Tantalus (Moon)
| Map | Basic Data | Lunar Image | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Name: | Tantalus | .jpg)
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| Segmentum: | Ultima Segmentum | ||
| Sector: | Jericho Reach | ||
| Subsector: | Orpheus Salient | ||
| System: | Castobel System | ||
| Primary: | Castobel | ||
| Population: | Unknown, formerly approximately 79 million | ||
| Affiliation: | Tyranid, formerly Imperium | ||
| Class: | Dead World, former Agri World and Industrial World | ||
| Tithe Grade: | N/A, formerly Exactus—[Crusade Specis] | ||
Tantalus is a Dead Moon that is the principle satellite moon of Castobel.[1]
Contents
Overview
Tantalus is a moon approximately two-thirds the mass of Holy Terra in stable orbit around a type III gas giant, whose length of day, gravity, and climatic conditions point to deliberate alteration during the Dark Age of Technology, and was an agri-world serving the primary Hive World Castobel during the period of established Imperial rule of the Jericho Sector.[1]
History
Over the last millennia while out of Imperial control, Tantalus has undergone a transition towards a climatic cooling associated with the slow onset of a rotational ice age and prevalent conditions on the moon are now predominately stormy, and topography succumbing to sub-arctic/tundra with polar ice caps advancing to cover 32% of the moon's surface.[1]
Human life had dwindled considerably during the local Age of Shadow to fewer than ten million living as pre-industrial hunter-gatherers. However, with the coming of the Achilus Crusade and the resurgence of the hive world of Castobel, extensive promethium refinery infrastructure, the starport/city of Tantalus Landing and other settlements had been constructed and the population was trebled through forced immigration of tithed workers and crusade forces.[1]
Hive Fleet Dagon
When Hive Fleet Dagon invaded the moon, a small group of Magos Biologis took the opportunity to study the Tyranid lifeforms as they attacked. The data they collected was on the bio-forms and the attack-patterns the Tyranids used, often at the cost of their own lives. Eventually only Magos Zardos Vyakai was left alive and being unable to get off world, he tried to flee in a shuttle to the southern hemisphere, not yet overrun by Tyranids. Unfortunately, his shuttle was attacked and as it crashed, he sent out a distress call before being knocked unconscious.[1]
Hearing his distress call, the Deathwatch frigate Thunder’s Word sent a Kill-Team to extract the datacore that contained the information gathered by the Biologis and save the Magos if possible. Landing on the doomed moon, the Kill Team made their way through the Tyranids, picking up haggard survivors along the way, before finally locating the Magos. The Kill Team and the survivors boarded a Thunderhawk, just as a Tyranid horde converged on their location.[1]
Known Locations
Pyroclast-Gamma-9
An industrial facility and promethium refinery in Tantalus's extreme north, set amid sharp-edged rocks, tumbledown crags and coarse tundra. One of a string of similar facilities scattered across these latitudes, it is a sprawling complex, with numerous buildings, stations, and supply dumps spanning several square kilometres in size, although much of its uninhabited infrastructure (such as the chemical storage tanks) is actually buried deep underground beneath the steel domes, pipe-farms and dull ferrocrete blockhouses that make up the facility.[1]
During full operations, the area is staffed by a crew of Departmento Munitorum functionaries and technomats, their attendant servitors and a sizable workforce of convict labour kept in check through the use of pain-inducing punishment collars and the overseer's lash.[1]
Resources
The moon is host to considerable natural resources in sub-strata promethium (grade Vulcan-989) and other geologically attendant chemicals, exploitation of which was fully established and tithed to the consumption of the Achilus Crusade via Departmento Munitorum Edict.[1]
Government
Before the Tyranid invasion, the governmental type of Tantalus was that of a Crusade Dictatorship/Departmento Munitorum Satrapy. The Lunar Governor was Quastor-Intendant Charlotta Grimes.[1]
See also
Sources
- 1: Deathwatch Core Rulebook pgs. 380-390
