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From Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum
→History
During the [[Horus Heresy]], the savage civil war saw the regions of the sector under control torn apart by lawlessness and anarchy. Neither the forces of the [[Emperor]] or [[Horus]] controlled the region. During the bloodshed of the [[Scouring]], the [[Alpha Legion]] warlord [[Dynat Mal]] fled to the Sector's Mandragoran Stars. Dynat's forces, known as the [[Shadowed Ones]], employed guerrilla tactics and dark forces to take over much of the region. This sundered realm eventually became known as the '''Dark Marches'''{{Fn|1a}}.
The Orpheus Sector was not formally established under after the [[Age of Apostasy]], when Segmentum authorities launched a series of crusades. The most successful was the [[Dark Marches Crusade]] under Lord Tempestus [[Hal Orpheus]], which brought over six hundred worlds under the rule of the Imperium. The arcing band of space was subdivided into four sectors: '''Haxan''', '''Leyak''', '''Eurydice''', and '''Orpheus'''. The aging Hal Orpheus, kept alive only through the arts of the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]], became the first sector [[governor]], ruling from [[Amarah Prime]]. Favoured [[Imperial Guard]] regiments received Arcantis, Gedrid, and Midwinter, while the Adeptus Mechanicus received Myre in perpetuity{{Fn|1a}}.
In 976.[[M37]], all contact was lost with Leyak Sector. In response, the Orpheus Sector authorities increased their military tithes, constructed orbital defences, and forbade colonial expeditions into the Veiled Stars on pain of death. These restrictions increased civil tensions in the sector. Authorities brutally suppressed riots, rebellions, and [[cult]] activities across the sector. When the [[Black Crusade of Von Mallas]] the Transgressor reached the sector in 113.[[M38]], it caused further uprisings on [[Saint Marduk's Bane|Colkasth]] and [[Epirus]], draining resources required to fight the Transgressor's forces. [[Morros]] Lachrymal was founded as a penitentiary world to hold the rebels, but the fighting had ruined Epirus, which would take decades to recover even a shade of its former productivity{{Fn|1a}}.
