Great Crusade

The Great Crusade is a historical period, lasting from the late 30th into the early 31st Millennium (approximately a little over two centuries). The Great Crusade marked was a brief era in human history of rebuilding and reunification following the complete regression of mankind into techno-barbarism during the Age of Strife. It was a time when the Emperor of Mankind still lived in the conventional sense and led his race in person. The Emperor of Mankind sought to unite all of humanity under one banner following the Long Night of the Age of Strife, and end inter-human conflict. Once united, the Emperor intended to begin the next stage of his great plan to ensure human domination of the galaxy. To carry out the Great Crusade and reunite all the scattered colony worlds of Mankind beneath the single banner of the Imperium of Man, the Emperor created the Space Marine Legions of the Adeptus Astartes and the Imperial Army to bring the light of Imperial Truth and enforce Imperial Compliance with the new regime on every human world encountered. At its peak in the early 31st Millennium some 203 standard years after it began, there were 4,287 primary Expedition Fleets engaged upon the business of enforcing Imperial Compliance and extending the Imperial aegis across the galaxy as well as 60,000+ secondary deployment groups involved in regulating Compliance or Imperial occupations. A further 372 Expedition Fleets were regrouping or refitting in the Sol System or other Imperial hub star systems or resupplying as they awaited new orders. Some 4.3 million remembrancers, official Imperial journalists, were sent out with these fleets in the final days of the Great Crusade. Finall, every Imperial Expedition Fleet carried with it a corps of iterators, Imperial philosophers, rhetoricians and propagandists who sought to spread the Imperial Truth to every human world.


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Beginnings
During the Age of Strife the Emperor, who had spent his near-immortal life guiding and influencing mankind, was trapped on Earth, due to Warp storms. Not content to sit on his laurels, the Emperor of Mankind spent this time performing biological research on the human genetic code. The result of this work was the creation of the first prototype super soldiers later known as Space Marines. Using these first Space Marines, the Emperor united the tribes of Terra under one government. This event was later known as the Unification. After this, the Emperor realised that to reunite all of humanity, he would need generals in addition to himself. So he ordered the creation of 20 highly advanced, genetically engineered super humans known as the Primarchs. These super humans, created from the Emperor's own genetic stock, were intended to be the next stage in human evolution. The powers of Chaos, however, managed to infiltrate the Emperor's secret laboratory, teleporting the unborn Primarchs away from Earth. The Emperor however was still able to use his own genetic template to create more space marines and keep the geneseed pure.

The End of the Age of Strife
After five millennia, the Warp storms had dissipated from Earth. With their absence allowing interstellar travel once again, the Emperor moved forward with his plans.

Mars and the Adeptus Mechanicus
The Emperor's first obstacle was the existence of the empire of the Techpriests of Mars, who had historically been fiercely independent of Earth. Instead of an outright war, the Emperor used the threat of his Space Marines to form an alliance with the techpriests of the Adeptus Mechanicus on Mars. Despite his disdain for their reliance on religion and cybernetics, the Emperor knew that he would need Mars' factories, mechanical output and ancient technological know-how to unify humanity, and he incorporated them into the Imperium. The Techpriests of Mars, likewise, saw the Emperor's scientific background as proof that he was the Machine God (or Omnissiah), which their religion had promised would return one day to the Red Planet and offer the way forward for humanity.

Rediscovery of the Primarchs
Expansion from Earth was slow, primarily due to reasons of manpower. Without the Primarchs, the time required to create a Space Marine was far longer than ideal. This and the fact that the Emperor was adamant that the material for new geneseed must come directly from him, to keep the organs pure and 100% effective. After a time, the Emperor was reunited with one of his Primarchs in the Cthonian system: Horus. Being the first Primarch (and, in some ways, his first son), Horus and the Emperor formed a truly unique bond, saving one another's' lives on many occasions. With the increased Space Marine production, the Great Crusade began picking up steam, with the Emperor's "United Human Empire" attracting entire planets to his cause. After 30 years of successful Crusading, the Emperor discovered another of the Primarchs. Although Horus was pleased at the discovery of one of his brothers, he secretly pledged to always be the Emperor's favorite son, no matter what else. Over time, all of the Primarchs were rediscovered and given command of the Space Marine legion for which their genetic code was the basis. With the rediscovery of the Primarchs, Space Marine production was drastically decreased in time; a Space Marine could be made in as little as a year. This rapid creation, it should be noted, would prove disastrous: mental defects and unique eccentricities crept into the ranks.

Fractures in Loyalty
As the Imperium grew (and there was a lesser need for a single crusading army), the Primarchs and their Emperor began to grow distant from each other. The Night Lords and World Eaters Legions grew infamous for their ever-greater atrocities, the Thousand Sons' pursuit of knowledge turned into dabbling with sorcery, and the Word Bearers fanatical religious beliefs led to a rift between them and the Emperor when he rejected their worship. The Imperial Army, composed almost entirely of normal human soldiers (some regiments such as the Geno Two-Five Chilliad were selectively bred to produce more capable soldiers or officers), provided much-needed manpower for garrison and support duties for the planets conquered by the Crusade. Freed from garrison duties, Space Marines could conquer yet more worlds in a shorter space of time. Many Marines and Guardsmen began speaking only of their loyalty to their Primarch, not their Emperor. Owing to the isolation between the Legions and the Emperor, this essentially went unnoticed.

Twilight of the Great Crusade
After Horus' successful campaign to destroy the largest Ork WAAAGH! known in the history of the Imperium to that point at the world of Ullanor, the Emperor declared it the greatest victory of the Imperium to date. Horus' reward was the title of Warmaster, with it the supreme command of the Imperium's Military. After doing so, the Emperor made it known that he was needed on Terra, where he would begin his next phase for human evolution. Horus was not informed of the Emperor's plans on Terra, and felt troubled by that. To make matters worse, while some of his fellow Primarchs accepted his promotion, others, chiefly Angron, Night Haunter and Perturabo, openly begrudged Horus his new authority. There was also the widespread belief that the Emperor would disband or reduce the Space Marine legions to the level of peacekeeping forces. Horus resented his brothers' feelings and thought that while he was winning the Imperium the Emperor was just pursuing Godhood, which was all the powers of Chaos needed to sow the seeds of dissension into his mind. Over time, the whispers of the Dark Gods convinced Horus to attempt to take control of the Imperium from the Emperor, an event known as the Horus Heresy. The Heresy would end with the death of Horus, the exile of his traitor Legions, and the quasi-death of the Emperor of Man.