Caliban

Caliban was an Imperial Death World located in the Segmentum Obscurus to the galactic north of the Eye of Terror that was once the homeworld of the Dark Angels Legion of Space Marines, which was destroyed during the conflict between Sar Luther, his Chaos-corrupted Fallen Angels and their Primarch Lion El'Jonson and his Loyalist Dark Angels in a great conflagration during the Horus Heresy.

History
Caliban was as cruel and harsh an environment as any in the galaxy. Classified as a 'Death World', the dark, twisted forests that covered the surface of this lush, green planet was as beautiful as it was deadly. These dangerous woods were infested with creature that had been warped by unnatural forces. Imperial scholars believe this was due to Caliban's geo-synchronous orbit being in close proximity to the Eye of Terror. Day-to-day survival was a ceaseless struggle due to the ferociousness of these ravening beasts that infested these forests. To tread the forest paths was to invite certain death. The human inhabitants of Caliban were forced to live in huge fortresses and castles, located in clearings hacked from the forests of the planet. Cut off from Earth by the warp storms that savaged the galaxy in the Age of Strife, civilisation on Caliban devolved back into a semi-feudal state, with most of the population ruled over by a small warrior elite.

The nobility of Caliban were a bluff and pugnacious race. Raised from childhood to live and die by the sword, they were great warriors and extremely brave. They fought in a form of power armour much like that used by the first Space Marines, and like them their main weapons were the chainsword and bolt pistol. Most other forms of advanced technology had, however, been lost, and the warrior nobility therefore rode into battle on huge warhorses known as destriers.

The nobles' life was one of constant struggle as they fought against the multitude of chaotic creatures that threatened to overrun their small settlements. Sometimes a particularly fearsome creature would stay in one area and terrorise it, in which case the ruler of the community would declare a quest against the monster, and nobles from all around would come to attempt to kill the beast. Slaying a quest-creature could bring honour and fortune for the noble lucky enough to kill it - more often than not though it brought only a bloody and horrific death at the teeth and talons of a hell-spawned abomination.

The Order
The brave warrior knights whom discovered the Dark Angels's young Primarch belonged to a group known simply as the Order. The Order had a reputation across all of Caliban for the honesty, nobility and fearless skill of its brother-knights in battle. Uniquely amongst the knights of Caliban, the members, or brothers, of the Order were selected by merit rather than inheritance. Anyone could join the Order, no matter how low-born they might be. Contingents of brother-knights from the Order traveled across the planet, giving their aid wherever it was needed.

It was while on one of their great expeditions that a band from the Order came upon the wild man that lived in the forests. Thinking him a monster, the knights were ready to kill the Primarch when one of their number, sensing that there was something more to the creature than was at first apparent, halted his fellows. Sans Luther, for such was the name of the Primarch's saviour, and the other knights returned to civilisation, taking with them the man born of the forest. Because of his appearance and the place of his discovery, the Order gave the wild man the name of Lion El'Jonson, which meant 'The Lion, the Son of the Forest'. Jonson easily adapted to the ways of humans, learning to speak remarkably quickly.

But of his time growing up in the forest he never spoke. Within the fortress monastery of the Order the Primarch was assimilated into human society on Caliban. There he and Luther formed a close friendship. It appeared that the two men filled in the gaps in each other's personalities. Where Jonson was temperamental and taciturn, Luther was charming and charismatic. Where Luther was rash and emotional, Jonson was a brilliant strategist and unstoppable once decided upon a course of action. They realized that they complemented each other and, as such, became an incomparable team. Over the following years Jonson and Luther rose through the ranks of the Order. Their exploits became the stuff of legend on Caliban, and the reputation of the Order rose accordingly.

The number of young warriors wishing to join the Order grew and grew, so that in time many new fortress monasteries had to be built. As the Order grew in size Jonson and Luther argued for a crusade against the monsters that infested the forests, to cleanse the planet once and for all of their foul presence. The oratory of Luther convinced the Grand Masters of the monasteries and most of the nobles of the planet to join in the crusade, but it was Jonson's supreme ability at planning and organisation which ensured that within the course of a single decade the entire planet of Caliban was cleared of the monstrous creatures that had once inhabited it. A golden age dawned for the inhabitants of the once troubled planet.

In recognition of his triumph against the creatures of Chaos Lion El'Jonson was proclaimed new Supreme Master of the Order and Caliban. Although Luther did not openly begrudge Jonson the great honour he had won, he would have not been human if he did not feel some twinge of jealousy. Thus was lit the first small spark that would lead to the schism which would tear the Dark Angels Legion apart. But all this was in the future - for the present the people of Caliban enjoyed a time of peace and plenty.

The Emperor & The Lion
Meanwhile, unbeknown to Jonson and the people of Caliban, the Emperor of Mankind was waging his Great Crusade across the galaxy, reuniting humanity and purging entire star systems of their alien oppressors. As the Imperium's wave of conquest advanced across the galaxy, Imperial Scouts rediscovered the isolated world of Caliban.

Forward scouts from the I Legion of Space Marines arrived at Caliban and identified the Lion as one of the Emperor's missing sons, the Primarchs. Jonson was immediately given command of the I Space Marine Legion when the Emperor realised he had not only found one of his lost sons, but the genetic father of the Astartes who had landed on Caliban. Luther and the other members of the Order who passed the Legiones Astartes' trials were transformed into I Legion warriors, either as fully-fledged Astartes if they were young enough to undergo the implantation of the gene-seed organs, or through genetic manipulation to increase their physical abilities if they they were too old for the process, like Luther. After the new Astartes were ready, Jonson publicly re-named the First Legion the Dark Angels after an old Calibanite myth. Luther, too old to become a fully-fledged Space Marine, was the first to be genetically modified and became Jonson's second-in-command, as he had been during the Calibanite crusade against the great beasts. Jonson then left with the Emperor and the newly re-named Dark Angels to continue the Great Crusade.

The Great Schism
The Lion was granted command of the 4th Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade in orbit of the planet Sarosh. The Saroshi had recently expressed their interest in becoming part of the Imperium, and the Imperials were eager to allow them in, believing that these people seemed to possess the same secular beliefs as they did in the Imperial Truth. But the Saroshi secretly worshipped Chaotic entities in the Warp they called the Melachim. They saw the Imperium's anti-religious stance of the Emperor's so-called 'Imperial Truth' as unsuppressed evil. The Lord High Exacter, the leader of the Saroshi bureaucracy, denounced El'Jonson and the Emperor to their faces aboard the Dark Angels' flagship. El'Jonson responded by impaling the Lion Sword through the fanatical Saroshi leader's body. However, unknown to the Dark Angels the Saroshi had also brought a nuclear device aboard their shuttle, intending to assassinate the fleet's entire command structure, including Jonson; however, Luther and a junior Librarian named Zahariel managed to eject the shuttle into space, causing only minor damage to the flagship. After this incident, Luther, Zahariel and two hundred other Dark Angels were sent back to Caliban in disgrace for allowing an enemy to get a nuclear device aboard the Primarch's flagship to oversee the recruitment of new Space Marines into the Legion from the Calibanite population.

As Jonson's fame spread throughout the galaxy and reports of his great deeds and prowess in battle reached the Legion's home world, Luther felt robbed of his share of the glory. He wanted the fame and recognition that he felt he deserved as Jonson 's equal. His role as planetary governor of some half forgotten backwater world seemed more and more to him like an insult. The seed of jealousy and dissension that had been planted within Luther when Jonson was made the Supreme Master of the Order now began to grow and rankle within his heart as the Primarch became more and more celebrated and famous.

The Destruction of Caliban
After the Horus Heresy, Lion El'Jonson and the Dark Angels fleet returned to Caliban, he and his fleet were immediately fired upon by the orbital guns. Puzzled, El'Jonson withdrew. when he learned what happened, El'Jonson fell into a terrible rage. He had gone from one point in the universe to the next, clearing away traitors and demons, when he finds that his own planet had fallen to the Ruinous powers. El'Jonson's fleet bombed the planet and destroyed the orbital guns. El'Jonson then led a strike force into the Tower of Angels and dueled his former friend. They were equally matched, but finally, Luther keeled over in exhaustion, leaving him open to a deathblow. El'Jonson couldn't bring himself to kill his former friend and so, Luther lashed out with a psychic attack. As Luther saw his oldest friend dying, his mind cleared, as if a veil had been lifted, and he fell to his knees in anguish, sending out a cry for help in the Warp. The Ruinous Powers, angered that they had lost such a valuable pawn, sent a massive Warp storm to wrack the surface of the planet. It then broke apart under the strain, destroying all of the planet with the exception of the monastery of the Order, which had been protected by potent defensive force-fields.

The Dark Angels orbiting fleet bombarded the planet mercilessly, causing the tectonic plates of the planet to crack and shift. The bombardment, combined with the newly formed warp rift, broke the planet up to become little more than an asteroid field. The largest piece of the destroyed world held the Order's mightiest fortress, which still stood upon it. Called the 'Tower of Angels', the fortress is never to be entered by anyone outside the chapter, and the bedrock on which sits the fortress was hollowed out, fortified and fitted with warp engines to make it a mobile space fortress which is now the home of the Dark Angels. This mobile asteroid-fortress is known simply as "The Rock". When the Dark Angels searched the ruins of the Tower, they found the Arch-Traitor Luther, babbling incoherently that Lion El'Jonson was taken by the Watchers of the Dark (to heal from his psychic attack), but their Primarch was no where to be seen. The Dark Angels could not find any trace of their beloved Primarch. The rest of the the Dark Angels who had been converted by Luther to the worship of Chaos were sucked into the Warp rift as well and were scattered across time and space. From that time forward they were forever after referred to as the Fallen Angels or simply the Fallen, and are hunted ruthlessly by the Dark Angels and their Successors.

Trivia
Caliban is the name of a character in Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest." Caliban is forced into servitude on an island ruled by Prospero the magician. Growing up alone on the deserted island, he is often depicted as a wild man, or a deformed man - the only human inhabitant of the island that is otherwise "not honour'd with a human shape“ (Prospero, I.2.283). Caliban is the son of a luciferous woman (devil) resulting in his feral nature. Upon the magician's arrival to the island, Caliban teaches Prospero how to survive, while he is eventually civilised by the magician and his daughter Miranda who teach him religion and their own language (Caliban did not speak before this). Following Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda, he hwas compelled by Prospero to serve as the magician's slave. In slavery, Caliban came to view Prospero as a usurper and grew to resent him and his daughter and sought to rebel against them under a new master. But in the end he remains a faithful servant to his first master, Prospero. This character arc has notable similarities to that of the Dark Angels' Primarch Lion El'Jonson.

Caliban might also be an anagram for 'Canibal' or derived from the word Kaliban/Calibaun, the Romany (gypsy) word for the colour 'black.' Coincidentally, the original colour of the power armour and panoply of the Dark Angels Legion was black. Caliban is also the name of the second largest moon of Uranus.