Editing Siege of Terra (Hektor Heresy) (section)

===Sand Keepers vs. Green Men===
The Battle for Sud Merica, colloquially known as The Uprooting, was the battle christening of Galen's gene-modified [[Green Men]]. Although it resulted in a loss for the traitors, it established the vicious plantmen as a dangerous foe to the Imperium and provided them with a lot of valuable combat experience that they managed to turn into many a decisive victory later on.

To be fair, victory was not their goal in the first place. Their main objective was to keep the main forces of the Sand Keepers distracted from the onslaught on the Imperial Palace. The secondary objective, which was, perhaps, even more important to the Green Men, was to reintroduce life to the polluted wastelands of Sud Merica by turning them into a Sea of Corruption. And so, their first move after landing on Terra was to send out their Thunderhawks loaded with scores of spore bombs. Relentless carpet bombings turned whole hive cities into toxic ruins in the span of hours. Worse still, thickets of poisonous fungi soon started sprouting from the bombing sites and growing with uncanny speed. Hadil Nictore, the commander of [[Sand Keeper]] forces, frowned as he watched the videotapes of these developments. He understood full well that the battle would be as good as lost if he allowed these blasphemous forests to grow to their full size, for his forces could not fight well beneath their noxious boughs. Unfortunately, he had no means of destroying them in time at his disposal; or, to be precise, he had one which he was prohibited from using. It was with a heavy heart that he made the decision of violating the decision of the Council of Nikaea and ordered his Legion's former Librarians to don their psychic hoods once again and do anything necessary to prevent Galen's diabolical plans from achieving fruition.

Although the Librarians understood clearly that they would probably be executed after the victory for breaking the Emperor's edict, they obeyed their commander's orders and began a sorcerous ritual. After chanting for hours and burning no less than a ton of incense, they unleashed the awesome might of their magic on [[Nikephoros Galen|Galen's]] Sea of Corruption. Colossal roaring sandstorms in the shape of aquillas came down on the fungal copses, choking the poisonous fungi under great dunes of scorching sand. Pressing this advantage, Sand Keepers immediately started advancing on the enemy lines, with the Immortals leading the charge. Infuriated by this turn of events, Galen ordered [[Vertumnus Alraun|Alraun]] to counter enemy sorcery with that of their own. The Librarian complied by summoning a great barrier of prickly bush in the way of the enemy's advance. While the Sand Keepers were burning the unexpected obstacle with their flamers, the heavy weapon teams of the Green Men concentrated their fire on them. 

Though they were eventually relieved by assault squads that came to their rescue, the vanguard of the Sand Keepers sustained great losses while trapped in the thorny bush. Anticipating a decisive victory, [[Tribulus Bercilak|Bercilak]] ordered a full-on charge at the enemy positions. The outcome was looking bleak for the Loyalist forces when the Librarians came to their rescue again. Using the rubble left after Galen's spore bombings, they created several massive golems the size of Imperial Knights, each one controlled by a Librarian's unshakable willpower. Like buildings given life, they attacked the Traitor formations from the flanks, crushing their heavy support and bringing chaos to their ranks. It is said that more than a half of Sand Keepers' Librarians died on that day from straining themselves too much, but their sacrifice was not in vain, for it helped to redeem the usage of psychic powers after the Heresy.

Powerless to turn the tide of battle, Bercilak ordered retreat. It was only due to his tactical brilliance that the Green Men managed to escape Holy Terra with relatively minor losses and a great deal of combat experience. Unfortunately, their actions have left a deep scar on the face of Sud Merica: it is said that the lower levels of its great hives are still overgrown with noxious fungal jungles prowled by nightmarish creatures.