Great Crusade: Part 1

From humanity's homeworld emerged the Emperor of Mankind, He who swept aside the terrible tyrants and psyker monstrosities that had come to rule Terra during Old Night. After the conquest of Terra and Luna in the Unification Wars, and the tentative peace with Mars through the Treaty of Olympus, He turned His gaze to the stars, and set out to unite the scattered masses of mankind with His legions of Space Marines.

The Great Crusade marked the end of the Age of Strife. The end to darkness, anarchy, and pain. It would be the beginning of a new golden age for mankind.

Unknown to most, the crusade which was to reshape the face of the galaxy had a secondary purpose, to find the lost Primarchs, transhumans of immense power and the progenitors of the Space Marines. One by one they were to be found and inducted into the Emperor's great endeavor, willingly or otherwise.

And so the march of the newly founded Imperium of Man began, only hampered by the teeming Ork hordes and the horrific Rangdans, both would be defeated despite the great cost.

With the destruction of the last great Ork empire based around Ullanor, the Emperor talked with His favored son Horus Lupercal, and then made him the new Warmaster. Afterwards the Emperor returned to Terra, His son Magnus the Red and his legion, the Thousand Sons, in tow. He would not be seen again for a long time.

The Great Crusade continued undaunted, crushing all those who dared stand in its way, including thousands of myriad xeno species, and even rogue human civilisations, who had the temerity to oppose the Imperium's righteous cause.

Several years after Ullanor, Horus encountered an advanced Human civilization known at the Interex, and although they were abhumans, Horus was taken with them. Another human civilization that has endured the horrors of Old Night, and with such different policies than the Imperium. For months Horus courted the Interex, telling them about the Emperor's Great Work and all He had accomplished in humanity's name. This peace and supposed brotherhood would not last.

In secret the Interex had been horrified by the atrocities committed by the Imperium and had sent out a chosen few to warn the surrounding human and xenos civilizations of the coming Imperium. Under the guise of human trade ships, foreign leaders came and held council with the Interex government behind closed doors in parallel with the Warmasters visits, and in time a coalition was formed to resist Imperial aggression.

At the grand event known as the Signing of Unity that was to join Interex and Imperium as one, the Interex struck. Using what the Imperials thought were ceremonial weapons, thousands of Astartes were slain in moments and the Imperial Army nearly left headless.

Horus was left reeling, never having suffered a betrayal so great. Even so, he managed to order a retreat back to the Expeditionary Fleet in orbit. Although there was much opposition, the Warmaster successfully escaped the planet in a Stormbird, it's void shields only barely holding off the immense amount of anti-air fire being unleashed by the Interex.

Back aboard the his flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, Horus was prepared to turn the planet to ash when a bridge member informed him that several thousand ships, of xenos and human make, had just arrived at the edge of the system.

Realizing that this was the second stage of the Interex's attack and that the Expeditionary Fleet couldn't defeat such a large enemy fleet, Horus ordered all ships to make for the Mandeville Point.

From there, the beginning of the war was swift and planet after planet fell, the Imperium's forces too slow to react and too under-equipped to defend against the Coalition. The Astartes were too few to truly defend a galaxy spanning empire and the Imperial Army who relied on numerical superiority, were now outnumbered and outgunned.

As Horus tried to coordinate the Imperium's military to counter Coalition attacks, he noticed Imperial forces other than the esteemed Solar Auxilia and the Legiones Astartes died in droves. Refusing to let this heretical Coalition bleed the Imperium dry, the Warmaster demanded the total reorganization and rearmament of Imperium's military.

The Imperial Army would be split into the Lunar Auxilia and the Astra Militarum, each equipped, armed, and organized similarly to the venerable Solar Auxilia cohorts already fielded by the Imperium. The Lunar Auxilia would be a permanently attached force of mortal soldiers to the Legions, while the Astra Militarum would be the successor of the Imperial Army and take over its duties. These revisions would later be known as Horus' Reformations and many now believe they are what saved the Imperium from destruction.

Regardless of the orders of the Warmaster, the Mechanicum's Forge Worlds at the time were not capable of producing such advanced equipment in such large numbers. Few Forge Worlds complied with the initial demands made of them, the rest claiming it was not ideal to rework their forges at the present time and that they would increase their output instead.

This did little to help the Imperium as it meant its soldiers simply had more equipment that had already proven inadequate against its current foe. After the loss of several more planets to the Interex-Coalition, Horus knew that something had to be done.

Furious at being disobeyed by the Mechanicum, Horus departed the frontlines to Terra, leaving the Mournival in command of the mustered forces. It was there he would demand an audience with the Fabricator-General and the Council of Terra to seek retribution and explain the dire circumstances the Imperium found itself in.

Upon arrival Horus' audience was granted and the High Lords gathered to hear what could possibly cause the Warmaster to leave the Great Crusade unattended. Throughout the explanation many of the High Lords were dismissive of the idea that an alliance of xenos and rogue humans could possibly threaten the Imperium. However, when Horus got to the end of his speech and plainly stated the losses the Imperium had incurred while all but accusing the Mechanicum of treason they were shocked.

It was here that Malcador the Sigilite, First Lord of Terra, simply turned at the Fabricator-General and asked if he would let the Imperium be picked apart by its lessers or if his Mechanicum would comply with the Warmaster's orders.

Looking backed into a corner, the Fabricator-General confirmed that the Mechanicum would stand by the Imperium once more, as it always had, and that he would personally ensure that all the Forge Worlds who had denied Horus' request were punished.

Many Imperial historians look back on this moment and wonder what would have happened if the Fabracator-General had denied the Warmaster his due, if the two great powers that were the Imperium and the Mechanicum would have gone to war or if that period would have been the end of civilization as they knew it.

With the Fabricator-Generals assistance, Horus was able to make the Forge Worlds of the Mechanicum rapidly comply with retooling their manufactorums to produce the advanced wargear of the soon to be defunct Solar Auxilia. Even working at a feverish pace, it would still be years before the retooled forges produced their first batch of equipment.

Among Horus' victories during this time is the legendary Gambit of Formund, a trap which saw a large portion of the Interex-Coalition fleet destroyed in their march down the Eastern Fringe, and the Routing of Coralax, where the Warmaster was able to fend off a full scale invasion with only five thousand Astartes and a half strength cohort of the Solar Auxilia.

Had these battles not been won it is believed the war would have made it to the Forge World Triplex-Phall and the nearby world of Signus Prime, both major sources of industry and soldiers for not just the Eastern Fringe but the Imperium as a whole. The loss of several hundred God-Engines and tens of millions of loyal soldiers would have let the Interex-Coalition crush the remaining bastions of Imperial might in the Eastern Fringe and would have had them at the gates of Ultramar in just a few years.

While some believe the Realm of Ultramar would have been enough to defeat the heretical alliance, others find them naive. By this point in the war, over a hundred xenos species had been recorded fighting in the Eastern Fringe as combatants for the Coalition and there was a large increase in xenos incursions all across the Imperium, drawing large parts of the Imperial Army and even some Legions away from the main front.

Thankfully, Horus was able to blunt the Interex-Coalition's advance long enough for the Forge Worlds to complete their task and start producing the wargear necessary for the Lunar Auxilia and Astra Militarum to be born.

Finally, after decades of losing ground the Imperium deployed its newly reorganized forces, not just in the Eastern Fringe but all across the Imperium. Quickly taking ground and surprising the Interex-Coalition with their determination and hatred, the Imperium burned hundreds of worlds.

While many of these worlds were formerly of the Imperium, the inhabitants had been assimilated into the Coalition and somehow indoctrinated against Imperial culture. For millennia the Imperium's historians have called into question the accuracy of these reports. Many ask how worlds that had been Compliant for generations have been indoctrinated to the ideals of the Interex-Coalition so quickly. Primarchs themselves have given their word of the accuracy of the reports but admit that they themselves had never found an answer.

For over a century Imperial and Coalition forces fought across the galaxy. Over five million Astartes were slain and countless Astra Militarum formations were killed to the last, but in the end the alliance fell to the brilliant mind of the Warmaster.

This would be the final military campaign of what would later be considered the first stage of the Great Crusade. After the final battle on the planet where the Coalition's leaders had hidden, Horus spoke to his brothers and the Lord Marshals of the Astra Militarum, declaring the worlds of mankind safe and that he would hold a Triumph in his fathers honor, for it was He who had made it all possible.

The Aquila flag flew from the Halo Stars to the Eastern Fringe, uniting all of mankind under one banner. The myriad xenos species that had plagued mankind during Old Night had all but been destroyed and the rate of incursions into human space had dropped close to zero.

It was a time of legend and the masses celebrated mankind's ascension across a million worlds. On Terra the Solar Triumph was held. Every Astartes Legion marched the streets and millions of Astra Militarum cohorts held parades for the adoring citizens of the Imperium. Picts and videos from this event would be spread throughout the Galaxy and become some of the most famous images in human cultural memory.

Author Note:

There you have it, the first installment of Dreams Fall Apart. This is essentially an overview of the story and will be continued at a later date, but in between this chapter and the next story overview I will be posting a similar type of overview for different factions that make up this story.

Please let me know what you think of this, I've been working on it for a while so I hope you like it.
Cheers!