"Cursed? No not cursed. Who can say that amongst all these riches?"
- —Sire Morcar Del Sheen, The Sanctum Cells, Sinophia Magna
Sinophia is a Frontier World in the Periphery Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector. It is a world undergoing a sustained economic collapse, and suffers from extreme depopulation and the terrible malaise that has gripped its remaining populace who are suffering under such abysmal conditions.
Of all the worlds of the Periphery, Sinophia came the closest to carving its place in the annals of the Calixis Sector. Long ago, the unclassified world of Sinophia was a distant outpost of the Ixaniad Sector, but with the coming of the Angevin Crusade in the early 39th Millennium, it suddenly became the jumping-off point in the conquest of the Calyx Expanse. For a generation, Sinophia was the staging world and the mustering ground for vast armies and fleets of the faithful, who came from light years in all directions to cast the horrors of the Calyx Expanse back into the darkness of the Halo Stars and conquer the region for the God-Emperor of Mankind.
But Sinophia's glory was brief and the rot soon set in. Now, its once mighty cities are crumbling piles of decay, its population a mere fraction of its former density. As if to rub salt into the wounds, the world has been afflicted by tech-heresy, its numerous Cult Mechanicus shrines bolting their portals as if to deny the horrible truths stalking the thoroughfares without. Many are those who dream of service in the Astra Militarum, seeing it as a means of escaping their misery, yet Sinophia's Planetary Defence Forces are rated sub-par and no such tithing is likely to occur.
History[]
Sinophia was once a world of pivotal destiny and economic power on the very edge of the Calixis Sector but is now little more than a forlorn and forgotten relic of the past, an ancient and mouldering world of deserted cities and faded grandeur. Robbed of its population and trapped in an economic downward spiral that has lasted for Terran centuries, the planet is rife with petty corruption, apathy and slow decay.
Its remaining inhabited areas are a wasteland of neglect and partial abandonment, ruled by a bickering, jaded aristocracy headed by a near-powerless figurehead planetary governor, while its people labour under the heavy burden of the taxes imposed on them by their dissolute masters. Shorn of hope and empty of purpose, Sinophia is a world slowly dying.
Founded in elder days as the personal fief of the Rogue Trader Teresa Sinos in the 38th Millennium, the world would, a standard millennium later, serve as a primary staging post for the Angevin Crusade that carved the Calixis Sector into being. But as the Terran centuries passed and the Calixis Sector coalesced into its own sovereignty and self-sufficiency, Sinophia's prominence began to wane as its purpose faded.
Increasingly sidelined and marginalised, much of its population, sickened by the excesses of the nobility, began to flee. Many took passage as colonists, lured by the perceived freedoms of life on new worlds, while their embittered rulers attempted to fight back with spiteful intrigues and secret plots, but only succeeded in further bankrupting their world and dooming Sinophia to its blighted fate.
Sinophia, today, is a world suffering the final throws of a long, drawn-out death by economic starvation and slow civil collapse. Criminality and corruption are utterly ingrained and what little off-world contact it has is with smugglers, independent cartels (themselves skirting the fringes of the law) and a few hardy pilgrims. Whole cities lie deserted, and where Imperial civilisation does exist, it does so in twilight, clinging desperately to the faded glories of the past amidst the crumbling decay of the present.
Malaise, melancholy and corruption (in both the mundane and esoteric senses) are the abiding qualities of the Sinophian people -- hope is simply a word, faith and ambition are the subjects of quiet, bitter mockery, and selfishness is viewed as a survival trait. Sinophians are, to put it bluntly, a morose, fearful, self-absorbed and often vicious and untrustworthy lot, and usually assume that everyone else is the same. Sinophian society is itself a decayed shadow of its former greatness: corruption and moral rot have penetrated into its every crevice and walk of life.
There are obviously plenty of exceptions to this stereotype, both good and bad, and perhaps the most dangerous of them are the ones who genuinely have found a cause to believe in, because they often take to it with the fanaticism of a true convert.
Growing up in the slow decay of Sinophia burns bitterness, malaise and regret into the soul. It teaches the citizens of this world to watch their back and never trust anyone but themselves.
Despite its current condition, Sinophia is still of some strategic importance to the Periphery Sub-sector, for it bestrides the Calixis-Scarus Warp conduit. Imperial fleets destined for Kulth and the contested worlds of the Severan Dominate beyond it have been staging at Sinophia with increasing frequency. Perhaps the world might resurrect its all-but forgotten role of mustering ground for forces of conquest, reprising its former glories at the dawn of the Angevin Crusade.
Sources[]
- Dark Heresy - Inquisitor's Handbook (RPG), pp. 24-25
- Only War: Core Rulebook (RPG), pp. 330-348