Hub-Fortress

A Hub-Fortress is a planet that has been fortified by the Imperium of Man to serve as a base from which the Officio Logisticarum can supply, support, and archive the actions of the Indomitus Crusade's fleets and battle groups as they advanced across the galaxy during the Era Indomitus.

History
Early in the Indomitus Crusade, the Primarch Roboute Guilliman issued the so-called " Borachae Decree" which declared that not only would the Officio Logisticarum be empowered to request military support and protection up to and including assigning tithed Astra Militarum regiments to their own protection, but they would also be furnished with planetary hub-fortresses from which to supply, support, and archive the actions of the Indomitus Crusade fleets.

The first hub-fortresses were established in the mustering systems where the initial Indomitus Crusade fleets gathered. In the Sol System, the Warp-tainted moon of Jupiter, Ganymede, was reclaimed during a highly classified purgation operation spearheaded by the secretive Grey Knights.

Even as the last banishment strikes were hitting home, enormous bore-engines went to work, expanding upon the ancient Adeptus Mechanicus laboratory complexes long abandoned beneath the surface of that troubled moon. Orbital defence platforms and void docks were manoeuvred into place even as indomitable fortifications rose upon Ganymede's surface and kilometres-long storage hangars were gouged through its bedrock.

Near the moon's core, priests of the Machine God installed immense Cogitators and data-archivium engines while the Adeptus Astra Telepathica sanctified twinned astropathic fortresses at its north and south poles.

Officio Logisticarum adepts in their thousands flooded into the moon's newly burrowed complexes of tunnels and chambers. Seconded Astra Militarum regiments -- some having just been pulled back from beleaguered war fronts elsewhere in the Imperium Sanctus -- invested its redoubts, bunkers, and defence turrets.

Warships cut menacingly through the void beyond its orbital envelope. Meanwhile, the first waves of supply ships and fuel tenders settled heavily into its void cradles, and astropathic communiques flooded into its newly opened ducts.

Ganymede had been wholly transformed, renamed as Hub-fortress Aquila Adamant. Followed swiftly by Aquila Bellicos in the Gehenna System and Aquila Furians in the Hastos System, Aquila Adamant and its sisters would form the first links in the chains of supply and communication that trailed out behind the Indomitus battle groups as they advanced.

It was a standing order for all fleet groupmasters to ensure that they left designated hub-fortresses dotted through the star systems and sub-sectors that they reconquered; pragmatism, force of circumstance, and the personal whims of these highly placed officers meant that no two were precisely the same, of course.

Beyond the mustering systems, few battle groups had the time or resources to fashion purpose-built facilities akin to Aquila Adamant. Yet all had a duty to establish bases for resupply and astropathic communication. Thus were reinforced worlds pressed into service as hub-fortresses, often while the fires of battle still raged across their surfaces.

Some -- Fortress Worlds such as Formidicha, Sattrochol, and Haedes VII -- were ideally suited to the task. Others like the ill-fated Agri-world Mephistophores or the Ork-infested Hive World of Olghyn II were forced into their new roles for the sake of expediency.

Worse still were examples such as the Imori System, where the stiff-necked pride of Governor Lukaen Imori saw his war-ravaged capital planet of Imori Magnificus designated as hub-fortress over the eminently better-suited garrison world of Imori Sufficius.

Though their natures and their fates varied greatly, it was a testament to Roboute Guilliman's vision that the hub-fortresses sprang up in the wake of his Indomitus Crusade battle groups, and that their mere presence went a considerable way to repairing the ravaged astropathic networks of the Segmentum Solar and beyond. It was via the immense Cogitator banks of these fortified worlds and moons that much of the fleets' communication traffic and strategic intelligence flowed.

It was within the cyclopean binharic architecture of their data-archivium engines that the battle groups' ocean of communiques, action transcripts, strategic missives, binharic psalms, cartographic lore-spools, force disposition slates, and other information was stored. Roboute Guilliman would not stand for the ignorance of previous ages of the Imperium to continue into this new Era Indomitus.

Instead, his Officio Logisticarum ensured that every detail was slavishly recorded, rapidly amassing archives of information so immense and labyrinthine that none but specialist data-savants stood any hope of navigating them effectively. Some of the merest fragments of that incredible wealth of strategic information can be seen below concerning the deeds and composition of the Indomitus Crusade fleets and battle groups.

Notable Hub-Fortresses

 * Aquila Adamant - Based on the Galilean satellite of Ganymede that circles the gas giant of Jupiter in the Sol System. Aquila Adamant was the first hub-fortress to be built during the Indomitus Crusade.
 * Aquila Bellicos - Aquila Bellicos was based in the Gehenna System.
 * Aquila Furians - Hub-fortress Aquila Furians was based in the Hastos System.
 * Formidicha - A world ideally suited to becoming a hub-fortress.
 * Sattrochol - A world ideally suited to becoming a hub-fortress.
 * Haedes VII - A world ideally suited to becoming a hub-fortress.
 * Mephistophores - An Agri-world forced to become a hub-fortress due to the needs of expediency.
 * Olghyn II - A Hive World that was infested by Orks that the Imperium transformed into a hub-fortress because it had little other choice.
 * Imori Magnificus - Imori Magnificus was ravaged by war yet its Planetary Governor Lukaen Imori used his political connections to get it designated a hub-fortress despite the far better suitability of the neighbouring garrison world of Imori Sufficius.