Changes

The artificial planetoid of port maw was normally home to huge swarms of vessels - a score of battleships, dozens of squadrons of cruisers, countless hundreds of escort craft, and thousands of servitor-drone tenders, provision ships, troop transports and orbital lighters. These would soon be joined by reinforcing fleets from the rest of the commonwealth, from warships of the distant [[Agathean Domain]], pirate-killers from the [[Cerada Nebula]], and three huge [[Ark Mechanicus|War Arks]] from [[Forgeworld]] [[Cyclothrate]]. In addition to this, a great wave of refugee ships, from mercantile ships fleeing systems under threat, to ragged survivors of the battles in the [[Cyclops Cluster]], and even a handful of survivors from the void battles at [[Istvaan V]], though the Astartes vessels would not remain long. Many such ships were barely operational, while others had to be scuttled or set to drift lest their perilous state of disrepair pose a threat. Such numbers of vessels would be impossible for the normal human mind to bear, so coordination of the assembling armada was channeled through Port Maw's [[Mechanicum]] Astra Cantrol Panopticon - a powerful broadcast tower ten kilometers high on Port Maw's southern pole. [[Cogitator]]s would calculate ship movement data and feed instructions directly to automate the control helms of the vast number of ships at port to prevent collisions. Anticipating Though this automated control could always be overridden manually, anticipating a vulnerability, Port Maw had strengthened the encryption and defenses multiple times throughout the war, each stronger than the last. Deemed impregnable, they the leaders of Port Maw could not anticipate the fatal flaw in the system which would be the betrayal of [[Archmagos]]-Astral [[Leit Mercuric]], cyber-Ordinator of Port Maw, who had secretly sworn to Horus, as well as several of her acolytes and officers of the Imperialis Armada, all of whom were corrupted when they had served alongside the [[Word Bearers]] in the past.{{Fn|3d}} When the war finally arrived to Port Maw, the betrayal was put into motion. The Control Panopticon sent powerful signals and data-djinn to all the ships that had been so reliant upon. [[Vox]]-circuits burnt out, auguries were filled with static, [[auspex]] scanners shut down as systems failed as ships were suddenly blinded. Moving ships diverted or suddenly accelerated, crashing into each other, their wreckage flying into the paths of others. The crews of many, unbraced and unprepared for sudden impacts, were hurled against the walls of their vessels into a bloody pulp. Ship bridges were flooded with [[scrap code]]. Over a hundred lesser vessels were overridden entirely, their ships venting their crew into the void, while the [[machine spirit]] programming of larger vessels fought against the attack. At this same time, turncoat ships within the Port Maw fleet were left unaffected and began to fire upon their former allies, sowing terror and confusion, and causing many loyalist ships to surrender to traitor demands.{{Fn|3d}} The Provost-Marshals of Port Maw, having thwarted a mutiny in their own ranks, gathered elite armoured [[Veletari]] troops of the [[905th Lethe Cohort]] "Ash Scorpions" to storm the Control Panopticon, which failed to respond to communications and was now clearly the source of the malevolent signals. Fighting their way past frenzied servitors, servo skulls, giant mechanical spiders, and hulking traitor [[Tech Priest]]s as heavily armoured as [[Terminator]]s, and [[Castellax]] [[Automaton]]s, only a single Veletari soldier managed to survive and make his way to control dias of the panopticon, destroying it even as his helmet was being crushed by steel claws, ending the malignant signals coming from the Panopticon.{{Fn|3d}}