Orphean War

The Orphean War is a military conflict of epic proportion that has recently ravaged the Orpheus Sector. This once powerful Sector Imperialis located at the very border of the Segmentum Tempestus had always been troubled by strange phenomena and events, which were however never linked together as the evidence of Necron activity. Following the awakening of at least a part of this ancient race, labelled the Maynarkh Dynasty by Imperial savants, these Xenos attacked the Orpheus Sector in full force, leading to the cataclysmic Battle of Amarah which ended inconclusive for both fractions but nevertheless sealed the fate of the Orpheus Sector. While still ongoing, following the disastrous losses on Amarah, the Imperium is currently retreating all strategic assets from the Orpheus Sector, hoping to box in and hold the Necrons at bay long enough for a full-fledged Imperial Crusade to be launched. To this day, the Orphean War stands as a scaring exemplar of what might befall the Imperium if the Necron menace is not quickly identified and dealt with.

History
"He that sees the face of the enemy sees only his death, he that hears the words of the enemy hear’est only lies, but he that know’eth the heart of the enemy, hath the wisdom to slay’eth all before him in their measure."

- The Sermons of Saint Marduk,Cantos 12-84

From what later investigations have discovered, it would seem that the Orpheus Sector was partly created on what had, in distant past, been the domains of the Maynarkh Dynasty, given to them by the Silent King for their contribution in the War of Heaven and the elimination of the C’tans that followed after it. Numerous pre-Imperial ruins - obviously of xenos origin - were notoriously discovered and in some case even explored in the Drucillan Sub-Sector, but no xenoarcheologist could have made a link to the Necrontyr-civilisation. While the Maynarkh’s coreworlds are believed to lie outside of the Imperium of Mankind, it seems evident that some of the outlying planets had been colonized by Man.

Time and time again the Orpheus Sector was subject to many strange phenomenas: whole fleets vanishing and worlds going silent without the Inquisition ever making the link between those events. Under other circumstances, an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos might have raised the alarm in time to destroy the Maynarkh, but as it was the Orpheus Sector was firmly in the grip of the Ordo Malleus, the part of the Inquisition that specialised in hunting down the servitors of Chaos and particuarly its daemonic emissaries. In the late 41st Millennium, the Orpheus Sector had been increasingly weakend by a notable rise in Warp-activity, once safe Warp-routes now rendered dangerous through Warp Storms and population plagued by warp-induced nightmares, crisises of dementia and histeria. In 819.M41, on the world of Chemarium II, an entire Hive City succumbed to seemingly contagious wave of madness and despair. Civil order dissolved quickly and the madness gained other cities too, Chaos aligned Cults like the ’Endless Tide’ and the ’Crawling Darkness’ rising to power, following their dark prophet Ranker Nonesuch, the so-called ’Beggar King’. With the civil war erupting on the other planets of the Chemarium-system, it is understandable that as the first reports came, the blame was put on the Ruinous Powers or Eldar Corsairs rather than the Necrons.

The Nightmare Awakens
For millions of years, the Maynarkh had slumbered and during their sleep, aeons passed and the Imperium rose to power. The awakening of the Maynarkh Dynasty is believed to roughly coincide with an unusual stellar phenomena that was consigned to the records of the heavily defended Mechanicum outpost of Harrow Watch in 990.M41 : the death the Caracol-system. Caracol was a binary starsystem, yet both its sun rapidly degenerated and went supernova way ahead of what the Magos of the Cult Mechanicum expected to be their natural lifespan. The event did not raise further questions but was accompanied by an even more unusual event within the aetheric spheres, a great bow-wave that rippled through the Warp and purely snuffed out the Warp turbulences that had been plaguing the Orpheus Sector for the past centuries. Only the particularly fierce Warp Storm to the Sector’s East -- the Howling Vortex -- remained untouched. Throughout the Orpheus Sector, hundreds of Astropaths burned out instantly and thousands of Imperial citizen perished as their ships were broken in two while still in the Warp. No Magos, savant or Inquisitor could have guessed that these events were in fact connected, and while not intended as a weapon, the warp-wave had already weakened the sensitive Imperial communication network.

When the attack came, it was with a ferocity and swiftness no one expected. Not one, or a dozen, but a score of worlds were targetted simultaneously, the frontline of this new attack moving so fast that the only evidence available to those worlds not yet fighting was the utter silence that answered routine communication or scheduled exchange of information. Many of the worlds assailed by the Necrons did not even have time to send a distress signal, or if they had no message reached the part of the Sector still in Imperial hands. The Maynarkh’s victory was so swift and complete that even in hindsight nothing can be said for certain on the fate of these border worlds that first fell to the Necron advance. Pallasite, Khatris, Borus Landing, the Feudal World of Ayrith and the old Agri-World of Epirus, all virtually ceased to exist overnight and even the heavily fortified outpost of Harrow Watch was defated. All in all, the Orpheus Sector lost nearly sixty inhabited planets, outposts and colonies within the first days of the Orphean War and without even noticing it before it was too late.

It was only when the Necron advance reached the Inquisitorial fortress world of Apollyon, close to the heart of the Orpheus Sector that the alarm was raised. A single black ship, burned from stem to stern was able to launch and make the perilous voyage to Amarah, surviving long enough to transmit a warning to the Sector’s capital. On Amarah, reactions were mainly of shock and disbelief, but the seal of the Ordo Malleus quickly overcame initial doubts on the veracity of the message. Its content and the appended codes were quickly verified by the Inquisitorial representatives on Amarah and declared valid. Almost immediately the general call to arms was issued. Planetary Defence Forces were activated and the Orphean Guard mobilized. Battlefleet Orpheus was tasked with ferrying the mustering Imperial Guard forces already assembling for a renewed assault on the Chemarium system to Amarah. Battlegroup Salvation was also retasked and ask to redeploy in defence of Amarah Prime. As astrophatic communications encountered increasing difficulties and was deemed unreliable, Battlefleet Orpheus was called upon to relay the call to arms through fast warp-capable messenger ships. Only when the first of these ships failed to return did the true extend of the invasion become clear.

The Bloody Hundred
Given the allegoric nature inherent to astrophatic communication, even with the alarm raised, the true nature and identity of the ennemy was still unknown. Those messages sent to the outerlying worlds were seemingly swallowed by the darkness, and even those messenger ships despatched to carry forth the warning vanished. Following a simitar-like curve stretching from Tlaloc to Epirus, an impenetrable dark veil had fallen upon the Orpheus Sector. This fact alone greatly put the Orphean Command on edge, but the total absence of contact with Libertha send the Imperial Commander almost reeling with panic. Libertha was the homeworld of the Angels Revenant Space Marines Chapter, the most stalwart and powerful of the Orpheus Sector's defenders, and more than any other factor it was the silence of Libertha that saw Orphean Command throw themself into hasty and panicked preparations rather than stricking out in blind aggression. First of all, squadrons of Battlefleet Orpheus were despatched on piquet duty around the sensible worlds of Midwinter - which harboured the Battlefleet’s own naval yards - and Drucilla Majoris, worlds once deemed safe but now found themselves threatened by the rapid advance of the frontlines.

With a mounting sense of dread, log-range auspex systems, Aetheric surveyors and even ancient optical scopes were all trained on those worlds haveing gone dark, but none of them could perceive the veil that had fallen on the Emperor’s domains. With the Sector’s capital directly threatened, the ever more paranoid Calibron Laan issued several edicts by dictatorial command to bolster Amarah Prime’s own defences, stripping the Arcantis Cluster of both armies and materiel to ensure that his world was safe. Warships and merchant-vessels alike were brought together during a great muster at Battlefleet Orpheus’ principal Fleet Anchorage at the edge of the Amarah system. With the military powergathered at Amarah growing day by day, and week by week while still no sign of the enemy had been noticed, tension drew on the nerves of all that were in command. The dire warning of Apollyon had spurred the Sector intoaction but as the weeks turned into months, impatience grew to the point that Laan’s own nobles and military commanders pressed the Governor to act and not merely wait for the enemy’s next blow to land. In frantic activity, both within Orphean Command and Battlefleet Orpheus tactitians and commanding officers had drawn plans ranging fro fleet-scale reconnaissance missions conducted by the Imperial fleet alone to a fully-fledged counter-attack. Those generals of the Chemarium taskforce reasoned that with the ressources available to Battlegroup Salvation an attempt could be made to strike out for Liberthas, where the Angels Revenant although cut-off would surely still be fighting the enemy. Sector Governor Laan would have none of it. Backed by the esteemed Lord Inquisitor Hiram Ntshona, a veteran of the Ordo Malleus and now the sole surviving member of the Inquisition’s Chamber Apollyon which commanded much individual might, Laan dismissed every optio laid before him, adamant on securing even more men and ships for the defence of Amarah. This was the sole task the increasingly unstable and desperate Laan showed any interested in. To Ntshona, who strongly believed this attack to be the work of the Ruinous Powers, the build-up of power on Amarah was the only right course of action, for as soon as the warning had been heard, Lord Inquisitor Ntshona had secured access to the most powerful Astrophat on Amarah to contact his superiors within the Ordo and their Chamber Militant, the Grey Knights. Who else but the Gods of Chaos could calm the Warp before their marching armies, yet hinder their opponents through storms? Who else could engulf entire systems in shadows and thus shield the battlefields from the inquisitive glance of the Imperium? These were the reasonings of Ntshona, a tragic mistake that would reave its bloody rewards later on in the campaign.

From what has since then been gathered from Lord Inquisitor Hiram Ntshona’s personal records -- released post-mortem to the Conclave of Eurydice -- it appears that almost at the same time that the Necrons attacked the Orpheus Sector, the Sector’s Governor began a slow descent into madness. Being a close advisor and confident to Calibron Laan, Lord Inquisitor Ntshona was privy to sensible informations regarding the health of the Governor. Laan had become plagued by a series of repeating and ever more vivid nightmares in which he found himself seated at a great feasting table, surrounded by terrifying figures Laan himself described as "deathly" and "masked in bone and gilded steel, (...) clad in the golden and darkly jewelled raiment of barbarous and alien kings and princes". The table upon which they were seated bore plats of grey dust, glowing cinders and raw meat, so fresh it still dripped with blood. From this last dish, a sole figure, draped in raw skin was the only one to seemingly enjoy the feast, grapping the raw meat, smearing bloody chunks of flesh into its twisted mask, unable to chew the meal it craved and unable to drink the flagons of steaming blood it tried to wash down its sinister meal with. The rest of the assembly silently watched Laan, seated before an enthroned figure more terrible than the rest upon which Laan never dared to look upon. Silently, one of the figure bid Laan to taste the strange meal, all eyes fixed malevolently upon him before Laan would break. Screaming to be let go, a hooded and shrouded figure would seemingly manifest itself out of thin air behind him and whisper to his ear : " These are worlds that were once ours, the worlds that you trespassed upon and are now ours again. The worlds on which we haven risen have already been cleansed. The worlds where we once walked we shall now walk again. As the rites demand you are given a cyle of the pale stars to prepare yourself for extermination, Maynarkh comes and the banquet shall be served again."

Dismissed as Daemon-induced lies, Ntshona saw these dreams as an act of psychological warfare designed to sow panic within Imperial forces and misleading them on when the Archenemy would eventually strike. It is unknown what measure the venerable Lord Inquisitor took to preserve the Governor from these nightmares, given most likely that the Governor’s quarters must already have been warded somehow against psychic intrusion. As unbelievable as this may sound - Laan’s so-called dream must in fact have been reality, the Maynarkh Dynasty somehow bipassing all security measures protecting the Governor and abducting him, taking him to an undisclosed location and giving him warning of their coming. Had Ntshona not misinterpreted the signs, or been of the Ordo Xenos, he would have reckognized that the Necrons had only been stating the truth, and that the vast concentration of armies on Amarah played right into the hand of the Maynarkhs : a challenge the Maynarkhs would not be able to refuse.

Maynark comes
As suddenly as it had fallen, the ominous silence was abruptly shattered on 3806991.M41. Where before there had only been darkness, there was now a savage blaze of light, the mass of informations streaming from the lost worlds now so important that it blinded the super-luminal auguries of several watchposts. Scores of Astropaths reeled and even died under the stress of having to process incoming communication, the channels having been filled by an overlapping cacophony of distress calls and the death screams of those dying, tdistorted and folded in overlapping time, it was as if the astrophatic message had been suddenly unleashed after having being frozen in the Warp for several months. Scanners and empirical detection devices showed strange energy spikes on the borders of the Veiled Region whose strange radiations and particle storms travelled along the Sector’s Warp routes, clinging to the hulls of ships and orbital stations carrying its message, invading even secure vox channels and communication webs, a gibberih of strange-sounding and gibberish phrases, eclipsed by the fading echoes of screams of agony and a single phrase, repeated over and over "Maynarkh comes".

Wherever the malign signal had gained entrance, communication systems and machiery suddenly failed, the electromagnetic contagion causing it to shut down entirely or to malfunction. Cogitators froze or fell into terminal loops, while servitors were driven mad or went rampage. Any normal safeguard against malefic intrusion established to precisely prevent this sort of affliction soon proved useless and the menials, Adepts and Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus increasingly resolved to use galvanic purges to free their machines and instrument from this influence. This at least successfully created a firewall which stopped the signal to cause a true rampage amongst the Sector’s most sensitive networks, but Imperial communication would take weeks to recover from it. On some planets like Amraphel and Midwinter, the signal lingered long in the public vox network, bombarding the fearful Imperial citizens with strange flickering symbols and cries of pain, leading to mass hysteria, rioting and brushfire insurrections that the local forces of lawenforcement and Imperial rule had to fight with uttermost brutality to keep them from spreading.

With the veil having finally parted, the true extend of the catastrophe could be asserted for the first time. On Apollyon, the former fortress of the Ordo Malleus, every trace of Imperial had been obliterated, the planet having been shattered, the broken debris of its continents now orbiting the orb as a new asteroid chain after its moon, Elohiem Mortua, had been propulsed at the planet and hit it like the fist of a wrathful god. Sector command’s worse fears were soon confirmed, as scans confirmed that Libertha where once hundred of basilicas had been raised to honour the blessed death had been reduced to a fiery ball of cooling lava and ash deserts, the Angels Revenant’s mighty Fortress-monastery broken and apparently overcome by the planet’s fiery lifeblood. The Sector’s most powerful defenders were no more. As these news became more general knowledge, panic flared and several worlds were brought at the brink of total anarchy. Fortunately for Laan, the first troop transports and a detachment of warships from the neighbouring Eurydice Sector were already inbound and put to good use. Yet these meagre reinforcements could not hope tochange the cause of the oncoming war.

The next blow landed on Drucilla Majoris, one of the principal worlds of the entire Orpheus Sector and capital iof ts own Sub-Sector. One the day of the attack, the sun failed to rise on the doomed planet. All vox-contact with the world itself and with those elements of the fleet despatched to it abruptly ceased, a lone Astrophatic message breaking through the blackout on 4917991.M41. This last broadcast spoke of a chilling cold settling on the planet, as if Drucilla Majoris had been plunged into an unexpected and unheralded nuclear winter, temperature steadily declining to reach critical levels for the world’s population. Elsewhere on the planet, strange structures like basalt obelisk and outlandish pyramids of sombre, almost black metal erupted from the bowels of the earth, sinisters necropoles emerging from the dying planet’s crust. Shortly after this new calamity, the space between the Drucillan Sub-Sector and Amarah was filled with new distress signals and calls for aid, ship traffic coming under attack by unknown foes. This at least helped Imperial strategist to pinpoint the enemy’s location : he was heading West, towards Amarah.

With the enemy definately coming, Amarah’s calls for assistance became more frantic, especially when its direct neighbours came under attack. Fortress Tarris, a Ramilies-class Starfort protecting Battlefleet Orpheus’ shipyards orbiting Midwinter was powerless to repel a massive enemy incursion, led by strange ships before being boarded by metallic figures "fashioned as spectres of death", the foe manifesting itself within the very cursives, decks and vaults of the fortress before the system fell silent. Yet still, Calibron Laan refused to take offensive actions, cowering within the emergency bunkers built in times past beneath his palace, impotently watching as one-by-one the systems surrounding Amarah fell to the enemy, millions and millions of fighting men and women and hundreds of warships standig by but taking no action. Ultimately, only Amarah remained, cut-off from its former domain and still sending out pleas for help. With the ’Bloody Hundred’ over and the Orpheus Sector cut in half, the stage was set for the Battle of Amarah.