Cadia

And they say there are no female commanders among the Guard...especially among Cadians

"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane — Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore; Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core."

– The Law of the Yukon: by Robert W. Service

"Cadia is the end and the beginning"

– White Dwarf January 2017

Cadia was an Imperial Guard fortress world located right beside the Eye of Terror. Due to being proximate to the only safe warp-passage into and out of the Eye, as well as large Xenos mobilization throughout the sector, it had become a fortress world and a strategic gem for the Imperium of Man. On another note, that place was a hellhole even before its destruction. It might have been a good vacation spot if you LIKE trenches filled with bodies and tracer fire lighting up your hotel room... on second thought... fuck that shit!

The Planet Itself

Fortress. That's the one word that can sum up the planet of Cadia. Since it was close neighbors with those nice boys from across the street, Cadia always needed to be on active defense. All the time one had their Lasgun shouldered and was twitching from a combination of going 47 hours without sleep and being raised to be paranoid as fuck. Of course, living basically inside the Eye of Terror, it isn't truly paranoia at all, just common sense.

As far as geography goes, Cadia held a temperate climate not unlike the Holy Hiveworld of Terra. 70 percent of its surface is covered in bodies of water, and its landmasses are covered with bodies of guardsmen. Actually, at the end of the 41-st millennium, Imperial forces control near 30% of Cadian land; the other 30% is controlled by Chaos forces and the remaining 40% is a bloody mess of constant carnage, daemon incursions and artillery barrages. Think Lancashire but with more laser guns and fewer even more Chinese.

If it weren't for the anti-warp pylons holding back the expansions of the Eye of Terror, it would have been subjected to Exterminatus long before Abaddon crashed his wrecked Blackstone Fortress into it.

Cadia and you

First, let me start with saying that it sucked to live on Cadia. Oh, you think where you live sucks? Live in a crime infested ghetto or something similar? A couple drive by shootings and a stolen TV are nothing compared to how much it sucked to live on Cadia. Why does it suck you ask? Oh, not much of a reason at all. Just the fact that it's like, six feet away from the Eye of Terror (It also sucks to live there, but for many reasons other than Cadia).

Cadia: A very, very shitty place to live

It just sucks to live on Cadia, period. Yes, there are several manly, redeeming qualities (see below) about the planet, but if you live on Cadia you're too busy replacing the batteries in your flashlight to notice. A short list includes, but is not limited to:

• Being drafted before you can walk, learning to shoot before you can count, and getting thrown in the the meat-grinder (mostly figuratively, sometimes literally) by age 16.
• Learning how to shoot so young that when you're toilet-trained you're told to aim your dick like it's a lasgun.
• Marauding bands of Chaos Space Marines and assorted heretics trying to kill you.
• Random WAAAGH!!!s of greenskins trying to kill you.
• Stealthy platoons of Space Elves trying to kill you.
• Your own superior officers trying to ki-*BLAM!*
• No privacy whatsoever for your entire life.
• Constant fear of death before you reach puberty.
• Constant fear of death during puberty.
• Constant fear of death after puberty, but chances are you'll die before this, have your soul sold to/claimed by a chaos deity and for their lolz spend your death in constant fear of puberty.
• Superior officers barking orders down your neck for the 10-16 years that you're alive.
• No time to screw around, you're always on duty. Sometimes said duty is to help train new recruits for their inevitable deaths.
• The top fashions in Cadia are camo patterns and body armor.
• Heretical cults springing up by the dozen every week.
• Voices keep telling you to ditch the duty and relax, let loose, call in sick, or try something different.
• The fact that the planet's main only export is Soldiers should clue you in.
• Mutants springing up everywhere wanting to try out the new pincer claw they just got on your neck.
• Abaddon finally stopped failing and is currently sending so many daemons through the Cadian Gate that even Creed is having trouble forcing them back now. And rumor has it that the Daemon Primarchs are on their way too...
• Even after you die, Cadia doesn't stop being shitty to you, because once the engraving on your tombstone is illegible, it means you've been dead for so long nobody alive cares about you anymore, so your corpse is dug up and thrown into an incinerator while a fresh corpse is thrown into your hole. And then they will be dug up and thrown away as well.

Seriously, it just sucks to live there, just take my word for it. Avoid prolonged stays on Cadia at all costs.

Redeeming Qualities

Fuckers so hardcore, they take on fieldtrips on other hellhole planets when their own hellhole planet gets too stale.

Yes it sucked to live on Cadia, sucks beyond all Hell, but there are several reasons why it was one of the most awesome places in the Imperium.

Cadian Shock Troopers

First and foremost, the finest (and perhaps most numerous) breed of the Imperial Guard were born, trained, and lived on Cadia. You see the Cadian as the common model for your generic, garden variety guardsmen figurine, and as such they are the most easily recognized. They fight tenaciously for the Empra and die with the same degree of vigor. Manliness is never in short order here on Cadia, making it one of the most awesome planets around.

Their elite troops are the Kasrkin, basically the elite of the elite of the Guard. That are separate from the Scions as they aren't trained in cozy little Scholas watched over by commissars, but are trained right there on Cadia, combining all the battle conditioning and tactics learned by the Cadia Shock Troopers over the course of KILLING EVERYTHING IN THE GALAXY for the last several thousand years. Only SPESS MEHREENS are better. But the Kasrkin are probably scarier than the Spess Mehreens anyway, because they do about the same on the battlefield, without wearing a concrete wall on every inch of their body and not having mini-rocket launcher guns, no, they're just humans with balls of adamantium, both of which have their own pair of balls of adamantium (and that's the women). They don't wear carapace armor, either. Full-bodied flack-armor for these motherfuckers. To be fair though, they get shit done while wearing cardboard instead of the Guardsman's t-shirts, and they still use the older but far more advanced Hellguns over the Scion's Hot-shot lasguns, they shoot a lot more light than the Guardsman's flashlight. For example, a Kasrkin Sergeant literally jumps on the back of a rampaging Daemonhost (which has already incapacitated the majority of an inquisitorial retinue) and stabs it with a regular ol' combat knife to save the life of an Inquisitor. Balls. Of. Adamantium. Before the battle even began that Inquisitor admitted to being scared of them, and this is an Inquisitor who has fought alongside Deathwatch Marines against traitor Legionaries of The Emperor's Children in a warp corrupted landscape, 100 years ago, and has seen and battled Emperor knows what since then. Let that sink in. Now, the Kasrkin scared him, bad-fucking-ass.

In conclusion, Cadians are the best troopers, and Kasrkin are the best of the best, well at least when it comes to conventional warfare, other regiments have them beat in specialized roles (Siege and attrition warfare? Send forth the Death Korps. Guerrilla warfare and sabotage? Sneak some Catachans in. Rapid insertion and maneuvering? Drop the Elysians on 'em). But when you aren't sure what you'll be up against or are expecting a prolongued encounter with rapidly changing tactical situations then you can't go wrong with the Cadian Shock Troopers. When you need a certain failure to run away for awhile, catapult a kasrkin at him.

Perhaps some day the Imperium will realize that careful selection of soldiers could result in the entire Imperial Guard being nothing but kasrkin (and their equivalents in armored regiments). But again, that would mean the Imperium would win easily and no models would be sold. Without selling models, the Imperium cannot continue fighting the Eternal War and that would be HERESY.

Also confirmed to be so fucking hardcore that their planet broke before they did. In spite of their homeworld's destruction, they've managed to keep going as strong as ever and now fight even harder to avenge its loss.

CADIA STANDS!

Defended

Despite what is said about how much of a hellhole Cadia was due to the constant warfare, because of that selfsame constant warfare Cadia was one of the most well-defended planets in the Imperium. In fact, it was the 2nd most heavily defended world in the Imperium of Man, only Sol System is better defended than Cadia (And maybe Fenris). All cities are arranged in interlocking blocks that require roads to snake around buildings with blind corners and are defended by rockcrete and adamantium walls, all to favor the defenders in urban combat. Massive shield generators keep the cities safe from all but the heaviest bombardment, forcing enemies to pay for them meter by bloody meter. All "civilians" are technically Cadian military reservists, and have been through the same life-long military training that all Cadians are subject to. As dangerous as Cadia is, the locals have learned to handle that danger and weather it as well as possible. Given its strategic importance, the Imperium is more than willing to commit substantial other resources to the planet's defense, which means lots of ships patrolling the system and lots of depots stationed in nearby systems to quickly reinforce Cadia at a moment's notice.

Creed

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!!! This article has infiltrated your computer. You just got tactical geniused.

Reproduction

Birth rate and recruitment rate are synonymous. And if you see how many men and women die on the battlefield every day... better start doing your part for the Imperium. On Cadia, you were encouraged to fuck around wildly and have your partner push out the kid in a barracks to increase efficiency in recruiting.

Colonizers

Cadia's, as you noticed, only real export was soldiers. The thing is, Cadia pumps out so many that they usually form the core cadre of amalgamated units that get clumped into entirely new Imperial Guard armies, and sent to wage campaigns against taken or occupied planets. These armies are never getting sent back home, and are intended, when they win, to form a new government and society, and settle down (as seen in Dawn of War WA and Dark Crusade). As the core is usually Cadian, a lot of the army doctrines and style end up being Cadian, at least for a millenia or so. Hell, they colonize empty planets this way even, especially if it's a dangerous sector of space. Even now, who knows how many planets that are distinct and vital started this way? Your DNA could be spread far and wide across the galaxy and you wouldn't even know.

This is of course to justify why everyone looks like Cadians, aka GW doesn't want to make a dozen different types of guards.

Violet Eyes

Ever fancied having more eye color than is standard for man? Move to Cadia and your kids will likely get glowing purple/violet eyes, may explain how purple-eyed animu characters tend to be awesome, they must be cadians. Have fun explaining to mobs of angry locals on other planets that you're not a mutant before they crucify you and burn you alive.

The Place of Lorgar's Enlightenment

While the Imperium would consider this quality the highest order of heresy, perhaps the greatest reason for Cadia's importance is that it is, in many ways, the birthplace of the Horus Heresy. It was on Cadia the forces of the Word Bearers met with Ingethel the Chosen and were inducted into the service of the Ruinous Powers. As such, Cadia holds tremendous ideological importance and sentimental value for the Champions of Chaos.

The Fall of Cadia

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

When Abaddon finally launched his 13th Black Crusade, Cadia stood ready. Millions perished in the initial attack, but there were still enough Imperial forces to first blunt, then repulse the Chaos incursion. In its wake however was a system on the edge of collapse, its surviving defenders too weary to even try to celebrate. What was worse, Cadia was effectively isolated, with most of its Astropathic choirs either dead or driven insane.

Ursarkar Creed, now Lord Castellan, was worried. Through-out the fighting on-world, there was not even a single report of Abaddon being spotted. As a result he was sure that another assault was on the way, and what was worse it was likely that the Despoiler's own fleet would pass through the system. Unfortunately there was little left of the Imperial Navy present to put up more than a token defense, barring the Space Wolves battle barge Firemane's Fang, and none of the ships there would be able to chase down Abaddon's ships once they made for deep space.

Preparing for the inevitable, Creed dug in, and set his forces to fortifying Kasr Kraf, which included Marshall Amalrich's Black Templars. Similar scenes repeated themselves throughout Cadia, with surviving Shock Troops and Astartes companies setting up defenses where they can. The Space Wolves set themselves up in Kasr Jark, while further north the Dark Angels 4th Company reinforced their own grounded Strike Cruiser Sword of Defiance. In the days that followed the defenders drilled and trained, waiting for the inevitable to come.

And come it did, because Abaddon was not done with Cadia. Not by a long shot. His Black Fleet was inbound, an angry swarm of Traitor Legion warships, Daemon vessels, and space hulks, with the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity at its core. The remnants of Battlefleets Corona and Scarus, bloodied by the first wave of the Black Crusade, sought to stall the Black Fleet's advance, and paid for their defiance with their lives. Still the Chaos fleet swept on.

News that a Blackstone Fortress was incoming sent Creed's forces' already fevered preparations into a frenzy. Every Tech-adept that could be spared set about restoring Cadia's damaged null-array, which was damaged at the start of the Black Crusade. Even then it would not be enough, because time had finally run out for Cadia.

The Space Wolves however, disagreed. Sven Bloodhowl volunteered to lead his Great Company in boarding the Will of Eternity, and do what they can to slow its advance. Along with them came two hundred other battle-brothers from the various Chapter forces devastated at the start of the Black Crusade, survivors of the Cadian 13th, and a full maniple of Skitarii. It was the last throw of the dice, but Creed had very few options left.

They failed. Abaddon's vanguard arrived on schedule a day later, soon followed by the Blackstone Fortress. Cheers erupted among the defenders however when its devastation beam dispersed harmlessly across the upper atmosphere. The null array worked! Eeeeeeeexcept it seems that the projection grid now featured xenos tech that wasn't there a day ago...

The cheers were a little short-lived however, as the skies of Cadia Secundus blacked with Traitor drop-ships. Round two had begun, and Abaddon had all the advantages.

The defenders put up a withering amount of fire, but it was not enough. Traitor Legionnaires made landfall, and daemonic reinforcements were summoned. Defense positions were soon overrun, and Creed made the decision to recall defenders back to the curtain walls of Kasr Kraf. The defenders made their fighting retreats, barring Marshall Amalrich's Black Templars, who stubbornly decided to stand their ground, and the Sisters of Battle that had made their defense at the Shrine of Saint Morrican.

Hours passed, then days. Orven Highfell's Ironwolves had counter-attacked the Iron Warriors force threatening Kasr Jark, while the Dark Angels defending the Sword of Defiance threw off three separate World Eater attacks. Slowly though the defenders were losing ground, and Creed once again ordered a withdrawal to the second curtain wall. The Novamarines 2nd Company sold their lives to stop Possessed from breaching one gate, but the West gate was lost, and with it so too was the 2nd curtain wall lost. Redoubt after redoubt fell, overwhelmed, with even the Dark Angels forced to abandon their grounded strike cruiser and join up with the surviving Space Wolves in their own withdrawal.

Kasr Kraf could not hold forever. An assault by the traitor Legio Vulcanum nearly made its defenses buckle, but the final straw was the assault of the Hounds of Abaddon. Led by newly-ascended Daemon Prince Urkanthos, the Hounds broke through the Kriegan Gates, slaughtering the Karkin regiments Creed had sent there to stem the tide. It took Creed himself, leading the Cadian 8th, that finally became the wall that the tide of traitors broke against. The remaining Astartes did what they could, but it was the intervention of the remnants of Marshall Amalrich's Cruxis Crusade (who had finally admitted that he was an idiot in trying to defend AWAY from Kasr Kraf) that seemed to give the remaining defenders a chance at more than a final show of defiance.

While Cadia does indeed fall, the world (despite what the artwork would say) is NOT destroyed, Abby crashes a Blackstone Fortress into Cadia to try and kill Creed and the last defenders and stop the pylons from pushing back the Eye of Terror, and it worked, kinda. While it failed to kill Creed, it did cause great tectonic upheaval making the planet indefensible and wiped out the Cadian Pylons, causing the Eye of Terror to expand and envelop Cadia effectively turning it into a Daemon World. Some of the defenders managed to get off world after this happened, with Creed and the Cadian 8th staying behind to Hold The Line against the infinite tide of daemons. In short, the planet broke before the Imperial Guard did! Creed alone survives this, and is now taking a vacation at Hotel Trazyn.

Interestingly, the Eldar rock up, united with the Dark Eldar (indicating that these might be Ynnari forces), and shepherd the survivors into the Webway telling them that it's time, "for a new dawn." Somewhat ominous; on the one hand the Ynnari have been gracious enough to not only save the Cadian survivors, but also to revive Papa Smurf himself. On the other hand... well, when have Eldar ever been nice to humans without turning them into meatshields?

As for the famous Cadian Shock Troops, according to the 7e Astra Militarum codex, every single Cadian regiment was recalled back to Cadia by Creed to defend it. Given that there were only 4 million Imperial survivors out of the original 850 million Imperials initially present, the vast majority of Cadian regiments were likely annihilated. Of course, it's unknown just how many Cadian regiments actually managed to get to Cadia in time before the shit hit the fan, but it's safe to say that certain Imperium reports that 90% of Cadia's Guard forces were off-world at the time and thus have survived the Fall of Cadia are either complete grox manure, or there were just THAT many Cadia guard regiments exported over the centuries. Given how long the Imperium has been around and the staggering size of the Guard, the latter may actually be more likely.

We're Not Through Yet, Motherfuckers!

You thought the Fall of Cadia was the end? Well guess what, 8th Edition says otherwise! Curiously the closure of the Cadian Gate hadn't affected Chaos fleets in the slightest, as they've poured out the Eye everywhere across its borders with seemingly no effort while it expanded, no longer contained by the pylon network. This has actually worked out sort of okayish for the Imperium as well. With Cadia dealt with, a lot of warbands have decided to stop listening to the armless failure and go do their own thing to find things that are easier to kill than Cadia. This presents a bit of a problem for Chaos as Geedubs themselves have said there's still a fucking ton of defenders in the Cadian system and that the Chaos forces are starting to wear thin on the now-worthless planet.

On top of that, Cadia took so fucking long to go down that the Imperium is entrenched deep into neighboring planets waiting for a second coordinated wave of Chaos attackers that is increasingly unlikely to show up. And when we say entrenched we mean everything from Cadian Shock Trooper regiments hungry for revenge to entire Imperial Knight houses, to Space Marines so numerous they're collectively approaching Legion levels of big and now Imperial commanders are getting ideas in their heads about retaliatory strikes and reclamation of the ruins of Cadia itself. What they hope to accomplish with that other than a pointless moral victory is anyone's fucking guess at this point, but it looks like Cadia isn't done yet.

More worryingly, a detachment of the Adeptus Custodes has been sent there by order of the Captain-General. Specifically, the Custodes in charge of ensuring the Age of Strife-era horrors contained in the Imperial Palace's prisons (the mere knowledge of which could wreck the Imperium should they ever be known about) stay there. Seeing that several of said horrors were scattered across the galaxy by Chaos after the Great Rift opened, odds are that whatever the golden bananas were sent there for is very bad news.