Mezoa

Mezoa is the most important and preeminent Forge World of the Adeptus Mechanicus within the Cyclops Cluster, a zone of space located of at the galactic north of the Gothic Sector of the Segmentum Obscurus. To this date, Mezoa upholds strong ties with its inceptor, the great Forge World of Lucius, from whom it originated. The Forge World’s production is entirely dedicated to the production of first necessity war materiel such as arms and ammunitions. In particular Mezoa is responsible for the supply of macro-ordnance shells to the mustering point and Headquarters of the Imperial Navy of Port Maw, located in the neighboring sub-sector. This specialization as well as the important and well-equipped Taghmata maintained by the Mezoan Forge have sometimes led to the Forge World being dubbed a ‘war-world’ by local Imperial Commanders, a reputation from which it still benefits to this day. Perhaps in odd with other domains of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Forge World of Mezoa is distinctively militant and a firm supporter of the Imperial Cause, most notoriously siding with the Loyalists during the dark events of the Horus Heresy during which, isolated, cut-off and blockaded, the Forge World nevertheless succeeded in resisting enemy invasions. These dark times would see it prevail both against the forces of the Warmaster and those of its long-time rival of Forge World M'Pandex and remain defiant until its subsequent liberation. More recently, in 139.M40, as an opening move of the during the 12th Black Crusade -  more commonly known as the Gothic War - Mezoa came under attack by naval elements of Abaddon the Despoiler’s forces, which seem to have been easily vanquished.

History
Mezoa is a vast, highly volcanic world which was naturally incapable of sustaining life but immensely rich in metallic elements. It was first colonized somewhere in the Age of Strife by one of the three Explorator Ark send out by the Forge World of Lucius after its quarrel with Mars. Mezoa started as an isolated outpost of the Lucian Mechanicus and wasn’t rediscovered by the Great Crusade until 540.M30. By then it had already expanded to something resembling a Forge World, a pocket-empire in the wilderness of space. Mezoa itself was ringed with concentric layers of orbital docking platforms and habitation modules, the ash and cinder-wreathed surface of basalt having prove too instable to support the original forge fanes expansions. Beyond these rings lay outer boundaries of autonomous planetary defense batteries, kill-satellites and spatial mine-fields guarding the world’s approaches. These formidable protections were far greater than those possessed by other individual Forge Worlds, yet they had not been constructed out of simple caution or paranoia, but had been tested on many occasions, particularly during the decades-long xenocide campaigns against the Mitu Conglomerate – the warp-capable alien pocket-empire which controlled much of the region of the Coronid Deeps before the coming of the Imperium – being besieged and bombarded on numerous occasions by the foul xenos before their eventual eradication by the forces of the Great Crusade. This military prowess and battle-readiness vastly accelerated Mezoa’s recognition as a fully-fledged Forge World, a status it obtained officially in 813.M30. The Mezoan Forges were rebuilt under the direction not only of the Archimandrites of the Cult Mechanicus, but also the minds of both the Emperor and, it was said, the Primarch Ferrus Manus in later years after joining the Imperium. They comprised great spindle-spires of metal, jutting like ziggurats kilometres in height from the magma flows and vast, naturally occurring lakes of molten iron; forge-fanes that encircled the planet like a garland of barbwire. This new Forge World was almost solely dedicated to the production of heavy arms and armour, its production ranging from battle cannon to warship hull plates  ; a fane of weapons and armaments solely intended to serve the needs of the ever-advancing frontlines of the Great Crusade.

As military powerful as Mezoa had evolved to become during the years of the Great Crusade, one noteworthy idiosyncrasy of the Forge World was that it did not possess a sentinel Titan Legion, either of its own or as an ally. This was simply a consequence of the fluctuating and perilous terrain, which was entirely unsuited to Titan operations, both because of the planet’s shifting topography and because where it’s scorched black surface was solid, such ground was likely to prove no more than a skin of solidified magma, treacherously unable to bear a Titan’s weight. Though this geological instability arguably robbed Mezoa of its most powerful potential guardians, it was also itself a final and telling line of defense, as events were later to prove. If the Mezoan Forges somehow voluntarily renounced to its Titan-production capacities, that was not the case for its Imperial Knight production-lines which worked tirelessly to equip those Imperial Knight Households oath-bound to it. Most notorious amongst these allies were the Knights of House Hermetika, which had stood at the side of the Forge World since the dark days of the Age of Strife, and noble House Vyronii. House Makabius nominally owed fealty to the lords of Mezoa, but had chosen to side with the Warmaster and subsequently turned Traitor.

The Horus Heresy
By the outbreak of what was to become the Horus Heresy, Mezoa was a fully operational Secundus I grade Forge World whose impressive industrial output provided the forces of the Great Crusade with the arms and ammunition they would need to conquer the stars. Some of the models manufactured there, such as the Mezoa-pattern Meltaguns, Power Axes and Power Fists can readily be found across all of the Imperium. Most importantly the resources of Mezoa and its vassal worlds aided in the instalment and development of the Imperialis Armada facilities at Port Maw. The fleet stationed at these facilities depended on Mezoa’s output for re-equipment, reparations and supplies, most notoriously in macro-ordnance shells and hull-plates which neither the neighbouring Mechanicus dominions of M’Pandex nor more distant Cyclothrathe could readily manufacture. This made Mezoa a highly valuable prize, a prize theWarmaster would naturally seek to control as the Heresy unfolded.

The Emissary of Mars
At the dawn of the Age of Heresy, in 006M3, both Mezoa and M'Pandex, the two greatest independent powers within the Cyclops Cluster, each received the Emissary of Mars; a Magos known as Regulus, or at least an entity bearing that name as there are extant contradictions in the record regarding the location of this individual at various times. This senior Tech-Priest of the Mechanicus had for many years served alongside the Warmaster, long before the betrayal at Istvaan, and now remained his, body and soul, being part of Horus' inner circle and bound in allegiance to the Traitor's cause. Regulus came bearing dual patents of authority, the first from his Warmaster and the second from the hand of Kelbor-Hal, none other than the Fabricator-General of Mars, and by right the voice of the Omnissiah and supreme pontifex of the Mechanicum. Unknown to the Mechanicum authorities in the Cyclops Cluster, Kelbor-Hal had also thrown his lot with the Traitor Horus, sparking a civil war on Mars itself.

In stark contrast with the arrival he would receive on M’Pandex, Regulus found Mezoa already geared for siege and conflict. Upon entering in Mezoa’s star system, his own craft, a swift warp-runner was stopped at the outer reach of the system and forbade entry on the threat of immediate destruction. Mezoa had ever been a militant system, born of the ferocious wars of the Great Crusadeand fashioned as much a fortress as a centre of macro-industry; it’s Magos fiercely independent from their kin elsewhere and just as fiercely loyal to the ideals of the Imperium whose expansion they served. Here the influence of Mars or the authority of the Fabricator General would count for nothing. Forced to communicate via only the most primitive two-way vox-circuit with a hulking Mezoan battle-sphere rather than directl with the Forge World, and under the condition that any attempt at other communication or the passage of a data-djinn or other influence over the circuit would result in immediate annihilation, Regulus nevertheless put his case, invoking both the authorities of the Warmaster and that of Kelbor-Hal to try to sway the rulers of the Forge World to his cause. In response the Pentarchy of Archimandrites, which had by tradition ruled Mezoa, offered a blunt rejection of the Warmaster and a formal secession from the authority of Mars. Further, they called Regulus and Kelbor-Hal both apostate and blasphemers in the eyes of the Omnissiah, and pronounced them or any under their command to be under sentence of death if they entered the Mezoan system again. They finished their communication with a single word in judgement: “Heretek”. Regulus fled.

The Blockade of Mezoa
Shortly after the denial of Regulus, a blockade of  Mezoa was begun. With the help of the warships of M’Pandex – both their own Mechanicum vessels and those they had since captured and now operated under false flag, as well as more shadowed forces operating under the Warmaster’s direction – the various star systems that fed into Mezoa were cut off from it, with the aim of choking off its supply of raw materials. Resources which, where possible, were now directed instead to the hungry forges of M’Pandex. The Mechanicum on Mezoa actively resisted where they could, although they steadfastly refused to sally forth with their full force, treating the attacks as bait in a trap. Instead, they ordered their outposts and detached forces to resist until destroyed, and on far flung mining stations and on the decks of mass transporter vessels, the forces of the two Forge Worlds, long rivals but never before enemies, clashed in mortal combat. Mercy was not  to be found on either sides’ circuit-augmented hearts, and the adsecularis cohorts of M’Pandex were matched savagely by the armoured centuries of Mezoa’s Thallaxii which, while fewer in number, vastly outmatched the adsecularis in individual might. In what seemed now to outsiders to be a civil conflict between the Mechanicum rather than a move in a wider game, refinery stations on Jujya and Gunnar’s Rock burned, and on New Providence, thousands of fleeing vapour-mill workers caught between the battle lines, were crushed beneath the tracks of  Krios tanks and slaughtered needlessly in the withering crossfire of blazing energy weapons as both sides utterly ignored them, as if they had all the consequence of stalks of wheat caught in a hurricane.

By the end of 007.M31, the Mezoan system had been almost entirely cut off, and now enemy warships were circling the edge of its outer reaches as sharks waiting for prey. Mezoa was a prize not to be underestimated, but it was also fortified beyond ready conquest, even by a force as large as a fully marshalled Expediotionary fleet, but once cut off from aid and from giving aid to others, it was now effectively neutralized. As other systems declared for the Warmaster, this blockade was increasingly reinforced, most decisively after the Fall of Port Maw which saw the blockading fleet reinforced by turncoat siege-monitors of the Armada Imperialis. Pale hulled Legion warships of the Death Guard Legion as well as dark-hulled of unknown provenance now bolstered the Traitor’s forces. Eventually the forced amassed were sufficient to mount an attack on the beleaguered Forge World. This first great assault would be hurled back under mysterious circumstances, the Mezoan Magos having somehow succeeded in turning the very fabric of their molten world against their attackers, causing vast swathes of the planet’s mantle to suddenly and violently collapse under the enemy’s landing zones. The wilder reports even told of colossal island-size chunks of magma hurled up into space and flung at the attacking ships, and of an ash-black war machine called by some ‘the dragon’, claimed by some to have been dug loose from the black sands of Istvaan itself, that had somehow appeared to meet the attack and torn the Traitor Archimandrite limb from limb. Regardless of the truth, that the Traitor forces had been hurled back was known, but Mezoa was but a light in a sea of night, and how long it would last could not be predicted. The initial blockade would become a full-fledged siege, marking the beginning of the Siege of Mezoa of which very little is known. The Siege of Mezoa would however live on as one of the few confirmed apparitions of traitor elements drawn from the remains of the three Loyalist Legions massacred at Istvaan V, the Forge World’s siege seemingly having mobilized a company-size element of Deathwatch Black Shields wielding both weapons of the Iron Hands and Sons of Horus.

At Present
Mezoa remains to this day a hive of industrial output and military might, growing past its former borders as the Imperium called upon it to equip its armies. The Forge World still continues its oath bound task to supply the vast installation of Port Maw and the battle fleets stationed there, having contributed lately to add a significant weapons-system to the Imperial Navy’s arsenal: the Mezoa-pattern Hybrid Lance, which sacrifices range for greater penetration capabilities.Since the 38th millennium, it even has added to its defenders. Th proud regiments of the Lamdan Lions have long fought alongside the Mechanicum and hail from the two moons of Mezoa. Their Schola Progenium and Militarum Tempestus having brought forth such elite formations as the 133rd Lamdan Lions Storm Troopers, the resources of the Forge World making them one of the best-equipped formations amongst the Imperium.

Mezoa Iconography
Both the Magos of Mezoa and the Hierarchs of House Hermetika have appended flame iconographies to the more traditional symbols of the Mechanicum cult. It is however unclear if this symbolism is a silent reminder of their volcanic home world or somehow connotes a deeper spiritual meaning as it does for the Hierarchs.