Auretian Technocracy

The Auretian Technocracy was a technologically-advanced independent human civilisation scattered across several star systems of the Milky Way Galaxy that had been founded during the isolation of the Age of Strife and reached its height in the early 31st Millennium. Its technology was of a level equivalent to that of the Imperium of Man at the time of the Great Crusade and in some respects was even more advanced as the Auretians had access to several Standard Template Construct (STC) databases that were not in Imperial hands. The Auretian Technocracy was conquered by the Sons of Horus Space Marine Legion on the orders of the Warmaster Horus in the final days of the Great Crusade. Horus was already planning to unleash his great rebellion against the Emperor of Mankind by the time his Expeditionary Fleet made first contact with the Auretians. The Warmaster used the new technologies and STC databases recovered from his Legion's conquest of the Technocracy to bribe a faction of the Adeptus Mechanicus into providing crucial logistical and military support to the Traitor forces during the Horus Heresy.