A map of the Inner Palace of the Imperial Palace complex and the devastation wrought upon it during the Siege of Terra in 014.M31. The Tower of Hegemon and the adjacent annex of the Blackstone Prison lie to the north, near the Sanctum Imperialis.
The Tower of Hegemon is a tower located deep within the Inner Palace of the Imperial Palace on Terra that served as the operations command centre for the Adeptus Custodes in carrying out their duties for security within the Palace complex.
The Tower of Hegemon houses many datafeeds and surveillance systems that allows it to oversee nearly all traffic within the nation-sized Imperial Palace complex which stretches across Terra's Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains.
Within the tower lies the "Watchroom" -- the nerve-centre for security operations for the Adeptus Custodes and the Imperial Palace complex. The central cogitation consoles stream constant divergent data elements and run comparison/contrast programs. The Watchroom's codifier assembly trawls and pans the global data sea and the Unified Biometric Verification System, grouping together reams of disparate elements, making connections and following traces.
With this elaborate security system set in place, every day, a billion clues and a million secrets are analysed and examined by the Custodes watch, sifted with acute, painstaking precision through the ever-shifting, fluid levels of Terra's information sphere for any internal threats to the Emperor's personal security. Every sixty solar minutes, the Watchroom prioritises a dozen of the most sensitive findings for special attention.
An adjacent fortified building that serves as an annex of the Tower of Hegemon is known as the "Blackstone Prison," and is built from the eponymous ebony stone of noctilith mined from Cadia. The anti-psychic properties of the tower's negatively-charged material allowed it to be used as a prison for dangerous captured rogue psykers and prevents them from using their powers.
The Tower of Hegemon is primarily manned by the serfs of the Adeptus Custodes, proud, unaugmented Humans who wore the bones of their ancestors upon their person in homage to their sacred duty. They served in their positions for life, and upon death their offspring would add their remains to those of their forebears.
Following the fall of the Bhab Bastion during the Siege of Terra, the Tower of Hegemon briefly became the acting command centre for the small numbers of remaining Loyalists engaged in the final defence of the Inner Palace.
Sources[]
- Blood Games (Short Story) by Dan Abnett
- Master of Mankind (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Ch. 10
- Saturnine (Novel) by Dan Abnett, Part 1, Ch. 4
- The End and the Death: Volume III (Novel) by Dan Abnett, 10:xv