Armageddon

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Targetdrone.gif This article is about the planet. For other uses of Armageddon, see Armageddon (disambiguation).
Map Basic Data Planetary Image
Galaxy-Rift-Solar.jpg
Small cross.pngArmageddon
 Name: Armageddon Armageddon.jpg
Segmentum: Segmentum Solar[12b]
Sector: Armageddon Sector[6b]
Subsector: Armageddon Subsector[6d]
System: Armageddon System[6b][6h]
Population: Unknown
Affiliation: Imperium[2]
Class: Hive World[2][6b], Industrial World[6b]
Tithe Grade: Exactis Extremis reduced to Solutio Tertius[1a][6h][16]

Armageddon is a Hive World of the Imperium. It is the fourth planet of the Armageddon System.[2][6h] To the Orks the world is known as Armour-Geddem.[15]

Armageddon has been the site of some of the largest wars in the Imperium's history.

History

"Armageddon, a world whose name is known across the Imperium. Armageddon, a world whose name has become a byword for war and destruction on a massive scale. Armageddon, where the fate of a thousand worlds hangs in the balance."


Secret Origins

Unknown to the greater Imperium at large, Armageddon was in fact originally the world of Ullanor, made famous by the Ullanor Crusade during the time of the Emperor. 1,500 years after the Horus Heresy during the War of the Beast, Ullanor became the capital world of The Beast and was thought destroyed by the Mechanicum. In truth, the Mechanicum simply teleported Ullanor into the Armageddon System.[8]

First War of Armageddon

Armageddon[16]

The First War for Armageddon is perhaps the least known, and probably for good reason. In 444.M41 Cultists worshipping the Chaos god Khorne broke out in rebellion during a Warp storm. Soon, a great Space Hulk, codified the Devourer of Stars, appeared over the planet, containing none other than Angron, the Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters.[5]

The daemonic legions quickly pushed the defenders back in an orgy of bloodshed, until help arrived in the form of the Space Wolves and the Grey Knights.[5]

With the Wolves bolstering the defences, the Grey Knights teleported to the centre of the Daemonic horde. The Grey Knights eventually banished Angron and his army from the material world, leaving the cultists to be crushed by the Imperial counterattack. Victory was imminent, but one final tragedy was to strike the planet.[5]

Aftermath

In order to preserve the secret of the Daemon Primarch and the Grey Knights, the entire population of Armageddon, as well as all the surviving soldiers, were rounded up, sterilized, and sentenced to work camps for the rest of their lives while a new population was brought to re-settle the planet.[10a] Despite these cautions, several thousand Guardsmen managed to slip through the containment action, forcing the Inquisition to take more drastic measures in order to preserve the secrets of the daemons and the Grey Knights. Many Imperial Guard troopships were destroyed as they departed by Grey Knight Strike Cruisers, and in the Tremayne sector, three entire worlds were put to the sword to ensure the silence of a single company of Storm Troopers who had fought at Helsreach Hive alongside the Grey Knights.[4]

Logan Grimnar, the Great Wolf of the Space Wolves, has never forgiven the Inquisition for carrying out such a betrayal of the men and women who fought for their world.[10b]

Second War for Armageddon

The Second War for Armageddon featured a huge force of Orks in 941.M41 led by the mighty Warboss Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka. The Overlord of the planet, Herman von Strab, was completely unprepared for the attack and his own pride and incompetence only made matters worse. His ineffective, piecemeal defence of the planet was compounded by his refusal to contact the wider Imperium to ask for outside help; when an Imperial Commissar named Yarrick defied von Strab and sent an Astropathic call for aid, von Strab ordered Yarrick exiled to Hades Hive.[6b]

Ironically, Yarrick led a heroic defence of the Hive that eventually distracted Ghazghkull from the planetary battles. This infuriated the Ork enough to send more and more forces against Hades Hive. The battle escalated to such proportions that Ghazghkull considered the fight a matter of personal pride, and took command of the forces assaulting Hades himself.[6b]

Eventually, salvation arrived for Armageddon's defenders. Commander Dante of the Blood Angels led an Imperial army which took the fight to the Orks. He took control of the planet's defence and had von Strab arrested for crimes against the Imperium.[6b] The forces involved were the Space Marines of the Salamanders, Blood Angels and Ultramarines[6b], along with Imperial Guard. Although Hades Hive eventually fell, the distraction provided by Yarrick's stalemate of Ghazghkull gave the Imperial forces enough time to mount a counterattack that finally broke the back of the Ork invasion force.[6b]

Aftermath

Armageddon was devastated in the invasion. Even 50 years after the war, many of the hives retained extensive damage. However, due to its strategic significance to the Imperium, the Adeptus Terra ordered an extensive set of projects to rebuild and reinforce the Armageddon System against future attacks. Both ground-based and void-based defences were extensively bolstered. The Armegeddon Sector's naval command was transferred to the nearby planet of St. Jowen's Dock, whose naval facilities were refurbished and reequipped to handle even the largest of Naval battleships. In addition three space stations were constructed to monitor the edges of the Armageddon System, which were named after three great heroes of the war: Dante, Mannheim and Yarrick.[6d]

Though it was rumoured that Ghazghkull himself had fallen to the Blood Angels when they assaulted the Ork army near Hive Tartarus, these claims would later prove false. Nevertheless the bulk of the Orks were forced off-planet, humiliated in their defeat.[6b] Ghazghkull retreated to his stronghold in the Golgotha Sector but, although Imperial officials believed the Warboss utterly defeated, they were gravely mistaken. He spent the next 50 years building his Waaagh! anew, engaging in a series of raids and attacks on numerous Imperial worlds.[6c]

Despite the Orks' general retreat, pockets of Feral Orks remained on Armageddon, plaguing the planet's equatorial jungles and the ruins of fallen hives for many years to come.[6b] The greenskins remained on other worlds of the Armageddon system as well, most notably Chosin.[6d]

Though nearly killed, Yarrick survived[6b] and would clash with Ghazghkull again.[6e]

Von Strab also managed to escape his jailers[6b] and would later return.[6e]

Third War for Armageddon

The Third War for Armageddon occurred fifty years after the Second War. Ghazghkull Thraka returned, leading a second Waaagh! smashing into Armageddon. Commissar Yarrick and many of the heroes who fought for the planet before were called into battle again.[6d][6e]

Aftermath

Although the 3rd Armageddon War has seen the Imperium retain its hold on the world, fighting still continues on the planet. Ghazghkull has left the planet and continues to plague neighbouring Imperial worlds. He is being pursued by Yarrick with a full Black Templars crusade at his back. The Orks have come to regard Armageddon as a kind of Valhalla, where they can always come to find a good fight, and the Imperium must still send more troops to battle to keep the planet in Imperial hands while Ork reinforcements continue to flood in.[3]

The New Danger

After the opening of the Great Rift at the end of M41, Armageddon found itself directly in the path of The Blood Crusade, a vast legion of Khorne's Daemons pouring into realspace. The planet was again subjected to a Daemonic invasion and now not two, but three great forces fight on the ash wastes of Armageddon, as Orks, Imperials and Khorne's followers clash with each other.[9]

Season of Blood

The continued fighting on Armageddon eventually attracted the attention of the World Eaters' Gloriana Class Battleship Conqueror, which arrived at the beleaguered planet at the head of a vast Khornate host.[17a] Angron himself manifested through the Red Angel's Gate during the subsequent invasion, forcing a major intervention by the Imperium led by the Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Black Templars, and Imperial Guard. At the climax of the battle the Imperials were successful in pushing Angron back through his own Warp Portal and sealing the Red Angel's Gate thanks to the sacrifice of Grand Master Rothwyr Morvans of the Grey Knights 5th Brotherhood.[17b]

While the immediate threat has been contained, fighting on Armageddon continues.[17b]

Geography

The dismal backwater of Armageddon.[14]

Armageddon's surface features three main bodies of land: the Fire Wastes surrounding the north pole, the Deadlands around the south pole and one large equatorial landmass. These continents are separated by a world ocean.[6h]

The equatorial landmass supports the majority of the planet's population, including a number of hive cities. It is split into two continents: Armageddon Prime in the west and Armageddon Secundus to the east, which meet in a region dominated by a massive jungle.[6h]

The planet's atmosphere is thick and has been contaminated by thousands of years worth of industrial by-products, along with hydrogen sulphides (produced by volcanic activity) and carbon oxides (produced by decaying organic matter and a lack of plant life). An average human requires mechanical assistance to breathe, although the thicker atmosphere does counteract the planet's relatively weak magnetic field, protecting Armageddon from cosmic radiation.[2]

Other Planetary Data

Society

Ever since the Second War for Armageddon, the planet has been ruled by a military council which consists of high-ranking members of various Imperial organisations: officers of the Astra Militarum, Navy and Munitorium, representatives of the Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy, and the Governor's of the planet's major hives. The overall leader of the council is General Kurov.[6d]

Military

Armageddon operates a large standing army, including both a Planetary Defense Force known as the Armageddon Defence Force[1b] and the famed Armageddon Steel Legion of the Imperial Guard, which specialises in mechanised warfare and fighting Orks.[12a] During the Second War for Armageddon, they also operated specialised anti-Ork units known as the Armageddon Ork Hunters. In times of crisis, Armageddon also mobilises militias[6f], such as the Armageddon Ash Waste Militia and the Armageddon Hive Militia.[6g]

The planet also sports extensive orbital defences, including layers of orbital mines, spacedocks, weapons platforms and two manned Imperial Space Stations (one located over each pole).[2]

Armageddon patterns

Armageddon is known to produce its own patterns of numerous weapons and vehicles. Armageddon-pattern vehicles tend to be environmentally sealed, a necessity for fighting on Armageddon in order to protect both the pilot and machine from the corrosive effects of the planet's ash waste sands.text-middle[Help]

In the course of the ork invasions, some of the manufactories of Armageddon started to produce a variant of the Chimera APC. These new tanks, intended as a stopgap to bolster the Planetary Defence Forces, are designated the APDS-6a 'Defender'. They mount a laser destroyer on a Chimera chassis and have proved reasonably effective.[13a]

Amongst the weapons produced on Armageddon are lasguns. Newly-produced lasguns on Armageddon are known to have a flaw whereby the slides often jam.[11] The planet also produces ten million new battle tanks every year.[10c]

Trivia

TriviaScrollTrans.png

The following information is not to be regarded as officially sanctioned and/ or is not written from an in-universe point of view. A detailed explanation of the term "Trivia" as used in the Lexicanum can be found here.

See also

Sources

Related Links

  • http://www.armageddon3.com/ Games Workshop site for the 3rd Armageddon Worldwide Campaign Event Includes free downloads for the Battle of Armageddon game and Chaos Attack Expansion
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