Ork Empire

"There are beasts among the stars, beasts that would crush our lives, make ash of our worlds and break all that we hold sacred. The beasts wait in the dark and shunned reaches like the things glimpsed in the forests of old, things that looked out with red, shining eyes and hearts filled with the joy of ruin."

- From Remarks on the "Nature on the Unknown" by Estivan Mauritin, advisor to Rogue Trader Hiram Sult

Ork Domains are those regions of the galaxy that are controlled by the xenos menace known as the Orks. Living on innumerable worlds, on some, the Orks dominate completely, on others they live in a state of perpetual war, and on others still they act as slavemasters, bullying the local populations into doing their bidding. Across the galaxy there are Ork realms, Ork Empires, and Ork hordes that roam the stars upon gigantic Space Hulks. Wherever humans have travelled, they had found Orks. It has been tens of thousands of years since humanity encountered the Orks, and in that time mankind has fought countless bloody wars against these savage aliens. There is no likelihood that this state of affairs will change. Barbaric and savage, the Greenskins spread across the galaxy like a viridian stain. They plague the battlefields of the late 41st Millennium in great numbers, overruning any who stand before them in a torrent of bloodshed and usually mindless violence. Orks need battle just as humans need food and drink. Due to their warlike nature, they constantly fight amongst themselves, or launch piratical raids upon nearby enemies. Such conflicts tend to be small-scale or localised. They never really develop beyond random outbursts of violence and looting. However, Ork populations can reach a critical mass that leads to a full-scale planetary migration. This is known as a WAAAGH!, a crusade of pure aggression that crashes through star systems in an orgy of violence. An Ork WAAAGH! is war on an apocalyptic scale. Orks beyond counting swarm from one world to the next. Whole civilisations are exterminated and defenders' armies laid to waste as the Orks plough ever onward in an unstoppable tide.

Ork Expansion
The galaxy is vast beyond the imaginings of the most ambitious despot. Yet this does not daunt the Orks as they simply don’t think about it. Instead, they plough from one conquest to the next, secure in the knowledge that one day, they will rule it all. Wherever humans have travelled, they have found Orks. It has been tens of thousands of years since Humanity first encountered them, and in that time Mankind has fought countless bloody wars against these savage aliens, and there is n o likelihood that this state of affairs will ever change. There are numerous Ork empires, each spreading across the galaxy like a noxious green stain, and no system is entirely devoid of their touch. Some theorise that the Orks do not use conventional methods of inter-stellar travel because they follow some deep-seated instinctual plan of galactic conquest, but the truth is far simpler. The greenskins have not mastered the art of space travel because they really do not care where they are going, only that they get to fight whatever is there when they arrive.

Ork Empire of Gorro
When the Emperor of Mankind revealed Himself to humanity following the Long Night of the Age of Strife in the middle of the 30th Millennium, he shaped war-torn Terra into a single unified world for the first time in long millennia. Once he had conquered Terra, He looked to taking His Great Crusade to the stars. Having created the foundations of the Imperium of Man, He launched His massive armies out into the galaxy, seeking to bring all of human-settled space back under the control of a unified stellar empire. During these early conquests, many Imperial Expeditionary Fleets encountered the Greenskin menace -- a violent xenos species designated as the Orks by the early Imperium. Within the Telon Reach was an Ork empire that rivalled that centred on Ullanor, and at its heart was the scrap world of Gorro. The Ork tech-caste, the Mekboyz, dominated the Orks of Gorro and had made the world their own. The dominant tech-caste on Gorro seemed to be fascinated by a form of plasma technology never encountered before or since. Capable of generating destructive yields of terrifying potency, these plasma weapons had done much to blunt the Great Crusade's advance across the Telon Reach. The Emperor decreed that Gorro must be destroyed.

The greenskin empire that once claimed dominion over its stars was soon in flames, assailed on all sides by the inexhaustible armies of the Imperium. The aliens' empire was quickly overturned, their muddy fortress-worlds burning, but not quickly enough. Gorro was the key. Adrift in the distant light of a bloated red sun, where no planet had ever been wrought by inexorable time and gravity, it drifted on an erratic path. Its destruction was made the Crusade's highest priority. The command came from the hand of the Emperor himself, and his most favoured and brightest son answer his call to arms. Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the Luna Wolves Legion. When a thousand-strong fleet of warships dropped out of the Warp above Gorro it was the Emperor Himself who gave the order to begin the assault. Horus, ever the dutiful and favoured son, stood at the Emperor's side and watched as tens of thousands of assault craft spread out from the fleet. The Luna Wolves teleported into the scrap layers beneath the planet's surface, forced to hollow out Gorro from within due to the planet's high resistance to orbital bombardment. In the vanguard was the Emperor and by His side was Horus and a guard of black-armoured Justaerin Terminators from the Luna Wolves' 1st Company as well as the golden-clad warriors of the Legiones Custodes. As the Space Marines attacked, the Ork resistance they faced was near-overwhelming. The Orks of Gorro were huge and augmented with scavenged bionics. Some stood taller than Dreadnoughts and their weaponry burned through Astartes Power Armour easily.

At the height of the battle, the fury of the Orks split the Emperor from His guards. Alone He slew hundreds of them until a blast from an Ork plasma weapon weakened His defences and one of the Ork leaders seized Him. The creature's strength was so great that it took hold of the Emperor and buckled His golden armour. As the creature's grasp closed to throttle the Master of Mankind, Horus stormed through the press of battle and cut the Ork's arms from its body with a single blow. Together father and son led their forces deeper into the vast sphere of scrap until they reached the centre of Gorro. The Emperor worked to collapse the self-sustaining plasma sphere that powered much of the world's scavenged Ork technology and that contained a Warp-fold envelope, so that Gorro would implode into the Warp. The Emperor proved successful, and without its power source, the scrap world collapsed in on itself. A hollow skin of rusted metal around an empty void was all that remained to mark the death of the great Ork empire of Gorro.

Ork Empire of Ullanor
During the Great Crusade era, the Ullanor Sector was ruled over by the Ork Overlord Urrlak Urruk from the world of the same name. The central foundation of his empire was a dozen planets, originally inhabited by humans, which had been conquered and enslaved by the Orks. Horus employed the use of the now famous "Speartip" tactic to destroy the Ork Empire by removing its head. The White Scars and Ultramarines Space Marine Legions, supported by the Excertus Imperialis and other forces such as the Legio Titanicus of the Mechanicum, attacked the outer planets of the Ullanor System. This offensive was a decoy, though it proved quite effective. Many of the Orks' starships rushed to prevent the attacks on the outer planets, leaving the central planet dangerously vulnerable and exposed to the waiting main body of the Imperial forces, led by the Astartes of the Luna Wolves Legion. The Luna Wolves' Legion fleet headed straight for this central world and more specifically for Urlakk's fortress-palace.

The main attack force dedicated to capturing the capital planet of the Ullanor System consisted of the entire Luna Wolves Legion, over 2 million Imperial Army soldiers, one hundred Titans of the Collegia Titanica, including Titans from the infamous Legio Mortis. All of these forces were later joined by the human slaves liberated from the Orks' labour camps by the invading Imperial troops. This force was led by the Emperor himself; though Imperial records do not indicate what role he played in this action. Little is known regarding the actual makeup of the defending Ork forces. However it is known that they outnumbered the Imperial troops by a 5-to-1 ratio.

Ignoring the Greenskin masses, Horus and his Legion struck directly at the Overlord and his command coterie of Ork Nobz and Ogryns, leaving the enemy headless and without direction. The attack took place by Drop Pod, with heavy gunships deploying Imperial armoured vehicles to the battle zone. This force attacked the perimeter defences. Horus then teleported to the base of Urrlak's great central keep, the Tower of Ullanor, accompanied by all of the Terminators from the elite 1<sup<st Company of the Luna Wolves. Whilst most of the Terminators held off the Greenskin horde, which was rushing back to the tower to defend its master, Horus fought his way up to the pinnacle of that great edifice, accompanied by only the 10 Terminators who were the members of the Justaerin Squad of First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon.

At the summit of the Tower of Ullanor was a vast throne chamber where Horus found the Ork Overlord surrounded by 40 of his biggest Nobs. Horus immediately stormed into battle, utilising the twin Lightning Claws of his Power Armour to rip apart the enemy in close combat. The Terminators were unwillingly to fire into this melee, lest they hit their beloved Primarch. The Terminators therefore immediately fell upon the Orks with their own close-combat weapons. Eventually, Horus hacked his way through the Overlord's bodyguard, until he came face-to-face with Urrlak, a truly gargantuan Ork Warlord. Despite the fact that Urrlak was an immense, towering, green-skinned brute, Horus managed to cripple the Ork leader in the following duel. Horus then held aloft the Ork Overlord above his head and carried him to the battlements of the Tower of Ullanor. Horus threw the screaming, bloody form of the Ork Overlord down to the ground, ending the reign of Urrlak Urruk with a green-blooded splat. When Horus returned to the throne chamber he found all the Terminators and Orks dead...apart from one. The sole survivor he found was none other than the gore-drenched Captain of the 1st Company, Ezekyle Abaddon. He was surrounded by a great pile of broken Ork bodies.

With the death of its leader, the Ork forces collapsed into infighting as was their wont and the battle for Ullanor soon became a massacre, as the remaining Orks found themselves trapped between the two forces of the Luna Wolves, including the remaining Luna Wolves Terminators at the base of the great central Tower of Ullanor and those who had breached the perimeter walls of the tower complex. The remainder of the Ullanor Sector was subdued by the forces of the Crusade and returned to Imperial rule within the year, as the Ork empire had completely fragmented upon hearing of its master's death once the various Nobs declared themselves the new Warlords and fought each other for control. With Urg’s termination, the nascent Ork empire self-destructed, and the xenos that were not hounded into the mud of Ullanor’s vast battlegrounds would be hunted down across hundreds of star systems, all the way to Chondax, the Kayvas Belt and beyond.

Ghaslakh Xenohold
During the Great Crusade era, presented to the adepts of the Officio Militaris as a grave threat to the security of the Imperium's eastern domains, the Ghaslakh Xenohold, an Ork infestation long ignored, was the pretext under which Warmaster Horus, his treachery then undreamed of, marshalled the combined might of the Ultramarines and Word Bearers Legions at Calth. In the aftermath of Horus' rebellion, many within the Imperium have doubted whether the xenohold ever existed, that perhaps it was a fiction to justify the removal of the XIIIth Legion from the Imperium's core. Yet there are some surviving accounts of Ultramraines-sponsored explorator sweeps of that region of space, including evidence of Ork attacks on the Fortress World of Golsoria. If Ghaslakh did exist as a credible threat to Mankind, any devastation its inhabitants wreaked on the defenceless worlds around it has long since been forgotten amid the destruction wrought by Horus and his allies. Of Ghaslakh itself, no trace now remains to satisfy the curiosity of scholars.

Dregruk and Gathrog
The empires ruled by the Great Despot of Dregruk and the Arch-Dictator of Gathrog have been at war for decades. Lying to the galactic north of the Eye of Terror, the resolution of their conflict could have major repercussions. Should so vast a tide of Orks unite, the resulting WAAAGH! could potentially change the face of the war for the Cadian Gate. Were forces from Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade to meet it as they poured into the region, the Despoiler's plans for galactic conquest would be severely disrupted, quite possibly saving the entire galaxy from annihilation. Yet these two Ork empires could never be persuaded to abandon a perfectly good (and very enjoyable) battle for such a noble and civilised cause. Excepting some miraculous act by Gork (or possibly Mork!), the empires of Dregruk and Gathrog will fight on, blissfully unconcerned as their chance to change the fate of all slips away.

Ork Empire of Charadon
The Ork empire of Charadon is the largest and most long standing of its kind. Controlled by a pyromaniac berserker known as the Arch-Arsonist, Charadon has been the bane of Ultima Segmentum for countless centuries. The Arch-Arsonist counts his victories not by the worlds he has conquered but by those left blazing in his wake. His legendary propensity for leaving even the most well-defended worlds as searing conflagrations has garnered him a sprawling empire of greenskins devoted to his cause. Each successive Warlord of Charadon takes the title of Arch-Arsonist, lending the persona a kind of immortality. Until recently, the expansion of the empire of Charadon was kept to a minimum by the efforts of Chief Librarian Varro Tigurius and the Space Marines of the Ultramarines Chapter. Yet in the face of the increasing Tyranid threat, their success is beginning to wane. The current Arch-Arsonist has seized his chance to invade Ultramar, swearing that he will reduce Macragge itself to cinders.

Ork Empire of Calverna
The Arch-Maniac of Calverna rose to power after conquering the Forge World of Magnos Majoris, the iron heart of the Calverna System. The wily old Deathskulls Warlord then cemented his power for good by having himself wired into the almighty central processing engine of the forge world, turning himself into the biggest Cybork ever seen. Though this rather drastic step has left the Arch-Maniac all but invincible, the vast data-streams pouring into his tiny brain have also driven him quite mad. So it is that, while the Orks of the Calvernan empire are numerous and well equipped with tanks and guns, their attacks are random and display little in the way of logic or cogent strategy.

Ork Empire of Octarius
The Ork Empire of Octarius is an Ork Empire that stretches throughout the Octarius Sector, a region of space almost as large as the Realm of Ultramar. Located in the Ultima Segmentum, it is centered on the Ork World of Octarius. Controlled by the Empire's ruler, known as the Overfiend of Octarius, this Ork Warlord has bedevilled the Imperium, ruling his alien empire in the heart of the Emperor's realm. In the closing years of 989.M41, the Imperial Inquisitor Kryptman would redirect a portion of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan into the Octarian Empire. Blaktoof, the current Overfiend of Octarius, launched a counter-invasion straight into the maw of the Tyranid Hive Fleet. The resulting war has badly bled both sides, but it has yet to be determined which side will emerge victorious.