At the end of the Kaurava conflict, a war that would split even the united might of the Imperium in battle, only the Liberators stood victorious. Nine armies from all over the universe had converged and fought for control of these four worlds, but only the warriors of the Imperial Guard under General Vance Stubbs would prove mightiest. The Necrons, foul machines bent on eradicating all life, had swept into the claimed lands of the Eldar, their ancient enemies, within the deserts of Kaurava III. But there, their homicidal deities had met their defeat at the hands of Khaine, the Eldar God of War, and their tombs were raided and destroyed.
It seemed that the Ruinous Powers of Chaos would join forces with the malevolent Dark Eldar on Kaurava IV, but raiding parties had irritated the Chaos Lord Firaveus Carron, and he sent his Alpha Legion to the moon to slaughter them. But what he found were rows and rows of prisoners, with no masters to oversee them. The Black Heart Kabal, Archon Tahril, and their cruel master Asdrubael Vect, had all vanished back into the Webway, perhaps sensing their impending doom at the hands of the Chaos Space Marines.
Conflicts between the Imperial Guard and the Blood Raven Space Marines left the Marines weary in defence of their headquarters on Kaurava II. And so when Warboss Gorgutz Head 'unter led his Waaagh! into the Lands of Solitude, there was nothing to stop him. It was also at this time that he sent his boys to attack and destroy the base of the Tau Empire on one of the moons of Kaurava II, sending the Empire reeling back to T'au.
When General Stubbs learned of these simultaneous losses, he ordered his forces to attack the Orks holed up in the mountains. A strike force was able to destroy the fort at the heart of the Ork base, causing the Orks to lose faith in their Warboss and break out in open revolt. Gorgutz fled the system, and the Imperial Guard launched a massive counter attack after learning that the dreaded Sisters of Battle had been called away to another war. This boosted the morale of the Guardsmen as they began an extermination of the Orks remaining in Kaurava, this done with the aid of the Ultramarines, who had been deployed to protect the Lands of Solitude too late to save their Blood Raven brothers and their Commander, Indrick Boreale.
The greatest battle of the war came when the combined forces of the Space Marines and Imperial Guard arrived on Kaurava IV and clashed with the demonic forces of Chaos. Lord Carron had ascended to the position of Almighty Daemon Prince of the Alpha Legion, and battled the Imperium with everything the Chaos Gods would grant him, going so far as the sacrifice his greatest Sorcerer to be a vassal for the dreaded Bloodthirster, the Greater Daemon of Khorne. But it was all in vain. The Space Marines and Imperial Guard sent only their best to battle the bloodthirsty heretics, and systematically slaughtered them all. Lord Carron himself fell before the mighty Demon-Hammer of the Space Marine Chaplain, and the daemonic idols fell to dust under the firepower of the Imperial Baneblade super-tank.
With the Alpha Legion utterly destroyed, the Forces of Chaos had suffered their worst defeat since the Horus Heresy. But the Imperium did not stop there. At the heart of the Chaos base of operations they found a small but lethal Warp Gate, leading to countless heretics still lurking in the Warp. At cost to his own life, the Librarian of the Ultramarines sent a deadly wave of psychic energy into this gate, completely devastating the Warp itself. From the eternal screams that echoed from the collapsing gate, it was obvious that this selfless sacrifice had cost the Chaos Space Marines almost its entire force.
Victory fell upon the Imperial Guard, and the Ultramarines left the system to be reconstructed by these loyal Guardsmen, with whom they had brought an end to the wars between Space Marine and Space Marine, destroying the very heart of Chaos. Only Kaurava III remained un-colonised, as every attempt to do so was met by disaster at the hands of sentinel Eldar Rangers, and so the planet was abandoned. Kaurava became a bustling and prosperous Imperial system for many years to follow the bloody conflict.
But what the Imperium seemed to have forgotten, is that Chaos is eternal.
It was fifty years after the Fall of Chaos, as it was later celebrated, that something strange happened. On the far side of the galaxy, just beyond the planet Desperation, and directly opposite the Closed Eye of Terror, a planet formed over a matter of days. This world became enveloped in a deadly Warp Storm that killed even machines that were sent to investigate. The Imperium's decision was to ignore this world, so far from Terra that it could cause no direct threat. This it would turn out, would be far from the truth. On the fifty-fifth anniversary of Chaos' fall, down to the very day, hour and even minute, the Warp Storm around the planet faded and died. The Imperium seized its chance.
Sending Commissar Yarrick and his Imperial Guard forces to the planet, the Imperium declared control of the world. What they found there was no life, only ruined cities and strongholds were either the Warp Storm or great warfare had caused the complete destruction of almost everything that had once existed there. Runes were uncovered from the dirt that named this planet "Deimopia", a name the Commissar immediately rejected and renamed as "Young Earth". Only a pair of fortresses remained on this world, and runes named them Fort Montakaan and Miran Kaan. But the greatest surprise came not from what lay above this planet, but below it.
Mining yielded incredible discoveries, power coursed through this world. Energy that could be tamed and controlled to boost the output of practically any technology it was applied to, giving the Imperial Baneblade even more firepower than ever before, making Sentinels faster and more agile, Hellhounds had their flames superheated to incredible levels, and the mighty Basilisks became more devastating than ever recorded. But these gifts did not go unnoticed.
Orks on neighbouring worlds somehow learned of the power of the world, and under the leadership of a powerful Warboss, they began a massive assault on the planet. Orks from all over the universe joined forces under the banner of the Waaagh! and flocked to the small planet at the edge of known space. However, they found no easy battle, for the Imperial Guard were now armed to the teeth with super-charged tanks and artillery, backed up by Guardsmen with supernatural morale. The conflict lasted for decades before the Commissar finally sent out requests for reinforcements from Segmentum Command, and it was the Ultramarines who again answered the call, dispatching all the chapter had to offer to this mysterious planet. They expected to find an over-hyped Ork Waaagh! and a Warboss who needed taking down a few steps with bolter fire. Instead, they would find a war like no other.
The Dark Gods hungered for revenge.
