The Fall of Cadia - What Could Have been

So, a while back we covered the Gathering Storm trilogy, detailing both a number of major rules and lore changes. As per usual much of it was focused upon the latter over the former, with additional parts devoted to exploring the storytelling. Part 4 in each of these tended to veer between a "How I could have done it" and "What storytelling elements could have been fixed here" if there was nothing more positive here. In the case of the first book it was more of the storytelling elements we were looking into, but people have been asking of late how I might have written it. Unfortunately, I simply don't have time for that. 

While I have a basic skeleton of a story in mind, it would take a few thousand words to properly outline and explore. This was supposed to be supposed to be the big battle of the entire setting, after all, and to express that the story would need to be on-par with at least one Imperial Armour volume in detail and length. If that sounds outlandish, please keep in mind that the last time Games Workshop tried to explore it, they made certain that you knew that everything taking place was on a massive scale. you had campaign after campaign playing out across dozens of worlds. 

Rather than just a single decisive fight on Cadia itself, the entire Cadian Gate was pitched into a massive bloody war. To give you some idea of how big some things were, the single biggest tank battle of the last ten thousand years was little more than a footnote here. You had entire worlds devolving into partial daemon plants, astartes on both sides dying by the thousands and the Imperium breaking out superweapons to try and staunch the tide of blood. That takes a while to explore, and if given the time this would have been one of four to six parts used to detail the entire conflict.

As such, because the Fall of Cadia effectively skipped right to the fighting, consider this a step towards how I would have executed it. How I would have laid down some of the groundwork and built up towards that fighting, excusing some of the ill equipped efforts by each side.

Part 1 - Vanguard

It was in the final days of M41 that Abaddon would return for one final war against the Imperium. His final Black Crusade, his decisive blow in the Long War to shatter the Emperor's domain had been centuries in the making. Ever since his first return, since the day Sigismund of the Black Templars had fallen whilst defending the Imperium from the bastard son of Horus, the High Lords had dreaded his coming. While some attempted to convince themselves that his power had been spent in the Gothic War, most knew that his latest battle would come within a matter of years.

The first true whispers heralding the new conflict were little more than hearsay at first, the sorts of rumors peddled among sprint traders. Claims of worlds pelted by a perpetual rain of blood were traded between captains. Stories of a statue of the Emperor shedding tears or tarot decks marking the Cadian sector as damned emerged time and time again, so frequently that the local Arbites were forced to stamp out all knowledge of such stories. At first it was seen as some hidden act by recidivists to disestablish the sector, or even the efforts of Inquisitors seeking to politically distabilise their rivals. Yet, as the days drew towards 999.M41's end, none could deny the disturbances witnessed within the Eye.

Astropaths, Librarians and Navigators began witnessing strange stellar shapes within the boiling, writhing tide of the Eye of Terror. Piratical attacks strangely lessened within months of their last assaults, while those few who remained became more organised, focusing their efforts upon disabling essential system facilities over claiming glory and treasure. More chilling still, reports of half-seen vessels entering the Eye began to flood the naval offices, of few ever leaving that damnable realm but instead moving to plunge into its hellish depths.

For most of the Imperium's defenders this was proof enough of Abaddon's impending return. For all his bullish tactics and blunt assaults, the master of the Black Legion hardly lacked cunning nor skill at subterfuge. He wanted the Imperium to know of his impending return, to dread his coming and allow fear to shake their resolve. This was only further confirmed over the following days, as atrocity after atrocity rapidly came to light. On the frozen reaches outside of Kasr Kraf, a pyramid of human skulls was erected in the night, each one belonging to an Inquisitorial agent which had been tracking major Chaos cults. On the orbital shipyards over the planet, multiple power generators and life support systems abruptly failed, killing thousands of essential crewmen before the emergency systems could be brought online.

Knowing the threat they faced, the commanding Imperial forces reacted with speed. Several emergency councils were held on Cadia itself, between the commanding officers of the Cadian Shock Troops, Inquisitorial Lords and representatives of the Astartes Praeses. Quickly isolating and confirming the locations of several previous massed assaults, now considered to be strikes to test their might, the Imperials began to solidify their defensive lines. The call was put out to any and all chapters who could spare their forces in the war to come, Cadia recalled its sons and daughters to defend its homeworld, while the Inquisition stepped up its shadow war against the cults which hid among the populace. Others would soon join them, as Skitarii detachments arrived to defend Mechanicus interests within the local sector, and elements of the Segmentum Solar's battlefleets arrived to guard the outlying worlds.

While many of these assets were consolidated around the Gate itself, many were sent to guard secondary weak links within their fortifications about the Eye. A small picket fleet was sent to observe the small, often unstable, Warp corridor which had permitted Abaddon to launch his Twelfth Black Crusade. Several communications stations and secondary fall-back points were further guarded by battleships to counter any possible warbands dispersing and escaping to the surrounding worlds, as they had in past millennia. No single previous weakness was left unchecked, no past failing left unaccounted for as strategists poured over records of every bloody and decisive conflict since Cadia's true founding. It was this caution which would lead to the first true conflict of the war.

Mere months prior to then, the Boros System had been reduced to a burning graveyard by the traitor legions. In a daring strike, the Word Bearers had emerged from within the Eye and somehow isolated the system as they attempted to claim its unique treasures - The Boros Gate. One of a network of Warp gates capable of rapidly transporting troops across the system, it had been essential in turning back several incursions. While it had once been guarded by the White Consuls, the Word Bearers and a powerful xenos race had ravaged the system, reducing the chapter to a fraction of its strength. 

While no one fully expected Abaddon to try and claim the same objective after so many of his veterans had been lost in the previous conflict, others had seemingly taken interest. Having apparently learned of the system's weakened state, the Alpha Legion had launched a massed assault, infiltrating and slowly overwhelming the defenders. With their astropathic choirs somehow silenced, the White Consul remnants fought a pitched battle to reclaim control of the system. Bitter fights broke out as the chapter attempted to reclaim its remaining battle barge from Alpha Legion control while guarding the city populace.

Disaster was only averted thanks to sheer fortune, when reinforcements headed by Castellan Ursarkar Creed arrived in the system alongside contingents of Adepta Sororitas and Black Templars. Having been sent to reinforce such a vital location prior to the assault, they were surprised to find the planet in a state of apparent civil war but soon turned the tide by disabling two Alpha Legion controlled ships and converging on loyalist positions planet side. While several drop ships incurred heavy casualties thanks to Alpha Legion subterfuge and ambushes, the sheer firepower arrayed against them and Creed's own tactical genius. Forcing various Alpha Legion units into fighting multiple highly mobile detachments at a time, Creed was able to entrap and gradually isolate the traitor forces before cutting them down. Quarantining the remaining White Consuls and allowing the Inquisition to begin screening the populace for remaining infiltrators, others began to secure the surrounding battlements and defenses. 

Using psykers to interrogate the few Legionaries left alive, and searching the body of their dead nameless lord, the Imperials stumbled upon a horrifying revelation. The Black Legion had reverse engineered the powers of both the Hand of Darkness and Eye of Midnight, the terrifying relics which he had claimed in the Gothic War. While crude, the blasphemous creations had been altered to disrupt communications machinery and wither away the psychic potential of the Imperium's astropaths. With it, Abaddon's forces could rapidly silence any and all forces they encountered, cutting them off one by one. Leaving the Templars and Sororitas to further secure the system along with additional Imperial Guard units, Creed returned to Cadia to bring warning of these items.

Unbeknownst to the Imperial forces, this opportunity had been born of carelessness rather than true fortune. As the news reached his ears as he awaited within the Eye, Abaddon raged at the Alpha Legion's blunder. Their move in overcoming the Boros system was intended to be the last in a chain of assaults and efforts to isolate Cadia from its nearest allies. While he had been relying upon their typical need to outperform their comrades, and even fueled the idea by mentioning the failure of the Word Bearers, that same hunger had turned against him. By moving early, by enacting a needlessly complex infiltration plan and toying with their enemy over a single decisive strike, the Imperials were aware of his efforts. All of his plans to keep them focused upon Cadia, his suggestions and half seen threats to keep their attention away from the lesser threats, had been put in jeopardy. Of the twenty major astartes strongholds guarding the Eye, only six had been silenced, and only a small fraction of the Naval installations threatening his approach had been successfully turned to his side.

The lord of the Black Legion considered his choices. He was sorely tempted to merely allow the Imperium this victory and to conserve his forces for the greater battles ahead. Some warbands had yet to accept their rightful place within his massed force, and certain key leaders of the larger warbands were too ambitious for his liking, too willing to pursue their own agendas over his own. His efforts to quietly remove each one in turn while ensuring the loyalty of those under them was taking its time. The longer he delayed the greater the chance that the Imperium would know of his smaller victories. Worse still, as word had come to him that the thrice damned Archmagos Cawl among their number, there was ever the chance that they could uncover the science behind his new Hands of Midnight and counter them. The Archmagos was certainly resourceful enough to accomplish such an act, as his theft from the Black Legion's vaults had proven millennia ago.

With no other option available to him, Abaddon chose to enact part of his initial plans. Summoning Kharn the Betrayer and Typhus to his throne, Abaddon announced that he was granting them the honour of serving as his vanguard. Commanding them to take several warbands - specifically those of lords he did not yet trust - they were to test Cadia's defenses before their major assault. While Kharn himself cared little for the politics behind such intentions, Typhus proved to be much shrewder. First attempting to bow out of the crusade entirely over this "dishonour" and then almost refusing over Abaddon's choice of troops, the Warmaster almost lost the Traveller entirely. He was only able to secure his assistance through several veiled threats and promises of his assistance in ensuring that Mortarion would serve Nurgle's true will when the time came. With nothing else to discuss, the group departed.

On Cadia itself, the Internal Guard continued its sweep throughout the streets and battlements, rooting out even the slightest indication of heresy. Leading such efforts, Inquisitor Covenant had begun to realise the true scale of the incursions on the planet. While, in the immortal words of Inquisitor-General Neve, the planet "bred recidivists like a pond breeds scum" few had realised how fully organised the massed efforts had begun of late. Many offending cults were known to the Imperium, but their organisation and armament vastly exceeded even their greatest expectations. Thousands had died in the Inquisition's purges, driven out into the open or caught as they attempted to enact operations to harm Cadia's defenders. 

Having broadly distributed his own forces to mop up the remainder of their number, Covenant fought to keep the peace with as many troops as he could afford. Trusting no one and predicting that any of those at his back could betray them at any moment, he focused his efforts on guarding primarily against the most damaging of attacks. All but abandoning the civilian districts in favour of military and production installations, his soldiers began to operate in a series of shifting random patrols across the planet. This was enough to force several cults into acting too soon, forcing them into a desperate action as they tried to take a space elevator up to the main anchorage over Cadia.

Having predicted such a move early on, a small force of Tempestus Scions and Kasrkin lay in wait led by Covenant himself. Allowing them to reach the base of the elevator, Covenant abruptly shut down the generators to the main platform and launched a counter assault. While the traitors had the benefit of numbers and even a variety of daemons to augment their strength, the discipline and fire support of Covenant's troops gradually overwhelmed them, turning the tide in his favour. Yet, what he found shocked him to the core. Several members of the cult bore the markings of high ranking Cadian officers, and one even carred with him the full authority of a Castellan. Realising the threat was even worse than he initially thought, Covenant made his way to the planet's primary astropathic choir, ordering them to dispatch word to Terra for further reinforcements. Unknowingly, however, he played right into the enemy's hands.

With their plans foiled, the cultists had utilised the ethereal nature of their daemonic allies to carry a Hand of Midnight into the elevator where it lurked. Clambering up the structure at an inhuman speed, and claiming the flesh of a worker to hide itself from the more base level checks, Leeching the psychic energy of the choir as it was cast into orbit, the daemon activated the device, casting a wave of ethereal energy across the planet. Psykers screamed as their minds were boiled away, with their powers reflected back onto themselves or burned out entirely. Men died as they were caught in the backlash of the strike and in orbit, countless vessels suffered system failures. On every ship of every modern Imperial design, Warp drives and Gellar fields alike sputtered and died, each burned out by the device's power. In that one moment, Cadia was rendered silent, its last message to Terra reduced to fragmented nonsensical words.

Even as those left attempted to rally their forces and secure their orbital defenses, the signatures of over two hundred enemy vessels appeared on their long range sensors. Typhus' vanguard force had arrived and Cadia, it seemed, was destined to stand alone against them...



So, that's all I have for the moment, but I hope that gives some impression of a few of the changes in how I might handle it. It's certainly much less of an abrupt start and, while far from perfect, does try to cover a few of the opening events the book simply skipped.