Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets (section)

== Catachan ==

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tyranid section has to be rewritten since Catachan devils aren't tyranids in this timeline, tyranids stole genetic information from Catachan via genestealers to make them more killy.

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Catachan was discovered towards the end of what is referred to as the First Stellar Exodus by automated sub-sapient probe at or about the cross over point of M4 – M5. Initial hopes were high as it was a planet with a breathable atmosphere and a thriving ecosystem that appeared to be made of carbon based life forms. The probe made several orbits of the planet before moving on to survey the other planets in the system and move on to the next. It wasn’t until ~500.M5 that increasingly reliable warp drives made expeditions of such range, and so close to the currents of near-Hub territory, a practical possibility that a proper survey team was sent to the planet. Of the surviving member of the 100+ team a harrowing report was made that resulted in the planet being quarantined.

For the entire lifespan of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion the planet was a no-go site. Occasionally down the long centuries other research teams would descend upon the world. Briefly. Sometimes members would survive but always it would be costly. It was discovered that there was an ork population native to the planet missed for a long time due to them being mid level on the food chain at best. The planet remained the stuff of dark legend and decidedly off limits although given it’s uselessness for anything practical it was more obscure than forbidden, a curiosity of biologists and few others.

When the Age of Strife and the great churning of the warp started several ships were washed out of the warp half wrecked and not too distant from Catachan. If they hadn’t have heard of the world they would have had record of it in their ships data-stacks but faced with the probability of death in greenhouse hell and certain death in the cold of space they chose the path of most likely survival.

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The sites of the original crash/landings are hard to decipher but are of such antiquity that they are no longer of any practical concern. Any technology on the ships would have broken down an age ago at least and raw materials salvaged by those that came afterwards.

It is known that at least one of the stranded ships, before the technology broke down, dabbled in the art of genetic modification. Their environment proved too durable to lastingly change so they had to change themselves to be more resilient. It is believed that this worked for some considerable time, certainly by the time things started to go wrong they had lost the ability to correct the damage. Generation after generation the differences between them and the baseline humans exaggerated and the result was the Primeval Ogryn population encountered by the fledgling Imperium in the days of the Great Crusade.

Curiously the beseline humans that interbred with the altered humans in the days before they became too divergent did not have degenerating offspring and instead seemed to take on a tiny touch of the Ogryn without most of the down sides. It is suspected that this is the origin of the in/famous Catachan physique, as well as an increased likelihood of developing joint and heart problems.

As society regressed to a more primitive state they knew nothing of the comings and goings of the galaxy. The first generations held out hope that someone would come from the Bountiful Dominion to rescue them but as the years ticked by such old memories became nothing more than stories that were eventually forgotten.

Thankfully the human inhabitants discovered iron veins close to the surface. It is possible that these were first taken from the native orks, fighting them off with the last dregs of their inherited high-tech weapons. Whatever the case by the time the Imperium discovered them the human inhabitants of Catachan were could make steel of varying quality.

The planet itself has one major landmass with the bulk largely around the equator though in the extremities it can reach to almost temperate latitudes. The land is stretched out rather than one continuous block with many lagoons, bays and inland seas separated by dense jungles at the feet of heavily wooded mountains. Predominantly the human population is found along the rivers and in the foothills of the mountains with the beaches and higher slopes shunned for being too exposed and the “Deep Green” being seldom travelled due to the high lethality of the environment.

The deadly nature of the Deep Green has little to do with orks, with whom the Catachans have warred with constantly over the habitable lands, but because of real predators. The Ogryn are the only ones brave and hardy enough to traverse those places where it is said the gods of Catachan dwell.

The Ogryn have responded as well as any population of their kind to the Adeptus Biologicus uplift attempts. They are smarter now than they were, more inclined to team work and tool usage and that makes up for the decrease in strength and endurance. The other population of note is the furtive pygmy peoples of the islands. They are not abhumans and their small stature is just a case of island dwarfism and nothing more. Due to their remote locations and primitive nature it has been considered a waste of resources to try and make extensive contact with them, certainly there are none in the Imperial Guard.

The Imperial Guard regiments raised on that verdant world make some of the hardiest fighters in the Imperium, provided they are deployed somewhere tropical and for preference in a Jungle. It was quickly realized by the Imperial Army Brass that it was necessary to mix the tribal elements thoroughly as they will form alliances and in-regiment gangs if left in a big enough pre existing group. Mixing them up so that there is only one or two squads at most from any given tribe in a regiment and them separated by company worked well, especially when provided with a pro-Imperium priest. One other method suggested was to regiments segregated by tribe but this was dismissed as it sounded like a quick way to have whole tribes devastated if things went catastrophically ploin shaped.

It is known that many Tyrannid life forms share some characteristics with the native Catachan wildlife. This is evidence suggesting that the planet was invaded by a hive fleet, or more likely some small elements of a broken one, at some time in the Imperial Era. One of two things have happened since then; the planet ate and absorbed the Tyrannids as it did the orks and to a lesser extent human settlers or the Hive managed to get genetic material from the planet and disseminate it across the fleets. Either way nobody noticed the invasion. The planet is also known to have devoured at least nine minor and two medium sized WAAAAGH!!!s, a Q’orl migration and a Loxatl incursion to say nothing of countless Dark and Chaos eldar raiding endeavours. The planets greatest deterrent to invasion is the nature of the planet itself.

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