three new planets

System: Forald’s Legacy

Galactic Position: Cloudburst Sector, Cognomen Subsector

System Overlord: Magos Tharmecium Chlammer

Planets: Twelve, one inhabitable

Feudal world: Foraldshold
Satellite: None

Tropospheric Composition: Foraldshold has Nitrogen 76.6%, Oxygen 20%, Krypton 2.5%, Water .9%, Carbon Dioxide 0.01%

Religion: Cult Mechanicus

Government Type: Adeptus Mechanicus

Planetary Governor: No

Adept Presence: Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Astra Telepathica

Climate: Foraldshold has lengthy dry seasons, with large polar ice caps and strong seasonal winds

Geography: Foraldshold is 1.1 times the size of Terra.  It has large grasslands that cover most of its surface, with thick stands of trees surrounding its ice-locked polar caps.  It has deep canyons on its seabed full of manganese and aluminum deposits

Gravity: Drimmerzole has 1.04 Terran Gravity

Economy: Gelt Thrones and Silver Thrones

Principle Exports: Aluminum, Oil
Principle Imports: Food, Solders, Clothing

Countries and Continents: Foraldshold has eleven continents, with no national divisions

Military: Forald’s Guards (High quality PDF), Skitarii, Extensive Guard deployments

Contact with Other Worlds: Weekly

Tithe Grade: Aptus Non

Population: 8,462,000

Description:
Foraldshold is yet another world of the Cloudburst Sector named after the Rogue Trader who found it, but this world is unique in its properties.  The world was claimed by the Mechanicus after the Rogue Trader who found it overstepped his legal boundaries in the Cold Trade of alien artifacts inside the Imperium.  The planet is embarrassingly close to Cognomen, and well within an unguided Warp Jump from its defense perimeter.  The Mechanicus prefers not to dwell on how in the world it managed to miss an inhabitable world so close to a Forge World, however, and instead focus on industrializing the planet as fast as humanly possible.
Foraldshold is a stopgap for Cognomen, and its leaders are very much aware.  The planet has barely been settled by the Imperium, and already sports an enormous city.  The city, which the Mechanicus has named Proion, is the only habitation on the planet of more than a few thousand residents.  It sprawls over a point on the surface the Mechanicus specifically set aside for the purpose.  Although the planet required extensive terraforming (for tectonic problems, not atmospheric ones) for centuries before the Mechanicus could safely colonize it, it is now the fastest-growing colony in the Sector.

A new visitor to Proion would come away under the impression that the city was expanding too quickly.  Large lots of open land sit between finished buildings, the whole city has entries to underground transit networks that are not online, and the planet’s food production is far higher than it needs to be.  However, the city and its farms are products of the Mechanicus’ forward planning.  The Mechanicus intends for Proion to eventually occupy an entire continent, and the open spaces are merely places where they intend to dig or build arcologies.  Proion is ultimately to fill a support role for Cognomen, and handle much of the mundane manufacturing that Cognomen presently handles on behalf of the Sector.  The forges of Cognomen itself with thus be free to manufacture things of greater complexity or urgent need.  Cognomen plans to begin manufacture of Bane-chassis tanks within the year, and that would be impossible without Proion taking on its pre-fab chimney, wheelbarrow, breadmaker, and white phosphorus manufacturing duties.

Agriculturally, Foraldshold is still dependent on Forender for its food.  However, that will change soon.  The portion of the planet not given over to manufacturing has been set aside for mass agriculture.  The Mechanicus has contracted with whole guild branches from House Carvan to begin selecting the ideal crops and livestock for the arid grasslands and dank swamps of the non-industrially zoned continents.  Once the farms and ranches are up and running, the world will actually produce at a slight surplus even after Proion hits its planned population maximum.  Cognomen anticipates using that to offset their increasing population.

The presence of Maskos machines and need for the world to remain arable has spared Foraldshold from the fate of other Imperial Mining Worlds: that of catastrophic strip mining.  The world’s resources are of great interest to Cognomen, of course, but in the few centuries that the world has had Imperial residents on it, its mining efforts have either involved tunneling or seabed stripping.  Megatons of ore and salts have flown off on Cognomen freighters to be processed elsewhere.  That flow of freight has slowed as Proion’s own infrastructure has come online.

The city is very much an extension of Cognomen in culture and ethos.  The people here are aware that Cognomen is not the most popular Forge World in Mars’ eyes.  The fact that Cognomen essentially plans to offload much of its mundane manufacturing on Foraldshold doesn’t bother the local residents, however.  As long as they have manufacturing jobs, the actual products they make are a secondary concern to them.  That is not the case for some of the Techpriests that administrate and upkeep the factories, but a job well done in the Omnissiah’s eyes is reward enough for most.

Within the great city of Proion, the factories are already churning to life.  While most of the manufacturing underway on the planet consists of making machines and building materials needed by the planet’s own residents for now, those factories can easily be directed to mass-production of household goods and chemicals once the city itself is at full capacity.  Maskos machines allow for the production of underground subways, mines, laboratories, and bunkers without ripping up the surface, while the world’s atmosphere has allowed for what little terraforming the world needs to carry on without significant cost.  Luckily, the proximity of the world to Cognomen has allowed for the logistical chain of the colony to be as short as possible.

The world’s function as one of the four cornerstones of the local Mechanicus have afforded it a prestige that its low population would not normally engender.  Forender supplies the food, ABX202020 supplies the Knights, Foraldshold supplies the relief manufacturing and more food and minerals, while Cognomen rules them all.  Of course, the fact that all four worlds are not presently anywhere near their true potential output means that they are still dependent on their compacts with the greater Imperium for many things.  The citizens of Proion do not let that get in the way of their labor, however.  The Cult Mechanicus is thoroughly impressed upon the citizenry, and they take pride in their work, or so the leaders of the labor collectives assure the Mechanicus.  In practice, both the (admittedly diminishing) lack of fresh food and the constant construction noises all across the city lead to a bit of grumbling from the populace.

Presently, the Mechanicus Magos Tharmecium Chlammer reigns over the system, from his citadel in the walled capital.  He volunteered for the mission, to the surprise of some of his bretheren on Cognomen.  Many Magos of the sector prefer to work from Cognomen itself, where they can watch its meteoric rise in power firsthand, but Chlammer is both harder to distract and worried about something many local Magos find unconcerning.  His colleagues assert that Cognomen has survived Glasian assault in the past, and the arrival of Chaos Space Marines, pirates, and Orks.  Surely, its fiefdoms will be equally successful in driving off potential enemies?  Chlammer flatly disagrees.  He has spent a vast percentage of his world’s budget preparing for an invasion, and the means to project his mighty city’s defenses over as great a range as possible.  He has ruled Foraldshold for two hundred years now, and has no intention to retire.

Despite being at the very highest standards of civilized technological integration and the direct patronage of a huge Forge World, Foraldshold is technically a Feudal World.  This is because the planet is a satrap of Cognomen, not an independent and equal partner of the Imperium.  Of course, once the world’s vast industrial capacity is in full swing and its military has increased in size enough that it no longer needs Guard assistance to defend itself, it will almost certainly be recategorized as an Industrial World or Civilized World.  If the Magos Biologis can maintain its ecobalance well enough, it may even qualify as a Paradise World, which would delight the Mechanicus for PR reasons if nothing else.

Proion itself benefits from something that most Imperial worlds do not, thanks to their ancient, undirected colonization by the long-dead Terran federation: a defense wall.  Cities in the Imperium that are custom-built to defend a locale from invasion or the elements benefit greatly from a border wall.  Proion is one of them, and even though the city has not yet grown to reach the wall yet, it should do so within twenty eight years.  The wall rings an area described by a rough square, with one side being the ocean, and the other sides being approximately one hundred forty miles in length.  Farms and ranches cover the area outside the walls from one horizon to the other.  The wall itself is one hundred twelve feet tall, and extends for forty feet underground to prevent tunneling.  Its thickness varies, but at its thinnest is still over nine meters thick at the top and twelve at the base.  Gun turrets, reinforced sniper roosts, floodlights, local shrapnel shelters, antennae for vox systems, and power plugs festoon the top of the wall at regular intervals.  Every mile has a thickened portion of the wall running from top to bottom with simple structures inside, including vox hubs and local frequency scramblers.  The wall itself has elevators on the inside surface that can be disabled remotely, as well as lavatories built inside the wall itself every few hundred feet.  The corners and each ten mile increment enjoy a fortress structure, a few hundred feet wide, where the wall is thicker and locally taller, with additional gun turrets and heavy SAMs.

Each of the three sides also has one central defense command structure, usually located around a major gate.  The wall has nine gates, three on each side, which allow vehicle traffic to pass through.  Each gate spans eight lanes of vehicle traffic and one train line.  The wall on the west side, opposite the ocean, also accommodates the river that flows through the city.  The city’s principal military staging area and base is built into the corner fortress at the northwest corner.  The coastal side is less reinforced, but is still formidably defended, with gun batteries and sensor dishes all along the water in ferrocrete bunkers.  The main port on the delta at the end of the river is an industrial one, but the Mechanicus intends to add a facility for making wet navy ships for the PDF soon.  There are some AA weapons inside the city itself atop larger buildings, but the primary defense of the city is not allowing enemies into it.

Unlike some Mechanicus colonies, Foraldshold raises its own PDF.  They enjoy the best equipment a PDF can field, including a Macharius tank unit and four Praetor Assault Launchers.  Although their ground forces are nothing to scoff at, their true focus is air power.  The planet is so lightly inhabited, and the cost of continent-spanning train lines to high even for the Mechanicus, that the PDF have focused on hovercraft and fixed-wing aircraft more than anything else thus far, with a focus on VTOL transports and fighters.  The world does not tithe Guard units up, and technically does not pay a tithe, so the PDF keep their finest soldiers and equipment for themselves.  However, their lack of numbers means that they have to rely on the Guard and Skitarii for some defensive assistance.

What the locals call Cognomen troopers are nothing of the sort.  All Skitarii on Foraldshold are loyal to Mars first and Cognomen a distant second.  Still, like on Cognomen itself, the Skitarii of Foraldshold are well-equipped, well-respected, and well-quartered, and are allowed to use any weapons they choose in the defense of Foraldshold that do not permanently damage the world’s habitability.  Thus, they are fierce defenders of the world against its occasional alien attackers.  The world has no Titans or Knights in residence, but this is temporary and the Skitarii know it.  ABX202020 and Cognomen are scrambling to expand their numbers, and when Foraldsdhold is large enough to serve as a manufacturing lynchpin for Cognomen, the Forge World will be able to produce far more weapons for the defense of all three.

The planet’s formidable artillery stages under Skitarii control until the PDF has enough personnel to take it over, and the Skitarii made a conscious choice not to connect it to the walls like their fixed weapons.  Instead, they store it in guarded warehouses at the northern wall’s interior edge, in case it must sortie quickly.  The Skitarii here field no air or watercraft, though they may request permission to ride PDF units, and are rarely refused.

Understandably, protecting the planet beyond the wall is a challenge.  The fact that the world’s population is so concentrated is a vast liability in anything other than a siege scenario.  A widely distributed population would be harder to destroy from orbit, and the lack of optical coverage on much of the planet’s surface means that an intruder that slipped by orbital scanners in cold running could land nearly anywhere without being observed.  While Foraldshold does not have a moon, the deep asteroid belts that girdle the system at two different distances from the star could easily hide an invasion force.  The Mechanicus is constructing orbitals to defend the surface of the world, but it is slow going despite the proximity of Cognomen thanks to the logistical drains of Oglith and the impending Migration.  The fact that Foraldshold itself periodically comes under attack from Orks is not helping matters along, since Mechanicus construction ships have to withdraw whenever the greenskins are sighted.

Simple satelites are easier and cheaper to deploy.  The planet has a ring of five large modular satellites, each half a kilometer wide and bristling with guided missiles, and fifty smaller ones of six models with a variety of point defense weapons.  This protects the real prize: an STC-pattern traffic control platform, able to guide all aerial and space traffic and landings remotely, and staffed by a permanent crew of six Tech-adepts.

Foraldshold has a history of Ork assaults.  Almost as soon as the world was colonized, Mechanicus orbital sentries observed Ork ships in nearby dead systems, apparently looking for something.  Within twenty years of the creation of the foundations of the defense wall, Ork raiders had begun attacking the planet to loot the Mechanicus survey and colonization teams.  The raids ceased between M41.835 and M41.989, but starting in M41.990, small Ork raider units appeared in the outer system and began attacking Cognomen freighters once more.  The Imperial Navy and Basilikon Astra managed to secure the outer system, but the worst was yet to come.  Whatever aetheric tides had propelled the raiders to Forald’s Legacy also propelled something far worse.  Nine years later, a Space Hulk, previously unknown to human intelligence, appeared at the edge of the Forald’s Legacy system.  The Inquisition has retroactively assigned it the title Sigma Golf 7152 until it can be assigned a proper name.
The ship was an ugly amalgam of only seven smaller vessels, but the Mechanicus detected it instantly despite its small size because of its extensive damage.  The Mechanicus observed the vessel at extreme range, and detected over two dozen holes in the hull from impacts and rending cuts.  The Hulk leaked radiation and chemicals on its entire journey into the system.  Mechanicus and SDF ships assaulted it along its entire course, as did Imperial Navy reinforcements.  The Hulk was barely spaceworthy by the time it finally arrived in orbit over Foraldshold, and promptly de-orbited.  Its engines flared, attempting to escape gravity, but the ship finally crashed four hundred miles from Proion.  Immediately, Orks spilled from the Hulk, looting the abandoned farms around the impact site.  Six regiments of Imperial Guard had arrived on the planet before then, including all of the surviving Chlorit Reapers, who had been quietly replenishing their numbers on Coriolis since the loss of their homeworld.  The six regiments charged out to encircle and pound the Orks before the green scum could gain a foothold.

They lost the first two engagements against the Orks, thanks to the sheer number of the aliens.  The Inquisition estimates that there are in excess of one hundred thousand survivors of the wreck, with over one and a half times that number dead inside from radiation and vacuum exposure.  How the Hulk came to be so damaged prior to its arrival, the Inquisition does not know and will not have a chance to ascertain until the Mechanicus can secure it.  However, the Inquisition and Mechanicus suspect that the ship was assaulted by something in the Warp itself, either another ship or an unspeakably large daemon.

With the initial attacks repulsed, the forces of Foraldshold have shifted from containment to depopulation.  Preventing more Ork spores from taking growth in the soil of Foraldshold will be difficult, given how time consuming it was to eradicate them the first time, and those were small raids.  The Hulk itself is so badly damaged that even the Orks have given up on trying to salvage it, and have shifted their efforts to disassembly.  The surviving Meks are ripping the thing apart for scrap and components, and to the unease of local military leaders, have begun building vast swarms of Fighta-Bommas.  The airplanes have begun roaring from the guts of the Hulk, which the eks have converted into a carrier of sorts.  Thus far, the Skitarii and PDF have managed to keep the Ork planes from returning from any raids they launch into the Proion perimeter, but the aliens are both numerous enough and aggressive enough to get through the wall if they applied their cunning.  More Guard regiments are on the way, including a regiment of Cloudburst Defenders in case the aliens push past the wall and bring the fight to the city properly.  Two Clegran regiments are en route with a Grendel regiment in tow, along with three more Battlefleet Cloudburst ships, but the many problems the sector is facing presently tax the Imperium too much to send more.  Worse, the Tarot is clear: Glasians will hit Forender in the next wave, and its defenses are a fraction of Foraldshold’s.  Cognomen will now have to face a choice: send more troops to Foraldshold, and leave their other holdings vulnerable, or send nothing, and hope Foraldshold weathers the storm?


System: ABX2

Galactic Position: Cloudburst Sector, Cognomen Subsector

System Overlord: Magos Erin Ermincrole

Planets: Six, one habitable

Proto-Knight-World: ABX202020

Satelites: None

Tropospheric Composition: Nitrogen 78%, Oxygen 20%, Argon .9%, Krypton .5% Water .56%, Carbon dioxide .04%

Religion: Cult Mechanicus

Government Type: Local Peerage

Planetary Governor: Yes

Adept Presence: Adeptus Mechanicus

Climate: ABX202020 is a cold world with latitudinal bands of climate, only freely habitable within four hundred miles of the equator

Geography: 1.04 times the size of Terra, largely uneven ground land with little ocean

Gravity: 1.11 Terran Gravity

Economy: Gelt Thrones and Silver Thrones

Principle Exports: N/A
Principle Imports: Food, Manufacturing Equipment, Colonists, Knights, Weaponry, Ammunition

Countries and Continents: Twelve continents, no national divisions

Military: Skitarii, Machine Cultists, Knights, Serf Legions

Contact with Other Worlds: Common

Tithe Grade: Aptus Non

Population: 720,900 (human)

Description:
The dirty little secret of the Cognomen Priesthood and the sector’s most powerful potential asset, ABX202020 is a Proto-Knight World.  The planet hosts the beginnings of a Knight House, House Matraxia, and hosts no Arbites.  If the knowledge of the Mechanicus’ illegal activity on ABX202020 were to go public, the very least the Cognomen Priesthood would have to endure would be a public scolding for breaking with protocol, and more likely would have several of its members imprisoned.

Within the vast structure of the Imperium, there are two distinct sorts of Knight Houses.  The first and most common is that of the Imperial Noble Knights.  These are Knight Houses that serve the Imperium in exchange for trade and knowledge, and usually reign over a planet.  These Houses have long chivalric traditions, most dating back over twenty thousand years.  They receive supplies of Knights and ammunition from the Imperium in exchange for their service, and form the speartip of Imperial Armies on dangerous missions across the galaxy.
The second and less common is that of the Mechanicus Knightly Orders, and these are direct partners and servants of the Red Planet.  These Houses have less autonomy, but do not have to pay a tithe; they instead direct their resources to a nearby Forge World.  ABX202020 shall soon play host to one of these Questor Mechanicus Houses: House Matraxia.  Unusually, the Planetary Governor and System Overlord will be two different postings; rare enough in Cloudburst and unprecedented for a Cognomen satrap.  The leadership caste of the planet’s Tech-priesthood is already in place, and the system’s readiness to begin acting as a productive Imperial colony will be at normal levels in under three years.

The problem, as the Cognomen leadership sees it, is that the entire affair is technically illegal.  The foundation of new Knight Houses is not illegal per se, but the creation of new Knight Worlds from whole cloth is, at least under most interpretations of the Questor Cognitio Doctrina of Mars: the Quest for Knowledge.  Unfortunately for Cognomen, the prevailing interpretation on Mars is one that finds new Knight Worlds to be a crime.

However, the present Lord Fabricator, Beraxos, has simply had enough of Mars’ overconservatism.  The strategic situation of the Imperium now may be a distant problem from aboard the Ring of Iron, but at the very edge of the Astronomican, circumstances are grim.  Beraxos is fed up with Mars’ apparent inability to clear up simple dogmatic questions, their grudging respect for Cognomen’s many accomplishments and growing power, and their stubborn and infuriating refusal to answer his astropathic questions about proper protocol.
Beraxos has been trying to hail Mars and request clarity on the finer points of Mechanicus doctrine regarding military expansion for seven years, and despite receiving instruction on several other topics and routine shipments of blueprints, maps, and Skitarii, Mars simply will not answer his questions about the appropriateness of building a Knight World from scratch.
Enough, Beraxos has declared, is enough.  ABX202020 is the perfect Knight World candidate: close to a Forge World, unscarred by aliens, never colonized by anybody, and bursting with natural resources.  Its peaceful climate and lack of dangerous predators are just bonuses.  The Mechanicus is in position to make the world into a perfect Knight World, and Beraxos has decided not to let Mars’ inability to pick up his messages prevent him from working.

Of course, this has a huge risk involved.  The last time a Lord Fabricator on Cognomen elected to ignore Martian restraints, Lord Fabricator Richardson was hunted down and killed by the Inquisition.  In Beraxos’ mind, however, the distinction is clear enough between now and then to take the risk.  Richardson was attempting to create a Taghmata, not a Knightly House.  Taghmata were feudal armies of the old Mechanicum, while Knight Houses answer to none but themselves and the Omnissiah.  Of course, the distinction may not be great enough for the Ordo Machina to care, but Beraxos is betting that the pressing need for more Imperial martial power will stay the Inquisition’s hand, especially if House Matraxia proves loyal and skilled.  Also, the Legio Congelatio is grossly underequipped, and having even one Knight House back them up could make all the difference.

With this in mind, Cognomen has deployed their finest geo-scapers and landcrafters to the task.  House Matraxia’s Thrones Mechanicum and first batch of Knights are done and ready to field, a full dozen of basic models.  Meanwhile, a proper fortress for the Royal Family rises from the stone and dirt of the endless forests of ABX202020.  The lack of a name for the planet is galling to the first-wave colonists, but Cognomen reveres names like little else, and they are taking their time in choosing the right one.  Of course, Remilia Matraxia would like nothing more than to name the planet after herself, which the Mechanicus deems highly unlikely.
ABX202020 has other assets to benefit a new Knight World.  It has no  moon or other objects to obstruct orbital defenses, and its abundant iron and oil make for perfect base ingredients for basic equipment for mining and manufacturing, though the world’s ecobalance will require some attention.  Agriculture will be harder to get off the ground, since the soils of the planet tend to be rather resource-poor compared to many other plant-covered worlds, partly because of the nutrient-gobbling trees all across most of its habitable surface.  The poles of the planet are barren arctic wastelands with little life and no chance of permanent colonization until far more advanced habitation technology can be installed.
However, its largest asset is its proximity to Cognomen.  Many Knight Worlds endure some distance from their partner worlds, but Cognomen is only twelve light years from Cognomen, a Warp flight of a few days at most even without a Navigator.  With a Navigator, the flight would take two days under the worst conditions, which means that the planet can easily benefit from trade and patronage with the Forge World.

The planet’s rich crust has deposits of dozens of metallic elements, including ceramite, though it lacks adamantium and uranium, both of which see use in more potent Knight designs.  As much trust as the Mechanicus of Cognomen has invested in Matraxia and her family, the world will not enjoy any more means of building its own Knights than any other Knight World.  The planet has abundant living space near its equator, and the fortresses of the Knight Holds will be able to support vast industry, but Cognomen’s relative lack of propriety only goes so far.
The Sacristans of House Matraxia are few in number so far, but they have only a dozen Knights to protect so far.  The families chosen for Sacrsitan duty from the population of Foraldshold and Forender are recipients of great honor from the Tech-Priesthood, for obvious reasons, and their integration into the Tech-adepts has so far been smooth and quick.  As with most Sacristans, they are forbidden from bearing arms into battle except in emergencies, but the Matraxia House is ferociously defensive of their charges.

The world also plays host to a small, temporary garrison of the Skitarii of Cognomen, not one soldier more than absolutely needed.  Beraxos has spent thousands of man-hours attempting to convince the Skitarii of his world – who ultimately answer to Mars, after all – of the necessity of his crime, and to his infinite relief, most had eventually come around and agreed.  He can’t dispose of those who disagree, of course, so he instead sends them to ABX202020 itself, to see his masterpiece firsthand.  They are quartered comfortably in the construction camp outside Citadel Matraxia, where every day they see the members of the future Royal Family walk past in their Machine God-blessed war engines.  Whether this will instil reverence or disgust, only the Skitarii know, but Beraxos’ people tell him none of the Skitarii have attempted to contact Mars behind his back yet.

The world’s other defense is the mighty Watch Station Redshield, high in orbit above.  The Deathwatch were given the station by the Mechanicus some time ago, as much to serve as a guarantee of their silence on the topic of Knights as to ensure the terribly vulnerable world does not fall to aliens.  The Deathwatch, for their part, are displeased with being given this knowledge, but they do not deny that Redshield is now a strategic lynchpin for the defense of the Cognomen Subsector from the enemies of Man.

The majority of the humans on the planet ABX202020 do not know of Redshield, nor does the Mechanicus want them to.  The affairs of the Deathwatch are best conducted out of sight of the ones they protect, after all.  High Queen Matraxia is well aware of them, and as both High Queen of her House and Planet, Planetary Governess, and Princeps of her Knight Engines, it would be remiss of her not to know of her secret allies.  She has done her very best to keep the Deathwatch placated and friendly, and they tolerate her as much as they tolerate anybody who has had their mind rearranged by exposure to a Throne Mechanicum.

Her lieutenant is her husband and High Prince Consort, Prince Cobus Matraxia.  He is a more enthusiastic proponent of the immediate deployment of his House across the stars than any other.  The House Matraxia may be small, he proclaims, but their hunger for honor and glory knows no limits.  The Basilikon Astra does know limits, however, and so he has had to sit fuming in simulations and logistical planning meetings innumesable instead of venting his spleen against Orks and Traitors, for now.

ABX202020 lacks an Astropathic Choir.  In an emergency, the Astropath in residence on Watch Station Redshield can send messages through the Immaterium, though the Mechanicus is careful not to ask too much of its Deathwatch allies.  Beraxos doesn’t care one way or the other whether ABX202020 has an Astropath yet, but System Overlord and regional Magos of the Cult Mechanicus Erin Ermincrole is less keen on the idea.  Like Beraxos, he agrees that Mars’ apparent inability to answer their messages is irresponsible and potentially dangerous.  Also like Beraxos, he is a loud proponent of Cognomen’s ambitious expansion plans.  Unlike Beraxos, he hates psykers with a burning passion, quite unbecoming an official of the Imperium.  Ermincrole thinks that the power of psykers to touch the Warp is monstrous, and inherently threatening to the Quest for Knowledge.  If psykers were meant to be, he asks, why do the great STC libraries on Mars in the Librarius Omnis contain so few technologies with psychic components?  Why do the other psychic races of the galaxy hate Humanity so?
His machinations have prevented the Adeptus Astra Telepathica from dispatching an Astropath to the world yet, though he would be an imbecile to ignore their insistence for much longer.  The Adeptus Terra still thinks this world to be a mere logging and mining colony, and are yet unaware of the size of the Knight World’s true, ambitious future.  The Mechanicus would hate for Terra and Mars to learn of this project thanks to inadvertent revelation from an Astropath.

The world’s defenses at present consist of a small flotilla of Basilikon Astra warships, Redshield, and two incomplete Defense Lasers on the surface, built into camouflaged structures of Citadel Matraxia.  The world’s eventual defenses will be far greater, and Beraxos has already sent over plans for entire arrays of void platforms and surface-to-space guns.  Until then, the planet is terribly vulnerable.  While Cognomen has the full array of Knight blueprints – including that of the staggeringly rare Porphyrion – they have decided to withhold most of the designs until the world’s other defenses are in place.  Most of the colonists of the planet hail from Cognomen and Forender, and the Mechanicus has trained some in self-defense, just in case the worst should come to pass and the planet suffers invasion and the Knight House is not ready to fight back.  Matraxia does not appreciate this, but begrudgingly accepts the necessity for now – all the chivalry and honor in the world are meaningless if their peasants are all dead.

The world’s future capital, the city in which Citadel Matraxia is being built, is a hub of dynamic construction and expansion.  Hundreds of thousands of colonists from across the Subsector are streaming in to take their shot at a new life, and the first generation of native ABX202020 children has already been born.  Eventually, the planet may even grow heavily populated to the extent that it needs a proper PDF and Arbites, which will blow the secret wide open if it hasn’t been already.  Until then, ABX202020 labors under a peculiar combination of secrecy, militarism, and hope.


System: Triplicate

Galactic Position: Cloudburst Sector, Celeste Subsector

System Overlord: None

Planets: Eight, one habitable

Feral World: Triune

Satelites: One uninhabitable moon

Tropospheric Composition: Nitrogen 75%, Oxygen 22%, Argon .8%, Water 1.19%, Carbon gasses .01%

Religion: Various

Government Type: Primitive

Planetary Governor: No

Adept Presence: Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Ministorum, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Astra Telepathica

Climate: Triune has widely varying climates across its many landmasses and annual polar storms

Geography: .89 times the size of Terra, with nineteen continents and three large landmasses with hundreds of small islands

Gravity: .87 Terra gravity

Economy: Local currencies, barter

Principle Exports: None
Principle Imports: None

Countries and Continents: Three primary local governing bodies ruling three continents, unaware of each other

Military: Celestial Guard barracks

Contact with Other Worlds: Almost none

Tithe Grade: Aptus Non

Population: 280,000,000

Description:
Triune holds the distinction of being the first human-populated world discovered by the great Justin Macdonald after leaving Cognomen.  This world of contrast and ignorance sits on the fastest Warp route between Celeste and Fabique, and so sees significant flyby traffic despite having nothing to offer the Imperium yet.
Macdonald saw the world for what it was: riven.  The planet’s human population is split into three groups, spread over three continents, and apparently unaware of each other.  The most northerly continent is a wasteland of failed industry and rampant chemical pollution, and the people there have collapsed into poverty and cave-dwelling barbarism.  The equatorial continent is not scarred by pollution, but it hosts a complex and hostile empire of feudal religious nobles under a local Emperor.  The southern continent has less pollution than the north but more than the equator, and interests the Imperium the most.  The people here have settled into an intricate monarchy based around the trade of salt, stone, gold, and other natural resources, and despite being more technologically primitive than the equatorial continent, enjoys far higher standards of living.

Triune has so far had a rocky relationship with the Imperium at best.  There is no governing caste at all on the northern continent, and the mutant birthrate is barely below what the Imperium considers acceptable thanks to prolific lead poisoning in the water table.  The equatorial Empire violently resists efforts from Imperial Missionaries, and while the southern Kingdom is interested in trade with the Imperium, they have no interest in adopting Imperial customs and faiths.  However, the planet also hosts significant natural resources and even a few archaeotech caches on the northern continent and some of the smaller islands, and the presence of hundreds of millions of native humans is encouraging to Imperial Missionaries in search of souls to save.

The planet has a diverse and unpredictable weather system.  Conmen and charlatans have made a mint over the millennia by pretending to predict or even influence the weather on all three continents.  The weather is as unstable as it is because of the tens of thousands of tiny sandbars and islands that dot the tropical waters of the equator, which accelerate the sudden growth of hurricanes.

Interestingly to Administratum historians, the populations on Triune are completely unaware of each other.  The continents are each separated from each other by hundreds of miles of choppy oceans and noxious seaweed islands, and whatever political binds joined the initial Terran colonists together long ago are long gone now.  The wreck of the original colony ship is buried on the northern continent, since stripped of anything valuable by scavengers.  The world’s original STC is also on the northern continent, the Mechanicus was interested to learn, but destroyed over nine thousand years ago.
Triune is another example of a world that would have benefitted the Imperium, had they known of it during the Crusade, akin to Maskos and Thimble.  The world had a near-Terran level of technology and political unity as recently as the end of the Great Scouring, and may have even had a working STC at the time, but its technological collapse thanks to several local psykers losing control of their abilities at once destroyed any hope of keeping its advanced tech online.  The world’s original colony must have been one of the very last ones made by Terra before the Age of Strife cut it off from the galaxy, judging from how advanced and durable the materials its ancient buildings are.  Some of the buildings made by first-wave colonists on the equatorial continent are still intact, even after thousands of years of exposure to pollution.

The trade kingdom of the south continent operates a complex economic model, wherein the commodity prices of things like salt, sugar, and timber balance against the value of the land on which they are harvested, and this is used to determine the standing of the noble that owns it.  The King’s family controls the entire region on which the capital sits.  The continent does not enjoy a cohesive defense strategy; every noble fends for themselves.  The polluted hell of the northern continent would not be terribly difficult for the Mechanicus to clean up, though it would be time-consuming in the extreme, and the total lack of government would not aid matters.  The central continent overflows with natural resources, but the signs of past overharvesting are everywhere: the populace has very little knowledge of mining techniques, and much of the metal they use is recycled from elsewhere.

The continent of cavemen is a write-off as far as the Imperium is concerned.  Some of the primitives of the world have agreed to adopt the Imperial mindset and religion simply because it is better than the horror and depression of living as they have been.  These people, however, have strong trends towards mutancy, and they have no knowledge or resources to offer the Imperium.  The equatorial Empire is simply too violent and isolationist to add to the Imperium without significant cultural revision, and they have so far publicly executed five Imperial Missionaries who have dared suggest a shift in the status quo.
The southern continent’s kingdom, however, may be more amenable to proselytizing by the Ministorum.  While their leadership is uninterested in becoming part of the Imperium, the common citizens are not, and some few hundred thousand have already converted.  The kingdom is on the verge of suppressing these heretics against their pantheon, which may necessitate the intervention of the Adeptus Sororitas.

The obvious question in the minds of most new observers of the world is how this all could have happened.  The Imperium learned of Triune nearly three thousand years ago.  How has the Imperium never taken steps to colonize the world?  How has the Ministorum failed to annex the planet or convert its people to the worship of the God-Emperor?
The answer lies in jurisdictional battles.  The world is technically a part of the Celeste Subsector, and the diocese of Celeste, but the credit for finding the world goes to the Mechanicus, the responsibility for preparing three different cultures for adoption of Imperial ways of life falls to the Ministorum, the Administratum controls all local space and other worlds nearby, and the tiny garrison of Celestial Guards on one island belongs to the Munitorum.  As such, no faction is willing to admit to the others that they concede leadership of the conversion effort.  The Inquisition is aware of the delay and is not concerned, as the squabbling keeps the people involved from being too ambitious, though as ever they do keep an eye on the primitive religions of the world in case they prove to be a veil that conceals the Dark Gods.

However, with the Glasian Migrations growing worse, the reality that this world can’t defend itself from the Glasians is becoming more obvious.  Triune is simply not powerful enough or advanced enough to fend off the Glasians, even with the relatively large population they have.  The Ministorum under Cardinal Drake has so far adopted a hands-off stance with regards to more aggressive annexation of the planet, but his ailing health means it may not be his decision any longer.  Where the Ministorum and Administratum expect to find the firepower to annex a world in order to harden it against alien invasion, nobody knows, given that Cardinal Lamarr is snapping up every mercenary he can find, and other worlds in the Sector rate as higher priorities for Astra Militarum assets.  Perhaps, after the Seventh Glasian Migration is over and Oglith is back in Imperial hands, forces could divert to Triune to bring it to heel, but that is tomorrow’s problem.