Space Hulk

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Targetdrone.gif This article is about the massive space debris. For other uses of Space Hulk, see Space Hulk (disambiguation).
Space Marine ship alongside the space hulk Sin of Damnation

A space hulk, also referred to a macro-agglomeration,[20] is a massive conglomeration of lost ships and wrecks fused together. They drift through space and in and out of the warp and during the millennia the lost ships join together into one enormous body. Frequently, they are so huge that they have their own atmosphere and gravity. Since the hulks often exit and re-enter the warp seemingly at random, searching or traveling in them is dangerous in the extreme.[4]

Overview

Ork space hulk

The Imperial Navy, and all Imperial forces and authorities as a whole, have standard orders to survey such objects and to report their location. The hulks consist of ships and items of technology millennia old and the recoverable technology can be of immense value to the Imperium, and especially to the Adeptus Mechanicus, thus elite Imperial forces are sent aboard to clear out infestations. Depending on the strategic situation (availability of troops, proximity to vital Imperial star systems, safety margins, etc), Space Marines are sent to purge the hulk of any alien infestations.[4]

These supermassive accretions of wrecked void-craft are inconstant, erupting into and out of realspace without warning on misfiring warp engines. Centuries can go by between sightings of documented hulks, often appearing far from where they were last encountered. But whenever they appear, the doctrine for probing a hulk is well established. The first and most essential duty of any Mechanicus expedition is to render all warp engines inert, locking the entire assemblage in place and putting an end to its nomadic, rampaging odyssey.[20]

Space hulk known as Gallowdark and an Adeptus Arbites vessel.

This doctrine typically consists of using the expedition ship's sensors to probe for power signatures. Then upon shipfall, hundreds of servo-skulls and cyber-altered task units are released from a chosen staging point to probe beyond the outer edges of the macro-agglomeration, past the point where any ship sensor can perceive even the strongest signal. The autonomous surveyors document any and all constructions or organisms they come across. The prime directive of the scout-constructs is to identify any trace of active warp signatures. Armed forces are then expeditiously sent to those locations and render all warp drives inert. As space hulks can contain a number of hazards, a surveyor may be destroyed by hostile forces or hazardous situations during their search. That area is then identified as a zone for military forces to secure once they complete their primary goal of disabling all warp engines.[20]

Space hulks are inherently incredibly dangerous, as such they have become commonly used as a means of transport for certain unsophisticated factions. Orks, Genestealers, and Chaos renegades have been known to occasionally use them to invade other worlds.[19] The main advantage of riding these wild behemoths, that are often an amalgamation of multiple ships each containing independent warp drives, is that their warp jumps are unpredictable explosions of energy that create trajectories in a random direction which gives them the advantage of surprise.[4]

Therefore the mission of boarding space hulks is extremely dangerous and normally entrusted to Terminators, the Chapters' most experienced elite who are heavily armed and armoured. In some cases this is an impossible task, due to too-powerful enemy resistance, too few available Imperial troops, too close to vital systems, etc. In such cases, the bombardment and total destruction of the hulk is the only viable alternative.[4]

Space hulks are huge and durable, as even Nova Cannon blasts are not enough to cause significant damage.[1]

Notable space hulks

Main article: List of Space Hulks
The Mortis Thule

Images

Sources

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