The Cunning Plan - Background

One of the reasons for starting this blog was to record the various ideas I had for the w40k setting which all of the my toys lived in. This would be my own little corner of the Imperium which could be cut off from the great Imperium and left to fend more or less for itself.

This lets me dip in and out of the main setting as I please (Primaris marines? Yes, the warp storms stopped for a week to let them in ... ), but without the main setting dictating too much my own fun.

I originally posted some of these ideas in my Warseer threads and repeat them for completeness:


Merophis (Lambda) Sector Background

The Beginning of the End

The Merophis Sector is a backwater Imperial sector, cut off from Imperial space and wasting away like an unloved crone. Located on the northern fringe of the Ultamar Segmentum, Merophis Lambda lacked the resources, strategic location or industrial capacity to mark it out from its neighbours. Being trapped in the Dark Imperium for a hundred years has not improved matters!

After the fall of the Cicatrix Maledictum it took months for the Administratum to realise the sector was gone. Apparently the only citizens outside the sector to notice were the Imperial Guard and Navy Personnel that had just been mustered out of the sector to fight in the 13th Black Crusade.

Although temporary warp storms cutting off the sector were not uncommon, as the months and years wore on it began to dawn on the the sector’s Imperial Governors that they were on their own in a hostile sector denuded of their resources and manpower. The Imperial Navy’s Merophis Battlegroup was little better having sent most of the space-worthy ships to Cadia.

After a decade the news of the sector’s abandonment had filtered down to the lowest beatle-herder and a huge wave of unrest spread throughout the Imperial worlds in the sector. They knew - as everyone did - that only the might of the Imperium kept the perfidious alien empires of the sector in check…

Sensing an opportunity to increase their own influence, the most powerful and ambitious Planetary Governors attempted to form a sectoral-wide ruling council. The vestigial organs of the Imperium in the sector disagreed violently and - blind to the threat of the xenos - waged war on the the governors for 17 years.

Even with the Imperium’s local forces almost completely spent, the planetary governors were unable to compete in an interstellar war. Their PDF forces, although numerous, were hamstrung by their shortage of warp-capable vessels and one by one they were battered into submission and agreed terms with the remaining Imperial representatives.

A council drawn from the usual Imperial factions (and excluding the planetary governors) was formed in the classical Terran mold: the Senatorum Merophis; each member is known as a High Lord. Tension between the planetary governors and the High Lords remain high.

The End of the Beginning

The Senatorum Merophis has had some success in:

1. Forming an Interior Guard to coordinate and distribute the manpower of local Imperial Guard, PDF and Auxilia forces;
2. Undertaking a ship-building program and scouring the sector’s deep space boneyards for serviceable hulls to re-equip Battlefleet Lambda;
3. Rebuilding links with Imperial-friendly worlds (under the watchful eye of the Ordos Xenos …); and
4. Ruthlessly suppressing any dissent.

However, after 80 years alone in the void it may be too late. Neighbouring alien empires have noted the Imperials weakness and the sector’s core worlds and boiling with barely repressed recidivism, sponsored by both aliens and darker forces ...