevertheless, despite their dramatically more stable genome, Beastmen still suffer a slightly higher rate of mutation than the rest of the Imperium. No one is sure if the tendency towards mutations is due to the Biologis trying a little too hard to correct the flaws in the Beastmen genome or the Ruinous Powers trying to taint any long-term victory on the part of the Imperium.

The Adeptus Biologicus might have gone a little overboard in trying to keep the instincts of the Beastmen in check. As opposed to their Primeval brethren, Nova Beastmen tend to be rather solemn and dour, though this may be because they know how far they have climbed and how deep the pit they were lifted out of was. Their sense of duty and debt is second only to that of Krieg, but thankfully for the Imperium’s sake the Beastmen are much less suicidal. Promethean beliefs tend to be widespread among the Beastmen. However, the Nova Beastmen have not lost all of the bestial instincts of their kin. Beastmen often speak of a “Weakness of the Beast” to refer to any behavior that seems to be driven by instinct or base desire, one of the few societal ideas they may have picked up from the Adeptus Biologicus. Nova Beastmen in general also tend to have much sharper senses than baseline humans, and are valued even in otherwise all-baseline regiments as scouts and trackers.

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==== Beastmen and Ogryn Society ====

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Nova Ogryn tend to live under a tribal or clannish structure of government. There are perhaps dozens of worlds whose inhabitants come under the broad category of Ogryn and each world can have a thousand different tribal groups with their own set of traditions. However, most common are a leading Patriarch, some paternal ancestor of a large proportion of the tribe. Usually then there is the Wise Woman. Sometimes it's the chief’s mother, sometimes his wife, sometimes it's not a woman but just someone with good judgement. A priest/shaman for matters of spiritual significance and dealing with supernatural phenomena (which usually boils down to “leave it alone and tell the nearest adept”). Sometimes the tribe might be blessed/cursed with a Witch/Warlock who has psychic powers. Psychic Ogryn exist. They used to be rarer than in the baseline gene pool but now exist in the same proportion as baseline humanity. This may be a side effect of the increase in power or by using baseline human genes to uplift the Ogryn.

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Although Ogryns are not as smart as baseline humans, they are generally smarter than people expect. The officers with BONE implants can fluently converse in High Gothic about all manner of matters both practical and philosophical and are invariably literate. But that's because they were already the brightest of the bright even before the biocrystalline Cortex Technology was inserted into their brain. The average Ogyrn can learn to maintain an extra-large laser rifle by route, can understand contractual obligations (although they will sign said contract with an X) and has enough brains to follow orders and even understand quite complex strategy provided it's explained slowly with small words and you get them to repeat it back to you just to make sure. Ogryn are also known to be fiercely loyal and honorable. It's a bloody strange day when an Ogryn breaks their word.

Nova Beastmen, on the other hand, tend to form rigid military hierarchies when left to form their own societies. This is not due to any intrinsic inclination to do so as opposed to baseline humanity, but more because any governmental structure that doesn’t encourage iron-hard discipline tends to implode within a few years. Their inner animal is still very close to the surface, and their increased cognitive faculties haven’t tamed it in the slightest. Beastmen societies are ruled by philosopher-kings called Brahmins, who tend to exemplify everything that the Beast is not. More of a high judge than a war chief, seemingly at odds with the otherwise militarized nature of Beastmen society, but a wise and solemn individual that will not give in to base desires and passions.

Another notable feature of Beastman society are Aurochs, the warrior-champions of Beastman society. These huge warriors are about the size and strength of Astartes, but overall tend to be much less effective for several reasons. First, Aurochs make up a vanishingly small proportion of the Beastmen population and cannot reliably be mass produced. Secondly, Aurochs lack all of the advantages beyond sheer strength that make Space Marines so lethal. Finally, Aurochs cannot use standardized equipment. Because of their rarity, armor and weaponry often have to be individually crafted, most Imperial helmets being unable to fit over their horns and even normal Beastmen helmets being too small for them.

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=== Scion Tempestus ===

==== Difference between Stormtroopers and Scions ====

The Tempestus Scion or also known as Stormtroopers are the specialized heavy infantry regiments that are always broken down into smaller units. Once divided into battalions or companies they are attached to other units within the Imperial Army but can also serve under the Inquisition or Sororitas. The Scions are known for their high dropout rates in the intense training but prove in combat at being the best CQC non-melee soldiers in the Imperial Army. Scions and Stormtroopers differ in their training and equipment as they are given different tasks. Veteran Guardsmen or raw volunteers are first trained then deployed as Stormtroopers in the Imperial Guard. The Stormtroopers are only trained to fight in ground wars and are equipped as such. Stormtroopers are often given the task of assaulting fortifications and clearing buildings. Scions are volunteer veteran Stormtroopers who are retrained to fight inside void ships and infiltrate behind enemy lines. Their weapons are unchanged for the most part but the armor is a lighter version that can withstand the vacuum of the void.

==== Equipment ====

The Stormtroopers are sent to the frontlines as the first ones to clear out bunkers, trenches, and building. Missions of that nature mean the Stormtroopers are given the deadly ‘Hellgun’ Lasgun to one-shot enemies at point blank range. The Carapace Armor worn by Stormtroopers is the innermost armor worn by Diffusion squads, thus can prevent shrapnel or shots from less than 50m from disabling the Stormtrooper. The Stormtrooper armor allows them to clear tight places with relative safety from explosives and suppressive fire. Other than that they hold the same basic kit as a Guardsman but with more explosives. The Scions when first founded noted that the Carapace Armor accelerated exhaustion while hindering movement for the user. These two factors played an important role in crippling operators on independent infiltration missions. The Tempestus Scion developed the ‘Cephalon Armor’ which was a lighter version of Carapace Armor but still covering the same body parts while being stronger than Flak Armor. Cephalon Armor also comes along with a built-in antenna and shoulder mounted pic recorder that a commanding officer can use. The Scion’s basic kits are almost the same as the Stormtrooper’s but have an additional void survival kit.

==== Standardization ====

In terms of equipment, the Scions would all carry the same Scion basic kit and standard CQC weapons but they can always have extra things with them or swap out weapons because their armor is lighter. It keeps all Scion companies mostly the same while having enough changes to complete very specific missions. All Scion squads are at least expected to take on CQC & infiltration missions. The Stormtroopers on the other hand, just like their Guardsmen regiments, vary greatly from the world to world. All Stormtroopers are expected to be assigned the task of clearing cramp locations and fortifications. Now, how they are trained and equipped to do that changes from regiment to regiment. The Cadian Karskins are made for storming buildings in urban combat while the Cadian Guardsmen maneuver quickly in city street fighting. Kreiger Grenadiers, on the other hand, would charge at fortifications and trenches before everybody throwing a grenade then jumping inside.

Stormtroopers from Feudal worlds might only have a Lasgun and a single grenade while carrying a shield with several melee weapons. Kreiger Grenadiers would hold even more extra grenades than Karskins. Hive world Stormtroopers might always carry Meltaguns or Flamers due to the importance of high damage in fast reaction time weapons in urban warfare. The only thing standard is that they all wear some variation of Carapace Armor.

==== Notable Regiments ====

See [[Nobledark Imperium Scion Regiments| Scion Regiments]]

== Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines) ==

''“A Space Marine chapter conquering a planet? Have you been watching the damn holovids again, boy? Let me be clear so I never hear this foolishness again. Could we glass a continent given space superiority and a Battle Barge? Yes. Could we decapitate a planet’s leadership and destroy their infrastructure, leaving them to wither on the vine? Yes, within an hour. [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Kharn_the_Oathsworm|Could we shock and awe them into surrender if they are sufficiently cowardly or primitive? Perhaps.]] But make no mistake, if a planet has advanced to the nuclear age and the populace is intent on resistance there is no way 2,500 men can hold it alone, I don’t care if you’re the damn Custodes or Grey Knights. You simply cannot be everywhere at once; gather your strength, and they will simply rise up where you are not. Spread out, and they will overwhelm you with their numbers. Sometimes, quantity has a quality all its own.''

''Subjugation and garrison duty is not our purpose. We are Astartes, Space Marines. We were made to tread the stars and go where others cannot. We are the tip of the Imperium’s spear, striking swiftly and mercilessly at the enemy’s heart. We are the Emperor’s Angels of Death, descending from the sky to slay nightmares so that others may dream peacefully in their beds. Leave the business of conquest and subjugation to the Guard. They have their duty, and we have our own.”''<br>
- Scout-Sergeant Kohl Leibhen of the Raptors, addressing a group of Aspirants

The ideal age for Astartes augmentation is somewhere between 19 and 25 years of age. At this point, the individual is young enough that their body can recover from the trauma of the procedure, but old enough that it is clear that it is worth giving them the enhancements. In theory, older individuals could undergo Astartes augmentation, but the risk of complication is so high that it is essentially not worth it. By the same token, younger individuals might be able to handle the stress of Astartes augmentations better than older individuals, but at this age the augmentations might affect their mental development. Ironically, earlier, less stable versions of super soldier augmentation, such as Thunder Warrior, Canis Helix, and Astartes Mark I augmentations, have a much higher compatibility rate and are are viable for a much wider range of ages than standard Mark III Astartes augmentations, in part because they are less invasive.

It should be noted that for all their similarities the Space Wolves, Iron Hands, and their descendant chapters are not Astartes, and therefore are both created differently and have their own strengths and weaknesses relative to Astartes. Canis Helix chapters (e.g., Space Wolves) are created by splicing large amounts of non-human DNA into the human genome (and therefore have no gene-seed), whereas Astartes are created by implanting artificially grown organs and glands into the human body. This means that despite being gene-locked to the Imperium's best efforts, a Canis Helix supersoldier could theoretically pass down some of their modifications to their descendants, which is something the Imperium did not want and one of the reasons the Astartes won out over the Canis Helix design. The probability of such an event is miniscule, but in a galaxy of scale such events cannot be taken for granted, as the inhabitants of the Fenrisian worlds show. Canis Helix soldiers are also noteworthy in lacking the Black Carapace augmentation, which was one of the key features that led to the Astartes winning out over the Thunder Warriors and other super soldier designs. Instead, Space Wolves use a complex mind-to-machine interface designed by the Iron Priests. It is expensive and not cost-effective on a galactic scale, but it has allowed the Space Wolves to perform just as well as Astartes.

Iron Hands and their descendants are modified Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii, many of which are possibly even augmented to the level of [[Thallax|Thallaxi]]. As a result, there are no real restrictions to who can join the Iron Hands or their descendants beyond the ability to survive the augmentation procedure and being a part of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Skitarii also use a much wider range of augmentations and are often specialized for particular tasks, which means that the members of the Iron Hands and their descendants can be much more physically variable than the standardized augmentations of Astartes. Iron Hands and their descendants do not have to worry about the Black Carapace issue, because their armor essentially is their body, making a better connection between soldier and armor a moot point.

===The Breaking of the Legions===

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During the Great Crusade, the Adeptus Astartes were organized into twenty distinct legions each composed of thousands of Space Marines. However, by M41, the Adeptus Astartes have been divided into many distinct chapters about 1000-1200 strong, each descended at least in part from one of the eighteen legions that survived the War of the Beast. The reason for this change in organization is complicated. Many lay students of history often claim that the impetus for this change was Roboute Guilliman's Codex Astartes, published in 243.M31. However, like much of Guilliman's work, the Codex Astartes was meant to be a thought exercise in how the Adeptus Astartes could be more efficiently organized in a post-Great Crusade environment, and Guilliman would never have tried to shove his ideas down his fellow primarch's throats.

In truth, all of the legions split up for different reasons, and at different times.

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Several of the legions survived virtually as is for a little while longer under new leaders, who would have probably been considered primarchs in their own right if they hadn't had to stand in their predecessor's shadow. Kharn found himself essentially taking over more and more of his legions duties as Angron's health deteriorated. Abbadon was ambitious and charismatic enough to keep the Void Wolves in one piece for at least another generation. Leman Russ told Bjorn during a moment of mutual drunkenness to "look after the place while I step out for a minute". The next morning they realized Russ was gone and to make matters worse everyone had been just sober enough to remember what Russ had said the night before.

Other legions split up following the death of their primarch, or for simple matters of practicality. Old Man Khan called a meeting of the yabgu, despite not being dead yet, to make sure that whoever succeeded him would be competent enough not to run the legion into the ground. In a rare moment of humility, the yabgu compared themselves to Khan and realized that none of them could claim to have accomplished what Khan had accomplished by their age, and so the legion was split up. The descendants of the Thousand Sons such as the Grey Knights were already split up before their primarch's death (with the exception of the Blood Ravens), given that all were created to perform quite different, specialized tasks. The Imperial Fists found themselves splitting apart to fortify and garrison agri-worlds after the War of the Beast, on the basis that you cannot rebuild an empire if everyone is starving, and gradually drifted apart over the centuries. The same is true with the Iron Warriors and hive worlds and Iron Hands and forgeworlds. In these cases, Guilliman's Codex Astartes was seen as a natural framework for how to rework the legions into more autonomous units (though each legion implemented the Codex in their own way).

The Dark Angels are rather infamous for having split up before Guilliman ever wrote the Codex Astartes, after two-thirds of their number turned traitor during the War of the Beast. The Lion split the remaining loyalists into knightly orders and instituted the rank of Watcher to ensure that no one individual could ever subvert the entire legion. Guilliman may have actually been thinking of the Dark Angels when he wrote some parts of the Codex.

The Death Guard never really split up, even with the death of their primarch. Unlike the other legions they have never truly stopped marching to war.

There were two real deathknells for the concepts of a legion as a whole. The first was when Belarius the Abdicator refused to take up command of the full host of the Blood Angels after the death of Sanguinus, knowing full well that his entire reign would be spent in the shadow of the Martyr Angel. Instead he took command of a much more reasonable sized contingent of Blood Angels, nearly all survivors of the War of the Beast, with Belarius giving the most competent of the remaining Blood Angels command of their own groups. This set the precedent for most legions of breaking up into chapters after the death of their Primarch.

The other was the “Iron Cage” incident that happened to Fulgrim sometime in early M31. Fulgrim had always been a micro-manager, and was one of the strongest opponents of breaking the legions into chapters. However, after the War of the Beast, the sheer number of small-scale conflicts across the rebuilding Imperium and lack of local autonomy meant that the Empire’s Sons were ground down to about half the size of their prime merely by attrition alone despite being one of the biggest recruiters of new Astartes. The breaking point for the legion was when the Empire’s Sons got caught in a trap set up by a Tzeentch-worshipping Big Wyrd. The Wyrdboy was never caught, and by the end of it Fulgrim was left with enough marines to scrape into a little less than three chapters. After that point, even the strongest detractors of the Codex Astartes (with the exception of some particularly stubborn cases like the Death Guard) had to admit that Guilliman had a point.

However, despite this, successor chapters have not completely caught all ties with one another. Many chapters still retain close ties with their former brethren in other chapters, and many chapters have programs of officer exchange to encourage loyalty to the Imperium as a whole rather than a particular world or individual. Nevertheless, chapters are expected to be open about all inter-chapter interactions and unofficial brotherhoods are officially banned by explicit decree of the Emperor, in order to prevent the rise of another individual like Luther fostering ties of soft power beneath the nose of the Imperium. One of the jobs of the Inquisition’s Ordo Militarum is to make sure the Adeptus Astartes keep to this decree.

Additionally, by his own admission, Guilliman’s organizational suggestions were designed for times of relative peace, rather than all-out galactic war. In times of great crisis, the First Founding chapters (who are considered first among equals among successor chapters and whose original members were often some of the best soldiers in each legion) have the right to call for a Reformation of the Legion, where the successor chapters temporarily unite to lock arms and march under the united banner of the old legion once more. This policy is sometimes called the Last Wall policy, as Guilliman reputedly got this idea based on suggestions by the consummate soldier Rogal Dorn, who understood that the War of the Beast was not going to be the last major war the Imperium would face.

Responding to this call is completely voluntary, but many chapters consider it shameful for a successor chapter to refuse to answer the call, particularly since a call for a Reformation of the Legion is reserved for only the direst of emergencies that threaten the entire Imperium. The only time a refusal of the call is ever considered acceptable is if a chapter is severely undermanned or if they are physically unable to respond due to being directly under attack themselves. For example, the Lamenters were unable to respond to a call for the temporary reformation of the Blood Angels during the 12th Black Crusade, due to suffering from severe manpower losses beforehand. The Lamenters still blame themselves for not being able to respond to the call, even if the rest of the Imperium doesn’t.

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===Current Chapters===
====The Minotaurs====
The Minotaurs are something of a boogeyman among Space Marines. A group that make even battle-hardened Astartes quiver and speak of in hushed tones. The reason for this fear and paranoia are rather simple: The Minotaurs are Space Marines that hunt Space Marines.

The first recorded instance of a Space Marine considering tactics against other Space Marines was the Ultramarine Aeonid Thiel. During the Great Crusade, Thiel was dragged before Guilliman by his fellow Ultramarines for teaching the marines under his command tactics for fighting other Space Marines, which they saw as a sign of treachery. Guilliman asked whether this was true, and upon being told it was, asked Thiel to explain himself. After hearing Thiel’s explanation, Guilliman asked the two Ultramarines who had brought Thiel to him to leave the room, and then congratulated Thiel for his ingenuity. He was willing to entertain possibilities no one else could or wanted to consider, and just because people. The Space Marines were created by the Imperium to be their finest warriors in the reconquest of the stars, and who is to say another, more hostile human empire could not have had a similar idea. Thiel would be rewarded for his ingenuity, though for obvious reasons not at that very moment. Thiel would finally be validated and his actions recognized during the War of the Beast, where the actions of Luther and his Fallen showed the idea that a Space Marine could turn traitor to be a frightening reality.

The Minotaurs were originally founded by a War Hound named Leon Kravidos shortly after the Age of Apostasy as a chapter dedicated to fighting against the Fallen. Kravidos knew that in order to fight other Space Marines his men would have to be at the very peak of their potential. Therefore, he created a downright grueling training regimen by Space Marine standards, designed to make his men prepared for anything. Despite his job, Kravidos was actually well respected among Astartes, and was deeply mourned when he died in battle. For thousands of years after that, the Minotaurs were rather unnotable among Space Marine chapters. Their job of hunting down Fallen space marines was well known, but they were seen as people just doing their job as opposed to someone to be feared. That is, until the latest Chapter Master of the Minotaurs, Asterion Moloc, took control of the chapter in 200.M41, after the death of his predecessor in the Badab War.

In contrast to many in the Imperium who spend much of their time in pursuit of a particular foe, such as Inquisitor Boaz Kryptman and the tyranids, Asterion Moloc does not feel a festering hatred for his enemy. Instead, he seems to take the attitude of a big game hunter hunting the most dangerous game. He seems to take a perverse joy in hounding his targets to the ends of their endurance, before delivering the final blow. He spends hours reviewing all known records and tactics of his quarry, so that he know every possible move his prey can make before they do. He does this even for chapters that have not been assigned his target yet.

For obvious reasons, most space marines are uncomfortable with the Minotaurs, considering them, in the words of one Astartes scout who wished to remain anonymous, to be “team-killing frag-heads”. Indeed, the Minotaurs in recent years have been known to be a bit too eager in their desire to fight Space Marines, sometimes flying off the handle at an innocent chapter at the urging of some particularly radical or puritan Inquisitor. About the only people who feel comfortable around the Minotaurs are the Sisters of Battle, who often cooperate with the Minotaurs in operations involving the Fallen.

==== The Dragon Lords ====

The involvement of the Dragon Lords dates back to the founding of Praetoria in the days of the post-Beast rebuilding. It was deemed that the military side of the endeavour would require the substantial presence and use of Space Marines to remove some of the more fearsome and prepared horrors that had moved in during the intervening years. As Primarch Vulkan was the overall commander in bringing the worlds of Wilderness Space back to the light of civilization it was understandable one of his newly minted chapters that set up a way station alongside the more entrepreneurial efforts of the Gredbrittonic founding families.

The head of the space marines in this endeavour was the former Chaplain Commander Xiaphas Jurr of the Afrique League.

Commander Jurr never let the change in position from preacher of the Promethean faith to overall commander interfere with his missionary work and vice versa and it is largely his doing that Praetoria grew into a mostly Promethean world. It was not without practical merit as the forces raised from that world as the years went on all held a faith in common and were all the closer for it. The noble feuds in later years it has been speculated without this vague sense of brotherhood would undoubtedly have bloomed into minor wars.

As Praetoria grew from a minor service stop into a nation the waystation he commanded grew likewise so that in time it was declared a Chapter in its own right with himself as it's commander, a rank he wore well. He and his newly designated Dragon Lords were now distinct from the rest of the Prometheans as whilst he had been influencing the world he commanded from it had been influencing him.

As the population of Praetoria grew the Dragon Lords soon found that they could recruit from there exclusively even with the introduction of the Tithe.

Before the tithe the military of that world was predominantly the house militias and private military companies with only the Red Shirts, the mostly ceremonial soldiers of the Parliamentary Herald, representing the planet as a whole. At the time the Red Shirts were seen as a token force of no real concern and the butt of many jokes due to their lack of real experience and that they were attached to a figurehead rather than anyone with any real power.

This changed when the Imperial Army demanded it's due. They didn't want soldiers loyal to one city, one lord, in contest with their comrades of the same world. They wanted soldiers loyal to the Imperium representing their world as a unified whole. The imposing of a standard uniform was seen as one way to gently erode mental barriers, they were one and all Praetorian.

The distinctive green and black colour scheme of the Dragon Lords was surrendered not long after, coincidentally a few days after the death of Xiaphas Jurr, to their red and ivory as a show of solidarity with the common soldier.

In this time native born Gernebern of Auchmouth, a progeny who rose fast but died a mere few centuries later, took command of the space marines and was the source of much reform within the chapter. It was deemed prudent to have the chapter integrate ever more closely with the common soldiery, slitting the companies up into squads and placing them on long term loan to, at the time, 90 regiments of the Praetorian Guard as specialist squads.

All but one company that was demanded to remain to guard the homeworld at all times.

Despite all the upheavals and political manoeuvrings that could fill a very dry library in their own right it is often over looked the contributions that Praetoria made to the conquest, rebuilding and protection of the wilderness worlds and beyond. Indeed it was in this noble endeavour that Commander Jurr had sacrificed himself.

Were it not for the Red Coat diligence, vigilance and sacrifices the orks, marauders and worse would have just swept right back in and the fate of those that called that place home would have been, at best, pitiable.

==== The Mortifactors ====

EDITOR'S NOTE: Date needs to be fixed, Leviathan was in M39

The Mortificators are a brother chapter to the Ultramarines, both being founded by veterans of the War of The Beast from Legion XIII in the days of The Rebuilding. The head of the force sent out that formed the core of the original Mortificators was commanded by the esteemed but eccentric, some would say slightly bonkers, Sasebo Tezuka. Sasebo Tezuka was originally a child of the strange land of Strayllya on Old Earth and had begun his military career in the earliest days of the Great Crusade. He was a man of accomplishment who commanded the respect of his men despite his oddness. One of these oddities was a seeming over reliance on signs and portents that he used to make his decisions. He himself was no psyker and although he did employ them he didn’t use them for divination, and although he relied on what was essentially random chance he seldom went irretrievably astray and more often than not followed a correct path. In more recent times people have wondered if the King of Clowns had anything to do with the roll of those bones but no answer that any could understand has been forthcoming.

With the breakup of the XIII Legion Captain, now Chapter Master, Tezuka was free to follow such omens as his cards and bones would show him and by a roundabout means and thirty years of wandering brought him to the world of Posul. If Posul was meant to be some sort of Promised Land it was not a one given from any god that cared for its followers. It was dreary and dark and by some fluke of topography and atmospheric composition it was eternally shrouded in a permanent and extremely heavy overcast with two small dim suns. It was a world of extremely dark nights and extremely dim days and it was not unclaimed.

A hardy breed of man survived on that world. Pale and slight of build with big dark eyes. They were primitive in those days having in the time since man’s apex devolved to something that resembled Mesolithic era humanity. It was assumed at the time that their fall from grace, so complete as it was, was solely a result of their environment that was best and most politely described as very bleak. The plant life was typically sparse with dark purple leaves to maximize the available energy from the dim suns and the whole world had the general feeling of a deep-sea vent ecosystem on dry land.

Although that was almost certainly a contributing factor it was not the whole story. The Posuli could fairly be described as the Death Cult of the Death Cults. They followed the faiths of the Deorum Mortuus Est or at least they adhered to the teachings of those who had slain their gods. Master Tezuka and his followers, dictated by omens to settle on this world, learned from the stories of the eldest of the eldest priests and backed up by their own findings in the Verboten Lands held by all tribes in inviolate sacrosanctity for time beyond mind; the natives though not now had been worshipers of Chaos.

Their gods had been very real and walked among them awful and powerful, demanding great temples be built to them and demanding holocaust and sacrifice to feed them. Over the long years they had brought the Posuli low to the point of being naught but cattle to the slaughter of unworthy butcher gods until one day men lead by the “dream-walkers” rose up and were not struck down but did strike back with a righteous fire. Estimates by the off-worlders put the date of the uprising at approximately two centuries prior. The locals had no calendars and so none could know for sure but it seemed that the gods of Posul were overthrown on the day of The Raid of the Mansion or near to it.

But the locals were by then a thoroughly broken people. Presumably their ancestors had been of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion and presumably they had been stranded here in the early days of the Age of Strife and presumably they did retain some measure of civility for some time but if it was so none of that survived. The locals had nothing that they remembered of greatness, nothing to aspire to and no notion of lasting joy. They carried on much as they had with cannibalistic rituals and constant wars of tribal slaughter. Tribal warriors would war and the victors would kill all of the men-folk and the children and take the women as their own and try to hold what land they could claim of the fallen’s holdings until displaced or the tribe in time split through internal unrest and warred upon once-kin.

And into this Chapter Master Sasebo Tezuka of Legion XIII descended. His first interaction with a local was when a boy barely old enough to grow his first chin hairs stabbed him in the gut with a stone tipped spear. Sasebo had approached the nearest tribe unarmoured and unarmed, wearing a simple course jute robe with only a brother-psyker at his side to show peaceful intent and appear as unthreatening as an Astartes can. The spear tip cut into his skin and stopped at the black carapace. The lad received a backhander that knocked several of his teeth out; it was extremely easy to follow him back to his tribe.

Some worlds react poorly to Imperial attempts to uplift them, this is true. Some worlds welcome the Imperium as returning brothers from the stars. Few were as reluctant as the Posuli who had no notion by then of anything greater than a tribe and no understanding of any social order more complex than the weak are food, the strong rule. Generally the Imperium tries to keep as much of the substance of a culture as possible in its uplifting. Master Sasebo couldn’t really see much worth keeping and as the days passed the other teams that investigated the other tribes reported much of the same. It was a long and bloody road to remake the Posuli into any sort of real society and Master Tezuka had fallen to the unknowable things of The Harrowing long before then.

In the end the people of Posul were brought, reluctant every step of the way, into the light of civilization and although their world could never be tamed it was made better than awful. It was possible in the end to live there rather than just be sentenced. In the end they were taken to the stars again and they did become part of the Imperium, if only a minor part. The people of that world were found, despite being classed as abhuman Nightsiders, to be compatible with the Astartes Mk3 MP gene-seed and in time were made worthy of it. In time they raised regiments to aid the Imperium that had taken then from the dirt. But it could not be said that they did not affect the chapter as it uplifted them, especially once they started to recruit from them.

The cannibalistic rituals were replaced with haemovorous rituals and human sacrifice with deep drug induced comatose vision seeking. The chapter adopted both of these and whilst down the long march of years the chapter amended the beliefs of the locals for their own betterment it was also the chapter that ended up adopting these beliefs and took up the scriptures of the Dead Gods.

The Mortificators were never seen as desirable allies. They were unpleasantly weird and typically possessed of a grim disposition. But they were valued and so were their people. It was not to last.

In the year 997M41 the Leviathan fell upon Posul, there was no hope of saving the world. All those dusty temples where man had slain their gods, all those strange tribes and wandering soothsayers, all the victories of the Imperium to make men out of monsters, all of those works of art carved in pale stone and lit pink and deep red by the dim red suns were washed away in a tide of chitin that were in turn washed away in nuclear fire. Basilica Mortis, the great star fort of the Mortificators had managed to remain hidden by strange eldar trickery and in its vaulted halls were held the last of that world, as many of the keepers of the stories and the children to tell them to as could be and on the surface of that world the men and women of the world and it’s chapter gave their lives to draw the Hive to them, to make the Hive believe that it was winning. Lord Magyar ordered the atomics released at the last possible moment, at the time when hope should have been turned to despair but was instead turned to righteous wroth and retribution and for a moment he beheld his home in sunlight before the fire consumed him and it was beautiful.

Posul now is a dead world, as maybe is fitting. It is unlikely that the Adeptus Biologicus will agree to terraform it in this age as it was never even in the old days a partially worthy candidate for such an endeavour. And as for the remnants of the Posuli and the Mortificators? They endure, barely. Hearing of their plight their distant kin in the Ultramarines petitioned their government to grant them refuge and they were granted a place on the principle that so few were unlikely to cause undue disruption. The Mortificators requested long ruined Calth to settle upon and try and make a home. The government of Calth were less than enthusiastic to say the least as their caverns were precious to them until they learned that the Posuli wished to live in the wastelands of the surface where none had dwelt since the devastation ten thousand years past. The Posuli said that they could cover their eyes in the day and sleep and in the night they could pretend that they were home once more.

The Mortificators will rebuild. Death has not claimed them yet.

==== The Black Legion ====

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(Void Wolves) - Primarily Astartes used as boarding/anti-boarding specialists throughout the Great Crusade and 1st Black Crusade. Majority of pre-split Void Wolves Astartes ended up here. They call the worlds of the Cadian Gate their home and recruit from there and nearby systems. Still operate much as a Legion of old in that they are massively represented in the boarding parties of the Navy assets in the Cadian sector but with the emphasis put more on garrison duty.

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'''Lord Commander Corpulax was previous Lord Commander of Black Legion.'''

He was born on Cadia in the year 446M41 and like all Cadians was inducted into the military and raised to be a good little soldier. It wasn't long into his adolescence that his physical prowess was recognized he was genetically screened and earmarked for the Black Legion. He trained well and hard as a Neophyte and learned deep of the chapters long lore. In his 15th year he started to undergo the surgical alterations and augmentations that would turn him from human to super human.

His career as a Space Marine was noteworthy in his reliability. He was a very by the book soldier who would have been overlooked for any measure of excellence were it not for his ability to exemplify everything the chapters battle doctrines exalted. He was in every way the very model of a Cadian Space Marine. By age 176 he was a sergeant, by 239 he was a Marshal and by 301 he was Lord Commander and it was a role he excelled at. For the brief time that he held that rank at least. In the year 775M41, a mere 28 years into his command, the Apostles of Contagion launched a sustained attack on the agri-world of Phagir. Phagir was one of the worlds that supplied the Cadian Gate with food and presumably their goal, or at least the goal of their masters, was to inconvenience the Gate Worlds as they would have to import all food.

The Apostles of Corruption launched a sustained campaign of mostly biological warfare in addition to their defensive style of land holding and attrition. In the end it was deemed by the Adeptus Biologicus order stationed on the planet an untenable theater. They couldn't make cures as fast as they could make ails. The Cadian forces were instrumental in the evacuation of Phagir as the Zombie Virus finally took hold and the dead shambled across the blighted fields to add the living to their ranks.

The Black Legion held the line at the cpaital's space port until the last moment to get one more shuttle off of the planet. In the final stages of the withdrawal it became clear that Lord Commander Corpulax was infected with the Zombie Virus to which there was no cure save a clean death. Wracked with pain and burning with wroth Copulax spent his last moments sprinting towards a techno abomination of rust and rotted flesh merged together into what might once have been a Baneblade. It's burning wreckage was his funeral pyre as the IEDs he was strapped with detonated.

By his sacrifice one more shuttle containing, among near 2,000 civilians, the last of his brothers on the surface made it safely off the launch pad. Then the planet was bathed in nuclear fire, it was lost but it would not be damned.

'''Lord Commander Zagthean the Broken.'''

Zagthean was the son of a long term "soup stirrer" of the algae vats and a sister of the Convent of Alabaster Maidens. Civilian jobs on Cadia are typically though not always given to individuals disqualified from front line service for reasons of either health or competence. As good 'ol Zaganath had been doing that job from age 12 to age 62 it can be safely assumed that he was given the job for being pretty useless at proper soldiering, not to say that he was not a dutiful man. He was and he died in a Chaos raid and he died with a weapon in his hand and he didn't go down quietly or alone.

Matylda was sister of the Alabaster Maidens, a wide spread order with convents on several dozen worlds in the Cadian Sector. They specialized in offering healthcare to the underclasses. On Cadia they offered healthcare to the more broken veterans.

Despite his humble start Zagthean has proven a savage warrior, more of Angron's ilk than Horus. He has charged into battles no man or superman should hope to walk out of and has not only done so but done so victorious. Even in his earliest days he was dauntless and every task and training exercise put before him set into with an almost alarming ferocity. After his genetic screening there was no question of him being looked over for Space Marine augmentation and the fire in his heart was not diminished even slightly by the alterations, if anything with fewer physical constraints he approached the status of truly unstoppable.

His will is adamanitum and among his chapter his word is law. To the Lord Castellan's annoyance he insists on leading from the front, in the thick of the carnage, the blood and the thunder. Roaring with laughter and wroth and all mortals who have stood before him have known one simple truth; they have come here to die, their gods have abandoned them from the greatest to the least.

He is relatively young for a man of his rank but he has lived hard and built up an impressive record. But the price of living that hard is that he has seen Death many times and they have danced. He has been broken down and rebuilt, torn apart and stitched back whole, burned and healed and cut and stitched and glued and grafted and lahsed back together and whats left almost poured around increasing numbers of cybernetics. He has fallen many times but he is still alive, he does not march, he charges, he wills Death to find him, to hold him one last time so that he may beseech her "let me take these bastards out with me". And always Death has returned him.

As the 13th Black Crusade descends upon Cadia it may be that his wish could be granted. He may die, but he will take whole armies down with him.

'''Ygethmor the Trickster, Head of the Black Legion Battle Psykers.'''

Of Old Earth stock and a resilient psychic of pristine physique Ygethmor was destined for the Grey Knights and though the tests of genetic compatibility showed positive the artificial organs of the MK3S gene-seed would not take root in his flesh. Unwilling to just toss such a promising neophyte aside for reasons of a biological fluke the Grey Knights ordered him to be tested with the MK3MP variant of the gene-seed. The MP variant did take. Ygethmor was posted to the Cadian Gate, typically they would have sent him to the Exorcists but he lacked their "straight forward" attitude to problem solving. Steeped in ancient deamon lore learned in the halls of Titan and with a Nemesis Blade as a parting gift he has proven to be a boon to the Black Legion like no other.

He is fond of ambushes, illusions, misdirection and what he likes to refer to as "pranks". He is formidable in a straight up and honest fight if he has no option to make a dishonest one. He has no notions of fair play and considers the idea of "fair play" synonyms with "not trying". It is this underhanded attitude towards war that has won him the approval of the Lord Castellan (and few others), that and a well refined caustic sense of humour.

Despite his detractors, of which he has cultivate a great many of, his effectiveness can not be denied. He is not the most powerful psychic among the astartes, not by a long way, but like his martial strength he makes the most of what he has. As he would say "a stiletto atwix the ribs is as good as a broadsword to the bonce".

'''Devram Korda Marshal of the 1st Cohort'''

At approximately 230 years of age he is on the younger end of the Marshals but is not unaccomplished. His rank was obtained in the Liberation of Sarora. An intense war on the hiveworld Sarora to depose the warband known as the Children of Torment; a nasty group of Crone Worlders with faux marine stitched together from the bodies of their victims and animated with small deamons. As the most senior surviving officer left after a particularly nasty assault he was given temporary command over his brothers. This was made permanent at the conclusion of the campaign when contact with Castellan Jakren Stein and the rest of the Cadian 509th.

The things he saw on Sarora, the things he had to do for the sake of pity, still haunt him. He is a grim figure with no sense of humour or good cheer, just seething well controlled and bottomless grudge.

'''Marshal Araghast the Pillar, Marshal of the 2nd Cohort'''

Abnormally large for a Space Marine and phenomenally strong he lugs around a lascannon with the same ease as an experienced guardsman lugs around a lasrifle. His aim is exemplary and for a creature so big he can move surprisingly fast. In his oversized suit of armour he can withstand a punishing degree of fire and remains standing, carefully and calmly placing laser beams in the most inconvenient places. He rose to prominence in the Aurelia debacle that almost saw a world lost to the warp. He was the pillar of certainty around which the rescue forces rallied.

He has a calm and measured manner and an unflappable temperament and can at least give the impression of remaining relaxed in even the most bizarre and awful circumstances.

'''Xorphas Firestarter, Marshal of the 3rd Cohort'''

Xorphas is very good at pyrotechnics and incendiaries of all kinds and has a fascination with fire that borders on the unhealthy. This has though made him and his Cohort extremely good at dealing with orks and nurglites in particular and anything else that resents being set on fire in general. He is also a low level psychic, despite rumours he is not a pyrokine. His "gifts", if such they be, manifested only after he attained the position of Marshal and by then he was too far along the chain of command for it to be worth the effort and disruption of reassigning him to be with the other Battle Psykers. He was given instruction and extensive by the head librarian so that he would be considered safe but little in how to hone what he actually does have. Which is not very much if truth be told. He has very good gut instincts that can be mistaken for inhuman (even by astartes standards) reflexes, an uncanny ability to determine if someone is lying and some modest telekinesis.

He is a reserved and calm individual, meticulous and methodical in his approach to all things be it war or mundane chores. Until you give him a box of matches and you can see the lights reflecting in his eyes.

'''Drecarth the Sightless, Marshal of the 4th Cohort'''

A veteran of the 12the Black Crusade who spent half the invasion stranded in the lower tunnels and hunted by Crone Worlders with knives for fingers. Those knives had cost him his eyes but he cost them much more. Those tunnels were pitch black, but he was blind and although they could see to some degree in total darkness he could hear. Also those tunnels had been his playground as a child. They weren't just tunnels, they were home. The hunt quickly turned inside out and the Chaos Eldar came to the realization that he wasn't trapped with them, they were trapped with him. When he returned to the light he was reborn and his star was in ascendancy.

With two black orbs of technology replacing his ruined eyes and an unhealthily pale visage he looks like a specter from old stories, some unhappy dead come back to get even. His company he has molded into one of quiet killers, stalkers and hunters as he had been in the time of his epiphany. It is suspected that he is part of the secretive Cadian Death Faith, it was prevalent in his patch of tunnels when he was young, but nothing can be proven. All that is known is that he is sober, diligent, humble and quiet. All traits he tries to instill in his brothers.

'''Amalaxis Deamonslayer. Marshal of the 5th Cohort.'''

Amalaxis is as close to a Chaplain as you can get without actually being one. He is a strong, almost fanatical, believer in the old Cadian tree gods. He offers prayers and devotion to them on the eve of battle, before setting forth on campaign, when another invasion is expected and when it is peaceful because on Cadia you have to be thankful for respite. Most of his Cohort are also adherents of his faith, the reason he was chosen to Marshal that Cohort, and to them he is a figure of great reverence. Some say he was a tree spirit in a stillborn child like in the old stories of before war.

His method of warfare is very much in favour of the aggressive advance. Ideally after the first attack there should be no possibility of a retaliation. There must be something to his faith as the hymns he roars as he charges into battle have deamons clutching their bleeding ears.

'''Valicar "the Graven" Hyne. Marshal of the 6th Cohort'''

Unlike Marshal Drecarth Valicar makes no secret of his adherence to the Death Faith. Why should he? Why should he have to skulk in the dark and hide? This has not won him many friends in the faith who all agree that discretion has served them well since the Age of Strife. The rest of the Chapter just think he's a bit eccentric and the baseline Cadians just assume all augmented are like that assuming they haven't actually met a space marine before.

Despite the implications of his religion he is bombastic who loves the simple pleasures in life; pretty women, good food and fine ale also jetpacks and air assaults. If the battle can be met hurling out of a speeding aircraft it is a good day for Marshal Valicar. It is suspected that most of the 6th Cohort follow him out of morbid fascination.

'''Verzekh the Siege Engine. Marshal of the 7th Cohort'''

Thge only member of the Marshals to retain rank whilst interred in a Dreadnaught. Most Dreadnaughts become sleepy as a result of the pain killers and the mechanisms that keep them in half-life and this is not a good trait in a leader. Not so with old Verzekh. Whether by some incorrect implementation of his sarcophagus or a deviation in his brain Verzekh has not slept in over 1,800 years and so far seems to be suffering no ill effects. Attempts to duplicate this in others has had no notable effect.

He is armed with two power claws with under-slung meltas with which he has obliterated the defenses of hundreds of bunkers and fortifications and uncountable tanks. His personality since his internment has actually improved, if t he historical records are anything to go off of, Verzekh puts this down to the painkillers. Whatever the cause he has a very cheerful disposition. Favored method of warfare is the slow and unstoppable advance.

'''Kor Megron "Corpsemaker", Marshal of the 8th Cohort'''

Much repaired and cybernetically patched up, though not the extent of the Lord Commander, Marshal of the 8th. A fan of going fast and going hard. Bikes, land speeders, jet packs and anything else that can deliver high velocity death are his bread and butter. Standing still, he claims, makes you a target in a way that no additional fire power will compensate for. The rest of the chapter call him slightly manic, he calls them worse. In war as in life there is target, you get target fast, find another target, get other target, continue until target exhaustion or death. There is no stop, there is not slow until the job is done, to stop invites death.

The Cohort that he has assembled are all, like himself, lay-technicians. They need to be able to perform basic rituals of repair to their vehicles at a moments notice. To loose the momentum is to invite failure. Possibly exacerbating these traits is his knowledge that he is indeed dying, some poison of Dark Eldar design half real and half not flickering through his veins. He has maybe a few years at most left. Possibly this was supposed to debilitate him with despair or make him fearful, it has not. If anything it's made him far more dangerous in the time he has left.

'''Troskzer The Elder, Marshal of the 9th Cohort.'''

Old by the standards of near-immortals. Older than some of the younger dreadnaughts. Given the time distorting effects of warp travel and the amount of time he has traveled he isn't sure exactly how old he is. He was born in the year 998M40 but he could be as "young" as 850. Space Marine biology and rejuvenant treatments can only take you so far and he is approaching exactly as far as they can take him. What he has lost in strength and speed he has made up for in experience and animal cunning. He is without peer when it comes to the use of landscape and natural resources as a means of gaining an advantage. He can plan ambushes almost as well as the Lord Castellan and his ability to smell weakness is bordering on the unnatural. If you have a place where you are vulnerable he will find it and he will hurt you. He is patient and will fuck up your day at the most inopportune time. This combined with an inhuman ability to comprehend not just his battlefield but an entire planetary campaign makes him far more dangerous off the field of battle than on it. But he is a Space Marine, he will not be shamed by staying where it is safe.

Despite his seniority to his relief he was never considered for the job of Lord Commander. A Lord Commander has to have a sense of diplomacy and people skills. Troskzer has neither. He's a cantankerous, introverted, belligerent arsehole overly fond of sarcasm and seems to be staying alive just because it pisses people off.

'''Starkzahn, Marshal of the 10th Cohort.'''

Saviour of Darristen and ███████ █████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████████████ █████ ████. Know to have spent near thirty years in the Deathwatch and a further twenty five in the personal employ of a particular Inquisitor neither of which he will talk about. It is suspected that he has traveled and fought as far as the Eastern Fringe or at the very least near it as he is well versed in the teaching of Aun'Da, though it is unlikely that he will be able to convince his countrymen of the virtues of the Greater Good.

His method of waging war is a combination of movement and fire be it in the form of artillery or tactical squads that looks oddly familiar to anyone who has seen warfare in the Damocles Gulf.

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== Oficios and Adepta ==

=== The Assassins ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''Monsters Of Our Own Making:'''''

The Officio Assassinorum was one of the oldest arms of the Imperial Government, and its roots date back to the barbarity and cruelty of the Old Night. Perhaps it was fitting that, as the Warlord became the Steward and the Unification became the Great Crusade, the ancient orders of assassins were finally brought to heel and integrated into the Imperium proper.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebuke at Mount Vengeance is the common story of the Officio Assassinorum's founding. In those days, the young Imperium was mired in battles far and wide, but one particular front was facing opposition that none seemed able to counter. Here, commanding officers and vital figures were dying at an alarming rate, even in the safety of their rear areas; and although they were suspected to be the work of the enemy all of the deaths seemed to be of natural causes. The Warlord simply appointed new generals and ordered veteran bodyguards for the ones already in theatre, but in response his loathsome foes only grew bolder. Ever-more evidence of their activities was left behind, seemingly taunting the Imperium for their inability to protect their own; clean killings becoming vicious slaughters of officers and civilians alike. Commanders were found butchered in their headquarters with a single bodyguard left alive, usually little more than traumatised wrecks stammering about technological sorcery beyond that of the Warlord's Mechanicus allies.

Incensed at the atrocities inflicted upon his people, the Warlord made war on the Assassin Temples of the Salt Spires. Little is known about the Spires or mercenary, heartless Masters, for many archives of their history were lost in the anarchy of the War of the Beast (although this may well have been Vangorich's objective all along). The Warlord did the best to spread his own view - that the assassins were little but cowardly shadows who though they could behead the Imperium - but even his presence and words did little to bolster armies so plagued by fear and paranoia, and so he began using the antithesis of their own doctrine to plot their downfall. There were no grand offensives, no bold strikes, nothing that seemed major enough to warrant the assassins moving against it; yet suddenly they found their supplies of everything from ammunition to promethium - and most importantly, water - were perilously low. In their weakened state, the Temples knew they could not face the Warlord's forces, and so they came before him to seek treaty.

At Mount Vengeance, the Temple Masters met to offer peace to the Warlord.
At Mount Vengeance, they received his full scorn.
The Warlord was not content with their mere offer of fealty. For the atrocities the Masters inflicted on his people, for the lives they had taken, the Warlord would not be content with a glorified armistice. He gave them an offer of his own: total surrender, or total annihilation. That was their only choice.

Some of the Temple Masters, emboldened by hubris, unwisely struck the Warlord. They died. Some fled. They died, later. But on the mountain and around it - for many assassins had followed their Masters, perhaps out of loyalty or some morbid curiosity - others remained, bowing in total capitulation to the Warlord and the futility of resisting this god amongst men. For his part, the Warlord acted rather appropriately in that role, passing judgement on each Master and their assassins. Some were found guilty of crimes beyond forgiveness and were slain, often by their peers as a test of loyalty; others were granted the "clemency" of banishment into the salt wastes. Only one was judged pure enough to be worthy of leadership - and, as the new Grandmaster of Assassins, he was assured that the temples that surrendered would remain intact, albeit in service of the Imperium under the watchful eye of Malcador.

Thus was formed the Officio Assassinorum. Malcador was pleased with the Warlord's mercy; for it showed no amount of fury would blind him to true talent. A few thousand years later, the assassins proved that such talent brought risk, especially from those as secretive as the assassins.

In 546.M32, the Grandmaster of the Officio Assassinorum attempted to assassinate the High Lords of Terra. The Beheading, as it has since come to be know, was shrouded in mystery; with events restricted to the Imperial Palace, motive, means, and for some figures even identity have been lost to the shrouds of time. All that has survived to this day is that the Inquisitorial Representative, the Master of the Astronomicon, the Paternal Envoy of the Navigators, and the Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus were all killed before the Steward was able to stop Grandmaster Vangorich's terror.

Naturally, many asked how Vangorich was able to get as far as he did. Perhaps the sheer scale of the events already taking place at the time (especially the rising threat of the Beast) was responsible, since it was the few periods in Imperial history where the High Lords were forced to abandon their usual backstabbing and power plays - that kept the Officios and Adepta in check - in favour of (relative) unity. However, others believe planning and preparation had taken decades, the timing an unfortunate consequence of Vangorich demanding so much care be taken to make the deaths of his fellow High Lords look like accidents.

All sources agree, however, that once his treachery was revealed Vangorich unleashed the assassins on the entire palace. The halls ran with blood of the highest Lords and the most lowly of servitors alike, yet there was one figure the assassins would not touch, ''could'' not touch, out of fear of what he had done to their forefathers: the Steward, who had vowed to personally put a stop to the killing spree desecrating the home of the Golden Throne. Vangorich, infuriated at the apparent incompetence of his underlings, took it upon himself to do the job they would not, attempting to slay the Steward with a vortex grenade as he emerged from his personal transport.

This went about as well as one would expect.

Even less is known about the outcome. Historians have waxed poetically about the Grandmaster facing an agonizing death, eternal torture, exile into the depths of the Webway with nothing but the clothes on his back, or any other number of tall tales. The most reliable account , however - attributed to the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes - states that the Steward simply broke Vangorich's neck as comfortably as one would a twig mere moments after his ill-advised attempt on the Steward's life.

For their part, the assassins were right to be fearful; for unlike their predecessors on Mount Vengeance the Steward gazed upon them with ''disappointment'' as well as fury. The Beheading had been undertaken by Vangorich, but the Steward noted with no small distaste that his orders had not been questioned by any under him. Malcador had managed to maintain the delicate balancing act between accountability and unflinching loyalty necessary in an organisation such as the Assassinorum, and without him it seemed the assassins were falling back on their bad habits.

Any other time he would have dismantled the Assassinorum's there and then, but the Steward was more concerned with reinforcing the wider Imperium against the coming onslaught of the Beast. In a time when every second was precious, the Steward could only set aside a day to scour the assassins' much-reduced ranks. Those found wanting of moral character were incinerated where they stood if they had acted on Vangorich's orders or pressed into a penal legion if they had not. One assassin that the Steward found was of solid loyalty and aided him in his purge of the temples, and they were declared new Grandmaster. The first decree they were to issue, however, was a warning - a warning to be spread through every temple, to every assassin from the depths of the Imperial Palace to frontline fighting against the Orks. A warning that, if the Steward was ever forced to intervene again, he would simply dissolve the Assassinorum instead of wasting more time on leniency.

Four thousand years later, the Steward was once again forced to intervene - although this time it was because of a crisis of his own making.

To her credit, the Grandmaster the Steward had put in place had served honorably, loyally, and carefully. Within the temples, long overdue reforms were undertaken, training formalised, and generations of assassins raised to revere the Imperium as a whole more than their temple. The Grandmaster, when she felt her time came, passed the title on to one she felt she could trust; and he continued her work, standardising material provisions and improving survivability. When he was lost in a warpstorm, his successor was well chosen, and worked to streamline chain of command and requisition. This continued, the Officio slowly evolving into an organisation capable of keeping up with the rapid changes of the galaxy, until the reign of Goge Vandire. Emperor Goge Vandire.

Goge Vandire was, initially, the ideal servant of the Imperium. Intelligent yet humble, decisive yet wise, he was familiar with all the intricacies of every part of the imperial government - save the assassins. Naturally, he was curious. At his first meeting with the High Lords of Terra, they each took their own oaths of loyalty and explained their roles. The, on the other hand, explained the history of the Beheading to the new Emperor, and explained why since then the Assassinorum always chose to swear loyalty to the wider Imperium instead of a particular individual. An explanation that would end up nearly tearing it apart.

"...hence, our loyalty is to the Golden Throne and its guardians rather than the one sitting upon it. A mere technicality, of course-" The Grandmaster offering a thin smile at this point, "-since I personally doubt we will ever receive liquidation orders from the archaeotech itself... but still."

The other High Lords had long ago learned not to question inner workings of the Assassinorum, while Emperor Vandire merely gave a hearty chuckle. They moved onto other, more pressing matters, and it appeared that that was the end of that. And it was, for the most part, but there was a small corner of Emperor Vandire's mind where those words echoed endlessly. "The Golden Throne and ''its guardians''," the Grandmaster had said, but it seemed clear to him that there was only one guardian that mattered; the one who had appointed him to the position in the first place. Over the years of Emperor Vandire's reign - too many hard decisions, too many threats to the Imperium from within and without, perhaps too many treatments of juvenat - the echo rose in his mind until it was deafening, a mild irritation over semantics growing into full-blown paranoia.

Of course they were faithful to the Imperium, but the hypocrites chose the Steward to venerate as a figurehead! Even in the Palace, his own home, all the oaths in the galaxy would not change the fact that each soul's allegiance lay with the Steward rather than himself. They only trusted him because the Steward trusted him, had appointed him. Oh, yes, his reign and countless years of selfless service were all very good and well appreciated, but they were all nought against those of that living god. Everything he did was overshadowed by that ''guardian;'' his words judged against the Steward's, his actions compared to those of the Steward, the ''Steward'', the '''''Steward''''', who was never more than a moment away from the lips of Vandire's own people; as if he had been usurped before he was ever appointed to the throne.

Still, Vandire was still as talented as he always was, and soon managed to find an assassin willing to aid him; a callidus by the name of Tziz Jarek. By that point he was in direct control of every aspect of the Imperium thanks to a thousand emergency powers and Imperial edicts; yet frustratingly, the Grandmaster remained steadfastly insistent on the stance that had tormented Vandire since their first meeting. Jarek, on the other hand, was simply angry with the Assassinorum's reforms, and made sure to stay well out of range of Vandire's spittle and foam when he began to rant - although over time she found herself believing in more and more of his firey rhetoric.

The assassination was textbook perfection; the Grandmaster's long list of security measures outdone by Jarek's longer-still list of fallbacks and contingencies. However, the lifeless corpse that was quietly fed into a plasma generator was only a body double of the Grandmaster - even as Jarek disguised herself with polymorphine and assumed the seat of Grandmaster of Assassins - had already made her getaway, rallying those loyal to her from Terra and beyond. With the Assassinorum now firmly under his thumb, Vandire used the shadowy assassins as another weapon with which to prosecute what was rapidly becoming a reign of terror; opponents political and military alike disappearing or found butchered in cruel and unusual manners.

When the reign of Emperor Vandire was coming to an end, he began to use his assassins more openly against rebel forces - and it was at that moment, when they emerged from the shadows, that the true Grandmaster struck. Jarek had used the forces of the Assassinorum masterfully, always knowing which figures to ''liquidate'' to maximise disorder and panic - yet she had no experience of the same tactics being used against her, and could do little but order her own assassins to focus on the new threat.

The resulting battles were devastating. Assassins loyal to Vandire and to the Grandmaster both used long-forgotten, forbidden technologies on the other side, for each was (rightly) convinced that the victory of the other would see them exterminated to the last. Gene-sympathetic nerve gases, neutronic warheads, entropic broadcasters, pan-chronal disruptors, and other terrors were all used; some dating back to the nightmare of the Old Night. These were the Wars of Vindication, and they would be repeated again and again from Terra to the furthest reaches of the Imperium as assassin turned against assassin to purge the ones they saw as traitors.

When the Steward finally returned to Terra from his self-imposted exile, the Temples were little more than smoking, hellish ruin. The palace, too, was scarred by battle; and there he found the Grandmaster - who pointed to her lifeless doppelganger and declared that the traitor was dead.

The Steward was unamused.

The Grandmaster offered her life by way of apology, and begged the Officio Assassinorum be spared. She knew all too well of the warning passed down from each Grandmaster to the next, and of the possibility of her and her own suddenly being abandoned by an Imperium that had no other place for them. For his part, the Steward was bitterly disappointed with Emperor Vandire's descent into madness - yet this time he could not truly fault what had historically been the most troublesome of the High Lords' domains. One Grandmaster had fought with unwavering loyalty for the Imperium, while the other had done so in the name of the Emperor. Perhaps he was a little ashamed of his own poor judgement, for he was merciful; the Grandmaster was allowed to disappear into exile, and the remnants of the Assassinorum were to return to Terra for their final judgment.

The Steward of the Golden Throne retreated into the Imperial Palace for the last time, and when the Emperor of Mankind emerged, first and final orders to the ancient Officio Assassinorum were as follows:

*All assassins were to be granted a window of clemency, where an amnesty would be offered regardless of allegiance. They were misled, but had still fought with ferocious loyalty to their superiors - against some of the best in the Imperium, no less. Any who ignored this opportunity would be declared outlaws of the Imperium of the Golden Throne, for both the Grandmaster and her doppelganger had kept close eyes on their respective assassins (lest they defect). Huge bounties were offered, of course, but the most sought-after reward was the opportunity for the hunter to take the place of the assassin they defeated, becoming one of the Imperium's shadowy elite.

*After the grace period, the Officio Assassinorum would be completely and utterly dissolved. The Temples would remain, but only as individual institutions with no power and little role; all masters would stripped of formal office and all survivors either absorbed into the reborn order: the Officio Tactitum. No more secret handshakes or shadowy meetings lit by incense, no unaccountable Grandmasters operating without question. Civilian control would slow the Tactitum, perhaps even hamstring it, but this was the price to be paid to avoid the mistakes of the past.

*Perhaps most importantly, the Ordo Securitas of the Inquisition would be formed to monitor not only the assassins but the other highest echelons of the Imperium. These Inquisitors would be the guardians of the guardians, watching each Officio and Adeptus for corruption and abuse, wary of another Vangorich or Vandire emerging.

*However, due to their power to render judgment of even the highest figures of the Imperium, the Sicarius were only permitted to advise and regulate, never taking direction - at least, in theory. In reality, many Securitas Inquisitors found rather...creative ways to circumvent the decree that they may not maintain "men under arms".

The Emperor had spoken, and these were his commands.

The Officio Tacitum is a far more modern organization nowadays. Though it primarily is still famed for its assassins, it also produces operatives specialised in sabotage and covert warfare far from home. They are often assigned to the command of the Astra Militarum or individual Inquisitors; and each lone assassin is still a finely honed killing machine, but they now serve as spectacular force multipliers rather as ends in themselves. The Ordo Sicarius is satisfied with this arrangement, as it avoids the high risk and cost of the traditional lone wolf operations, and allows them to keep an eye on any assassins deployed.

The Temples? They are far less superstitious and shadowy than they once were, although the name of "Temple" has stuck in defiance of every reform that has been attempted. Each of them has diversified yet maintained their core roots in their quest to perfect the art of murder.

Temple Vindicare, who reach out far longer than all but the highest of psykers to deliver their kiss of death.

Temple Venenum, who can find a thousand toxins to kill a man from the gentlest of paradise worlds, each one exquisite to the palette in their own unique way.

Temple Eversor, who can scythe through men, orks, eldar and even Astartes with the horrifying ease of a power sword through flak armour.

Temples Culexus - who hunt down their prey with soulless eyes - and Callidus, who have no face to call their own.

Temple Vanus, which according to popular belief ha[EXPUNGED]oes not exist. The Ordo Sicarius has confirmed this, and will not allow any dispute.

The primary headquarters of the Tacticum, including the Temples, lie on Terra, although across each segmentum there are localised, lesser temples that train assassins, liason with other Imperial Forces, and seek recruits from outside the Schola the Temples traditionally draw from. The Ordo Sicarius also work closely with segmentum command to permit proper coordination if Tacitum assets are needed, although on a smaller level they are surprisingly good at scouting talented assassin candidates. With proper Inquisitorial oversight, the assassins are kept well in check, and well out of politics.

The High Lords of Terra still has a seat for the Grandmaster of Assassins, but it has been left vacant ever since the reign of Emperor Vandire. Few imagine it will ever be filled again.

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=== Adeptus Astronomica ===

“''We are the ones who give of ourselves so that others may walk in the light''”<br>
-- Motto of the Adeptus Astronomica

Of all the professions available to psykers of the Imperial Schola, perhaps none is more honored than those of the Adeptus Astronomica. These are the people who make daily life in the Imperium possible with literally nothing more than their sheer force of will. The Astronomican represents one of the first major cooperative efforts between humanity and the Eldar. Although originally of human creation, its design was improved by the Eldar as a gift of gratitude for humanity’s participation in the raid on Nurgle’s mansion, greatly improving the efficiency of the Astronomican and strength of its beacon. Although original estimates based on the average ability of a human psyker suggested that twelve thousand people at once would be needed to power the beacon, Eldar modifications decreased the actual number of psykers needed by an order of magnitude, while drastically reducing the amount of stress on an individual psyker.

However, at the same time, no profession is more tragic than that of the Adeptus Astronomica. Creating a psychic “bonfire” that can be seen by the entire Imperium is taxing on the individual, even with twelve hundred other psykers to share the burden. As a result, the psykers of the Adeptus Astronomica are rotated out in shifts in an attempt to maximize their health, with a third of the choir being rotated out every four months. However, even this is not enough to prevent long-term damage. Few psykers live more than a year, and almost none have survived more than eighteen months. In the Halls of the Astronomican, right before one enters the Chambers of the Astronomican itself, there is a small, grassy courtyard, nearly empty save for a stele made of the hardest adamantium. On it is inscribed the names of every psyker who has died in the course of powering the Astronomican, a testament to their bravery so that the Imperium will never forget their sacrifice.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Unfinished, never figured out why Astronomican needs psyker sacrifices when Emperor was able to power and direct it by himself during the Great Crusade. Couldn't have started out needing sacrifices because there weren't enough psykers available to the Imperium to keep it going until the Imperium had a lot of worlds under its command. Best suggestion was that it was damaged during the War of the Beast, but no reason was ever agreed upon.

=== Adeptus Sororitas ===

==== Rough Notes from the Threads ====
*Formed in the aftermath of the reign of Vandire and the Civil War along with the Ordo Securitas
*They receive some cybernetic and biological enhancements, putting them roughly on par with a Spartan from Halo
**A group of 3 Sisters is roughly equal to 1 Space Marine, winning about 5 times out of 10. However, the Marine has a significant advantage in melee due to much better physical attributes and the Sisters are encumbered by their Power Armor due to lack of a Black Carapace. To win, the Sisters would need to leverage numbers and teamwork.
*I believe we said they mostly operate with the Inquisition, though their organization and exact scope of duties is unclear/undiscussed at the moment.

==== Daughters of Russ ====

The Daughters of Russ, better known as the Valkyries, are a organization similar to the Adeptas Sororitas unique for only recruiting from Fenris and the Fenrisian colonies. The Daughters claim to be matrilineal descendants of Leman Russ via his many daughters, but given the size of Leman Russ' family and the amount of time that has passed since Russ came to Fenris, it is likely that everyone on the Fenrisian Worlds can trace their ancestry back to Leman Russ in some way.

The Daughters of Russ are best known for their ferocity. Although the Sororitas are well known for their aggression and their single-mindedness, the Valkyries fight with a viciousness that seems almost inhuman. In addition, the Valkyries also exhibit senses and other abilities that seem beyond standard Sororitas-level augmentation, leading some to suspect that the Sororitas enhancements either enhance the effect of the Canis Helix genes present in the general Fenrisian population or reawaken Canis Helix genes that were formerly dormant. Surprisingly, the Daughters are otherwise rather conservative for Sororitas, looking down on the sisterhoods who add additional augmentations like kill-glands. To the Valkyries, such additions mock and taint the skill of an individual in battle.

However, at the same time the Daughters are also well-known for their talents in medicine. The Valkyries have close ties with the Sisters Hospitalier, and often find themselves being sent to reinforce flagging battalions and save as many of the wounded as they can. It is these practices that led the first leader of the Daughters of Russ to say “it is our job to look Morkai in the eye and tell him, ‘you will not touch them today’”, which eventually became shortened into the motto of the order.

Editor's Note: Needs to be seen how they relate to Sororitas. Are they actual Sororitas, the female equivalent of Space Wolves, or what? It was pointed out that the concept is good, but they don't seem to function like the Sisters (as internal police).

=== Navis Nobilite ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Writing#The Saga of Fedor Jiao|The Saga of Fedor Jiao]]

== Adeptus Mechanicus and its branches ==

=== Adeptus Biologis ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''Gene-wrights of M41:'''''

''Without metal man is a beast. Without flesh man is a tool.''<br>
-- Motto of the Adeptus Biologis

Despite being seen as just another branch of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Adeptus Biologis actually has very different origins from the rest of the Mechanicus. Instead of being derived from the Martian Mechanicum, the Biologis were originally formed from the various geneticists and biotechnologists living in the territories that the Warlord conquered, including the gene-hippie conclaves of western Merika, the genesmiths of Ducht Jemanic, and the genewrights of Luna. The Biologis were eventually folded into the Mechanicus proper, and centuries of cultural and philosophical exchange have greatly reduced the differences between the two, but the group still retains its own unique quirks.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Today, the Adeptus Biologis performs a multitude of services throughout the Imperium. They travel to newly pacified worlds to make catalogs and studies of native flora and fauna. They study diseases and synthesize new medications to constantly try to beat back the plagues of Nurgle. They try to engineer more efficient versions of crops to feed the burgeoning Imperium. They often oversee augmentations of Space Marines and Sisters of Battle.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the Adeptus Biologis and most other divisions of the Adeptus Mechanicus is their stance on innovation. According to the Biologis, the Mechanicus’ prohibition on invention and innovation only applies to technology, not nature, a loophole the Biologis are happy to exploit. As a result, the Adeptus Biologis are much more willing to try new techniques than the Mechanicus proper, which is one reason why things like rejuvenant drugs and augmentation have improved over the centuries, even if it is only at a glacial pace. Of course, given that all of their equipment comes from the Mechanicus proper, the Biologis are often unable to build the kind of equipment they would like to use.

Another major difference between the Biologis and the rest of the Mechanicus involve physical augmentations. The Biologis are just as augment-happy as their brethren within the AdMech, but tend to prefer artificially engineered organs and genetically modified tissues over cybernetic implants. Even those Magos Biologis who do have mechanical implants often strive for a balance between flesh and metal, seeking to perfect the flesh before they involve the machine.

Like virtually every organization in the Imperium, the Adeptus Biologis can be broken up into a number of factions. The old rivalry between the gene-hippies and genesmiths is still there, only under different names. The Emergentists believe that artificial biological designs must be “balanced” as part of an integrated whole much like natural designs, and that the greatest parts of a design often emerge via interactions that are not forseen. By contrast, the Utilitarians believe the body is analogous to a machine, and must be treated as such. Any deviation from the perceived purity of a design is something not to be tolerated.

The Mechanicum, that is, the actual Mars-based organization who make up the majority of the Adeptus Mechanicus and primarily work with technology, do not like the Adeptus Biologis very much. They see the Adeptus Biologis as pretenders whose accouterments are little more than aping the Mechanicum of Mars. They see the aversion of the Biologis to cybernetic augmentations as an affront to the Credo Omnissiah. Nevertheless, they begrudgingly the Biologicus despite seeing them as lesser, much in the way scholars of the “hard sciences” looked down on biology prior to the Age of Strife. Perhaps this is one reason why, at some point in history, the Biologicus changed their apparel from dressing in robes of red to robes of dark green.

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=== 'Tech-Heresy' and its definition ===

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Imperial_Society_and_Culture#Hereteks_and_the_nature_of_.22Tech-Heresy.22|Hereteks and the nature of "Tech-Heresy"]]

==The Inquisition==

===The Ark Ship===

As part of their duty to keep the Imperium safe, members of the Inquisition are often forced to consider possibilities that would be unthinkable to the rest of the Imperium. Contingency plans for disasters on the scale of which most people would be unable to imagine. The Ark Ship is one such contingency.

The Ark Ship is one of the biggest secrets of the Inquisition and Mechanicus. What little information that has leaked out to the public has been hilariously exaggerated.

It is the final contingency plan. The ultimate Plan B. Activated only in the unthinkable event that the Imperium falls and the galaxy becomes uninhabitable by sentient life. Due to its nature and the implications of its construction, even as a contingency plan, knowledge of the actual ship has been suppressed for fear of causing a panic.

It's a highly modified Omnissiah class ship, modified to survive for thousands upon thousands of years at minimal power and activity. The captain is the one Inquisitor of Ordo Desolatus, held in stasis. It's cargo is rack upon rack of genetic samples and frozen embryos from every sapient species in the Imperium, from humans to Tau.

The crew are mechanically augmented up to the very edge of what is legally allowed before you start treading into A.I. territory. Metal can shut down cleanly and is far more efficient than flesh. The crew, like the captain, are in stasis.

If the Imperium falls it launches into the intergalactic blackness.

==Imperial Navy==

===The Five Flagships===

''Phalanx''. ''Nicor''. ''Mirabilis''. ''The Rock''. ''Terminus Est''. These are names that are instantly recognized by any scholar of Imperial history, as well as feared throughout history by those who sought to do the Imperium harm.

The Five, often colloquially referred to as the “Five Big Bastards” after a comment made by primarch Rogal Dorn, were a series of massive super-dreadnoughts commissioned by the Imperium in the last days of the Unification of Sol and the early years of the Great Crusade. Each of these ships were roughly 25 kilometers long and bristled with conventional weaponry. The five ships were roughly comparable in size and shape, though the ''Phalanx'' was perhaps a little larger and a little more heavily-armed than her sisters. In addition to newly constructed material mined from the Sol system, the Five were also constructed from the recycled remains of the numerous scattered shipwrecks throughout the Sol system (many of which came to the attention of the Imperium at the suggestion of the primarch Horus), making them packed full of whatever Dark Age-era technology could be salvaged from the wreckage.

The original construction of the Five was intended to be a show of solidarity between the newly unified nations of Sol. The ships were to be commissioned by the newly named Steward of Earth, constructed by the Mechanicum of Mars in the shipyards of Luna, and would be crewed by the Void Born of the Sol migrant fleet. However, become of the time and resource-intensive nature of their construction, only two of these ships, the ''Rock'' and the ''Phalanx'', were ready by the beginning of the Great Crusade. The ''Rock'' was sent out as the flagship of the Imperium's first expeditionary fleet helmed by the Dark Angels, whereas the ''Phalanx'' remained in the Sol system to act as a deterrent to any potential force that would threaten Mars and Old Earth. Construction of the remaining three, the ''Nicor'', ''Mirabilis'', and ''Terminus Est'', was not completed until much later in the Great Crusade, when the resources of additional systems could be brought to bear on their completion.

The Five were intended to be a long-term investment. In addition to building ties of unity between the major factions of Sol, the Five were meant to be a show of strength on the part of the nascent Imperium to the greater galaxy. The huge size of the Five meant that their internal workings could support much larger than average hydroponic bays, which meant they could function away from the Imperium for long periods of time without resupplying and be largely self-sufficient if they were ever cut off from Imperial supply chains. This made the ''Rock'' the ideal flagship to send out with the expeditionary fleet. Eventually, the plan was for the Five to be sent to the far corners of the galaxy, one for each major Segmentum, to act as flagships and command centers for the Imperial Navy. The ''Phalanx'', ''Rock'', ''Terminus Est'', ''Nicor'', and ''Mirabilis'' were to be sent to Segmenta Solar, Obscurus, Pacificus, Tempestus, and Ultima, respectively. Unfortunately, random chance and the whims of history ended up scuttling this plan. Although originally constructed as part of a set, each of the Five suffered dramatically different fates.

The ''Rock'' was infamously stolen by the arch-traitor Luther during the Chaos of the War of the Beast, only to be reclaimed by the loyalist Dark Angels after the Lion's final battle with his brother. Luther had not had his hands on the ''Rock'' long enough for it to be irrevocably tainted by Chaos, and the Dark Angels were able to repurpose the battleship for their own uses. To this day, the ''Rock'' remains the mobile headquarters of the Dark Angels chapter.

The ''Phalanx'', although heavily damaged in the War of the Beast, remains as it always has in the Sol System, an old guard dog ever-ready to fight those that would threaten the capital of the Imperium. Its legendary ramming action that repelled the Beast's attack planet Ullanor during the War of The Beast obliterated much of the original ship, as the relativistic impact vaporized almost all of the Phalanx, with only relatively small parts of the drive superstructure remaining attached to the ship's neutronium ramming prow and keel, which was later recovered from a highly elliptical orbit around Sol.

The ''Mirabilis'' remains active in the galactic East, still acting as a flagship of the Imperial Navy rather than commanded by any chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, perhaps the only one of the Five along with the Phalanx that is still performing the job the Imperium intended for it. However, the Ultima Segmentum is nearly an order of magnitude larger than any other part of the galaxy, and there is little the ''Mirabilis'' can do beyond putting out fires.

The ''Nicor'' fought valiantly for many years, but was presumed lost in the aftermath of the second Black Crusade. In late M40, the Carcharodons found the carcass of the ''Nicor'' floating out in the middle of the Segmentum Tempestus, and after much friction with the rest of the Imperium refurbished it into their new headquarters. Although the ''Nicor'' is probably capable of void combat once more, the Carcharodons prefer to keep it in a strategic location in the galactic South to act as a central base from which they can coordinate their attacks. Ironically, the ''Nicor'' in some ways is performing the job it had always been intended to do in the first place, striking fear in the hearts of any who would threaten the Imperium in the Segmentum Tempestus.

The ''Terminus Est'' served the Imperium through more military campaigns than any other member of the Five. After being sent to take back the Segmentum Pacificum when the Imperium set out to reclaim the Segmentum, the ship was commandeered in the aftermath of the war by Typhus the Pilgrim, who made it into the mobile headquarters of his breakaway chapter the Black Templars. For six millennia, the ''Terminus Est'' was a constant presence on the western front of the Imperium. Much like the Black Templars themselves, the ''Terminus Est'' was forever marching to war, never resting, never stopping, almost seeming to have an indefatigable personality of its own. If there is any truth to the Mechanicus' claim that ships have machine spirits, there is perhaps no better argument in support of this idea than the ''Terminus Est''.

However, no ship can fight forever. In late M38, the ''Terminus Est'' finally broke down after back-to-back fighting in an Armageddon War and putting down an assault on Necromunda. The ''Terminus Est'' managed to limp its mass to high Necromundan orbit before tidal forces tore the ship apart. Today, the ''Terminus Est'' is the closest thing the Black Templars have to a static headquarters. Like the ''Nicor'', the Templars claim the ''Terminus Est'' might have a few more battles in her, but so far none have been willing to put that claim to the test.

===Deep Field Recon===

Knowledge of its many enemies is vital to the Imperium's survival, and quite hard to come by. Oh, you can learn some things on the battlefield. Weapons and tactics. But this is far, far from a complete picture. It tells you nothing of their logistics, of their politics, of their inner minds, of the deep knowledge needed to strike at the heart of an entire civilization. Fighting on the battlefield tells you how to fight on the battlefield, but not how to craft grand strategy.

Channels for gaining this deep knowledge are few. It is impossible to infiltrate the Silent Court; a tyranid cannot be bribed to turn against the Swarm. There is no trade with the Orks, and an embassy in Commorragh would be nothing but a buffet table. Listening in on the psychic conversations of the Crones is actively hazardous to the listener's health, and no bug could tap into the inner thoughts of gods. All the tricks human nations have used to spy on each other since time immemorial are useless against the vast majority of the Imperium's foes. But ignorance is not an option.

Thus, the Deep Field Recon squadrons.

The Deep Field Recon squadrons are one of the few methods the Imperium has for investigating the inner reaches of enemy territory. Deep Field Recon ships are made to be as stealthy as possible, typically mounting multiple forms of concealment. Reflex shields and eldar holo-fields are standard, as are various forms of passive stealth such as low-signature engines and auspex- baffling plating. Some are equipped with more exotic devices still, archeotech and xenotech cloaking devices salvaged from the far corners of the galaxy. An (un)lucky few bear psychic choirs on board, actively diverting the attention of possible searchers away.

The design of any two ships are often dissimilar; due to the incorporation of xenotech in the design, the main body of the Mechanicum refuses to construct them. Thus, their creation is left to the heterodox and other member states; the Hubworld League, the Eldar, the Interex, and increasingly the Tau.

With these techniques, they dive deep into the sanctums of the enemy, gathering information, inserting and extracting commando teams, and striking targets of opportunity. The Deep Field Recon squadrons are a vital part of anti-Ork efforts, providing forewarning of rising WAAAGGHHs and delivering kill- teams to eliminate rising Warbosses. Others ghost through the Silent Empire, mapping tombworlds, counting World Engines, and watching for any preparations for an attack. (This is one of the highest- mortality duties among in Deep Field Recon; the Silent Empire guards its borders jealously, and its reserves of techno- sorcery are vast and deep.) There are even rumors of ships covered in hexagrammatic wards operating under the auspices of the Alpha Legion, plunging into the Eye of Terror itself to strike at the Great Enemy in its lair.

Life in the Silent Service is frequently nerve- wracking. By the nature of their missions, they sped their time deep in enemy territory far away from any possible reinforcements. Often for years on end, as they slowly assemble a complete picture of enemy numbers and capabilities from telescope pictures and stray vox- chatter. At the same time, it is often quite boring, drifting through space with everything but stealth systems and passive sensors powered down, watching an enemy with no idea of their presence. When hunting, the nature of the wait and tension changes as they slowly glide towards their targets, moving into position for a single kill- shot and hoping their exit route remains clear.

Deep Field Recon squadrons usually operate under the auspices of the Inquisition. Typically, they are attached to various Watch Fortresses keeping an eye on specific threats or regions of space. Most Recon ships operate with an Inquisitor, or at least an Interrogator, on board, specializing in the specific threat the ship is operating against. Many Inquisitors use vessels of similar design as their personal vehicles, even if not specifically on Deep Field Recon duties; the class is well- suited to Inquisition duties generally.

There are few Deep Field Recon vessels. Due to the exotic equipment and demanding tolerances of the class, they are difficult to build; only a few thousands exist at any given time. But, in enemies of the Imperium ambushed and destroyed, and even more in vital knowledge gathered, each is worth ten times its number in conventional vessels.

== Eldar-Only Forces ==

=== Handmaidens of Isha ===

Just as it is the job of the Adeptus Custodes to protect the Emperor of Mankind and his wife, it is the job of the Handmaidens of Isha to protect the Grand Empress Isha and her husband. The Handmaidens of Isha are the Eldar side of the Imperium's praetorian guard, drawn from the ranks of her most devout followers in the cults that sprung up in her wake following her rescue from Nurgle's mansion. Compared to many other followers of Isha, the blessings of the Handmaidens are rather subtle. Little more than an immunity to virtually all diseases and a seeming inability to sustain permanent damage from scaring or age. This allows the Handmaidens to perfect their physical training in a way that only one who does not have to worry about wear and tear on their body can. The Handmaidens are no pushovers, being armed with swords known as "the Thorns of Isha" that can inflict wounds that do not heal. The Handmaidens are also noted to have a connection to Isha that borders on the preternatural, able to sense if their charge is in direct danger even if they are unable to see her directly.

However, the Handmaidens of Isha have an another job in addition to protecting their Empress. As the Imperial Couple travels from world to world, the Empress often sends her handmaidens to inspect the world beforehand to ensure that the world is as upstanding as it often claims to be. Although many worlds have their own dirty little secrets that they have managed to keep secret from the Administratum, few can hide from the gaze of the All-Mother. Although the Adeptus Custodes are also often posted in Imperial society to keep watch for potential threats against the Emperor and Imperium, most of them are incapable of doing so without drawing attention to themselves. The Handmaidens of Isha, on the other hand, are capable of passing themselves off as just another Eldar or even avoiding notice altogether. Because the two groups have essentially the same job, they often end up directly cooperating with one another.

=== The Avatar of Khaine ===

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Khaine|Khaine]]

==== The Avatar of Biel-Tan ====

Biel-Tan hasn't deployed an Avatar of Khaine for nearly one hundred years. This wouldn't be surprising for a lesser craftworld, or a craftworld that is peaceable, but this is Biel-Tan. The most well known, influential, and martially famous craftworld. That Khaela Mensha Khaine hasn't made an appearance in a year, much less a near century would provoke suspicion.

However, among the eldar, it's considered a bit of a faux pas to ask about this. The Inquisition is another matter entirely though, and they already know the answer.

Biel-Tan's avatar has been awake this entire time. Biel-Tan summoned the avatar for the Ghoul Campaign, to help a desperate sword wind against a siege of orks with daemon support. The avatar of war led the survivors, many wounded, to victory against the orks, culminating in the avatar decapitating the bloodthirster Yel'Grazruk shattering the spirit of the enemy. The sword wind rejoiced.

Then they noticed the avatar wasn't gone. It had followed the fleeing enemy, and was killing as many as it could reach. The next day, the avatar was still killing. On the fifteenth day, it ran out of enemies to kill, and came back, planted its sword at the center of the biel tan fortification, and waited.

After the twentieth day, the Biel-Tan forces found themselves very worried indeed. The burning avatar still smoldered, glaring out at the horizon. In the face of their persistent god, finally they attempted to psychically contact the avatar, a hazardous venture for even the most skilled warlock.

After the warlock stopped chanting in a dead language, she managed to sputter out "Khaine waits for his chariot." No one knew what that referred to. But when the autarch ordered the sword wind back to Biel-Tan, the avatar followed, marched through the craftworld, and returned to his temple, still burning.

The avatar has sat there since, waiting for his chariot.

==Craftworld Armor==
The Craftworld Eldar military forces are descended from, essentially, civic militia. Thus, their war machines were optimized for ease of construction, ease of maintenance, and ease of piloting; war machines a part-time non-professional volunteer force could use and maintain. The aftermath of the Fall, when the survivors were thrown back onto highly limited resources and the whole population had to be mobilized to survive, only reinforced this paradigm. 10,000 years of Imperium have loosened it; the number of super-heavy vehicles in the Craftworld arsenal has increased both in absolute number and proportion as more resources become available. Likewise, more specialist designs for specific battlefield roles have become commonplace as the need for every tank to potentially fill every role lessens. Still the typical Craftworld grav-tank remains a stripped-down (in terms of mechanical complexity, not necessarily weight) generalist.

== Tau Empire ==

=== Mont'Kau Battlesuits ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''Front-Line Defenders of the Greater Good:'''''

[[Image:Mont%27kau_Battlesuit.png|thumb|]]

As the Tau first expanded from their cradle of civilization on T’au into the greater galaxy, they began to realize that many of their opponents, including orks, tyranids, Space Marines, and more, were devastatingly effective in close-quarters combat. Although the Tau personally avoided melee combat whenever possible, they realized that many of their opponents were not going to do them a favor and do the same. The Tau would have loved to use their auxillaries to make up for this deficiency, but among their close allies only the kroot were well-suited for close combat and there were far more Tau regiments than there were kroot to go around.

As a result, at the behest of O’Shovah (Commander Farsight) back before the Schism, the Tau Empire decided to solve this problem by building bigger, more durable versions of the Crisis battlesuit specifically designed for melee combat. It has been suggested that O’Shovah was inspired to pitch his idea when he realized that battlesuits could be used to compensate for the Tau’s smaller physical stature and reluctance to engage in melee combat against foes such as Orks and Space Marines, but the Tau vehemently deny this is the case. Unlike most battlesuits, which were designed as mobile platforms for heavy ranged weaponry, these suits were designed for close quarters combat. These suits often carry guns, like all Tau battlesuits, but more often than not these tend to be close-range weapons like shotguns or tend to be a melee weapon first and foremost like a giant bayonet to which attaching an actual gun is an afterthought. The Tau called them Mont’kau Battlesuits, named after a particularly terrifying species of predator from their homeworld of T’au. To the rest of the Imperium, who lacked the appreciation for the intricacies of the Tau language, these suits simply became known as Predator Battlesuits.

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Compared to a Space Marine or an Aspect Warrior, Mont’kau battlesuits aren’t as particularly agile in close-quarters combat (lacking the Black Carapace of a Space Marine or the flesh and blood agility of an Eldar), but like all Tau battlesuits they are lightweight for their size and, more importantly, easily replaceable. The purpose of the Mont’kau battlesuits is not to serve as shock troops, but to act as a bulwark to keep the close combat forces of the enemy away from the firing line. Mont’kau battlesuits are typically piloted by battlefield veterans, ones who are used to the chaos of battle and have fast enough reflexes to fight on the front lines. As a result, although melee combat is still the Tau’s biggest weakness, at least the Tau now have an answer to the numerous close-combat specialists that dominate the galactic landscape, and are not a complete joke about it. Nevertheless, the Tau claim that they are continually improving on the Mont’kau design, and that one day the Mont’kau battlesuits will be the equal of the front line combatants of the other major races.

One common addition to Mont’kau battlesuits is an outer layer of explosive reactive armor, made of an alloy similar to but more brittle than the traditional fio’tak, which is designed to fragment into a spray of ceramite-like shrapnel. This reactive armor can either be used to provide additional protection against anti-personnel ranged attacks or be command-detonated to act like a makeshift claymore mine. These reactive armor plates are actually capable of being added to a wide-variety of battlesuits, but are most often associated with the Mont’kau battlesuits due to their role in close combat. These additions, along with the directed flechette grenades that are now a common component of Tau infantry gear, were largely devised as contingencies against the Dark Eldar, whom the Tau held a particular hatred for after their repeated raids of the Tau Empire in the wake of the A.I. rebellion, the Tau Reformation, and the vanguard Hive Fleets. To the Dark Eldar, for whom speed was their primary protection, such devices would prove lethal.

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== Interex ==

=== Sagittars ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''A Fusion of Man and Machine:'''''

Although mankind had experimented with quadrupedal walking machines as early as M3, the use of these machines in warfare would not come into their own until much later, reaching their peak just before and during the Age of Strife. The separation of the myriad worlds of the Great and Bountiful Human Empire during the Age of Strife resulted in each human world developing its own unique way of coping with the adverse conditions of the period, leading to an explosion of new technologies and new adaptations of old ones. Among these new weapons were the sagittars, a term used to both refer to the quadrupedal walking and the people who rode them, developed by the Interex of the Segmentum Pacificus. Although originally designed as scouts and heavy cavalry, sagittars would quickly become the backbone of Interex ground warfare.

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Sagittars are primarily controlled by their rider, who neutrally link to their mount in order to operate their mechanical limbs and onboard armory as if the machine was an extension of themself. Because of this, it often takes several years for a sagittar rider to fully learn how to control their machine’s limbs as if they were their own. When riderless, the robotic portion of the sagittar is controlled by an extremely simple artificial intelligence (about as simple, if not moreso, than those seen in Legio Cybernetica constructs), capable of standing still, returned to the rider’s side when commanded, or seeking cover in case of a firefight, and not much else. It is only when linked to their rider that a sagittar is capable of more complex action.

In addition to serving as a mobile mount, sagittars also function as a mobile armory for their rider. The rear portion of the mount contains a number of weapons, which can be switched between as needed. The most common weapon used by the Interex is the magnetic bow, which consists of a magazine of two foot long spikes attached to a pair of arms, each of which contained a pair of electromagnets. When the weapon is fired, a current is sent through the bow accelerating the projectile to velocities sufficient enough to penetrate ceramite armor. Adjusting the arms of the bow to be closer or further from the main barrel increases or decreases the power, accuracy, and recoil of the shot. Skilled riders can even turn their bodies around 180 degrees while retreating to fire parting shots while their mount runs away from the battle. The armory will also contain lances, swords, or electrified throwing lances for other tasks. If an enemy attacks too fast for the rider to grab a weapon, the sagittar can strike out at its foe by kicking with its hydraulic legs.

In some ways, Interex sagittars act as highly mobile infantry as opposed to cavalry. Sagittars are stronger than a baseline human footsoldier, but their primary advantage over other elite troops such as Astartes and Aspect Warriors is their extreme mobility. Although sagittars can fight in traditional cavalry charges, the near ubiquitous presence of ranged weapons in the galaxy makes this a near-suicidal endeavor. Instead, the Interex use the superior mobility of their sagittars to outflank and outmaneuver slower opponents. This fit well with the general Interex policy of war, which was to dictate where and when a battle would occur under conditions that favored the Interex in order to minimize casualties on both sides. Although not as fast as an assault bike, under good conditions a sagittar can travel at speeds of up to 60 kilometers per hour, and unlike flesh-and-blood mounts, sagittars do not get tired. Sagittar legs are also well-built to traveling over uneven terrain, as opposed to horses.

Because the sagittar’s mounts are an extension of themselves, rather than a separate animal, sagittars do not suffer from many of the typical weaknesses of biological cavalry. A sagittar cannot be startled as easily as a horse can, because the only way to startle a sagittar is to startle the rider. However, sagittars do have some weaknesses. Because the rider of a sagittar has to be able to turn around to access the onboard armory, the armor has to be relatively light and flexible around the waist, making it a weak point. Since contact with the Imperium, the Interex have created models with heavier armor and more powerful weapons, but have never been able to fully eliminate this weakness. Additionally, because the rider sits above the fray of the battle, in close-combat conditions where the sagittar is unable to exploit its greater mobility, the same height that allows the sagittar to pick and choose its targets on the battlefield makes them an easy target for snipers or other high-powered ranged weaponry. If the legs are damaged, it is often possible to kill the rider before they can eject from their sagittar. Finally, and most importantly, although sagittars are good at offensive actions and hit-and-run attacks, they are not as effective when they are forced to stand and fight, whether they are forced into a position in which they cannot retreat or need to fortify and protect an objective. In the past, this is often when the Interex would call in the Kinebrach to supplement their sagittars as shock troopers. Today this role is generally filled by other forces.

However, sagittar usage has never really caught on outside of the Interex and a few associated territories for a variety of reasons. First, sagittars occupy a rather awkward place in Imperial Tactics, being more expensive and more difficult to replace than flesh-and-blood cavalry such as horses, yet too slow for tactics used by heavy cavalry such as assault bikes and jetbikes. In some parts of the Imperium highly orthodox Mechanicus adepts will refuse to construct parts for sagittars, considering their machine spirits too close to A.I. for comfort (as they do the Legio Cybernetica), and since this simple intelligence is required for sagittar function sagittars are not made. Finally, sagittar fighting involves mastering an unusual set of tactics, including the ability to rapidly retreat and regroup from the battlefield when it becomes necessary. This is very different from typical Imperial tactics, particularly the Cadian doctrine, the most commonly followed military doctrine in the Imperium, which primarily focuses on the defense and holding of territory, with aggressive action being taken primarily through artillery barrages. Sagittar fighting thus requires a very different mindset than is typically found among Imperial forces, one that is found only in groups such as the Armageddon Outriders or the inhabitants of the Pastoral Worlds. Nevertheless, a well-trained sagittar battalion is still a welcome sight for an Imperial commander on any battlefield.

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== Hubworld League (Squats) ==

=== Destroyermen ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''Heavy Infantry of the Hubworld League:'''''

Destroyermen are the heavy infantry of any squat army. The concept of Destroyermen originally derived from the squat custom of having people who would risk their lives as the first ones to enter an unexplored cavern or mine shaft to see if it was safe to enter. Despite being clad in the best protective gear available, this work was extremely dangerous, as evidenced by the casualty rate, but at the same time it paid extremely well. However, being mostly socialists, a squat clan would often not waste all of the earnings on themselves. Instead, they would put into upgrading and improving the protective suit, making it more likely that the individual performing this job would keep coming back intact. This bizarre method of technological natural selection went on for millennia, until eventually most squat colonies had numerous sets of masterwork craft powered armor scattered among various clans. From there it was a simple leap to go from using this armor for checking for gas pockets and occasional hostile xenos to using them in open warfare against threats like Orks. Destroyermen are often the “tip of the spear” in squat armies, fighting in areas where casualties are likely to be high. Destroyerman armors have often been in squat families for generations, and the living clan members are fiercely protective of them, seeing them as emblems of their clan’s glory and heritage.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Like most squat technology, the concept of Destroyermen and Destroyermen suits was developed during the Age of Isolation, the period in which the Hubworld League was cut off from contact with the majority of humanity. Destroyerman armor is often referred to as the little brother of Space Marine terminator armor, and there is a grain of truth to that statement. Destroyerman armor and Terminator armor actually spring from a common source, the environmental hazard suits used for working in hard vacuum or mining in inhospitable conditions during the Dark Age of Technology. However, whereas Terminator armor was retrofitted for military usage and has been increasingly refined for combat over millennia, Destroyerman armor is much more sedate. This is in part because Destroyermen were never expected to see combat on the level that most Space Marine do, and in part because the ability to efficiently manufacture some of the higher end devices for the armors (like teleporters) was lost during the Age of Strife. In general, Destroyerman armor is more geared towards making sure the wearer and the armor survives rather than making a more efficient killing machine like Terminator armor. There is also the issue of the armor wearer. Although the armor may be high quality, the person inside the armor is still only human, lacking the genetic modifications typical of Space Marines or Sisters of Battle (particularly the Black Carapace of the former) and limited what a Destroyerman is capable of.

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=== Hubworlder Land Trains ===

Not all planets are so lucky as to have a breathable atmosphere, tolerable levels of radiation, and stable tectonic activity. The people of the Hubworld League near the galactic core know that better than most, many of their worlds being near the galactic core and therefore under constant upheaval from tidal flexing in the gravitational pull of a gas giant, pulsar, or the core of the Milky Way itself. On many worlds, it is not even possible to build the traditional bunker-like fortresses favored by Hubworld architects. Instead, the primary form of squat habitation is in the form of Land Trains.

Land trains were originally developed on less hostile worlds, designed as caravans to bring raw ore and other goods between major settlements. However, on less stable worlds, land trains have been refitted to become settlements in and of themselves, ballooning in size to encompass populations of entire cities. These types of trains are typically found on less tectonically stable worlds and often contain large amounts of mining equipment, allowing Hubworlders to mine the ores that drive their civilization while still being able to move out of the way of newly formed fissures and tectonic rifts

Many who see Hubworlder land trains draw parallels with trains on other worlds. The comparison is better in some ways than others. A better comparison might be an armored trade caravan, albeit one with treads and an ability to mine its own raw materials. Hubworlder land trains are formed by linked cars, but they do not follow tracks. After all, on these worlds sedentary or semi-permanent structures are a death sentence. Instead, land trains have treads, allowing them to climb even on highly angled surfaces.

As with almost every piece of technology they developed, the Hubworlders soon found that it was easy to repurpose their caravans for war. Armored sides designed to shrug off micrometeorite impacts and stellar radiation are equally well suited to deflect enemy fire. And the large size of the trains makes them ideal not only for troop housing and transport, but supporting truly massive weaponry, potentially making them armored juggernauts when used correctly.

[[category:Nobledark Imperium]]

Nobledark Imperium Member States

2018-07-07T05:51:11Z

2601:602:9A01:56E0:9DFF:BA8B:71FC:7FE8: /* Savlar */

A brief list of national entities that joined the Imperium whilst being interstellar powers in their own right.

= Survivor Civilizations =

Not all planets were as lucky as Old Earth during the Age of Strife. Although the planet was devastated by the horrors of the Old Night, at least it still retained much of its technology and infrastructure and much of its surface still remained habitable to human life. Other worlds were not so lucky. On many planets, the collapse of the Great and Bountiful Terran Empire caused the inhabitants to regress to medieval or even Stone Age levels of technology. Other planets retained some degree of advanced technology, but the conditions of their world were so harsh that people could just barely survive without assistance from offworld, and welcomed the Imperium with open arms.

When encountering a devolved human society, the Imperium would often unify the planet by the most expedient means possible and then get the appointed representative of the planet to swear loyalty to either the Imperium, the Empty Throne or the Steward depending on prevailing cultural norms of that planet. Worlds with stories of a savior figure that would save them from the Old Night, a common type of story on many worlds, typically had the Steward inserted into that role to ease integration. Worlds that still had some dim memory of the Golden Age typically swore loyalty to the Imperium, which they saw as the great Terran Empire being rebuilt. Worlds that had prophecies of a king that would arise in the distant future to lead them into a Golden Age, another common belief, found it easier to swear allegiance to the Empty Throne instead. For these worlds, it was hard to see anyone born during that age as a potential messianic figure.

These worlds, which are typically under the direct control of the Imperial government and the Administratum, became known as Administrated Worlds, which make up the vast majority of the worlds in the Imperium today. One notable exception were the Forge Worlds, who would only listen or swear loyalty to the lost holy land of Mars, through which the Imperium acquired their cooperation.

However, the Imperium also discovered many worlds that like Old Earth had managed to rebuild from the Age of Strife and become highly advanced societies in their own right, some even managing to carve out their own small interstellar empires. In addition to the Sol-based Voidborn Migrant Fleet and the Mechanicum of Mars, these included the Realm of Ultramar, the Interex, the Hubworld League, Colchis, Inwit, and Necromunda, among many others. For these entities, which became known as Survivor Civilizations, the Imperium offered them a deal: political and industrial autonomy, within [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#Imperial_Governmental_Structure|certain limits]], in exchange for inclusion and a prominent place in the Imperium. The Steward could see that they were as legitimate an inheritor of the Golden Age Empire as Earth was and knew that had he been salvaged by one of them then he would be offering this deal to Old Earth, not to mention that if he was in their position this was the kind of offer he would hope would made to him. The terms of these agreements sometimes varied slightly from world to world, sometimes resembling hammering out trade deals as opposed to treaties of alliance.

== Savlar ==
'''''Savlar: Because Fuck You, That's Why. - Above the Space Port door on a corrosion resistant glass slab.'''''

Savlar is a shit hole that runs on spite. Food grow there is poisonous and can only be consumed in careful combination so that the various toxins cancel each other out. The air is laced with harmful chemicals and the weather patterns are unpredictable across most of the surface making predicting what is on the breeze all but impossible. The water is unsafe to drink for all but the hardiest of constitutions and must first be filtered.

All in all nobody should ever go to Savlar. Life is short, dangerous and unpleasant. Much like the people that call it home. Or at least a Savlar curse word that is equivelent to home. Savlar has a lot of curses, all forms of wishing natural hazards upon the recipient in lewd and profane ways.

The only reason that the planet has any value at all to the Imperium is for the mystical substance known as neutronium. It is not actual "neutronium" but is just something that the lay-person calls neutronium due to it possibly being non-baryonic matter. Importantly it is the key ingredient in the orbital tethers and even more importantly it is produced nowhere else in the galaxy.

Savlar has no native life forms and when man first set foot on it had almost no atmosphere. The atmosphere is has now is a side effect of the old industry. That it turned out breathable, if barely, was just a coincidence. Savlar is now home to an ecosystem made up of extremophile and borderline extremophile life forms of the sort typically found growing next to volcanos on less awful worlds.

The hideous environment is a result of the neutronium manufacture. In the old days of the Golden Age the chemical run off was contained for processing as the world around the facility was slowly terraformed. When the Old Night rolled in the tanks were breached, the processing facilities destroyed and all but one of the factories burned to the ground. This released the chemical cocktail that Savlar is known for.

The natives of Savlar are descended from the people who used to work there and got stranded in ancient days. Genetically they are more or less pure human but like Fenrisians there is very minor deviations. They can handle drugs and toxic substances far better than most people. Biological and cybernetic modifications to help deal with the environment are common on Savlar and in the regiments raised there.

The Neutronium Workshop operates at a mere 5% of it's original estimated output and is tended to by a peculiar and closed order of tech-adepts descended from the maintenance teams and workers that once operated the factory in the Golden Age. The Savlar Order is very much a closed order. They don't let anyone in, nobody leaves, they don't concern themselves with things beyond their gate, and they call no outside authority master. They make neutronium, and cybernetic trinkets, which they exchange for stuff. That's how they like it and that is the extent of how the arrangement would have, could have and should have been. But then the Olympus Mons brotherhood got involved and nearly ruined everything for everyone.

All technological wonders of humanity belong to the Mechanicum. The Savlar Order tended the last neutronium workshop. They were human, the workshop was a human creation and therefore they must submit to the rule of Mars. They sent them a letter, politely worded, to that effect. Savlar sent a letter back telling them in no uncertain terms that they would not submit to outsiders and called into question the parentage of the Mars Council and accused the Fabricator General of sexual deviation.

A second much more strongly worded letter was written, this time demanding, not asking with the declaration that refusal would have them meet the entire Skitarii army should they refuse and was delivered by none other than Ferrus Manus himself in all his brutal glory. The Savlar Order responded with a crudely drawn picture of a magos bent over taking it up the ass from an anthropomorphic Aquila. The substance used to make the offending image was discovered to be fecal matter.

Before this could escalate any further The Steward stepped in. Savlar was elevated to the status of Survivor Civilization, a status it did not deserve by a long way, to be counted alongside The Interex and Ultramar in legal standing. As an allied Survivor Civilization they had all the authority they needed to officially tell the Olympus Mons Brotherhood to go fuck themselves, which they did.

The Mechanicus could have banned all of their trade to Savlar and black listed anyone who did so. They could also have slit their own throats and gurgled the theme song to Aspects of Steel. By this point it was known that the Savlar Order were more than prepared to destroy all that they held dear rather than let it fall into Mars' hands. Mars had gotten into a contest of spite with Savlar and they were fools to do so.

One of the ways that Savlar has spent the better part of 10,000 years infuriating Mars is the baffling tradition of The Great Savlar Scavenger Hunt. Once the stockpile of neutronium is filled a list of items is placed on the outer gate of The Workshop. The list invariably contains a great variety of a great many thing, some of them quite strange. Partly this is almost certainly to prevent the Mars priesthood from deciphering the needed raw materials, some of it's obviously for personal use. The list somewhere will always contain food and fresh water. In exact amounts. Everything is given with exact amounts, in native Savlar measurements. If they ask for a very specific amount of Valhallan Brandy in a specific number of arsenic bronze containers then you bring them that, no more and no less. Deviation from the list is not permitted and the contestant is disqualified. First one back with the entire list ticked off to the Order's satisfaction gets the entire stock heap to divvy up and sell on as they see fit.

It infuriates Mars as it puts them on equal footing to common traders and the like. There is also no pattern to the demands and it is a constant point of discord in the filing system. Creatures of order as they are this infuriates the Mechanicus Scribes and that is almost certainly why the Savlar Order do it. Because fuck you, that's why.

Beyond this very little of the Order is known. Investigations have been requested and refused. The Inquisition could push the issue but it's not worth the risk.

The society outside of the walls of the Workshop is mostly slightly above subsidence farming with very little surplus left over to support many urban structures. Society, civilization is pushing it a little too far, tends to be tribaly based and ruled by the elders or those who have opted to stay sober for a while.

Religion is a plethora of small gods, though Salvlars would claim that they are too small to be gods. Typically they can only be interacted with after taking something mind altering but there is too much consistency in the hallucinations for them to be nothing but things see in the trips. There have been investigations by both the Arbiters and the Inquisition but nothing that can prove or disprove, all that they can say is that there is no notable Chaos corruption.

Indeed not. Chaos offers hope, but they have given up on great hopes. Chaos offers comfort in despair, but they feel not too much despair. They don't feel much anger at things and merely accept the shit. They don't revel in the fumes or seek much excess. If their small gods of the æther are deamons they are doing a terrible job. Most common advice that the small gods give is to slow down on the LSD wine, which is a distinctly un-Chaos thing to suggest.

One more or less consistent belief among the tribes, and it can be inferred to have originated in The Workshop, is the Great Machine. It follows that the Omnissiah is the underlying mechanisms of the universe, the Ultimate Machine, but that it's obvious that the universe is broken. Therefore god is broken and man must increase in wisdom to find a way of fixing it. Once fixed the universe will work right. It is known as the Faith of the Broken God. It is considered '''HOLY SHIT''' levels of heresy within the main branch mechnicus but the MArs Priesthood never quite gets as far as declaring the Savlar Order as such because neutronium.

Drugs are about the only thing that make life on Savlar tolerable. They will surely reduce your life time but on Savlar you're probably going to be dead by age 45 snorting Rainbow Dust or not so it's not really the issue it would be on a less fuck awful planet. Besides the neutronium the planets only other notable exports are soldiers and recreational drugs.

The soldiery is a motley band of mostly addicts ( usually recruits) and mostly former addicts (usually veterans).

== The Migrant Fleet ==

== The Mechanicus of Mars and its various Forgeworlds ==

== Interex ==

== Hubworld League (Squats) ==
The worlds of the Hubworld League are all fortresses. This is in part due to their natural architectural inclinations: any sturdy, underground structure can become a bunker with a minimum effort. Mostly, though, it is a matter of natural selection.

Worlds that were not fortresses did not survive the Long Night. The bulk of the Hubworlds are located near the galactic core- the largest concentration of Orks in the galaxy. During the Dark Age of Technology, endless robotic armies rendered this a non-factor. During the Age of Strife, each already-devastated world thrown back onto its own resources... only the worlds which forted up survived.

Visitors to Squat holds often remark on how elaborately decorated they are. Statuary, engravings and murals, fine masonry and intricate fountains; their excellent craftsmanship extends far beyond weapons and armor. Such artwork tends to accumulate over time; the oldest holds are best described as 'cluttered with masterpieces'.

Visitors experienced in military matters see how the complex and winding paths would force an invader to divide their forces and funnel through chokepoints. They would notice how the engravings conceal hidden passages for the swift movement of troops, or the mechanisms of elaborate deathtraps.

Perhaps the collections of fine art is a reaction to the stress of having to live in a giant, trap-filled bunker all the time.

== Ultramar ==

At it's height in the relatively short lived golden age of the Great Crusade the Republic of Ultramar counted approximately 500 worlds within it's borders and whilst many of these were mere provincial outposts and nothing more than seeds of potential they were indicative of a thriving and growing civilization.

At the time the Expeditionary forces of the Imperium first made it to the borders of that real, most august of the survivors of Old Night, it was grand and exceptionally so by the standards of the time though far less than it would become with a little over two hundred worlds to count as it's own and many is states of disrepair. But for all the faded glory they were not without their grandeur and when the diplomats and ambassadors of the Imperium offered them sanctuary within it's aegis they were somewhat hesitant. And why would they not be? They had survived for thousands of years alone at the other end of the galaxy to the long forgotten homeworld surrounded by barbarians and monsters. Their inclusion as a Survivor Civilization was eventually achieved on mutually favourable terms.

In the days of the Great Crusade Ultramar prospered like it had not done since the days it was part of the Great and Bountiful Empire before the Age of Strife. With fresh trade links and the pressure of barbarian invasion removed Ultramar again took it's old colony worlds back and regained the ground it had lost.

But for all that the realm itself prospered in this time the internal structure of it was called into question with many of the new border world powers, grown rich and strong on Imperial trade, questioning the right of Macragge to rule all undisputedly. As time went on this dissatisfaction did not abate and the rift between the Provincial Powers and the old money Throneworld only deepened.

Into this descended Gaufrid Fouché, grandson of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, son of King Gunthar Fouché and about eighth in line for the crown of Franj. Gaufrid was under orders from his grandfather to set up the Ultimate Plan B contingency and set up the groundwork for the Imperium Secundus for the unthinkable eventuality of the Imperium failing. Ultramar was far enough away to probably be unaffected by anything that could kill Old Earth but civilized and prosperous enough to be a viable seed from which to regrow. Although Gaufrid had no actual direct authority within the Realm of Ultramar he did have considerable invested in him by the Imperium with which an ever increasing majority of Ultamars trade went through. Peddling this influence with the provincials and the nobility of Macragge he set forth propositions and proposals that would turn the elective monarchy of Ultramar into a fairer and more representative system of one planet one vote with an overall leader elected for times of dire emergency. Macragge agreed to this to retain some power against the increasing might of Calth, Calth agreed to it as recognition as not Macragge's subordinate was all they ever wanted and the provincial worlds agreed because it gave them a voice and they all agreed to it because refusal to do so would see a great decline in trade and hardening of the borders with the rest of the Imperium. Was this entirely fair? Probably not, but many things are less so.

With the long term threat of eventual civil war averted Gaufrid Fouché married the head of one of the major internal Ultramar trading companies (mostly a purely political decision though he was good friends with her) to further his influence and set about the meticulous and tedious task of reforming the planetary, even nation based, militaries into a more cohesive whole. His task was not entirely limited to maters of military and his hand could be found in almost every aspect of Ultramar's functioning.

Under his influence the realm grew richer and stronger than it had ever done before and many would argue since.

Then The Beast came and all that planning seemed so very insignificant compared to such reckless barbarity.

Ultramar was, by great good fortune, not as targeted as maybe it could have been in the War of the Beast. Guilliman's choice for an Imperium Secundus proving to have been correct in that regard. This is not to say that Ultramar got off easy, just that it got off easier and because of Gaufrid's tireless efforts Ultramar had never been more prepared. But worlds still burned.

The path of rebuilding took a long time. A long, long time as many of the WAAAAAAAGH!!!!! splinters scattered about and stranded corrupt eldar raiders filtered to the eastern fringe when The Beast was cast down. Ultramar endured, the Fortress of the Galactic East. Gaufrid took the name of Guilliman over Fouché to emphasize his authority, a name that his descendant would hold for the rest of Imperial history. Gaufrid Guilliman never saw the completion of the rebuilding of Ultramar, he was a rare example of Rejuvenant Rejection and had adverse reactions to the procedure, he fell to the ravages of time at the tender age of 156.

After the Breaking of the Legions it was deemed that the Ultimate Plan B was never not going to be a possibility and to safe guard it the XIII Legion core Chapter would be gifted to Ultramar and thereafter be renamed Ultramarines.

As of the dying of this Dark Millenium the realm of Ultramar spans nearly 300 developed, sophisticated and cultured worlds, still making it the grandest and strongest if not the numerically biggest of the Survivor Civilizations. As Acting Chapter Master Titus puts forth his reform plans before the Senate and the upheaval in an age of uncertainty all know that either Ultramar will finally die or will be reborn stronger than ever to meet the oncoming storm.

== Colchis ==

The planet of Colchis was a virtual feudal world by the end of the Age of Strife. The population had been nuked back to the Stone Age by the rebellion of the Men of Iron, and it had taken nearly nine millennia to reach even that level of technology again. An effort not helped by the sporadic Chaos uprisings and the brutal semi-arid climate of the planet.

From the stars came the Eldar of the minor Craftworld Bel-Shammon. The people of Bel-Shammon were desperate. The solar sails and propulsion mechanisms of the Craftworld had been damaged beyond repair, and they knew the birth of Slaanesh was soon at hand. Colchis was located only a stone’s throw away from the homeworlds of the old Eldar Empire, and the people of Bel-Shammon knew that without the ability to move their Craftworld away from the psychic eruption they would need to either find shelter or die. As a result, the people of Bel-Shammon were forced to take unconventional action, and ask the people of the nearby world for sanctuary. Tears of desperation turned to tears of joy as Colchians welcomed them to their home. In gratitude, the Eldar repaid the people of Colchis by teaching them how to build a global and peaceful civilization.

By the time the Imperium first reached Colchis during the Great Crusade, Colchis resembled some sort of planetside Eldar Craftworld crossed with a relatively calm and peaceful version of the ancient Holy Roman Empire. The planet was a veritable patchwork of nominally independent nation-states with a politically independent papacy acting as a mediator in international disputes and a representative for the planet as a whole. The Craftworld Bel-Shammon itself had been dismantled, its wraithbone structures turned into housing and architecture and its Infinity Circuit incorporated into the planet itself.

When the Imperial ships first arrived in the Colchian system, they were greeted by elegant system defense ships. The Colchians had no Warp technology, but only because they never felt the need to go anywhere. There was a Webway gate in the center of the papal palace, having been moved planetside from the old Craftworld, but the planet had little contact with the greater galaxy and had not had a visitor from offworld in decades. The language they were greeted in seemed to be some sort of Old Earth descendant language strangely hybridized with craftworlder High Speech. The Imperial ambassadors were later to learn that this was the global language of legal documents and trade, a practice mirrored in the Imperium with High Gothic.

The Imperium had expected Colchis to be controlled by an Eldar aristocracy ruling over a human underclass. To their surprise, no Eldar on the planet held any position of power above the level of provincial assistant administrator or equivalent title. The refugees of Bel-Shammon had never wanted to rule, they only wanted a place to settle. Colchis was brought into the Imperium as a unique and civilized world reminiscent of an idealized version of some pre-fall Eldar haven, albeit with only 8% of the global population actually being Eldar.

Colchis has remained relatively peaceful despite the general tumult in the galaxy since joining the Imperium. Colchis may not be armed to the teeth like Cadia or Krieg but it has still had to fight off its fair share of invasions. Among the people of the Imperium, humans from Colchis tend to get along better with the Craftworlds than the average human, due to their similar culture. Craftworlds like Alaitoc see Colchis as proof that mankind are not completely hopeless and can eventually learn to be civilized, perhaps in a few million years or so. Human and Eldar supremacist groups like Craftworld Dorhai see the harmonious and relatively non-militarized world of Colchis as the embodiment of everything wrong with the Imperium.

"''See, this is the cultural suicide of both the Eldar and human of this world. What my sights lay upon is the abominable fusion of both and the advancement of none. This is the destruction of Eldar culture and their human partners follow suit, there is the strength of none while holding the weakness of both.''"<br>
- unknown Dorhai writer

"''See that fool? That one right there? That is the actual suicide of both Eldar and humanity. I look upon them and I would be turned to pity were it not for the disgust at their stagnation and wretchedness. They prattle on about purity whilst their society crusts over in bones of wraith and dies starved of love or sunlight. They prattle on about purity, romanticizing a time that never was when they lived in some unseen Eden all the while carefully omitting their decadence and depravities. Let them turn inwards and look no more upon the outside world. We will pick their corpses clean, we will out last them, our beautiful hybrid society ever young, ever vigorous. If they cannot change they will rot.''"<br>
- Her Ecumenical Excellence Mother Dwynwen XXIII of Colchis.

== Necromunda ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Necromunda|Necromunda]]

= The Craftworlds =

The Eldar Craftworlds mostly entered into the Imperium as the same manner as the Survivor civilizations. The Craftworlds were never ones for formality or paperwork, but they venerated their goddess Isha, who was in a political marriage to the Steward, and originally followed for that reason. Like the Survivor civilizations the Craftworlds had to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, the terms for their inclusion varying from Craftworld to Craftworld. Over time many Craftworlds saw the benefits being part of the Imperium and integrated to greater and lesser extents, whether it be interacting with the galaxy directly or the colder, more pragmatic reason of having the rest of the Imperium as a buffer against any would-be enemies.

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#The_Craftworlds|The Craftworlds]]

= Minor Xenos Races =

Although the Imperium is best known as the grand alliance of humanity and Eldar, there are also numerous other minor Xenos races that also call the Imperium home. The Imperium first began officially admitting other races into the Imperium in M36, as a token of gratitude after receiving significant assistance from the Demiurg in the Imperial Civil War. Since then numerous other species, including Tau, kinebrach, the Watchers in the Dark, kroot, Tarrellians, even a few Necron Lords, have all been united under the Imperium’s aegis. These races are often known as “minor Xenos races” not because they are unimportant per se, but because they make up such a small proportion of the Imperium’s total population, even compared to the depleted Eldar. Even the Tau, the most numerous of the minor xenos races, are still outnumbered by the Eldar by an order of magnitude. Like Eldar Craftworlds and Survivor civilizations, minor Xenos races are often given a high degree of autonomy in the Imperium, so long as they follow the few [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#Imperial_Governmental_Structure|universal rules]]. In some cases (e.g., Necron lords) inclusion into the Imperium is more like a mutual non-aggression pact than anything else, the Imperium pledging to keep its other citizens from antagonizing its signatories so long as those signatories in turn do not antagonize the citizens of the Imperium.

== Tau Empire ==
The Tau are the most recent addition to the Imperium, and in some ways the most reluctant. They stood for thousands of years on their own, weathering Ork WAAAGHs, AI uprisings, Dark Eldar raids, and the vanguards of the hive fleets before finally admitting they could not survive alone in mid M39. They were a large nation by non-Imperium standards, the size of Ultramar or any of the other Survivor Civilizations integrated into the Imperium, and are the third largest single demographic in the Imperium after humans and Eldar.

Their long refusal to join the Imperium was a puzzle to Imperial minds. For thousands of years, 'Imperium' was essentially synonymous with 'Civilization'; for the Tau to reject membership was essentially to reject their own civilized nature, as far as the Imperial diplomats were concerned. Their stubborn independence is even more puzzling in light of how well Tau and Imperial ethics mesh, the 'Greater Good' ideal of a place for everything and everything in its place having a great deal in common with Imperial ideals of strength through unity and diversity. The Tau, naturally, believe the Greater Good is more complete, comprehensive, and generally superior.

Of course, integration was hardly frictionless. The Farsight Enclaves split off after a brief but bloody war to avoid becoming part of the Imperium. Many Tau resented going from an independent empire to a province of a far larger one, even though they understood the necessity. The subsequent attempts to accumulate more political power within the Imperium generated resentment among the Imperial aristocracy. But in the end, the truth won out- better together than alone.

As of M41, the Tau have become reconciled to their place within the Imperium, but remain ambitious. They want to become the equals of humanity and the Eldar, not just a junior member of the Imperium. They have the technology, they have the will, they have the unity of purpose- if they survive the coming storm, they have an excellent chance of doing so.

If.

== Demiurg ==

== Diasporex ==

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More of a religious movement than an actual species, the Diasporex are a nomadic fleet-bound civilization encountered by the Imperium during the Great Crusade. The Diasporex were first discovered by the expeditionary fleet of the Dark Angels, who were surprised when they accidentally stumbled upon what appeared to be veritable fleet after dropping out of warp around what they thought was a dead star. After an initial awkward misunderstanding, diplomatic contact with the Diasporex was made, and after turning down initial overtures at joining the Imperium the Diasporex pointed the Dark Angels in the direction of the nearest uncontacted human world.

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The movement of what would come to be known as the Diasporex began during the Age of Strife. The founders of the Diasporex were native to a planet that was devastated by the warp storms and other psychic phenomena common to the Age of Strife and were forced to leave their homeworld to the relative safety of voidspace in order to survive. It was here in space that the Diasporex had what could be considered a religious revelation. They realized that here, in void space, not on a planet, not in the Immaterium, it was peaceful. Upon further thought, it seemed obvious in retrospect that the Void represented the true nature of the universe, given that the Void made up the vast majority of the universe, with the only significant phenomena being the movement of the major heavenly bodies across the cosmos.

Today, the Diasporex are a nomadic civilization, constantly moving from star to star across the cosmos. One of the only reasons they ever stop are to refuel their ships at the hydrogen collecting space stations they have set up at various waypoints across their pre-planned journey. The Diasporex travel through space using a unique type of engine of unknown origin. It is still debated whether Diasporex engines are of xenos design, represent a modified pre-Warp Dark Age of Technology engine, or are a mixture of both. Although the Diasporex engines work well for their purposes, they are maddeningly useless for any Imperial use. Diasporex engines are no better than their Imperial counterparts for in-system travel, and although being to accelerate to slightly faster than the speed of light, their slow speed means that it can often take the better part of a year at minimum to move from one inhabited system to its nearest neighbor.

In times of peace, the only other time the Diasporex ever stop their journey is to visit inhabited worlds, to trade with the locals for goods that they cannot grow or manufacture aboard their ships, and to proselytize others to abandon terrestrial life and join their creed. The Diasporex are a veritable menagerie of sapient species, including humanity. It is not clear if the original founders were human, xenos, or a mix of both. The Diasporex have deliberately obscured the true origin of their founders as a point of pride, to show that their creed is open to people of any species.

The Diasporex creed follows several simple rules:
1) Warp travel is forbidden, or at least restricted to an absolute minimum. Although Diasporex ships are capable of Warp travel, they only use it if the fleet is under direct attack. According to Diasporex beliefs, warp travel irritates the universe and makes it more difficult to hear the Harmony of the Spheres.
2) No violence except in self-defense. The Diasporex exalt peace and self-harmony, though they realize the galaxy is unlikely to conform to their beliefs. Peace-loving does not mean unarmed.
3) Relinquishment of worldly possessions. In addition to the simple reasoning that if everyone brought their belongings on board there would be no room for anything else on the ship, the Diasporex believe in asceticism in order to keep focused on the nature of the void. However, the Diasporex are not cruel. They often allow new initiates to bring on objects that have personal value or could benefit the fleet, such as a picture of family members or books.

As can be expected, the Void Born like the Diasporex and their way of thinking quite a bit, although not enough that they are willing to part with their worldly possessions and join them.

The Imperium mostly lets the Diasporex survive unmolested for several reasons. First, as the Diasporex travel from world to world, they trade and barter for goods with the inhabitants of each planet they visit. The Diasporex essentially act as a trade convoy for the worlds in their region of space, one that the Imperium does not even have to expend resources to maintain.

Additionally, the Diasporex serve as an important early warning system. The path of the Diasporex is well known and can often be predicted years in advance. If the Diasporex caravans scatter, it means that something unusual is going on. Furthermore, despite being largely non-aggressive the Diasporex have proven to be tenacious in the defense of their way of life, helping the Imperium during several Black Crusade by channeling the power of the stars they absorb energy from into devastating beams of destruction. The Diasporex are also skilled voidsmen due to the amount of time they have spent travelling voidspace, often able to outmaneuver Imperial ships despite their relatively antiquated technology.

The Diasporex and the Imperium have only come into conflict over two specific issues. The first is when an individual, usually an Imperial Navy officer, tries to join the Diasporex and brings Imperial property such as an Imperial Navy voidship with them as a gift. The situation is usually defused by the Diasporex denouncing that they have any claim to the ship, although they are willing to accept new converts and new voidships, they will not do so at the risk of angering the Imperium. The other is when someone tries to disturb or destroy the various hydrogen collecting waystations scattered throughout the galaxy. Although the Diasporex are typically placid and unconcerned with the actions of those inhabiting the solar systems they travel through, they will vigorously defend any threat to their way of life.

The Diasporex occupied quite an awkward position in Imperial politics for many years. After it became clear that the Diasporex were a theocratic democracy, and that they had only sent humans to meet with Imperial representatives because they felt humans would be comfortable talking with human ambassadors, it was clear that the Diasporex could not be simply admitted into the Imperium in the same manner as Colchis or the Interex. However, the Steward did not want to allow free trade with the Diasporex as a non-Imperial power, as that might give other systems a legal excuse to trade with more unsavory entities. At the same time, it was clear that it was not possible to stop the Diasporex migration and trade with other worlds without resorting to open war. In the end, the Diasporex were named an honorary member state and protectorate of the Imperium, albeit one that kept to themselves and never interfered in Imperial politics. When the Imperium began accepting non-human, non-Eldar member states into the Imperium in M36, the Diasporex finally had a place to fit into the Imperium’s political structure. Nevertheless, the Diasporex still almost never exploit their status to affect Imperial politics, preferring to sail the same route through the stars their ancestors plotted centuries before.

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== Kinebrach ==

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The Kinebrach are a heavy-set, simian-like species of xenos native to the Segmentum Pacificus. Indeed, it is thought that many of the fortress worlds scattered around the segmentum were originally built by them. In many ways, kinebrach appear very similar to Old Earth gorillas. Like gorillas, the kinebrach are ape-like, mostly herbivorous (though they are more omnivorous than gorillas), and when given the choice prefer to live in humid swamps and jungles. However, unlike gorillas, kinebrach walk bipedally erect, though their extremely long arms (which extend below their knees) betray their tree-dwelling habits.

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Kinebrach have a tripartite jaw with well-developed grinding plates, which they use to grind vegetation and crush fruits and nuts. A deep slit between the two upper jaw plates contains the kinebrach’s oral olfactory organ, which lies at the front of the roof of their mouth. Kinebrach will sometimes flare the two flaps of their upper “hare-lip” apart, in order to better smell an unfamiliar individual or object. A kinebrach’s skin resembles a hippopotamus or wild hog, with a thick, dark blue-black skin covered by a thin layer of wiry brown to russet fur.

The Kinebrach are most famous throughout the galaxy for their skill as metalworkers. Metalworkers occupy an almost legendary status in kinebrach society, to the point that the kinebrach are actually led by a council of warsmiths. To the kinebrach, to be a decent leader you are almost expected to be a good blacksmith, as a good metalworker exhibits all the traits that must be present in a good leader. They must have vision, in order to be able to shape the metal to their liking. They must have patience, in order to be able to perfect their work into the form that they desire. And they must have strength of spirit, in order to endure the heat of the forge and the physical toil of hammering the metal into shape. Disputes between major kinebrach political figures are often settled by forge-offs, with each party trying to forge a superior work to demonstrate the righteousness of their belief or grievance.

This obsession with metalworking even extends into the Kinebrach’s method for dealing with daemons. Like many sentient species, the Kinebrach have figured out that if a daemon is bound to one place, then it can be easily accounted for and cannot roam freely to corrupt others. As a race of metalworkers, it seemed obvious to the kinebrach to bind troublesome daemons within forged weapons, as opposed to ordinary objects or living beings. These cursed weapons, as the Kinebrach call them, are then sealed in such a way that no one can access them or be tempted by the daemon sealed inside. Such cursed blades include Drach’nyen and the cursed blade stolen by Erebus during the chaos of the War of the Beast, which was later broken by the Dark Prophet and forged into the eight Anathame, the so-called “splinters in the eye of reality” that plague the Imperium to this day.

There is some suggestion that some kinebrach have gone rogue and joined the Chaos-worshipping Davinite warrior lodges, taking cursed weapons with them. The kinebrach are not happy to hear this news.

Kinebrach names are written as a series of hyphenated syllables, said almost like a drumbeat. This is apparent even in Kinebrach writing, where individual names are written in a distinctly different script than the words that surround them. This appears to be due to the modern Kinebrach writing style being the result of the fusion of two previously distinct Kinebrach cultures many millennia ago. Although the Kinebrach seem like a monolithic culture now, they apparently were not before the Age of Strife.

Like all sentient life in the galaxy, the Kinebrach were hit hard by the Age of Strife. After the end of the Age of Strife and the birth of Slaanesh, the Kinebrach believed themselves to be a dying species. This fear was only magnified when they encountered their nearest neighbors, the Interex. After first contact, communications broke down between the two species, and the two empires went to war. This war was devastating to the kinebrach, who feared that the conflict merely confirmed their imminent extinction. However, after about a century, the kinebrach were contacted by diplomats from the Interex. The Interex claimed that the breakdown in communications was due to imperfect translation technology on the Interex’s part, and they had never wanted to exterminate the kinebrach in the first place. Instead, they proposed an agreement. The kinebrach would become a protectorate of the Interex, providing them with advanced technology and metalworking in exchange for the Interex’s military protection. In addition, the Kinebrach would be forbidden to carry arms except during times of war.

The Kinebrach, for their part, did not care. They had been more concerned about the survival of their species than their ability to bear arms. Indeed, despite being led by a council of warsmiths, the kinebrach were a rather non-aggressive people and did not mind if another, more vibrant species went to war on their behalf. What’s more, the conflict had become so heated that some of the Kinebrach had almost been tempted to take up the cursed weapons out of desperation, something that the rest of the Kinebrach knew could have easily destroyed both civilizations. The Kinebrach were glad that such a worst-case scenario had not come to pass.

Like the Watchers in the Dark, the Kinebrach came under the aegis of the Imperium much earlier than other minor xenos races, entering as a protectorate of the Interex. However, with the official admission of minor xenos faces into the Imperium in M36, the Kinebrach became an officially recognized independent member state of the Imperium, albeit one with close political and economic ties to the Interex.

Today, the kinebrach are highly respected in the Imperium for their ability as metalworkers, representing one of the Imperium’s few non-Adeptus Mechanicus sources of technology along with squats and Earth Caste tau. However, unlike the Adeptus Mechanicus, the kinebrach are first and foremost artisans and metallurgists, rather than manufacturers. The kinebrach are more interested in making new alloys and crafting new masterpieces than in mass-production. Although the kinebrach have the knowledge to build starships, most find the intricacies of large-scale machines less interesting. Your average kinebrach would be more interested in a wall made of rare, high-quality, or particularly well-crafted metal than a highly-complex machine.

Given their similarities, many have wondered if the kinebrach are somehow related to the [[Jokaero]], another simian-like race with an affinity for crafting and technology, some even going so far as to suggest the jokaero are a subspecies derived from the long-lost descendants of the kinebrach that existed outside the Segmentum Pacificus. However, genetic testing has shown that the kinebrach and Jokaero are two completely unrelated species, and their ape-like similarities evolved completely independently. When asked about this, the kinebrach replied that they had once wondered the same thing regarding Eldar and humanity.

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== Watchers in the Dark ==

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When the Old Ones left much of their webway-making equipment on Caliban, it left a bit of a hole in the fabric of reality. This slowly allowed Warp energy to leak through into the Materium, something that wasn’t very helpful for a planet already so close to the Eye of Terror. Over the course of generations, much of the planet became uninhabitable due to Warp exposure mutating the local wildlife and turning the local ecosystem into a hellscape. Although natural selection due to Warp exposure had given the native sapient species a great deal of resistance to Warp energies and chaos-related mutations, it was not enough to protect them from the great beasts and detestable flora that covered most of the planet. Out of a sheer need for survival, the native sapient species of Caliban developed into a society fanatically obsessed with opposing Chaos and reclaiming their planet, but because of their limited physical prowess were unable to do much more than keep their few remaining bastions of civilization untainted at great cost.

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The Dark Angels, being the first legion sent out beyond the Sol system to look for survivors of the Age of Strife, were the first to encounter Caliban. Upon meeting with the Dark Angels, the Watchers saw the opportunity these visitors from the stars presented them and entreated the Dark Angels for help. Luther, more worried that the Imperium was going to carve up Franj while his back was turned, was dismissive, whereas Lion, ever the idealist, saw the Watchers as people, a Chaos-opposing people no less, in need and stepped in to help. Lion and the Dark Angels made short work of most of the Chaos Beasts on Caliban, and in gratitude the Watchers pledged their fealty to Lion and the Dark Angels. A small garrison of Dark Angels was left on Caliban, but this notably did not include Lion or Luther. The garrison’s job was to help the Watchers rebuild their planet, but it was difficult because they could never really find the source of the Warp corruption and could only keep the number of beasts to a minimum.

The Watchers in the Dark are essentially the reason the loyalist Dark Angels even survived the schism. When two-thirds of your forces turn on you at once, it is difficult to even survive under normal circumstances. Although the Watchers couldn’t physically fight against the traitor space marines in direct combat, they could relay information and help loyalist marines find one another in the chaos, even helping loyalists tell friend from foe. And in a pinch, if you don’t pay attention to a Watcher in the corner with a knife while fighting your loyalist brother, he will seriously mess up your day. However, in the course of the fighting during the schism, Caliban was destroyed, and the Watchers in the Dark were left without a homeworld. Some say the Watchers intentionally blew up their homeworld, to deny the Fallen the use of the Chaos Beasts and the artifacts beneath its surface.

The Watchers are a very minor xenos race, even in comparison to the other minor Xenos races of the Imperium. Their homeworld is gone, and there are only just enough of them to act as support staff for the loyalist successor chapters of the Dark Angels. At first the Watchers were a rather poorly kept secret to the rest of the Imperium. However, when the Imperium started allowing minor xenos races to join the Imperium, the Dark Angels were some of the first in line to present a petition on behalf of the Watchers. People coughed when they saw this, but let the Watchers in anyway. It is likely that the Steward knew of the Watchers’ existence and their contributions to the fight against Chaos before they were officially known to the Imperium at large (probably from the Lion if nothing else), which is probably the reason why the Watchers were admitted into the Imperium despite being a group of mysterious Xenos attached to the descendants of the legion most infamous for going rogue.

Even as an official part of the Imperium, the Watchers are rather enigmatic. Watchers in the Dark can occasionally be seen on hive worlds and other metropolitan areas, but are almost always running some kind of errand for their chapter. Their biology and social structure beyond “warp-resistant, long-lived, and hate Chaos” are only known to the Dark Angels and a few Ordo Xenos Inquisitors who have found out via other avenues. Even the gender or age of a given individual is not clear. The Watchers technically don’t pay a tithe, but since the entire species is basically a vassal race nearly inseparable from the loyalist Dark Angel successors, nearly every adult member of the species serves in some fashion.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this lack of information, a whole host of rumors have appeared regarding the Watchers in the Dark. As with all rumors, it is almost impossible to tell where these stories came from and if there is a grain of truth in them or not. Some say that the Watchers one sees today are the same Watchers that served during the War of the Beast, and there have been none born since the destruction of their homeworld. Others point out that the Watchers would have become extinct by now through simple attrition if that were the case, even if they had lifespans longer than the Eldar. However, exactly how the Watchers are reproducing is unknown. Some say that they are simply nomadic creatures now, forever moving with their Astartes masters and making their homes in star bases and fortresses and ships, whereas others say they haven’t died out because they have one last secret breeding ground, deep under one of the hives of Old Earth.

Other rumors are perhaps more farfetched. Some of these rumors, bordering on conspiracy theories, say the Watchers are able to travel through darkness itself, or are able to know the names of everyone they meet, or are the only creatures besides the Eldar who know how to navigate the Webway, or that they sing beautifully but they won't let anyone hear them, or are Imperial sword Hrud. Some theories are as fanciful as the Watchers hand out present to good little boys and girls on Sanguinala under the command of "Cypher Claws", to as conspiratorial as the Mechanicus uses the Watchers to spy on your comings and goings and dreams, to as eerie as the rumor that the eldar forgot who they were, but the Watchers remember them and remember much more than the eldar would like. As with all things, the Watchers never confirm or deny any of these tales.

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== Tarellians ==

During the unification and the Great Crusade, the Steward encountered the Tarellians. Though their race had never risen to match the levels of the Eldar, the Tarellians had a modest interstellar confederation of loosely aligned agriworlds. At first, things went well enough. The Tarellians were cautious, and after a few inconclusive skirmishes, were receptive to human ambassadors. In point of fact, they scorned worlds that were not self-sufficient enough to be able to survive off of their own food supplies, meaning they did not contest Imperial settlers that took the barren (If resource rich) unexploited rocks in systems surrounding them. But, eventually, one Tarellian governor got greedy, and attempted to enslave a human colony en masse to manufacture weapons for his soldiers. Well, the Imperium sent a naval ship, and the governor ran back to his confederates, and a war started.

The Tarellians were good fighters. Managed a few wins against the odds, due to bickering and overconfident Imperial generals. Then a primarch came. Luckily, it was only Dorn, but just the same the Tarellians were beaten horrifically, and quickly forced to peace. A white peace with mild reparations, but one that shattered the Tarellian confederacy over the shame.

After that, there was no more Tarellian Confederacy. The fractured states were left alone, and "Tarellian Space" was just another lawless backwater. Until the tyranids came. The Imperium intervened (even over the protest of some particularly proud Tarellian despots), but by the time help arrived the damage was done. Over a full quarter of the Tarellian population died fighting on worlds consumed.

Now, the Tarellian sector is peaceful. They provide mercenaries and foodstuffs. They're likeable enough, and cautiously judged by the Inquisition as mostly loyal subjects, even if some Tarellian mercenaries are found among ork and chaos warbands, and the rest mutter about how Tarellia will rise again from time to time. It is generally considered bad form among Imperial officers to remind the Tau of the Tarellian histories, though Tarellians themselves seem to regard the Tau well, particularly for their resistance to joining the Imperium.

When the Tarellians spread out from their homeworld, they developed a number of highly divergent cultures on the planets they lived on. Tarellians also range wildly in body size based on planet, ranging from Tau-sized to slightly taller than a baseline human. Even during their most unified periods, Tarellian culture and social norms could vary wildly depending on the planet. Hence the Tarellian Confederacy, instead of the Tarellian Republic or the Tarellian Empire. Nevertheless, there are enough cultural similarities between them that the Tarellan cultures see themselves as distinctly Tarellian, much like the different Greek or Mesoamerican city-states saw themselves as a distinct cultural unit.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that there are many different groups of lizardmen out there in the galaxy, of which the Tarellians are but the best known because they developed the most extensive interstellar network. The Imperium, lacking imagination, might refer to the species as a whole as Tarellians even though the term only really applies to the Tarellian Neo-Confederacy.

Like some groups of Native Americans (Comanche, Sioux), Tarellians are well known for their mobility in war, able to march hundreds of miles from base camp in order to strike. The difference is that the Native American tribes did this through the use of horses. The Tarellians do this on foot. Tarellians originally evolved in an arid environment where they had to keep pace over shifting sand dunes and the uneven terrains of arroyos in extreme heat. Marching through a relative flat environment in balmy weather is a literal walk in the park for them. The Tarellians don’t really have riding cavalry, though they do domesticate heavier draft animals.

===Tarellian Weapons===
Perhaps the most distinctive weapon of the Tarellians, aside from their disruption weaponry, is the kultarr. The melee weapon of choice for Tarellians, kultarrs resemble a cross between a polearm, a pickaxe, and a hatchet. The kultarr was originally thought to have started out as a simple hand tool repurposed for war, until it developed into the weapon known today. At the far end of the kultarr is a simple spike. The main purpose of this spike is to blunt cavalry or infantry charges, or finish off a downed foe. Just behind this spike is a recurved spike, which is the main armament of the kultarr. Typically, a kultarr is swung downwards like a tomahawk to brain a foe or impale them and allow them to be dragged closer. The spike can also be used as a hook to drag cavalry from their mounts or pull an opponent off balance (their more traditional use, seeing as the Tarellians did not have cavalry until the Industrial Era).

The military success of the kultarr has led the Tarelians to produce numerous derivations on the design, most prominently the mahukultarr. Instead of a single recurved spike, a mahukultarr has several backwards slanting blades appressed together to form a massive cutting edge. The purpose of a mahukultarr is to leave large, jagged wounds that bleed readily and are difficult to easily close. Although resembling a broadsword, the weight of a mahukultarr means that it is wielded more like an axe or a club. The cutting edge is composed of numerous smaller blades, rather than one complex piece of metal, in order to prevent breakage and make it easier to replace blades that are broken. However, the sheer weight of a mahukultarr means that it is almost impossible for a Tarellian soldier to carry both one of these weapons and a rifle at the same time. As a result, mahukultarr wielding-soldiers are relatively rare.

Tarellians also prefer their own types of ranged weaponry, the disruptor rifle, which literally boils the molecules of its targets. They do make some use of autoguns and lasweapons when available.

===Worlds of the Tarellian Neo-Confederacy===

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#The_Tarellian_Neo-Confederacy|The Tarellian Neo-Confederacy]]

===Tarellian Religion===

EDITOR'S NOTE: Per original writer, section with Be'lakor could use some rewriting/expansion

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The Tarellians, in a rather roundabout fashion, worship the Old Ones as their gods. The Old Ones, from what little we know about them, seem to have some sort of connection to the Tarellians. However, the Tarellians are not direct descendants of the Old Ones. The Old Ones, despite having dry, leathery skin, were still semi-aquatic and had to return to the water to breed. The Tarellians have scaly skin, and lay eggs. Instead, the Tarellians appear to be descended from components of the Old Ones’ biosphere, likely spread to other planets in the Old Ones’ first attempts at terraforming. In human terms, it would be as if a race of sapient rats rose to power long after the extinction of humanity, only to find human artifacts and come to believe humans represented a race of gods.

The Tarellians did not evolve on the original homeworld of the Old Ones. Whatever planet the Old Ones originally hailed from was lost long before the War in Heaven even began, although there are numerous fringe theories as to where said planet might have gone. The Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was Tarellia, the planet where the Tarellians originally evolved sentience. Unfortunately, most of the Old One technology on the planet was rendered non-functional beyond any means of repair and only the simplest, most resilient objects, such as statues, tablets, and stone carvings, remained intact. Ironically, the few Old One artifacts that have survived the millions of years since the War in Heaven tend to be either exceedingly primitive (stone carvings and tablets) or ridiculously advanced (the Blackstone Fortresses, the Webway, three of the four Ruinous Powers). According the Tarellians, the writing on these Old One artifacts inspired their own writing system and they can even translate it to a crude degree, though modern Tarellian differs greatly from the language used by the Old Ones.

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After Tarellia, the Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was the colony of Xibalanique. Xibalanique was a harsh, dry world, even by Tarellians standards, one of the reasons why so many artifacts were preserved there in the first place. Said artifacts were just about the only reason the world was of any interest to the Tarellian Empire, as the world was barely habitable otherwise and its population before the Age of Strife was almost entirely composed to researchers studying the Old One artifacts. When Xibalanique was cut off from the rest of the galaxy during the Age of Strife, the Tarellians stranded there had to either adapt, or die. Xibalaniquans are short and stocky compared to other Tarellians and tend to be relatively heavyset, which is thought to be due to genetic adaptations towards conserving energy for times of famine in harsh environments.

The inhabitants of Xibalanique were also notable in being all psykers, a situation somewhat analogous to a Tarellian Prospero. It is not clear if this is because of something the Old Ones did to Xibalanique, or if it was simply due to a founder effect from the original population of researchers having a higher-than average proportion of psyker genes relative to the rest of the Tarellian worlds, as Tarellians psykers are not unique to Xibalanique. Tarellian psykers are normally so stoic and dispassionate as to appear almost emotionless, interspersed with huge spikes of emotion whenever they use their powers. This makes them less susceptible to daemonic attention than psykers of other races, but it also means they tend to use their powers in quick bursts and become rapidly exhausted when trying to do anything strenuous. Nevertheless, this was not enough to completely avoid attention, as Xibalanique was destroyed shortly after the end of the Age of Strife.

The Xibalaniquans that survived their planet’s destruction migrated to the other Tarellian worlds, where they were eagerly assimilated with open arms. The Xibalaniquans were of interest not only for their psychic abilities, which were of value to any Tarellian warlord, but also for any potential lost knowledge that had been lost to the wider Tarellian Confederacy. Due to their psychic powers, the Tarellians viewed psykers as being closer to the Old Ones and on many worlds these psykers (typically Xibalaniquans) were organized into councils of mage-priests, who often served as advisors to the resident warlord. This arrangement varied from world to world; for example Maza has no mage-priests in an administrative position, whereas on Tikal at some point in history the mage-priests became the direct rulers of the planet, rather than just advisors. The organization of mage-priests into councils was not simply for symbolic reasons, as it also allowed for the organization of mage-priests into choirs similar to the human astropath system for interstellar communication. Even today, the Tarellian remain one of the few non-human, non-Eldar races to use their own methods of faster-than-light communication.

The Tarellians know the bare basics of the War in Heaven. They know that their gods were in a war with a pantheon of anti-gods and that their gods spawned a race of dark gods to help them. They know that the gods made lesser beings to act as soldiers. However, this is where the Tarellians get a few things wrong. They believe that they were the race created by the gods to fight in their war, when they were not. Indeed, in terms of age, the Tarellians are closer to humanity or the kinebrach than the truly ancient races like the Eldar or Orks.

The Tarellians believe the stylized bipeds in the Old One hieroglyphics at the right hand of their gods, figured to the same scale that peasants are often figured relative to gods and royalty, are the semi-mythical ancestor kings and queens, from who the Tarellians claim their descent. They’re not, but don’t bother try telling the Tarellians that. They’re actually representatives of the various gods of the mortal races the Old Ones uplifted during the War in Heaven. Isha recognized herself in the carvings, as well as Kurnous and Qah. Actual mortal representatives of those races are nowhere to be seen.

The Tarellians also believe that their gods walk among them, though perhaps not in a physical fashion. When Isha discovered this fact in M30 this, as well as the general physical similarity between the Tarellians and the Old Ones, was enough to excite the then recently-freed Eldar goddess Isha about the possibility of finding surviving fellow survivors of the War in Heaven and Age of Strife. Although, still acclimating to the current situation in the galaxy, Isha made plans to travel to Tarellian space at the first opportunity. The mage-priests were excited at the prospect of an outsider taking an interest in their gods, and eagerly escorted Isha to the nearest temple to “show her their gods”. However, Isha’s hopes were to be dashed. Instead of finding living, breathing Old Ones, she found stone statues and temples filled with a few attending devotees. Isha, furious at having her hopes raised at and having that hope yanked away just as quickly, almost lashed out at the “horrid little newts” in her grief and rage, before being calmed down by the Handmaidens. The mage-priests at the time were confused and did not know what they had done to make the outsider so angry, but it is thought that later priests figured out what happened and were slightly bitter to the Eldar about it, seeing Isha’s reaction as a dismissal of their gods.

When the Daemon Prince Be’lakor, the last of the Old Ones, found out that the Tarellians worshipped the Old Ones, he realized he had potential means to take control of the Confederacy. It has long been known that Be’lakor has a habit of setting himself up as the power behind the throne in a number of empires both human and alien in his attempts to break free from the machinations of the Chaos Gods, though typically his involvement with these petty empires was visible only in retrospect. Be’lakor often likes to cover up any evidence of his existence, or better yet lay contradictory evidence or trick his enemies into destroying the evidence for him. However, in the millennia following the Age of Apostasy, Be’lakor began to find he had fewer and fewer civilizations naïve to Chaos to work with, with most either being absorbed by the Imperium, subverted by other aspects of Chaos, or being outright destroyed. When Be’lakor found out the Tarellians worshipped his people, being the last of the Old Ones he was by default their rightfully inherited master.

When Be'lakor felt he had enough information, he made contact with the Tarellians and enunciated his demands. At first, the Tarellians were surprisingly receptive to Be’lakor, apparently believing his claims and requesting that he meet their mage priests at their peoples’ traditional sacred meeting grounds to consecrate his reign. However, when Be’lakor and his court of Warp anomalies manifested in front of the Tarellian mage-priests, the Tarellians dropped the act and Be’lakor realized that for the first time in millennia he had miscalculated. Despite worshipping the Old Ones, Tarellian society is largely meritocratic and achievement-based to the point that social advancement is based on personal deeds.For Be’lakor to show up and claim that the Tarellians should fall to their knees and worship him because he is one of their long lost gods simply because he is a god, rather than what he has accomplished with his godhood, was highly insulting. The mage priests told him as much to his face.

This, according to Kroak, leader of the Tarellian delegation, meant one of two things. Either he was a fake god who knew nothing of Tarellian culture and was stealing someone else's title and accomplishments for his own ends, or he was a terrible god with no glory to his name and did not deserve to be worshipped in the first place. On that note, the Tarellians revealed the so-called “sacred meeting grounds” Be’lakor had met them at was actually a fake (which, the Tarellians added, if Be’lakor had really been one of their gods he would have realized was a fake in the first place) built above a vast cavern and wired with explosives. Then they triggered the explosives and sent Be’lakor and his retinue screaming down the mile-deep crevasse. Kroak himself dealt the final blow, striking the daemon prince with a house-sized rock as he tried to fly out of the rockside and burying Be’lakor beneath the debris.

Unfortunately, the Tarellians paid a terrible price for their insolence. The Tarellians had maintained their freedom, but they had done so by humiliating Be’lakor, someone to disrespect at your own peril. Be’lakor would not tolerate such disrespect from the younger races, but he was patient and more than willing to play the long game to get his revenge. Less than twenty years after the Tarellians banished Be’lakor, Hive Fleet Leviathan made galaxyfall. It is rather noteworthy that despite coming from the same general direction as Behemoth, something made the Hive Fleet change course at the last minute causing it to take a different path through the galaxy. Right through Tarellian space.

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[[Category:Nobledark Imperium]]

Nobledark Imperium Member States

2018-07-07T05:47:13Z

2601:602:9A01:56E0:9DFF:BA8B:71FC:7FE8: /* Savlar */

Nobledark Imperium Member States

2018-07-07T05:43:59Z

2601:602:9A01:56E0:9DFF:BA8B:71FC:7FE8: /* Savlar */

A brief list of national entities that joined the Imperium whilst being interstellar powers in their own right.

= Survivor Civilizations =

Not all planets were as lucky as Old Earth during the Age of Strife. Although the planet was devastated by the horrors of the Old Night, at least it still retained much of its technology and infrastructure and much of its surface still remained habitable to human life. Other worlds were not so lucky. On many planets, the collapse of the Great and Bountiful Terran Empire caused the inhabitants to regress to medieval or even Stone Age levels of technology. Other planets retained some degree of advanced technology, but the conditions of their world were so harsh that people could just barely survive without assistance from offworld, and welcomed the Imperium with open arms.

When encountering a devolved human society, the Imperium would often unify the planet by the most expedient means possible and then get the appointed representative of the planet to swear loyalty to either the Imperium, the Empty Throne or the Steward depending on prevailing cultural norms of that planet. Worlds with stories of a savior figure that would save them from the Old Night, a common type of story on many worlds, typically had the Steward inserted into that role to ease integration. Worlds that still had some dim memory of the Golden Age typically swore loyalty to the Imperium, which they saw as the great Terran Empire being rebuilt. Worlds that had prophecies of a king that would arise in the distant future to lead them into a Golden Age, another common belief, found it easier to swear allegiance to the Empty Throne instead. For these worlds, it was hard to see anyone born during that age as a potential messianic figure.

These worlds, which are typically under the direct control of the Imperial government and the Administratum, became known as Administrated Worlds, which make up the vast majority of the worlds in the Imperium today. One notable exception were the Forge Worlds, who would only listen or swear loyalty to the lost holy land of Mars, through which the Imperium acquired their cooperation.

However, the Imperium also discovered many worlds that like Old Earth had managed to rebuild from the Age of Strife and become highly advanced societies in their own right, some even managing to carve out their own small interstellar empires. In addition to the Sol-based Voidborn Migrant Fleet and the Mechanicum of Mars, these included the Realm of Ultramar, the Interex, the Hubworld League, Colchis, Inwit, and Necromunda, among many others. For these entities, which became known as Survivor Civilizations, the Imperium offered them a deal: political and industrial autonomy, within [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#Imperial_Governmental_Structure|certain limits]], in exchange for inclusion and a prominent place in the Imperium. The Steward could see that they were as legitimate an inheritor of the Golden Age Empire as Earth was and knew that had he been salvaged by one of them then he would be offering this deal to Old Earth, not to mention that if he was in their position this was the kind of offer he would hope would made to him. The terms of these agreements sometimes varied slightly from world to world, sometimes resembling hammering out trade deals as opposed to treaties of alliance.

== Savlar ==
'''''Savlar: Because Fuck You, That's Why. - Above the Space Port door on a corrosion resistant glass slab.'''''

Savlar is a shit hole that runs on spite. Food grow there is poisonous and can only be consumed in careful combination so that the various toxins cancel each other out. The air is laced with harmful chemicals and the weather patterns are unpredictable across most of the surface making predicting what is on the breeze all but impossible. The water is unsafe to drink for all but the hardiest of constitutions and must first be filtered.

All in all nobody should ever go to Savlar. Life is short, dangerous and unpleasant. Much like the people that call it home. Or at least a Savlar curse word that is equivelent to home. Savlar has a lot of curses, all forms of wishing natural hazards upon the recipient in lewd and profane ways.

The only reason that the planet has any value at all to the Imperium is for the mystical substance known as neutronium. It is not actual "neutronium" but is just something that the lay-person calls neutronium due to it possibly being non-baryonic matter. Importantly it is the key ingredient in the orbital tethers and even more importantly it is produced nowhere else in the galaxy.

Savlar has no native life forms and when man first set foot on it had almost no atmosphere. The atmosphere is has now is a side effect of the old industry. That it turned out breathable, if barely, was just a coincidence. Savlar is now home to an ecosystem made up of extremophile and borderline extremophile life forms of the sort typically found growing next to volcanos on less awful worlds.

The hideous environment is a result of the neutronium manufacture. In the old days of the Golden Age the chemical run off was contained for processing as the world around the facility was slowly terraformed. When the Old Night rolled in the tanks were breached, the processing facilities destroyed and all but one of the factories burned to the ground. This released the chemical cocktail that Savlar is known for.

The natives of Savlar are descended from the people who used to work there and got stranded in ancient days. Genetically they are more or less pure human but like Fenrisians there is very minor deviations. They can handle drugs and toxic substances far better than most people. Biological and cybernetic modifications to help deal with the environment are common on Savlar and in the regiments raised there.

The Neutronium Workshop operates at a mere 5% of it's original estimated output and is tended to by a peculiar and closed order of tech-adepts descended from the maintenance teams and workers that once operated the factory in the Golden Age. The Savlar Order is very much a closed order. They don't let anyone in, nobody leaves, they don't concern themselves with things beyond their gate and no outside authority calls them master. They make neutronium and they exchange it for stuff. That's how they like it and that is the extent of how the arrangement would have, could have and should have been. But then the Olympus Mons brotherhood got involved and ruined everything for everyone.

All technological wonders of humanity belong to the Mechanicum. The Savlar Order tended the last neutronium workshop. They were human, the workshop was a human creation and therefore they must submit to the rule of Mars. They sent them a letter, politely worded, to that effect. Savlar sent a letter back telling them in no uncertain terms that they would not submit to outsiders and called into question the parentage of the Mars Council and accused the Fabricator General of sexual deviation.

A second much more strongly worded letter was written, this time demanding, not asking with the declaration that refusal would have them meet the entire Skitarii army should they refuse and was delivered by none other than Ferrus Manus himself in all his brutal glory. The Savlar Order responded with a crudely drawn picture of a magos bent over taking it up the ass from an anthropomorphic Aquila. The substance used to make the offending image was discovered to be fecal matter.

Before this could escalate any further The Steward stepped in. Savlar was elevated to the status of Survivor Civilization, a status it did not deserve by a long way, to be counted alongside The Interex and Ultramar in legal standing. As an allied Survivor Civilization they had all the authority they needed to officially tell the Olympus Mons Brotherhood to go fuck themselves, which they did.

The Mechanicus could have banned all of their trade to Savlar and black listed anyone who did so. They could also have slit their own throats and gurgled the theme song to Aspects of Steel. By this point it was known that the Savlar Order were more than prepared to destroy all that they held dear rather than let it fall into Mars' hands. Mars had gotten into a contest of spite with Savlar and they were fools to do so.

One of the ways that Savlar has spent the better part of 10,000 years infuriating Mars is the baffling tradition of The Great Savlar Scavenger Hunt. Once the stockpile of neutronium is filled a list of items is placed on the outer gate of The Workshop. The list invariably contains a great variety of a great many thing, some of them quite strange. Partly this is almost certainly to prevent the Mars priesthood from deciphering the needed raw materials, some of it's obviously for personal use. The list somewhere will always contain food and fresh water. In exact amounts. Everything is given with exact amounts, in native Savlar measurements. If they ask for a very specific amount of Valhallan Brandy in a specific number of arsenic bronze containers then you bring them that, no more and no less. Deviation from the list is not permitted and the contestant is disqualified. First one back with the entire list ticked off to the Order's satisfaction gets the entire stock heap to divvy up and sell on as they see fit.

It infuriates Mars as it puts them on equal footing to common traders and the like. There is also no pattern to the demands and it is a constant point of discord in the filing system. Creatures of order as they are this infuriates the Mechanicus Scribes and that is almost certainly why the Savlar Order do it. Because fuck you, that's why.

Beyond this very little of the Order is known. Investigations have been requested and refused. The Inquisition could push the issue but it's not worth the risk.

The society outside of the walls of the Workshop is mostly slightly above subsidence farming with very little surplus left over to support many urban structures. Society, civilization is pushing it a little too far, tends to be tribaly based and ruled by the elders or those who have opted to stay sober for a while.

Religion is a plethora of small gods, though Salvlars would claim that they are too small to be gods. Typically they can only be interacted with after taking something mind altering but there is too much consistency in the hallucinations for them to be nothing but things see in the trips. There have been investigations by both the Arbiters and the Inquisition but nothing that can prove or disprove, all that they can say is that there is no notable Chaos corruption.

Indeed not. Chaos offers hope, but they have given up on great hopes. Chaos offers comfort in despair, but they feel not too much despair. They don't feel much anger at things and merely accept the shit. They don't revel in the fumes or seek much excess. If their small gods of the æther are deamons they are doing a terrible job. Most common advice that the small gods give is to slow down on the LSD wine, which is a distinctly un-Chaos thing to suggest.

One more or less consistent belief among the tribes, and it can be inferred to have originated in The Workshop, is the Great Machine. It follows that the Omnissiah is the underlying mechanisms of the universe, the Ultimate Machine, but that it's obvious that the universe is broken. Therefore god is broken and man must increase in wisdom to find a way of fixing it. Once fixed the universe will work right. It is known as the Faith of the Broken God. It is considered '''HOLY SHIT''' levels of heresy within the main branch mechnicus but the MArs Priesthood never quite gets as far as declaring the Savlar Order as such because neutronium.

Drugs are about the only thing that make life on Savlar tolerable. They will surely reduce your life time but on Savlar you're probably going to be dead by age 45 snorting Rainbow Dust or not so it's not really the issue it would be on a less fuck awful planet. Besides the neutronium the planets only other notable exports are soldiers and recreational drugs.

The soldiery is a motley band of mostly addicts ( usually recruits) and mostly former addicts (usually veterans).

== The Migrant Fleet ==

== The Mechanicus of Mars and its various Forgeworlds ==

== Interex ==

== Hubworld League (Squats) ==
The worlds of the Hubworld League are all fortresses. This is in part due to their natural architectural inclinations: any sturdy, underground structure can become a bunker with a minimum effort. Mostly, though, it is a matter of natural selection.

Worlds that were not fortresses did not survive the Long Night. The bulk of the Hubworlds are located near the galactic core- the largest concentration of Orks in the galaxy. During the Dark Age of Technology, endless robotic armies rendered this a non-factor. During the Age of Strife, each already-devastated world thrown back onto its own resources... only the worlds which forted up survived.

Visitors to Squat holds often remark on how elaborately decorated they are. Statuary, engravings and murals, fine masonry and intricate fountains; their excellent craftsmanship extends far beyond weapons and armor. Such artwork tends to accumulate over time; the oldest holds are best described as 'cluttered with masterpieces'.

Visitors experienced in military matters see how the complex and winding paths would force an invader to divide their forces and funnel through chokepoints. They would notice how the engravings conceal hidden passages for the swift movement of troops, or the mechanisms of elaborate deathtraps.

Perhaps the collections of fine art is a reaction to the stress of having to live in a giant, trap-filled bunker all the time.

== Ultramar ==

At it's height in the relatively short lived golden age of the Great Crusade the Republic of Ultramar counted approximately 500 worlds within it's borders and whilst many of these were mere provincial outposts and nothing more than seeds of potential they were indicative of a thriving and growing civilization.

At the time the Expeditionary forces of the Imperium first made it to the borders of that real, most august of the survivors of Old Night, it was grand and exceptionally so by the standards of the time though far less than it would become with a little over two hundred worlds to count as it's own and many is states of disrepair. But for all the faded glory they were not without their grandeur and when the diplomats and ambassadors of the Imperium offered them sanctuary within it's aegis they were somewhat hesitant. And why would they not be? They had survived for thousands of years alone at the other end of the galaxy to the long forgotten homeworld surrounded by barbarians and monsters. Their inclusion as a Survivor Civilization was eventually achieved on mutually favourable terms.

In the days of the Great Crusade Ultramar prospered like it had not done since the days it was part of the Great and Bountiful Empire before the Age of Strife. With fresh trade links and the pressure of barbarian invasion removed Ultramar again took it's old colony worlds back and regained the ground it had lost.

But for all that the realm itself prospered in this time the internal structure of it was called into question with many of the new border world powers, grown rich and strong on Imperial trade, questioning the right of Macragge to rule all undisputedly. As time went on this dissatisfaction did not abate and the rift between the Provincial Powers and the old money Throneworld only deepened.

Into this descended Gaufrid Fouché, grandson of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, son of King Gunthar Fouché and about eighth in line for the crown of Franj. Gaufrid was under orders from his grandfather to set up the Ultimate Plan B contingency and set up the groundwork for the Imperium Secundus for the unthinkable eventuality of the Imperium failing. Ultramar was far enough away to probably be unaffected by anything that could kill Old Earth but civilized and prosperous enough to be a viable seed from which to regrow. Although Gaufrid had no actual direct authority within the Realm of Ultramar he did have considerable invested in him by the Imperium with which an ever increasing majority of Ultamars trade went through. Peddling this influence with the provincials and the nobility of Macragge he set forth propositions and proposals that would turn the elective monarchy of Ultramar into a fairer and more representative system of one planet one vote with an overall leader elected for times of dire emergency. Macragge agreed to this to retain some power against the increasing might of Calth, Calth agreed to it as recognition as not Macragge's subordinate was all they ever wanted and the provincial worlds agreed because it gave them a voice and they all agreed to it because refusal to do so would see a great decline in trade and hardening of the borders with the rest of the Imperium. Was this entirely fair? Probably not, but many things are less so.

With the long term threat of eventual civil war averted Gaufrid Fouché married the head of one of the major internal Ultramar trading companies (mostly a purely political decision though he was good friends with her) to further his influence and set about the meticulous and tedious task of reforming the planetary, even nation based, militaries into a more cohesive whole. His task was not entirely limited to maters of military and his hand could be found in almost every aspect of Ultramar's functioning.

Under his influence the realm grew richer and stronger than it had ever done before and many would argue since.

Then The Beast came and all that planning seemed so very insignificant compared to such reckless barbarity.

Ultramar was, by great good fortune, not as targeted as maybe it could have been in the War of the Beast. Guilliman's choice for an Imperium Secundus proving to have been correct in that regard. This is not to say that Ultramar got off easy, just that it got off easier and because of Gaufrid's tireless efforts Ultramar had never been more prepared. But worlds still burned.

The path of rebuilding took a long time. A long, long time as many of the WAAAAAAAGH!!!!! splinters scattered about and stranded corrupt eldar raiders filtered to the eastern fringe when The Beast was cast down. Ultramar endured, the Fortress of the Galactic East. Gaufrid took the name of Guilliman over Fouché to emphasize his authority, a name that his descendant would hold for the rest of Imperial history. Gaufrid Guilliman never saw the completion of the rebuilding of Ultramar, he was a rare example of Rejuvenant Rejection and had adverse reactions to the procedure, he fell to the ravages of time at the tender age of 156.

After the Breaking of the Legions it was deemed that the Ultimate Plan B was never not going to be a possibility and to safe guard it the XIII Legion core Chapter would be gifted to Ultramar and thereafter be renamed Ultramarines.

As of the dying of this Dark Millenium the realm of Ultramar spans nearly 300 developed, sophisticated and cultured worlds, still making it the grandest and strongest if not the numerically biggest of the Survivor Civilizations. As Acting Chapter Master Titus puts forth his reform plans before the Senate and the upheaval in an age of uncertainty all know that either Ultramar will finally die or will be reborn stronger than ever to meet the oncoming storm.

== Colchis ==

The planet of Colchis was a virtual feudal world by the end of the Age of Strife. The population had been nuked back to the Stone Age by the rebellion of the Men of Iron, and it had taken nearly nine millennia to reach even that level of technology again. An effort not helped by the sporadic Chaos uprisings and the brutal semi-arid climate of the planet.

From the stars came the Eldar of the minor Craftworld Bel-Shammon. The people of Bel-Shammon were desperate. The solar sails and propulsion mechanisms of the Craftworld had been damaged beyond repair, and they knew the birth of Slaanesh was soon at hand. Colchis was located only a stone’s throw away from the homeworlds of the old Eldar Empire, and the people of Bel-Shammon knew that without the ability to move their Craftworld away from the psychic eruption they would need to either find shelter or die. As a result, the people of Bel-Shammon were forced to take unconventional action, and ask the people of the nearby world for sanctuary. Tears of desperation turned to tears of joy as Colchians welcomed them to their home. In gratitude, the Eldar repaid the people of Colchis by teaching them how to build a global and peaceful civilization.

By the time the Imperium first reached Colchis during the Great Crusade, Colchis resembled some sort of planetside Eldar Craftworld crossed with a relatively calm and peaceful version of the ancient Holy Roman Empire. The planet was a veritable patchwork of nominally independent nation-states with a politically independent papacy acting as a mediator in international disputes and a representative for the planet as a whole. The Craftworld Bel-Shammon itself had been dismantled, its wraithbone structures turned into housing and architecture and its Infinity Circuit incorporated into the planet itself.

When the Imperial ships first arrived in the Colchian system, they were greeted by elegant system defense ships. The Colchians had no Warp technology, but only because they never felt the need to go anywhere. There was a Webway gate in the center of the papal palace, having been moved planetside from the old Craftworld, but the planet had little contact with the greater galaxy and had not had a visitor from offworld in decades. The language they were greeted in seemed to be some sort of Old Earth descendant language strangely hybridized with craftworlder High Speech. The Imperial ambassadors were later to learn that this was the global language of legal documents and trade, a practice mirrored in the Imperium with High Gothic.

The Imperium had expected Colchis to be controlled by an Eldar aristocracy ruling over a human underclass. To their surprise, no Eldar on the planet held any position of power above the level of provincial assistant administrator or equivalent title. The refugees of Bel-Shammon had never wanted to rule, they only wanted a place to settle. Colchis was brought into the Imperium as a unique and civilized world reminiscent of an idealized version of some pre-fall Eldar haven, albeit with only 8% of the global population actually being Eldar.

Colchis has remained relatively peaceful despite the general tumult in the galaxy since joining the Imperium. Colchis may not be armed to the teeth like Cadia or Krieg but it has still had to fight off its fair share of invasions. Among the people of the Imperium, humans from Colchis tend to get along better with the Craftworlds than the average human, due to their similar culture. Craftworlds like Alaitoc see Colchis as proof that mankind are not completely hopeless and can eventually learn to be civilized, perhaps in a few million years or so. Human and Eldar supremacist groups like Craftworld Dorhai see the harmonious and relatively non-militarized world of Colchis as the embodiment of everything wrong with the Imperium.

"''See, this is the cultural suicide of both the Eldar and human of this world. What my sights lay upon is the abominable fusion of both and the advancement of none. This is the destruction of Eldar culture and their human partners follow suit, there is the strength of none while holding the weakness of both.''"<br>
- unknown Dorhai writer

"''See that fool? That one right there? That is the actual suicide of both Eldar and humanity. I look upon them and I would be turned to pity were it not for the disgust at their stagnation and wretchedness. They prattle on about purity whilst their society crusts over in bones of wraith and dies starved of love or sunlight. They prattle on about purity, romanticizing a time that never was when they lived in some unseen Eden all the while carefully omitting their decadence and depravities. Let them turn inwards and look no more upon the outside world. We will pick their corpses clean, we will out last them, our beautiful hybrid society ever young, ever vigorous. If they cannot change they will rot.''"<br>
- Her Ecumenical Excellence Mother Dwynwen XXIII of Colchis.

== Necromunda ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Necromunda|Necromunda]]

= The Craftworlds =

The Eldar Craftworlds mostly entered into the Imperium as the same manner as the Survivor civilizations. The Craftworlds were never ones for formality or paperwork, but they venerated their goddess Isha, who was in a political marriage to the Steward, and originally followed for that reason. Like the Survivor civilizations the Craftworlds had to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, the terms for their inclusion varying from Craftworld to Craftworld. Over time many Craftworlds saw the benefits being part of the Imperium and integrated to greater and lesser extents, whether it be interacting with the galaxy directly or the colder, more pragmatic reason of having the rest of the Imperium as a buffer against any would-be enemies.

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#The_Craftworlds|The Craftworlds]]

= Minor Xenos Races =

Although the Imperium is best known as the grand alliance of humanity and Eldar, there are also numerous other minor Xenos races that also call the Imperium home. The Imperium first began officially admitting other races into the Imperium in M36, as a token of gratitude after receiving significant assistance from the Demiurg in the Imperial Civil War. Since then numerous other species, including Tau, kinebrach, the Watchers in the Dark, kroot, Tarrellians, even a few Necron Lords, have all been united under the Imperium’s aegis. These races are often known as “minor Xenos races” not because they are unimportant per se, but because they make up such a small proportion of the Imperium’s total population, even compared to the depleted Eldar. Even the Tau, the most numerous of the minor xenos races, are still outnumbered by the Eldar by an order of magnitude. Like Eldar Craftworlds and Survivor civilizations, minor Xenos races are often given a high degree of autonomy in the Imperium, so long as they follow the few [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#Imperial_Governmental_Structure|universal rules]]. In some cases (e.g., Necron lords) inclusion into the Imperium is more like a mutual non-aggression pact than anything else, the Imperium pledging to keep its other citizens from antagonizing its signatories so long as those signatories in turn do not antagonize the citizens of the Imperium.

== Tau Empire ==
The Tau are the most recent addition to the Imperium, and in some ways the most reluctant. They stood for thousands of years on their own, weathering Ork WAAAGHs, AI uprisings, Dark Eldar raids, and the vanguards of the hive fleets before finally admitting they could not survive alone in mid M39. They were a large nation by non-Imperium standards, the size of Ultramar or any of the other Survivor Civilizations integrated into the Imperium, and are the third largest single demographic in the Imperium after humans and Eldar.

Their long refusal to join the Imperium was a puzzle to Imperial minds. For thousands of years, 'Imperium' was essentially synonymous with 'Civilization'; for the Tau to reject membership was essentially to reject their own civilized nature, as far as the Imperial diplomats were concerned. Their stubborn independence is even more puzzling in light of how well Tau and Imperial ethics mesh, the 'Greater Good' ideal of a place for everything and everything in its place having a great deal in common with Imperial ideals of strength through unity and diversity. The Tau, naturally, believe the Greater Good is more complete, comprehensive, and generally superior.

Of course, integration was hardly frictionless. The Farsight Enclaves split off after a brief but bloody war to avoid becoming part of the Imperium. Many Tau resented going from an independent empire to a province of a far larger one, even though they understood the necessity. The subsequent attempts to accumulate more political power within the Imperium generated resentment among the Imperial aristocracy. But in the end, the truth won out- better together than alone.

As of M41, the Tau have become reconciled to their place within the Imperium, but remain ambitious. They want to become the equals of humanity and the Eldar, not just a junior member of the Imperium. They have the technology, they have the will, they have the unity of purpose- if they survive the coming storm, they have an excellent chance of doing so.

If.

== Demiurg ==

== Diasporex ==

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More of a religious movement than an actual species, the Diasporex are a nomadic fleet-bound civilization encountered by the Imperium during the Great Crusade. The Diasporex were first discovered by the expeditionary fleet of the Dark Angels, who were surprised when they accidentally stumbled upon what appeared to be veritable fleet after dropping out of warp around what they thought was a dead star. After an initial awkward misunderstanding, diplomatic contact with the Diasporex was made, and after turning down initial overtures at joining the Imperium the Diasporex pointed the Dark Angels in the direction of the nearest uncontacted human world.

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The movement of what would come to be known as the Diasporex began during the Age of Strife. The founders of the Diasporex were native to a planet that was devastated by the warp storms and other psychic phenomena common to the Age of Strife and were forced to leave their homeworld to the relative safety of voidspace in order to survive. It was here in space that the Diasporex had what could be considered a religious revelation. They realized that here, in void space, not on a planet, not in the Immaterium, it was peaceful. Upon further thought, it seemed obvious in retrospect that the Void represented the true nature of the universe, given that the Void made up the vast majority of the universe, with the only significant phenomena being the movement of the major heavenly bodies across the cosmos.

Today, the Diasporex are a nomadic civilization, constantly moving from star to star across the cosmos. One of the only reasons they ever stop are to refuel their ships at the hydrogen collecting space stations they have set up at various waypoints across their pre-planned journey. The Diasporex travel through space using a unique type of engine of unknown origin. It is still debated whether Diasporex engines are of xenos design, represent a modified pre-Warp Dark Age of Technology engine, or are a mixture of both. Although the Diasporex engines work well for their purposes, they are maddeningly useless for any Imperial use. Diasporex engines are no better than their Imperial counterparts for in-system travel, and although being to accelerate to slightly faster than the speed of light, their slow speed means that it can often take the better part of a year at minimum to move from one inhabited system to its nearest neighbor.

In times of peace, the only other time the Diasporex ever stop their journey is to visit inhabited worlds, to trade with the locals for goods that they cannot grow or manufacture aboard their ships, and to proselytize others to abandon terrestrial life and join their creed. The Diasporex are a veritable menagerie of sapient species, including humanity. It is not clear if the original founders were human, xenos, or a mix of both. The Diasporex have deliberately obscured the true origin of their founders as a point of pride, to show that their creed is open to people of any species.

The Diasporex creed follows several simple rules:
1) Warp travel is forbidden, or at least restricted to an absolute minimum. Although Diasporex ships are capable of Warp travel, they only use it if the fleet is under direct attack. According to Diasporex beliefs, warp travel irritates the universe and makes it more difficult to hear the Harmony of the Spheres.
2) No violence except in self-defense. The Diasporex exalt peace and self-harmony, though they realize the galaxy is unlikely to conform to their beliefs. Peace-loving does not mean unarmed.
3) Relinquishment of worldly possessions. In addition to the simple reasoning that if everyone brought their belongings on board there would be no room for anything else on the ship, the Diasporex believe in asceticism in order to keep focused on the nature of the void. However, the Diasporex are not cruel. They often allow new initiates to bring on objects that have personal value or could benefit the fleet, such as a picture of family members or books.

As can be expected, the Void Born like the Diasporex and their way of thinking quite a bit, although not enough that they are willing to part with their worldly possessions and join them.

The Imperium mostly lets the Diasporex survive unmolested for several reasons. First, as the Diasporex travel from world to world, they trade and barter for goods with the inhabitants of each planet they visit. The Diasporex essentially act as a trade convoy for the worlds in their region of space, one that the Imperium does not even have to expend resources to maintain.

Additionally, the Diasporex serve as an important early warning system. The path of the Diasporex is well known and can often be predicted years in advance. If the Diasporex caravans scatter, it means that something unusual is going on. Furthermore, despite being largely non-aggressive the Diasporex have proven to be tenacious in the defense of their way of life, helping the Imperium during several Black Crusade by channeling the power of the stars they absorb energy from into devastating beams of destruction. The Diasporex are also skilled voidsmen due to the amount of time they have spent travelling voidspace, often able to outmaneuver Imperial ships despite their relatively antiquated technology.

The Diasporex and the Imperium have only come into conflict over two specific issues. The first is when an individual, usually an Imperial Navy officer, tries to join the Diasporex and brings Imperial property such as an Imperial Navy voidship with them as a gift. The situation is usually defused by the Diasporex denouncing that they have any claim to the ship, although they are willing to accept new converts and new voidships, they will not do so at the risk of angering the Imperium. The other is when someone tries to disturb or destroy the various hydrogen collecting waystations scattered throughout the galaxy. Although the Diasporex are typically placid and unconcerned with the actions of those inhabiting the solar systems they travel through, they will vigorously defend any threat to their way of life.

The Diasporex occupied quite an awkward position in Imperial politics for many years. After it became clear that the Diasporex were a theocratic democracy, and that they had only sent humans to meet with Imperial representatives because they felt humans would be comfortable talking with human ambassadors, it was clear that the Diasporex could not be simply admitted into the Imperium in the same manner as Colchis or the Interex. However, the Steward did not want to allow free trade with the Diasporex as a non-Imperial power, as that might give other systems a legal excuse to trade with more unsavory entities. At the same time, it was clear that it was not possible to stop the Diasporex migration and trade with other worlds without resorting to open war. In the end, the Diasporex were named an honorary member state and protectorate of the Imperium, albeit one that kept to themselves and never interfered in Imperial politics. When the Imperium began accepting non-human, non-Eldar member states into the Imperium in M36, the Diasporex finally had a place to fit into the Imperium’s political structure. Nevertheless, the Diasporex still almost never exploit their status to affect Imperial politics, preferring to sail the same route through the stars their ancestors plotted centuries before.

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== Kinebrach ==

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The Kinebrach are a heavy-set, simian-like species of xenos native to the Segmentum Pacificus. Indeed, it is thought that many of the fortress worlds scattered around the segmentum were originally built by them. In many ways, kinebrach appear very similar to Old Earth gorillas. Like gorillas, the kinebrach are ape-like, mostly herbivorous (though they are more omnivorous than gorillas), and when given the choice prefer to live in humid swamps and jungles. However, unlike gorillas, kinebrach walk bipedally erect, though their extremely long arms (which extend below their knees) betray their tree-dwelling habits.

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Kinebrach have a tripartite jaw with well-developed grinding plates, which they use to grind vegetation and crush fruits and nuts. A deep slit between the two upper jaw plates contains the kinebrach’s oral olfactory organ, which lies at the front of the roof of their mouth. Kinebrach will sometimes flare the two flaps of their upper “hare-lip” apart, in order to better smell an unfamiliar individual or object. A kinebrach’s skin resembles a hippopotamus or wild hog, with a thick, dark blue-black skin covered by a thin layer of wiry brown to russet fur.

The Kinebrach are most famous throughout the galaxy for their skill as metalworkers. Metalworkers occupy an almost legendary status in kinebrach society, to the point that the kinebrach are actually led by a council of warsmiths. To the kinebrach, to be a decent leader you are almost expected to be a good blacksmith, as a good metalworker exhibits all the traits that must be present in a good leader. They must have vision, in order to be able to shape the metal to their liking. They must have patience, in order to be able to perfect their work into the form that they desire. And they must have strength of spirit, in order to endure the heat of the forge and the physical toil of hammering the metal into shape. Disputes between major kinebrach political figures are often settled by forge-offs, with each party trying to forge a superior work to demonstrate the righteousness of their belief or grievance.

This obsession with metalworking even extends into the Kinebrach’s method for dealing with daemons. Like many sentient species, the Kinebrach have figured out that if a daemon is bound to one place, then it can be easily accounted for and cannot roam freely to corrupt others. As a race of metalworkers, it seemed obvious to the kinebrach to bind troublesome daemons within forged weapons, as opposed to ordinary objects or living beings. These cursed weapons, as the Kinebrach call them, are then sealed in such a way that no one can access them or be tempted by the daemon sealed inside. Such cursed blades include Drach’nyen and the cursed blade stolen by Erebus during the chaos of the War of the Beast, which was later broken by the Dark Prophet and forged into the eight Anathame, the so-called “splinters in the eye of reality” that plague the Imperium to this day.

There is some suggestion that some kinebrach have gone rogue and joined the Chaos-worshipping Davinite warrior lodges, taking cursed weapons with them. The kinebrach are not happy to hear this news.

Kinebrach names are written as a series of hyphenated syllables, said almost like a drumbeat. This is apparent even in Kinebrach writing, where individual names are written in a distinctly different script than the words that surround them. This appears to be due to the modern Kinebrach writing style being the result of the fusion of two previously distinct Kinebrach cultures many millennia ago. Although the Kinebrach seem like a monolithic culture now, they apparently were not before the Age of Strife.

Like all sentient life in the galaxy, the Kinebrach were hit hard by the Age of Strife. After the end of the Age of Strife and the birth of Slaanesh, the Kinebrach believed themselves to be a dying species. This fear was only magnified when they encountered their nearest neighbors, the Interex. After first contact, communications broke down between the two species, and the two empires went to war. This war was devastating to the kinebrach, who feared that the conflict merely confirmed their imminent extinction. However, after about a century, the kinebrach were contacted by diplomats from the Interex. The Interex claimed that the breakdown in communications was due to imperfect translation technology on the Interex’s part, and they had never wanted to exterminate the kinebrach in the first place. Instead, they proposed an agreement. The kinebrach would become a protectorate of the Interex, providing them with advanced technology and metalworking in exchange for the Interex’s military protection. In addition, the Kinebrach would be forbidden to carry arms except during times of war.

The Kinebrach, for their part, did not care. They had been more concerned about the survival of their species than their ability to bear arms. Indeed, despite being led by a council of warsmiths, the kinebrach were a rather non-aggressive people and did not mind if another, more vibrant species went to war on their behalf. What’s more, the conflict had become so heated that some of the Kinebrach had almost been tempted to take up the cursed weapons out of desperation, something that the rest of the Kinebrach knew could have easily destroyed both civilizations. The Kinebrach were glad that such a worst-case scenario had not come to pass.

Like the Watchers in the Dark, the Kinebrach came under the aegis of the Imperium much earlier than other minor xenos races, entering as a protectorate of the Interex. However, with the official admission of minor xenos faces into the Imperium in M36, the Kinebrach became an officially recognized independent member state of the Imperium, albeit one with close political and economic ties to the Interex.

Today, the kinebrach are highly respected in the Imperium for their ability as metalworkers, representing one of the Imperium’s few non-Adeptus Mechanicus sources of technology along with squats and Earth Caste tau. However, unlike the Adeptus Mechanicus, the kinebrach are first and foremost artisans and metallurgists, rather than manufacturers. The kinebrach are more interested in making new alloys and crafting new masterpieces than in mass-production. Although the kinebrach have the knowledge to build starships, most find the intricacies of large-scale machines less interesting. Your average kinebrach would be more interested in a wall made of rare, high-quality, or particularly well-crafted metal than a highly-complex machine.

Given their similarities, many have wondered if the kinebrach are somehow related to the [[Jokaero]], another simian-like race with an affinity for crafting and technology, some even going so far as to suggest the jokaero are a subspecies derived from the long-lost descendants of the kinebrach that existed outside the Segmentum Pacificus. However, genetic testing has shown that the kinebrach and Jokaero are two completely unrelated species, and their ape-like similarities evolved completely independently. When asked about this, the kinebrach replied that they had once wondered the same thing regarding Eldar and humanity.

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== Watchers in the Dark ==

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When the Old Ones left much of their webway-making equipment on Caliban, it left a bit of a hole in the fabric of reality. This slowly allowed Warp energy to leak through into the Materium, something that wasn’t very helpful for a planet already so close to the Eye of Terror. Over the course of generations, much of the planet became uninhabitable due to Warp exposure mutating the local wildlife and turning the local ecosystem into a hellscape. Although natural selection due to Warp exposure had given the native sapient species a great deal of resistance to Warp energies and chaos-related mutations, it was not enough to protect them from the great beasts and detestable flora that covered most of the planet. Out of a sheer need for survival, the native sapient species of Caliban developed into a society fanatically obsessed with opposing Chaos and reclaiming their planet, but because of their limited physical prowess were unable to do much more than keep their few remaining bastions of civilization untainted at great cost.

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The Dark Angels, being the first legion sent out beyond the Sol system to look for survivors of the Age of Strife, were the first to encounter Caliban. Upon meeting with the Dark Angels, the Watchers saw the opportunity these visitors from the stars presented them and entreated the Dark Angels for help. Luther, more worried that the Imperium was going to carve up Franj while his back was turned, was dismissive, whereas Lion, ever the idealist, saw the Watchers as people, a Chaos-opposing people no less, in need and stepped in to help. Lion and the Dark Angels made short work of most of the Chaos Beasts on Caliban, and in gratitude the Watchers pledged their fealty to Lion and the Dark Angels. A small garrison of Dark Angels was left on Caliban, but this notably did not include Lion or Luther. The garrison’s job was to help the Watchers rebuild their planet, but it was difficult because they could never really find the source of the Warp corruption and could only keep the number of beasts to a minimum.

The Watchers in the Dark are essentially the reason the loyalist Dark Angels even survived the schism. When two-thirds of your forces turn on you at once, it is difficult to even survive under normal circumstances. Although the Watchers couldn’t physically fight against the traitor space marines in direct combat, they could relay information and help loyalist marines find one another in the chaos, even helping loyalists tell friend from foe. And in a pinch, if you don’t pay attention to a Watcher in the corner with a knife while fighting your loyalist brother, he will seriously mess up your day. However, in the course of the fighting during the schism, Caliban was destroyed, and the Watchers in the Dark were left without a homeworld. Some say the Watchers intentionally blew up their homeworld, to deny the Fallen the use of the Chaos Beasts and the artifacts beneath its surface.

The Watchers are a very minor xenos race, even in comparison to the other minor Xenos races of the Imperium. Their homeworld is gone, and there are only just enough of them to act as support staff for the loyalist successor chapters of the Dark Angels. At first the Watchers were a rather poorly kept secret to the rest of the Imperium. However, when the Imperium started allowing minor xenos races to join the Imperium, the Dark Angels were some of the first in line to present a petition on behalf of the Watchers. People coughed when they saw this, but let the Watchers in anyway. It is likely that the Steward knew of the Watchers’ existence and their contributions to the fight against Chaos before they were officially known to the Imperium at large (probably from the Lion if nothing else), which is probably the reason why the Watchers were admitted into the Imperium despite being a group of mysterious Xenos attached to the descendants of the legion most infamous for going rogue.

Even as an official part of the Imperium, the Watchers are rather enigmatic. Watchers in the Dark can occasionally be seen on hive worlds and other metropolitan areas, but are almost always running some kind of errand for their chapter. Their biology and social structure beyond “warp-resistant, long-lived, and hate Chaos” are only known to the Dark Angels and a few Ordo Xenos Inquisitors who have found out via other avenues. Even the gender or age of a given individual is not clear. The Watchers technically don’t pay a tithe, but since the entire species is basically a vassal race nearly inseparable from the loyalist Dark Angel successors, nearly every adult member of the species serves in some fashion.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this lack of information, a whole host of rumors have appeared regarding the Watchers in the Dark. As with all rumors, it is almost impossible to tell where these stories came from and if there is a grain of truth in them or not. Some say that the Watchers one sees today are the same Watchers that served during the War of the Beast, and there have been none born since the destruction of their homeworld. Others point out that the Watchers would have become extinct by now through simple attrition if that were the case, even if they had lifespans longer than the Eldar. However, exactly how the Watchers are reproducing is unknown. Some say that they are simply nomadic creatures now, forever moving with their Astartes masters and making their homes in star bases and fortresses and ships, whereas others say they haven’t died out because they have one last secret breeding ground, deep under one of the hives of Old Earth.

Other rumors are perhaps more farfetched. Some of these rumors, bordering on conspiracy theories, say the Watchers are able to travel through darkness itself, or are able to know the names of everyone they meet, or are the only creatures besides the Eldar who know how to navigate the Webway, or that they sing beautifully but they won't let anyone hear them, or are Imperial sword Hrud. Some theories are as fanciful as the Watchers hand out present to good little boys and girls on Sanguinala under the command of "Cypher Claws", to as conspiratorial as the Mechanicus uses the Watchers to spy on your comings and goings and dreams, to as eerie as the rumor that the eldar forgot who they were, but the Watchers remember them and remember much more than the eldar would like. As with all things, the Watchers never confirm or deny any of these tales.

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== Tarellians ==

During the unification and the Great Crusade, the Steward encountered the Tarellians. Though their race had never risen to match the levels of the Eldar, the Tarellians had a modest interstellar confederation of loosely aligned agriworlds. At first, things went well enough. The Tarellians were cautious, and after a few inconclusive skirmishes, were receptive to human ambassadors. In point of fact, they scorned worlds that were not self-sufficient enough to be able to survive off of their own food supplies, meaning they did not contest Imperial settlers that took the barren (If resource rich) unexploited rocks in systems surrounding them. But, eventually, one Tarellian governor got greedy, and attempted to enslave a human colony en masse to manufacture weapons for his soldiers. Well, the Imperium sent a naval ship, and the governor ran back to his confederates, and a war started.

The Tarellians were good fighters. Managed a few wins against the odds, due to bickering and overconfident Imperial generals. Then a primarch came. Luckily, it was only Dorn, but just the same the Tarellians were beaten horrifically, and quickly forced to peace. A white peace with mild reparations, but one that shattered the Tarellian confederacy over the shame.

After that, there was no more Tarellian Confederacy. The fractured states were left alone, and "Tarellian Space" was just another lawless backwater. Until the tyranids came. The Imperium intervened (even over the protest of some particularly proud Tarellian despots), but by the time help arrived the damage was done. Over a full quarter of the Tarellian population died fighting on worlds consumed.

Now, the Tarellian sector is peaceful. They provide mercenaries and foodstuffs. They're likeable enough, and cautiously judged by the Inquisition as mostly loyal subjects, even if some Tarellian mercenaries are found among ork and chaos warbands, and the rest mutter about how Tarellia will rise again from time to time. It is generally considered bad form among Imperial officers to remind the Tau of the Tarellian histories, though Tarellians themselves seem to regard the Tau well, particularly for their resistance to joining the Imperium.

When the Tarellians spread out from their homeworld, they developed a number of highly divergent cultures on the planets they lived on. Tarellians also range wildly in body size based on planet, ranging from Tau-sized to slightly taller than a baseline human. Even during their most unified periods, Tarellian culture and social norms could vary wildly depending on the planet. Hence the Tarellian Confederacy, instead of the Tarellian Republic or the Tarellian Empire. Nevertheless, there are enough cultural similarities between them that the Tarellan cultures see themselves as distinctly Tarellian, much like the different Greek or Mesoamerican city-states saw themselves as a distinct cultural unit.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that there are many different groups of lizardmen out there in the galaxy, of which the Tarellians are but the best known because they developed the most extensive interstellar network. The Imperium, lacking imagination, might refer to the species as a whole as Tarellians even though the term only really applies to the Tarellian Neo-Confederacy.

Like some groups of Native Americans (Comanche, Sioux), Tarellians are well known for their mobility in war, able to march hundreds of miles from base camp in order to strike. The difference is that the Native American tribes did this through the use of horses. The Tarellians do this on foot. Tarellians originally evolved in an arid environment where they had to keep pace over shifting sand dunes and the uneven terrains of arroyos in extreme heat. Marching through a relative flat environment in balmy weather is a literal walk in the park for them. The Tarellians don’t really have riding cavalry, though they do domesticate heavier draft animals.

===Tarellian Weapons===
Perhaps the most distinctive weapon of the Tarellians, aside from their disruption weaponry, is the kultarr. The melee weapon of choice for Tarellians, kultarrs resemble a cross between a polearm, a pickaxe, and a hatchet. The kultarr was originally thought to have started out as a simple hand tool repurposed for war, until it developed into the weapon known today. At the far end of the kultarr is a simple spike. The main purpose of this spike is to blunt cavalry or infantry charges, or finish off a downed foe. Just behind this spike is a recurved spike, which is the main armament of the kultarr. Typically, a kultarr is swung downwards like a tomahawk to brain a foe or impale them and allow them to be dragged closer. The spike can also be used as a hook to drag cavalry from their mounts or pull an opponent off balance (their more traditional use, seeing as the Tarellians did not have cavalry until the Industrial Era).

The military success of the kultarr has led the Tarelians to produce numerous derivations on the design, most prominently the mahukultarr. Instead of a single recurved spike, a mahukultarr has several backwards slanting blades appressed together to form a massive cutting edge. The purpose of a mahukultarr is to leave large, jagged wounds that bleed readily and are difficult to easily close. Although resembling a broadsword, the weight of a mahukultarr means that it is wielded more like an axe or a club. The cutting edge is composed of numerous smaller blades, rather than one complex piece of metal, in order to prevent breakage and make it easier to replace blades that are broken. However, the sheer weight of a mahukultarr means that it is almost impossible for a Tarellian soldier to carry both one of these weapons and a rifle at the same time. As a result, mahukultarr wielding-soldiers are relatively rare.

Tarellians also prefer their own types of ranged weaponry, the disruptor rifle, which literally boils the molecules of its targets. They do make some use of autoguns and lasweapons when available.

===Worlds of the Tarellian Neo-Confederacy===

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#The_Tarellian_Neo-Confederacy|The Tarellian Neo-Confederacy]]

===Tarellian Religion===

EDITOR'S NOTE: Per original writer, section with Be'lakor could use some rewriting/expansion

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The Tarellians, in a rather roundabout fashion, worship the Old Ones as their gods. The Old Ones, from what little we know about them, seem to have some sort of connection to the Tarellians. However, the Tarellians are not direct descendants of the Old Ones. The Old Ones, despite having dry, leathery skin, were still semi-aquatic and had to return to the water to breed. The Tarellians have scaly skin, and lay eggs. Instead, the Tarellians appear to be descended from components of the Old Ones’ biosphere, likely spread to other planets in the Old Ones’ first attempts at terraforming. In human terms, it would be as if a race of sapient rats rose to power long after the extinction of humanity, only to find human artifacts and come to believe humans represented a race of gods.

The Tarellians did not evolve on the original homeworld of the Old Ones. Whatever planet the Old Ones originally hailed from was lost long before the War in Heaven even began, although there are numerous fringe theories as to where said planet might have gone. The Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was Tarellia, the planet where the Tarellians originally evolved sentience. Unfortunately, most of the Old One technology on the planet was rendered non-functional beyond any means of repair and only the simplest, most resilient objects, such as statues, tablets, and stone carvings, remained intact. Ironically, the few Old One artifacts that have survived the millions of years since the War in Heaven tend to be either exceedingly primitive (stone carvings and tablets) or ridiculously advanced (the Blackstone Fortresses, the Webway, three of the four Ruinous Powers). According the Tarellians, the writing on these Old One artifacts inspired their own writing system and they can even translate it to a crude degree, though modern Tarellian differs greatly from the language used by the Old Ones.

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After Tarellia, the Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was the colony of Xibalanique. Xibalanique was a harsh, dry world, even by Tarellians standards, one of the reasons why so many artifacts were preserved there in the first place. Said artifacts were just about the only reason the world was of any interest to the Tarellian Empire, as the world was barely habitable otherwise and its population before the Age of Strife was almost entirely composed to researchers studying the Old One artifacts. When Xibalanique was cut off from the rest of the galaxy during the Age of Strife, the Tarellians stranded there had to either adapt, or die. Xibalaniquans are short and stocky compared to other Tarellians and tend to be relatively heavyset, which is thought to be due to genetic adaptations towards conserving energy for times of famine in harsh environments.

The inhabitants of Xibalanique were also notable in being all psykers, a situation somewhat analogous to a Tarellian Prospero. It is not clear if this is because of something the Old Ones did to Xibalanique, or if it was simply due to a founder effect from the original population of researchers having a higher-than average proportion of psyker genes relative to the rest of the Tarellian worlds, as Tarellians psykers are not unique to Xibalanique. Tarellian psykers are normally so stoic and dispassionate as to appear almost emotionless, interspersed with huge spikes of emotion whenever they use their powers. This makes them less susceptible to daemonic attention than psykers of other races, but it also means they tend to use their powers in quick bursts and become rapidly exhausted when trying to do anything strenuous. Nevertheless, this was not enough to completely avoid attention, as Xibalanique was destroyed shortly after the end of the Age of Strife.

The Xibalaniquans that survived their planet’s destruction migrated to the other Tarellian worlds, where they were eagerly assimilated with open arms. The Xibalaniquans were of interest not only for their psychic abilities, which were of value to any Tarellian warlord, but also for any potential lost knowledge that had been lost to the wider Tarellian Confederacy. Due to their psychic powers, the Tarellians viewed psykers as being closer to the Old Ones and on many worlds these psykers (typically Xibalaniquans) were organized into councils of mage-priests, who often served as advisors to the resident warlord. This arrangement varied from world to world; for example Maza has no mage-priests in an administrative position, whereas on Tikal at some point in history the mage-priests became the direct rulers of the planet, rather than just advisors. The organization of mage-priests into councils was not simply for symbolic reasons, as it also allowed for the organization of mage-priests into choirs similar to the human astropath system for interstellar communication. Even today, the Tarellian remain one of the few non-human, non-Eldar races to use their own methods of faster-than-light communication.

The Tarellians know the bare basics of the War in Heaven. They know that their gods were in a war with a pantheon of anti-gods and that their gods spawned a race of dark gods to help them. They know that the gods made lesser beings to act as soldiers. However, this is where the Tarellians get a few things wrong. They believe that they were the race created by the gods to fight in their war, when they were not. Indeed, in terms of age, the Tarellians are closer to humanity or the kinebrach than the truly ancient races like the Eldar or Orks.

The Tarellians believe the stylized bipeds in the Old One hieroglyphics at the right hand of their gods, figured to the same scale that peasants are often figured relative to gods and royalty, are the semi-mythical ancestor kings and queens, from who the Tarellians claim their descent. They’re not, but don’t bother try telling the Tarellians that. They’re actually representatives of the various gods of the mortal races the Old Ones uplifted during the War in Heaven. Isha recognized herself in the carvings, as well as Kurnous and Qah. Actual mortal representatives of those races are nowhere to be seen.

The Tarellians also believe that their gods walk among them, though perhaps not in a physical fashion. When Isha discovered this fact in M30 this, as well as the general physical similarity between the Tarellians and the Old Ones, was enough to excite the then recently-freed Eldar goddess Isha about the possibility of finding surviving fellow survivors of the War in Heaven and Age of Strife. Although, still acclimating to the current situation in the galaxy, Isha made plans to travel to Tarellian space at the first opportunity. The mage-priests were excited at the prospect of an outsider taking an interest in their gods, and eagerly escorted Isha to the nearest temple to “show her their gods”. However, Isha’s hopes were to be dashed. Instead of finding living, breathing Old Ones, she found stone statues and temples filled with a few attending devotees. Isha, furious at having her hopes raised at and having that hope yanked away just as quickly, almost lashed out at the “horrid little newts” in her grief and rage, before being calmed down by the Handmaidens. The mage-priests at the time were confused and did not know what they had done to make the outsider so angry, but it is thought that later priests figured out what happened and were slightly bitter to the Eldar about it, seeing Isha’s reaction as a dismissal of their gods.

When the Daemon Prince Be’lakor, the last of the Old Ones, found out that the Tarellians worshipped the Old Ones, he realized he had potential means to take control of the Confederacy. It has long been known that Be’lakor has a habit of setting himself up as the power behind the throne in a number of empires both human and alien in his attempts to break free from the machinations of the Chaos Gods, though typically his involvement with these petty empires was visible only in retrospect. Be’lakor often likes to cover up any evidence of his existence, or better yet lay contradictory evidence or trick his enemies into destroying the evidence for him. However, in the millennia following the Age of Apostasy, Be’lakor began to find he had fewer and fewer civilizations naïve to Chaos to work with, with most either being absorbed by the Imperium, subverted by other aspects of Chaos, or being outright destroyed. When Be’lakor found out the Tarellians worshipped his people, being the last of the Old Ones he was by default their rightfully inherited master.

When Be'lakor felt he had enough information, he made contact with the Tarellians and enunciated his demands. At first, the Tarellians were surprisingly receptive to Be’lakor, apparently believing his claims and requesting that he meet their mage priests at their peoples’ traditional sacred meeting grounds to consecrate his reign. However, when Be’lakor and his court of Warp anomalies manifested in front of the Tarellian mage-priests, the Tarellians dropped the act and Be’lakor realized that for the first time in millennia he had miscalculated. Despite worshipping the Old Ones, Tarellian society is largely meritocratic and achievement-based to the point that social advancement is based on personal deeds.For Be’lakor to show up and claim that the Tarellians should fall to their knees and worship him because he is one of their long lost gods simply because he is a god, rather than what he has accomplished with his godhood, was highly insulting. The mage priests told him as much to his face.

This, according to Kroak, leader of the Tarellian delegation, meant one of two things. Either he was a fake god who knew nothing of Tarellian culture and was stealing someone else's title and accomplishments for his own ends, or he was a terrible god with no glory to his name and did not deserve to be worshipped in the first place. On that note, the Tarellians revealed the so-called “sacred meeting grounds” Be’lakor had met them at was actually a fake (which, the Tarellians added, if Be’lakor had really been one of their gods he would have realized was a fake in the first place) built above a vast cavern and wired with explosives. Then they triggered the explosives and sent Be’lakor and his retinue screaming down the mile-deep crevasse. Kroak himself dealt the final blow, striking the daemon prince with a house-sized rock as he tried to fly out of the rockside and burying Be’lakor beneath the debris.

Unfortunately, the Tarellians paid a terrible price for their insolence. The Tarellians had maintained their freedom, but they had done so by humiliating Be’lakor, someone to disrespect at your own peril. Be’lakor would not tolerate such disrespect from the younger races, but he was patient and more than willing to play the long game to get his revenge. Less than twenty years after the Tarellians banished Be’lakor, Hive Fleet Leviathan made galaxyfall. It is rather noteworthy that despite coming from the same general direction as Behemoth, something made the Hive Fleet change course at the last minute causing it to take a different path through the galaxy. Right through Tarellian space.

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[[Category:Nobledark Imperium]]

Nobledark Imperium Drafts

2018-07-07T05:31:06Z

2601:602:9A01:56E0:9DFF:BA8B:71FC:7FE8: /* Xenos Classifications */

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'''This page is part of the Nobledark Imperium, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the [[Nobledark Imperium|Nobledark Imperium Introduction]] and [[Nobledark Imperium|Main Page]] for more information on the alternate universe'''

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Eternal Emperor and Empress have been joined in their holy union. He is the last relic of a lost age when hope and wisdom ruled the galaxy, still clinging to his purpose of forging a better future, and she is the last remnant of an ancient pantheon, a mother watching over dying children brought low by their own hubris. Together, they are the Masters and Guardians of Mankind and Eldar, the keepers of the Last Alliance, the embodiments of the Imperium to which a hundred sapient species swear their fealty.

At the core of the Imperium is Humanity, its teeming multitudes ever resilient, stubbornly carving out a future amongst the hostile stars. The greatest of Man’s allies are the Eldar, ancient and wise, their shared bond forged in battle and sealed in blood millennia ago. Since then, others have been judged worthy to join in the light of the Imperium, to stand with Men and Eldar as fellows: the industrious Demiurge, enigmatic Tau, countless strains of Abhumans, and many more.

Yet for all the Imperium’s numbers, it is barely enough to stave off the forces that would tear it down. United under savage Beasts, the Orkish hordes throw themselves at the great edifice of the Imperium. The Necrons are awakening to a changed galaxy, and seeth at the primitives who would dare harbor their greatest foes the Eldar. From the galactic east, the Tyranids have made landfall and sweep over countless worlds in their hungering tide. In the shadows lurk the Dark Eldar, reveling in the carnage of a galaxy at war. And from the Immaterium, the Chaos Gods brood and plot their eternal vengeance, served by the twisted Chaos Eldar.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold trillions. It is to live in the last bastion of civilization as the darkness draws near. These are the tales of those times. Forget the stories of peace and harmony, for they are fables of a gentler time, when the world still made sense. Remember the stories of struggle and defiance, full of brotherhood and sacrifice, for those are the ones that really matter. Peace is a distant dream growing ever fainter, and there is only war as Men and Eldar hold the line for the promise that has been whispered through the generations, from father to son, from mother to child: that there is good left in the world, and that is worth fighting for.

== To-do List ==

*Finish Primarchs
*Establish timeline and events, and how similar they are to canon 40k
**Origins of Warlord/Steward/Emperor, and his own timeline
**Unification of Terra
**Great Crusade
**Rescue of Isha
**War of the Beast (replacing Horus Heresy)
**Armageddon?
**Tyranids? Have they fully arrived yet
**Other SMs? Only the original legions, or others? Chapters?

*When is present day?
*Repercussions of Imperium/Eldar alliance?
*add new canon from gathering storm and 8th e

== The Imperium: Then ==

''"Of course we are at war. Why on Old Earth's green soil would you believe we are not at war. We are in what is essentially a siege position, with an unfortifiable border stretching an entire 360 degrees for several light years in every conceivable direction. [[Chaos|Our]] [[Orks|enemy]] has no concept of "rest" or "armistice" and can pop up at any time, on any side, in any position within the massive amounts of space between the mud marbles that we call the worlds of the Imperium. The Imperium is always going to be at war. Why would you ever believe otherwise?"''<br>
- Primarch Rogal Dorn, showing his usual level of tact

=== A Brief History of the Early Days ===

Maps of Old Earth, circa M30

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==== Ursh ====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''The Nightmare of Old Earth:'''''

Of all the national entities that existed when the Warlord emerged on Old Earth, none is perhaps as infamous as the Empire of Ursh. The Tyrant of Gredbriton consorted with the Ruinous Powers and used horrific chemical weaponry, but few others in Gredbriton actually worshipped Chaos and thus his ability to do widespread damage was limited. The Pan-Pacific Empire was an absolute nightmare to its own people, but seemed largely unconcerned with the world outside its borders. The Yndonesian Bloc was a brutalistic theocracy, but also tended to be rather isolationist. The Merican junta was an expansionistic, nationalistic military state, but at the very least it did not treat its citizens as disposable, if only to protect the investment, and the people there had at least some standard of living. Ursh, by contrast, shared all of these negative features with its contemporary empires and suffered none of the limitations. The Empire of Ursh was a major influence in the histories of numerous other Unification-era countries, including Terrawatt-Uralia, Duscht Jemanic, Bania, the former components of the Everlasting Tharkian Empire (including Macedonia and Achaemenidia), the Nord Afrik conclaves, the Afrique League, Merika, Ind, Sibar, Sino-Japan, and the Khanate. In many ways, the Unification of Earth can be directly tied to the rise and fall of the Empire of Ursh.

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The Empire of Ursh was originally founded in northeastern Azia, on the banks of the Amyur River. Despite containing fertile riverlands, this area was never an important center of industry and agriculture during the Dark Age of Technology, and so was spared from some of the worst of the horrors of the Old Night. The ancestors of the people who would come to form the Empire of Ursh came from such ancient, long-forgotten countries as Russia or China, but they nation they ended up founding would become a completely different entity altogether. The first ruler of Ursh was a rather eccentric man named Kalagann the Great, who in spite (or more likely because) of his eccentricity, was able to unite the various pocket kingdoms, city states, and villages around the Amyur River into an actual nation-state. Early historians often described Kalagann as nothing more than a prelude to the infamous cruelty of the Despots, but later historians have found that there was nothing to suggest that Kalagann was as evil as his successors. Indeed, Kalagann seemed to be genuinely concerned for the welfare of his people, and there is no evidence that Ursh had yet been corrupted by the Ruinous Powers. Ursh was one of the first nation-states to rebuild from the metaphorical and literal fallout of the rebellion of the Men of Iron and the beginning of the Age of Strife, and for a while it seemed like Ursh was going to be the pinnacle of civilization on Earth, an illustration that society could rebuild from the Age of Strife. However, a few years after Kalagann’s death, it all started to go wrong.

As they expanded from their initial cradle of neo-civilization, the Urshii found themselves surrounded on three sides by tribal hunter-gatherers (Sibar), steppe nomads (the steppe nomads of the future Khanate), and subsistence farmers that seemed to have no aspirations of greater empire (Sino-Japan). Over time, the Urshii began to see themselves as the sole remaining carriers of the torch of civilization that stretched all the way back to ancient Sumeria, and as “enlightened” people it was their job to shepherd the rest of the uncivilized masses back into the light. Urshii art and architecture was heavily influenced by this concept, being consciously modeled after imperial China or ancient Mesopotamia, two of the great cradles of civilization, despite Ursh itself have very little direct connection with either. These included a lot of ziggurats, which were seen as stairways to the heavens and often the site of important, and often unsavory, political or religious functions. The rulers of Ursh, the infamous Despots, believed that they had been given the divine mandate to bring civilization back to the people of Earth, granted to them by the four great heavenly powers, which were represented by the four directional winds. These four gods were, of course, the Ruinous Powers, who just loved to subvert and co-opt local cultural and religious beliefs for their own purposes. The Despots were educated from birth that they were god-kings, and that they and they alone knew what was best for Ursh and humanity. This, along with the systematic dehumanization of the serfs and non-Urshii, was one of the reasons for the infamous brutality of the Despots of Ursh. In their view, questioning the Despots or making a request was tantamount to saying the "god-kings" didn't know what they were doing.

Despite seeing the usefulness of advanced weapons of war, the Empire of Ursh was downright backwards technologically when compared to the other major empires of that time such as Merika, Hy Braseal, and the Pan-Pacific Empire. Indeed, one of the major reasons the Empire of Ursh invaded the Afrique League and the Nord Afrik conclaves in M28, one of the largest military engagements on Earth prior to the Unification Wars themselves, was primarily for technology to use against their larger neighbors. Instead, the Urshii preferred to look inwards, focusing more on religion and the occult rather than technological advancement. To the Urshii, technology was only useful if it could further aid them in their goal of conquest.

The Empire of Ursh had the largest fleet of any pre-Unification power with over twelve ships, but these ships were so derelict as to be borderline space hulks and could not even leave low Earth orbit. Indeed, because these ships were so decrepit and spread over such a wide area of territory they were used more for denying the orbital high ground than to actually fight. Records indicate that when a ship was too damaged to fly or an enemy ship was actually shot down the Urshii would swarm over the wreckage like scavengers on a Void Whale carcass, salvaging the ship's weapons to attach to ground vehicles to turn them into overbuilt weapons platforms. This was about the limits of Urshii technological aptitude.

Ursh was perhaps best known for its army, which despite its limited technology was the terror of Old Earth for many years. At the center of the army were the Nobleborn, elite warriors who were born of the upper class and given the best weapons and training the Urshii could afford. However, there were never enough Nobleborn to make a full-scale army large enough to take on Ursh's neighbors, even with Ursh's massive population. Additionally, although the Nobleborn made good shock troops, they had little tactical flexibility and could not perform specialist roles. Therefore, the Urshii often supplemented the Nobleborn core of their army with various auxiliaries, drawn from the numerous enslaved people and vassal states around the empire. Ursh primarily controlled its auxiliaries through mutual fear. The Red Engines feared the steppe nomads, who feared the Tupelov Lancers, who in turn feared the Roma, and so on and so forth. All feared the wrath of the Despot of Ursh.

Urshii society could be divided into three major groups. On the one hand, there were the various vassals and conquered peoples, who were seen as less than human and treated poorly. On the other, there were the serfs, who despite being Ursh-born were not “chosen”, and therefore also considered to be subhuman and treated poorly. And finally, there was an upper class, composed of a combination of the military, scientific, religious, mystic, and cultural elite. One of the only good things one could say about the Empire of Ursh is that they valued personal ability when they saw it, though admission into the nobility was only available to those who were both skilled and truly indoctrinated in the Urshii philosophy and religion. Urshii high courts were often a web of treachery and deceit, with nobles plotting against each other for power. The Despots encouraged this behavior, particularly among the Urshii lords of far-off conquered territories, as it kept them fighting among themselves for the Despot’s favor rather than deciding to secede and form their own petty empires.

After the fall of Ursh, this class system was thoroughly dismantled, though few of the nobility actually survived. Most of the nobility had been so indoctrinated in the superiority of Ursh and their gods that they would rather charge unarmed at a group of soldiers outnumbering them a hundred to one than accept defeat at the hands of “lesser peoples”. It was this attitude that led to the Urshii insurgency in Sibar, which was a thorn in the side of the Imperium for nearly twenty years after the fall of Ursh itself. The various freed vassals and serfs, on the other hand, were in some ways brought together by the shared experiences of the horrors of the tyrants, leading to the use of the term “Children of Ursh” to refer to those who had suffered at the hands of the Despots.

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==== The Khanate ====

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Pastoral_Worlds|The Pastoral Worlds]]

=== The Great Crusade ===

==== The Fable of Djerba ====

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Today the world of Djerba in the Segmentum Solar is not particularly notable. But it’s Crusade-era history is well-known. Like many worlds during the Age of Strife, the original population included a significant number of people who were touched by the Warp, which increasing manifested itself as the Age of Strife went on. Unfortunately, like many worlds during the Age of Strife, including Barbarus, the psykers on Djerba went mad with power and set themselves up as god-kings over the common people. On Djerba, these psykers called themselves Cognoscynths.

The psychic abilities of the people of Djerba primarily manifested as a form of mind control. Cognoscynths could invade and control the mind of an ordinary person on a whim, rewriting memories, suppressing morality and self-preservation, and forcing any who could not surpass their willpower and psychic might to be their slaves. Before long, although the surface of Djerba was nominally made up of numerous warring nation-states, the leadership of these nations were little more than puppets to the Cognoscynths. The Cognoscynths erected their City of Sight above Djerba, from which they controlled the people below like marionettes on strings. They forced the people below them to go to war for their amusement, laughing as man slaughtered man at their whim.

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According to legend, the Imperium sent three emissaries to the Cognoscynths. The first was the [[Nobledark_Imperium_Primarchs#Magnus_the_Red|Scholar]], a giant clad in red, who came bearing words of warning. He had come to Djerba hearing rumors of a society where outcasts such as he could co-exist in peace with normal men without fear of persecution. What he saw disheartened him. Here was a society which embodies the worst nightmare of the most closed-minded and hateful of mankind, who feared the witch and hated the psyker.

The Cognoscynths psychically commanded him to bow. The Scholar said no. In that moment, the Cognoscynths realized that they were to the man before them as hills were before a mountain. With rage burning in his one eye, the Scholar said he would give the Cognoscynths one warning. Dismantle their oppressive society and free the ordinary men and women they had enslaved, or face the consequences. For if they did not he would to return with his liege, and his liege was not as forgiving as he.

The second was the Shepherd, clad in gold, who brought words of doom. The Cognoscynths had ignored the warning of the Scholar, and had not changed their ways since he had left. The Shepherd was the Scholar’s liege, and came before the Cognoscynths much as the Scholar had. He said that he had seen the world the Cognoscynths had wrought. The Cognoscynths had been judged, and found wanting. Once more, the Cognoscynths were enraged at being judged by an outsider, and attempted to psychically compel him to bow. They failed. Whereas the Scholar had been a mountain, the Shepherd was like a monolith of adamantium, only gold instead of grey.

Their prodigious psychic powers failing them, the Cognoscynths turned to words. They scoffed at the idea of the Shepherd bringing judgement upon them. For all of his power, the Shepherd was just one man. Even if he brought the Scholar, the two did not have the power to command them on their own. The Cognoscynths were each powerful psykers, who could command armies of their own. Whereas any army the Shepard could bring would fall under the control of their powers and turn on their fellows. What could the Shepard do to them?

“I will bring your empire down with a single soldier,” said the Shepherd, then left.

The third Emissary was the [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Jenetia_Krole|Slayer]], clad only in black. She brought no words, only death. Where she walked, men went mad, the witch-touched tearing their eyes out and clawing at their skin whereas the mundane became ill and collapsed from severe vertigo. None could seemingly touch her. Even the Cognoscynths were not immune. The Slayer only killed two-thirds of the Cognoscynths, by the time she turned her attention to the remainder they were already dead, the last choking on his own blood.

The people of Djerba were freed both in body and mind, and with freed fists celebrated their liberators. But to this day, the Imperium still remembers the lesson of the Cognoscynths, even if only as a cautionary tale, as best exemplified by the colors of Djerba. Red, gold, and black.

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==== The Rangdan Xenocides and the Slaugth ====

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The Rangdan Xenocides were by far the most costly conflict ever fought during the Great Crusade. The campaign included the involvement of three Space Marine legions (the Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and the Ultramarines), several Titan legions, and significant numbers of the Solar Auxilla; needed the assistance of the Eldar to gain a foothold; and required the direct intervention of the Steward himself to finally turn the tide.

The opposing forces of the Rangdan Xenocides were the Slaugth. The Slaugth were colonial organisms resembling masses of maggots (though pedantic AdBio members would point out they also showed similarities to Terran leeches and earthworms) linked together in a mucosal sheath into a humanoid shape. The constant psychic contact between the individual worms in the colony, combined with the completely horrific and alien mindset of the Slaugth by the standards of nearly every other race in the galaxy, made them revolting to directly touch with psychic powers. Psychic contact with a Slaugth was not like the mental communion of matter and anti-matter of a blank, but described more like sticking one’s arms up to the shoulder in maggots. “Only a daemon would want a Slaugth’s soul”, an old Crusade-era saying goes.

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The Slaugth themselves had an entirely self-centered mindset and only cared about themselves and their desires, to the detriment of the rest of the universe. Although they were able to scrape together some semblance of social order, the Slaugth saw everyone and everything, even members of their own kind, as little more than tools or slaves to fulfill their needs. For the most part, the most prominent of those needs was hunger. Although the Slaugth were naturally detritivores and could survive on any flesh, they most preferred to feed on brains (the larger and more complex, the better), and had developed a system to feed this gluttony. Humans, eldar, and other sapients were farmed like cattle, their brains extracted, and the waste meats fed back to the livestock and Slaugth bio-constructs like Osseivores. The Slaugth did not eat the brains of other sapients solely for their nutritional value. Absorbing nutriends from a brain would cause an individual Slaugth worm to be overwhelmed by neurotransmitters, producing a euphoric effect similar to a chemical high.

Indeed, just about the only reason the Slaugth didn’t readily turn on each other is that Slaugth couldn’t really eat other Slaugth. If one Slaugth colony tried to eat another Slaugth, the two would simply merge into a single giant Slaugth colony twice as large and twice as hungry as its constituents. Even if a Slaugth did manage to completely kill all the component individuals of a fellow Slaugth colony before eating it, Slaugth flesh simply tasted foul to their own kind. And this is assuming that a Slaugth could kill another Slaugth in the first place. Being composed of hundreds if not thousands of individual organisms, Slaugth lacked vital organs or a centralized nervous system and were notably hard to kill. For this reason, Slaugth tended to prefer necrotic weaponry, which rotted the tissues of their foes from the inside-out and was one of the few ways (aside from fire, plasma, or radiation) to make sure another Slaugth was reliably dead. The fact that it also worked well on the bio-constructs that Slaugth technology was largely based around just made it even more attractive.

Given this entirely self-centered mindset, it is difficult to imagine how a species like the Slaugth could have ever developed a civilization, let alone space travel. However, what little historical records remain show the Slaugth arose long after the end of the Old Ones in the War in Heaven and long before humanity developed widespread genetic engineering or spread out into the stars. Current hypotheses suggest that the Old Eldar Empire, or at least someone like them, was responsible for the uplift of the Slaugth from what were essentially fire and tool-using ants into a starfaring species, as well as their adoption of a humanoid form.

By the time the Imperium encountered the Rangda, the Slaugth were being ruled by an Iron Mind. A minor Iron Mind, to be sure, but even a minor Iron Mind was still dangerous. The Slaugth and the Iron Mind had formed a kind of symbiosis, or as close to one as the Slaugth were capable of. The Iron Mind handled the long term planning of the Rangdan Empire, which the Slaugth naturally didn’t have the wherewithal or inclination to run, and the Slaugth indulged it in its god complex and protected its physical body while its artificial soul ran with daemons in the Warp. When the Imperium fought the Slaugth the Iron Mind was able to coordinate the movement of its forces with uncanny accuracy. Companies would advance only to be met with forces that already predicted their arrival. However, when the Imperium finally made a beachhead on Rangda, the Steward took to the field and struck down the Iron Mind with an ancient archaeotech device of unknown purpose from the vaults of Ganymede. With the Iron Mind destroyed, the cohesion of the Slaugth was broken, and the remaining factions were run down and killed by the Imperium and Eldar.

It was during the Rangdan Xenocides that the Dark Angels, who were previously tied for the status of “most numerous legion” with the Ultramarines, became the largest standing legion by a wide margin. Although the Ultramarines were well-trained and highly-skilled, the Slaugth were an outside context problem for them and they suffered grievous casualties. Still others became infested through some unknown means and had to be mercy killed, their eyes begging for death and their limbs moved to butcher their comrades in the name of their xenos master. By contrast, the Dark Angels had been traveling the void and dealing with anomalous phenomena for far longer, and knew how to deal with the unexpected. While the Ultramarines immediately moved to free the Slaugth chattel, the Dark Angels held back and waited. Although this seemed callous at the time, the Dark Angels knew that the Slaugth would use the prisoners as bait for an ambush, and that by focusing their efforts on the Slaugth or restricting any rescue operations to the cover of darkness they could save a lot more prisoners than otherwise possible. The rise of the Dark Angels as the undisputable largest legion set the stage for Luther’s actions during the War of the Beast, and made the betrayal of the Fallen that much more devastating.

Imperial and Eldar forces rescued numerous humans and Eldar from Rangda and the surrounding worlds of the Slaugth Empire. Eldar rescuees, due to the longer generational gaps, were not as mentally damaged and were herded off to the nearest Craftworlds where they could be given some semblance of a normal life. Although these slaves were physically normal, mentally, it would be more accurate to describe them as livestock than anything else. They had spent at least a few thousand years being bred for servile, docile natures and to be just strong enough to not need looking after much but too weak to pose any sort of threat. The Imperium tried to uplift them in a similar manner to the ogryn, but had variable success. In the end, the human survivors of Rangda were largely adopted by the various Legions. They were docile but they were dutiful, they also had inhuman patience and didn't get bored by repetitive tasks. Their tainted bloodline has by 999.M41 faded away though many in the Imperium, even some Space Marines, could claim to have at least one ancestor in the "serf families" as they became known.

Today across most of the galaxy the Slaugth are considered to be harmless boogeymen, an extinct xenos species whose only modern function is to scare children into eating their vegetables. There are others who know better. Not every Slaugth was killed in the aftermath of the Rangdan Xenocides. Some escaped the destruction of their species, hiding amongst the flesh of the dead in places beneath notice. Today the Slaugth exist in the shadows, multiplying in the places out of sight ready to emerge wherever weakness or rot presents itself. Slaugth have been sighted in the xenos districts of Low Commorragh, trading technological abominations to the Dark Eldar in exchange for slaves. Some have even suggested that the abundance of Slaugth in the Calixis Sector is not a coincidence, speaking in hushed tones of bargains struck between the maggot men and the separatist Emperor Severan of the Severan Dominate.

The surviving Slaugth seem surprisingly unconcerned with the loss of their empire. They resent it, but they are not devastated by it in the way that a human, eldar, or tau would be. Indeed, the Slaugth seem to see the destruction of their empire and near-extinction of their species as “not their problem”. And given that the Slaugth are colonial organisms, who can reproduce asexually or with minor contact with other colonies, it could be argued that the death of the rest of their race really was “not their problem”. Indeed, the empire at Rangda was in effect the normal Slaugth modus operandi on a large scale. The similarities are evident; a large number of thralls and bio-constructs lorded over by a Slaugth elite, resembling a feedlot or a parasitic infestation more than what one would think of as civilization. It’s possible that while the Slaugth might on some level desire retribution for the destruction of their empire, given their mindset they might just consider vengeance another flavor of eating.

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=== The War of the Beast ===

==== Raid of Chthonia ====

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The Raid of Chthonia was not a strategically important battle in the War of the Beast, but it has long stood as an eerie portent in the annals of imperial history, and may be remembered with hate in the clash of some future war. During the Great Crusade the system spanning ruin had been garrisoned by detachments of both the Imperial navy and army, as well as a contingent of Mechanicus intent on the study of the ancient hub system, and a special Custodes unit nominally present to ensure the safety of the treasures of human heritage. At the time of the Dark Eldar engagement Chthonia was far from the main theaters of battle, and much of its naval and infantry guard had been ordered into the defense of Old Eath. The raid is notable as the largest single incursion the Dark Eldar have ever made into realspace, and the only time the great tyrant Absurael Vect is known to have walked an imperial world. As the siege of Old Earth reached its terrible climax the Chthonian system was set upon by a force of corsairs and kabalites, first seeming a particularly fierce attack of opportunity, but with the appearance of Crone and Upper Commorragh command ships, then Vect’s own, it became apparent the scale of the assault.

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While significant fortifications had been established on one of the system's rocky inner planets and the foundations and initial foundries of a new forge laid on another in hopes of staging exploration through the system the forces that remained to man them were few. Navy and Mechanicus ships scrambled to secure their orbits against the tide of corsairs. The imperial officers could do little but watch through their telescopes as the Crone and Commoraghi command ships maneuvered to the crest of the golden circlet and made to secure the broken ring set around the Chthonian star.

Of the Imperial forces present the techpriests were the best armed and in the greatest number, but they received the greater part of the Dark Eldar's attention. The guns of explorator ships and newly scavenged archeotech illuminated the space around Chthonia III, but even as the darting corsair ships burned in orbit they made for the surface. The orbit of Chthonia rapidly became a dynamic hell of boarding actions and lance fire as incubi and skitarii ripped into each other in fierce engagements that were soon mirrored on the planet's surface. The Commoraghi forces on Cthonia made to plunder the forge of its magos and higher acolytes, while those around Chthonia IV tried to cripple the Imperial military force. The predominantly Voidborn battlegroup successfully held against corsair opening salvos, the remaining imperial army forces on Chthonia IV supported their meagre naval force with surface based lance and torpedo installations and polar weapons platforms. As the third day of fighting on and around Chthonia III dragged to a close the remaining Mechanicus forces retreated first to their ships in orbit, then to their sister world. As they broke from the fray the attacking Dark Eldar made for the crest and their command ships.

The dark battleships of the attacking force's Crone sorcerers and mighty archaeons were moored among the gleaming discharge towers and control domes of the crest facility, the forces of the haemonculus and balesingers they brought with them engrossed in the wonders they were dissecting. Assets drawn from Vect's own fleets and forces manned the shredding guns set up in the installation's spires and the cutters ready to intercept any counterattack meant to dislodge his expedition. In the years that followed Inquisitorial investigators and their illuminate superiors judged that his forces had access to facilities that were integral to the creation and engineering of souls, facilities that housed the stacks of Dark Age Abominable Intelligence that trawled the deep warp, and others that prepared blank bodies for life. The extent of his Haemonculi and sorcerers gained from this endeavor could not be known, and the Magos of Chthonia III was never found.

As the bloodied forces of the Mechanicus and Imperium regrouped at Chthonia IV under the protection of its surface armaments they made to contact the wider imperium and the Custodes garrison. Attempts to call for aid brought dismay, the latest news was that Sanguinus was dead and the Eternity Gate breached, and no reinforcements could be spared. In spite of this blow it was found that the Custodes still held the focal complex and central repository, and hoped to hold it longer still even as their barricades breached. It took two more days to prepare a meaningful attack force to challenge the Dark Eldar assembled at the crest, and for that time the focal complex and its golden defenders held by power glaive and sword even as they fell back from lab to lab, and dove back into lost chambers to face down witches and horrors that strove to pry forth their lord's very fundament.

The defending Custodes were all but overrun, but enough stood to continue to disrupt the invading Dark Eldar. In later stories of the battle it is said that Vect entered the complex guarded by mandrakes and his personal retainers, intent on ensuring the successful looting and study of this piece of imperial history, and was engaged at some distance by a Custodian wielding a rocket launcher. The remains of the Custodes unit was forced to its final fallback position in the central operating chambers, as well as a handful of holdouts fighting on across the massive complex. Vect was still in the complex when the remaining Imperial and Mechanicus ships entered combat with the corsairs and set course to charge the moored command ships. While some of the Imperial vessels were intercepted, others picked off by the corsairs before they could get the commanding crone ships in range, much of the counterattacking force got in among the enemy fleet, some ramming and others firing their guns until they no longer could.

The great tyrant's personal hasty retreat spared him and his ship. The corsairs fled soon after the first Imperial ships detonated their drives, their Mechanicus crews devoted to the sanctity of the Omnissiah and hatred for such things as haemonculi. The crone ships burned among the emission spires, their blasted wrecks were pinned to command domes by the broken prows of imperial ships. The ships that remained after the initial charge ran down the fleeing pirates until they slipped into the webway, or else entered the crest and threw themselves into the destruction of the straggling Dark Eldar. Even as the remaining Voidborn and Imperial army forces relieved the Custodes unit from their charred and melted fortification there was little celebration. To their best knowledge the Imperium had fallen, whatever their victory was worth, and they braced for the worst. It took another day to establish contact with the Imperial navy, which confirmed the opposite.

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==== Battle of Mount Afonso ====

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#Drach'nyen|Drach'nyen]]

==== Battle of Necromunda ====

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The Battle of Necromunda was a major conflict during the War of the Beast, where the Imperial Fist fought to control both the planet and space around the hive-world itself. As a technologically advanced Survivor civilization, Necromunda was a major munition manufactorum that directly supplied munitions to the front lines and Terra itself. As the Beast made a beeline for Terra to recapture Isha and kill the Steward, in order to make the upcoming Battle of Terra easier other Orks and Crone Eldar worked together to cut off the entire Sol-Sector from the rest of the Imperium. When a blockade couldn't be establish the Chaos forces switched from cutting supply lines to outright attacking the production of supplies itself. The ever opportunistic Dark Eldar joined along for the ride with the Chaos forces to make the Imperial shipping lanes a living hell to operate within Segmentum Solar.

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The sights of a big WAAAGH! had the poor planet of Necromunda as the next prey after already destroying several Imperial worlds when they bypassed Terra. Still rich in mineral and other resources the hive-clusters on the surface would be devastated in the fighting in the orbit as debris from Imperial Navy wrecks, Ork Rokks, and twisted Crone corpses rained down upon the planet. Due to people living in such tightly packed conditions, tens of thousands of civilians died just in the first week of fighting over the planet. The Imperial Fist sent a detachment of 40,000 Space Marines under First Captain Sigismund to defend the planet at all cost, but an unknown amount of ships got lost in transit due to Warp interference that was probably conjured by the Crone Eldar. When Sigismund arrived over the planet, the Imperial Navy was in a stalemate with Chaos ships where neither side could attack without being destroyed in a single battle. Unfortunately, the Ork ships orbiting Necromunda had mostly crashed onto the surface to begin invading the planet. Sigismund would report that Imperial Fist ships are arriving over the planet at random times yet there were enough Battle Barge to kill the Chaos fleet. The Battle Barges combined with the Imperial Cruisers attacked to finally crush the remaining Chaos fleet, ending the battle in orbit.

However, the damage was already done for Necromunda as the majority of the invading Orks had already crash-landed into or near the hive-clusters. Sigismund ordered all available Imperial Fists to land and defend the manufactorums at all cost. The hive cities were turned to fortresses (more than usual), in that the Orks paid five Boyz for every one Space Marine. However, even this was not enough when the Orks outnumbered the Imperial Fist ten to one. What was more frightening was that the invaders were making fast progress as well. Thousands of Imperial Fist were lost within the first few days of fighting in the hives. Sigismund was not shocked with the losses but rather had expected them knowing how the battles in the War of the Beast worked. What he did feel was worried by the fact that as this battle of attrition continued, the Imperial Fist will lose the world being bleed dry.

The streets were filled with trenches, the spires were kill-zones, and rooms were bunkers. Hallways were blocked off with the bodies of fallen Imperial Fists with armor still on them. Hive gangers had resorted to cannibalism while the rest of the civilians fled away from the hives. The desperate and pure hopelessness of fighting in the hives led to many, including Sigismund, to fall under the sway of the Plague Father. The wishes of eternal life and reviving fallen brothers to help the defense of Necromunda were granted under a demonic pact with the First Captain's blood. The words "I offer all those presently under my command" had damned all 40,000 (living and dead) Imperial Fist, along with the mortal crew of the Battle Barges, to serve Nurgle.

The fallen Imperial Fist were brought back, along with some being granted immunity to pain and being able to fight while still missing all limbs but one arm. Now the Orks had to kill every Space Marine twice and each Marine could take twice as many wounds. The blessed Imperial Fist shot the Orks in the front as the revived brothers shot from behind, the Orks had walked into a trap of their own making. In the ending stages of hunting down the last Orks, an unknown Space Marine clearly blessed with illnesses shouted "For the Imperium!" before slicing an Ork with his Lighting Claws.

The Battle of Necromunda was won but neither for the Imperials nor the Beast. The real victors were the Chaos Space Marines. True the Imperium still held the planet and the Ork WAAHG! was crushed, but this was done for the price of almost 40,000 Imperial Fists turning to Chaos and forever being lost to the Imperium. Those on the planet that sought the Dark Gods’ help did so when they were forced to either flee and lose the planet or have a heroic last stand and then lose the planet. Well, one must remember that Sigismund was told to "Hold Necromunda at all cost" even at the price of any lives and damnation.

The traitor Imperial Fist would quickly and quietly depart from the sub-sector on their Battle Barges before the news broke out, then announcing to their mortal crew that they would now fight the Imperium. The traitors would rename themselves the "Rotten Fist" as a joke about how the Imperium would be rotting in the future. Their motto is still "For the Imperium" as some odd form of love for the Imperium or a reference to how they fell to Chaos due to defending the Imperium.

Rotten Fist marines during the War of the Beast were sighted fighting Orks and Imperial forces but not the Crone Eldar. After the Battle of Terra, the Rotten Fist along with other Chaos Space Marines were hunted down by Loyalist Space Marines. The Rotten Fist would flee to The Maelstrom, escaping into the Warp.

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==== Second Battle over Elysia ====

The 2nd Battle over Elysia took place when the Chaos fleets tried to keep the blockade of Segmentum Solar after the Battle of Phaeton started. Battlefleet Solar was effectively crippled in a few days as fighting on Phaeton started, the fleet was killed over the skies of Terra. The Chaos fleets stationed themselves around Terra in different sub-sectors to block the supply lines. Battlefleet Pacificus launched a series of small offensives including diversionary attacks in the galactic west, drawing away concentrated defenders from weaker sub-sectors to allow the real attacks to clear supply lines. Battlefleet Ultima along with what's left of Battlefleet Solar gathered to the galactic east of Segmentum Solar's bordering sub-sectors to prepare for war. The Imperial ships in the meantime were conducting hit-and-run attacks all along the bordering sub-sectors. Cronefleet L'Oquis assembled every CE and Ork ships it could get together to hunt down and snuff out the raiding ships coming in from Ultima Segmentum.

The raiding ships fled to the randevu point over Catachan and brought with them news of the chasing Cronefleet. The acting admiral of Battlefleet Solar ordered all ships at the point or heading towards Catachan to divert to Elysia. All of Battlefleet Solar and some of Ultima rushed to meet over Elysia while the bulk of Battlefleet Ultima was moving back to the galactic west. CEs had already teleported inside some of the raider ships to plant tracking beacons on them before leaving unseen. The ships over Elysia rushed to resupply themselves with whatever they can get their hands on until they were unexpectedly attacked by Cronefleet O'Oquis. The battle started with Imperial ships keeping distance while Ork ships tried to close in. CE ships did enter their firing range to launch voidcraft before the Orks could and the Imperials couldn't retreat by then. Many of the human cruisers slugged it out with the CE before the Orks could get a chance to board their ships. The Orks tried ramming the Imperials many times to mostly miss or worst, damage CE ships by mistake. Eldar ships had chased off the rearguard of the Cronefleet while everybody else was fighting in the main battle. Some CE ships from the rear advancing into the main battle were fired upon by other CE ships due to misidentification and were thought to be Craftworlder ships. When the human ships had taken considerable losses Cronefleet L'Oquis tried to withdraw but was blocked by Eldar ships in their rear.

Several days have passed when the Cronefleet first engaged the Imperial fleet over Elysia. The Imperial forces had clearly taken more losses than the Cronefleet near the ending stages of the battle. When the rest of Battlefleet Ultima arrived over Elysia, the Imperial fleet was much smaller while the Cronefleet had bloodied their noses. The admiral of Battlefleet Ultima assumed command of all ships over Elysia then ordered Battlefleet Solar to retreat. As Battlefleet Solar was disengaging, the rest of Battlefleet Ultima rushed to reach firing range. The Cronefleet was almost destroyed when giving chase to the retreating Imperial ships as Battlefleet Ultima shot them to pieces.
The 2nd Battle over Elysia reached a mythical status. The destruction of so many Crone ships in that one battle and ineffectiveness of the blockade in the galactic west caused a change in strategy for the Chaos navy in the WotB. Chaos fleets were now to fulfill a supporting role in the invasion of supply producing Imperial worlds rather than block Imperial supply lines. What was left of Cronefleet L'Oquis supported a WAAAHG! that already burned 2 worlds then supported the destruction of another world. Only 3 or 4 cruisers of Cronefleet L'Oquis survived the war to return home after almost all of the fleet was burned by Imperial Fist Battle Barges over Necromunda.

==== Appearance of Attack Planet Ullanor, the Sacrifice of Ollanius Pius, and the Appearance of the Ork Diplomats ====

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Writing#Ork_Diplomacy|Ork Diplomacy]]

==== The Siege of Terra ====

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Primarchs#Sanguinius|Arik Taranis]], [[Nobledark_Imperium_Primarchs#Sanguinius|Sanguinius]], and [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Eldrad|Eldrad]]

==== Reclamation of Old Earth and the Formation of the Ork Empires of Charadon, Octarius, and Bork ====

See [[Nobledark Imperium Xenos#Ork Empires of Charadon, Octarius, and Bork|Ork Empires of Charadon, Octarius, and Bork]]

=== Remembering Old Earth ===

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"''When I first saw Old Earth for the first time, I was reminded of an Exodite world more than anything else. It was so rustic. The people talked about rediscovering mono-molecular structures and anti-gravity, as if these were groundbreaking innovations. I was shocked, how could this be the capital of the same empire whose ships dominated the stars, and whose warriors helped the Eldar to free me from my captivity. And yet, the people there seemed so proud. Proud that they had clawed their way out of the dirt and the darkness. Their society had only just begun to rebuild itself from the horrors of their Fall, and yet they looked back on the little they had accomplished so far, and felt optimistic about the future.''"<br>
-Grand Empress Isha, on her first impressions of Old Earth

For the average Imperial citizen outside of Segmentum Solar, the ancient nations of Old Earth from the Unification Wars are long forgotten. Those who are history buffs or lived in the Sol system itself might know these old Terran states. Having been born at the end of the Age of Strife, the primarchs knew full well that many countries had come and gone before theirs, particularly after the War of the Beast caused so much destruction that the entirety of survivors on Old Earth could have comfortable fit into the continent of Europe. After the War of the Beast, many of the primarchs labored to preserve as much of they could of their country’s history and customs, so that their people would not be forgotten. This is not to say that they were the only people to write of their nations, many did so as a way of working out their grief and to try to preserve some vestige of their culture after the War of the Beast. But the nineteen of them were the Emperor’s primarchs, and when they spoke people tended to listen.

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The Emperor himself of wrote a little bit of what daily life was like in Terrawatt, when it became clear to him that his old home was gone and not coming back. However, in later years, some scholars have privately criticized this account as having been overly mythologized. Between his accounts and the drier, more methodical logs of Malcador, it is possible to get a reasonable approximation of what pre-Unification life was like in the Terrawatt Clan. Given his eidetic memory as a Man of Gold, it is likely the Emperor remembers more about Unification-era Earth than what he has put down on paper, but between his duties as head of state and the feelings such memories would dredge up it is unlikely they will ever be written down.

Of the primarchs themselves, starting with Horus, he chronicled the entire rise of the Imperium from the start of unification for the migrant fleets of Sol to the end of the War of The Beast. Some have criticized Horus' Chronical after his death when a few historians noticed the lack of historical accuracy when writing about the Great Crusade. The best records by the primarchs of life on Old Earth pre-Unification come from Fulgrim, Guilliman, and Vulkan. Fulgrim managed to write a lengthy autobiography after his Legion was reduced to just shy of three companies in the Iron Cage. Going into great detail about his everyday life, readers are able to especially immerse themselves in his childhood of living in Merika to an eerie amount of degree. Everything after the childhood section of the book is known for being historically inaccurate and turning into the self-gratifying propaganda of later parts in his life. In addition to his general writings and thought experiments, Guilliman had his entire family history saved to an audio recording then transcribed to a book. The genealogy writes about members from this nobility starting at the end of the Age of Strife till the end of the Great Crusade. Vulkan often referred to the Afrique League (and its history both before and after the Warlord) in passing in the many writings he published over his long, long life, including one book entirely devoted to the topic and several different essays on many subjects, ranging from philosophy and theology, economics to warfare. These provide some of the best glimpses we have into life in the Afrique League.

Surprisingly, Jaghatai Khan wrote extensively on his life, mostly poetry about what life was like under the Despot of Ursh and how it got so much better after he threw off the yoke of his oppressors. He also wrote poetry about his wife and the simpler lives of his people after the Khanate was established to remind him why he does what he does. Unfortunately, most of it was written in Neo-Mongolian, which meant it was only legible to Pastoral Worlders, and even then only just (being about as similar to modern Pastoral Worlder languages as Old English was to 21st century English). Dorn’s writings, much like the man himself, were straightforward, rather spartan, and only ever discussed a single subject. The nature of the Calbi military of that era would be remembered if nothing else. Although he did not survive the War of the Beast, Sanguinius mentioned his old homeland in his Meditations, where he collected his visions and wrote on topics like philosophy and ethics. As part of that, he had a very detailed and honest description of pre-Unification Duscht Jemanic, as he was a firm believer of history and examining mistakes to avoid repeating them.The Lion actually wrote a little bit about Franj, in part to work out the grief of losing his old home and in part to spite Luther for trying to sully Franj’s name. However, the most famous work attributed to the Lion may not have been actually written by him. The book was done in a clunky style as if written by Lion and the finished product was found in his quarters on his writing desk but at that time Lion was in the main medi-bay of The Rock living off of IV drips. It was Holguin, Master of the Deathwing, who found the book when it became clear that Lion was not going to wake up any day soon and someone had to tidy up Lion's room. Holguin never admitted to writing the book. Dark Angel folk belief has it that Cypher did it for no easily describable reason.

Other primarchs either would not or could not write about their home countries. Although Magnus the Red was concerned with preserving knowledge and history and wrote extensively on warpcraft and daemonology, he wrote very little on his life as a subject of Ursh. As far as he was concerned before the Imperium he had no home nation, only jailers. About the closest he ever came was when he contributed to the writing of ''The Chronicles of Ursh'', mostly chronicling how horrible Ursh was. Historians have sometimes doubted his more outrageous claims, but in almost every case they have turned out to be true. Angron, in his better days, refused to write down his experiences in the Nord Afrik conclaves, even going so far as to claim “being subjugated by the Imperium was the best thing that could have happened to the country. If it became so far forgotten it was as if it never existed so much the better.” Nevertheless, a great deal of insight can be gained into from Angron’s poetry. The earliest pieces offer harrowing glimpses into the society of the Nord Afrik conclaves in its dying years. Interspersed are more cheerful things about his children or sorrowful things about his biological family. Angron’s’ poetry was not good by any means but that was because he was a warrior rather than a poet for a living. However, as the years pass the poetry became worse. The subject matter gets better for the most part but the style, vocabulary, rhythm, punctuation, spelling and legibility of the hand written notes start to decline noticeably. Not long before War of the Beast he apparently just gave up on it.

Perturabo probably would have written about Macedonia and the Great and Everlasting Tharkian Empire if he was asked during the Great Crusade, but afterwards he refused to do so. To him, it was just one more way he failed his people, and writing about his people for posterity felt like writing an obituary rather than a historical record. Corax did not have a happy life before the Imperium. Trying to write about his life reminded him of his old family, and it hurt to think of that subject. Like Magnus, the closest he came was advising those who wrote ''The Chronicles of Ursh''. Ferrus Manus did not write anything about Orioc as he saw no difference between the Antarctic Mechanicus and the Mechanicus as a whole, and as the Mechanicus was perfect and enduring and already drowning in data there was no need to. Curze just plain did not want to talk about it. Mortarion also did not. He would not sully the name of Gredbriton by associating himself with it too hard. Leman Russ was not much of a writer, although others in his employ were.

Lorgar was well-known for writing and talking extensively on things he did not like, but he was first and foremost a warrior-chaplain. He was more concerned about the good of the people now than the problems of the long past. However writings on the Yndonesian Bloc do survive, most notably from Lorgar’s father Archbishop Kor Phaeron. Alpharius and Omegon ████████ █████████ █████████████{Historical document confiscated by order of the Inquisition. Ave Hydra, Hydra Dominatus.}███ ███████ ███████ █ ███████ ████████ ███████████ █████████ ███████

Sadly, despite all their efforts, the primarchs largely failed in this endeavor. The customs and cultures of the nation-states of Old Earth in M41 are about as well remembered as the provinces of the old Roman Empire were by the third millennium, essentially trivia only of interest to historians. The only nation-state that is well-remembered with any degree of accuracy is Ursh, and that was more as a cautionary tale to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past than for historical posterity. Ursh is best remembered in the galactic midlands, the Imperial worlds too far from Old Earth to actually know Earth's history without a degree, but close enough that legends of the primarchs are still pretty popular. Still, the legends that get told a lot are the ones about king Oscar and his primarchs fighting heroic battles against the old Chaos king and his Habnervars (local low Gothic dialect, some kind of horrible monster) or how captain Horus took so long tricking the Chaos Gods over and over that he was almost late to fight the great grot. Sure, the old story teller could regale you with the tale of how Guilliman went to school for a long time and got married to a nice lady, all of this in Franj, or he could make some shit up off the top of his head about what Fulgrim found in the Rockies, but nobody ever asks.

When the nation-states are remembered, they are primarily remembered in a semi-mythologized fashion based on their role in the Unification, typecast as heroes and villains instead of being remembered for the people who actually lived there. The White Scars spit on the memory of Ursh and its people, forgetting that for many of them their great-great grandmother was an Urshii serf who was just as oppressed by the old regime. The people of the Imperium sneer at the Yndonesian Bloc and its brutal theocracy, forgetting that Lorgar, one of the Imperium's greatest humanitarians, came from its ranks. Franj is often remembered as being the motivation of betrayal for Luther, the arch-traitor, forgetting all the people in Franj who were horrified by Luther's ideals and would ultimately end up paying for his mistakes.

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=== Black Crusades ===

EDITOR'S NOTE: These events should not be considered the only things to have happened during the various Black Crusades. The Black Crusades are massive undertakings, composed of numerous warbands whose commanders often don't have the same goals in mind. Events like the Burning of Prospero or the Gothic War are merely one front in the larger Black Crusade. Case in point [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Lady_Malys_versus_the_Steward|Lady Malys' first battle versus the Steward]] happened during the First Black Crusade, which is better known for events that happened on Cadia and the Gate Worlds.

==== First Black Crusade ====

Despite there being eleven more events of the same name, the first Black Crusade was a watershed event in the history of the Imperium, if for nothing else than it established the relationship between Chaos and the Imperium for the next several millennia. After the events of the War of the Beast, Chaos regrouped and spent the next few centuries rebuilding and licking its wounds. Despite the events of the War of the Beast, Chaos had essentially made it to the Imperium’s door the first time around, several of the primarchs (e.g., Sanguinius, Angron, Horus) had died during or since, and Chaos could replace its losses (orks, daemons) much more easily and rapidly than the Imperium could replace theirs.

Chaos expected the Imperium to be permanently crippled, and the Imperium responded with a fist to their collective faces.

Making matters worse for the forces of Chaos was the unanticipated presence of the Eldar, who had started helping human forces in larger numbers in the years since the WotB. It took some time before the forces of Chaos realized they were sticking their hand into a cheese grater and pulled back to reformulate their strategy. This was far from the end of the first Black Crusade, and there were still significant losses for the Imperium (Dorn, Abbadon) but by the end of it the relationship between Chaos and the Imperium was clear. The Imperium was no flash in the pan that would crumple after one serious battle. If Chaos wanted to win, it would have to fight every inch of the way to get there. Later Black Crusades took this lesson in mind, and have become all the more dangerous for it.

==== Second Black Crusade ====

Alpha Legion operatives and the Inquisition had been intercepting an increase in encrypted orders for Chaos cultists near the Eye of Terror for a few years prior to the Second Black Crusade. Composed of complex geometric shapes drawn in blood, the messages were complete non-sense for any unintended recipient without the properly established telepathic link and informants leaking the enemy intelligence to the Inquisition can make little to no understanding of the orders. After the help of some unknown double agent within the Imperial Army, the Imperium had received enough information to act as they found out these cults had been sabotaging and spying on the defenses of Cadia for years. Planning to smash this so-called "Second Black Crusade" right at the entrance of the Eye of Terror, the Imperial Navy called for massive numbers of reinforcements to rally over Vigilantum, the naval training world near Cadia inside the system. The assembling grand armada was halved as those ships were destroyed in transit by the Warp storm "Hollowing Hull" created by Chaos. Indeed, in retrospect, the information leading to the massive loss of ships from the Warp Storm seems to have been a plant from the Croneworlders in the first place. The rest of the armada trickled into the system to be isolated then be hunted down as small pockets of resistance formed to fight the Cronefleets as they retreated in the 'Battle over Vigilantum'. Although the Cronefleets had trouble trying to take Cadia as the Imperial Guard still held the planet, they were able to simply circumnavigate around it to attack other sub-sectors while blockading the world. The purpose of this Black Crusade was not to raze Terra like the last time but to test the Imperium in their reaction and experiment if fleets from the Eye can bypass the Cadian Gate. For the first few months of the campaign, the Imperial Navy had to smuggle in troops to the front as the Battlefleets had been scattered by the Warp storm. Unable to effectively operate as a coherent whole prevented the Battlefleets from conducting any offensive operations until the end of the Black Crusade.

==== Third Black Crusade ====

Lady Malys promised Daemon Prince Tallomin the slaughter of millions of warriors if he and some daemons killed the population of Cadia. Starting in 005.M33, the 3rd Black Crusade started with the attack on Cadia, the Crone Eldar avoid fighting on the planet as they collected the millions slain by daemons. Barging with Ork clans for "great fights with the humies" and some shiny hats, Lady Malys was able to launch a campaign of extermination on some surrounding sub-sectors while the fighting on Cadia stall. Marines in Omega armor arrived onto Caida in time to rush to the defense of Kasrs the fortress city. Tricking the local Guardsmen that they were "Vanguard for more Inquisitorial required troops" the marines managed to grind the daemons to halt on multiple fronts.

Unknown to the Imperials, Orkz, or Tallomin however, the entire Black Crusade was a distraction to allow the first phase of the Long War to finish. Lady Malys had planned to kill hundreds of millions to collect their corpses to be used in dark rituals. The Warpcraft invoked would allow certain individuals to raise the dead with just a hand wave or cause outbreaks of the Rot with their mind. Chanting Nurgle's prayers in forbidden tongues while crushing millions of bodies to become fertilizer then flushing it down into the ground or sewer system was done on many worlds. The arrive of the Grey Knights prompted Lady Malys to order her human agents with being gifted such power over the dead, to share their Warpcraft or knowledge to a parasitic immortal race already infiltrating Imperial society. Magnus along with the Thousand Sons, Space Wolves, and Gray Knights arrived on Cadia to finally force Tallomin's daemons to flee. The Omega Marines were long gone from Cadia. Lady Malys learned how to trick the Imperials into giving false priorities like if they held Cadia the Black Crusade would retreat. She indeed ordered a fighting retreat after the daemons were driven from Cadia but her objectives were complete.

==== Fourth Black Crusade ====

Malys sent a huge Cronefleet to pillage and steal arcane knowledge from [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Prospero|Prospero]]. That was until Ahriman along with his sorcerers, in the loosest term, preserved the planet by teleporting it to a pocket dimension. [[Legion of the Damned|Those on the planet exist in a limbo state between the Warp and realspace with no real predictable way of entering or exiting it]].

==== Seventh Black Crusade ====

Chaos began a series of conflicts that targeted Space Marines for extracting their geneseeds, which Fabius Bile organized it for preventing the degradation of The Fallen geneseeds while production and experimentation of the New Men continued. Running many battles to draw out the elite of the elite from the Imperial Army using false intelligence gathered by Orders Securitas, they had double-agents or used psyker/hypnosis leak information to seemingly hunt down the Chaos fleet rampaging.

==== Twelfth Black Crusade (001.M41-???) ====

''The Gothic War''

Following a lead based on ancient Eldar Empire records where the Eldar refuse to utter the true name of aliens who they fought. It was said that the aliens could use technology that rendered Eldar technology almost useless. Malys devised a plan on studying then using the artifacts scattered throughout the Gothic Sector to mass produce and integrate these weapons onto Crone ships. Slowly and secretly Chaos built up a force to bypass Cadia then swallow the Gothic Sector where they summoned a Warp storm to isolate the sector. This was done after several Cronefleets were in position and a diversionary attack started on Cadia.

One such artifact was the Eye of Night which is said to drive machines mad by emitting beams of light that could hit kilometers away. Using sleeper cells, the Cadian garrison force on a planet with the vault holding it, they leaked the location then started a rebellion when a Cronefleet blockaded the world. Ornsworld, the homeworld of the Ratlings, was depopulated when the Warp Hunter warband landed to kill off the tiny garrison force while Crone Eldar witches began excavating the planet for the Eye of Night. Warp Hunters who loved the sadistic extermination of the planet after they refused to surrender, went out of their way to personally make sure "Let no livestock, pet, or citizen live in those settlements" for the Ratling towns. Attempting to reverse engineer the ancient xenos technology with psyker witches and hereteks. They were interrupted in the middle of their experimentation by an Imperial Guard force, led by Ordo Xenos, who reclaimed the artifact after many losses. Battlefleet Gothic was able to clear the Chaos blockade of Onsworld long enough for the Inquisition to smuggle the Eye of Night back to Sol, after multiple failed efforts to destroy the artifact back on planetside. The Imperial Army is unsure if the research on the technology has ever left the world.

At the same time as the Fallen Marine assault on Ornsworld began, the forces of Chaos arrived on the Imperial world of Purgatory to extract another artifact from the weak defenses of the Adaptus Mechanicus. The Hand of Darkness was an artifact that could disintegrate anything it touches when powered by the Warp. The Black Crusade came to study then copy how such a technology can exist by violently extracting it from the Imperials. Although there were a few Cadian regiments present to protect the vault holding the Hand of Darkness, they could only delay the capture. With a change of plans on the fly, the Crone Eldar planning the operation forced the human Battlegroups on the planet to protect the artifact to ship it off-world rather than go off looting. Battlefleet Agripinaa tried to intercept and prevent the evacuation of the Crone Eldar off-world to no avail as the Cronefleet proved too powerful while defending the void space over the planet. The Hand of Darkness was never seen again outside of the Eye of Terror as the Crone Eldar covet the weapon to study then copy the technology which the Imperium never recovered.

=== Post-War of the Beast/Pre-Age of Apostasy (M32-M35) ===

==== The First and Second Viskeon Wars ====

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The Viskeon are an extinct xenos race native to a planet on the very southern edge of the Segmentum Ultima right near the border with the Segmentum Tempestus. An asexual ectothermic reptilian or amphibian-like species (though with some similarities to Earth starfish), the Viskeon were known for their extreme regenerative abilities. Although they normally reproduced by budding, Viskeon regenerative capabilities were so extreme that a Viskeon cleaved into large enough pieces could regrow into four or five individuals.

The Viskeons are notable in that despite being capable of interstellar travel their military capabilities seemed downright primitive by most species’ standards. Viskeon lived by a strict honor code, which glorified face-to-face melee combat and saw most projectile weapons (ranging from bows and arrows to stubbers and lasguns) as dishonorable. The only ranged weapons the Viskeons ever used were thrown javelins and bladed discuses, which they typically used as skirmishing tools before closing to melee combat. Of course, when your skin is thick enough to blunt the impact of anything short of a bolter and your body can easily heal from such injuries, the use of ranged weapons might not seem immediately intuitive.

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The First Viskeon War happened roughly concurrent with the Fourth Black Crusade in M34. Spreading out in all directions from their homeworld on the southern edge of the galaxy, the Viskeon put several sectors in the Tempestus and Ultima Segmenta under siege. The Imperium, which had not known about the Viskeon and the few star systems they controlled, were caught off guard by the appearance of the Viskeon armada. They were used to attacks from Xenos Horribilis and Obscuras from the fringe, but not one this organized from a direction they didn’t expect.

All attempts at making contact and communicating with the Viskeon failed. They claimed they had been directed to attack the Imperium as part of a holy war demanded by their god, the Three-Eyed King. The Imperium initially struggled against the Viskeon, although they lacked ranged weaponry the Viskeon were able to regenerate from most glancing shots until they could close to melee combat (where they had the strength advantage over baseline humans and eldar) and killing them often made their numbers larger. Even shooting them with a bolter was a gamble, the resulting explosion could blow the Viskeon into small enough pieces that it wouldn’t regenerate, but it could also blow their limbs off and send them flying where one couldn’t see them, where they would regenerate into four more Viskeon.

However, as the Viskeon front line buckled, the weaknesses in their strategy became clear. The Viskeon had overextended themselves in order to attack multiple targets, hoping to overwhelm their opponents with shock tactics and surprise due to their smaller numbers, but this left them with few assets to reinforce holes in their formation. The Imperium also discovered the Viskeon’s ectothermic physiology and ruthlessly exploited it, hunting Viskeon down in the dead of night when they were at their most sluggish and least able to fight back. The Viskeon retreated back into the void from which they had come, and the Imperium were unable to track them down.

The Second Viskeon War happened roughly 800 years after the first, in M35. Once again the Viskeon set out from their unknown homeworld to wage war. The Viskeon moved out in a much tighter, directional formation instead of an omnidirectional campaign to prevent their front line from being overrun but surprisingly beyond this their military tactics had not changed to account for what they had learned in their first conflict with the Imperium. The Imperium, on the other hand, had learned from the encounter and adapted accordingly. This time, instead of Cadian Doctrine troops specializing in ranged lasgun and shuriken fire, the Imperium had brought in flamers and plasma weaponry to negate the Viskeon regeneration factor, with the Imperial defense spearheaded by the close-quarters, flamer specializing Salamanders, who had called for a Reformation of the Legion for this occasion.

The Second Viskeon War went much more in the Imperium’s favor, and this time the Imperium were able to dispatch forces after the Viskeon when the Viskeon forces routed rather than tending to their wounds. They tracked the Viskeon forces back to their home planets, a mere dozen in total, and burned them through a combination of orbital bombardment and ground operations. Today, the Viskeons survive only in the form of genetic samples collected by the Adeptus Biologis before their world was destroyed.

As the Adeptus Biologis and Imperial xenologists sifted through the rubble of the Viskeon worlds, trying to find an answer as to why a species would suddenly decide to attack an interstellar power they didn’t even know existed, they came upon a startling discovery. Based on Viskeon carvings and representational art of their god, the Three-Eyed King of the Viskeons was clearly the Warp entity known as Be’lakor.

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=== Post-Age of Apostasy (M36-M40) ===

==== The Doom of Malan'tai ====

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The Doom of Malan’tai represents an important lesson in eldar history. The battle and subsequent loss of this Craftworld demonstrated to the eldar just how easy it is for them to lose the very things they are fighting for, and just how pernicious a foe the Great Devourer is. Malan’tai was once a proud Craftworld, located on the eastern fringe. Malan’tai had close connections to Idharae and Iyanden, and so was firmly in the “eldar supremacy” camp of Imperial politics. The Craftworld had suffered from repeated attacks by orks early in its history, which had fostered an impressive dislike of all non-Eldar lifeforms among the inhabitants of Malan’tai and some of the most impressive gun batteries on a Craftworld this side of Il-Kaithe.

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But that was all before Hive Fleet Behemoth. Through the visions of their seers, Malan’tai saw that the Exodite world of Tar-Etenil was going to come under attack by a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Behemoth, and raced to the Exodites’ aid. However, when they arrived at the planet, they found that the tyranids had already managed to strip the planet clean, and that Malan’tai itself was now the next target of the Great Devourer. The hive ships blazed past the Malan’tai warships sent to defend Tar-Etenil, making a beeline for the Craftworld itself. Malan’tai barely managed to send out a distress call to Idharae and Iyanden before it was enveloped by the Shadow in the Warp.

For days, Malan’tai held out against the tyranid swarm, as mycetic spores pelted the surface of the Craftworld and gaunts and carnifexes stalked its halls. The elder struck back with all their strength, aspect warriors cutting through mobs of termagaunts and rippers while wraithguards grappled with larger bioforms. However, bit by bit, they gradually lost ground across the Craftworld, until they were eventually forced back into a small area surrounding the Craftworld’s Webway portal. However, it was at this point that a miraculous thing occurred. Reinforcements from Idharae and Iyanden came streaming through the Webway portal to the aid of Malan’tai, fresh troops who brought the tyranid advance to a halt and as they relieved the wearied defenders and then began to regain ground.

With reinforcements at their back, the eldar of Malan’tai began the arduous task of clearing the tyranids from their home, room by room and chamber by chamber. However, as the eldar began to push back against the tyranid invaders, the psychoactive power grid of the Craftworld slowly but surely began to dim and fail. It was at this point that the full scale of the tyranid infestation became clear. While the eldar had been fighting the tyranids on the surface, other tyranid bioforms had bored deep into the wraithbone structure of Malan’tai and tapped into the Craftworld’s infinity circuit, leeching energy from it like aphids on a plant. The eldar of Malan’tai had suffered the ultimate loss, the souls of their ancestors digested, turned into nothing more than nutriment to feed the hunger of the swarm.

The battle might not have been over, but the war had been lost. Even if the eldar did manage to take back the half-occupied Craftworld from the tyranids, the greatest thing of value on Malan’tai was gone. Despondent, the few survivors of Malan’tai gathered up every soul stone and any other item of importance they could find before jury-rigging a brief window to leave through the Craftworld’s Webway portal, but not before altering the course of Malan’tai to burn up in the nearest star. If their home was to burn, the tyranids would burn with it.

To add insult to injury, several unusual tyranid creatures were discovered during the Battle of Malan’tai. These creatures resembled a cross between a fetus and an electric eel, with grossly distended braincases extending behind their head plates. These creatures possessed devastating psyker powers, using them to float above the battlefield as if suspended in a field of unreality. Analysis of these creatures showed that eldar genetic code had gone into their construction. These creatures became known as zoanthropes.

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====The War for Gollopo====
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The Imperium and the Tau did not often clash directly, prior to integration. A few flare-ups in the centuries after first contact, before the borders were finalized and diplomatic channels became well-established. Such clashes are not well remembered; both sides were usually half-hearted about the fighting, and after Integration the busy propagandists of the Administratum made sure such conflicts were consigned to the dustbin of history.

A few battles refused to be erased quietly. One such was the battle of Gollopo.
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The world Gollopo itself was a human world, settled in the Dark Age of Technology and forgotten in the Age of Strife. It was re-discovered almost simultaneously by both Tau and Imperium explorers. It was in the grey zone between the Tau and Imperium zones of control and near a strategic warp lane, meaning it was highly desirable to both sides. And- this is where the trouble really began- it was divided into nearly a hundred independent states, all of which had long and often nasty histories with each other.

Both sides sent diplomatic teams. The debate over which superpower to join immediately polarized Gollopo's politics. Everyone believed that a nation without a protector would be carved apart by the ones that did, resulting in a mad rush for advantage. Long-standing alliance blocks broke up over the question; ancient enemies uneasily found themselves on the same side. When Prunzik started leaning towards the Tau, its long-time enemy Francha immediately started soliciting the Imperium, only to switch positions towards the Tau when Prunzik started leaning towards the Imperium. When the Inland Empire declared for the Imperium, its subject colonies along the North Shore immediately invited in the Tau in a bid for independence. The Sokhmar and Lankhmar immediately launched genocidal campaigns against each other in a desperate bid to settle their thousand-year grudge before either could secure the assistance of a galactic military.

As the situation deteriorated, both diplomatic teams summoned military reinforcements. And then more. And then more.

Things finally boiled over in the Saarland. A near-impotent buffer state between Prunzik and Francha, both its parliament and its population were almost evenly divided between pro-Tau and pro-Imperial factions... which also corresponded with long-standing pro-Francha and pro-Prunzik factions. Street fighting broke out, which soon descended into guerrilla war, with both Prunzik and Francha supporting their chosen sides. First with money, then with guns, then with 'observers' and 'advisors'... Finally, Francha declared that the Saarland was a failed state and sent an expeditionary force across the border to restore order. Lord General Six Serpent ordered the Imperial Guard to secure the pro-Imperial sections of the Saarland three days later, and Shas'O Vaina moved his cadres to intercept.
The war was on.

The first clashes in the Saarland were dramatic, but ultimately inconclusive; the Imperial Guard was driven out of the Saarland by fast-moving Tau armor threatening to slice their columns into pieces, but Tau follow-up offensives were blocked by combined Prunzikan/Guard fortifications and careful deployment of the few Baneblades available.

These would be the largest direct clashes of Tau and Imperial forces; any hope that the fighting could be confined to the Saarland died within days, as every nation on Gollopo plunged into war, every ancient grievance and modern ambition subsumed into the clash of galactic powers. (Although a few were not quite sure what side they were fighting on; the Federated Oskarrian States switched sides four times over the course of the war.) Guard and Fire Caste forces were divided among multiple theaters, fighting closely alongside the native armies.

At the beginning, the Imperium held the advantage. Although less advanced than the off-worlders, the Golloponi armies could not simply be ignored. The Imperium had proven more effective at recruiting the local nations; their status as fellow humans, greater degree of local autonomy, and art-deco meshed better with Golloponi pride and aesthetic sense than the Tau's alien-ness, more invasive policies, and smoothly curving ceramics.

However, this advantage of numbers proved hard to leverage. The Tau could simply move and concentrate faster, and seized the operational initiative early. They kept the Imperium reacting to rapid-fire series of feints, diversions, raids, and genuine offensives, too off-balance to launch their own offensives. Morale began to decline, especially among the Imperium's local allies. To Golloponi sensibilities, the Tau war machines were frighteningly alien and incomprehensible, and local regiments were often routed by even a single Tau skimmer unless backed up by the Guard, while Tau-aligned forces were inspired to greater heights of courage by the alien powers of their allies.

As the war dragged on, the momentum began to swing in the other direction. The Imperial-aligned armies grew accustomed to facing down the Tau, and attrition began to take its toll. The Tau required spare parts and ammunition from a supply chain stretching all the way from the Tau Empire itself; with the low speed and relatively smaller size of Tau ships, they were simply unable to sustain the operational tempo they had set early on once their stockpiles were exhausted. On the other hand, the Golloponi early-industrial tech base required only minor upgrading to start supplying spares and ammunition for the Guard. And the Tech-priests accompanying the expedition were well-versed in the procedures for such upgrades.

While the Tau attempted to launch their own upgrade program, the Earth Caste engineers were less skilled in using limited resources; they knew how to make microchips, they knew how to train someone to make microchips, but they didn't know how to get to microchips starting from a coal-fired steel mill. The Mechanicus did.

By the middle of the second year, the Imperium was able to launch a grand offensive, rolling back previous Tau gains. Committing their remaining reserves, the Tau fought a series of holding actions, buying time to consolidate a series of defensive lines. It worked, and the offensive ground to a halt outside the core territories of the Tau alliance block.

With all room for subtlety gone, the war entered its bloodiest phase. The Tau did not have the reserves to launch any major offensives, especially once the Imperial block entrenched themselves in turn, but were able to shatter the spearheads of any offensive. Most of the dying was done by the Golloponi, as the Guard and Fire Caste husbanded their strength and looked for some decisive opportunity.

It never came. After three years and about twenty million deaths, the war was ended by a negotiated settlement. The nations that aligned themselves with the Imperium would become part of the Imperium; the nations that sided with the Tau would become part of the Tau Empire. Nations that had been split would either become neutral, their independence guaranteed by both sides, or be split into multiple nations, as determined by the locals themselves.

Most Tau-Imperium conflicts were prosecuted halfheartedly, neither side really wanting to fight one of the few other true civilizations among the stars. Gollopo was not. There has been some debate as to why, but ultimately it has been ascribed to the influence of the Golloponi themselves. They regarded the war as 'the End of History'; although things would certainly keep happening, the history of Gollopo and its nations would be subsumed without a trace into the history of the Imperium and/or the tau Empire. A footnote, remembered only as a place where these two giants once fought. Thus they fought with incredible fervor, as their last chance to make a mark on history as independent nations. That fervor came to 'infect' the off-world forces they were allied with, the two working increasingly close together as the war dragged on. They fought together, bled together, died together, and came to regard the war in the same light.
Or so the thinking goes.
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====The Damocles Crusade====
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The Damocles Crusade occurred near the tail end of the Second Sphere of Expansion. At this point, neither the Tau nor the Imperium had much contact with each other; there had been some vague diplomatic contact, but distance had prevented the establishment of any sort of permanent embassy. As the Second Sphere began to run up against the Imperial borders, this began to change. Due to the Tau's lack of rapid interstellar communications, no central policy for contact could be imposed; each point of contact proceeded independently, according to the whims and instincts of the local commander. In most cases, this lead to a reasonably peaceful opening of relations. Things were different in the Damocles Gulf.

The Damocles Gulf was only lightly settled by the Imperium when the Tau started pushing into the region. However, many mercantile concerns had long-term plans for the colonization of the region, and were not happy to see the Tau butting in. The Tau pursued a highly aggressive colonization policy, settling colonies down in systems already claimed by the Imperium. This lead to a series of skirmishes with Rogue Traders, corporate paramilitaries, and colonial militias. These battles escalated over the course of about twenty years, until finally local authorities called to the wider Imperium for aid. A Crusade was declared, organized, and launched two years later, and the war was on.
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There has been much speculation over why the Tau acted so aggressively within the Damocles Gulf. The Tau did not have a proper appreciation for the size of the Imperium at the time, but this did not prevent other commanders in other regions from pursuing peaceful relations. Part of it may have been simple time discrepancy; the lead-up to the Crusade took half a Tau lifetime. They may have simply perceived the provocations as coming further apart than the centuries-old human high command did.

It has also been thought that the Tau's policy in the Gulf was, indeed, deliberate central policy; the Ethereals on T'au deciding to test the Imperium in a region far removed from anywhere else. Such theories have never been firmly confirmed or denied; Tau records from the period are silent on their motivations, and further speculation has been discouraged since Integration.

The Tau had forewarning. There was also significant trade and diplomatic contact within Damocles Gulf, and a Crusade is hard to hide. They built fortifications, supply depots, surveillance networks. Laid in parts and munitions for long sieges. Prepared for the storm.

The Imperium began the war with a crucial advantage in communications and mobility. The Tau had no equivalent to astropathic communication and had to rely on courier ships for interstellar coordination- couriers that were slower than Imperial ships. The Tau were intellectually aware of this, but did not fully appreciate it; it would cost them. Likewise, the Imperium also underappreciated Tau abilities in several areas. The first phase of the war would reveal all these shortcomings.

Tau strategy centered around a series of border systems that had both human and Tau settlements. In preparation for the oncoming crusade, most civilians were evacuated from these settlements and preparations for a protracted guerilla war laid in. Meanwhile, mobile fleet assets were withdrawn to secret bases in central locations. The goal was to bog down the Crusade in protracted ground wars across multiple theaters, leaving it open to concentrated strikes by the fleet. Since the Tau forces in these systems were in immediate proximity to human colonies, they could not simply be ignored; the Crusade would have to split up and commit forces to each world.

The first part of this plan worked excellently. The Crusade was indeed badly bogged down on the border worlds. The Tau had seeded these regions with cloaked surveillance satellites and sensor networks, to give them comprehensive real-time intelligence of Imperial movements. Concealed supply depots and bases provided places for the Tau to rest and resupply in comfort; when they were discovered, extensive minefields, AA batteries, and drone screens provided enough time to evacuate men and equipment before the Imperium could destroy the location. Pathfinders and spotter drones called down devastatingly precise artillery barrages, while stealth-suit teams assassinated officers and destroyed ammo dumps.

The Imperial response to these tactics was... underwhelming. Long accustomed to enemies like Orks and chaos cultists, adaptation to Tau tactics was slow and confused. Even the Titans not immune, the Tau having developed several means of dealing with Titan-scale opponents in their long battles with the Orks. None were destroyed or even severely damaged, but the Mechanicus became increasingly cautious with them after several close calls. Only the Astartes and the few Biel-Tan Eldar forces consistently out-fought the Tau, and spread across half a dozen worlds, there were too few of them to turn the tide on their own.

The second part of the plan did not go nearly so well. The first Tau strike, on the world of Kindashar, drove off the outnumbered Imperial fleet with severe damage. Reinforcements, combined with precision orbital bombardment, forced the Guard regiments on the ground into an exclusively defensive posture. The Tau fleet then withdrew before an Imperial counter-attack could be mustered. Unfortunately for them, Eldar divinations and psychic interrogation of a handful of captured Tau spacers revealed the location of their hidden base. When the Tau fleet arrived, to their shock, they found the Crusade fleet already waiting for them.

The battle was short and decisive. Caught by surprise and out of combat formation, they were unable to maintain their range advantage and forced into a close-quarters fight. Coming right off the heels of a previous engagement with no chance to repair and resupply, the Tau fleet began to crack; once a trio of Eldar destroyers identified and destroyed the command ship, disorder became a near-rout, as the Tau fought to get back to the safety of FTL. Maybe half the Tau fleet survived, all heavily damaged. Many would not live to see a friendly port, as Imperial wolfpacks used their superior FTL speed to hunt down the scattered survivors.

With the Tau fleet destroyed or driven out of the Gulf, any hope of relief was gone. They continued to fight on, but it was a lost cause. The Crusade was reinforced by regiments more experienced in counter-guerilla tactics, and their experience quickly diffused among the rest of the force. With control of space assured, air superiority was quickly established by orbiting carriers. The hidden bases were hunted down and destroyed one by one. As the lack of resupply began to bite increasingly deeply, one by one the different cadres surrendered. The last to give in was Kindashar, which lasted five months after the annihilation of the Tau fleet.

Various other minor Tau colonies fell quickly, in most cases surrendering without a fight. It was at this point that the Crusade began to slowly fall apart. The Crusade had been launched fast enough that its strategic objectives had not been fully decided, and now that the immediate goal had been achieved the arguments resumed in full force. Some interests viewed what had already been accomplished as sufficient, particularly the Rogue Traders and parts of the military. Others, mainly the nobility and merchant houses, wanted to seize control of the entire Damocles Gulf, while a third faction wanted a punitive expedition deep into Tau space.

While it first appeared that the factions in favor of further offensives would win out, the intervention of water caste diplomats prevented that. Dispatched from the core septs of the Tau, they skillfully navigated the factional politics of Imperial high society, playing the differing groups off against each other with the judicious use of flattery and bribes. The process of peace was not instant, and there were several naval skirmishes as more aggressive Imperial captains scouted out Tau defenses, but- after nearly a year- a settlement was reached and the Crusade disbanded.

The immediate outcome of the war was a final settlement on who owned what in the Damocles Gulf. The Imperium got the better end of the deal, ending up with all of the border worlds and several of the colonies captured in the aftermath of the Imperium's naval victory. Tau in the transferred areas were resettled in Tau space, and the Tau retained a lessened presence in the Gulf.

In the long term, both sides gained valuable information about the other. In addition to the obvious military knowledge, the Tau learned a great deal about the inner workings of the Imperial apparatus, which would serve them well in future negotiation. Oddly enough, the Damocles Gulf would become a calm spot and major trade route in future Imperium-Tau relations; small numbers of Tau refused to leave colonies that had been traded to the Imperium, eventually forming a Tau/Imperial creole culture with disproportionate cultural influence, serving as a bridge between the two empires.
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==== The Second Damocles Gulf Campaign ====

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The Second Damocles Gulf campaign is an important marker in Tau history, representing one of the largest battles in Tau history before the Tau joined the Imperium and one of the few instances in which Tau fought against Tau. After the rebuilding of the Tau Empire following the A.I. rebellion and the Fourth Sphere of Expansion, the political winds had shifted once again and the Ethereal council was once more considering the possibility of developing closer ties with the Imperium. Imperial culture had become well-known to the Tau in the millennium since the two empires had first met, and some Ethereals recognized the resonance between Imperial ideals and the Tau’va, as well as the potential of using inclusion into the Imperium as a vehicle to spread the Greater Good. However, these ideas created a political backlash and a series of counter-proposals across the Tau Empire. These proposals ranged from the reasonable, such as seeking to ally with the Imperium without fully joining, to the insane, such as a mass migration of pro- and anti-Imperium Tau across the empire to form separate pro- and anti-Imperial states.

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Eventually things came to a head, with a contingent of traditionalists coming to believe that the ideologies of the Tau’va had already become too compromised by outside influence. Riots and violence erupted across the Tau Empire, eventually resulting in a sizeable minority of the Tau Empire including several Ethereals and high-ranking commanders including Commander Farsight leaving to form their own empire. The remaining Ethereals were outraged by this breach of Tau honor. Perhaps more importantly, the schism had led to the spilling of Tau blood by Tau hands, something that had not happened in history since the age of Mont’au and the days before the Tau as a whole had come to accept the Greater Good. This was something that could simply not go unpunished.

In response to the violence and aftereffects of the Schism, the Tau Empire raised a massive retaliatory strike force, headed by several Shas’O and at least three Ethereals. However, Farsight’s counterpart among the reformers, Commander Shadowsun, was not among their number. Although Shadowsun had fought against the reformers in the initial days of the schism, including with Farsight himself in the riots of T’au, she was not part of the retaliatory fleet, having been called away to the eastern front of the empire to defend against a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Kraken. This may have been one of the reasons why the Damocles Gulf campaign went as badly as it did. Although the commanders were well-trained and their forces outnumbered the traditionalists by nearly six to one, they were still going up against the Tau Empire’s greatest living military strategist, and without a general of Farsight’s caliber on the side of the reformers the retaliatory strike may have been doomed to fail.

Perhaps the biggest mistake was following the traditionalists into the northwestern frontier of the Tau Empire, the area where Farsight had spent most of his military career. As a result, Commander Farsight and the traditionalists had a much better idea of the terrain than the reformers did, including the best places to defend or set ambushes. During the Damocles Gulf campaign, Farsight once again proved how he had earned his name, only fighting in areas where he could nullify the numerical advantage of the reformers, or flanking around the main body of the fleet to strike at supply lines and attempt to cut them off from the empire. When forced to fight in the open, he would often employ unorthodox tactics that caught the more conservative commanders of the reformers off guard, such as jumping his ships into “knife-fight” range so that enemy ships could not fire at them without firing on their own soldiers at the same time. Although victories by the traditionalists seemed to be randomly distributed across the Gulf, they would prove very important for future political events, for these victories were often concentrated around easily defensible points that would serve as the effective borders of the Farsight Enclaves.

The Second Damocles campaign was ultimately declared a failure by the Tau Empire. The Empire had the forces needed to wipe the separatists from the stars, but Farsight’s forces were too heavily entrenched beyond the Damocles Gulf and it would cost them at least ten reformers for every traditionalist, a proposition the Ethereals were not willing to entertain. Not to mention, repaying the traditionalists’ violence with more blood would only strengthen the separatists’ claims of being in the right. Instead, the Ethereals decided to play the long game, considering that after a few generations the majority of the traditionalists, including most importantly Farsight, would be long gone. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, as the traditionalists have somehow managed to create their own functioning system within the Farsight enclaves, but Farsight has somehow managed to stay alive for far longer than any Tau would be reasonably expected to live.

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==== Sha'Galudd and the Nagi ====

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Sometime near the end of the latest Sphere of Expansion, a Tau expeditionary force came across a world known as Sha’Galudd. This world had been known for some time, but it was only now that the Ethereal council decided the world was to be surveyed and settled. It was a lush world, not to the Tau’s climatic preferences but more than capable of supporting a colony. However, when the first settlers set foot on Sha’Galudd, they found the world was already home to another xenos species, the worm-like Nagi.

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First contact between the Nagi and the Tau was surprisingly violent, even when compared to other races like the Kroot. However, before long the Nagi leaders came before the Ethereals of the expeditionary force in the interests of peace. They said that they had been unjustly persecuted by other xenos races into hiding on Sha’Galudd, and all they wanted to do was live in peace. They thought the Tau were these same invaders but had only just realized they were not, and now wanted to live in harmony with them. The xenos were even willing to cede most of the planet to the Tau, as they themselves needed little space to live. Within a few decades the world of Sha’Galudd was thriving, with many Nagi serving as advisors to the planet’s Ethereals. With the colony flourishing, the Ethereals of Sha’Galudd sent a message to the Ethereal Council of T’au, telling the homeworld of the good news.

At this time, the Tau had been formally inducted into the Imperium, and the Ethereal Council were taking full advantage of the Imperium’s records to try and learn as much as they could about the galaxy beyond. When they heard the news from Sha’Galudd, as well as a description of the xenos the expeditionary fleet had encountered, they immediately recognized what they were dealing with and dispatched a military fleet in response.

The aliens of the planet had introduced themselves to the as the Nagi. The rest of the galaxy knew them as the [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#The_Rangdan_Xenocides_and_the_Slaugth|Slaugth]].

The Tau acted quickly, deploying an entire contingent (Tio’ve) of Hunter Cadres to Sha’Galudd. The Ethereal Council privately hoped the situation could be solved without bloodshed, but when the contingent arrived they found themselves being fired upon by their own people. The Ethereals and much of the military of Sha’Galudd had been infested and subverted by the Slaugth, turning them into a veritable revenant army. The fighting was savage and brutal, much of it being room-to-room urban combat interspersed with attacks from Slaugth constructs created from Tau biomass. Nevertheless, despite the brutality of the fighting it was fortunate the contingent arrived when they did, for if they had arrived later it is likely that the entire planet would have been infected and turned into yet another infestation for the Slaugth.

The results of this battle, specifically how quickly and decisively the Ethereals dealt with the Slaugth, showed that although the Tau were still a young and ambitious race, they were quickly shedding their naivete and were more than willing to adapt to their surroundings.

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==== The Happalachian Hill Race ====

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When the Tau finally joined the Imperium proper, many of their Fire caste officers looked forward to the opportunity to show what they saw as the backward, stagnant forces of the Imperium the obvious superiority of the Tau's way of doing things. To their abject horror, the reintegration campaign of Happalachia gave them exactly what they'd been asking for.

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Happalachia is a planet composed almost entirely of mountain ranges and thick forests, with oceans which could be more aptly described as valleys that have filled with water, or places where the mountains dip below sea-level, rather than deep,empty expanses most associate with the phrase. Despite being prone to seizmic activity, it is not a Death World, being almost tame by Imperial standards. If anything, the seizmic activity is a boon, responsible for the large deposits of metals and other natural resources that made the planet worth reclaiming. The real challenge of the planet, and perhaps the reason the humans inhabiting the world had not re-achieved spaceflight by the time the Imperium rediscovered them, is the terrain, which ranges from fortyfive-degree slopes to sheer cliffs to trees so thick they form a natural wall. It is perhaps for this reason that the Tau, with their flight-capable vehicles and battlesuits which could handle such treacherous land, were selected to assist in reclaiming the world and assisting the newly-formed PDF regiments with clearing out the Orks which had taken root. The locals proved more of a shock to the Tau than anything the Orks could possibly have thrown at them.

The humans living on Happalachia were fairly close to the standard human form, if a bit more variable in height and size than would be expected. They were prone to growing long, unkempt beards, with thick, black body hair and tanned leathery skin, and have been described as having a strong, bitter smell, though this may be a product of the alcoholic brews they are so fond of making. Even the Tau could label them as 'human' with but a single glance. The more glaring issues were regarding their society and organization- or seeming lack thereof.

The regiments the Tau liasoned with behaved more like animals than a proper fighting force, with half the troops simply not being present at any given day, either off working with their families, hunting, sleeping, or just gone without anyone knowing or seeming to care where they'd went. Their command structure was informal in the extreme, with command of a squad seeming to change hands regularly between whichever member was deemed "gud fer gittin'" the task at hand, with arguments and disputes of orders being so common that those who could be in charge and go unquestioned were rare and regarded as masterful leaders. Speaking of arguments, the Tau simply could not wrap their heads around the way these primitives handled disputes. Two of them would disagree on something, tempers would flare and yelling would grow in volume, then they would set upon each other like wild animals, biting and clawing and punching in a big ball of violence that more than once caused the Tau to assume they were trying to kill each other. And then suddenly it would stop, the first to get up would help pull the other to his feet, and moments later they'd be smiling through their missing teeth, joking and laughing with one arm around the man they'd just been fighting, the other holding a drink that would only halfway make it to their mouth because of the black eye they'd gotten. For those who grew up being taught that Tau-on-Tau violence was a grave sin, such flippant disregard for the fact that a buddy had just left teeth-marks in your arm was something they simply could not process.

Their gear was not much better; before the Imperium arrived, the majority of the firearms on the planet had been powder-based kinetic weapons, not even the kind with explosive rounds or mono-edged blades, but simple hunks of pointed metal fired at slow enough speeds that even the Guard's flak jackets could provide reliable protection against them. What vehicles they did have were lightly-armored civilian-grade cargo haulers, most of which were rusted and bearing oversized wheels and a shocking lack of even the most basic safety equipment, looking more like something the Orks would make than a reliable source of transport. Though proper lasguns had been distributed as part of the effort to bring them up to speed, many of them had taken to... 'modifying' their weapons, usually by attaching telescopic hunting scopes through a combination of screws and duct tape in a ramshackle and irreverent manner that would have any cogboy who saw their desecrations seize up and sputter, their cognizator implants overloading as they utterly fail to process the sheer volume of RRRREEEEEEEEE being demanded.

So great was the Tau's utter bafflement at the state of these troops that they recommended the entire force be either disbanded or left behind to obsensibly guard the population centers. The request was denied, for the Imperium needed the Orks culled, and so the Tau set out with their new wards, confident that they would all be dead within a week and the Tau would have to clean up. (Un)fortunately for them, they had only scratched the iceberg regarding these "good old boys."

The terrain lent itself well to the Tau's preference for engaging at range; Orks would shake their axes and blades futilely at the Fire Warriors picking them off from the other side of the gorge, and the charges they would make when in massed numbers would bog down as they slogged their way uphill into a storm of plasma fire. Despite the prior expectations, the natives proved equally effective against the Orks, in their own ways. For one thing, they were everywhere; no matter where the battlefield went, several of the PDF would show up with a dozen or more "cousins" to help out. They were also uncanny trackers, always being able to point out with fairly good accuracy where a pocket of Orks was hiding, likely to go, or had been, though it took the Tau several ambushes to stop dismissing the pointed "Dat way's gon' getcha busted up right good, ah tell yew what." More mind-bogglingly, to Tau and Ork alike, was their skill at laying ambushes themselves; more than one Ork attack had only just registered on the Tau before the forest exploded with gunfire, and often several screaming bearded men falling onto the Orks with knives and hatchets drawn. This is not to say that the natives could beat the Orks in Melee combat, and more that you do not need to beat the ork when you can simply unbalance him until he falls off the cliff. Usually the natives attempting this wore parachutes or stitched wing-gliders, cackling loudly as they drifted off out of view of the dumbstruck Tau, while the more daring took the riskier route of trying to jump back off the ork onto solid ground. It was when the Tau started stumbling into ork ambushes, only to be saved from their imminent death by highly accurate las-fire, that the brunt of the situation dawned on them.

The natives of Happalachia loved their guns; they were a means of gathering food, a protector of your family, and symbols of your personal worth all in one. From a young age they would learn marksmanship as a means of putting meat on the table, using the primitive powder-firearms that their forefathers had used for generations, learning to shoot reliably despite bullet drop, wind interference, and other factors. Now that they had access to lasguns, which negate most of these factors, they proved themselves to be uncannily accurate shots at ranges far beyond that expected of a lasgun. What this meant in practice was that the backwards, unshaven, uncouth, smelly backwoods hooligans on this backwater world were putting out a similar long-range performance to that of the Tau, which combined with their knowledge of the terrain meant they were killing Orks before the Tau realized they were there. They were being better marksmen than the Tau.

The thought was too much for the Tau to stomach. Desperate to prove that the Tau forces were undeniably superior to these hillbillys and preserve some semblance of dignity, the Tau leadership began enacting aggressive, almost-suicidal battle plans and strategies, determined to outperform the PDF by securing and holding more of the planet's surface and moving faster than the natives could, deploying forces they had previously held in reserve as "unnecessary," and generally taking it as a personal mission to prove that all their technology meant something.

The locals caught wind, and thought it sounded like fun, and what came next is now known as the Happalachian Hill Race.

The idea was simple; there were already a series of checkpoints, target areas, and objectives in place as a guideline for the reclamation. The Tau decided that if they could take, hold, and secure more of the objectives on their own, they would prove themselves the more effective fighting force, regardless of the individual performance of the natives. Unfortunately, those checkpoints and objectives had also been distributed to the PDF, so the Happalachians were also privy to the "rules" of the race.

What followed was several months of escalating competion, with the natives bringing in all their friends and neighbors, while the Tau brought in all their latest toys. Tweaking their targeting systems to better deal with the forest helped the Tau regain their edge in accuracy at range, but now the natives had numbers to even the scores. Warsuits flew over ravines and jumped over the treetops, while bolted-together technicals tore along cliff-faces, their passengers whooping and hollering as they shot at anything orkish-green that flew by. Eventually it escalated to the point that both sides were just short of open conflict.

The event is best preserved in a holopic captured by one of the Tau battlesuits. It depicts a gorge with a native Technical on one side, and a group of battlesuits in mid-flight on the other. The technical has one wheel over the edge, the others frantically digging for traction, as passengers shoot at unseen Orks while yelling at the Tau, with one individual hanging his bare buttocks out the window. The Tau are likewise firing at Orks on their side of the ravine, while one battlesuit has opened his helmet, apparently in order to yell back at the humans while making an extremely obscene gesture at them, a gesture also being displayed by two other battlesuits, though their users appear more focused on the Orks.

In the end, there was no clear winner of the race; the Tau covered more ground and ended up taking more objectives, but had trouble securing those objectives, as the increased speed had been paid for with less-thorough sweeps, while the natives proved skilled at eliminating all the Orks from an area and arriving in places quickly, they had trouble keeping up with the airborne elements of the Tau, especially when they started deploying from orbit to reach checkpoints faster. Though the "finish line" was reached, several areas fell and had to be retaken or secured, and things only seemed to get more complicated as a group of Biel-tan warriors warped in, too late to have a chance at winning but still looking to participate- and in the end had a very good showing. Most historians will say that the Tau won the race, as their technology once adapted greatly outpaced what the Happalachians could do, but for the Tau it was a bitter victory; though they had emerged on top, it had not been a decisive win, and many of their troops had lost some of their discipline and begun using the same uncouth, offensive mannerisms as they had been trying to prove themselves above. The Tau from the aforementioned holopic was identified and severely punished for such a public display of disrespectful behavior, but the truth is that several Tau had begun having similar exchanges towards the end of the race.

Shas'ui Sli'ker, the Tau fire warrior from the aforementioned Holopic, was reassigned to what amounted to a desk job in an attempt to make a public example of how crass behavior was unacceptable within the Tau military. He would later go on to write a short book intended to advise other Tau how best to prepare for different cultures, the importance of not underestimating your allies or foes, and the importance of listening to the councel of natives more familiar with the land than you, regardless of percieved ignorance. While the Ethereals deemed his work too dangerous to condone distributing it (his ideas on being willing to adopt aspects of local culture to build trust sounded too much like giving up what made the Tau the Tau), he was able to get published by human distributors, who found his work either comedically entertaining or useful for non-Tau who would interact with other cultures too. The work eventually became public knowledge among the Tau soldiery, who while they mostly found it a bit too radical, found it contained useful knowledge that has soothed relations more than once. The author himself eventually returned to Happalachia, living out his final days in what he called "the most beautiful land ever infested with hicks;" he was well-loved within the local community, and his passing was mourned greatly, with several statues being erected in his honor; one depicting him relaxing, set to look out over his favorite view, the other showing his more famous pose, placed in front of the Capitol, forever indicating exactly what he thinks of the locals, the planet, and the universe in general to the horizon.

Historians and military analysts alike have examined the events of the Happalachian Hill Race in search of explanations as to how a bunch of newly-discovered Men of Stone with inferior technology managed to challenge one of the most technologically-advanced races in the galaxy, much less challenge them in their field of expertise. Upon closer examination, several things became apparent. Firstly, the Happalachians, while marksmen of far higher caliber than the average guardsmen (though their unsactioned scope attachments may aid in that), are not, in fact, anywhere near as good as the average Tau. Tests performed in firing ranges and field excercises found that the Tau's accuracy and response time were far greater than that of the Happalachians, and effective at much further ranges than Happalachian lasguns could even reach, much less reliably hit. This, of course, raised the question of how these hillbillies were getting the drop on the Orks before the Tau. The answer lies in perhaps the two biggest contributing factors to the outcome; Terrain and Tactics.

While the Tau had come equipped with jumpsuits and drones and the means to easily cover the planet's mountainous terrain, on the planning level there had been a major failure to account for how advancing across a planet of mountains is different from advancing across a mountain range on a planet. A gorge easily crossed in a battlesuit could contain miles of tunnels, outcroppings, overhangs, and other places where Orks could hide within the trees or shrubbery. This meant that the intial Tau advance was very prone to accidentally overjumping patches of Orks, who would then attempt to ambush the Tau, and instead get bisected by the lasfire of the Natives.

This was the second failing in the Tau's campaign, their Tactics. Both Natives and Orks on Happalachia had adopted an inclination towards Ambush tactics, as massed engagements and charges were simply unfeasible on a fortyfive-degree slope. Some Orks would even bury themselves in the ground and wait for hours or days in order to jump an enemy, which meant that on the Tau's heat-sensors they would appear as little more than slightly warmer than usual plants. The local tactic for clearing Orks would generally involve one group acting as the "bait," driving around in one of their loud technicals, whooping and hollering and making as much noise as they could, with the rest of the locals aimed and waiting for the Orks to take the bait.

The Tau, by contrast, were not sneaky in the least about their approach, their roaring jumpjets, clanking battlesuits, and vehicle support making their advance very loud and very noticeable. To the Happalachians, this looked like the aliens volunteering for the most dangerous role in the hunt, and thus moved to do the obvious thing and be ready to intercept the inevitable ambush. In practical terms, this meant that engagements with the Orks happened with the Natives already prepared to fire, and the Orks at close ranges to the Tau, who are notoriously ill-suited for close quarters. The Tau, having failed to take the locals seriously enough to have learned or paid attention to the Happalachian's explanations on how to properly hunt Orks, mistook the native's well-intentioned support as intentional showboating, fraying tempers and leading to rash decisions and even more stubborn resistance to any sort of advice from the locals.

There were, of course, other factors; scouts who would go ahead and track groups of Orks, relaying their position through birdcalls and markings on trees; the spread-out nature of the native population, which lead to there usually being someone in the area who could point out pitfalls or add more firearms to the mix; the constant tree-cover making the Tau's vertical advantages significantly reduced; even flaws in the Tau targeting system in regards to such extreme slopes, which while not enough to render them helpless or ineffective, could slow their response time against Orks from multiple sharp angles just enough for the natives to fire first. However, the majority of these factors tend to stem from the Tau's third and perhaps biggest blunder; their attitude towards the natives.

The intention to prove themselves better had already colored the intitial interactions with Happalachians, and once the Tau saw the way the natives behaved, they almost immediately dismissed them as hopeless fools. This, of course, flies in the face of the fact that a population on a planet infested with Orks cannot survive without developing ways to effectively deal with their green neighbors, and that a population that thrives is likely very good at it. The miscommunication about the standard tactics against the Orks and subsequent losses of composure at percieved slights could well have been avoided had the Tau actually listened and not dismissed the (admittedly impolitely presented) guidance of the Happalachian advisors regarding the flaws in the Tau's plan of advance. In short, idealism and self-assumed superiority blinded the Tau, both on the Command and individual level, to their easily-corrected mistakes; a mistake that they would later take great pains to avoid making again, if only to avoid another such humiliation.

The aftermath of the Happalachian Hill Race was messy, both beauracratically and conventionally. The Orks had been heavily culled and contained to a few manageable areas, but the Tau had lost much more of their hardware in the process than had previously been anticipated due to their more aggressive tactics, though there were also several crate's worth of pulse rifles that had mysteriously gone missing from their supply headquarters, with rumors that they had been "scavenged" by the locals going unconfirmed, as any Happalachian with a Pulse rifle would claim to have scavenged it off of a dead Tau.

Of greater concern was the cultural impact; the Tau's self-assurance of superiority was badly shaken, as were their preconcieved notions on Humanity and the Eldar. Tau Supremacists would use the Happalachians as caricatures of Humanity as a whole, and proof that joining these delusional primitives was a mistake that would cost the Tau dearly. Their detractors would point out that the "primitives" had shown themselves capable of keeping up with and challenging the Tau, even with technology inferior by their own standards, and that if their forces had been more advanced the Tau may actually have lost. A more concrete effect was had in that broad, sweeping changes to their policies regarding cooperation with other forces, mostly aimed at staying professional and not having their troops lose their cool and start a competition, but also including steps to try and prepare and acclimate the average Tau to the inevitable Culture Shock that had hit them so hard in Happalachia. The regiments deployed to Happalachia went on to prove themselves more skilled at working with other forces than other Tau regiments, though whether this was due to having learned humility or simple relief at the relative normalcy of most other forces is a matter of debate.

For their part, the Happalachians seem to consider the Tau to be friends, if oddly stuck-up buddies who try to stay cool but can scrap with the best if pushed enough. This may be part of their odd form of conflict-resolution, where fighting or competing with another is a way of growing closer with them, as long as you aren't trying to kill them. Considering their abilities with firearms, blades, and hatchets, perhaps the distinction between fighting and killing is simply more well-defined than it is for others. The race itself is remembered fondly, and has become immortalized through an actual, proper race every five years, where contestants must cross the same objectives that were the original goals, with several alternate paths and a scoring system, that is open to all comers.

There are now several Happalachian scout regiments; while their skills have proved to be mostly localized (most of the universe is not mountain ranges), they are still an asset to the Imperium, if one who's equipment is so unstandardized as to make their logistics a nightmare; this has something to do with the fact that the Admech, upon seeing their unique approach to technology, tried to declare them all tech-heretics, and while this merely led to less-conventional tech-convents setting up shop instead due to the local resource deposits, it is still very difficult to legitimately sell Admech goods to the locals. Not that this stops people from doing so, just that they do so sneakily, and in small quantities at a time. This has the result of the Happalachian regiments being a bit of a wild card; no other scout regiment is quite as prevalent in their ability to pull out a plasma weapon or high-yield explosive they really shouldn't have at a time when it is most needed, though the opposite is also true of them failing to have some of the most basic resources an Imperial Guard regiment is expected to field.

One side-effect of the campaign was the Tau's later collaborations with Ultramar; the disciplined, regimented and well-equipped Ultramar Guard were a much more palatable and familiar face for the Tau, and while there were still initial issues with posturing and rivalry, there was also respect and appreciation of Ultramar's professionalism. For their part, the forces of Ultramar was more than willing to provide advice and guidelines for interacting with the less "conventional" forces of the Imperium, which likely influenced the reforms the Tau would implement regarding cooperation and acclimitization with Imperial forces. It is politely disregarded that much of this advice had been given before the campaign on Happalachia, with the only difference being that the Tau were now willing to listen.

In all, the campaign was a success for the Tau- however ungraceful it may have been. Their objective was completed far ahead of the initial projections, and the lessons were learned with a relatively forgiving people who would not hold grudges or resentment against the Tau for their behavior, unlike how worlds like Vostroya or Catachan may have developed centuries-long grudges against xenos who looked down on them. Instead, they now have eager and willing allies, whose Regiments have often been deployed to assist the Tau in times of need (In spite of frequent requests from the Tau to "please send anyone else;" the Imperium's armies are not unlimited, so you take whatever is available. This is most definitely not the clerks of the Administratum having a laugh at the Tau's expense.). The Tau have ultimately improved as a result of the lessons learned on that backwater planet, and despite the jokes made at their expense, it was a learning experience that ultimately helped them better integrate into the Imperium- if mostly by showing them how maddening the universe can be.
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==== The Siege of Lusitan ====

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The members of the Hubworld League have always been a proud and stubborn people, who would rather die than admit defeat. Despite being a brash, salt-of-the-earth type of people, they are brilliant innovators and engineers and can be single-minded when it comes to retribution. These traits are well-displayed by the events of the Siege of Lusitan.

Lusitan was once a prominent mining colony located in the galactic south of Hubworld territory. The planet was covered by large fissures and volcanic activity as a result of tidal flexing due to its proximity to its parent star, with some openings reaching all the way down to the deep mantle. As a result, it was rich in rare and valuable minerals that were normally only found deep beneath a planet's core. Therefore, the high gravity and mineral wealth of Lusitan made it a perfect colony for the Hubworld League.

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When Leviathan, the third of the three great tyranid scouting fleets, emerged on the galactic scene, most people would have predicted that the hive fleet would have made galaxyfall in the galactic east, as Behemoth and Kraken did before it. However, this was not the case. Instead, Leviathan made a sudden swerve in its trajectory, seemingly to avoid a passing through a particular region of space, and made galaxyfall at a slight angle to the galactic plane in the Segmentum Tempestus. As a result, many planets that had been far away from the front lines of the first two Tyranic Wars were now under threat by the tyranid menace, including many worlds of the Hubworld League. This included Lusitan, as a small tendril of Leviathan broke off from the main hive fleet to directly besiege the small colony.

Lusitan was not a major Hubworlder settlement, but the planet was an important component in the Hubworld League’s economy, and so although the planet was not as well protected as a major world of the Hubworld League it was better defended than the majority of its colonies. As a result, the defenders of Lusitan were able to hold out against the initial waves of hormagaunts and termagaunts but began to lose ground when higher tyranid lifeforms such as carnifexes and tervigons started appearing. About the only good news was that the tyranids seemed unable to make use of organisms such as mawlocs and trygons, Lusitan’s crust being too thin and volatile for them to work efficiently. The Hubworlders fought like madmen, making the tyranids pay in blood for every inch they took, but unfortunately for the Hubworlders the tyranids always seemed to have blood to spare.

After three weeks of heavy fighting, the people of Lusitan received some unexpected good news. A relief fleet had arrived, travelling via sub-light speeds after warping in as close as they could get to Lusitan’s star system. The relief fleet was comprised of Hubworlders and Imperials from nearly a dozen different Imperial member states, spearheaded by a small force of Salamanders from nearby Nocturne led by Second Captain Hal’shan. However, the rescuers were surprised when they received a message from the Lusitanians telling them not to land on the planet’s surface. At first the rescue fleet just thought this was merely Hubworlder stubborness at work, and tried to force their way to the planet's surface, even after the Hubworlders began physically blockading their ships from landing. This only stopped after the leader of Lusitan, Governor Vardun, opened a private channel of communication to the flagship of the rescue effort and Hal’shan.

The exact words of that conversation remain unknown, but after it was over Hal’shan’s behavior changed completely, ordering all ships to cease attempts at landing and instead focus all efforts in helping the Hubworlders evacuate. Over the next several hours thousands of ships launched off from Lusitan’s surface, protected from the hive ships by the rescue fleet, and before long most of Lusitan’s population was in orbit. Following that, Hal’shan immediately ordered all ships to escort the Hubworlder vessels to the edges of the system, leaving what few people remained on Lusitan’s surface. At the time, this order was not popular, and several protested this decision, but Hal’shan responded that the Hubworlder ships were in danger and it was their duty to help the civilians evacuate first.

The only reason we know of what happened next was due to a few Salamanders who refused to leave the few Hubworlders left on Lusitan to die. Geological mapping of Lusitan's surface had indicated that compared to most planets the crust was unusually thin, and essentially held above the mantle by a series of caverns supported by a few key structural weak points. Destroying these points would cause the crust to collapse into the mantle, which in turn would cause the magma to rise and swamp the planet's entire land surface. This was Governor Vardun’s entire plan. Over the last few days, he had converted several mining charges into makeshift explosives scattered around the planet as Lusitan’s defenders had bought time with their lives. And now, with the majority of Lusitan’s people in orbit, he could execute this plan with a clear conscience.

The tyranids were simply too numerous to be removed through conventional means. The size of the tyranid thread on Lusitan had been severely underestimated, so even with the arrival of reinforcements the tyranids could only be discouraged, not defeated in a fair fight. At the same time, the tendril of Leviathan had to be stopped here, or else the entire Hubworld League would be under threat. Vardun had struggled with this dilemma for days, either sacrifice Lusitan for the sake of the greater good or hold out for the possibility of reinforcements and hope that his decision to preserve Lusitan hadn't been for nothing.

The rescue fleet had changed that. Now, no one had to die to remove the tyranids from Lusitan’s surface. Well, no one other than himself and his advisors, at any rate. If someone had to die, might as well be the ones who had come up with the plan in the first place. Vardun transmitted his last words of vengeance against the tyranids and then, without hesitation, threw the switch.

''"Fry, you overgrown space roaches"''
- Last known words of Governor Vardun

The move, although militarily unorthodox, was a stunning success. Tyranids usually recouped their losses by consuming the biomass of their dead, but this time the bodies of their troops were buried under several stories of molten lava. The sudden simultaneous death of so many synapse creatures caused a brief disruption in the Shadow in the Warp, which allowed Imperial reinforcements to come in and slaughter the Hive Ships in orbit.

However, the victory had not come without terrible costs. For one, Governor Vardun and all the leaders of the Lusitan colony were dead. On top of that, the entire topology of the planet had been disturbed and its surface was covered in lava. It would be centuries, if not millennia, before the lava cooled and the planet stabilized enough for resettlement. The tyranids were gone, but the people of Lusitan now had no home to return to.

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==== The Octarius War ====

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There are worlds that they believe they have known war. Cadia, last bastion before the Eye. Krieg, named better than its discoverers knew. Armageddon, world of steel and flame. Mordia, stubborn and resolute.

Octarius laughs at them all. Ever since Kryptmann unleashed his grand plan, Tyranid and Ork have fought relentlessly, unceasingly, across its surface. For over a thousand years. There is almost nowhere you can touch the original surface without digging; mounds of charred corpses, Tyranid growths, and ruined Ork war machines cover the surface too thickly. Strata after strata of fossilized war. To walk on the surface of Octarius is to walk on dead flesh. The sky is perpetually black, an ashen shroud composed of Tyranid spores, oily smoke from Ork engines and guns, dust kicked up by ceaseless orbital bombardment, and the vaporized particles of uncounted trillions of dead. The blackness is broken by a perpetual meteor shower, as broken fragments of millions of shattered ships and shredded naval organisms rain down on the surface from the unending war in orbit. Despite the fact that there is no sun and no stars, there is more than enough light; the eternal thunder of Ork guns lights up the horizon with a false dawn, reflecting off the clouds until it seems the sky is on fire. The ice caps have melted from the ambient heat of trillions of guns and trillions of bodies.

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The seas are dyed with Ork blood and Tyranid ichor, and filled with ork warships and submarines so densely packed you could almost walk from one coast to another in battle with tyranid swimmers no less numerous. The skies are clogged with millions of flyers. The earth is honeycombed with endless tunnels, begun for shelter from orbital bombardment or in attempts to outflank a stubborn defense but long since turned into a theater of war on their own, grots and squigs and tyranid burrowers hunting each other through the darkness. Sometimes the diggings get too vast, too unstable, too convoluted, and vast sections of front drop into sudden sinkholes.

In orbit above, ships merge together and battle in the orbitals, amid a vast ring system created by the wreckage of a hundred thousand previous battles. Ork ships and tyranid bioforms clashing at point-blank range and closer, an endless maelstrom of boarding action and bombardments. Destroyed or damaged vessels frequently fall out of orbit to cataclysmic ends on the surface below- or, as both ork and tyranid know it, 'delivering reinforcements'.

Both sides deploy weapons and creations seen nowhere else, ork Meks struggling to keep pace with tyranid hyper-evolution. Vast armies of Mega-Gargants, in numbers not seen since the War of the Beast, clash with Bio-Titans of unprecedented size and ferocity. Tyranids sprout flame weapons in vast quantity, while Doks devise poisons that scythe down even tyranid biologies- for a time, until they adapt again. Unique squig breeds hunt down lictors with incredible ferocity, and fields of razor-worms devour entire ork columns in seconds.

The war extends to stranger battlefields as well. It is a war of ecologies, as ork and tyranid spores attempt to out-compete and strangle each other, a microscopic war of poisons over nutrient-rich corpse-strata.

It is a war of ontologies, a clash of welt-systems, as Ork WAAAGGHH and the Shadow In The Warp strain to overcome each other. It is a war on every possible level.

The war extends throughout the Octarius sector, and beyond; Octarius is simply where it is at its most intense. Vast fleets thrust and parry across light-years, vital systems changing hands dozens upon dozens of times. The sectors surrounding the Octarius sector are slowly ground down to nothing, as ork and tyranid raiding fleets venture further and further outward to fuel their respective war machines. The war expands, and expands, and expands.

Black Crusades split apart to avoid Octarius. Imperial seers try to divine its depths, to control it, to contain it, but are foiled by the psychic maelstrom formed by the clashing of WAAAGHH and Shadow. Khornate warbands and Deathwatch kill-teams vanish without trace.

The Octarius War has become a perpetual motion machine. The orks feed off the war, and the tyranids feed off the orks. Neither can accept defeat or countenance retreat. To withdraw for either combatant would be to forever mark them as something lesser, something inferior, and extermination would surely follow.

This has been going on for a thousand years. It cannot last forever; sooner or later, something will give. And it is uncertain what, if anything, will survive the conflagration when it does.

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====The Badab War====

EDITOR'S NOTE: Needs to be added to with the changes discussed in thread 27.

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Near the center of the Milky Way galaxy is the Maelstrom, a lightyears-wide patch of incrossable space and the biggest Warp Storm outside of the Eye of Terror. For obvious reasons, the Administratum recognized the potential threat the Maelstrom represented and stationed five Astartes chapters to guard it, as the Maelstrom Warders: the Brothers of the Anvil, the Wind Riders, the Charnel Guards, the Crystal Wyverns, and the Astral Claws. On paper, the five chapters were all equals amongst one another. In practice, however, the Astral Claws were the oldest and most experienced of the five chapters, and so the other chapters tended to defer to the Astral Claws for leadership.
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At the turn of the 41st millennium, the Chapter Master of the Astral Claws was a man named Lugft Huron. Despite the presence of five Space Marine chapters, Huron felt the High Lords of Terra were not taking the Maelstrom as seriously as they should have. In contrast to the Eye of Terror, which was located on the edges of Imperial territory, the Maelstrom was located near the very heart of the Imperium, and so any Chaos incursions there would be much more unpredictable and much more likely to strike at something vital. And unlike the Eye of Terror, there were no equivalent to the Cadian Gates to funnel the movement of Chaos forces in and out of the Maelstrom. The Eye of Terror had the Black Legion, numerous Guard regiments, and all the forces Cadia and Ulthwé could bring to bear guarding its gates. And what did the Maelstrom have? Five chapters of Space Marines. Huron made these concerns known in a message to the Administratum and the High Lords of Terra.

Unfortunately, this request was made during the 12th Black Crusade, when the Imperium was understandably focused on more important things. The High Lords reportedly did send a message back to Huron saying they would consider his request when they had the opportunity, but it is unknown if Huron ever received it. Whatever the case, Huron took the apparent lack of concern about the Maelstrom and his situation personally. He claimed to the Astral Claws and the other Maelstrom Warders that the Imperium had abandoned them, and that it was their duty to secure the Maelstrom and the Badab Sector by any means necessary. To this end they carved out their own little petty empire in the Badab Sector, seizing control of the inhabited worlds for supplies and aspirants.

At first, the Imperium did not notice anything was wrong, being too busy taking stock of the losses from the 12th Black Crusade. However the Imperium quickly did notice the situation in Badab when ships from the Badab Sector started raiding Imperial Worlds in other sectors for materiel and aspirants. The Emperor in particular was outraged at the system Huron had set up, wherein the Astartes acted as a military aristocracy over the baseline citizens. In his mind the Astartes, like himself, were duty-bound to serve mankind, not lord over them.

The Badab War was a particularly bloody one. Numerous Imperial regiments were still on active duty due to the 12th Black Crusade, so Imperial forces simply poured into the Badab Sector. However, it was not that easy. Huron had rebuilt many of the buildings of the Badab Sector, including the infamous “Palace of Thorns” on Badab Primaris, in the expectation of facing a Chaos attack from the Maelstrom, only now he was facing a siege from the other direction. Nevertheless, the Imperium continued to steadily gain ground, and it was clear that the Imperium would not be merciful to the traitors. As a result, Huron found himself accepting the aid of an ally he never thought he’d side with: the Chaos Gods.

Accepting the aid of Chaos caused a brief resurgence by the Empire of Badab, making it even harder for the Imperium to proceed, but the Imperium still managed to press on. Eventually, the Imperium reached the heart of the Empire of Badab, but the five traitor chapters fled into the Maelstrom at the behest of the Chaos Gods. Imperial Forces tried to follow the traitor chapters into the Maelstrom, attempting to kill them before they could escape and join with Chaos forces, but the Ruinous Powers threw up a Warp Storm that prevented all efforts at pursuit. Once in the Warp, each of the Maelstrom Warders fell to a different Chaos Gods, the Brothers of the Anvil (now Deathmongers) to Khorne, the Wind Riders to Slaanesh, the Charnel Guards to Nurgle, and the Crystal Wyverns to Tzeentch, with Lugft Huron and his Astral Claws, now rechristened the Red Corsairs, following Chaos Undivided.

Today, the Red Corsairs and their following chapters act more like mercenaries than cultists, willing to support any major Chaos warband as long as the pay is good. Surprisingly, the five chapters still cooperate with one another as well as they did when they were loyal to the Imperium, despite worshipping different gods. The Red Corsairs’ mercenarial nature is one of the ways people like Malys and Be'lakor get their hands on Chaos Space Marines without having to deal with Luther and his ilk. Currently, Huron and the Red Corsairs have thrown in their lot with Lady Malys and her forces, having seen the writing on the wall.
</div>
</div>

====The Bloodtide====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">

For unknown reasons, Khorne has always had a strange fascination with nanotech. Perhaps it is because a nanite swarm is a weapon that flows like blood, or perhaps it is because the nanobots attack by entering the body and attacking the very flesh and blood itself. Regardless, Khornates often seem drawn to ancient nanotechnology, whether human or non-human in origin.

Nanotech weaponry was also popular with the corrupted Men of Iron during the Age of Strife, which formed the basis of abominations as omniphages. In 476.M41, a kill-team of about thirty Grey Knights led by Brother Ordan were on the trail of a Khornate cult looking for a nanotech weapon the cultists rather unimaginatively called the Bloodtide. After chasing the Khornates across several worlds via the Webway as the cultists pieced together the clues as to where the Bloodtide was hidden, the Grey Knights finally cornered the cultists on the on the world of Van Horne, the planet on which the Bloodtide had been buried.

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When they emerged from the Webway Gate, the Grey Knights had initially hoped to join forces with Imperial military assets on the planet with and organize an impromptu quarantine and defense against the Bloodtide. However, the only Imperial forces present on the planet besides the Grey Knights were the PDF and a Commandery of about 250 Sisters of Battle, who were on the planet investigating reports of a separatist cell, necessitating a change of plans. Making contact with the Sisters, led by Preceptor Mariel, and the PDF, the Grey Knights explained (at least as much as they could) they were hunting a Chaotic weapon of mass destruction that they believed was going to be activated under one of the largest cities on the planet.

They told the Sisters and the PDF that they needed them to sound the evacuation order and work with the planet’s government to make preparations for the evacuation of the planet in the event of the worst case scenario. Meanwhile, the Grey Knights would enter the city and try and hunt down the cultists before they could activate the weapon. Preceptor Mariel wasn’t happy with the idea of being relegated to evacuation duty. She argued that it would make more sense for the PDF and Sisters to join the Grey Knights in hunting down the cult, and stop the disaster before it even began. Ordan responded it was either put out the call to evacuate and potentially only lose one city, or risk it and lose all the cities.

As the Grey Knights entered the outer districts of the city, they heard a horrific scream and were buffeted by what seemed like a wind of metallic dust. They were too late. The Bloodtide had been activated. The Grey Knights, being clad in fully sealed power armor were immune to the Bloodtide effects, but the people around them were not. The civilians did not die cleanly, screaming in agony and clawing at their bodies as blood oozed from every pore, bleeding far more blood than any human should be able to produce as their internal organs were turned to liquid by what amounted to synthetic ebola. As opposed to the omniphages, which were intended as a form of nanotech Exterminatus, an intentional “grey goo” scenario, the Bloodtide was meant to kill people in the most horrific way possible. It was a nanotech terror weapon.

It wasn’t until the Grey Knights had reached the inner parts of the city that Ordan had realized he had made a mistake. He had only expected to have to fight the warlord and his hangers on, thinking their activation of the Bloodtide and the subsequent carnage was meant to be an end in and of itself. However, he hadn’t expected the warlord to use that blood for something else. The warlord had offered the blood of the dead as a sacrifice to Khorne, and given that quite a lot of people had died in one of the most Khorne-pleasing manners possible the warlord had managed to summon a literal army of Khornate daemons, which could travel the planet much faster than the Bloodtide ever could. The timetable for the total devastation of the planet had just moved up.

The Bloodletters and Bloodthirsters arose from the blood as if crawling out of their own reflection. Normally most people would be cursing their decisions and their fate in this situation, but not Ordan and the members of the Brotherhood. They were Grey Knights. If they had to die, so be it, they would take as many of the daemons as they could with them. However, for all their bravery and defiance, they numbered little more than thirty, and did not have the numbers to take on the Khornate daemons, who simply dogpiled them. Ordan believed he was to meet his end when he was pinned by a Bloodmaster, when a melta blast from behind Ordan hit the daemon and melted its face to slag.

Looking up, Ordan saw the form of Preceptor Mariel and her Sisters firing into the horde of Khornate daemons. Ordan demanded to know why the Preceptor was there, and why they weren’t helping sound the order to evacuate the planet. Mariel responded with a cheeky response about how they had already handled it. Regardless of their disregard to stay back, the Sisters provided exactly what the Grey Knights needed right now, which was numbers. The best way to fix the situation right now was to charge forward to the Bloodtide as fast as possible, which the Grey Knights did, the Sisters following close behind to provide supporting fire and even the Grey Knights’ odds against the daemons. As their melta guns ran out of power, they switched to their flamers, and then those ran out of fuel, their bolters.

However, the Sisters were not immune to the Bloodtide’s effects. As the Grey Knights and Sisters pushed forward towards the center of the destruction, increasing numbers of Sisters fell, blood bursting from their pores as the nanotech breached the seals of their less advanced power armor and entered their bodies. The Sisters were more resistant to the Bloodtide than any unaugmented human, with some of their enhancements having been designed by Isha herself, and still they fell. Mariel herself managed to hold on until the Grey Knights made it to the Bloodtide itself before she collapsed. When the Grey Knights reached the center they found the Bloodthirster Ka’jagga’nath, who had been pleased by the slaughter wreaked by the now-dead cultists, and sought dominion over the Bloodtide itself. The Grey Knights protested this decision with warp fire and power swords, and after great sacrifice managed to banish the Bloodthirster. The Bloodtide, which had been bound to Ka’jagga’nath’s will when it had been activated, was disrupted by its banishment and returned to an inert form, waiting for a new master.

After the remaining Khornate daemons were purged and the city placed in quarantine, Ordan met with the planetary governor to briefly inform him of a heavily redacted version of the situation. In essence, a Chaotic weapon had been detonated in the city, the city was quarantined, and no one should be allowed to go near it. An experienced Inquisition team should arrive shortly to take the weapon to [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Ganymede|Ganymede]], but the city was probably corrupted to the core and should be razed. The governor congratulated Ordan on their victory, only to receive an unexpected reply.

“You call this victory?” Millions of Imperial citizens are dead. An entire Commandery of Securitas, some of the bravest and most selfless warriors I have ever had the privilege to fight alongside, are no longer with us. There are no victories in this universe, governor. Only scales of defeat.”

</div>
</div>

== Imperial Governmental Structure ==

[[Image:1485614099098.jpg|thumb|Emperor Oscar of the Glorious Imperium and its people uncounted, Consort of the All-Mother and her most favoured champion, last of the Golden Men, founder of the Imperium, bane of gods, unifier of all civilized peoples and Defender of the Realm. Not as gold-colored as most people think.]]

The Imperium is vast and covers a little over a million inhabited worlds of humans and xenos and the styles of governance of these worlds varies greatly from one planet to another. Represented under the ever watchful Aquila can be found meritocracies, stratocracies, bureaucracies, plutocracies, oligarchies, theocracies, monarchies, aristocracies, democracies and many others. All of these are local systems usually confined to a single solar system or planet or even a nations on those planets.

The Imperium itself is an autocracy under the rule of the Emperor who operates mostly via benevolent indifference. As a general rule the Imperium does not care what you do so long as you pay the tithe and don't rock the boat.

The only time when the Imperium does care is when one of it's few rules is broken to a degree that they can't pretend to not see it any more. The rules being:

# Pay the tithe
# Don't worship the gods of Chaos
# Don't worship the Emperor
# No militarized religious institutions
# No open warfare between member worlds of the Imperium

So long as these few rules are followed the Imperium does not care. If those rules are broken or the boat is excessively rocked the Imperium suddenly does care and that is terrible because it has no sense of proportional escalation and will confiscate your planet.

Although the Emperor officially rules in practice the Royal Couple spend most of their time touring the Imperium overseeing and inspecting. The day to day running of the Imperium is done by the High Lords of the Imperium who reside on the Holy Planet of Old Earth, know as Terra to the Mechanicum and affiliated institutions.

The High Lords of the Imperium are:

*[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Master of the Administratum Irthu Haemotalion|The Master of the Administratum]]
*The Inquisitorial Representative (currently Hector Rex)
*[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Fabricator-General Oud Oudia Raskian|The Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus]]
*[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Grand Provost Marshal Aveliza Drachmar|The Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites]]
*[[Nobledark Imperium Writing#The Saga of Fedor Jiao|Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators]]
*The Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Astronomican, Schola Psykana and the Black Ships
*Grand Headmaster of Rhetor Imperia and Schola Progenium
*Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Army (ground forces)
*Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Army (space forces)
*Spokesman for the Collective Synod of the Imperium
*The Speaker for the Merchant Navy and Rogue Traders

[[Image:Nobledark Aquila.jpg|thumb|left|250px|The Imperial Aquila, with the twin heads of the Eagle and the Phoenix, symbolizing the union between humankind and Eldar. This is merely the most common variant, with the colors and even to some degree the shape of the Aquila varying based on organization and world.]]

The High Lords of the Imperium were originally set up during the days of the Unification of Old Earth as the task of ruling was becoming too time consuming even for the superhuman Warlord, as he was known at the time. The Warlord's long term hope was that they would eventually be able to replace him entirely and he could step down as the temporary immortal ruler of the masses. His short term goal was to get a bit of free time to learn how to socialize.

As the years wore on it became obvious that humanity on the galactic scale would always need one man of supreme competence to set precedents for the High Lords to follow. The rank of Emperor was created but not occupied by the Warlord who instead became the Steward and would wait for such an individual to arise. In his mind humanity should be ruled by humanity, not be an artificial construct of a failed and half forgotten Empire.

After Goge Vandire was appointed Emperor, screwed everything up and was promptly executed the Steward was bullied by Inquisitor Sebastian Thor and the demands of the masses into taking the role of Emperor. He was not particularly happy about this and at first refused until Inquisitor Thor pointed out that by the end of the day one of them would be sitting on that gaudy old chair and out of the two of them one of them would die of old age eventually and then another civil war this time of succession would almost certainly ensue.

With the exception of the position of the Inquisitorial Representative (which is a ten-year rotating position to make sure the High Lords have the best expert for whatever crisis is facing the Imperium on hand and no one Inquisitor gains too much power), the High Lords of Terra are all human. This is because Eldar live for thousands of years and no one wants to be stuck with one person in the same position for thousands of years. Of course, this doesn’t stop every High Lord and numerous officials beneath them having at least one Seer on their payroll giving advice and wisdom. This benefits the Eldar as well, as it allows them to influence Imperial government without putting themselves directly in the crosshairs. The idea of non-human, non-Eldar High Lords has never come up, seeing as the Imperium has only been officially admitting other species for the last 4,000 years and other species make up only about 1% of the Imperium’s total population. Though given the Tau’s current political ambitions it’s likely that this point is going to be brought up in the near future.

=== Xenos Classifications ===

As the Great Crusade made its way across the stars, back before the Eldar joined and the Imperium was merely the Imperium of Man, the nascent Imperium encountered numerous forms of sentient alien life. Some were non-aggressive towards humanity but merely wished to be left alone, something the Steward was more than willing to oblige. The point of the Great Crusade was to strengthen and unite humanity, not start a hundred petty wars that could weaken humanity in the future via a death of a thousand cuts. Other races, like the Kinebrach or the Eldar of Colchis, were interested in interacting with humanity on peaceful terms, either coexisting as equals or acting as trading partners. The Steward allowed this with some reservation, though he probably told the Xenos in no uncertain terms if he ever found out they were antagonizing or abusing humanity his response would be swift and vengeful. And still others, such as the Nephilem and the Laer, were just so destructive and antagonistic that they simply could not coexist with humanity and had to be destroyed. Any Xenos that would enslave or prey upon humanity, and as it often happened other sentients alongside them, would be put to the sword.

It is these types of interactions that led to the modern Xenos classifications that we know today. Today, the Ordo Xenos of the Inquisition recognizes three major types of sentient alien life:

'''Xenos Familiaris''' – Literally “familiar Xenos” in this case. Used to refer to any Xenos species that is a member of the Imperium. Eldar, Tau, Tarellans, and Demiurg are all representatives of this category. Ironically enough humans also fall into this category if used by a non-human Imperial citizen, as the term essentially means “species that are not my own that are part of the Imperium” as opposed to a human-specific term.

'''Xenos Independens''' – Xenos races that are rational enough that they can negotiate with the Imperium, but for whatever reason are not part of it. Some engage in heavily restricted trade with the Imperium (usually through Rogue Traders, as the Imperium likes to use free trade with the rest of the Imperium as a selling point for minor races to join). Others are aloof and territorial and may have even fought minor skirmishes with the Imperium, but are generally smart enough to sue for peace before things escalate beyond the point of no return. Ordo Xenos Inquisitors like to monitor these species like a hawk, as they are ideal tools for Chaos to subvert and use against the Imperium. The Q’orl and the Jokaero represent the aggressive and affiliative extremes of this category, respectively. Interestingly, the Necron Star Empire was in this category at one point when the Imperium thought they could be negotiated with until the Silent King started getting unreasonable.

'''Xenos Horrificus''' – Hostile xenos. Xenos that are aggressive, destructive, cannot be negotiated with, or have express aims to make total war upon the Imperium, and therefore should be eradicated whenever possible. A declaration of Xeno Horrificus is essentially an all-out biological declaration of war on the species. Orks, tyranids, Crone Eldar, Rak’gol, Slaugh, and Barghesi, among others, all fall into this category.

There is also a fourth category recognized, though not commonly used, by the Order Xenos to refer to Xenos that the Imperium knows little to nothing about: '''Xenos Obscuras'''. Most of the time this classification is used to refer to long-dead races that are of little to no threat to the Imperium, though sometimes it will turn out the species is not as dead as everyone once thought. This doesn't stop entertainment media from using it to explain Inquisitorial heroes finding knowledge of rarely-glimpsed xenos of rumor. If the Inquisition decides that rumors of a xenos species have enough truth to warrant a classification, it is listed as Independens (Pending) or Horrificus (Pending).

Although some Imperial citizens mistake abhumans for Xenos, there is actually a very clear line between the two. If an organism is an Earth-based lifeform originally descended from humanity, it is an abhuman, no matter what it looks like. Anything else is a Xenos.

{| class="wikitable"
!|Xenos Familiaris
!|Xenos Independens
!|Xenos Horrificus
|-
|style="width: 33%" |'''Humanity''' (including abhumans)<br> '''Eldar''' (Craftworld and Exodite)<br> '''Tau''' (joined M39)<br> '''Demiurg''' (joined M36)<sup>1</sup><br> '''Watchers in the Dark''' (joined M36)<sup>2</sup><br> '''Kinebrach''' (joined M36)<sup>3</sup><br> '''Tarellians''' (joined M38)<br> '''Kroot''' (joined M39)<sup>4</sup><br> '''Diasporex'''<sup>5</sup><br>
|style="width: 33%" |'''Hrud'''<br> '''Jokaero'''<br> '''Saruthi''' (the Sane)<br> '''Q'orl'''<br> '''Zoats'''<br>
|style="width: 33%" |'''Orks'''<br> '''Croneworld Eldar'''<br> '''Dark Eldar'''<br> '''Necrons'''<sup>6</sup><br> '''Tyranids'''<br> '''Slaugth'''<br> '''Rak'gol'''<br> '''Laer'''<br> '''Barghesi'''<br> '''Saruthi''' (the Broken)<br>
|}
<sup>1</sup> - First non-human, non-eldar species to officially join the Imperium. Offered alliance in recognition of the great help they gave the Imperium during the Age of Apostasy and the Imperial Civil War <br>
<sup>2</sup> - Were allied with the Dark Angels as early as the Great Crusade, officially didn't exist until Imperium began admitting other species in M36<br>
<sup>3</sup> - Were a protectorate of the Interex until M36, at which point they obtained separate representation <br>
<sup>4</sup> - Originally allied with the Tau, carried over when the Tau joined the Imperium. The Kroot technically don't see themselves as part of the Imperium, rather the Imperium are "preferred clients", but given they dislike Chaos as much as the rest of the Imperium does and the Necrons and tyranids don't hire mercenaries the difference is almost academic.<br>
<sup>5</sup> - Technically a union of multiple species, including humans. Treated as distinct because it's unclear what species, if any, is in charge.<br>
<sup>6</sup> - Were Independens until M40 and the war sparked by the return of the Silent King, still some exceptions like the Gidrim (Nemesor Zahndrekh) and Solemnace (Trazyn the Infinite) Dynasties who are mostly Independens.<br>

=== Member States ===

Most of the worlds encountered by the Imperium during the Great Crusade had greatly devolved during the Age of Strife, and ended up having to be directly administered by the Imperial Government and the Administratum. However, several national entities, including other technologically advanced Survivor civilizations, the Eldar Craftworlds, and several other species of xenos joined the Imperium whilst being interstellar powers in their own right. In these cases, these entities joined as semi-autonomous member states, granting them almost complete political and industrial autonomy in exchange for following the Imperium's few universal rules.

For more information see [[Nobledark_Imperium_Member_States|Member States]]

== Forces of The Imperium ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Imperial Forces]]

== Imperial Society and Culture ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Imperial Society and Culture]]

== Notable People ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notable People]]

=== The Primarchs ===
See [[Nobledark Imperium Primarchs]]

== The Galactic Pantheon ==

'''The Emperor of Mankind''' - "Is not a god" according to his own words when asked. Nevertheless, even if the Emperor is not a god, he is undoubtedly the most powerful champion of humankind, and the Men of Gold were by far the closest thing humankind ever made to Warp Gods. Though he is not a god, he is the mightiest of mortals and more powerful than many purely supernatural entities, similar to Hercules among the old legends of ancient Greece on Old Earth. There are rumors that the Emperor has grown even more powerful, or more skilled, with age, though for the safety of the Imperium the Emperor has never been put on the front lines where these rumors have been put to the test.

'''Isha''' - Embodied in the Eldar Macha, the all-mother and Eternal Empress of the Imperial dominion. Millennia ago she was the fertility goddess of the Eldar pantheon, she opposed Khaine and in the fall did all she could to save the Eldar people, though she was herself taken captive by Nurgle. Through theses valiant efforts and the rule of ages hence the Matron goddess is said to have gained a regality and might that surpasses her old self. She is much occupied by the maintenance of spiritual health at the widest level for the imperium, vying against Slaanesh for whatever fragments of Eldar souls she can salvage, and affording the Imperium's peoples a dominion within the realm of souls somewhat more hospitable than the wilds of the warp.

'''Cegorach''' - The laughing god of the Eldar, also survivor of the fall, now endless jester of the galactic court and master of the Dark Carnival. An involved player of the Great Game, he is supposedly an invaluable asset to the Imperium in the intrigues of immortal beings. To all the worlds of the Imperium he is a figure of myth and folktale, and any real deed is indistinguishable from pure fabrication.

'''[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#The_Void_Dragon|The Void Dragon]]''' - At some point this being was a self-aware expression of nested complexity, or perhaps a very long bolt of lightning, but in the millions of years since then it has gained first an indomitable body of living femto-machines, and now a significant warp presence. It is curious, and eccentric, and it wants to experiment with the warp on a grand scale. It seems to have some appreciation of beings more finite and fragile than it, but it is infinite and hard, and it remains to be seen what god it wishes to be. It it also the Omnissiah, and it is fond of its cult, and finds it a perfect instrument.

'''The Nightbringer''' - This one wishes to be death. It has slain countless species, for ages, across light-years of space and centuries of time. It has done so by stellar radiation and by scythe, and it found that as it killed it's legend and spite proceeded it, until it's own lifeless visage was so known and feared that it cast the Nightbringer its own perfect double in the warp. The great murderer withstood even the full and unilateral hatred of the Necron Star Empire and came away not in shards, but as a great battered undead husk and accompanying splinters. Now awakened, the reaper wishes to regain his mighty warp presence and to restore his form. To this end he embeds lesser shards in mortal hosts, saddled with mortal personas to better domineer them to his will, and sets them to sow death in his image.

'''The Deceiver''' - As consumate a player of games as Cegorach, the liesmith, avatar of duplicity, reveled in the peak of the Necron empire's golden age, happy among the chrome aristocrats and toasted as the diplomat of living gods. He is reviled by the Necrons now, and shattered beyond assembly, but the presence of this being persists despite itself. Its incoherent shards still long for subtlety, for veils of words, and find themselves in the flesh of mortals of high stature as best they can. What plot the Deceiver pursues is unknown, perhaps unknowable, but its shards are of a conspiratorial and avaricious sort, with no favor among the living.

'''Gork & Mork''' - The supreme brutes might be thought unchanged in the eons of their long lives. Not so, for unlike the weaklings of Materium, with each blow to the head they become more cleverer.

'''Tzeentch''' - Created alongside Malal, he was an early warp god of boundless creativity, writing new rules of sorcery and new beings of thought into existence as quickly as Malal could deny them. In the original duality, formed from and shaped by the Old Ones, the warp and sorcery were ultimately manageable and illuminating forces. In subsequent eons this order has changed, Tzeentch has changed, and sorcery has become a bleak art of insane rituals and hateful acts. Where once he sung a song of creation, he is now a delirious, deceptive crow of plots. Tzeentch maintains power bases across the galaxy, as he has since time immemorial, but the true might of his cult is in the twisting redoubts of the Webway and the Warp, in colleges and orders of fell and maddening arts.

'''Malal''' - Originally the 'destroyer' of the Warp, be he denial or the thought of mortality, Malal swept up the multifarious gibbering creations of Tzeentch and met them with their nullifying opposites, or talked them apart with what they weren't. He was supplanted by Khorne after the War in Heaven, and it seemed like impassioned, honorable, involved destruction would better suit the minds of the galaxy than Malal's own nihilistic void of denial.

'''Nurgle''' - In the spring of the galaxy Nurgle was created between Tzeentch and Malal, to me maintainer, shaper, and preserver, until such time as Malal might rightly end a story or thought or thing. In the wake of the War in Heaven, as the triumvirate adjusted to the new galactic order, Nurgle began the slow slide into malignance that also afflicted Tzeentch. Nurgle still ultimately serves his role as preserver, but where once in his garden he strove to safeguard against Khorne and temper Tzeentch he now maintains a landfill. His servants can be found on caustic wasteland planets and in the gutters of rookeries, but the foremost among them are the attendants of Isha, seeking to return her to the garden 'for her own safety', and the Astartes of Sisigmund.

'''Khorne''' - Born in the heat of the War in Heaven, he may be the psychic reverberation of that bloody event, but it has been posited that he coalesced on the battlefield around some great weapon of the Old Ones, prototype to Eldar and Ork alike. His relationship to Khaine is unclear, but they were alike in aspect, and he has taken up much of the old Eldar empire's military caste in his immortal service. He has much love for the Great Game, and it was in the wake of Nurgle's horrible loss that Khorne championed the usurpation of the Orks. The Blood God is the great power in the warp as of the 41st millennium, commanding the fiercest core of Crone Eldar and Fallen warbands and retaining his Ork auxiliaries with greatest ease. His catalyzing role in the War of the Beast, drawing Slaanesh's lust for Isha and Tzeentch's will for change to push Nurgle's corruption en-masse of the orks, such that he might incite them to a direct and purposeful war, has emboldened him to name himself lord of the Immaterium. The Blood God arrays his armies before the Skull Throne in him immaterial domain, and there they drill, and march, and war, and stage interminable invasions of the real. Khorne is said to retain Malal, in some form, as advisor, or weapon, but the diminished god's status in the court of murder is unknown.

'''Slaanesh''' - The Prince of Pleasure was originally conceived to be the god of joy, and of beauty, but its birth, the fall of the eldar, demonstrated the already fallen nature of the eldar empire. The prince now rules the Brass Palace in the warp, attended by daemons and horrors, and for a long while it eagerly feasted on the souls of the eldar. The great mistress of Shah-Dome has since turned to more complex, extended, and varied predilections. While young and weak as a warp presence, Slaanesh maintains a vast physical empire and cult within the eye of terror, intent on shaping the state of the materium for greater power within the warp. The dark prince and its cabal of faithful cenobites wish to see Slaanesh as master of the warp, with all other gods bound before its throne. The Slaaneshi cult is particularly interested in fulfilling the domination of the eldar pantheon, hoping to angle its personal enmity with the unified empire into a claim to arch-deamonhood and luciferian mastery of all temptation.

'''[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Khaine|Khaine]]''' – (UNFINISHED) Still shattered into a million pieces like in canon. Needs a blurb.

'''The Outsider''' – See [[Nobledark Imperium Notes#The_Outsider|The Outsider]] (Temporary placeholder)

'''[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#The_Hive Mind|The Swarmlord]]''' - More of a primordial force of nature than an actual deity, though perhaps it is only natural for mortal minds to immediately jump to the deific when confronted with a warp presence of such magnitude. The Hive Mind is both the summed consciousness of every tyranid organism within the swarm as well as its commander. It’s thought process is alien and incomprehensible by mortal standards. At the very least, its goals are clear: the consumption of every living thing in the galaxy.

'''Ynnead''' – There are whispers of something going on in the warp. Echoes seen by farseers communing with the Infinity Circuits and World Spirits like the thunderhead of a great storm. Some say there appears to be some strange congruence between the portents of this phenomenon and the Starchild Prophecies All that is known is the name of this being and that it is not here yet. Everything else is up in the air.

== Notable Planets ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets]]

== The Craftworlds ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets#The Craftworlds|Craftworlds of The Nobledark Imperium]]

== The Forces of Chaos ==

=== The Forces of Chaos ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#The_Fallen|The Fallen]]

=== The Crone World Eldar ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#The_Crone_World_Eldar|The Crone World Eldar]]

=== Chaos Guard ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#Chaos_Guard|Chaos Guard]]

== Da Orkz ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Da_Orkz|Da Orkz]]

== Necron Star Empire ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Necron Star Empire|Necron Star Empire]]

== Dark Eldar ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Dark Eldar|Dark Eldar]]

== Tyranids ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Tyranids|Tyranids]]

== Writefaggotry ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Writing]]

== Timeline ==

M25 - Fall of the Eldar/Beginning of the Age of Strife. The hedonism of the Old Eldar Empire gives birth to Slaanesh, which wipes out 90% of the eldar population in a single night. Iron Minds (A.I. that controlled most of the Men of Iron) and Men of Gold are driven mad by the backlash, effectively destroying the Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Warp storms make interstellar travel nearly impossible. Societies, human and alien alike, are either wiped out, driven insane, or reduced to Mad Max levels of technology and anarchy. Five thousand years of hell ensues.

Mid to Late M29 - Warlord arises on Old Earth. Divides nations of Earth into two lists. One one side are the ones worth inclusion to the Imperium and on the other the ones that need to be destroyed and their lands divided amongst more worthy men.

Begins global unification using diplomatic means when possible and brute force when not possible.

Late M29/Early M30 - First use of early model Thunder Warriors

Early to mid M30 - Refinement of Thunder Warriors.

Old Earth unified (Except for Hy Brasil). Warlord sets up the Throne of Earth and refuses to sit in it instead becoming the Steward of the Empty Throne. The Throne stands waiting for a worthy individual to become Emperor.

Steward looks towards the sky and is inspired to take the Unification to the other planets of Sol. Appoints 20 generals the title of Primarch to be his leaders among generals.

Sol is unified in a sequence of assimilations, partnerships and short brutal wars of conquest.

Steward sets up High Lords of Terra to run the day to day affairs of the Imperium. Long term goal is to make the Imperium self-governing and then fade away again. Short term goal is to get be able to spend all evening in the pub.

Warp storms subside enough for large scale warp travel to become viable.

Steward looks to the stars and the dream of Unification burns again. Great Crusade starts, lasts slightly longer than in canon (300-500 years, as opposed to 200), because Steward wants whole and functional worlds brought into the Imperium, not broken vassals.

During Great Crusade Steward is contacted by Eldrad "got in a fist fight with Skarbrand and won" Ulthran. The two of them concoct a fiendish plan to break in to Nurgle's mansion and steal Isha back. Eldar send a band of the most fearsome ninja clowns as well as the Phoenix Lords to-be and the Imperium sends its most brutal nutters. Steward leads the expedition. Isha is rescued.

Isha is rescued. Imperium earns the eternal hate of the Chaos Gods. Eldar petition Stewards for inclusion into Imperium. Steward agrees in exchange for Webway access. Eldar are reluctant due to potential damage to webway. Compromise is reached that Inquisition can have unlimited access and the Eldar will upgrade the Astronomican.

Chaos Gods direct the Crone World Eldar to manipulate the orks into unifying under the banner of a warboss know as The Beast. The Beast and all his Boyz are directed towards Old Earth and other key worlds of the Imperium. Dark Eldar join forces with the Crone Worlders for the promise of plunder and slaves.

Primarch Sanguinius dies in the ruins of the Eternity Gate of the Imperial Palace.

Steward about to be pummeled into fine red paste by The Beast. Eldred Ulthran smashes through the wall and joins in the Beast-beating festivities and he and the Steward beat The Beast is a savage brawl.

As payment for saving his life the Steward owes a favour to Eldrad. Eldrad immediately call that favour in and demands that the Steward marry Isha so that the union of Human and Eldar can never be broken.

Imperium recovers over time. Most of the Primarchs die off in battle or simply by time. The title is never given to another; relic of a past age.

Chaos forces usually from the Eye of Terror periodically form Black Crusades to try and topple the Imperium. Imperium stays strong.

M32-M35 - Imperial "Golden Age". Highs not as high as later but lows are not as shitty because you have "only" Orks and Chaos to worry about (Necrons and tyranids not being a thing yet) and there are no constant political upheavals from Age of Apostasy, Tau, etc. Just before the beginning of this period the Imperium has rebuilt enough to reclaim much of the territory it lost during the War of the Beast but was unable to reassert control over.

Eventually at about the turning point of M35 and M36 a great man by the name of Goge Vandire arises to be the head of the Administratum. Steward believes that he has found a worthy man to sit upon the Empty Throne of Earth. Emperor Vandire is an asset to the Imperium. Steward steps down and fades into the shadows of some distant world and disappears for some time.

Goge Vandire goes nuts.

Inquisitor Sebastian Thor raises rebellion against him and causes the Great Civil War. Steward is rediscovered with the Avatar of Isha sitting at the bar of a tropical beach resort on some backwater nowhere planet. Apparently having been on that beech for the last ~150 years.

After 10 years of devastating war Goge Vandire is slain and Sebastian Thor bullies the Steward into sitting on the Throne of Earth and becoming Emperor. 3 of the old Primarchs survive long enough to be present at the ceremony.

Due to substantial Demiurg assistance in the war the new Emperor permits the space traveling craftsmen membership to the Imperium, to the grumbling of the eldar. Imperium becomes open to the idea of accepting other "lesser" peoples into the fold.

Late M36 - First scouting fleets of the Tyranids are sailing through the Imperium. Connection with gene-stealers is made. Scouting fleets eventually slain and it is believed for a time that they are defeated.

Mid M37 - Hive Fleets have arrived (Behemoth in M37, Kraken about 900.M38, and Leviathan some time in M39). A few are slain eventually and at great cost over the next handful of centuries. Most shatter into splinter fleets and terrorize huge swathes of the Galaxy for a long, long time.

At about the M38 mark the Necrons start to rise from their half-death into mechanical unlife. Up till the end of the Dark Millennium there is a gradual and unstoppable increase in Necron activity.

Mid M38 - Tau expeditionary forces encountered for first time. Contact made. Fledgling Tau Empire is unaware of the scale of the wars across the galaxy or the vastness of the Imperium. Refuses all efforts at inclusion.

Late M38 - Tau have a serious Artificial Intelligence rebellion after ignoring the repeated warnings of the Mechanicus. Dark Eldar take advantage of this time of weakness to use their failing Empire as slave raiding grounds despite the Tau themselves being "bland". Still refuse inclusion to Imperium when offered.

Mid M39 - Tau have recovered their old Empire bounds and are once more expanding their borders. Historians note passing similarities to the expansion of early Imperium.

Mid M39 - Ethereal Council of the Eastern Fringe is once more pressing for closer relations with the greater Imperium. Fire Warrior general by name of Farsight believes that too much of the ideologies of the Greater Good have already been compromised by outside influences. Demands return to old ways.

Political turmoil and minor skirmishes that the Tau believe are real wars erupt across the eastern fringe. Largely the Imperium fails to notice. Or care.

Farsight and friends carve out their own Enclave and defy the Imperium. Ethereals furious at this breach of Tau honour. General Shadowsun swears a blood oath against Farsight.

Mid to Late M39 - Series of crippling wars with the Hive Fleets and pyrrhic victories leaves the Tau once more vulnerable to Dark Eldar raids, and raid they do. They finally accept the offer of inclusion to the Imperium.

M40 - Necrons awakening increases. Silent King spotted. Silent King tries to rebuild old Necrontyr Star Empire. Silent King wishes to find a way to reverse the biotransferance. New rebellions against The Silent King erupt on both scores.

Some of the more minor and "eccentric" Necron Lords seek refuge in the Imperium. Emperor eventually agrees on the logic that it's better to have them in here pissing out than out there pissing in. Necron Lords, inhumanly powerful and prideful as they are, swear to obey their new liege so long as he never actually orders them to do anything.

Eldar are livid at the inclusion of the Necrons. Some craftworlds consider trying to leave the Imperium.

Mid M41 - Brain Boys spotted. Any talk of abandoning ship stops abruptly. Nobody wants to jump off the boat, no matter how many vermin are in it, when the alternative is sharks.

Late M41 - The Hive Fleets were just a vanguard. The Tyranids are assaulting the entire eastern galactic edge in such numbers that they blot out the stars.

== Miscellaneous Notes ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notes]]

== The Archived Threads ==

Thread 1 (warning: extreme waifuing and shitposting) - https://boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/49437641

Thread 1b (warning: extreme waifuing and shitposting) - https://boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/49488764

Thread 2 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49591185/

Thread 3 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49707496/

Thread 4 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49889220/

Thread 5 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49948023/

Thread 6 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50077670/

Thread 6b - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50119235/

Thread 7 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50263743/

Thread 8 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50425952/

Thread 9 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50684106/

Thread 9b - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50719277/

Thread 10 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50874097/

Thread 11 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50992723/

Thread 12 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51105718/

Thread 13 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51257007/

Thread 14 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51441824/

Thread 15 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51524369/

Thread 16 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51646615/

Thread 17 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51833468/

Thread 18 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51833468/

Thread 19 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51972949/

Thread 20 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52094866/

Thread 21 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52262671/

Thread 22 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52451994/

Thread 23 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52634996/

Thread 24 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52769445/

Thread 25 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52931666/

Thread 26 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53143370/

Thread 27 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53338185/

Thread 28 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53557919/

Thread 29 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53787726/

Thread 30 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53972235/

Thread 31 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/54215770/

Thread 32 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/54503379/

Thread 33 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/54715863/

Thread 34 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55001131/

Thread 35 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55066206/

Thread 36 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55313386/

Thread 37 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55583946/

Thread 38 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55824461/

Thread 39 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56059361/

Thread 40 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56286128/

Thread 41 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56468501/

Thread 42 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56684946/

Thread 42b - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56706040/

Thread 43 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56930616/

Thread 44 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56947494/

Thread 45 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57055511/

Thread 46 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57242663/

Thread 47 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57265950/

Thread 48 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57452096/

Thread 49 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57661171/

Thread 50 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57828105/

Thread 51 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57999291/

Thread 52 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/58264906/

Thread 53 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/58563280/

Thread 54 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/58818593/

[[Category:Nobledark Imperium]]

Nobledark Imperium Drafts

2018-07-07T05:27:55Z

2601:602:9A01:56E0:9DFF:BA8B:71FC:7FE8: /* Xenos Classifications */

{{stub}}

'''This page is part of the Nobledark Imperium, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the [[Nobledark Imperium|Nobledark Imperium Introduction]] and [[Nobledark Imperium|Main Page]] for more information on the alternate universe'''

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Eternal Emperor and Empress have been joined in their holy union. He is the last relic of a lost age when hope and wisdom ruled the galaxy, still clinging to his purpose of forging a better future, and she is the last remnant of an ancient pantheon, a mother watching over dying children brought low by their own hubris. Together, they are the Masters and Guardians of Mankind and Eldar, the keepers of the Last Alliance, the embodiments of the Imperium to which a hundred sapient species swear their fealty.

At the core of the Imperium is Humanity, its teeming multitudes ever resilient, stubbornly carving out a future amongst the hostile stars. The greatest of Man’s allies are the Eldar, ancient and wise, their shared bond forged in battle and sealed in blood millennia ago. Since then, others have been judged worthy to join in the light of the Imperium, to stand with Men and Eldar as fellows: the industrious Demiurge, enigmatic Tau, countless strains of Abhumans, and many more.

Yet for all the Imperium’s numbers, it is barely enough to stave off the forces that would tear it down. United under savage Beasts, the Orkish hordes throw themselves at the great edifice of the Imperium. The Necrons are awakening to a changed galaxy, and seeth at the primitives who would dare harbor their greatest foes the Eldar. From the galactic east, the Tyranids have made landfall and sweep over countless worlds in their hungering tide. In the shadows lurk the Dark Eldar, reveling in the carnage of a galaxy at war. And from the Immaterium, the Chaos Gods brood and plot their eternal vengeance, served by the twisted Chaos Eldar.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold trillions. It is to live in the last bastion of civilization as the darkness draws near. These are the tales of those times. Forget the stories of peace and harmony, for they are fables of a gentler time, when the world still made sense. Remember the stories of struggle and defiance, full of brotherhood and sacrifice, for those are the ones that really matter. Peace is a distant dream growing ever fainter, and there is only war as Men and Eldar hold the line for the promise that has been whispered through the generations, from father to son, from mother to child: that there is good left in the world, and that is worth fighting for.

== To-do List ==

*Finish Primarchs
*Establish timeline and events, and how similar they are to canon 40k
**Origins of Warlord/Steward/Emperor, and his own timeline
**Unification of Terra
**Great Crusade
**Rescue of Isha
**War of the Beast (replacing Horus Heresy)
**Armageddon?
**Tyranids? Have they fully arrived yet
**Other SMs? Only the original legions, or others? Chapters?

*When is present day?
*Repercussions of Imperium/Eldar alliance?
*add new canon from gathering storm and 8th e

== The Imperium: Then ==

''"Of course we are at war. Why on Old Earth's green soil would you believe we are not at war. We are in what is essentially a siege position, with an unfortifiable border stretching an entire 360 degrees for several light years in every conceivable direction. [[Chaos|Our]] [[Orks|enemy]] has no concept of "rest" or "armistice" and can pop up at any time, on any side, in any position within the massive amounts of space between the mud marbles that we call the worlds of the Imperium. The Imperium is always going to be at war. Why would you ever believe otherwise?"''<br>
- Primarch Rogal Dorn, showing his usual level of tact

=== A Brief History of the Early Days ===

Maps of Old Earth, circa M30

<gallery>
Image:Old_Earth_before_the_Unification.png
Image:Old_Earth_after_Unification.jpg
</gallery>

==== Ursh ====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''The Nightmare of Old Earth:'''''

Of all the national entities that existed when the Warlord emerged on Old Earth, none is perhaps as infamous as the Empire of Ursh. The Tyrant of Gredbriton consorted with the Ruinous Powers and used horrific chemical weaponry, but few others in Gredbriton actually worshipped Chaos and thus his ability to do widespread damage was limited. The Pan-Pacific Empire was an absolute nightmare to its own people, but seemed largely unconcerned with the world outside its borders. The Yndonesian Bloc was a brutalistic theocracy, but also tended to be rather isolationist. The Merican junta was an expansionistic, nationalistic military state, but at the very least it did not treat its citizens as disposable, if only to protect the investment, and the people there had at least some standard of living. Ursh, by contrast, shared all of these negative features with its contemporary empires and suffered none of the limitations. The Empire of Ursh was a major influence in the histories of numerous other Unification-era countries, including Terrawatt-Uralia, Duscht Jemanic, Bania, the former components of the Everlasting Tharkian Empire (including Macedonia and Achaemenidia), the Nord Afrik conclaves, the Afrique League, Merika, Ind, Sibar, Sino-Japan, and the Khanate. In many ways, the Unification of Earth can be directly tied to the rise and fall of the Empire of Ursh.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Empire of Ursh was originally founded in northeastern Azia, on the banks of the Amyur River. Despite containing fertile riverlands, this area was never an important center of industry and agriculture during the Dark Age of Technology, and so was spared from some of the worst of the horrors of the Old Night. The ancestors of the people who would come to form the Empire of Ursh came from such ancient, long-forgotten countries as Russia or China, but they nation they ended up founding would become a completely different entity altogether. The first ruler of Ursh was a rather eccentric man named Kalagann the Great, who in spite (or more likely because) of his eccentricity, was able to unite the various pocket kingdoms, city states, and villages around the Amyur River into an actual nation-state. Early historians often described Kalagann as nothing more than a prelude to the infamous cruelty of the Despots, but later historians have found that there was nothing to suggest that Kalagann was as evil as his successors. Indeed, Kalagann seemed to be genuinely concerned for the welfare of his people, and there is no evidence that Ursh had yet been corrupted by the Ruinous Powers. Ursh was one of the first nation-states to rebuild from the metaphorical and literal fallout of the rebellion of the Men of Iron and the beginning of the Age of Strife, and for a while it seemed like Ursh was going to be the pinnacle of civilization on Earth, an illustration that society could rebuild from the Age of Strife. However, a few years after Kalagann’s death, it all started to go wrong.

As they expanded from their initial cradle of neo-civilization, the Urshii found themselves surrounded on three sides by tribal hunter-gatherers (Sibar), steppe nomads (the steppe nomads of the future Khanate), and subsistence farmers that seemed to have no aspirations of greater empire (Sino-Japan). Over time, the Urshii began to see themselves as the sole remaining carriers of the torch of civilization that stretched all the way back to ancient Sumeria, and as “enlightened” people it was their job to shepherd the rest of the uncivilized masses back into the light. Urshii art and architecture was heavily influenced by this concept, being consciously modeled after imperial China or ancient Mesopotamia, two of the great cradles of civilization, despite Ursh itself have very little direct connection with either. These included a lot of ziggurats, which were seen as stairways to the heavens and often the site of important, and often unsavory, political or religious functions. The rulers of Ursh, the infamous Despots, believed that they had been given the divine mandate to bring civilization back to the people of Earth, granted to them by the four great heavenly powers, which were represented by the four directional winds. These four gods were, of course, the Ruinous Powers, who just loved to subvert and co-opt local cultural and religious beliefs for their own purposes. The Despots were educated from birth that they were god-kings, and that they and they alone knew what was best for Ursh and humanity. This, along with the systematic dehumanization of the serfs and non-Urshii, was one of the reasons for the infamous brutality of the Despots of Ursh. In their view, questioning the Despots or making a request was tantamount to saying the "god-kings" didn't know what they were doing.

Despite seeing the usefulness of advanced weapons of war, the Empire of Ursh was downright backwards technologically when compared to the other major empires of that time such as Merika, Hy Braseal, and the Pan-Pacific Empire. Indeed, one of the major reasons the Empire of Ursh invaded the Afrique League and the Nord Afrik conclaves in M28, one of the largest military engagements on Earth prior to the Unification Wars themselves, was primarily for technology to use against their larger neighbors. Instead, the Urshii preferred to look inwards, focusing more on religion and the occult rather than technological advancement. To the Urshii, technology was only useful if it could further aid them in their goal of conquest.

The Empire of Ursh had the largest fleet of any pre-Unification power with over twelve ships, but these ships were so derelict as to be borderline space hulks and could not even leave low Earth orbit. Indeed, because these ships were so decrepit and spread over such a wide area of territory they were used more for denying the orbital high ground than to actually fight. Records indicate that when a ship was too damaged to fly or an enemy ship was actually shot down the Urshii would swarm over the wreckage like scavengers on a Void Whale carcass, salvaging the ship's weapons to attach to ground vehicles to turn them into overbuilt weapons platforms. This was about the limits of Urshii technological aptitude.

Ursh was perhaps best known for its army, which despite its limited technology was the terror of Old Earth for many years. At the center of the army were the Nobleborn, elite warriors who were born of the upper class and given the best weapons and training the Urshii could afford. However, there were never enough Nobleborn to make a full-scale army large enough to take on Ursh's neighbors, even with Ursh's massive population. Additionally, although the Nobleborn made good shock troops, they had little tactical flexibility and could not perform specialist roles. Therefore, the Urshii often supplemented the Nobleborn core of their army with various auxiliaries, drawn from the numerous enslaved people and vassal states around the empire. Ursh primarily controlled its auxiliaries through mutual fear. The Red Engines feared the steppe nomads, who feared the Tupelov Lancers, who in turn feared the Roma, and so on and so forth. All feared the wrath of the Despot of Ursh.

Urshii society could be divided into three major groups. On the one hand, there were the various vassals and conquered peoples, who were seen as less than human and treated poorly. On the other, there were the serfs, who despite being Ursh-born were not “chosen”, and therefore also considered to be subhuman and treated poorly. And finally, there was an upper class, composed of a combination of the military, scientific, religious, mystic, and cultural elite. One of the only good things one could say about the Empire of Ursh is that they valued personal ability when they saw it, though admission into the nobility was only available to those who were both skilled and truly indoctrinated in the Urshii philosophy and religion. Urshii high courts were often a web of treachery and deceit, with nobles plotting against each other for power. The Despots encouraged this behavior, particularly among the Urshii lords of far-off conquered territories, as it kept them fighting among themselves for the Despot’s favor rather than deciding to secede and form their own petty empires.

After the fall of Ursh, this class system was thoroughly dismantled, though few of the nobility actually survived. Most of the nobility had been so indoctrinated in the superiority of Ursh and their gods that they would rather charge unarmed at a group of soldiers outnumbering them a hundred to one than accept defeat at the hands of “lesser peoples”. It was this attitude that led to the Urshii insurgency in Sibar, which was a thorn in the side of the Imperium for nearly twenty years after the fall of Ursh itself. The various freed vassals and serfs, on the other hand, were in some ways brought together by the shared experiences of the horrors of the tyrants, leading to the use of the term “Children of Ursh” to refer to those who had suffered at the hands of the Despots.

</div>
</div>

==== The Khanate ====

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Pastoral_Worlds|The Pastoral Worlds]]

=== The Great Crusade ===

==== The Fable of Djerba ====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">

Today the world of Djerba in the Segmentum Solar is not particularly notable. But it’s Crusade-era history is well-known. Like many worlds during the Age of Strife, the original population included a significant number of people who were touched by the Warp, which increasing manifested itself as the Age of Strife went on. Unfortunately, like many worlds during the Age of Strife, including Barbarus, the psykers on Djerba went mad with power and set themselves up as god-kings over the common people. On Djerba, these psykers called themselves Cognoscynths.

The psychic abilities of the people of Djerba primarily manifested as a form of mind control. Cognoscynths could invade and control the mind of an ordinary person on a whim, rewriting memories, suppressing morality and self-preservation, and forcing any who could not surpass their willpower and psychic might to be their slaves. Before long, although the surface of Djerba was nominally made up of numerous warring nation-states, the leadership of these nations were little more than puppets to the Cognoscynths. The Cognoscynths erected their City of Sight above Djerba, from which they controlled the people below like marionettes on strings. They forced the people below them to go to war for their amusement, laughing as man slaughtered man at their whim.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

According to legend, the Imperium sent three emissaries to the Cognoscynths. The first was the [[Nobledark_Imperium_Primarchs#Magnus_the_Red|Scholar]], a giant clad in red, who came bearing words of warning. He had come to Djerba hearing rumors of a society where outcasts such as he could co-exist in peace with normal men without fear of persecution. What he saw disheartened him. Here was a society which embodies the worst nightmare of the most closed-minded and hateful of mankind, who feared the witch and hated the psyker.

The Cognoscynths psychically commanded him to bow. The Scholar said no. In that moment, the Cognoscynths realized that they were to the man before them as hills were before a mountain. With rage burning in his one eye, the Scholar said he would give the Cognoscynths one warning. Dismantle their oppressive society and free the ordinary men and women they had enslaved, or face the consequences. For if they did not he would to return with his liege, and his liege was not as forgiving as he.

The second was the Shepherd, clad in gold, who brought words of doom. The Cognoscynths had ignored the warning of the Scholar, and had not changed their ways since he had left. The Shepherd was the Scholar’s liege, and came before the Cognoscynths much as the Scholar had. He said that he had seen the world the Cognoscynths had wrought. The Cognoscynths had been judged, and found wanting. Once more, the Cognoscynths were enraged at being judged by an outsider, and attempted to psychically compel him to bow. They failed. Whereas the Scholar had been a mountain, the Shepherd was like a monolith of adamantium, only gold instead of grey.

Their prodigious psychic powers failing them, the Cognoscynths turned to words. They scoffed at the idea of the Shepherd bringing judgement upon them. For all of his power, the Shepherd was just one man. Even if he brought the Scholar, the two did not have the power to command them on their own. The Cognoscynths were each powerful psykers, who could command armies of their own. Whereas any army the Shepard could bring would fall under the control of their powers and turn on their fellows. What could the Shepard do to them?

“I will bring your empire down with a single soldier,” said the Shepherd, then left.

The third Emissary was the [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Jenetia_Krole|Slayer]], clad only in black. She brought no words, only death. Where she walked, men went mad, the witch-touched tearing their eyes out and clawing at their skin whereas the mundane became ill and collapsed from severe vertigo. None could seemingly touch her. Even the Cognoscynths were not immune. The Slayer only killed two-thirds of the Cognoscynths, by the time she turned her attention to the remainder they were already dead, the last choking on his own blood.

The people of Djerba were freed both in body and mind, and with freed fists celebrated their liberators. But to this day, the Imperium still remembers the lesson of the Cognoscynths, even if only as a cautionary tale, as best exemplified by the colors of Djerba. Red, gold, and black.

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==== The Rangdan Xenocides and the Slaugth ====

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The Rangdan Xenocides were by far the most costly conflict ever fought during the Great Crusade. The campaign included the involvement of three Space Marine legions (the Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and the Ultramarines), several Titan legions, and significant numbers of the Solar Auxilla; needed the assistance of the Eldar to gain a foothold; and required the direct intervention of the Steward himself to finally turn the tide.

The opposing forces of the Rangdan Xenocides were the Slaugth. The Slaugth were colonial organisms resembling masses of maggots (though pedantic AdBio members would point out they also showed similarities to Terran leeches and earthworms) linked together in a mucosal sheath into a humanoid shape. The constant psychic contact between the individual worms in the colony, combined with the completely horrific and alien mindset of the Slaugth by the standards of nearly every other race in the galaxy, made them revolting to directly touch with psychic powers. Psychic contact with a Slaugth was not like the mental communion of matter and anti-matter of a blank, but described more like sticking one’s arms up to the shoulder in maggots. “Only a daemon would want a Slaugth’s soul”, an old Crusade-era saying goes.

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The Slaugth themselves had an entirely self-centered mindset and only cared about themselves and their desires, to the detriment of the rest of the universe. Although they were able to scrape together some semblance of social order, the Slaugth saw everyone and everything, even members of their own kind, as little more than tools or slaves to fulfill their needs. For the most part, the most prominent of those needs was hunger. Although the Slaugth were naturally detritivores and could survive on any flesh, they most preferred to feed on brains (the larger and more complex, the better), and had developed a system to feed this gluttony. Humans, eldar, and other sapients were farmed like cattle, their brains extracted, and the waste meats fed back to the livestock and Slaugth bio-constructs like Osseivores. The Slaugth did not eat the brains of other sapients solely for their nutritional value. Absorbing nutriends from a brain would cause an individual Slaugth worm to be overwhelmed by neurotransmitters, producing a euphoric effect similar to a chemical high.

Indeed, just about the only reason the Slaugth didn’t readily turn on each other is that Slaugth couldn’t really eat other Slaugth. If one Slaugth colony tried to eat another Slaugth, the two would simply merge into a single giant Slaugth colony twice as large and twice as hungry as its constituents. Even if a Slaugth did manage to completely kill all the component individuals of a fellow Slaugth colony before eating it, Slaugth flesh simply tasted foul to their own kind. And this is assuming that a Slaugth could kill another Slaugth in the first place. Being composed of hundreds if not thousands of individual organisms, Slaugth lacked vital organs or a centralized nervous system and were notably hard to kill. For this reason, Slaugth tended to prefer necrotic weaponry, which rotted the tissues of their foes from the inside-out and was one of the few ways (aside from fire, plasma, or radiation) to make sure another Slaugth was reliably dead. The fact that it also worked well on the bio-constructs that Slaugth technology was largely based around just made it even more attractive.

Given this entirely self-centered mindset, it is difficult to imagine how a species like the Slaugth could have ever developed a civilization, let alone space travel. However, what little historical records remain show the Slaugth arose long after the end of the Old Ones in the War in Heaven and long before humanity developed widespread genetic engineering or spread out into the stars. Current hypotheses suggest that the Old Eldar Empire, or at least someone like them, was responsible for the uplift of the Slaugth from what were essentially fire and tool-using ants into a starfaring species, as well as their adoption of a humanoid form.

By the time the Imperium encountered the Rangda, the Slaugth were being ruled by an Iron Mind. A minor Iron Mind, to be sure, but even a minor Iron Mind was still dangerous. The Slaugth and the Iron Mind had formed a kind of symbiosis, or as close to one as the Slaugth were capable of. The Iron Mind handled the long term planning of the Rangdan Empire, which the Slaugth naturally didn’t have the wherewithal or inclination to run, and the Slaugth indulged it in its god complex and protected its physical body while its artificial soul ran with daemons in the Warp. When the Imperium fought the Slaugth the Iron Mind was able to coordinate the movement of its forces with uncanny accuracy. Companies would advance only to be met with forces that already predicted their arrival. However, when the Imperium finally made a beachhead on Rangda, the Steward took to the field and struck down the Iron Mind with an ancient archaeotech device of unknown purpose from the vaults of Ganymede. With the Iron Mind destroyed, the cohesion of the Slaugth was broken, and the remaining factions were run down and killed by the Imperium and Eldar.

It was during the Rangdan Xenocides that the Dark Angels, who were previously tied for the status of “most numerous legion” with the Ultramarines, became the largest standing legion by a wide margin. Although the Ultramarines were well-trained and highly-skilled, the Slaugth were an outside context problem for them and they suffered grievous casualties. Still others became infested through some unknown means and had to be mercy killed, their eyes begging for death and their limbs moved to butcher their comrades in the name of their xenos master. By contrast, the Dark Angels had been traveling the void and dealing with anomalous phenomena for far longer, and knew how to deal with the unexpected. While the Ultramarines immediately moved to free the Slaugth chattel, the Dark Angels held back and waited. Although this seemed callous at the time, the Dark Angels knew that the Slaugth would use the prisoners as bait for an ambush, and that by focusing their efforts on the Slaugth or restricting any rescue operations to the cover of darkness they could save a lot more prisoners than otherwise possible. The rise of the Dark Angels as the undisputable largest legion set the stage for Luther’s actions during the War of the Beast, and made the betrayal of the Fallen that much more devastating.

Imperial and Eldar forces rescued numerous humans and Eldar from Rangda and the surrounding worlds of the Slaugth Empire. Eldar rescuees, due to the longer generational gaps, were not as mentally damaged and were herded off to the nearest Craftworlds where they could be given some semblance of a normal life. Although these slaves were physically normal, mentally, it would be more accurate to describe them as livestock than anything else. They had spent at least a few thousand years being bred for servile, docile natures and to be just strong enough to not need looking after much but too weak to pose any sort of threat. The Imperium tried to uplift them in a similar manner to the ogryn, but had variable success. In the end, the human survivors of Rangda were largely adopted by the various Legions. They were docile but they were dutiful, they also had inhuman patience and didn't get bored by repetitive tasks. Their tainted bloodline has by 999.M41 faded away though many in the Imperium, even some Space Marines, could claim to have at least one ancestor in the "serf families" as they became known.

Today across most of the galaxy the Slaugth are considered to be harmless boogeymen, an extinct xenos species whose only modern function is to scare children into eating their vegetables. There are others who know better. Not every Slaugth was killed in the aftermath of the Rangdan Xenocides. Some escaped the destruction of their species, hiding amongst the flesh of the dead in places beneath notice. Today the Slaugth exist in the shadows, multiplying in the places out of sight ready to emerge wherever weakness or rot presents itself. Slaugth have been sighted in the xenos districts of Low Commorragh, trading technological abominations to the Dark Eldar in exchange for slaves. Some have even suggested that the abundance of Slaugth in the Calixis Sector is not a coincidence, speaking in hushed tones of bargains struck between the maggot men and the separatist Emperor Severan of the Severan Dominate.

The surviving Slaugth seem surprisingly unconcerned with the loss of their empire. They resent it, but they are not devastated by it in the way that a human, eldar, or tau would be. Indeed, the Slaugth seem to see the destruction of their empire and near-extinction of their species as “not their problem”. And given that the Slaugth are colonial organisms, who can reproduce asexually or with minor contact with other colonies, it could be argued that the death of the rest of their race really was “not their problem”. Indeed, the empire at Rangda was in effect the normal Slaugth modus operandi on a large scale. The similarities are evident; a large number of thralls and bio-constructs lorded over by a Slaugth elite, resembling a feedlot or a parasitic infestation more than what one would think of as civilization. It’s possible that while the Slaugth might on some level desire retribution for the destruction of their empire, given their mindset they might just consider vengeance another flavor of eating.

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=== The War of the Beast ===

==== Raid of Chthonia ====

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The Raid of Chthonia was not a strategically important battle in the War of the Beast, but it has long stood as an eerie portent in the annals of imperial history, and may be remembered with hate in the clash of some future war. During the Great Crusade the system spanning ruin had been garrisoned by detachments of both the Imperial navy and army, as well as a contingent of Mechanicus intent on the study of the ancient hub system, and a special Custodes unit nominally present to ensure the safety of the treasures of human heritage. At the time of the Dark Eldar engagement Chthonia was far from the main theaters of battle, and much of its naval and infantry guard had been ordered into the defense of Old Eath. The raid is notable as the largest single incursion the Dark Eldar have ever made into realspace, and the only time the great tyrant Absurael Vect is known to have walked an imperial world. As the siege of Old Earth reached its terrible climax the Chthonian system was set upon by a force of corsairs and kabalites, first seeming a particularly fierce attack of opportunity, but with the appearance of Crone and Upper Commorragh command ships, then Vect’s own, it became apparent the scale of the assault.

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While significant fortifications had been established on one of the system's rocky inner planets and the foundations and initial foundries of a new forge laid on another in hopes of staging exploration through the system the forces that remained to man them were few. Navy and Mechanicus ships scrambled to secure their orbits against the tide of corsairs. The imperial officers could do little but watch through their telescopes as the Crone and Commoraghi command ships maneuvered to the crest of the golden circlet and made to secure the broken ring set around the Chthonian star.

Of the Imperial forces present the techpriests were the best armed and in the greatest number, but they received the greater part of the Dark Eldar's attention. The guns of explorator ships and newly scavenged archeotech illuminated the space around Chthonia III, but even as the darting corsair ships burned in orbit they made for the surface. The orbit of Chthonia rapidly became a dynamic hell of boarding actions and lance fire as incubi and skitarii ripped into each other in fierce engagements that were soon mirrored on the planet's surface. The Commoraghi forces on Cthonia made to plunder the forge of its magos and higher acolytes, while those around Chthonia IV tried to cripple the Imperial military force. The predominantly Voidborn battlegroup successfully held against corsair opening salvos, the remaining imperial army forces on Chthonia IV supported their meagre naval force with surface based lance and torpedo installations and polar weapons platforms. As the third day of fighting on and around Chthonia III dragged to a close the remaining Mechanicus forces retreated first to their ships in orbit, then to their sister world. As they broke from the fray the attacking Dark Eldar made for the crest and their command ships.

The dark battleships of the attacking force's Crone sorcerers and mighty archaeons were moored among the gleaming discharge towers and control domes of the crest facility, the forces of the haemonculus and balesingers they brought with them engrossed in the wonders they were dissecting. Assets drawn from Vect's own fleets and forces manned the shredding guns set up in the installation's spires and the cutters ready to intercept any counterattack meant to dislodge his expedition. In the years that followed Inquisitorial investigators and their illuminate superiors judged that his forces had access to facilities that were integral to the creation and engineering of souls, facilities that housed the stacks of Dark Age Abominable Intelligence that trawled the deep warp, and others that prepared blank bodies for life. The extent of his Haemonculi and sorcerers gained from this endeavor could not be known, and the Magos of Chthonia III was never found.

As the bloodied forces of the Mechanicus and Imperium regrouped at Chthonia IV under the protection of its surface armaments they made to contact the wider imperium and the Custodes garrison. Attempts to call for aid brought dismay, the latest news was that Sanguinus was dead and the Eternity Gate breached, and no reinforcements could be spared. In spite of this blow it was found that the Custodes still held the focal complex and central repository, and hoped to hold it longer still even as their barricades breached. It took two more days to prepare a meaningful attack force to challenge the Dark Eldar assembled at the crest, and for that time the focal complex and its golden defenders held by power glaive and sword even as they fell back from lab to lab, and dove back into lost chambers to face down witches and horrors that strove to pry forth their lord's very fundament.

The defending Custodes were all but overrun, but enough stood to continue to disrupt the invading Dark Eldar. In later stories of the battle it is said that Vect entered the complex guarded by mandrakes and his personal retainers, intent on ensuring the successful looting and study of this piece of imperial history, and was engaged at some distance by a Custodian wielding a rocket launcher. The remains of the Custodes unit was forced to its final fallback position in the central operating chambers, as well as a handful of holdouts fighting on across the massive complex. Vect was still in the complex when the remaining Imperial and Mechanicus ships entered combat with the corsairs and set course to charge the moored command ships. While some of the Imperial vessels were intercepted, others picked off by the corsairs before they could get the commanding crone ships in range, much of the counterattacking force got in among the enemy fleet, some ramming and others firing their guns until they no longer could.

The great tyrant's personal hasty retreat spared him and his ship. The corsairs fled soon after the first Imperial ships detonated their drives, their Mechanicus crews devoted to the sanctity of the Omnissiah and hatred for such things as haemonculi. The crone ships burned among the emission spires, their blasted wrecks were pinned to command domes by the broken prows of imperial ships. The ships that remained after the initial charge ran down the fleeing pirates until they slipped into the webway, or else entered the crest and threw themselves into the destruction of the straggling Dark Eldar. Even as the remaining Voidborn and Imperial army forces relieved the Custodes unit from their charred and melted fortification there was little celebration. To their best knowledge the Imperium had fallen, whatever their victory was worth, and they braced for the worst. It took another day to establish contact with the Imperial navy, which confirmed the opposite.

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==== Battle of Mount Afonso ====

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#Drach'nyen|Drach'nyen]]

==== Battle of Necromunda ====

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The Battle of Necromunda was a major conflict during the War of the Beast, where the Imperial Fist fought to control both the planet and space around the hive-world itself. As a technologically advanced Survivor civilization, Necromunda was a major munition manufactorum that directly supplied munitions to the front lines and Terra itself. As the Beast made a beeline for Terra to recapture Isha and kill the Steward, in order to make the upcoming Battle of Terra easier other Orks and Crone Eldar worked together to cut off the entire Sol-Sector from the rest of the Imperium. When a blockade couldn't be establish the Chaos forces switched from cutting supply lines to outright attacking the production of supplies itself. The ever opportunistic Dark Eldar joined along for the ride with the Chaos forces to make the Imperial shipping lanes a living hell to operate within Segmentum Solar.

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The sights of a big WAAAGH! had the poor planet of Necromunda as the next prey after already destroying several Imperial worlds when they bypassed Terra. Still rich in mineral and other resources the hive-clusters on the surface would be devastated in the fighting in the orbit as debris from Imperial Navy wrecks, Ork Rokks, and twisted Crone corpses rained down upon the planet. Due to people living in such tightly packed conditions, tens of thousands of civilians died just in the first week of fighting over the planet. The Imperial Fist sent a detachment of 40,000 Space Marines under First Captain Sigismund to defend the planet at all cost, but an unknown amount of ships got lost in transit due to Warp interference that was probably conjured by the Crone Eldar. When Sigismund arrived over the planet, the Imperial Navy was in a stalemate with Chaos ships where neither side could attack without being destroyed in a single battle. Unfortunately, the Ork ships orbiting Necromunda had mostly crashed onto the surface to begin invading the planet. Sigismund would report that Imperial Fist ships are arriving over the planet at random times yet there were enough Battle Barge to kill the Chaos fleet. The Battle Barges combined with the Imperial Cruisers attacked to finally crush the remaining Chaos fleet, ending the battle in orbit.

However, the damage was already done for Necromunda as the majority of the invading Orks had already crash-landed into or near the hive-clusters. Sigismund ordered all available Imperial Fists to land and defend the manufactorums at all cost. The hive cities were turned to fortresses (more than usual), in that the Orks paid five Boyz for every one Space Marine. However, even this was not enough when the Orks outnumbered the Imperial Fist ten to one. What was more frightening was that the invaders were making fast progress as well. Thousands of Imperial Fist were lost within the first few days of fighting in the hives. Sigismund was not shocked with the losses but rather had expected them knowing how the battles in the War of the Beast worked. What he did feel was worried by the fact that as this battle of attrition continued, the Imperial Fist will lose the world being bleed dry.

The streets were filled with trenches, the spires were kill-zones, and rooms were bunkers. Hallways were blocked off with the bodies of fallen Imperial Fists with armor still on them. Hive gangers had resorted to cannibalism while the rest of the civilians fled away from the hives. The desperate and pure hopelessness of fighting in the hives led to many, including Sigismund, to fall under the sway of the Plague Father. The wishes of eternal life and reviving fallen brothers to help the defense of Necromunda were granted under a demonic pact with the First Captain's blood. The words "I offer all those presently under my command" had damned all 40,000 (living and dead) Imperial Fist, along with the mortal crew of the Battle Barges, to serve Nurgle.

The fallen Imperial Fist were brought back, along with some being granted immunity to pain and being able to fight while still missing all limbs but one arm. Now the Orks had to kill every Space Marine twice and each Marine could take twice as many wounds. The blessed Imperial Fist shot the Orks in the front as the revived brothers shot from behind, the Orks had walked into a trap of their own making. In the ending stages of hunting down the last Orks, an unknown Space Marine clearly blessed with illnesses shouted "For the Imperium!" before slicing an Ork with his Lighting Claws.

The Battle of Necromunda was won but neither for the Imperials nor the Beast. The real victors were the Chaos Space Marines. True the Imperium still held the planet and the Ork WAAHG! was crushed, but this was done for the price of almost 40,000 Imperial Fists turning to Chaos and forever being lost to the Imperium. Those on the planet that sought the Dark Gods’ help did so when they were forced to either flee and lose the planet or have a heroic last stand and then lose the planet. Well, one must remember that Sigismund was told to "Hold Necromunda at all cost" even at the price of any lives and damnation.

The traitor Imperial Fist would quickly and quietly depart from the sub-sector on their Battle Barges before the news broke out, then announcing to their mortal crew that they would now fight the Imperium. The traitors would rename themselves the "Rotten Fist" as a joke about how the Imperium would be rotting in the future. Their motto is still "For the Imperium" as some odd form of love for the Imperium or a reference to how they fell to Chaos due to defending the Imperium.

Rotten Fist marines during the War of the Beast were sighted fighting Orks and Imperial forces but not the Crone Eldar. After the Battle of Terra, the Rotten Fist along with other Chaos Space Marines were hunted down by Loyalist Space Marines. The Rotten Fist would flee to The Maelstrom, escaping into the Warp.

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==== Second Battle over Elysia ====

The 2nd Battle over Elysia took place when the Chaos fleets tried to keep the blockade of Segmentum Solar after the Battle of Phaeton started. Battlefleet Solar was effectively crippled in a few days as fighting on Phaeton started, the fleet was killed over the skies of Terra. The Chaos fleets stationed themselves around Terra in different sub-sectors to block the supply lines. Battlefleet Pacificus launched a series of small offensives including diversionary attacks in the galactic west, drawing away concentrated defenders from weaker sub-sectors to allow the real attacks to clear supply lines. Battlefleet Ultima along with what's left of Battlefleet Solar gathered to the galactic east of Segmentum Solar's bordering sub-sectors to prepare for war. The Imperial ships in the meantime were conducting hit-and-run attacks all along the bordering sub-sectors. Cronefleet L'Oquis assembled every CE and Ork ships it could get together to hunt down and snuff out the raiding ships coming in from Ultima Segmentum.

The raiding ships fled to the randevu point over Catachan and brought with them news of the chasing Cronefleet. The acting admiral of Battlefleet Solar ordered all ships at the point or heading towards Catachan to divert to Elysia. All of Battlefleet Solar and some of Ultima rushed to meet over Elysia while the bulk of Battlefleet Ultima was moving back to the galactic west. CEs had already teleported inside some of the raider ships to plant tracking beacons on them before leaving unseen. The ships over Elysia rushed to resupply themselves with whatever they can get their hands on until they were unexpectedly attacked by Cronefleet O'Oquis. The battle started with Imperial ships keeping distance while Ork ships tried to close in. CE ships did enter their firing range to launch voidcraft before the Orks could and the Imperials couldn't retreat by then. Many of the human cruisers slugged it out with the CE before the Orks could get a chance to board their ships. The Orks tried ramming the Imperials many times to mostly miss or worst, damage CE ships by mistake. Eldar ships had chased off the rearguard of the Cronefleet while everybody else was fighting in the main battle. Some CE ships from the rear advancing into the main battle were fired upon by other CE ships due to misidentification and were thought to be Craftworlder ships. When the human ships had taken considerable losses Cronefleet L'Oquis tried to withdraw but was blocked by Eldar ships in their rear.

Several days have passed when the Cronefleet first engaged the Imperial fleet over Elysia. The Imperial forces had clearly taken more losses than the Cronefleet near the ending stages of the battle. When the rest of Battlefleet Ultima arrived over Elysia, the Imperial fleet was much smaller while the Cronefleet had bloodied their noses. The admiral of Battlefleet Ultima assumed command of all ships over Elysia then ordered Battlefleet Solar to retreat. As Battlefleet Solar was disengaging, the rest of Battlefleet Ultima rushed to reach firing range. The Cronefleet was almost destroyed when giving chase to the retreating Imperial ships as Battlefleet Ultima shot them to pieces.
The 2nd Battle over Elysia reached a mythical status. The destruction of so many Crone ships in that one battle and ineffectiveness of the blockade in the galactic west caused a change in strategy for the Chaos navy in the WotB. Chaos fleets were now to fulfill a supporting role in the invasion of supply producing Imperial worlds rather than block Imperial supply lines. What was left of Cronefleet L'Oquis supported a WAAAHG! that already burned 2 worlds then supported the destruction of another world. Only 3 or 4 cruisers of Cronefleet L'Oquis survived the war to return home after almost all of the fleet was burned by Imperial Fist Battle Barges over Necromunda.

==== Appearance of Attack Planet Ullanor, the Sacrifice of Ollanius Pius, and the Appearance of the Ork Diplomats ====

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Writing#Ork_Diplomacy|Ork Diplomacy]]

==== The Siege of Terra ====

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Primarchs#Sanguinius|Arik Taranis]], [[Nobledark_Imperium_Primarchs#Sanguinius|Sanguinius]], and [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Eldrad|Eldrad]]

==== Reclamation of Old Earth and the Formation of the Ork Empires of Charadon, Octarius, and Bork ====

See [[Nobledark Imperium Xenos#Ork Empires of Charadon, Octarius, and Bork|Ork Empires of Charadon, Octarius, and Bork]]

=== Remembering Old Earth ===

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"''When I first saw Old Earth for the first time, I was reminded of an Exodite world more than anything else. It was so rustic. The people talked about rediscovering mono-molecular structures and anti-gravity, as if these were groundbreaking innovations. I was shocked, how could this be the capital of the same empire whose ships dominated the stars, and whose warriors helped the Eldar to free me from my captivity. And yet, the people there seemed so proud. Proud that they had clawed their way out of the dirt and the darkness. Their society had only just begun to rebuild itself from the horrors of their Fall, and yet they looked back on the little they had accomplished so far, and felt optimistic about the future.''"<br>
-Grand Empress Isha, on her first impressions of Old Earth

For the average Imperial citizen outside of Segmentum Solar, the ancient nations of Old Earth from the Unification Wars are long forgotten. Those who are history buffs or lived in the Sol system itself might know these old Terran states. Having been born at the end of the Age of Strife, the primarchs knew full well that many countries had come and gone before theirs, particularly after the War of the Beast caused so much destruction that the entirety of survivors on Old Earth could have comfortable fit into the continent of Europe. After the War of the Beast, many of the primarchs labored to preserve as much of they could of their country’s history and customs, so that their people would not be forgotten. This is not to say that they were the only people to write of their nations, many did so as a way of working out their grief and to try to preserve some vestige of their culture after the War of the Beast. But the nineteen of them were the Emperor’s primarchs, and when they spoke people tended to listen.

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The Emperor himself of wrote a little bit of what daily life was like in Terrawatt, when it became clear to him that his old home was gone and not coming back. However, in later years, some scholars have privately criticized this account as having been overly mythologized. Between his accounts and the drier, more methodical logs of Malcador, it is possible to get a reasonable approximation of what pre-Unification life was like in the Terrawatt Clan. Given his eidetic memory as a Man of Gold, it is likely the Emperor remembers more about Unification-era Earth than what he has put down on paper, but between his duties as head of state and the feelings such memories would dredge up it is unlikely they will ever be written down.

Of the primarchs themselves, starting with Horus, he chronicled the entire rise of the Imperium from the start of unification for the migrant fleets of Sol to the end of the War of The Beast. Some have criticized Horus' Chronical after his death when a few historians noticed the lack of historical accuracy when writing about the Great Crusade. The best records by the primarchs of life on Old Earth pre-Unification come from Fulgrim, Guilliman, and Vulkan. Fulgrim managed to write a lengthy autobiography after his Legion was reduced to just shy of three companies in the Iron Cage. Going into great detail about his everyday life, readers are able to especially immerse themselves in his childhood of living in Merika to an eerie amount of degree. Everything after the childhood section of the book is known for being historically inaccurate and turning into the self-gratifying propaganda of later parts in his life. In addition to his general writings and thought experiments, Guilliman had his entire family history saved to an audio recording then transcribed to a book. The genealogy writes about members from this nobility starting at the end of the Age of Strife till the end of the Great Crusade. Vulkan often referred to the Afrique League (and its history both before and after the Warlord) in passing in the many writings he published over his long, long life, including one book entirely devoted to the topic and several different essays on many subjects, ranging from philosophy and theology, economics to warfare. These provide some of the best glimpses we have into life in the Afrique League.

Surprisingly, Jaghatai Khan wrote extensively on his life, mostly poetry about what life was like under the Despot of Ursh and how it got so much better after he threw off the yoke of his oppressors. He also wrote poetry about his wife and the simpler lives of his people after the Khanate was established to remind him why he does what he does. Unfortunately, most of it was written in Neo-Mongolian, which meant it was only legible to Pastoral Worlders, and even then only just (being about as similar to modern Pastoral Worlder languages as Old English was to 21st century English). Dorn’s writings, much like the man himself, were straightforward, rather spartan, and only ever discussed a single subject. The nature of the Calbi military of that era would be remembered if nothing else. Although he did not survive the War of the Beast, Sanguinius mentioned his old homeland in his Meditations, where he collected his visions and wrote on topics like philosophy and ethics. As part of that, he had a very detailed and honest description of pre-Unification Duscht Jemanic, as he was a firm believer of history and examining mistakes to avoid repeating them.The Lion actually wrote a little bit about Franj, in part to work out the grief of losing his old home and in part to spite Luther for trying to sully Franj’s name. However, the most famous work attributed to the Lion may not have been actually written by him. The book was done in a clunky style as if written by Lion and the finished product was found in his quarters on his writing desk but at that time Lion was in the main medi-bay of The Rock living off of IV drips. It was Holguin, Master of the Deathwing, who found the book when it became clear that Lion was not going to wake up any day soon and someone had to tidy up Lion's room. Holguin never admitted to writing the book. Dark Angel folk belief has it that Cypher did it for no easily describable reason.

Other primarchs either would not or could not write about their home countries. Although Magnus the Red was concerned with preserving knowledge and history and wrote extensively on warpcraft and daemonology, he wrote very little on his life as a subject of Ursh. As far as he was concerned before the Imperium he had no home nation, only jailers. About the closest he ever came was when he contributed to the writing of ''The Chronicles of Ursh'', mostly chronicling how horrible Ursh was. Historians have sometimes doubted his more outrageous claims, but in almost every case they have turned out to be true. Angron, in his better days, refused to write down his experiences in the Nord Afrik conclaves, even going so far as to claim “being subjugated by the Imperium was the best thing that could have happened to the country. If it became so far forgotten it was as if it never existed so much the better.” Nevertheless, a great deal of insight can be gained into from Angron’s poetry. The earliest pieces offer harrowing glimpses into the society of the Nord Afrik conclaves in its dying years. Interspersed are more cheerful things about his children or sorrowful things about his biological family. Angron’s’ poetry was not good by any means but that was because he was a warrior rather than a poet for a living. However, as the years pass the poetry became worse. The subject matter gets better for the most part but the style, vocabulary, rhythm, punctuation, spelling and legibility of the hand written notes start to decline noticeably. Not long before War of the Beast he apparently just gave up on it.

Perturabo probably would have written about Macedonia and the Great and Everlasting Tharkian Empire if he was asked during the Great Crusade, but afterwards he refused to do so. To him, it was just one more way he failed his people, and writing about his people for posterity felt like writing an obituary rather than a historical record. Corax did not have a happy life before the Imperium. Trying to write about his life reminded him of his old family, and it hurt to think of that subject. Like Magnus, the closest he came was advising those who wrote ''The Chronicles of Ursh''. Ferrus Manus did not write anything about Orioc as he saw no difference between the Antarctic Mechanicus and the Mechanicus as a whole, and as the Mechanicus was perfect and enduring and already drowning in data there was no need to. Curze just plain did not want to talk about it. Mortarion also did not. He would not sully the name of Gredbriton by associating himself with it too hard. Leman Russ was not much of a writer, although others in his employ were.

Lorgar was well-known for writing and talking extensively on things he did not like, but he was first and foremost a warrior-chaplain. He was more concerned about the good of the people now than the problems of the long past. However writings on the Yndonesian Bloc do survive, most notably from Lorgar’s father Archbishop Kor Phaeron. Alpharius and Omegon ████████ █████████ █████████████{Historical document confiscated by order of the Inquisition. Ave Hydra, Hydra Dominatus.}███ ███████ ███████ █ ███████ ████████ ███████████ █████████ ███████

Sadly, despite all their efforts, the primarchs largely failed in this endeavor. The customs and cultures of the nation-states of Old Earth in M41 are about as well remembered as the provinces of the old Roman Empire were by the third millennium, essentially trivia only of interest to historians. The only nation-state that is well-remembered with any degree of accuracy is Ursh, and that was more as a cautionary tale to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past than for historical posterity. Ursh is best remembered in the galactic midlands, the Imperial worlds too far from Old Earth to actually know Earth's history without a degree, but close enough that legends of the primarchs are still pretty popular. Still, the legends that get told a lot are the ones about king Oscar and his primarchs fighting heroic battles against the old Chaos king and his Habnervars (local low Gothic dialect, some kind of horrible monster) or how captain Horus took so long tricking the Chaos Gods over and over that he was almost late to fight the great grot. Sure, the old story teller could regale you with the tale of how Guilliman went to school for a long time and got married to a nice lady, all of this in Franj, or he could make some shit up off the top of his head about what Fulgrim found in the Rockies, but nobody ever asks.

When the nation-states are remembered, they are primarily remembered in a semi-mythologized fashion based on their role in the Unification, typecast as heroes and villains instead of being remembered for the people who actually lived there. The White Scars spit on the memory of Ursh and its people, forgetting that for many of them their great-great grandmother was an Urshii serf who was just as oppressed by the old regime. The people of the Imperium sneer at the Yndonesian Bloc and its brutal theocracy, forgetting that Lorgar, one of the Imperium's greatest humanitarians, came from its ranks. Franj is often remembered as being the motivation of betrayal for Luther, the arch-traitor, forgetting all the people in Franj who were horrified by Luther's ideals and would ultimately end up paying for his mistakes.

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=== Black Crusades ===

EDITOR'S NOTE: These events should not be considered the only things to have happened during the various Black Crusades. The Black Crusades are massive undertakings, composed of numerous warbands whose commanders often don't have the same goals in mind. Events like the Burning of Prospero or the Gothic War are merely one front in the larger Black Crusade. Case in point [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Lady_Malys_versus_the_Steward|Lady Malys' first battle versus the Steward]] happened during the First Black Crusade, which is better known for events that happened on Cadia and the Gate Worlds.

==== First Black Crusade ====

Despite there being eleven more events of the same name, the first Black Crusade was a watershed event in the history of the Imperium, if for nothing else than it established the relationship between Chaos and the Imperium for the next several millennia. After the events of the War of the Beast, Chaos regrouped and spent the next few centuries rebuilding and licking its wounds. Despite the events of the War of the Beast, Chaos had essentially made it to the Imperium’s door the first time around, several of the primarchs (e.g., Sanguinius, Angron, Horus) had died during or since, and Chaos could replace its losses (orks, daemons) much more easily and rapidly than the Imperium could replace theirs.

Chaos expected the Imperium to be permanently crippled, and the Imperium responded with a fist to their collective faces.

Making matters worse for the forces of Chaos was the unanticipated presence of the Eldar, who had started helping human forces in larger numbers in the years since the WotB. It took some time before the forces of Chaos realized they were sticking their hand into a cheese grater and pulled back to reformulate their strategy. This was far from the end of the first Black Crusade, and there were still significant losses for the Imperium (Dorn, Abbadon) but by the end of it the relationship between Chaos and the Imperium was clear. The Imperium was no flash in the pan that would crumple after one serious battle. If Chaos wanted to win, it would have to fight every inch of the way to get there. Later Black Crusades took this lesson in mind, and have become all the more dangerous for it.

==== Second Black Crusade ====

Alpha Legion operatives and the Inquisition had been intercepting an increase in encrypted orders for Chaos cultists near the Eye of Terror for a few years prior to the Second Black Crusade. Composed of complex geometric shapes drawn in blood, the messages were complete non-sense for any unintended recipient without the properly established telepathic link and informants leaking the enemy intelligence to the Inquisition can make little to no understanding of the orders. After the help of some unknown double agent within the Imperial Army, the Imperium had received enough information to act as they found out these cults had been sabotaging and spying on the defenses of Cadia for years. Planning to smash this so-called "Second Black Crusade" right at the entrance of the Eye of Terror, the Imperial Navy called for massive numbers of reinforcements to rally over Vigilantum, the naval training world near Cadia inside the system. The assembling grand armada was halved as those ships were destroyed in transit by the Warp storm "Hollowing Hull" created by Chaos. Indeed, in retrospect, the information leading to the massive loss of ships from the Warp Storm seems to have been a plant from the Croneworlders in the first place. The rest of the armada trickled into the system to be isolated then be hunted down as small pockets of resistance formed to fight the Cronefleets as they retreated in the 'Battle over Vigilantum'. Although the Cronefleets had trouble trying to take Cadia as the Imperial Guard still held the planet, they were able to simply circumnavigate around it to attack other sub-sectors while blockading the world. The purpose of this Black Crusade was not to raze Terra like the last time but to test the Imperium in their reaction and experiment if fleets from the Eye can bypass the Cadian Gate. For the first few months of the campaign, the Imperial Navy had to smuggle in troops to the front as the Battlefleets had been scattered by the Warp storm. Unable to effectively operate as a coherent whole prevented the Battlefleets from conducting any offensive operations until the end of the Black Crusade.

==== Third Black Crusade ====

Lady Malys promised Daemon Prince Tallomin the slaughter of millions of warriors if he and some daemons killed the population of Cadia. Starting in 005.M33, the 3rd Black Crusade started with the attack on Cadia, the Crone Eldar avoid fighting on the planet as they collected the millions slain by daemons. Barging with Ork clans for "great fights with the humies" and some shiny hats, Lady Malys was able to launch a campaign of extermination on some surrounding sub-sectors while the fighting on Cadia stall. Marines in Omega armor arrived onto Caida in time to rush to the defense of Kasrs the fortress city. Tricking the local Guardsmen that they were "Vanguard for more Inquisitorial required troops" the marines managed to grind the daemons to halt on multiple fronts.

Unknown to the Imperials, Orkz, or Tallomin however, the entire Black Crusade was a distraction to allow the first phase of the Long War to finish. Lady Malys had planned to kill hundreds of millions to collect their corpses to be used in dark rituals. The Warpcraft invoked would allow certain individuals to raise the dead with just a hand wave or cause outbreaks of the Rot with their mind. Chanting Nurgle's prayers in forbidden tongues while crushing millions of bodies to become fertilizer then flushing it down into the ground or sewer system was done on many worlds. The arrive of the Grey Knights prompted Lady Malys to order her human agents with being gifted such power over the dead, to share their Warpcraft or knowledge to a parasitic immortal race already infiltrating Imperial society. Magnus along with the Thousand Sons, Space Wolves, and Gray Knights arrived on Cadia to finally force Tallomin's daemons to flee. The Omega Marines were long gone from Cadia. Lady Malys learned how to trick the Imperials into giving false priorities like if they held Cadia the Black Crusade would retreat. She indeed ordered a fighting retreat after the daemons were driven from Cadia but her objectives were complete.

==== Fourth Black Crusade ====

Malys sent a huge Cronefleet to pillage and steal arcane knowledge from [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Prospero|Prospero]]. That was until Ahriman along with his sorcerers, in the loosest term, preserved the planet by teleporting it to a pocket dimension. [[Legion of the Damned|Those on the planet exist in a limbo state between the Warp and realspace with no real predictable way of entering or exiting it]].

==== Seventh Black Crusade ====

Chaos began a series of conflicts that targeted Space Marines for extracting their geneseeds, which Fabius Bile organized it for preventing the degradation of The Fallen geneseeds while production and experimentation of the New Men continued. Running many battles to draw out the elite of the elite from the Imperial Army using false intelligence gathered by Orders Securitas, they had double-agents or used psyker/hypnosis leak information to seemingly hunt down the Chaos fleet rampaging.

==== Twelfth Black Crusade (001.M41-???) ====

''The Gothic War''

Following a lead based on ancient Eldar Empire records where the Eldar refuse to utter the true name of aliens who they fought. It was said that the aliens could use technology that rendered Eldar technology almost useless. Malys devised a plan on studying then using the artifacts scattered throughout the Gothic Sector to mass produce and integrate these weapons onto Crone ships. Slowly and secretly Chaos built up a force to bypass Cadia then swallow the Gothic Sector where they summoned a Warp storm to isolate the sector. This was done after several Cronefleets were in position and a diversionary attack started on Cadia.

One such artifact was the Eye of Night which is said to drive machines mad by emitting beams of light that could hit kilometers away. Using sleeper cells, the Cadian garrison force on a planet with the vault holding it, they leaked the location then started a rebellion when a Cronefleet blockaded the world. Ornsworld, the homeworld of the Ratlings, was depopulated when the Warp Hunter warband landed to kill off the tiny garrison force while Crone Eldar witches began excavating the planet for the Eye of Night. Warp Hunters who loved the sadistic extermination of the planet after they refused to surrender, went out of their way to personally make sure "Let no livestock, pet, or citizen live in those settlements" for the Ratling towns. Attempting to reverse engineer the ancient xenos technology with psyker witches and hereteks. They were interrupted in the middle of their experimentation by an Imperial Guard force, led by Ordo Xenos, who reclaimed the artifact after many losses. Battlefleet Gothic was able to clear the Chaos blockade of Onsworld long enough for the Inquisition to smuggle the Eye of Night back to Sol, after multiple failed efforts to destroy the artifact back on planetside. The Imperial Army is unsure if the research on the technology has ever left the world.

At the same time as the Fallen Marine assault on Ornsworld began, the forces of Chaos arrived on the Imperial world of Purgatory to extract another artifact from the weak defenses of the Adaptus Mechanicus. The Hand of Darkness was an artifact that could disintegrate anything it touches when powered by the Warp. The Black Crusade came to study then copy how such a technology can exist by violently extracting it from the Imperials. Although there were a few Cadian regiments present to protect the vault holding the Hand of Darkness, they could only delay the capture. With a change of plans on the fly, the Crone Eldar planning the operation forced the human Battlegroups on the planet to protect the artifact to ship it off-world rather than go off looting. Battlefleet Agripinaa tried to intercept and prevent the evacuation of the Crone Eldar off-world to no avail as the Cronefleet proved too powerful while defending the void space over the planet. The Hand of Darkness was never seen again outside of the Eye of Terror as the Crone Eldar covet the weapon to study then copy the technology which the Imperium never recovered.

=== Post-War of the Beast/Pre-Age of Apostasy (M32-M35) ===

==== The First and Second Viskeon Wars ====

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The Viskeon are an extinct xenos race native to a planet on the very southern edge of the Segmentum Ultima right near the border with the Segmentum Tempestus. An asexual ectothermic reptilian or amphibian-like species (though with some similarities to Earth starfish), the Viskeon were known for their extreme regenerative abilities. Although they normally reproduced by budding, Viskeon regenerative capabilities were so extreme that a Viskeon cleaved into large enough pieces could regrow into four or five individuals.

The Viskeons are notable in that despite being capable of interstellar travel their military capabilities seemed downright primitive by most species’ standards. Viskeon lived by a strict honor code, which glorified face-to-face melee combat and saw most projectile weapons (ranging from bows and arrows to stubbers and lasguns) as dishonorable. The only ranged weapons the Viskeons ever used were thrown javelins and bladed discuses, which they typically used as skirmishing tools before closing to melee combat. Of course, when your skin is thick enough to blunt the impact of anything short of a bolter and your body can easily heal from such injuries, the use of ranged weapons might not seem immediately intuitive.

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The First Viskeon War happened roughly concurrent with the Fourth Black Crusade in M34. Spreading out in all directions from their homeworld on the southern edge of the galaxy, the Viskeon put several sectors in the Tempestus and Ultima Segmenta under siege. The Imperium, which had not known about the Viskeon and the few star systems they controlled, were caught off guard by the appearance of the Viskeon armada. They were used to attacks from Xenos Horribilis and Obscuras from the fringe, but not one this organized from a direction they didn’t expect.

All attempts at making contact and communicating with the Viskeon failed. They claimed they had been directed to attack the Imperium as part of a holy war demanded by their god, the Three-Eyed King. The Imperium initially struggled against the Viskeon, although they lacked ranged weaponry the Viskeon were able to regenerate from most glancing shots until they could close to melee combat (where they had the strength advantage over baseline humans and eldar) and killing them often made their numbers larger. Even shooting them with a bolter was a gamble, the resulting explosion could blow the Viskeon into small enough pieces that it wouldn’t regenerate, but it could also blow their limbs off and send them flying where one couldn’t see them, where they would regenerate into four more Viskeon.

However, as the Viskeon front line buckled, the weaknesses in their strategy became clear. The Viskeon had overextended themselves in order to attack multiple targets, hoping to overwhelm their opponents with shock tactics and surprise due to their smaller numbers, but this left them with few assets to reinforce holes in their formation. The Imperium also discovered the Viskeon’s ectothermic physiology and ruthlessly exploited it, hunting Viskeon down in the dead of night when they were at their most sluggish and least able to fight back. The Viskeon retreated back into the void from which they had come, and the Imperium were unable to track them down.

The Second Viskeon War happened roughly 800 years after the first, in M35. Once again the Viskeon set out from their unknown homeworld to wage war. The Viskeon moved out in a much tighter, directional formation instead of an omnidirectional campaign to prevent their front line from being overrun but surprisingly beyond this their military tactics had not changed to account for what they had learned in their first conflict with the Imperium. The Imperium, on the other hand, had learned from the encounter and adapted accordingly. This time, instead of Cadian Doctrine troops specializing in ranged lasgun and shuriken fire, the Imperium had brought in flamers and plasma weaponry to negate the Viskeon regeneration factor, with the Imperial defense spearheaded by the close-quarters, flamer specializing Salamanders, who had called for a Reformation of the Legion for this occasion.

The Second Viskeon War went much more in the Imperium’s favor, and this time the Imperium were able to dispatch forces after the Viskeon when the Viskeon forces routed rather than tending to their wounds. They tracked the Viskeon forces back to their home planets, a mere dozen in total, and burned them through a combination of orbital bombardment and ground operations. Today, the Viskeons survive only in the form of genetic samples collected by the Adeptus Biologis before their world was destroyed.

As the Adeptus Biologis and Imperial xenologists sifted through the rubble of the Viskeon worlds, trying to find an answer as to why a species would suddenly decide to attack an interstellar power they didn’t even know existed, they came upon a startling discovery. Based on Viskeon carvings and representational art of their god, the Three-Eyed King of the Viskeons was clearly the Warp entity known as Be’lakor.

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=== Post-Age of Apostasy (M36-M40) ===

==== The Doom of Malan'tai ====

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The Doom of Malan’tai represents an important lesson in eldar history. The battle and subsequent loss of this Craftworld demonstrated to the eldar just how easy it is for them to lose the very things they are fighting for, and just how pernicious a foe the Great Devourer is. Malan’tai was once a proud Craftworld, located on the eastern fringe. Malan’tai had close connections to Idharae and Iyanden, and so was firmly in the “eldar supremacy” camp of Imperial politics. The Craftworld had suffered from repeated attacks by orks early in its history, which had fostered an impressive dislike of all non-Eldar lifeforms among the inhabitants of Malan’tai and some of the most impressive gun batteries on a Craftworld this side of Il-Kaithe.

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But that was all before Hive Fleet Behemoth. Through the visions of their seers, Malan’tai saw that the Exodite world of Tar-Etenil was going to come under attack by a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Behemoth, and raced to the Exodites’ aid. However, when they arrived at the planet, they found that the tyranids had already managed to strip the planet clean, and that Malan’tai itself was now the next target of the Great Devourer. The hive ships blazed past the Malan’tai warships sent to defend Tar-Etenil, making a beeline for the Craftworld itself. Malan’tai barely managed to send out a distress call to Idharae and Iyanden before it was enveloped by the Shadow in the Warp.

For days, Malan’tai held out against the tyranid swarm, as mycetic spores pelted the surface of the Craftworld and gaunts and carnifexes stalked its halls. The elder struck back with all their strength, aspect warriors cutting through mobs of termagaunts and rippers while wraithguards grappled with larger bioforms. However, bit by bit, they gradually lost ground across the Craftworld, until they were eventually forced back into a small area surrounding the Craftworld’s Webway portal. However, it was at this point that a miraculous thing occurred. Reinforcements from Idharae and Iyanden came streaming through the Webway portal to the aid of Malan’tai, fresh troops who brought the tyranid advance to a halt and as they relieved the wearied defenders and then began to regain ground.

With reinforcements at their back, the eldar of Malan’tai began the arduous task of clearing the tyranids from their home, room by room and chamber by chamber. However, as the eldar began to push back against the tyranid invaders, the psychoactive power grid of the Craftworld slowly but surely began to dim and fail. It was at this point that the full scale of the tyranid infestation became clear. While the eldar had been fighting the tyranids on the surface, other tyranid bioforms had bored deep into the wraithbone structure of Malan’tai and tapped into the Craftworld’s infinity circuit, leeching energy from it like aphids on a plant. The eldar of Malan’tai had suffered the ultimate loss, the souls of their ancestors digested, turned into nothing more than nutriment to feed the hunger of the swarm.

The battle might not have been over, but the war had been lost. Even if the eldar did manage to take back the half-occupied Craftworld from the tyranids, the greatest thing of value on Malan’tai was gone. Despondent, the few survivors of Malan’tai gathered up every soul stone and any other item of importance they could find before jury-rigging a brief window to leave through the Craftworld’s Webway portal, but not before altering the course of Malan’tai to burn up in the nearest star. If their home was to burn, the tyranids would burn with it.

To add insult to injury, several unusual tyranid creatures were discovered during the Battle of Malan’tai. These creatures resembled a cross between a fetus and an electric eel, with grossly distended braincases extending behind their head plates. These creatures possessed devastating psyker powers, using them to float above the battlefield as if suspended in a field of unreality. Analysis of these creatures showed that eldar genetic code had gone into their construction. These creatures became known as zoanthropes.

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====The War for Gollopo====
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The Imperium and the Tau did not often clash directly, prior to integration. A few flare-ups in the centuries after first contact, before the borders were finalized and diplomatic channels became well-established. Such clashes are not well remembered; both sides were usually half-hearted about the fighting, and after Integration the busy propagandists of the Administratum made sure such conflicts were consigned to the dustbin of history.

A few battles refused to be erased quietly. One such was the battle of Gollopo.
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The world Gollopo itself was a human world, settled in the Dark Age of Technology and forgotten in the Age of Strife. It was re-discovered almost simultaneously by both Tau and Imperium explorers. It was in the grey zone between the Tau and Imperium zones of control and near a strategic warp lane, meaning it was highly desirable to both sides. And- this is where the trouble really began- it was divided into nearly a hundred independent states, all of which had long and often nasty histories with each other.

Both sides sent diplomatic teams. The debate over which superpower to join immediately polarized Gollopo's politics. Everyone believed that a nation without a protector would be carved apart by the ones that did, resulting in a mad rush for advantage. Long-standing alliance blocks broke up over the question; ancient enemies uneasily found themselves on the same side. When Prunzik started leaning towards the Tau, its long-time enemy Francha immediately started soliciting the Imperium, only to switch positions towards the Tau when Prunzik started leaning towards the Imperium. When the Inland Empire declared for the Imperium, its subject colonies along the North Shore immediately invited in the Tau in a bid for independence. The Sokhmar and Lankhmar immediately launched genocidal campaigns against each other in a desperate bid to settle their thousand-year grudge before either could secure the assistance of a galactic military.

As the situation deteriorated, both diplomatic teams summoned military reinforcements. And then more. And then more.

Things finally boiled over in the Saarland. A near-impotent buffer state between Prunzik and Francha, both its parliament and its population were almost evenly divided between pro-Tau and pro-Imperial factions... which also corresponded with long-standing pro-Francha and pro-Prunzik factions. Street fighting broke out, which soon descended into guerrilla war, with both Prunzik and Francha supporting their chosen sides. First with money, then with guns, then with 'observers' and 'advisors'... Finally, Francha declared that the Saarland was a failed state and sent an expeditionary force across the border to restore order. Lord General Six Serpent ordered the Imperial Guard to secure the pro-Imperial sections of the Saarland three days later, and Shas'O Vaina moved his cadres to intercept.
The war was on.

The first clashes in the Saarland were dramatic, but ultimately inconclusive; the Imperial Guard was driven out of the Saarland by fast-moving Tau armor threatening to slice their columns into pieces, but Tau follow-up offensives were blocked by combined Prunzikan/Guard fortifications and careful deployment of the few Baneblades available.

These would be the largest direct clashes of Tau and Imperial forces; any hope that the fighting could be confined to the Saarland died within days, as every nation on Gollopo plunged into war, every ancient grievance and modern ambition subsumed into the clash of galactic powers. (Although a few were not quite sure what side they were fighting on; the Federated Oskarrian States switched sides four times over the course of the war.) Guard and Fire Caste forces were divided among multiple theaters, fighting closely alongside the native armies.

At the beginning, the Imperium held the advantage. Although less advanced than the off-worlders, the Golloponi armies could not simply be ignored. The Imperium had proven more effective at recruiting the local nations; their status as fellow humans, greater degree of local autonomy, and art-deco meshed better with Golloponi pride and aesthetic sense than the Tau's alien-ness, more invasive policies, and smoothly curving ceramics.

However, this advantage of numbers proved hard to leverage. The Tau could simply move and concentrate faster, and seized the operational initiative early. They kept the Imperium reacting to rapid-fire series of feints, diversions, raids, and genuine offensives, too off-balance to launch their own offensives. Morale began to decline, especially among the Imperium's local allies. To Golloponi sensibilities, the Tau war machines were frighteningly alien and incomprehensible, and local regiments were often routed by even a single Tau skimmer unless backed up by the Guard, while Tau-aligned forces were inspired to greater heights of courage by the alien powers of their allies.

As the war dragged on, the momentum began to swing in the other direction. The Imperial-aligned armies grew accustomed to facing down the Tau, and attrition began to take its toll. The Tau required spare parts and ammunition from a supply chain stretching all the way from the Tau Empire itself; with the low speed and relatively smaller size of Tau ships, they were simply unable to sustain the operational tempo they had set early on once their stockpiles were exhausted. On the other hand, the Golloponi early-industrial tech base required only minor upgrading to start supplying spares and ammunition for the Guard. And the Tech-priests accompanying the expedition were well-versed in the procedures for such upgrades.

While the Tau attempted to launch their own upgrade program, the Earth Caste engineers were less skilled in using limited resources; they knew how to make microchips, they knew how to train someone to make microchips, but they didn't know how to get to microchips starting from a coal-fired steel mill. The Mechanicus did.

By the middle of the second year, the Imperium was able to launch a grand offensive, rolling back previous Tau gains. Committing their remaining reserves, the Tau fought a series of holding actions, buying time to consolidate a series of defensive lines. It worked, and the offensive ground to a halt outside the core territories of the Tau alliance block.

With all room for subtlety gone, the war entered its bloodiest phase. The Tau did not have the reserves to launch any major offensives, especially once the Imperial block entrenched themselves in turn, but were able to shatter the spearheads of any offensive. Most of the dying was done by the Golloponi, as the Guard and Fire Caste husbanded their strength and looked for some decisive opportunity.

It never came. After three years and about twenty million deaths, the war was ended by a negotiated settlement. The nations that aligned themselves with the Imperium would become part of the Imperium; the nations that sided with the Tau would become part of the Tau Empire. Nations that had been split would either become neutral, their independence guaranteed by both sides, or be split into multiple nations, as determined by the locals themselves.

Most Tau-Imperium conflicts were prosecuted halfheartedly, neither side really wanting to fight one of the few other true civilizations among the stars. Gollopo was not. There has been some debate as to why, but ultimately it has been ascribed to the influence of the Golloponi themselves. They regarded the war as 'the End of History'; although things would certainly keep happening, the history of Gollopo and its nations would be subsumed without a trace into the history of the Imperium and/or the tau Empire. A footnote, remembered only as a place where these two giants once fought. Thus they fought with incredible fervor, as their last chance to make a mark on history as independent nations. That fervor came to 'infect' the off-world forces they were allied with, the two working increasingly close together as the war dragged on. They fought together, bled together, died together, and came to regard the war in the same light.
Or so the thinking goes.
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====The Damocles Crusade====
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The Damocles Crusade occurred near the tail end of the Second Sphere of Expansion. At this point, neither the Tau nor the Imperium had much contact with each other; there had been some vague diplomatic contact, but distance had prevented the establishment of any sort of permanent embassy. As the Second Sphere began to run up against the Imperial borders, this began to change. Due to the Tau's lack of rapid interstellar communications, no central policy for contact could be imposed; each point of contact proceeded independently, according to the whims and instincts of the local commander. In most cases, this lead to a reasonably peaceful opening of relations. Things were different in the Damocles Gulf.

The Damocles Gulf was only lightly settled by the Imperium when the Tau started pushing into the region. However, many mercantile concerns had long-term plans for the colonization of the region, and were not happy to see the Tau butting in. The Tau pursued a highly aggressive colonization policy, settling colonies down in systems already claimed by the Imperium. This lead to a series of skirmishes with Rogue Traders, corporate paramilitaries, and colonial militias. These battles escalated over the course of about twenty years, until finally local authorities called to the wider Imperium for aid. A Crusade was declared, organized, and launched two years later, and the war was on.
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There has been much speculation over why the Tau acted so aggressively within the Damocles Gulf. The Tau did not have a proper appreciation for the size of the Imperium at the time, but this did not prevent other commanders in other regions from pursuing peaceful relations. Part of it may have been simple time discrepancy; the lead-up to the Crusade took half a Tau lifetime. They may have simply perceived the provocations as coming further apart than the centuries-old human high command did.

It has also been thought that the Tau's policy in the Gulf was, indeed, deliberate central policy; the Ethereals on T'au deciding to test the Imperium in a region far removed from anywhere else. Such theories have never been firmly confirmed or denied; Tau records from the period are silent on their motivations, and further speculation has been discouraged since Integration.

The Tau had forewarning. There was also significant trade and diplomatic contact within Damocles Gulf, and a Crusade is hard to hide. They built fortifications, supply depots, surveillance networks. Laid in parts and munitions for long sieges. Prepared for the storm.

The Imperium began the war with a crucial advantage in communications and mobility. The Tau had no equivalent to astropathic communication and had to rely on courier ships for interstellar coordination- couriers that were slower than Imperial ships. The Tau were intellectually aware of this, but did not fully appreciate it; it would cost them. Likewise, the Imperium also underappreciated Tau abilities in several areas. The first phase of the war would reveal all these shortcomings.

Tau strategy centered around a series of border systems that had both human and Tau settlements. In preparation for the oncoming crusade, most civilians were evacuated from these settlements and preparations for a protracted guerilla war laid in. Meanwhile, mobile fleet assets were withdrawn to secret bases in central locations. The goal was to bog down the Crusade in protracted ground wars across multiple theaters, leaving it open to concentrated strikes by the fleet. Since the Tau forces in these systems were in immediate proximity to human colonies, they could not simply be ignored; the Crusade would have to split up and commit forces to each world.

The first part of this plan worked excellently. The Crusade was indeed badly bogged down on the border worlds. The Tau had seeded these regions with cloaked surveillance satellites and sensor networks, to give them comprehensive real-time intelligence of Imperial movements. Concealed supply depots and bases provided places for the Tau to rest and resupply in comfort; when they were discovered, extensive minefields, AA batteries, and drone screens provided enough time to evacuate men and equipment before the Imperium could destroy the location. Pathfinders and spotter drones called down devastatingly precise artillery barrages, while stealth-suit teams assassinated officers and destroyed ammo dumps.

The Imperial response to these tactics was... underwhelming. Long accustomed to enemies like Orks and chaos cultists, adaptation to Tau tactics was slow and confused. Even the Titans not immune, the Tau having developed several means of dealing with Titan-scale opponents in their long battles with the Orks. None were destroyed or even severely damaged, but the Mechanicus became increasingly cautious with them after several close calls. Only the Astartes and the few Biel-Tan Eldar forces consistently out-fought the Tau, and spread across half a dozen worlds, there were too few of them to turn the tide on their own.

The second part of the plan did not go nearly so well. The first Tau strike, on the world of Kindashar, drove off the outnumbered Imperial fleet with severe damage. Reinforcements, combined with precision orbital bombardment, forced the Guard regiments on the ground into an exclusively defensive posture. The Tau fleet then withdrew before an Imperial counter-attack could be mustered. Unfortunately for them, Eldar divinations and psychic interrogation of a handful of captured Tau spacers revealed the location of their hidden base. When the Tau fleet arrived, to their shock, they found the Crusade fleet already waiting for them.

The battle was short and decisive. Caught by surprise and out of combat formation, they were unable to maintain their range advantage and forced into a close-quarters fight. Coming right off the heels of a previous engagement with no chance to repair and resupply, the Tau fleet began to crack; once a trio of Eldar destroyers identified and destroyed the command ship, disorder became a near-rout, as the Tau fought to get back to the safety of FTL. Maybe half the Tau fleet survived, all heavily damaged. Many would not live to see a friendly port, as Imperial wolfpacks used their superior FTL speed to hunt down the scattered survivors.

With the Tau fleet destroyed or driven out of the Gulf, any hope of relief was gone. They continued to fight on, but it was a lost cause. The Crusade was reinforced by regiments more experienced in counter-guerilla tactics, and their experience quickly diffused among the rest of the force. With control of space assured, air superiority was quickly established by orbiting carriers. The hidden bases were hunted down and destroyed one by one. As the lack of resupply began to bite increasingly deeply, one by one the different cadres surrendered. The last to give in was Kindashar, which lasted five months after the annihilation of the Tau fleet.

Various other minor Tau colonies fell quickly, in most cases surrendering without a fight. It was at this point that the Crusade began to slowly fall apart. The Crusade had been launched fast enough that its strategic objectives had not been fully decided, and now that the immediate goal had been achieved the arguments resumed in full force. Some interests viewed what had already been accomplished as sufficient, particularly the Rogue Traders and parts of the military. Others, mainly the nobility and merchant houses, wanted to seize control of the entire Damocles Gulf, while a third faction wanted a punitive expedition deep into Tau space.

While it first appeared that the factions in favor of further offensives would win out, the intervention of water caste diplomats prevented that. Dispatched from the core septs of the Tau, they skillfully navigated the factional politics of Imperial high society, playing the differing groups off against each other with the judicious use of flattery and bribes. The process of peace was not instant, and there were several naval skirmishes as more aggressive Imperial captains scouted out Tau defenses, but- after nearly a year- a settlement was reached and the Crusade disbanded.

The immediate outcome of the war was a final settlement on who owned what in the Damocles Gulf. The Imperium got the better end of the deal, ending up with all of the border worlds and several of the colonies captured in the aftermath of the Imperium's naval victory. Tau in the transferred areas were resettled in Tau space, and the Tau retained a lessened presence in the Gulf.

In the long term, both sides gained valuable information about the other. In addition to the obvious military knowledge, the Tau learned a great deal about the inner workings of the Imperial apparatus, which would serve them well in future negotiation. Oddly enough, the Damocles Gulf would become a calm spot and major trade route in future Imperium-Tau relations; small numbers of Tau refused to leave colonies that had been traded to the Imperium, eventually forming a Tau/Imperial creole culture with disproportionate cultural influence, serving as a bridge between the two empires.
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==== The Second Damocles Gulf Campaign ====

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The Second Damocles Gulf campaign is an important marker in Tau history, representing one of the largest battles in Tau history before the Tau joined the Imperium and one of the few instances in which Tau fought against Tau. After the rebuilding of the Tau Empire following the A.I. rebellion and the Fourth Sphere of Expansion, the political winds had shifted once again and the Ethereal council was once more considering the possibility of developing closer ties with the Imperium. Imperial culture had become well-known to the Tau in the millennium since the two empires had first met, and some Ethereals recognized the resonance between Imperial ideals and the Tau’va, as well as the potential of using inclusion into the Imperium as a vehicle to spread the Greater Good. However, these ideas created a political backlash and a series of counter-proposals across the Tau Empire. These proposals ranged from the reasonable, such as seeking to ally with the Imperium without fully joining, to the insane, such as a mass migration of pro- and anti-Imperium Tau across the empire to form separate pro- and anti-Imperial states.

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Eventually things came to a head, with a contingent of traditionalists coming to believe that the ideologies of the Tau’va had already become too compromised by outside influence. Riots and violence erupted across the Tau Empire, eventually resulting in a sizeable minority of the Tau Empire including several Ethereals and high-ranking commanders including Commander Farsight leaving to form their own empire. The remaining Ethereals were outraged by this breach of Tau honor. Perhaps more importantly, the schism had led to the spilling of Tau blood by Tau hands, something that had not happened in history since the age of Mont’au and the days before the Tau as a whole had come to accept the Greater Good. This was something that could simply not go unpunished.

In response to the violence and aftereffects of the Schism, the Tau Empire raised a massive retaliatory strike force, headed by several Shas’O and at least three Ethereals. However, Farsight’s counterpart among the reformers, Commander Shadowsun, was not among their number. Although Shadowsun had fought against the reformers in the initial days of the schism, including with Farsight himself in the riots of T’au, she was not part of the retaliatory fleet, having been called away to the eastern front of the empire to defend against a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Kraken. This may have been one of the reasons why the Damocles Gulf campaign went as badly as it did. Although the commanders were well-trained and their forces outnumbered the traditionalists by nearly six to one, they were still going up against the Tau Empire’s greatest living military strategist, and without a general of Farsight’s caliber on the side of the reformers the retaliatory strike may have been doomed to fail.

Perhaps the biggest mistake was following the traditionalists into the northwestern frontier of the Tau Empire, the area where Farsight had spent most of his military career. As a result, Commander Farsight and the traditionalists had a much better idea of the terrain than the reformers did, including the best places to defend or set ambushes. During the Damocles Gulf campaign, Farsight once again proved how he had earned his name, only fighting in areas where he could nullify the numerical advantage of the reformers, or flanking around the main body of the fleet to strike at supply lines and attempt to cut them off from the empire. When forced to fight in the open, he would often employ unorthodox tactics that caught the more conservative commanders of the reformers off guard, such as jumping his ships into “knife-fight” range so that enemy ships could not fire at them without firing on their own soldiers at the same time. Although victories by the traditionalists seemed to be randomly distributed across the Gulf, they would prove very important for future political events, for these victories were often concentrated around easily defensible points that would serve as the effective borders of the Farsight Enclaves.

The Second Damocles campaign was ultimately declared a failure by the Tau Empire. The Empire had the forces needed to wipe the separatists from the stars, but Farsight’s forces were too heavily entrenched beyond the Damocles Gulf and it would cost them at least ten reformers for every traditionalist, a proposition the Ethereals were not willing to entertain. Not to mention, repaying the traditionalists’ violence with more blood would only strengthen the separatists’ claims of being in the right. Instead, the Ethereals decided to play the long game, considering that after a few generations the majority of the traditionalists, including most importantly Farsight, would be long gone. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, as the traditionalists have somehow managed to create their own functioning system within the Farsight enclaves, but Farsight has somehow managed to stay alive for far longer than any Tau would be reasonably expected to live.

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==== Sha'Galudd and the Nagi ====

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Sometime near the end of the latest Sphere of Expansion, a Tau expeditionary force came across a world known as Sha’Galudd. This world had been known for some time, but it was only now that the Ethereal council decided the world was to be surveyed and settled. It was a lush world, not to the Tau’s climatic preferences but more than capable of supporting a colony. However, when the first settlers set foot on Sha’Galudd, they found the world was already home to another xenos species, the worm-like Nagi.

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First contact between the Nagi and the Tau was surprisingly violent, even when compared to other races like the Kroot. However, before long the Nagi leaders came before the Ethereals of the expeditionary force in the interests of peace. They said that they had been unjustly persecuted by other xenos races into hiding on Sha’Galudd, and all they wanted to do was live in peace. They thought the Tau were these same invaders but had only just realized they were not, and now wanted to live in harmony with them. The xenos were even willing to cede most of the planet to the Tau, as they themselves needed little space to live. Within a few decades the world of Sha’Galudd was thriving, with many Nagi serving as advisors to the planet’s Ethereals. With the colony flourishing, the Ethereals of Sha’Galudd sent a message to the Ethereal Council of T’au, telling the homeworld of the good news.

At this time, the Tau had been formally inducted into the Imperium, and the Ethereal Council were taking full advantage of the Imperium’s records to try and learn as much as they could about the galaxy beyond. When they heard the news from Sha’Galudd, as well as a description of the xenos the expeditionary fleet had encountered, they immediately recognized what they were dealing with and dispatched a military fleet in response.

The aliens of the planet had introduced themselves to the as the Nagi. The rest of the galaxy knew them as the [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#The_Rangdan_Xenocides_and_the_Slaugth|Slaugth]].

The Tau acted quickly, deploying an entire contingent (Tio’ve) of Hunter Cadres to Sha’Galudd. The Ethereal Council privately hoped the situation could be solved without bloodshed, but when the contingent arrived they found themselves being fired upon by their own people. The Ethereals and much of the military of Sha’Galudd had been infested and subverted by the Slaugth, turning them into a veritable revenant army. The fighting was savage and brutal, much of it being room-to-room urban combat interspersed with attacks from Slaugth constructs created from Tau biomass. Nevertheless, despite the brutality of the fighting it was fortunate the contingent arrived when they did, for if they had arrived later it is likely that the entire planet would have been infected and turned into yet another infestation for the Slaugth.

The results of this battle, specifically how quickly and decisively the Ethereals dealt with the Slaugth, showed that although the Tau were still a young and ambitious race, they were quickly shedding their naivete and were more than willing to adapt to their surroundings.

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==== The Happalachian Hill Race ====

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When the Tau finally joined the Imperium proper, many of their Fire caste officers looked forward to the opportunity to show what they saw as the backward, stagnant forces of the Imperium the obvious superiority of the Tau's way of doing things. To their abject horror, the reintegration campaign of Happalachia gave them exactly what they'd been asking for.

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Happalachia is a planet composed almost entirely of mountain ranges and thick forests, with oceans which could be more aptly described as valleys that have filled with water, or places where the mountains dip below sea-level, rather than deep,empty expanses most associate with the phrase. Despite being prone to seizmic activity, it is not a Death World, being almost tame by Imperial standards. If anything, the seizmic activity is a boon, responsible for the large deposits of metals and other natural resources that made the planet worth reclaiming. The real challenge of the planet, and perhaps the reason the humans inhabiting the world had not re-achieved spaceflight by the time the Imperium rediscovered them, is the terrain, which ranges from fortyfive-degree slopes to sheer cliffs to trees so thick they form a natural wall. It is perhaps for this reason that the Tau, with their flight-capable vehicles and battlesuits which could handle such treacherous land, were selected to assist in reclaiming the world and assisting the newly-formed PDF regiments with clearing out the Orks which had taken root. The locals proved more of a shock to the Tau than anything the Orks could possibly have thrown at them.

The humans living on Happalachia were fairly close to the standard human form, if a bit more variable in height and size than would be expected. They were prone to growing long, unkempt beards, with thick, black body hair and tanned leathery skin, and have been described as having a strong, bitter smell, though this may be a product of the alcoholic brews they are so fond of making. Even the Tau could label them as 'human' with but a single glance. The more glaring issues were regarding their society and organization- or seeming lack thereof.

The regiments the Tau liasoned with behaved more like animals than a proper fighting force, with half the troops simply not being present at any given day, either off working with their families, hunting, sleeping, or just gone without anyone knowing or seeming to care where they'd went. Their command structure was informal in the extreme, with command of a squad seeming to change hands regularly between whichever member was deemed "gud fer gittin'" the task at hand, with arguments and disputes of orders being so common that those who could be in charge and go unquestioned were rare and regarded as masterful leaders. Speaking of arguments, the Tau simply could not wrap their heads around the way these primitives handled disputes. Two of them would disagree on something, tempers would flare and yelling would grow in volume, then they would set upon each other like wild animals, biting and clawing and punching in a big ball of violence that more than once caused the Tau to assume they were trying to kill each other. And then suddenly it would stop, the first to get up would help pull the other to his feet, and moments later they'd be smiling through their missing teeth, joking and laughing with one arm around the man they'd just been fighting, the other holding a drink that would only halfway make it to their mouth because of the black eye they'd gotten. For those who grew up being taught that Tau-on-Tau violence was a grave sin, such flippant disregard for the fact that a buddy had just left teeth-marks in your arm was something they simply could not process.

Their gear was not much better; before the Imperium arrived, the majority of the firearms on the planet had been powder-based kinetic weapons, not even the kind with explosive rounds or mono-edged blades, but simple hunks of pointed metal fired at slow enough speeds that even the Guard's flak jackets could provide reliable protection against them. What vehicles they did have were lightly-armored civilian-grade cargo haulers, most of which were rusted and bearing oversized wheels and a shocking lack of even the most basic safety equipment, looking more like something the Orks would make than a reliable source of transport. Though proper lasguns had been distributed as part of the effort to bring them up to speed, many of them had taken to... 'modifying' their weapons, usually by attaching telescopic hunting scopes through a combination of screws and duct tape in a ramshackle and irreverent manner that would have any cogboy who saw their desecrations seize up and sputter, their cognizator implants overloading as they utterly fail to process the sheer volume of RRRREEEEEEEEE being demanded.

So great was the Tau's utter bafflement at the state of these troops that they recommended the entire force be either disbanded or left behind to obsensibly guard the population centers. The request was denied, for the Imperium needed the Orks culled, and so the Tau set out with their new wards, confident that they would all be dead within a week and the Tau would have to clean up. (Un)fortunately for them, they had only scratched the iceberg regarding these "good old boys."

The terrain lent itself well to the Tau's preference for engaging at range; Orks would shake their axes and blades futilely at the Fire Warriors picking them off from the other side of the gorge, and the charges they would make when in massed numbers would bog down as they slogged their way uphill into a storm of plasma fire. Despite the prior expectations, the natives proved equally effective against the Orks, in their own ways. For one thing, they were everywhere; no matter where the battlefield went, several of the PDF would show up with a dozen or more "cousins" to help out. They were also uncanny trackers, always being able to point out with fairly good accuracy where a pocket of Orks was hiding, likely to go, or had been, though it took the Tau several ambushes to stop dismissing the pointed "Dat way's gon' getcha busted up right good, ah tell yew what." More mind-bogglingly, to Tau and Ork alike, was their skill at laying ambushes themselves; more than one Ork attack had only just registered on the Tau before the forest exploded with gunfire, and often several screaming bearded men falling onto the Orks with knives and hatchets drawn. This is not to say that the natives could beat the Orks in Melee combat, and more that you do not need to beat the ork when you can simply unbalance him until he falls off the cliff. Usually the natives attempting this wore parachutes or stitched wing-gliders, cackling loudly as they drifted off out of view of the dumbstruck Tau, while the more daring took the riskier route of trying to jump back off the ork onto solid ground. It was when the Tau started stumbling into ork ambushes, only to be saved from their imminent death by highly accurate las-fire, that the brunt of the situation dawned on them.

The natives of Happalachia loved their guns; they were a means of gathering food, a protector of your family, and symbols of your personal worth all in one. From a young age they would learn marksmanship as a means of putting meat on the table, using the primitive powder-firearms that their forefathers had used for generations, learning to shoot reliably despite bullet drop, wind interference, and other factors. Now that they had access to lasguns, which negate most of these factors, they proved themselves to be uncannily accurate shots at ranges far beyond that expected of a lasgun. What this meant in practice was that the backwards, unshaven, uncouth, smelly backwoods hooligans on this backwater world were putting out a similar long-range performance to that of the Tau, which combined with their knowledge of the terrain meant they were killing Orks before the Tau realized they were there. They were being better marksmen than the Tau.

The thought was too much for the Tau to stomach. Desperate to prove that the Tau forces were undeniably superior to these hillbillys and preserve some semblance of dignity, the Tau leadership began enacting aggressive, almost-suicidal battle plans and strategies, determined to outperform the PDF by securing and holding more of the planet's surface and moving faster than the natives could, deploying forces they had previously held in reserve as "unnecessary," and generally taking it as a personal mission to prove that all their technology meant something.

The locals caught wind, and thought it sounded like fun, and what came next is now known as the Happalachian Hill Race.

The idea was simple; there were already a series of checkpoints, target areas, and objectives in place as a guideline for the reclamation. The Tau decided that if they could take, hold, and secure more of the objectives on their own, they would prove themselves the more effective fighting force, regardless of the individual performance of the natives. Unfortunately, those checkpoints and objectives had also been distributed to the PDF, so the Happalachians were also privy to the "rules" of the race.

What followed was several months of escalating competion, with the natives bringing in all their friends and neighbors, while the Tau brought in all their latest toys. Tweaking their targeting systems to better deal with the forest helped the Tau regain their edge in accuracy at range, but now the natives had numbers to even the scores. Warsuits flew over ravines and jumped over the treetops, while bolted-together technicals tore along cliff-faces, their passengers whooping and hollering as they shot at anything orkish-green that flew by. Eventually it escalated to the point that both sides were just short of open conflict.

The event is best preserved in a holopic captured by one of the Tau battlesuits. It depicts a gorge with a native Technical on one side, and a group of battlesuits in mid-flight on the other. The technical has one wheel over the edge, the others frantically digging for traction, as passengers shoot at unseen Orks while yelling at the Tau, with one individual hanging his bare buttocks out the window. The Tau are likewise firing at Orks on their side of the ravine, while one battlesuit has opened his helmet, apparently in order to yell back at the humans while making an extremely obscene gesture at them, a gesture also being displayed by two other battlesuits, though their users appear more focused on the Orks.

In the end, there was no clear winner of the race; the Tau covered more ground and ended up taking more objectives, but had trouble securing those objectives, as the increased speed had been paid for with less-thorough sweeps, while the natives proved skilled at eliminating all the Orks from an area and arriving in places quickly, they had trouble keeping up with the airborne elements of the Tau, especially when they started deploying from orbit to reach checkpoints faster. Though the "finish line" was reached, several areas fell and had to be retaken or secured, and things only seemed to get more complicated as a group of Biel-tan warriors warped in, too late to have a chance at winning but still looking to participate- and in the end had a very good showing. Most historians will say that the Tau won the race, as their technology once adapted greatly outpaced what the Happalachians could do, but for the Tau it was a bitter victory; though they had emerged on top, it had not been a decisive win, and many of their troops had lost some of their discipline and begun using the same uncouth, offensive mannerisms as they had been trying to prove themselves above. The Tau from the aforementioned holopic was identified and severely punished for such a public display of disrespectful behavior, but the truth is that several Tau had begun having similar exchanges towards the end of the race.

Shas'ui Sli'ker, the Tau fire warrior from the aforementioned Holopic, was reassigned to what amounted to a desk job in an attempt to make a public example of how crass behavior was unacceptable within the Tau military. He would later go on to write a short book intended to advise other Tau how best to prepare for different cultures, the importance of not underestimating your allies or foes, and the importance of listening to the councel of natives more familiar with the land than you, regardless of percieved ignorance. While the Ethereals deemed his work too dangerous to condone distributing it (his ideas on being willing to adopt aspects of local culture to build trust sounded too much like giving up what made the Tau the Tau), he was able to get published by human distributors, who found his work either comedically entertaining or useful for non-Tau who would interact with other cultures too. The work eventually became public knowledge among the Tau soldiery, who while they mostly found it a bit too radical, found it contained useful knowledge that has soothed relations more than once. The author himself eventually returned to Happalachia, living out his final days in what he called "the most beautiful land ever infested with hicks;" he was well-loved within the local community, and his passing was mourned greatly, with several statues being erected in his honor; one depicting him relaxing, set to look out over his favorite view, the other showing his more famous pose, placed in front of the Capitol, forever indicating exactly what he thinks of the locals, the planet, and the universe in general to the horizon.

Historians and military analysts alike have examined the events of the Happalachian Hill Race in search of explanations as to how a bunch of newly-discovered Men of Stone with inferior technology managed to challenge one of the most technologically-advanced races in the galaxy, much less challenge them in their field of expertise. Upon closer examination, several things became apparent. Firstly, the Happalachians, while marksmen of far higher caliber than the average guardsmen (though their unsactioned scope attachments may aid in that), are not, in fact, anywhere near as good as the average Tau. Tests performed in firing ranges and field excercises found that the Tau's accuracy and response time were far greater than that of the Happalachians, and effective at much further ranges than Happalachian lasguns could even reach, much less reliably hit. This, of course, raised the question of how these hillbillies were getting the drop on the Orks before the Tau. The answer lies in perhaps the two biggest contributing factors to the outcome; Terrain and Tactics.

While the Tau had come equipped with jumpsuits and drones and the means to easily cover the planet's mountainous terrain, on the planning level there had been a major failure to account for how advancing across a planet of mountains is different from advancing across a mountain range on a planet. A gorge easily crossed in a battlesuit could contain miles of tunnels, outcroppings, overhangs, and other places where Orks could hide within the trees or shrubbery. This meant that the intial Tau advance was very prone to accidentally overjumping patches of Orks, who would then attempt to ambush the Tau, and instead get bisected by the lasfire of the Natives.

This was the second failing in the Tau's campaign, their Tactics. Both Natives and Orks on Happalachia had adopted an inclination towards Ambush tactics, as massed engagements and charges were simply unfeasible on a fortyfive-degree slope. Some Orks would even bury themselves in the ground and wait for hours or days in order to jump an enemy, which meant that on the Tau's heat-sensors they would appear as little more than slightly warmer than usual plants. The local tactic for clearing Orks would generally involve one group acting as the "bait," driving around in one of their loud technicals, whooping and hollering and making as much noise as they could, with the rest of the locals aimed and waiting for the Orks to take the bait.

The Tau, by contrast, were not sneaky in the least about their approach, their roaring jumpjets, clanking battlesuits, and vehicle support making their advance very loud and very noticeable. To the Happalachians, this looked like the aliens volunteering for the most dangerous role in the hunt, and thus moved to do the obvious thing and be ready to intercept the inevitable ambush. In practical terms, this meant that engagements with the Orks happened with the Natives already prepared to fire, and the Orks at close ranges to the Tau, who are notoriously ill-suited for close quarters. The Tau, having failed to take the locals seriously enough to have learned or paid attention to the Happalachian's explanations on how to properly hunt Orks, mistook the native's well-intentioned support as intentional showboating, fraying tempers and leading to rash decisions and even more stubborn resistance to any sort of advice from the locals.

There were, of course, other factors; scouts who would go ahead and track groups of Orks, relaying their position through birdcalls and markings on trees; the spread-out nature of the native population, which lead to there usually being someone in the area who could point out pitfalls or add more firearms to the mix; the constant tree-cover making the Tau's vertical advantages significantly reduced; even flaws in the Tau targeting system in regards to such extreme slopes, which while not enough to render them helpless or ineffective, could slow their response time against Orks from multiple sharp angles just enough for the natives to fire first. However, the majority of these factors tend to stem from the Tau's third and perhaps biggest blunder; their attitude towards the natives.

The intention to prove themselves better had already colored the intitial interactions with Happalachians, and once the Tau saw the way the natives behaved, they almost immediately dismissed them as hopeless fools. This, of course, flies in the face of the fact that a population on a planet infested with Orks cannot survive without developing ways to effectively deal with their green neighbors, and that a population that thrives is likely very good at it. The miscommunication about the standard tactics against the Orks and subsequent losses of composure at percieved slights could well have been avoided had the Tau actually listened and not dismissed the (admittedly impolitely presented) guidance of the Happalachian advisors regarding the flaws in the Tau's plan of advance. In short, idealism and self-assumed superiority blinded the Tau, both on the Command and individual level, to their easily-corrected mistakes; a mistake that they would later take great pains to avoid making again, if only to avoid another such humiliation.

The aftermath of the Happalachian Hill Race was messy, both beauracratically and conventionally. The Orks had been heavily culled and contained to a few manageable areas, but the Tau had lost much more of their hardware in the process than had previously been anticipated due to their more aggressive tactics, though there were also several crate's worth of pulse rifles that had mysteriously gone missing from their supply headquarters, with rumors that they had been "scavenged" by the locals going unconfirmed, as any Happalachian with a Pulse rifle would claim to have scavenged it off of a dead Tau.

Of greater concern was the cultural impact; the Tau's self-assurance of superiority was badly shaken, as were their preconcieved notions on Humanity and the Eldar. Tau Supremacists would use the Happalachians as caricatures of Humanity as a whole, and proof that joining these delusional primitives was a mistake that would cost the Tau dearly. Their detractors would point out that the "primitives" had shown themselves capable of keeping up with and challenging the Tau, even with technology inferior by their own standards, and that if their forces had been more advanced the Tau may actually have lost. A more concrete effect was had in that broad, sweeping changes to their policies regarding cooperation with other forces, mostly aimed at staying professional and not having their troops lose their cool and start a competition, but also including steps to try and prepare and acclimate the average Tau to the inevitable Culture Shock that had hit them so hard in Happalachia. The regiments deployed to Happalachia went on to prove themselves more skilled at working with other forces than other Tau regiments, though whether this was due to having learned humility or simple relief at the relative normalcy of most other forces is a matter of debate.

For their part, the Happalachians seem to consider the Tau to be friends, if oddly stuck-up buddies who try to stay cool but can scrap with the best if pushed enough. This may be part of their odd form of conflict-resolution, where fighting or competing with another is a way of growing closer with them, as long as you aren't trying to kill them. Considering their abilities with firearms, blades, and hatchets, perhaps the distinction between fighting and killing is simply more well-defined than it is for others. The race itself is remembered fondly, and has become immortalized through an actual, proper race every five years, where contestants must cross the same objectives that were the original goals, with several alternate paths and a scoring system, that is open to all comers.

There are now several Happalachian scout regiments; while their skills have proved to be mostly localized (most of the universe is not mountain ranges), they are still an asset to the Imperium, if one who's equipment is so unstandardized as to make their logistics a nightmare; this has something to do with the fact that the Admech, upon seeing their unique approach to technology, tried to declare them all tech-heretics, and while this merely led to less-conventional tech-convents setting up shop instead due to the local resource deposits, it is still very difficult to legitimately sell Admech goods to the locals. Not that this stops people from doing so, just that they do so sneakily, and in small quantities at a time. This has the result of the Happalachian regiments being a bit of a wild card; no other scout regiment is quite as prevalent in their ability to pull out a plasma weapon or high-yield explosive they really shouldn't have at a time when it is most needed, though the opposite is also true of them failing to have some of the most basic resources an Imperial Guard regiment is expected to field.

One side-effect of the campaign was the Tau's later collaborations with Ultramar; the disciplined, regimented and well-equipped Ultramar Guard were a much more palatable and familiar face for the Tau, and while there were still initial issues with posturing and rivalry, there was also respect and appreciation of Ultramar's professionalism. For their part, the forces of Ultramar was more than willing to provide advice and guidelines for interacting with the less "conventional" forces of the Imperium, which likely influenced the reforms the Tau would implement regarding cooperation and acclimitization with Imperial forces. It is politely disregarded that much of this advice had been given before the campaign on Happalachia, with the only difference being that the Tau were now willing to listen.

In all, the campaign was a success for the Tau- however ungraceful it may have been. Their objective was completed far ahead of the initial projections, and the lessons were learned with a relatively forgiving people who would not hold grudges or resentment against the Tau for their behavior, unlike how worlds like Vostroya or Catachan may have developed centuries-long grudges against xenos who looked down on them. Instead, they now have eager and willing allies, whose Regiments have often been deployed to assist the Tau in times of need (In spite of frequent requests from the Tau to "please send anyone else;" the Imperium's armies are not unlimited, so you take whatever is available. This is most definitely not the clerks of the Administratum having a laugh at the Tau's expense.). The Tau have ultimately improved as a result of the lessons learned on that backwater planet, and despite the jokes made at their expense, it was a learning experience that ultimately helped them better integrate into the Imperium- if mostly by showing them how maddening the universe can be.
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==== The Siege of Lusitan ====

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The members of the Hubworld League have always been a proud and stubborn people, who would rather die than admit defeat. Despite being a brash, salt-of-the-earth type of people, they are brilliant innovators and engineers and can be single-minded when it comes to retribution. These traits are well-displayed by the events of the Siege of Lusitan.

Lusitan was once a prominent mining colony located in the galactic south of Hubworld territory. The planet was covered by large fissures and volcanic activity as a result of tidal flexing due to its proximity to its parent star, with some openings reaching all the way down to the deep mantle. As a result, it was rich in rare and valuable minerals that were normally only found deep beneath a planet's core. Therefore, the high gravity and mineral wealth of Lusitan made it a perfect colony for the Hubworld League.

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When Leviathan, the third of the three great tyranid scouting fleets, emerged on the galactic scene, most people would have predicted that the hive fleet would have made galaxyfall in the galactic east, as Behemoth and Kraken did before it. However, this was not the case. Instead, Leviathan made a sudden swerve in its trajectory, seemingly to avoid a passing through a particular region of space, and made galaxyfall at a slight angle to the galactic plane in the Segmentum Tempestus. As a result, many planets that had been far away from the front lines of the first two Tyranic Wars were now under threat by the tyranid menace, including many worlds of the Hubworld League. This included Lusitan, as a small tendril of Leviathan broke off from the main hive fleet to directly besiege the small colony.

Lusitan was not a major Hubworlder settlement, but the planet was an important component in the Hubworld League’s economy, and so although the planet was not as well protected as a major world of the Hubworld League it was better defended than the majority of its colonies. As a result, the defenders of Lusitan were able to hold out against the initial waves of hormagaunts and termagaunts but began to lose ground when higher tyranid lifeforms such as carnifexes and tervigons started appearing. About the only good news was that the tyranids seemed unable to make use of organisms such as mawlocs and trygons, Lusitan’s crust being too thin and volatile for them to work efficiently. The Hubworlders fought like madmen, making the tyranids pay in blood for every inch they took, but unfortunately for the Hubworlders the tyranids always seemed to have blood to spare.

After three weeks of heavy fighting, the people of Lusitan received some unexpected good news. A relief fleet had arrived, travelling via sub-light speeds after warping in as close as they could get to Lusitan’s star system. The relief fleet was comprised of Hubworlders and Imperials from nearly a dozen different Imperial member states, spearheaded by a small force of Salamanders from nearby Nocturne led by Second Captain Hal’shan. However, the rescuers were surprised when they received a message from the Lusitanians telling them not to land on the planet’s surface. At first the rescue fleet just thought this was merely Hubworlder stubborness at work, and tried to force their way to the planet's surface, even after the Hubworlders began physically blockading their ships from landing. This only stopped after the leader of Lusitan, Governor Vardun, opened a private channel of communication to the flagship of the rescue effort and Hal’shan.

The exact words of that conversation remain unknown, but after it was over Hal’shan’s behavior changed completely, ordering all ships to cease attempts at landing and instead focus all efforts in helping the Hubworlders evacuate. Over the next several hours thousands of ships launched off from Lusitan’s surface, protected from the hive ships by the rescue fleet, and before long most of Lusitan’s population was in orbit. Following that, Hal’shan immediately ordered all ships to escort the Hubworlder vessels to the edges of the system, leaving what few people remained on Lusitan’s surface. At the time, this order was not popular, and several protested this decision, but Hal’shan responded that the Hubworlder ships were in danger and it was their duty to help the civilians evacuate first.

The only reason we know of what happened next was due to a few Salamanders who refused to leave the few Hubworlders left on Lusitan to die. Geological mapping of Lusitan's surface had indicated that compared to most planets the crust was unusually thin, and essentially held above the mantle by a series of caverns supported by a few key structural weak points. Destroying these points would cause the crust to collapse into the mantle, which in turn would cause the magma to rise and swamp the planet's entire land surface. This was Governor Vardun’s entire plan. Over the last few days, he had converted several mining charges into makeshift explosives scattered around the planet as Lusitan’s defenders had bought time with their lives. And now, with the majority of Lusitan’s people in orbit, he could execute this plan with a clear conscience.

The tyranids were simply too numerous to be removed through conventional means. The size of the tyranid thread on Lusitan had been severely underestimated, so even with the arrival of reinforcements the tyranids could only be discouraged, not defeated in a fair fight. At the same time, the tendril of Leviathan had to be stopped here, or else the entire Hubworld League would be under threat. Vardun had struggled with this dilemma for days, either sacrifice Lusitan for the sake of the greater good or hold out for the possibility of reinforcements and hope that his decision to preserve Lusitan hadn't been for nothing.

The rescue fleet had changed that. Now, no one had to die to remove the tyranids from Lusitan’s surface. Well, no one other than himself and his advisors, at any rate. If someone had to die, might as well be the ones who had come up with the plan in the first place. Vardun transmitted his last words of vengeance against the tyranids and then, without hesitation, threw the switch.

''"Fry, you overgrown space roaches"''
- Last known words of Governor Vardun

The move, although militarily unorthodox, was a stunning success. Tyranids usually recouped their losses by consuming the biomass of their dead, but this time the bodies of their troops were buried under several stories of molten lava. The sudden simultaneous death of so many synapse creatures caused a brief disruption in the Shadow in the Warp, which allowed Imperial reinforcements to come in and slaughter the Hive Ships in orbit.

However, the victory had not come without terrible costs. For one, Governor Vardun and all the leaders of the Lusitan colony were dead. On top of that, the entire topology of the planet had been disturbed and its surface was covered in lava. It would be centuries, if not millennia, before the lava cooled and the planet stabilized enough for resettlement. The tyranids were gone, but the people of Lusitan now had no home to return to.

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==== The Octarius War ====

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There are worlds that they believe they have known war. Cadia, last bastion before the Eye. Krieg, named better than its discoverers knew. Armageddon, world of steel and flame. Mordia, stubborn and resolute.

Octarius laughs at them all. Ever since Kryptmann unleashed his grand plan, Tyranid and Ork have fought relentlessly, unceasingly, across its surface. For over a thousand years. There is almost nowhere you can touch the original surface without digging; mounds of charred corpses, Tyranid growths, and ruined Ork war machines cover the surface too thickly. Strata after strata of fossilized war. To walk on the surface of Octarius is to walk on dead flesh. The sky is perpetually black, an ashen shroud composed of Tyranid spores, oily smoke from Ork engines and guns, dust kicked up by ceaseless orbital bombardment, and the vaporized particles of uncounted trillions of dead. The blackness is broken by a perpetual meteor shower, as broken fragments of millions of shattered ships and shredded naval organisms rain down on the surface from the unending war in orbit. Despite the fact that there is no sun and no stars, there is more than enough light; the eternal thunder of Ork guns lights up the horizon with a false dawn, reflecting off the clouds until it seems the sky is on fire. The ice caps have melted from the ambient heat of trillions of guns and trillions of bodies.

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The seas are dyed with Ork blood and Tyranid ichor, and filled with ork warships and submarines so densely packed you could almost walk from one coast to another in battle with tyranid swimmers no less numerous. The skies are clogged with millions of flyers. The earth is honeycombed with endless tunnels, begun for shelter from orbital bombardment or in attempts to outflank a stubborn defense but long since turned into a theater of war on their own, grots and squigs and tyranid burrowers hunting each other through the darkness. Sometimes the diggings get too vast, too unstable, too convoluted, and vast sections of front drop into sudden sinkholes.

In orbit above, ships merge together and battle in the orbitals, amid a vast ring system created by the wreckage of a hundred thousand previous battles. Ork ships and tyranid bioforms clashing at point-blank range and closer, an endless maelstrom of boarding action and bombardments. Destroyed or damaged vessels frequently fall out of orbit to cataclysmic ends on the surface below- or, as both ork and tyranid know it, 'delivering reinforcements'.

Both sides deploy weapons and creations seen nowhere else, ork Meks struggling to keep pace with tyranid hyper-evolution. Vast armies of Mega-Gargants, in numbers not seen since the War of the Beast, clash with Bio-Titans of unprecedented size and ferocity. Tyranids sprout flame weapons in vast quantity, while Doks devise poisons that scythe down even tyranid biologies- for a time, until they adapt again. Unique squig breeds hunt down lictors with incredible ferocity, and fields of razor-worms devour entire ork columns in seconds.

The war extends to stranger battlefields as well. It is a war of ecologies, as ork and tyranid spores attempt to out-compete and strangle each other, a microscopic war of poisons over nutrient-rich corpse-strata.

It is a war of ontologies, a clash of welt-systems, as Ork WAAAGGHH and the Shadow In The Warp strain to overcome each other. It is a war on every possible level.

The war extends throughout the Octarius sector, and beyond; Octarius is simply where it is at its most intense. Vast fleets thrust and parry across light-years, vital systems changing hands dozens upon dozens of times. The sectors surrounding the Octarius sector are slowly ground down to nothing, as ork and tyranid raiding fleets venture further and further outward to fuel their respective war machines. The war expands, and expands, and expands.

Black Crusades split apart to avoid Octarius. Imperial seers try to divine its depths, to control it, to contain it, but are foiled by the psychic maelstrom formed by the clashing of WAAAGHH and Shadow. Khornate warbands and Deathwatch kill-teams vanish without trace.

The Octarius War has become a perpetual motion machine. The orks feed off the war, and the tyranids feed off the orks. Neither can accept defeat or countenance retreat. To withdraw for either combatant would be to forever mark them as something lesser, something inferior, and extermination would surely follow.

This has been going on for a thousand years. It cannot last forever; sooner or later, something will give. And it is uncertain what, if anything, will survive the conflagration when it does.

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====The Badab War====

EDITOR'S NOTE: Needs to be added to with the changes discussed in thread 27.

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Near the center of the Milky Way galaxy is the Maelstrom, a lightyears-wide patch of incrossable space and the biggest Warp Storm outside of the Eye of Terror. For obvious reasons, the Administratum recognized the potential threat the Maelstrom represented and stationed five Astartes chapters to guard it, as the Maelstrom Warders: the Brothers of the Anvil, the Wind Riders, the Charnel Guards, the Crystal Wyverns, and the Astral Claws. On paper, the five chapters were all equals amongst one another. In practice, however, the Astral Claws were the oldest and most experienced of the five chapters, and so the other chapters tended to defer to the Astral Claws for leadership.
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At the turn of the 41st millennium, the Chapter Master of the Astral Claws was a man named Lugft Huron. Despite the presence of five Space Marine chapters, Huron felt the High Lords of Terra were not taking the Maelstrom as seriously as they should have. In contrast to the Eye of Terror, which was located on the edges of Imperial territory, the Maelstrom was located near the very heart of the Imperium, and so any Chaos incursions there would be much more unpredictable and much more likely to strike at something vital. And unlike the Eye of Terror, there were no equivalent to the Cadian Gates to funnel the movement of Chaos forces in and out of the Maelstrom. The Eye of Terror had the Black Legion, numerous Guard regiments, and all the forces Cadia and Ulthwé could bring to bear guarding its gates. And what did the Maelstrom have? Five chapters of Space Marines. Huron made these concerns known in a message to the Administratum and the High Lords of Terra.

Unfortunately, this request was made during the 12th Black Crusade, when the Imperium was understandably focused on more important things. The High Lords reportedly did send a message back to Huron saying they would consider his request when they had the opportunity, but it is unknown if Huron ever received it. Whatever the case, Huron took the apparent lack of concern about the Maelstrom and his situation personally. He claimed to the Astral Claws and the other Maelstrom Warders that the Imperium had abandoned them, and that it was their duty to secure the Maelstrom and the Badab Sector by any means necessary. To this end they carved out their own little petty empire in the Badab Sector, seizing control of the inhabited worlds for supplies and aspirants.

At first, the Imperium did not notice anything was wrong, being too busy taking stock of the losses from the 12th Black Crusade. However the Imperium quickly did notice the situation in Badab when ships from the Badab Sector started raiding Imperial Worlds in other sectors for materiel and aspirants. The Emperor in particular was outraged at the system Huron had set up, wherein the Astartes acted as a military aristocracy over the baseline citizens. In his mind the Astartes, like himself, were duty-bound to serve mankind, not lord over them.

The Badab War was a particularly bloody one. Numerous Imperial regiments were still on active duty due to the 12th Black Crusade, so Imperial forces simply poured into the Badab Sector. However, it was not that easy. Huron had rebuilt many of the buildings of the Badab Sector, including the infamous “Palace of Thorns” on Badab Primaris, in the expectation of facing a Chaos attack from the Maelstrom, only now he was facing a siege from the other direction. Nevertheless, the Imperium continued to steadily gain ground, and it was clear that the Imperium would not be merciful to the traitors. As a result, Huron found himself accepting the aid of an ally he never thought he’d side with: the Chaos Gods.

Accepting the aid of Chaos caused a brief resurgence by the Empire of Badab, making it even harder for the Imperium to proceed, but the Imperium still managed to press on. Eventually, the Imperium reached the heart of the Empire of Badab, but the five traitor chapters fled into the Maelstrom at the behest of the Chaos Gods. Imperial Forces tried to follow the traitor chapters into the Maelstrom, attempting to kill them before they could escape and join with Chaos forces, but the Ruinous Powers threw up a Warp Storm that prevented all efforts at pursuit. Once in the Warp, each of the Maelstrom Warders fell to a different Chaos Gods, the Brothers of the Anvil (now Deathmongers) to Khorne, the Wind Riders to Slaanesh, the Charnel Guards to Nurgle, and the Crystal Wyverns to Tzeentch, with Lugft Huron and his Astral Claws, now rechristened the Red Corsairs, following Chaos Undivided.

Today, the Red Corsairs and their following chapters act more like mercenaries than cultists, willing to support any major Chaos warband as long as the pay is good. Surprisingly, the five chapters still cooperate with one another as well as they did when they were loyal to the Imperium, despite worshipping different gods. The Red Corsairs’ mercenarial nature is one of the ways people like Malys and Be'lakor get their hands on Chaos Space Marines without having to deal with Luther and his ilk. Currently, Huron and the Red Corsairs have thrown in their lot with Lady Malys and her forces, having seen the writing on the wall.
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====The Bloodtide====

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For unknown reasons, Khorne has always had a strange fascination with nanotech. Perhaps it is because a nanite swarm is a weapon that flows like blood, or perhaps it is because the nanobots attack by entering the body and attacking the very flesh and blood itself. Regardless, Khornates often seem drawn to ancient nanotechnology, whether human or non-human in origin.

Nanotech weaponry was also popular with the corrupted Men of Iron during the Age of Strife, which formed the basis of abominations as omniphages. In 476.M41, a kill-team of about thirty Grey Knights led by Brother Ordan were on the trail of a Khornate cult looking for a nanotech weapon the cultists rather unimaginatively called the Bloodtide. After chasing the Khornates across several worlds via the Webway as the cultists pieced together the clues as to where the Bloodtide was hidden, the Grey Knights finally cornered the cultists on the on the world of Van Horne, the planet on which the Bloodtide had been buried.

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When they emerged from the Webway Gate, the Grey Knights had initially hoped to join forces with Imperial military assets on the planet with and organize an impromptu quarantine and defense against the Bloodtide. However, the only Imperial forces present on the planet besides the Grey Knights were the PDF and a Commandery of about 250 Sisters of Battle, who were on the planet investigating reports of a separatist cell, necessitating a change of plans. Making contact with the Sisters, led by Preceptor Mariel, and the PDF, the Grey Knights explained (at least as much as they could) they were hunting a Chaotic weapon of mass destruction that they believed was going to be activated under one of the largest cities on the planet.

They told the Sisters and the PDF that they needed them to sound the evacuation order and work with the planet’s government to make preparations for the evacuation of the planet in the event of the worst case scenario. Meanwhile, the Grey Knights would enter the city and try and hunt down the cultists before they could activate the weapon. Preceptor Mariel wasn’t happy with the idea of being relegated to evacuation duty. She argued that it would make more sense for the PDF and Sisters to join the Grey Knights in hunting down the cult, and stop the disaster before it even began. Ordan responded it was either put out the call to evacuate and potentially only lose one city, or risk it and lose all the cities.

As the Grey Knights entered the outer districts of the city, they heard a horrific scream and were buffeted by what seemed like a wind of metallic dust. They were too late. The Bloodtide had been activated. The Grey Knights, being clad in fully sealed power armor were immune to the Bloodtide effects, but the people around them were not. The civilians did not die cleanly, screaming in agony and clawing at their bodies as blood oozed from every pore, bleeding far more blood than any human should be able to produce as their internal organs were turned to liquid by what amounted to synthetic ebola. As opposed to the omniphages, which were intended as a form of nanotech Exterminatus, an intentional “grey goo” scenario, the Bloodtide was meant to kill people in the most horrific way possible. It was a nanotech terror weapon.

It wasn’t until the Grey Knights had reached the inner parts of the city that Ordan had realized he had made a mistake. He had only expected to have to fight the warlord and his hangers on, thinking their activation of the Bloodtide and the subsequent carnage was meant to be an end in and of itself. However, he hadn’t expected the warlord to use that blood for something else. The warlord had offered the blood of the dead as a sacrifice to Khorne, and given that quite a lot of people had died in one of the most Khorne-pleasing manners possible the warlord had managed to summon a literal army of Khornate daemons, which could travel the planet much faster than the Bloodtide ever could. The timetable for the total devastation of the planet had just moved up.

The Bloodletters and Bloodthirsters arose from the blood as if crawling out of their own reflection. Normally most people would be cursing their decisions and their fate in this situation, but not Ordan and the members of the Brotherhood. They were Grey Knights. If they had to die, so be it, they would take as many of the daemons as they could with them. However, for all their bravery and defiance, they numbered little more than thirty, and did not have the numbers to take on the Khornate daemons, who simply dogpiled them. Ordan believed he was to meet his end when he was pinned by a Bloodmaster, when a melta blast from behind Ordan hit the daemon and melted its face to slag.

Looking up, Ordan saw the form of Preceptor Mariel and her Sisters firing into the horde of Khornate daemons. Ordan demanded to know why the Preceptor was there, and why they weren’t helping sound the order to evacuate the planet. Mariel responded with a cheeky response about how they had already handled it. Regardless of their disregard to stay back, the Sisters provided exactly what the Grey Knights needed right now, which was numbers. The best way to fix the situation right now was to charge forward to the Bloodtide as fast as possible, which the Grey Knights did, the Sisters following close behind to provide supporting fire and even the Grey Knights’ odds against the daemons. As their melta guns ran out of power, they switched to their flamers, and then those ran out of fuel, their bolters.

However, the Sisters were not immune to the Bloodtide’s effects. As the Grey Knights and Sisters pushed forward towards the center of the destruction, increasing numbers of Sisters fell, blood bursting from their pores as the nanotech breached the seals of their less advanced power armor and entered their bodies. The Sisters were more resistant to the Bloodtide than any unaugmented human, with some of their enhancements having been designed by Isha herself, and still they fell. Mariel herself managed to hold on until the Grey Knights made it to the Bloodtide itself before she collapsed. When the Grey Knights reached the center they found the Bloodthirster Ka’jagga’nath, who had been pleased by the slaughter wreaked by the now-dead cultists, and sought dominion over the Bloodtide itself. The Grey Knights protested this decision with warp fire and power swords, and after great sacrifice managed to banish the Bloodthirster. The Bloodtide, which had been bound to Ka’jagga’nath’s will when it had been activated, was disrupted by its banishment and returned to an inert form, waiting for a new master.

After the remaining Khornate daemons were purged and the city placed in quarantine, Ordan met with the planetary governor to briefly inform him of a heavily redacted version of the situation. In essence, a Chaotic weapon had been detonated in the city, the city was quarantined, and no one should be allowed to go near it. An experienced Inquisition team should arrive shortly to take the weapon to [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Ganymede|Ganymede]], but the city was probably corrupted to the core and should be razed. The governor congratulated Ordan on their victory, only to receive an unexpected reply.

“You call this victory?” Millions of Imperial citizens are dead. An entire Commandery of Securitas, some of the bravest and most selfless warriors I have ever had the privilege to fight alongside, are no longer with us. There are no victories in this universe, governor. Only scales of defeat.”

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== Imperial Governmental Structure ==

[[Image:1485614099098.jpg|thumb|Emperor Oscar of the Glorious Imperium and its people uncounted, Consort of the All-Mother and her most favoured champion, last of the Golden Men, founder of the Imperium, bane of gods, unifier of all civilized peoples and Defender of the Realm. Not as gold-colored as most people think.]]

The Imperium is vast and covers a little over a million inhabited worlds of humans and xenos and the styles of governance of these worlds varies greatly from one planet to another. Represented under the ever watchful Aquila can be found meritocracies, stratocracies, bureaucracies, plutocracies, oligarchies, theocracies, monarchies, aristocracies, democracies and many others. All of these are local systems usually confined to a single solar system or planet or even a nations on those planets.

The Imperium itself is an autocracy under the rule of the Emperor who operates mostly via benevolent indifference. As a general rule the Imperium does not care what you do so long as you pay the tithe and don't rock the boat.

The only time when the Imperium does care is when one of it's few rules is broken to a degree that they can't pretend to not see it any more. The rules being:

# Pay the tithe
# Don't worship the gods of Chaos
# Don't worship the Emperor
# No militarized religious institutions
# No open warfare between member worlds of the Imperium

So long as these few rules are followed the Imperium does not care. If those rules are broken or the boat is excessively rocked the Imperium suddenly does care and that is terrible because it has no sense of proportional escalation and will confiscate your planet.

Although the Emperor officially rules in practice the Royal Couple spend most of their time touring the Imperium overseeing and inspecting. The day to day running of the Imperium is done by the High Lords of the Imperium who reside on the Holy Planet of Old Earth, know as Terra to the Mechanicum and affiliated institutions.

The High Lords of the Imperium are:

*[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Master of the Administratum Irthu Haemotalion|The Master of the Administratum]]
*The Inquisitorial Representative (currently Hector Rex)
*[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Fabricator-General Oud Oudia Raskian|The Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus]]
*[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Grand Provost Marshal Aveliza Drachmar|The Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites]]
*[[Nobledark Imperium Writing#The Saga of Fedor Jiao|Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators]]
*The Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Astronomican, Schola Psykana and the Black Ships
*Grand Headmaster of Rhetor Imperia and Schola Progenium
*Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Army (ground forces)
*Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Army (space forces)
*Spokesman for the Collective Synod of the Imperium
*The Speaker for the Merchant Navy and Rogue Traders

[[Image:Nobledark Aquila.jpg|thumb|left|250px|The Imperial Aquila, with the twin heads of the Eagle and the Phoenix, symbolizing the union between humankind and Eldar. This is merely the most common variant, with the colors and even to some degree the shape of the Aquila varying based on organization and world.]]

The High Lords of the Imperium were originally set up during the days of the Unification of Old Earth as the task of ruling was becoming too time consuming even for the superhuman Warlord, as he was known at the time. The Warlord's long term hope was that they would eventually be able to replace him entirely and he could step down as the temporary immortal ruler of the masses. His short term goal was to get a bit of free time to learn how to socialize.

As the years wore on it became obvious that humanity on the galactic scale would always need one man of supreme competence to set precedents for the High Lords to follow. The rank of Emperor was created but not occupied by the Warlord who instead became the Steward and would wait for such an individual to arise. In his mind humanity should be ruled by humanity, not be an artificial construct of a failed and half forgotten Empire.

After Goge Vandire was appointed Emperor, screwed everything up and was promptly executed the Steward was bullied by Inquisitor Sebastian Thor and the demands of the masses into taking the role of Emperor. He was not particularly happy about this and at first refused until Inquisitor Thor pointed out that by the end of the day one of them would be sitting on that gaudy old chair and out of the two of them one of them would die of old age eventually and then another civil war this time of succession would almost certainly ensue.

With the exception of the position of the Inquisitorial Representative (which is a ten-year rotating position to make sure the High Lords have the best expert for whatever crisis is facing the Imperium on hand and no one Inquisitor gains too much power), the High Lords of Terra are all human. This is because Eldar live for thousands of years and no one wants to be stuck with one person in the same position for thousands of years. Of course, this doesn’t stop every High Lord and numerous officials beneath them having at least one Seer on their payroll giving advice and wisdom. This benefits the Eldar as well, as it allows them to influence Imperial government without putting themselves directly in the crosshairs. The idea of non-human, non-Eldar High Lords has never come up, seeing as the Imperium has only been officially admitting other species for the last 4,000 years and other species make up only about 1% of the Imperium’s total population. Though given the Tau’s current political ambitions it’s likely that this point is going to be brought up in the near future.

=== Xenos Classifications ===

As the Great Crusade made its way across the stars, back before the Eldar joined and the Imperium was merely the Imperium of Man, the nascent Imperium encountered numerous forms of sentient alien life. Some were non-aggressive towards humanity but merely wished to be left alone, something the Steward was more than willing to oblige. The point of the Great Crusade was to strengthen and unite humanity, not start a hundred petty wars that could weaken humanity in the future via a death of a thousand cuts. Other races, like the Kinebrach or the Eldar of Colchis, were interested in interacting with humanity on peaceful terms, either coexisting as equals or acting as trading partners. The Steward allowed this with some reservation, though he probably told the Xenos in no uncertain terms if he ever found out they were antagonizing or abusing humanity his response would be swift and vengeful. And still others, such as the Nephilem and the Laer, were just so destructive and antagonistic that they simply could not coexist with humanity and had to be destroyed. Any Xenos that would enslave or prey upon humanity, and as it often happened other sentients alongside them, would be put to the sword.

It is these types of interactions that led to the modern Xenos classifications that we know today. Today, the Ordo Xenos of the Inquisition recognizes three major types of sentient alien life:

'''Xenos Familiaris''' – Literally “familiar Xenos” in this case. Used to refer to any Xenos species that is a member of the Imperium. Eldar, Tau, Tarellans, and Demiurg are all representatives of this category. Ironically enough humans also fall into this category if used by a non-human Imperial citizen, as the term essentially means “species that are not my own that are part of the Imperium” as opposed to a human-specific term.

'''Xenos Independens''' – Xenos races that are rational enough that they can negotiate with the Imperium, but for whatever reason are not part of it. Some engage in heavily restricted trade with the Imperium (usually through Rogue Traders, as the Imperium likes to use free trade with the rest of the Imperium as a selling point for minor races to join). Others are aloof and territorial and may have even fought minor skirmishes with the Imperium, but are generally smart enough to sue for peace before things escalate beyond the point of no return. Ordo Xenos Inquisitors like to monitor these species like a hawk, as they are ideal tools for Chaos to subvert and use against the Imperium. The Q’orl and the Jokaero represent the aggressive and affiliative extremes of this category, respectively. Interestingly, the Necron Star Empire was in this category at one point when the Imperium thought they could be negotiated with until the Silent King started getting unreasonable.

'''Xenos Horrificus''' – Hostile xenos. Xenos that are aggressive, destructive, cannot be negotiated with, and therefore should be eradicated whenever possible. A declaration of Xeno Horrificus is essentially an all-out biological declaration of war on the species. Orks, tyranids, Crone Eldar, Rak’gol, Slaugh, and Barghesi, among others, all fall into this category.

There is also a fourth category recognized, though not commonly used, by the Order Xenos to refer to Xenos that the Imperium knows little to nothing about: '''Xenos Obscuras'''. Most of the time this classification is used to refer to long-dead races that are of little to no threat to the Imperium, though sometimes it will turn out the species is not as dead as everyone once thought. This doesn't stop entertainment media from using it to explain Inquisitorial heroes finding knowledge of rarely-glimpsed xenos of rumor. If the Inquisition decides that rumors of a xenos species have enough truth to warrant a classification, it is listed as Independens (Pending) or Horrificus (Pending).

Although some Imperial citizens mistake abhumans for Xenos, there is actually a very clear line between the two. If an organism is an Earth-based lifeform originally descended from humanity, it is an abhuman, no matter what it looks like. Anything else is a Xenos.

{| class="wikitable"
!|Xenos Familiaris
!|Xenos Independens
!|Xenos Horrificus
|-
|style="width: 33%" |'''Humanity''' (including abhumans)<br> '''Eldar''' (Craftworld and Exodite)<br> '''Tau''' (joined M39)<br> '''Demiurg''' (joined M36)<sup>1</sup><br> '''Watchers in the Dark''' (joined M36)<sup>2</sup><br> '''Kinebrach''' (joined M36)<sup>3</sup><br> '''Tarellians''' (joined M38)<br> '''Kroot''' (joined M39)<sup>4</sup><br> '''Diasporex'''<sup>5</sup><br>
|style="width: 33%" |'''Hrud'''<br> '''Jokaero'''<br> '''Saruthi''' (the Sane)<br> '''Q'orl'''<br> '''Zoats'''<br>
|style="width: 33%" |'''Orks'''<br> '''Croneworld Eldar'''<br> '''Dark Eldar'''<br> '''Necrons'''<sup>6</sup><br> '''Tyranids'''<br> '''Slaugth'''<br> '''Rak'gol'''<br> '''Laer'''<br> '''Barghesi'''<br> '''Saruthi''' (the Broken)<br>
|}
<sup>1</sup> - First non-human, non-eldar species to officially join the Imperium. Offered alliance in recognition of the great help they gave the Imperium during the Age of Apostasy and the Imperial Civil War <br>
<sup>2</sup> - Were allied with the Dark Angels as early as the Great Crusade, officially didn't exist until Imperium began admitting other species in M36<br>
<sup>3</sup> - Were a protectorate of the Interex until M36, at which point they obtained separate representation <br>
<sup>4</sup> - Originally allied with the Tau, carried over when the Tau joined the Imperium. The Kroot technically don't see themselves as part of the Imperium, rather the Imperium are "preferred clients", but given they dislike Chaos as much as the rest of the Imperium does and the Necrons and tyranids don't hire mercenaries the difference is almost academic.<br>
<sup>5</sup> - Technically a union of multiple species, including humans. Treated as distinct because it's unclear what species, if any, is in charge.<br>
<sup>6</sup> - Were Independens until M40 and the war sparked by the return of the Silent King, still some exceptions like the Gidrim (Nemesor Zahndrekh) and Solemnace (Trazyn the Infinite) Dynasties who are mostly Independens.<br>

=== Member States ===

Most of the worlds encountered by the Imperium during the Great Crusade had greatly devolved during the Age of Strife, and ended up having to be directly administered by the Imperial Government and the Administratum. However, several national entities, including other technologically advanced Survivor civilizations, the Eldar Craftworlds, and several other species of xenos joined the Imperium whilst being interstellar powers in their own right. In these cases, these entities joined as semi-autonomous member states, granting them almost complete political and industrial autonomy in exchange for following the Imperium's few universal rules.

For more information see [[Nobledark_Imperium_Member_States|Member States]]

== Forces of The Imperium ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Imperial Forces]]

== Imperial Society and Culture ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Imperial Society and Culture]]

== Notable People ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notable People]]

=== The Primarchs ===
See [[Nobledark Imperium Primarchs]]

== The Galactic Pantheon ==

'''The Emperor of Mankind''' - "Is not a god" according to his own words when asked. Nevertheless, even if the Emperor is not a god, he is undoubtedly the most powerful champion of humankind, and the Men of Gold were by far the closest thing humankind ever made to Warp Gods. Though he is not a god, he is the mightiest of mortals and more powerful than many purely supernatural entities, similar to Hercules among the old legends of ancient Greece on Old Earth. There are rumors that the Emperor has grown even more powerful, or more skilled, with age, though for the safety of the Imperium the Emperor has never been put on the front lines where these rumors have been put to the test.

'''Isha''' - Embodied in the Eldar Macha, the all-mother and Eternal Empress of the Imperial dominion. Millennia ago she was the fertility goddess of the Eldar pantheon, she opposed Khaine and in the fall did all she could to save the Eldar people, though she was herself taken captive by Nurgle. Through theses valiant efforts and the rule of ages hence the Matron goddess is said to have gained a regality and might that surpasses her old self. She is much occupied by the maintenance of spiritual health at the widest level for the imperium, vying against Slaanesh for whatever fragments of Eldar souls she can salvage, and affording the Imperium's peoples a dominion within the realm of souls somewhat more hospitable than the wilds of the warp.

'''Cegorach''' - The laughing god of the Eldar, also survivor of the fall, now endless jester of the galactic court and master of the Dark Carnival. An involved player of the Great Game, he is supposedly an invaluable asset to the Imperium in the intrigues of immortal beings. To all the worlds of the Imperium he is a figure of myth and folktale, and any real deed is indistinguishable from pure fabrication.

'''[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#The_Void_Dragon|The Void Dragon]]''' - At some point this being was a self-aware expression of nested complexity, or perhaps a very long bolt of lightning, but in the millions of years since then it has gained first an indomitable body of living femto-machines, and now a significant warp presence. It is curious, and eccentric, and it wants to experiment with the warp on a grand scale. It seems to have some appreciation of beings more finite and fragile than it, but it is infinite and hard, and it remains to be seen what god it wishes to be. It it also the Omnissiah, and it is fond of its cult, and finds it a perfect instrument.

'''The Nightbringer''' - This one wishes to be death. It has slain countless species, for ages, across light-years of space and centuries of time. It has done so by stellar radiation and by scythe, and it found that as it killed it's legend and spite proceeded it, until it's own lifeless visage was so known and feared that it cast the Nightbringer its own perfect double in the warp. The great murderer withstood even the full and unilateral hatred of the Necron Star Empire and came away not in shards, but as a great battered undead husk and accompanying splinters. Now awakened, the reaper wishes to regain his mighty warp presence and to restore his form. To this end he embeds lesser shards in mortal hosts, saddled with mortal personas to better domineer them to his will, and sets them to sow death in his image.

'''The Deceiver''' - As consumate a player of games as Cegorach, the liesmith, avatar of duplicity, reveled in the peak of the Necron empire's golden age, happy among the chrome aristocrats and toasted as the diplomat of living gods. He is reviled by the Necrons now, and shattered beyond assembly, but the presence of this being persists despite itself. Its incoherent shards still long for subtlety, for veils of words, and find themselves in the flesh of mortals of high stature as best they can. What plot the Deceiver pursues is unknown, perhaps unknowable, but its shards are of a conspiratorial and avaricious sort, with no favor among the living.

'''Gork & Mork''' - The supreme brutes might be thought unchanged in the eons of their long lives. Not so, for unlike the weaklings of Materium, with each blow to the head they become more cleverer.

'''Tzeentch''' - Created alongside Malal, he was an early warp god of boundless creativity, writing new rules of sorcery and new beings of thought into existence as quickly as Malal could deny them. In the original duality, formed from and shaped by the Old Ones, the warp and sorcery were ultimately manageable and illuminating forces. In subsequent eons this order has changed, Tzeentch has changed, and sorcery has become a bleak art of insane rituals and hateful acts. Where once he sung a song of creation, he is now a delirious, deceptive crow of plots. Tzeentch maintains power bases across the galaxy, as he has since time immemorial, but the true might of his cult is in the twisting redoubts of the Webway and the Warp, in colleges and orders of fell and maddening arts.

'''Malal''' - Originally the 'destroyer' of the Warp, be he denial or the thought of mortality, Malal swept up the multifarious gibbering creations of Tzeentch and met them with their nullifying opposites, or talked them apart with what they weren't. He was supplanted by Khorne after the War in Heaven, and it seemed like impassioned, honorable, involved destruction would better suit the minds of the galaxy than Malal's own nihilistic void of denial.

'''Nurgle''' - In the spring of the galaxy Nurgle was created between Tzeentch and Malal, to me maintainer, shaper, and preserver, until such time as Malal might rightly end a story or thought or thing. In the wake of the War in Heaven, as the triumvirate adjusted to the new galactic order, Nurgle began the slow slide into malignance that also afflicted Tzeentch. Nurgle still ultimately serves his role as preserver, but where once in his garden he strove to safeguard against Khorne and temper Tzeentch he now maintains a landfill. His servants can be found on caustic wasteland planets and in the gutters of rookeries, but the foremost among them are the attendants of Isha, seeking to return her to the garden 'for her own safety', and the Astartes of Sisigmund.

'''Khorne''' - Born in the heat of the War in Heaven, he may be the psychic reverberation of that bloody event, but it has been posited that he coalesced on the battlefield around some great weapon of the Old Ones, prototype to Eldar and Ork alike. His relationship to Khaine is unclear, but they were alike in aspect, and he has taken up much of the old Eldar empire's military caste in his immortal service. He has much love for the Great Game, and it was in the wake of Nurgle's horrible loss that Khorne championed the usurpation of the Orks. The Blood God is the great power in the warp as of the 41st millennium, commanding the fiercest core of Crone Eldar and Fallen warbands and retaining his Ork auxiliaries with greatest ease. His catalyzing role in the War of the Beast, drawing Slaanesh's lust for Isha and Tzeentch's will for change to push Nurgle's corruption en-masse of the orks, such that he might incite them to a direct and purposeful war, has emboldened him to name himself lord of the Immaterium. The Blood God arrays his armies before the Skull Throne in him immaterial domain, and there they drill, and march, and war, and stage interminable invasions of the real. Khorne is said to retain Malal, in some form, as advisor, or weapon, but the diminished god's status in the court of murder is unknown.

'''Slaanesh''' - The Prince of Pleasure was originally conceived to be the god of joy, and of beauty, but its birth, the fall of the eldar, demonstrated the already fallen nature of the eldar empire. The prince now rules the Brass Palace in the warp, attended by daemons and horrors, and for a long while it eagerly feasted on the souls of the eldar. The great mistress of Shah-Dome has since turned to more complex, extended, and varied predilections. While young and weak as a warp presence, Slaanesh maintains a vast physical empire and cult within the eye of terror, intent on shaping the state of the materium for greater power within the warp. The dark prince and its cabal of faithful cenobites wish to see Slaanesh as master of the warp, with all other gods bound before its throne. The Slaaneshi cult is particularly interested in fulfilling the domination of the eldar pantheon, hoping to angle its personal enmity with the unified empire into a claim to arch-deamonhood and luciferian mastery of all temptation.

'''[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#Khaine|Khaine]]''' – (UNFINISHED) Still shattered into a million pieces like in canon. Needs a blurb.

'''The Outsider''' – See [[Nobledark Imperium Notes#The_Outsider|The Outsider]] (Temporary placeholder)

'''[[Nobledark Imperium Notable People#The_Hive Mind|The Swarmlord]]''' - More of a primordial force of nature than an actual deity, though perhaps it is only natural for mortal minds to immediately jump to the deific when confronted with a warp presence of such magnitude. The Hive Mind is both the summed consciousness of every tyranid organism within the swarm as well as its commander. It’s thought process is alien and incomprehensible by mortal standards. At the very least, its goals are clear: the consumption of every living thing in the galaxy.

'''Ynnead''' – There are whispers of something going on in the warp. Echoes seen by farseers communing with the Infinity Circuits and World Spirits like the thunderhead of a great storm. Some say there appears to be some strange congruence between the portents of this phenomenon and the Starchild Prophecies All that is known is the name of this being and that it is not here yet. Everything else is up in the air.

== Notable Planets ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets]]

== The Craftworlds ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets#The Craftworlds|Craftworlds of The Nobledark Imperium]]

== The Forces of Chaos ==

=== The Forces of Chaos ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#The_Fallen|The Fallen]]

=== The Crone World Eldar ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#The_Crone_World_Eldar|The Crone World Eldar]]

=== Chaos Guard ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos#Chaos_Guard|Chaos Guard]]

== Da Orkz ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Da_Orkz|Da Orkz]]

== Necron Star Empire ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Necron Star Empire|Necron Star Empire]]

== Dark Eldar ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Dark Eldar|Dark Eldar]]

== Tyranids ==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Tyranids|Tyranids]]

== Writefaggotry ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Writing]]

== Timeline ==

M25 - Fall of the Eldar/Beginning of the Age of Strife. The hedonism of the Old Eldar Empire gives birth to Slaanesh, which wipes out 90% of the eldar population in a single night. Iron Minds (A.I. that controlled most of the Men of Iron) and Men of Gold are driven mad by the backlash, effectively destroying the Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Warp storms make interstellar travel nearly impossible. Societies, human and alien alike, are either wiped out, driven insane, or reduced to Mad Max levels of technology and anarchy. Five thousand years of hell ensues.

Mid to Late M29 - Warlord arises on Old Earth. Divides nations of Earth into two lists. One one side are the ones worth inclusion to the Imperium and on the other the ones that need to be destroyed and their lands divided amongst more worthy men.

Begins global unification using diplomatic means when possible and brute force when not possible.

Late M29/Early M30 - First use of early model Thunder Warriors

Early to mid M30 - Refinement of Thunder Warriors.

Old Earth unified (Except for Hy Brasil). Warlord sets up the Throne of Earth and refuses to sit in it instead becoming the Steward of the Empty Throne. The Throne stands waiting for a worthy individual to become Emperor.

Steward looks towards the sky and is inspired to take the Unification to the other planets of Sol. Appoints 20 generals the title of Primarch to be his leaders among generals.

Sol is unified in a sequence of assimilations, partnerships and short brutal wars of conquest.

Steward sets up High Lords of Terra to run the day to day affairs of the Imperium. Long term goal is to make the Imperium self-governing and then fade away again. Short term goal is to get be able to spend all evening in the pub.

Warp storms subside enough for large scale warp travel to become viable.

Steward looks to the stars and the dream of Unification burns again. Great Crusade starts, lasts slightly longer than in canon (300-500 years, as opposed to 200), because Steward wants whole and functional worlds brought into the Imperium, not broken vassals.

During Great Crusade Steward is contacted by Eldrad "got in a fist fight with Skarbrand and won" Ulthran. The two of them concoct a fiendish plan to break in to Nurgle's mansion and steal Isha back. Eldar send a band of the most fearsome ninja clowns as well as the Phoenix Lords to-be and the Imperium sends its most brutal nutters. Steward leads the expedition. Isha is rescued.

Isha is rescued. Imperium earns the eternal hate of the Chaos Gods. Eldar petition Stewards for inclusion into Imperium. Steward agrees in exchange for Webway access. Eldar are reluctant due to potential damage to webway. Compromise is reached that Inquisition can have unlimited access and the Eldar will upgrade the Astronomican.

Chaos Gods direct the Crone World Eldar to manipulate the orks into unifying under the banner of a warboss know as The Beast. The Beast and all his Boyz are directed towards Old Earth and other key worlds of the Imperium. Dark Eldar join forces with the Crone Worlders for the promise of plunder and slaves.

Primarch Sanguinius dies in the ruins of the Eternity Gate of the Imperial Palace.

Steward about to be pummeled into fine red paste by The Beast. Eldred Ulthran smashes through the wall and joins in the Beast-beating festivities and he and the Steward beat The Beast is a savage brawl.

As payment for saving his life the Steward owes a favour to Eldrad. Eldrad immediately call that favour in and demands that the Steward marry Isha so that the union of Human and Eldar can never be broken.

Imperium recovers over time. Most of the Primarchs die off in battle or simply by time. The title is never given to another; relic of a past age.

Chaos forces usually from the Eye of Terror periodically form Black Crusades to try and topple the Imperium. Imperium stays strong.

M32-M35 - Imperial "Golden Age". Highs not as high as later but lows are not as shitty because you have "only" Orks and Chaos to worry about (Necrons and tyranids not being a thing yet) and there are no constant political upheavals from Age of Apostasy, Tau, etc. Just before the beginning of this period the Imperium has rebuilt enough to reclaim much of the territory it lost during the War of the Beast but was unable to reassert control over.

Eventually at about the turning point of M35 and M36 a great man by the name of Goge Vandire arises to be the head of the Administratum. Steward believes that he has found a worthy man to sit upon the Empty Throne of Earth. Emperor Vandire is an asset to the Imperium. Steward steps down and fades into the shadows of some distant world and disappears for some time.

Goge Vandire goes nuts.

Inquisitor Sebastian Thor raises rebellion against him and causes the Great Civil War. Steward is rediscovered with the Avatar of Isha sitting at the bar of a tropical beach resort on some backwater nowhere planet. Apparently having been on that beech for the last ~150 years.

After 10 years of devastating war Goge Vandire is slain and Sebastian Thor bullies the Steward into sitting on the Throne of Earth and becoming Emperor. 3 of the old Primarchs survive long enough to be present at the ceremony.

Due to substantial Demiurg assistance in the war the new Emperor permits the space traveling craftsmen membership to the Imperium, to the grumbling of the eldar. Imperium becomes open to the idea of accepting other "lesser" peoples into the fold.

Late M36 - First scouting fleets of the Tyranids are sailing through the Imperium. Connection with gene-stealers is made. Scouting fleets eventually slain and it is believed for a time that they are defeated.

Mid M37 - Hive Fleets have arrived (Behemoth in M37, Kraken about 900.M38, and Leviathan some time in M39). A few are slain eventually and at great cost over the next handful of centuries. Most shatter into splinter fleets and terrorize huge swathes of the Galaxy for a long, long time.

At about the M38 mark the Necrons start to rise from their half-death into mechanical unlife. Up till the end of the Dark Millennium there is a gradual and unstoppable increase in Necron activity.

Mid M38 - Tau expeditionary forces encountered for first time. Contact made. Fledgling Tau Empire is unaware of the scale of the wars across the galaxy or the vastness of the Imperium. Refuses all efforts at inclusion.

Late M38 - Tau have a serious Artificial Intelligence rebellion after ignoring the repeated warnings of the Mechanicus. Dark Eldar take advantage of this time of weakness to use their failing Empire as slave raiding grounds despite the Tau themselves being "bland". Still refuse inclusion to Imperium when offered.

Mid M39 - Tau have recovered their old Empire bounds and are once more expanding their borders. Historians note passing similarities to the expansion of early Imperium.

Mid M39 - Ethereal Council of the Eastern Fringe is once more pressing for closer relations with the greater Imperium. Fire Warrior general by name of Farsight believes that too much of the ideologies of the Greater Good have already been compromised by outside influences. Demands return to old ways.

Political turmoil and minor skirmishes that the Tau believe are real wars erupt across the eastern fringe. Largely the Imperium fails to notice. Or care.

Farsight and friends carve out their own Enclave and defy the Imperium. Ethereals furious at this breach of Tau honour. General Shadowsun swears a blood oath against Farsight.

Mid to Late M39 - Series of crippling wars with the Hive Fleets and pyrrhic victories leaves the Tau once more vulnerable to Dark Eldar raids, and raid they do. They finally accept the offer of inclusion to the Imperium.

M40 - Necrons awakening increases. Silent King spotted. Silent King tries to rebuild old Necrontyr Star Empire. Silent King wishes to find a way to reverse the biotransferance. New rebellions against The Silent King erupt on both scores.

Some of the more minor and "eccentric" Necron Lords seek refuge in the Imperium. Emperor eventually agrees on the logic that it's better to have them in here pissing out than out there pissing in. Necron Lords, inhumanly powerful and prideful as they are, swear to obey their new liege so long as he never actually orders them to do anything.

Eldar are livid at the inclusion of the Necrons. Some craftworlds consider trying to leave the Imperium.

Mid M41 - Brain Boys spotted. Any talk of abandoning ship stops abruptly. Nobody wants to jump off the boat, no matter how many vermin are in it, when the alternative is sharks.

Late M41 - The Hive Fleets were just a vanguard. The Tyranids are assaulting the entire eastern galactic edge in such numbers that they blot out the stars.

== Miscellaneous Notes ==
See [[Nobledark Imperium Notes]]

== The Archived Threads ==

Thread 1 (warning: extreme waifuing and shitposting) - https://boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/49437641

Thread 1b (warning: extreme waifuing and shitposting) - https://boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/49488764

Thread 2 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49591185/

Thread 3 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49707496/

Thread 4 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49889220/

Thread 5 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/49948023/

Thread 6 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50077670/

Thread 6b - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50119235/

Thread 7 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50263743/

Thread 8 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50425952/

Thread 9 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50684106/

Thread 9b - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50719277/

Thread 10 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50874097/

Thread 11 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/50992723/

Thread 12 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51105718/

Thread 13 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51257007/

Thread 14 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51441824/

Thread 15 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51524369/

Thread 16 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51646615/

Thread 17 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51833468/

Thread 18 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51833468/

Thread 19 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/51972949/

Thread 20 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52094866/

Thread 21 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52262671/

Thread 22 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52451994/

Thread 23 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52634996/

Thread 24 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52769445/

Thread 25 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/52931666/

Thread 26 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53143370/

Thread 27 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53338185/

Thread 28 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53557919/

Thread 29 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53787726/

Thread 30 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/53972235/

Thread 31 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/54215770/

Thread 32 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/54503379/

Thread 33 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/54715863/

Thread 34 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55001131/

Thread 35 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55066206/

Thread 36 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55313386/

Thread 37 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55583946/

Thread 38 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/55824461/

Thread 39 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56059361/

Thread 40 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56286128/

Thread 41 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56468501/

Thread 42 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56684946/

Thread 42b - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56706040/

Thread 43 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56930616/

Thread 44 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/56947494/

Thread 45 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57055511/

Thread 46 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57242663/

Thread 47 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57265950/

Thread 48 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57452096/

Thread 49 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57661171/

Thread 50 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57828105/

Thread 51 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57999291/

Thread 52 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/58264906/

Thread 53 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/58563280/

Thread 54 - http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/58818593/

[[Category:Nobledark Imperium]]