Medusa V

Not to be confused with the other Medusa...

"Medusa V is a world that burns with the heat of battle and shudders beneath a million marching feet. It is a doomed planet, with a cataclysmic Warp storm descending upon it. All life will soon be scoured from its blighted surface. Only you, through your games of Warhammer 40,000, can determine if victory can be salvaged from this planet's death. Make no mistake — Medusa V will die."

– Games Workshop letting us know the score up front.

Medusa V was an Imperial Mining World in the Segmentum Ultima. It existed purely to be blown up in an epic and grimdark fashion for the 2006 global summer campaign.

Overview

Medusa V was first settled in the 37th Millennium as a waystation for ships attempting to run Van Grothe's Rapidity, a Warp Storm on the Eastern Fringes. If entered correctly, the storm could shorten Warp journeys by months or even years, making it invaluable to Rogue Traders, Mechanicus explorators, and others in the region who needed to get places quickly; this earned it the name of "Hell's Slingshot". The man who discovered the storm in question, Carral Van Grothe, was assigned to find a habitable world that could be used as a staging ground for ships attempting to run the storm. Accompanied by an Iron Hands clan-company and a Mechanicus fleet, Van Grothe found a system with two habitable planets. The Iron Hands took the lead in purging the planets of their xenos inhabitants, and in return the planets were named Medusa IV and V in honor of their homeworld. While Medusa IV was settled by the explorators and quickly grew into a major colony, the Iron Hands were called away before they could finish securing Medusa V, and the Mechanicus and the Imperium decided not to settle anywhere beyond the single continent that was already under their control. Thus, while Medusa IV grew into a populous and productive Hive World, Medusa V remained a small and unremarkable colony, though its shipyards saw a constant stream of traffic from Imperial vessels preparing to run the Rapidity.

The Medusan Schism

Because of their proximity to the Rapidity, the two worlds were frequently cut off for years or even decade by fluctuations in the storm, but every time the storms died down the same message went out: all is well. All this changed in 750.M41, with the beginning of what would become known as the Medusan Schism. During the latest period of isolation, two of Medusa IV's largest hives abruptly declared independence from the Imperium. When the planetary militia responded, they were met with a colossal Chaos uprising. Soon the entire planet was consumed by civil war, as hordes of Chaos cultists emerged from hiding to attack the loyalist forces and more hives declared their allegiance to Chaos. With the system still cut off from the Imperium, the loyalists' distress signals were heard only by Medusa V. The planet's tiny PDF assembled an auxiliary militia from the miners and laborers and charged to Medusa IV's aid. This barely trained, ragtag force fought the Chaos cultists to a stalemate for two and a half years, turning back every attack on the remaining loyalist hives with fury and faith in the Emperor. Despite this show of badassery, the Medusans knew they couldn't win outright, even when the Warp storm subsided and the Smurfs' 2nd Company showed up to help. This became doubly true when the Inquisition got wind of the whole thing, came to investigate, and decided it was time to headbang the Big Red Exterminatus Button. In an uncharacteristic burst of good sense and practicality, the Inquisitor on-scene was convinced to hold off for a week by the Mechanicus and Administratum, who wanted to save as many loyalist civilians as possible so that they could be put to work elsewhere. The Ultramarines and Medusa V soldiers held out for a week while the civilians were stuffed into cargo haulers and agri-ships and packed off to Medusa V, then withdrew and let the Inquisition burninate the planet with cyclonic torpedoes.

The gigantic influx of civilian refugees on Medusa V were housed in hastily constructed "refugee cities" while the Inquisition rooted out any remaining heretics and Medusa V's government tried to figure out what to do with them all. Ultimately, many of the new arrivals were put to work in the planet's mines and factories, and Medusa V's production rates spiked. Things seemed okay for a couple of centuries until 999.M41, when Van Grothe's Rapidity began to fluctuate and then expand at an unprecedented rate, destroying everything in its path. Mechanicus observers ran the calculations and came to an inescapable conclusion: Medusa V was doomed.