The Stellar Forges of Caelenia

[Skalpynock]

Located near the Segmentum Obscurus' border with the Solar and Pacificus, the Forge World of Caelenia was one of the earliest worlds to feel the touch of the Crusade, having been the target of an emissary fleet sent from Mars during the Age of Strife. That fleet was led by the archmagos Tsol Eckonin, who found a frozen planet ruled by two complementary noble castes: the Cosmists, whose eyes were turned ever skyward at the tempests in the Warp, while their people toiled to assemble the stellar ships they designed, and the Demiurges, flesh-smiths dedicated to the creation of the most productive slaves and pack beasts. Oaths were bound, with both the Cosmist stellarch Plothes and Crija, genesist of the Demiurges; when the storms in the starways ceased, they would become vassals to Mars, and acquire power in the greater Process. In the meantime, the whole of Caelenian nobility was slowly inducted to the Cult Mechanicum, although the Omnissiah was there referred to as the Great Process, the force that led mankind to use tools, and which favours the human specie over all others, hence the failures of Xenotech and Silica Anima.
With the various new STC provided by Eckonin, the Cosmists were able to contact the nearby system of Inesis, where the Knightly House of Donafos quickly swore fealty to both Caelenia and Mars, in exchange for the construction of additional engines of war.

In 016.M30, the Great Crusade reached the expanse of the Caelite subsector, and inducted the Forge World to the greater Imperium and Mechanicum; it was however not a completely peaceful reunion, as the Demiurges later experiment were seen as malatech by the Martian overseers. That led to a minor rebellion in which hordes of genaugmented slave-beasts were released against the Cosmists and Machine-clergy. A minor contingent of at least one Legio Astartes is known to have assisted in the purging of the bio-abomination, but its identity has been lost to history. The Genesist was deposed, the demiurges put under a closer watch by the Prefecture Magisterium; as a measure of self-censure, the Caelenian authorities changed their heraldry from gleaming white and azure to the blackness of space and the orange glow of engines, for the Cosmists were now the true nobility. Major achievements of the planet's massive shipyards during the Great Crusade include the Imperial Fists vessels “Roma Invicta” and “Basileus”, the Iron Warriors carrier “Stronghold of the Worthy” and the personal ship of rogue trader militant Damasio “Windbreaker”. Surprisingly for a Forge World, Caelenia was not bound to any Titan Legio, instead hosting a vast division of the Centurio Ordinatus and Ordo Reductor.

During the Horus Heresy, the Stellarch Dajadros-KLG-0 swore himself to the cause of the Warmaster, seduced by the prospects of an independent Mechanicum and the attractive promise of exclusive STC. However his second in command, Phi-Rho-NZ, led those who were true to the light of the Great Process in a lengthy campaign to reclaim his world for the Emperor; Skitarii and Thallaxi died by hundreds of thousands to only break the walls of the Command-Fortress. It was only by the combined might of a maniple of Ordinatii Minoris and a strike from orbit by the Hand of Pertinax, an assault ship that was to be delivered to the Imperial Fists legion, but delayed by the Heresy, that the main heretical forces were reduced to dust.

Caelenia spent the greater part of the Scouring relieving itself from its losses, rebuilding most of the industrial infrastructure, and purging the Neo-Demiurges abominations released under the direction of Dajadros.
The centuries following the fall of the Emperor saw the birth of new beliefs in the Caelenites priesthood: the Golden Throne in itself, being a pinnacle of the Great Proceeding, and the Emperor, its incarnation in Human Form, bound together, formed a singular God-Machine and Machine-God.

[Frater Cornelius]

Oh damn, I really like the birth of the new belief at the end. It makes so much sense and so neatly twisted to fit the AdMech belief. Good thinking there ;)