It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Terra. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the Gods, and master of a millon wordls by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route vetween distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncountable worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus only to name a few. But for all their moltitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. There are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting Gods.
For all its power, the Imperium is constantly at the mercy of the capricious tidings of the daemon-infested Warp. Sudden Warp-squalls can send the mightest of fleets reeling into the unpeakable depths of that metaphysical dimension; mighty Warp-storms can cut off entire sub-sectors from the wider Imperium even for millennia at a Administratum, the mammoth, galaxy-spanning bureaucracy of the Imperium, and the secretive Adeptus Mechanicus kept costant vigilance over the raging Warp-storms, hoping, should ever they wane and disappear, to estabilish contacts once again with human civilizations that could have endured in the cut-off sections of space.
It was so that many eyes were attracted to the dissipation of the monstrous warp-storm known only as the Howling. Situated into the Eastern Fringe, at the eastern limit of the Imperium, this phenomena had been covering the entirety of the northern half of the Sagittarius Arm for almost ten thousands years, so fierce in its intensity that even Hive Fleet Kraken had shed well away from it.
As it dissipated, the forces of the Imperium set themselves into motion to reclaim the expanses of space it had hidden. The year was the 943st of the 41st Millennium.
While the Administratum, ponderous and slow in its workings as only such a colossus of an organization could be, struggled to organize an expedition, the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus pledged themselves to this journey in earnest. Fanatical devout to the task of re-discovering lost technology, the tech-priests hoped to find scientific marvels made lost by millennia of unceasing war, a possibility that the relative isolation provided by the Howling seemed to make auspiciously probable.
Using the close Forge World of Tarronak as a staging ground, an entire Explorator Fleet was sent into the Sagittarius Arm, complemented by great numbers of the cyborg Skitarii warriors and warmachines whose arcane workings were privy only to the Omnissiah's anointed. It was a mighty force, a testament to the bounty that the Mechanicus hoped to reap from the venture.
Still, as quick as they were, they weren't the only ones.
To the surprise of many, the Ecclesiarchy, the all-powerful Church of the God-Emperor, had moved as well. From golden pulpits shadowed by the solemn gaze of the Aquila, the ministers of the faith had called for the faithful to rise, to make so that it was not the half-heretical brethren of the Machine God to bring back these lost world into the bosom of the Imperium, but the true believers of the Imperial Creed. They had called for a crusade.
Prohibited by iron treaties from raising forces of male soldiers in regular times, still the Ecclesiarchy's reach was long. Strings were pulled into the highest echelons of power, generals, power-brokers and politicians alike swayed, bribed or threatened to assist this most holy of missions, until the flow of faith was ready to step forward.
On the sacred Cardinal-World of Liberia, under the blessing of Cardinal-Astral Azariah XXVI, regiments of the Astra Militarum were gathered, rows upon rows of soldiers and mighty tanks, their discipline, loyalty and fortitude secured by grim-faced Commissars and bellowing preachers. At their side stood masses of frothing zealots and flagellants, mutants searching for redemption for the wickedness of their spirits, believers made malformed by their violent faith; howling mobs not made of warriors, but of armed pilgrims, all of them sharing the fanatical lust for the blood of the enemies of the True Faith. To their disorder made a jarring contrast the lethal grace and discipline of the Sororitas, sisterhood of fanatical warriors-monks and armed fist of the Ecclesiarchy. Decked into ancient power armors, with their weapons of flaming destruction and the horrifying penitence-machines, they showed the fate of all those that dared to oppose the will of the God-Emperor's chosen. This mighty army, escorted by an entire battlegroupd, lacked the technological sophistication of the Mechanicus, but more than made up for it by sheer numbers and fanatical zeal.
The year was the 944st of the 41st Millennium.
The two fleets set off almost at the same moment, entering into the nothern reaches of the Sagittarius Arm by two different routes. Knowing their differences, and wishing to keep any waste born from it at a minimum, the commanders of the two expeditions took meticulous care of following different paths. Luckily for them, what they found was more than enough to keep their attention fully occupied.
Dubbed the Whispering Expanse by Navigators for the echoes left into the Warp by the Warp-Storm, the section of space left open by the disappearance of the Howling quickly proved itself to be well populated. Small Xeno potentates littered its worlds along with planets ravaged by small-scale Warp rifts from which capering daemons invaded realspace.
For years, both fleets unleashed their zealotry over these objectives, scouring worlds clean of daemonic and xeno taint alike. Many losses were taken during these engagements, but neither of the two forces was discouraged from its course, the Mechanicus pushed by their thirst for knowledge and the forces of the Ecclesiarchy simply rejoicing into the holy work of purging the enemies of mankind.
Eventually, though, the hope of fading human enclaves still alive was to be met with success.
Exactly fifteen years after the beginning of the twin expedition, the Mechanicus fleet made contact with the extreme pronges of a human civilization.
Centered around a cluster of three star systems, this human potentate was known to friends and foes as the Inherited Kingdom of Ymilgard. Cut off from the wider Imperium for almost ten thousands years, it had lived a stormy existence, passing through periods of eslavement to stronger civilizations and renaissances and freedom, passing through names and incarnations, waxing and waning through the millennia. Eventually, it had endured.
When the Mechanicus fleet made contact with it, the Kingdom was at the zenith of its power. Tightly bond to its Mhoim neighbors, it spanned across a grand total of sevtny-five worlds, with a number of minor Xenos civilizations as its vassals. It was a powerful and well-ordered domain, with superbly well-equipped and trained armies and a strong unity, centered around the Church of the Foundry of Light, a version of the Church of the God-Emperor, and an ancient visage of the Imperial Truth.
The first reaction of the two meeting parties was of mutual awe and enthusiasm. The Kingdom had held into its legends of the existence of the Imperium and numerous state-sanctioned seers had prophesied of an eventual reunion along the millennia. For their part, the tech-priests were astonished to see the Ymilgard use weapons and machines unseen into the wider Imperium by millennia and were eager to re-learn the craft needed to produce them.
The peaceful reunion was quickly cut short. To the horror of the Mechanicus adepts, the Ymilgard used practices declared as heretek. Their weapons and machines weren't all product of blessed STC lost to the Imperium, but a great deal of them was product of the most damnable practice of innovation. Infinitely worse, the Ymilgard didn't restrict the use of technology to a religious caste, but allowed civilians to get privy of their highest mysteries, they didn't show proper respect to the machine not with prayer nor with rites and treated the machine spirits just like inert things. Finally, the peak of heresy, they allowed for Psykers to flourish unchecked, joined into a great single Order.
The Kingdom was as much as unimpressed. The unthinking zealotry of the Mechanicus, their religious, ignorance-riddled approach to handling technology, their lack of regard for the human life, all of their ideology was abhorrent to its inhabitants and governants.
Tensions escalated quickly between the two parties, the only thing keeping the Mechanicus forces from attacking whom they saw as the blackest of hereteks the sheer military might of the Kingdom, that far outweighted their own.
Eventually, things came to an end when the most zealous of the tech-priests, ever-fractious in their labyrinthine hierarchy, had their forces open fire against Kingdom's citizen. Ymilgard's reaction, supported by years of preparations only for this unavoidable event, was swift and lethal.
Massive fleets attacked the Explorator Group, the arcane weapons of the Ymilgard destroying and crippling the overhelming majority of the Mechanicus vessels in one fell swoop. The Skitarii already deployed on the border planets of the Kingdom, their masters having been denied access to it, were left cut off and leaderless and quickly fell to the combined might of already prepared armies. Only a few of the Mechanicus ships managed to flee, making all speed for Imperial Space. It was the 965st of the 41st Millennium.
On their different path, the Ecclesiarchy fleet was destined to face a similar fate.
Battered by years of fighting but unbroken in spirit, the forces of the Church made slow way toward the Ymilgad space by another route. Their path led them to the powerful neighbor of the Kingdom, the Mhoim Protectorate. Spanning more than a thousand worlds, the Protectorate was a true colossus of might, the most powerful force of the Sagittarius Arm. Its inhabitants belonged to the abhuman race long believed lost to the Tyranids, known to the Imperium as Homo Rotundus or Squats. Still, the Mhoim defied the known classification, being different both in credence and physiche even while remaining as war-like and stubborn as their known counterpart.
The meeting between the Mhoim and the Ecclesiarchy was to be a traumatic one right from the start.
Already informed about the newly-arrived interlopers by their scouting forces, the abhumans scoffed at the Ecclesiarchy's demands to bow before true humans. Claiming their allegiance to belong only to their shrouded deity, the Mhoim Great Father, the Mhoim rejected any attempt to put their independence in danger and any ill-conceived claim to superiority by the "manlings".
The Ecclesiarchy, unburdened by the Mechanicus' restraint, stroke immediately against those that dared to make such heretical proclamations.
Their fleet was shredded, their forces annihilated.
Barely a handful of vessels, all boarding the Ecclesiarchy's fleet high echelons, managed to escape from Mhoim space and only the quick intervention and rapidly conceded asylum by the Ymilgard saved even these last remnants by swift extermination.
For the traumatized Ecclesiarchs, the respect gave to them by the Kingdom was a gladly accepted gift and they were more than happy to overlook any Mechanicus-perceived heresies. The Ymilgard government, heavily backed by the Church of the Foundry and its mysterious order of Daemon-slayers known as the Representatives, and by the powerful psyker Order of Pyrus did its utmost to give the Ecclesiarchs the image of a faith-laden domain. They were so succesful than when the Ecclesiarchy last surviving ships left the Kingdom's space, protected by Ymilgard escorts, the preachers and high-priests aboard brought back to their masters voice that a new realm of faith and purity hd been added to his Imperial Majesty's eternal domain. It was the 973st of the 41st Millennium.
Still, as much as good for peaceful negotiations this was, war seemed to be the only possible outcome.
The Mechanicus, envious and hateful of those it had come to perceive as the most despicable of Hereteks, assembled a mighty warhost, intent on snatching by blades and bolt sthe Omnissiah's secrets by those that dared to disdain its precepts. A wrench in their projects was to be put by the most unlikely of sources: the Ultramarines.
The noble Chapter had been approached by forces of the Ymilgard and the Mhoim and asked to act as a intermediaries. Both domains wished to be part of the Imperium, not as slaves and not at the price of their culture, but as allies and equals.
Ever mindful of reasonable approaches, the Ultramarines accepted the ambassadors' pleas. Wasn't obviously wiser to accept such mighty domains in the Imperium with only strokes of pen and exchanged words instead of terrible wars that would leave both more vulnerable to the mani-fold horrors of the galaxy?
They brought the matter to the Administratum, advocating for Ymilgard and Mhoim both, and found eager attention. The mammoth government of the Imperium, even its uncountable resources stretched thin under ever-growing threats of which the looming Thirteen Black Crusade was to be the greatest, was more than eager to find allies for its endless wars. The lack of direct participation in the Sagittarian Crusade, as the ill-fated twin expedition had come to be called, had left the highest echelons of the Imperium restless, ever-concerned as they were for the spreading of the already incredibly powerful Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy. Now, they had the chance to assert their influence once again, and it was a chance that they took gladly.
With the whole-hearted support of the Ecclesiarchy, the Administratum gave to Ymilgard and Mhoim the status of allied, indipendent Kingdoms, similar to how the Realm of Ultramar itself was considered into the annals of imperial bureucracy. The frenzied protests of the tech-priests fell on deaf ears. It was too great of a prize to discard, and the Administratum banned any attempt from Imperial forces to bring harm to these newly-found allies.
Now, as the 41st Millennium steps to a close, the processes set into motion by the Sagittarian Crusade are coming to a head.
The Mechanicus, unmoved in its aims, schemes to reclaim technology that considers to be its due and to bring about the fall of its enemies, no matter the cost to the wider Imperium. The Ecclesiarchy, as much as good-inclined it is toward the Ymilgard, still harbours deep-seated grudges for the abhuman Mhoim and only with massive effort it will be diverted by projects of vengeance, let alone to impose its own brand of fanatical sealot on the more-measured Church of the Foundry of Light. Both Ymilgard and Mhoim won't accept threats to their independence and culture, and both parties' stubborness isn't good for a peaceful outcome. The Ultramarines try to act as peace-brokers, but their efforts hardly meet with success.
As the end of the Dark Millennium approaches, the Imperium faces its greatest challenges yet.
The Warp stirs to unprecedented levels of frenzy, its daemonic inhabitants breaching the Veil to feast upon mortal souls in growing numbers of occasions. Heresy ran rampant in countless worlds, the madness of the Warp only a breath away.
The ever-present threat of the Xenos is rearing up once again. The young Tau Empire launches its Fifth Sphere of Expansion, its ideology of the Greater Good almost as powerful as the cutting edge tech of its armies into swaying planets from the Emperor's light.
The Tyranids, the slaved monsters of the sinister Hive Mind, slither their way through the galaxy as an unstoppable avalanche of bio-engineered monstrosities. Uncountable planets have already fallen to the jaws of the Great Devourer, pulped into biomass and consumed to fuel the Hive Fleets' insatiable hunger. Leviathan, the greatest and most powerful Hive Fleet ever-encountered, ravages its way across the stars, its unfathomable aims seeming to bring it toward the Throneworld itself.
The Orks mass into numbers never seen from the Waaagh of the Beast itself, their warp-crazed shamans declaring that the time for the Great Waaagh, when even Gork and Mork themselves, their bestial Gods, will break their way into realspace, is finally coming.
And still, all of these threats are trumped by the might of the Thirteen Black Crusade, the final hammerblow that the traitor Warmaster Abaddon is about to unleash from the hellish Eye of Terror. Fuelled by the hatred of ten thousand years, gathering behind himself the full might of the Four Brothers of the Warp, the traitorous Warmaster prepares to make fall upon the Galaxy his greatest assault yet and this time he won't stop until the Terra itself is devoured and the False Emperor is thrown down from his Golde Throne.
And these are only a part of the terrible threats to the Imperium of Man. Shadowy dangers slither between the darkness of space, their gazes moving upon an already besieged realm.
Should war comes to the Sagittarius Arm, it could means the final nail to the already rapidly-closing coffin for the Dominion of Man. The forces required to bring such a conflict to bear would mean the weakening of already emblattled sectors, with dire consequences for all of the Imperium. Should a line of resistance fall, it's impossible to foresee the catastrophe that would befall humanity, but nothing short of total decimation would suffice.
As destiny rushes forward, moves are made and the eyes of many falls upon the Sagittarius Arm. If it will bring renewed hope or doom for all, only those that stand Beyond know for sureā¦
