- M36-M37 The Fall of the Jericho Sector - The fall of the Jericho Sector from grace was swift, and much is recorded of its cause before the darkness descended and blotted out hope and reason.
- M37 to M41 The Shadows Descend - Darkness and dissolution descend upon the Jericho Sector, restoring it to the name of the pre-Imperial "Jericho Reach" and initiating the time period in the region known as the "Age of Shadows." From this point onwards, the records of its history are no more than a few fragments of an unknown whole, with only the Deathwatch's tireless vigil maintaining any semblance of Imperial involvement in the region.
- Various Dates.M37-M39 The Age of Plunder- The stories brought back from the Calyx Expanse of wealth, xenos artefacts and resource-rich, life-sustaining worlds draw numerous Imperial Free Captains, Rogue Traders and Renegades to the region from across the already-settled Scarus and Ixaniad Sectors. Darker tales surface as well of inhuman empires, horrific xenos "Mind Eaters," Chaos-worshiping savages who were once men, the dark perils of the limitless “Abyss of Ha’az’Roth” and of a baleful black star that presages disaster. But enough plunder flows into Imperial coffers to keep a steady stream of adventurers, rogues and Explorators entering the Expanse, many never to return.
- 010.M37 Wrath of the Chaos Sun - In the Maxil Beta System, a red giant star explodes in a Warp-tainted supernova. All those touched by its dark Chaos energies are mutated, possessed or destroyed outright. The Imperium mobilises every military asset within fifty light-years of the event, sending them straight to war. The resultant disaster is eventually contained at the cost of uncounted billions of Human lives.
- 133.M37 The World of Sinophia Founded - The world of Sinophia is granted by the High Lords of Terra as the personal fiefdom of the Rogue Trader Teresa Sinos at the end of her voyages as a reward for her service to the Imperium. The planet is situated beyond the edge of the Scarus Sector and rapidly becomes a staging post for expeditions into the frontier of the Calyx Expanse and the Halo Stars beyond.
- 361.M37 - Chaos Space Marines led by Orik the Vile of the Alpha Legion faces off against the regiments of the Imperial Guard's Cadian Shock Troops on Mihok Secundus.
- 380-405.M37 The Star-Killa Crew - An Ork Freeboota fleet of over one hundred ships ravages the northern region of the Jericho Reach, attacking and devastating Castobel, Aurum, and Alphos. Deathwatch Codicier Kiataino masterminds a plan to destabilise the Ork forces before they can become entrenched, and succeeds in killing their Warboss and his immediate possible successors, forcing the Orks to turn on each other in a savage fight to establish dominance, neutralising the Ork threat.
- 502.M37-956.M38 The Great Expansion - A time of great scientific and cultural evolution, during which the Tau advance into space, colonising planets as far as their conventionally fuelled, sub-light reaction-drive spacecraft will take them.
- 533.M37 First Colony - The Tau colonise the largest moon of their homeworld T'au, called Lu 'val; this is their first offworld holding.
- 551.M37 Battle for Kurin's Acropolis (Persembe II) – Situated dangerously close to the Eye of Terror, the world of Persembe II suffered a ferocious assault by the High Anarchist Potchek – a vile Chaos Magister whose Forces of Chaos left that world's Planetary Defence Force reeling. Within a week, Potchek’s legions swept away all organised resistance and what few Imperial forces remained were driven back to Kurin’s Acropolis, the site of an ancient structure raised to the glory of the Emperor during the Great Crusade. Fortunately, their salvation came in the form of the Dark Angels' 3rd Company, and few battle honours evoke more hard-won pride than the lone ribbon that commemorates this campaign. The Astartes of the 3rd Company made a daring Drop Pod assault on Persembe II and created a thin cordon between the Acropolis and the approaching horde of daemons and Chaos Cultists. Master Baradiel, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his Command Squad, orchestrated a defence that stopped the Chaos forces dead. Once reinforced by the company’s war machines, the Dark Angels advanced upon the enemy. Eventually Baradiel came upon the Anarchist and blew the Potchek's head away from his body with his Storm Bolter. The Archenemy’s army fractured and the Daemons fled back into the Immaterium. As the mortal soldiers turned to flee the Astartes wrath, the Dark Angels fell upon them. None escaped their righteous fury.
- 563.M37 Assassination of Yawell - Assassin Urhua Thereaux of the Venenum Temple sent to assassinate Renegade Imperial Planetary Governor Yawell. Thereaux's ship was caught in a Warp rift, which held the vessel in temporal stasis for 698 Terran years.
- 651.M37 The Black Shield - A brother of the Deathwatch bearing no Chapter device arrives at Watch Fortress Erioch in the Jericho Reach. This brother "Black Shield" calls himself Hail, and is the lone Space Marine occupant of the Rapid Strike Cruiser Unquiet Angel. Hail claims that he has learned the location of the remains of the vanished 4th Company of the Black Consuls Chapter, a force lost in its entirety a millennia before, and he seeks the aid of Watch Fortress Erioch in searching them out. Following the convening of the Watch Fortress' Chamber of Vigilance, a Kill-team joins Hail aboard the Unquiet Angel. Hail leads the Kill-team to a massive Space Hulk drifting in the dead space on the edge of the Phaegis System. The Kill-team board the vessel and succeed in recovering the banner of the Black Consuls 4th Company and a number of other Chapter relics, despite being assaulted by scores of Warp Ghouls and other foul creatures. In gratitude for the eventual return of their remains some decades later when the conveyor ship dispatched from Erioch reaches them, the Black Consuls renew their oaths to the Deathwatch with a pledge of Battle-Brothers three times what it was previously.
- 756.M37 Tau'n Established - Ethereals declare the colonies centred around the planet Tau'n will become their own Sept -- or realm, governed centrally from Tau'n, the Sept World or prime planet. This is the first of many star systems to be colonised by the Tau and transformed into a new Sept.
- 772.M37 Ruin of Phalan 10 - The Industrial World of Phalan 10 is subjected to a crippling month-long orbital bombardment under the orders of the daemon-possessed Imperial Navy Admiral Koth.
- 811.M37 The 7th Black Crusade (Ghost War) Erupts - The 7th Black Crusade, also known as the Ghost War, is unleashed upon the Imperium. At this time, the Forces of Chaos spewed forth from the Eye of Terror past Cadia and then disappeared. This event is what earned this conflict its informal name of the Ghost War. The following years saw a game of hide-and-seek played between the Forces of Chaos and the Imperium of Man which spread confusion, paranoia, disinformation and deceit across the galaxy. Raids became commonplace in far-flung areas but eventually the servants of the Dark Gods returned to the Eye of Terror, having caused great difficulty for the Emperor's Loyalists but having proven unable to significantly degrade Imperial defensive capabilities at that time.
- ca. 811.M37 The Ghost War and the Blood Angels - During this conflict, when the Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter battled against the Forces of Chaos at Midian, Abaddon singled them out with implacable fury. He led a band of Khornate Berserkers into the teeth of the Blood Angels' Devastator positions. Even the Blood Angels' own Assault troops could not dislodge the frenzied warband and recapture the bodies of their comrades. But there is an obscure reference to the Blood Angels being saved by an unidentified Space Marine Chapter of mysterious origin. Written within the The Canticle of Cassandria Lev - Vol. CVI, the eponymous Sainted Sisters' highly mythologised and oblique account of the wars of the 7th Black Crusade, is found mention of a "grey-clad" Space Marines Chapter who came from "The outer night" to aid the Imperium, and whose "Jagged maw did swallow the stars ... and whose ... black gaze did mirror the void of oblivion." In the course of the canticle this Chapter's ships set upon Abaddon's forces following the disastrous defeat and routing of the Blood Angels at Midian and attacked the pursuing forces as Saint Lev writes: "...fell upon the servants of the skulled-one with great fury from the darkness, unseen as the beast that lurks beneath the black waters, death for death, blood for blood...thus were the Sons of Sanguinius bought respite, and did turn back upon their pursuers and so were the damned traitors of the false gods driven unto their ruin." Images of these events can be found upon the walls of the Cemetery World of Hypasitis created to house the honoured dead of that war, depicted in repeated fresco and bar relief. Curiously, the faces of the intervening Space Marines depicted there are obscured with featureless disks of black obsidian. Given the largely unknown history of the star-faring Carcharodons Chapter, accounts of their activities can only be constructed from recorded historical incidents and fragmentary records that are believed to have involved the Carcharodons on balance of evidence. This notable engagement is listed by Imperial savants as a "[Special] Probable Encounter/Recorded Sighting" of this notorious and mysterious Space Marine Chapter. After their rescue at Midian, the full remaining might of the Blood Angels Chapter fell upon a vast Black Legion warband on the world of Mackan. Although the conflict ultimately ends in the near-extinction of the Blood Angels at the hands of Abaddon the Despoiler and his primary lieutenants -- the Sorcerer-Lord Iskandar Khayon and the swordmaster Telemachon Lyras -- the Blood Angels Reclusiarch Thalastian Jorus becomes one of the few Imperial heroes to ever land a blow against the Warmaster of Chaos. With his Chapter devastated, the Chaplain endures weeks of hardship in the wilderness and the constant trials of keeping his crazed warriors undetected on Mackan. When the time is right, Jorus leads his Death Company in a lightning raid behind enemy lines, butchering the unprepared sworn warriors of the Despoiler’s honour guard, and allowing the Reclusiarch to lock blades with Abaddon himself. It is said the Chaos Warmaster still bears the scars of that battle, even three standard millennia later. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is known that the Despoiler honoured Jorus once the war was over -- perhaps in mockery, or perhaps with nothing but sincerity. After Mackan, thousands of Blood Angels corpses were desecrated, their gene-seed ruined beyond recovery. Of all the Chapter, only a handful of bodies were left undefiled: Reclusiarch Jorus and his Death Company, clad in their battered and broken black ceramite, seated in makeshift thrones made from the armour of those Black Legion warriors they had killed on that fateful night.
- 871.M37 Battle of Midpoint - A Craftworld Aeldari fleet threatens to destroy the massive space docks of Midpoint in the Argonnes Sector. The sudden appearance of The Rock and the Dark Angels' Swordfleet tips the battle in the Imperium's favour. The Aeldari retreat, but not before the firepower of The Rock annihilates their capital ship and a half dozen vessels of their armada. To this day, the savaged hulls and floating corpses of both sides still hang in the depths of space, forming an eternal graveyard.
- 883.M37 Betrayal at Zambeque - The Ravenwing follows a trail that leads all the way to the Imperial governor of Zambeque,a key Imperial planet sometimes called the gateway to the Gothic Sector. Before they can apprehend the Governor for questioning, however, the planet declares open rebellion against the Imperium. The Dark Angels' task force is surrounded upon Zambeque by Chaos Space Marines of the Alpha Legion, and only the timely counterstrike by half of the Deathwing prevents the annihilation of the entire 5th Company. The Governor, a Fallen Angel who was once known as Brother Solas, escapes with the remnants of his Traitor Marine allies.
- 893.M37 Welcome Additions - The Poctroon become the first sentient race to join the Tau Empire, although within a few generations, disease destroys their indigenous population. The Tau, whose physiology is fortunately immune to the plague, inherit the Poctroon homeworld, turning it into the prime world of what will become Bork'an Sept. The Nicassar become the first race to join the Tau Empire and survive long enough to tell about it.
- 920.M37 The Spiders of Mataras - The world of Mataras IV in the Jericho Reach is subject to the final sanction of Exterminatus carried out by the Deathwatch to prevent further contamination by a parasite-colony of the horrific Hadrus Skin-Weaver xenoform from spreading to neighbouring worlds. The Hadrus is a xenos species only previously encountered in the southwestern extremes of the Segmentum Tempestus, and its presence on Mataras IV is a mystery of dire import that remains unsolved.
- 987.M37 Hunt for Solas - After picking up the trail of the Fallen Angel Brother Solas, the entire Ravenwing deploys en masse on the plains of Picus, an Agri-world in the Orar Sub-sector. All ten of the Ravenwing's Deathshrouds join the hunt, bringing a shroud of arcane darkness to that world's sun-drenched surface that can be seen from orbit. Despite their sweeping efforts, Brother Solas evades his pursuers again, and the Chapter records state that Cypher himself may have had a hand in Solas' uncanny escape.
- 999.M37 - The 8th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler erupts out of the Eye of Terror to assault Imperial space.
Sources[]
- Codex: Chaos Daemons (6th Edition), pg. 21
- Codex: Dark Angels (6th Edition), pp. 35-37
- Dark Heresy Apocrypha - Dark Heresy Timeline by Alan Bligh (RPG Web Supplement)
- Deathwatch: Know No Fear: History of the Jericho Reach (RPG)
- Codex: Tau Empire (6th Edition), pg. 28
- Index Astartes - Death Company (Digital Edition)
- Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pg. 118
| M36 | Timeline | M38 |
|---|