Estaban III

Estaban III is a major Forge World of the Adeptus Mechanicus located in the Ultima Segmentum. It is also the home of the Legio Tempestus Titan Legion. This forge world has a troubled and turbulent history throughout it's existence. In the early years of the 31st Millennium, Estaban III declared for the Warmaster Horus and sided with the Traitors' cause, but at some point, was later reclaimed by the Imperium and continues to remain a loyal and productive world.

History
Much of the early history of Estaban III is unknown, but presumably it was discovered and colonised sometime during the Dark Age of Technology and somehow managed to survive the horrors of Old Night. Following the abating of the warp storms which plagued the galaxy for millennia and the successful campaigns of the Unification Wars, the Emperor of Mankind came to the Mars and an beneficial alliance between the Mechanicum and the burgeoning Imperium of Man signed the Treaty of Mars. With this pact sealed, the Battle Titans of the Legio Tempestus took its place in the glorious hosts of Mankind's all-conquering armies during the Great Crusade. After an abated campaign of six decades on the forefront of the Great Crusade, the Legio Tempestus had suffered heavy losses and needed time to regroup and rearm or risk destruction. Having claimed warden right over key worlds in the Estaban and Orestes systems, the Legio's master returned to Mars with those of his Legio's God-engines in most need of repair and refit, entrusting command of the remainder of a reorganised demi-Legio to his lieutenant, Princeps Maximus Karania.

Unknown to most outsiders, Karania was a disciple of a certain strand of esoteric machine lore called Teleologicalica, itself a form of arcane numerology, a discipline that purported to predict imminent and all-consuming doom by reference to the patterns of past cataclysms. Perhaps these beliefs might have had little impression were it not for prevailing attitudes amongst the Tech-Priests of Estaban III, the Mechanicum domain where the Legio was mustered at the conclusion of the Epsiloid Binary Cluster campaign. The Tech-Priests of Estaban III had not accepted the prevailing Mechanicum doctrine that the Emperor was one and the same with the divine being they referred to as the Omnissiah, and paid only lip-service to the Martian Doctrines. Thus began a chain of events that would lead to a growing rift, more a development of circumstance and distance than any actual acrimony or malice, between the two halves of the Legio Tempestus.

During the galaxy-spanning civil war, known as the Horus Heresy, the Chaos-corrupted Warmaster Horus Lupercal courted and indeed caused the corruption of much of the Martian Mechanicum, and the Fabricator-General himself, causing the Martian civil war known as the Schism of Mars. Though this dark alliance he brought many Forge Worlds, Titan Legions and Magos into his sway, and had also courted a number of Forge Worlds and Archmagos to whom Mars was at best an unwanted and distant authority. This was the case with both Estaban III and Sarum, both Forge Worlds whose loyalty secured for Horus lines of supply which did not depend on the writ of Mars.

Following the events of the Horus Heresy, Estaban III was eventually scoured of hereteks and Traitor sympathisers and eventually brought back into the Imperium fold. This most likely occurred during the time of the Great Scouring. Oddly enough, there were persistent stories and evidence long since suppressed of midnight clad warriors in defaced Night Lords heraldry who savagely attacked Traitor forces at the liberation of Estaban III. Whether these Legionaries were merely turncoats or, as some have whispered, perhaps still remained loyal despite their parent Legion turning traitor, none can now say for certain. Since that bygone era, Estaban III has remained a loyal and productive Forge World of the Imperium.

An Alliance Re-Forged
When Estaban III is invaded by the myriad Forces of Chaos, it is the stoic and unforgiving Iron Hands] Space Marine Chapter who respond and stand beside the war-engines of the Legio Tempestus in the forge world's defence.