Editing Werkerde (section)

===The Great Crusade===

Werkerde was brought into compliance in 847.M30.  Following reports of a sophisticated Martian-style civilisation, Primarch [[Roman Albrecht]] and his honour guard made contact with the tech priests.  The Lord of the [[Steel Marshals]] made quite an impression on the Kriegsrat, who readily believed that the crusading primarch was one of the hands of the Omnissiah and duly pledged themselves to further the works of the Emperor.  Later negotiations with the Martian Parliament were less sanguine.  Controversy over the existence of the Automodeus as a source of primal technological malevolence was hotly denied by the orthodox Martian Machine Cultists, while Werkerde's faithful furiously declared that to deny a source of evil technology was tantamount to the claim that the Machine God had no special plan for humanity.  The furor caused by such a seemingly minor theological dispute reached a fever pitch in 851.M30, causing the Emperor himself (accompanied by the neophyte primarchs, [[Johannes Vrach]] and [[Gaspard Lumey]]) to address a special meeting of the Martian Parliament and call for calm.  An unhappy compromise was established through the Emperor's mediation.  Werkerde was stripped of its independence and assigned a governor, but rather than a Martian provost, Roman Albrecht was named the nominal ruler of Werkerde.  Albrecht quickly dispensed of any practical role in governing the planet and granted his trusted lieutenant '''Luft Loehr''' the title of Baron Werkerde.

Loehr had been inducted into the mysteries of Mars, but he was a practical man at heart.  Rather than attempting to enforce orthodoxy, the Iron Baron put his new dominion into harness and set Werkerde to the task of moving forward the Great Crusade.