The Triplex Sector as it was during the Horus Heresy in ca. 010.M31.
The Triplex Sector was a sector of the Imperium of Man located in the Eastern Fringes of the Ultima Segmentum that was home to the three Forge Worlds of the Triplex System and the Legio Victorum Titan Legion.
The Triplex Sector was dominated by swathes of barren star systems, largely uninhabitable and empty.
At the time of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium it was a wasteland of ore-rich worlds among old, dying stars and a few scattered clans of Abhuman miners and prospectors, which was far from any established trade route and cut off from the more populous sections of the region by fierce Warp Storms.
Sitting at its heart was the system of Triplex, its triple Forge Worlds the centre of all industry in the sector and the greatest prize in the Eastern Fringe.
With Triplex, a general might control the entirety of the eastern half of the Imperium of Man, for it rivalled great Anvillus in power, and many aspiring warlords cast their gaze upon this prize as the Horus Heresy erupted.
After the battles of the Heresy only one Forge World, Triplex Phall, survived into the 41st Millennium, its tech-priests and Titan Legion loyal servants of the Emperor.
Triplex System
The Triplex System (Galatia/Phall/Thule)
The Triplex System located in the Triplex Sector was the beating heart of the Eastern Fringe at the time of the closing years of the Great Crusade. This system was considered one of the greatest industrial hubs in the entire Imperium, rivalling even great Mars and Anvilus in the capacity of its forges.
By its labour had the Great Crusade won the distant stars of the east, and it was by the products of their manufactoria that civilisation was sustained in those hostile systems that sat at the very edge of the galaxy.
Home to the three-fold Legio Victorum and several hundred militant taghma, the system was also one of the greatest concentrations of military force in the east.
The few inhabited worlds and scattered mining colonies in the sector were held in thrall to Triplex by the threat of its anger and the necessity of its protection in the face of the terrors that lurked in unknown space.
It was a nascent power that strained at the bonds of the Emperor's law and the dictates of distant Mars, one that saw in Horus' rebellion a chance for their own ascent even as they professed their loyalty to the newly-founded Imperiem.
Triplex Galatia
The Forge World of Triplex Galatia was the first of the triple Forge Worlds to be established, its birth long since lost to history in those ancient days when the Explorator fleets of the Mechanicum set forth blindly into the void, seeking fertile new lands in which to grow and expand.
For long centuries, it would reign as the overlord of local space, its dominion assured by the strength of the Legio Victorum I, the Foe Slayers, and the sheer proclivity of its tech-priests.
It would only be with the arrival of the Emperor that it would stumble and fall behind its sibling forges, for Mars took a hand to curb the power of this new rival and petitioned the Emperor to take only the Legio Victorum II for His Great Crusade, sealing the remaining two slivers of the Legio to the defence of Triplex.
This would see Galatia cut off from the riches of the Great Crusade, which would flow instead into the hands of Phall. Denied the glory of war and the spoils of victory, Galatia turned inwards and its tech-adepts began to walk forbidden paths in search of power, paths long forbidden by the decree of both Mars and Terra.
So it was that when the representatives of the Warmaster Horus and of its brother forge, Triplex Phall, sought to turn them to their cause they found a ready ally, one more than prepared to throw off the shackles of the Imperiun.
With the promise of rich rewards from the Warmaster himself, Galatia began to slowly stockpile weapons of war built to new and fearsome specifications, shipping the more orthodox examples of their craft to the Imperium in order to keep up the pretence of loyalty that had been thrown across the system like a shroud.
History has often suggested that Galatia, despite its new hidden allegiance, did not take a hand in the death of Thule and kept its warriors and Titans absent from the fratricidal conflict.
Yet, it remains guilty of the lesser sin of standing by as the Legio Victorum III and the warriors of Thule died, and of stripping bare the corpse that remained of its brother Forge World, unleashing at last its Heretek hosts once the battle had been decided in order to seal its pact with the Traitors.
Galatia's triumph would be short-lived. For though the bones of Thule would nourish its industry and fuel the construction of new armies and voidcraft in anticipation of the Traitor conquest of the Eastern Fringe, the arrival of Lion El'Jonson and his Dark Angels would seal the fate of the darkened forge of Galatia.
Utterly destroyed by the Dark Angels' Dreadwing, it would stand as a warning of the fate of Traitors and a token of the I stLegion's wrath that Phall could neither forget nor ignore.
Even by the end of the Horus Heresy, it remained largely unvisited, for few wished to risk calling down the I stLegion's censure upon themselves despite the riches and secrets that lay buried in the ruin of Galatia's pride and ambition.
Triplex Phall
Triplex Phall was the second of the Triplex System's great Forge Worlds, and the only one that would survive the ravages of war in the Eastern Fringe after the end of the Heresy.
Though it had begun as little more than an adjunct to Galatia, its parent forge, Phall had grown swiftly during the years of Old Night, developing both an impressive industrial base and a significant martial tradition.
Driven by a stubborn pride and a desire for greatness, Phall had long stood at the forefront of Triplex's wars, defending it from the threat of xenos invasion and expanding its small domain across the sector.
By the time of the Emperor's arrival, the Legio Victorum II, the Foe Hammers, had grown to rival that of Galatia and would win the honour of representing Triplex among the armies of the Great Crusade.
The spoils of their victories as part of the Emperor's vanguard would see Phall grow to eclipse its erstwhile brethren, gaining resources and glory from across the galaxy and catching the eye of the Warmaster Horus himself. Indeed, Phall would become one of the main shipyards for the vast fleets of the Great Crusade outside of the Sol System itself.
Under Horus' patronage they would become the foremost power in Triplex and the Eastern Fringe, assuming a belligerent and prideful air in their dealing that brought about the ire of Mars, which had once favoured them.
The archmagi of Mars would work to isolate Phall and Triplex, denying them access to technology and influence within the strange network of the Omnissiah's servants as they sought to ensure that none could challenge their dominion amongst the ranks of the many Forge Worlds.
It was this quiet campaign waged against them that would set Phall to the research of technologies forbidden to them by the dictates of Mars, aided by Horus and representatives of those scattered forges that had struck bargains with the Warmaster, as the magi of Phall sought advantage in their struggle against the Martian ascendancy.
In retrospect, this seems one more gambit orchestrated by Horus, seeding rebellion and dissent across the Imperium that he might later wield as a weapon. What might have become of it had it been left to fester can only guess but, with their research incomplete and ambitions not fully realised, Phall and Triplex would be brought to heel by the Dark Angels.
Phall was spared the full extent of Lion El'Jonson's wrath only so that it might repay the hurt it had done the Imperium with the labour of its manufactoria and the life-blood of its warriors; a price it was bound to pay were it to avoid the fate meted out upon fallen Galatia.
Its vast wealth and grand armies were bled dry in the prosecution of the Lion's campaign against his brother, the once-magnificent halls bedecked with trophies of the Great Crusade reduced to soot-stained assembly lines for the Loyalist cause.
The proud archmagi of Phall were humbled and set to labour under the oversight of Dark Angels forge masters, their work examined for any sign of treachery or deviance, while the princeps and Titans of the Foe Hammers were sent into the most dangerous warzones of the war to pay their penance in death.
By the end of the Thramas Crusade, Phall was much reduced in power and strength, its mere survival such a struggle that it posed no further threat to the political dominance of distant Mars.
After the Horus Heresy, the Triplex Phall became the primary homeworld of the Legio Victorum. From there, the Legio Victorum started to amass an enviable Roll of Honour as its ranks swelled with newly constructed Titans.
Though the Legio has had losses in its ten thousand year history, it is a matter of some pride that the oldest of its Titans, the Primus Malachi, is still fighting against the enemies of the Machine God.
Triplex Thule
The smallest of Triplex's three Forge Worlds, the tale of Triplex Thule is born and ended in tragedy. It was founded by tech-magi cast out of Galatia in its early days for the practise of an extreme branch of Mars' orthodox doctrine that abhorred and condemned even the primitive servo-automata still in production amongst the Mechanicum's scattered worlds.
Their obsession with the purity of mechanical devices and the subtle blending of man and machine in the form of servitors and MIU links put them at odds with the rulers of Galatia, who trod an increasingly deviant path in their research and lust for power.
Thule would grow only slowly, starved of resources and shunned by their siblings, having reached the lowest grade of Primaris-ranking by the time of the Imperium's arrival at Triplex.
Driven to struggle against their brethren for every last shipment of ore and batch of new subjects, Thule had long engaged in a hidden war with the other Forge Worlds of Triplex, one fought by a small Taghmata of heavily-modified servitors and the agents of the Malagra sect rather than by the Titans of the Legio Victorum III, the Foe Breakers.
It was a conflict that would only intensify after the Emperor inducted the warriors of Phall into His crusade and gave it access to all the riches of the wider Imperium.
As it had always done, Phall held its newfound wealth at arm's reach from the tech-magi of Thule, both a taunting reminder of the power Phall held and a mocking promise of what they might enjoy should they bow before Phall as Galatia had chosen to do.
Stubborn and convinced of the rightfulness of their cause, the rulers of Thule refused to buckle beneath the growing influence of Phall. When the emissaries of the Warmaster Horus came in secret to offer them Horus' favour for their loyalty, the archmagi of Thule spurned them as servants of Phall and its sneering Hereteks.
The hidden war then took a more savage turn, with bombs and data-phage infections wreaking havoc on outposts of both Forge Worlds as well as upon Thule itself.
It would be Thule's retaliation, the assassination of a Phallian archmagus by a trio of Malagra adepts, which would set the pyre for the final tragedy of Thule's tale. In the opening months of Horus' rebellion, open war would arrive in Triplex as Triplex Phall took up arms against its least sibling, setting the Legios Victorum I and III to open battle.
As with any war between brothers it was fought with a vicious and unrelenting spite, with no mercy offered or expected, and by the time of the Night Lords' arrival in the system, there would be little but ruins left of the once-proud Forge World of Triplex Thule.
Sources
- The Horus Heresy Book Nine - Crusade (Forge World Series), pp. 21, 35, 76, 136-139