Changes: Exterminatus

Revision as of 07:48, 4 June 2010

Exterminatus is the name of an order given by the Imperium to destroy a planetary biosphere and all life upon it in extreme circumstances where a threat to the entire Imperium of Man exists on the planet and might spread to other Imperial worlds.

Overview

Exterminatus is typically only used as a last resort, when the price of holding or retaking the world is deemed too high, or the threat of mutation, disease or heresy spreading to the rest of the Imperium too great to contain by conventional means. Thus Exterminatus has very rarely been used on vital or valuable planets to the Imperium. Typically, the order may only be given by a high-ranking Imperial Commander in the Imperial Guard, Imperial Navy or the Space Marines, or by a full member of the Imperial Inquisition.

Exterminatus can be carried out in many different ways, as outlined below.

Methods

Note that with the exception of those listed under the section Other, the rest of the entries are deployed from warships in space.

Orbital Bombardment

Orbital bombardment is the simplest means of carrying out an Exterminatus, as it can be done solely through the conventional firepower of the Imperial Navy. The power of an orbital strike can range from small precision strikes, not unlike that of modern surface to surface missiles, to thermonuclear blasts. Typically, special weapons are used, designed to destroy all life on a planet's surface and potentially any entrenched even in the planet's crust.

Virus Bombs

Virus bombs release a special virus genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all cellular structures, reducing all planetary life to organic slime. This produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The Tallarnian population managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.

Cyclonic Torpedoes

Cyclonic torpedoes are much more immediate in action than virus bombs, having enough power to ignite a planet's atmosphere folliwng detonation. The blast radius is large enough to be seen from space.

Two-stage Torpedoes

Two-stage torpedoes are the most common of a special class of rare Exterminatus weapons, designed for use against atmosphere-less or biologically-void worlds (Necron Tomb Worlds being the main example). These have two-stage warheads: The first stage is a melta charge that bores straight through a planet all the way down to its core. The second stage is a modified cyclonic charge that destabilizes it, in most cases physically destroying the planet.

Other

During the 13th Black Crusade, Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed ordered a massive nuclear reactor on the prison world of St. Josmane's Hope to be overloaded when it seemed that Chaos would finally take the world. Rather than a colossal meltdown, the reactor exploded and blew the entire planet apart.