Vraks

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Vraks is a system in the Imperium of Man, near the Eye of Terror. It is part of the defenses centered on Cadia; in particular, its main planet, Vraks Prime, is an armory world, an entire planet used by the Departmento Munitorum to stockpile weapons and ammunition. The justification is that, if the tithe fleets bringing weapons directly to Cadia from further out in the Imperium get delayed, they can withdraw supplies from Vraks until contact is restored.

As far as the environment goes, it used to be an intensely volcanic world, so there's sulfur everywhere, the weather is stormy and cloudy, and the entire ground is either desert or ocean. The only things living there were algae, and then the Administratum moved in and brought a bunch of humans with them to set up the armory. It eventually got a basilica, to commemorate some martyr or another, and a big fortress to protect the armory (that many tanks and guns in one place proved a tempting target for pirates), designed to be all but invulnerable to orbital attack, and for ten thousand years, Vraks Prime never fell to pirates, Chaos, xenos, or worker rebellions. Unfortunately, this state of affairs was not to last, because the Vraks system was created by Forge World for a trilogy of Imperial Armour books; Vraks Prime was soon to be the site of a mighty siege.

Fall of Vraks

It was not pirates or xenos that eventually brought Vraks low, but a rogue member of the Ecclesiarchy, one Cardinal Xaphan. Having recently been promoted into the post of Cardinal-Astral of the entire Scarus Sector (if the name is familiar to you, that's because it's next door to the Calixis Sector, where Dark Heresy is set), Xaphan decided to take a tour of his domain. He found that he enjoyed rousing armies of the faithful, and decided (with some prodding by his number-one oh-so-trustworthy assistant Deacon Mamon) that he could do more good leading an army than working a desk job. The only problem was that pesky Decree Passive preventing him from raising men under arms, so to keep his plans hidden, he went to Vraks, where there were plenty of soldiers and weapons to make an army, as well as a basilica to give him an excuse to stick around.

The Inquisition found out anyway, and sent a Vindicare assassin after him, but the assassin failed; seeing that covertness was no longer an option, Xaphan moved the workers of Vraks to open rebellion. The Imperial presences on the planet, namely the Administratum, Adeptus Arbites, and the Adepta Sororitas (who had been his bodyguards until this point), were either killed or imprisoned, which should have been a clue that he was making a bad move, but Mamon assured him that he was in the right, and that his enemies were merely deluded fools who would see the light once he actually got started on his crusade.

Siege of Vraks

The Departmento Munitorum wasn't going to sit back and let Vraks turn traitor -- not because of the eight million workers living there, but because it was a giant armory (which could not be allowed to fall into traitor hands, or be kept from the regiments who needed them), and because, if word got out, other worlds could fall into rebellion, and use Vraks's supplies for themselves. Therefore, the world would have to be taken, and quickly. The Citadel of Vraks was all but invulnerable to orbital attack, so it could not be assaulted directly (ruling out the Space Marines and Imperial Navy), and the world's massive stores meant that a blockade-and-raid strategy would take five centuries to complete. The only way to take Vraks back in under a century was to put the Citadel under siege and take it by force, so they took some thirty regiments of the Death Korps of Krieg and put them into an army. They were given twelve years to take Vraks back.

Phase One

There was a lot of tapdancing and rope skipping in awaiting of a completement of this section.