Jaya

Jaya is a T'au-controlled world of abundant natural resources, with three major continental masses surrounded by warm seas teeming with life. It is host to a human population that has existed for millennia at a relatively advanced level of culture and technology.

Due to its position far beyond the coreward borders of the old Jericho Sector it played little part in sectorwide society or economy and its population was largely self-sufficient. Jaya survived the worst excesses of the Age of Shadow largely untouched by the war and anarchy that swept the region, its peoples continuing the life they had led since time immemorial.

And then, the Tau came to Jaya. At first, the people of Jaya welcomed the T'au, for they had no reason to doubt the aliens' messages of peace and cooperation. It soon became apparent to the world's leaders however that the T'au expected more than cooperation, and desired that Jaya submit to their rule.

The peoples of Jaya had come to value their independence and self-sufficiency and its rulers were unwilling to be made proxies for others. Too late, the armies of Jaya were mustered, citizen militias unused to the realities of full-scale warfare rising up in an attempt to expel the Tau from their world.

The ensuing battle was a disaster for the natives, and the T'au used the attack as justification for a campaign of rapid and total suppression. Within six months the entire population of Jaya was under the T'au Empire's rule, the last vestige of resistance retiring to the inaccessible uplands of the world's third continent.

T'au rule was total for several decades, until the arrival of Hive Fleet Dagon changed things once more. Vanguard organisms ranging ahead of the main axis of advance infiltrated the isolationist survivors of the original resistance, tainting them genetically and turning them into pawns of the Hive Mind.

Following this vector of infestation the xenos-taint spread outwards, and soon vast swathes of the population had become corrupted and enthralled to the still distant will of the Tyranids.

The infestation was discovered by the T'au during routine genetic sampling of the human population. The Earth Caste scientists were shocked at the extent of the corruption, yet they had no idea what it might presage. Those infected appeared not to be aware of their plight, and had yet to act against the T'au.

It was surmised that the infestation may have implanted some latent form of gene-coded domination that had yet to be 'activated', and an extensive study was implemented to ascertain its nature.

Amazingly, the T'au made rapid inroads in combating the genetic taint, using recombinant gene-recoding techniques all but unknown to the biologis adepts of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Jaya's fate now hangs in the balance. Around half of the population have been 're-coded' by Earth Caste cadres working around the clock, yet still the process is expected to take at least another year. The T'au have realised that if any infected humans remain untreated when the call of the Hive Mind activates them, disaster might ensue.

To this end Fire Caste pursuit teams are combing the wilderness of the third continent in search of every last isolationist human, intent upon re-coding every last human on Jaya before it is too late.

The world has been quarantined so that the taint does not spread any further, but also to ensure that the Imperium does not learn of the re-coding mission. The upper echelons of the Velk'Han Sept have realised that keeping such a capability secret might ultimately prove a significant advantage to the Greater Good.