Being a thread on Chemos

[LSM]

I've been thinking about Chemos lately, and decided to do a deep dive into everything I could find about it. As always: thoughts, additions, and corrections are most welcome.

 

//

 

To get the basics out of the way, on a galactic map Chemos was a coreward world of the Ultima Segmentum; southwest of The Maelstrom, with Badab and Chogoris to its east and Ryza and Catachan to its northwest.

 

 

I tried my best to locate the first use of Chemos for the name of the Emperor's Children's homeworld, but was unable to find anything from before 2001's Index Astartes article. I imagine there to be a list somewhere in Rogue Trader or 2nd edition, giving the names of all the Primarchs and their homeworlds... but if it exists then I haven't managed to track it down. (Any help here would be appreciated.) I'm also not sure how GW chooses to pronounce it officially, as I don't listen to audiobooks. (Again - any help here would be appreciated). My natural inclination is towards "KAY-mose , but I can imagine others saying "KEM-us" or "KEE-mose", etc.

 

When it comes to the inspiration for the name, I have in the past seen people wonder if it might be a reference to Chemicals or Chemotherapy. Fabius Bile was (in his 1996 lore) referred to as 'The Chem-Master' (amongst his other nicknames), and there is the concept of the Emperor's Children suffering from the gene-cancer known as The Blight. (Though it was only introduced in Nick Kyme's 2015 story Chirurgeon, as far as I'm aware. Previously, in 2012's The Horus Heresy: Book One - Betrayal, the accident which had destroyed the Emperor's Children's gene-seed was twofold. First, a large stock of it was lost when the ship transporting it to Luna was destroyed/went missing. We eventually find out that it was nicked by Trazyn the Infinite, per 2017's Fabius Bile: Clonelord. Secondly, the gene-seed vaults on Terra were infected with "a fast acting viral blight" which damaged the reserves of many of the Legions; but the Emperor's Children were hit the hardest and had their reserves completely wiped out. So, as pre-2015 "The Blight" didn't exist, Chemos cannot have been named after it.)

 

Historically (in the real world), Chemos (as 'Chemosh', and pronounced along the lines of "KAY-maash") was the god of the Moabites and interestingly may have origins as an epithet for Nergal (who in turn likely inspired the name Nurgle). King Solomon permitted the worship of Chemosh (as well as Astarte and Milcom) amongst foreigners in Israel; but these practises were ended by King Josiah during his purges. In the Book of Kings, the Moabite King Mesha is recorded as sacrificing his son to Chemosh on the walls of Divon to defeat the Israelites. (Mesha's version of events doesn't include him sacrificing anyone; he just claims to have been victorious thanks to the power of Chemosh. The modern city is Dhiban, in Jordan.) 

 

Chemos (no 'h' at the end) is then present in John Milton's popular and influential fanfic, Paradise Lost (1667), as one of the daemons hanging out with the Satan:

 

Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroar to Nebo and the wild
Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond
The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Eleälè to the Asphaltic pool.
Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel, in Sittim on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

 

So we can probably assume that whoever named the Emperor's Children's homeworld as Chemos was doing so in reference to Milton's daemon of obscenity and lust.

 

//

 

The 2001 Index Astartes article describes Chemos thusly:

• Chemos was a mining colony, which depended on interstellar trade for food before the Age of Strife. A bleak and inhospitable world lit by two distant suns, and surrounded by a nebular dust cloud, Chemos knew no day or night; but only a permanent grey twilight in which no stars were ever seen in the sky.
• Once cut-off, humanity starved to death; except for in the few Factory-Fortresses where citizens worked every waking hour to man the vapour mines, synthesisers, and recyclers. They were able to just barely produce enough food to hang on, and art and leisure were sacrificed on the altar of survival. Only efficiency was valued. 
• When a meteor was seen impacting near the Factory-Fortress of Callax, its Executives sent out a few scouts (all that could be spared) to investigate for evidence of continued human existence beyond Chemos. They found a child.
• Orphans on Chemos were put to death, as there were no resources to care for them. The veteran Captain who found the child had to make a special appeal to the Executives to be allowed to adopt him, and was only permitted this due to his value to Callax. He named the boy Fulgrim, after the long-discarded Chemosian god of creation. 
• In Callax the young Fulgrim laboured in the fulfillment of his responsibilities to the Executive, working for days without end. Not only was he physically tireless, but he came to know the machines and began contemplating their improvement. He quickly became an Engineer, and by the age of 15 was promoted to one of the Executives of Callax.
• Fulgrim managed to convince his fellow Executives to stop merely trying to survive, and instead fight to improve. Under him, teams of Engineers travelled to long-dead outposts, reopened ancient mines, and brought to Callax the materials necessary for the construction of new, more sophisticated machines. Recycling efficiency improved to the point where Callax began producing more than it consumed for the first time in millennia.
• Fulgrim took pride in reintroducing the art and culture which had been cast aside in the name of survival. As Callax grew the other Factory-Fortresses of Chemos allied themselves to it, and by the age of 50 he ruled all of Chemos.
• Chemos had no formal army, only the 'Caretakers'; the police-soldiery responsible for maintaining order in the Factory-Fortresses. 
• When Fulgrim hosted the Emperor he did so in his "spartan quarters", and he was excited at the sight of the Third Legion's civilised artistry (the sort of thing he had "longed to return to Chemos").
• Once it had entered the Imperium, Chemos expanded its industrial base and became a source of processed minerals. The Emperor's Children's Fortress-Monastery was constructed in the centre of Callax, and drew recruits from the planet's strongest, bravest, and brightest. (The Chemosian recruits proved themselves resourceful, "but even so only a handful of them passed the rigorous tests...")
• Once he left, Fulgrim never returned to Chemos.
• After the lifting of the Siege, Chemos was assaulted by Imperial forces. Following this, the system was quarantined and no information on Chemos has been recorded (even including, oddly, any record of Exterminatus).

 

Officially, as of 2023, the Primarchs were scattered around 792.M30, while the discovery of Chemos/Fulgrim is 38 years later in 830.M30. This means that Fulgrim being 50 when he united the planet has either been retconned, or is the result of some timey-wimey Warp shenanigans sending him back to an earlier date than he left Earth. Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness (1988) mentions that it took 60 years for the Emperor's Children to see action (after the accident which destroyed their gene-seed), which is repeated in the 1996 Codex, and probably what 2001's "50 years old" figure is playing off of.

 

I absolutely love this lore, and this Index Astartes article is what first brought me into the fold. (Adding to my Iron Warriors.) I really like the idea that the grand, superior, gaudy Emperor's Children come from a backwater mining colony. I like the idea of the Legion at this early stage having Chemosian "nouveau riche" clashing with the Terran "old money". I also like the idea that Fulgrim never went back, and like to think it's not because he was busy but... why would he want to go back?

 

It's also a really interesting backstory for Fulgrim. He wasn't part of some warrior tribe, or knightly order, or noble resistance. He didn't kill his way to the top. He was child labourer, who went into a trade, started dreaming up technical creations, succeeded upwards until he was running the place, and then had his world ally themselves to him. Chemos had no armies - they didn't have any resources to throw against each others' walls. And then: boom, the Emperor appears, hands Fulgrim a Legion, and he retools himself into the perfect warrior.

 

I'll also note that at this point in the development of the Emperor's Children, they had no associations with duelling. (In the Index Astartes articles, that was an aspect of the Imperial Fists; duelling culture had been common amongst their Terran marines and Dorn had promoted it to the Inwit recruits in an attempt to foster unity. Also, a year later, Lucius the Eternal was introduced and only had a WS of 5 - the same as Typhus and Ahriman, and less than Abaddon's 6 or Khârn's 7.) To me, it makes a degree of sense that Fulgrim would not have grown up with any sort of instruction in swordsmanship (his adoptive father was an Engineer), nor would I expect the Executives of such a place to have anything of the sort.

 

I'll also note that while Fulgrim had begun reintroducing art and leisure, I imagine that to be "work only 12 hours a day; seven days a week; minus a holiday to mark Fulgrim's arrival" and not that he transformed Chemos into any sort of idyllic paradise. He polished that turd, but it was still a turd. To back this idea, I'll note that his quarters were "spartan" and he was overwhelmed by the artistry displayed by the Third Legionaries presented to him.

 

With the Heresy kicking off in 005.M31, Chemos would have spent 175 years under Imperial rule (importing various goods, and thus no longer being trapped in survival mode). So there's plenty of time for it to have developed a duelling culture, etc. post-compliance. Especially if Fulgrim had also adopted such.

 

//

 

In 2007's Fulgrim (Graham McNeill), Chemos' description is in tune with the IA article: "...a world that knew neither day nor night, thanks to a nebular dust cloud that isolated the planet from its distant suns. A perpetual grey twilight through which the stars never shone was all [Solomon Demeter] had known..." On the other hand, Lord Commander Vespasian notes that Lord Commander Illios had been "...a warrior who had fought with Fulgrim against rival tribes of Chemos..." and had helped transform the world from one of misery into one of culture and learning. 

 

To me... I like the idea from 2001 of Fulgrim taking over Chemos non-militarily, so a reference to him fighting rival tribes sits ill with me. I also like the idea of Chemos still being a dump (just a better dump) until it comes into compliance with the Imperium.

 

Multiple characters in Fulgrim use the exclamation "by Chemos". It notes that the Legion grew with a steady stream of recruits from both Chemos and Terra (with both Julius Kaesoron and Solomon Demeter being from the former). Eidolon apparently has a landscape painting of Chemos hanging above his bed, which... sadly seems to not be a joke about the walls in his room being painted grey. (I guess the implication must be that Chemos has been terraformed to a significant degree by the time of the Horus Heresy.)

 

//

 

In 2012's Angel Exterminatus (Graham McNeill) there are four 'Theogonies' introducing the three 'Books' of the novel. In the first we witness Perturabo's arrival on Olympus, second Ferrus Manus' initial taste of Medusa, and then...

• Three Callax scouts are sheltering from the razor particulate of a "wire storm" in a "ruined manufactory" on Chemos. Their names are Ptolea, Sullax, and Coryn, and despite their shelter setting off their rad-counters, it's better than being torn apart by the storm. They were in one of the generating stations that had long ago laid waste to the planet, releasing toxins that had burned the atmosphere and boiled away the seas.
• Callax is described as a bleak fortress, with high iron walls; beneath a sky referred to as "the Umbral" and surrounded by a "chem wilderness" full of "chem-dust". Everything is reused, nothing is new. Water is extracted by vapour mills, and food is reconstituted bodily waste. Coryn has a chapbook which has been passed down for generations, and is the only source of colour he has ever known - both in its illustrations, as well as the tales it tells of gods and feasts, blue skies and stars. (His father told him that stars still exist, but no one really believes that - his father said a lot of things. His father's limbs had become too weak to work the forges, and his mind was slipping; he'd soon no longer be of any use to logistics.)
• Coryn mentions to Ptolea (his "dwelling-sister") that he'd always hoped to pass the chapbook on to a child, if he could ever get permission for one. Sullax says that the radiation will see to that never happening, and when told that he didn't have to come counters that Coryn is his "work-brother" and if he dies then Sullax would have to cover his quota. Coryn thinks about how he had to persuade the Executive to dispatch them to investigate the violet comet, and feels guilty about the radiation making them infertile - or possibly worse, unproductive.
• The impact site is oddly still and calm, and smelled sweet and fragrant (not like the expected toxins). As they approach, they see cohering light; fleeting images of eyes, golden wings, genetic helixes, and a thousand wheels turning like in the heart of a great machine. Ptolea and Sullax are a bit weary, but Coryn confidently approaches as the light coils into itself to be reborn from its own self-immolation. He feels a presence brush his mind, and everything he was, it knew. Everything he knew, it knew. At the heart of the light was a baby boy.
• Sullax pulls a knife to kill the child, as that's what's done to orphans. Ptolea and Coryn object, and Sullax points out that they don't need the burden. Ptolea shoots Sullax, and Coryn feels nothing - Sullax had threatened the perfect child, and suffered the appropriate fate. As Coryn cradles the boy, water begins to bubble and flow from the crack in the earth that had been beneath him. He hands the child to Ptolea, and shows her a page from his book: the ancient creation myth of a purple-hued god rising from primordial waters to turn a barren world into a fertile paradise. "It's the water-bringer... Fulgrim."
• (The forth Theogony is Lucius waking up in Fabius' burning lab, as the Apothecary fights off two of his rampaging monsters. Lucius rescues from the flames the chimera'd gene-seed that would go on to make Honsou, and then scampers when Fabius starts asking him about how he's alive.)

 

This presents Chemos as not "naturally" being barely habitable, but (to some degree) it being the result of various power plants having disastrous meltdowns. We also see a bunch of references to chemical spillage, runoff, industrial waste, etc. A polluted world, rather than it just inherently sucking. (Perhaps McNeill wished to associate Chem-os with chem-icals.) I do like how absolutely bleak the Chemosians are (worried about not being able to work - and thus implicitly needing to be executed).

 

The bits with baby Fulgrim, while not strictly about Chemos, are wild enough that I felt the need to include them. For some reason Fulgrim is a baby (while Perturabo and Ferrus Manus were young boys upon their arrivals). He's clearly a psyker, and there's some real crazy imagery going on. (Plus, of course, references to being a Phoenix.) He's got a supernatural grip on some people, who will casually murder friends to protect him. Very sinister origins.

 

//

 

2012's The Horus Heresy: Book One - Betrayal describes drab Chemos as a grey-skinned grey-skied mining world, where hope was thin, drudgery life, and slow decay the fate of humanity. Privation was common, but Fulgrim became a beacon of hope to its people; and his coming saw a resurgence of craft, art, and intellectualism which had set the planet on the path to... not greatness, but betterment.  

 

It's speculated that in the scant 200 Emperor's Children presented to him Fulgrim saw an echo of Chemos' struggle. The Third Legion began recruiting from the planet, even though Imperial advisors suggested against this - there was little to mark the Chemosians as suitable candidates for the Legion, with the planet lacking any strong martial culture. Fulrgim disagreed; the Chemosians had the will to rise above their beginnings and become something greater, in his opinion. (The Terran nobility were noted to renew their tribute of sons at this point, and it was common for Fulgrim to accept the sons of various planets' aristocracies post-compliance.)

 

Chemos is noted as having a Temperate-Subarctic climate, to be a Moderate Terran Analogue [77%], to be suffering ecosphere imbalance due to generational mining exhaustion, and to be (in early M31) undergoing environmental repair. The native population is listed at 500M people. It is the capital of the Aquitaine Sector of the Ultima Segmentum. 

 

//

 

Graham McNeill's 2012 Priests of Mars contains a little reference to Chemos (and The Princess Bride). A Black Templar is duelling (and employs Bonetti's defense), with his opponent noting his grip was that of Thibault while his footwork "was that of the great swordsman of Chemos, Agrippa".

 

Personally, while cute... this doesn't make much sense to me. My assumption would be that post-Heresy the Inquisition would have done its utmost to destroy all Chemosian teachings. Something might have snuck through, but of any Chapter the Black Templars definitely feel like they shouldn't be using Chemosian duelling techniques. If they had found a book instructing such, it would have been thrown to the flame. If they had found a school teaching such, the flame would have been thrown at it.

 

//

 

Amongst Lucius' sobriquets is 'Scion of Chemos'. 2013's Warlords of the Dark Millennium: Lucius the Eternal includes some further mentions of Chemos:

• It describes the planet of his youth as "dismal", with Lucius shining out "like a jewel in the earth." He had an immense reservoir of talent and a boyish handsomeness "that even the harsh air of his home planet could not mar." His "sponsored studies" turned to the art of war; though not grand strategy and tactical analysis, but duelling and the business of killing (which he was fascinated by).
• It is said that he surpassed the "classical styles taught by the weapons masters of Chemos" at a young age, and his rapier killed many beggars and brigands who he claimed had attacked him in the street. He scarred hundreds of his fellow pupils, and often "accidentally" cut off a finger or claimed an eye, while never being touched himself. He grew famous for fighting with a lackadaisical contempt when facing his peers (with his character repeatedly called into question), while he fought like a man possessed when pitted against his tutors.
• In the tournament of the Golden Blades, held yearly by the "Elders of Chemos", the young Lucius was matched against a Champion twice his age. He was winning gracefully until his opponent kneed him in the gut, after which he sadistically took apart his foe - limb by limb. The Champion's supporters rushed the arena, and Lucius killed scores of them. There were too many, though, and Lucius would have met a gory end if he hadn't been scooped up by a spectating Sergeant of the Emperor's Children. He was never seen on Chemos again, having been inducted into the Legion.

 

While it's not known when Lucius was initiated, it seems that Chemos was still a geologically quite a mess. There were also apparently "beggars and brigands" that could believably attack young bravados in the street, so any claims that Chemos was a wonderful society post-compliance should be doubted. It had "classical styles" of duelling, which implies (to me) that duelling should have been a long-standing tradition, which... doesn't gel with my preferences. I suppose if Lucius was a relatively "young" ~75 (or less) at the time of the Heresy, then Chemos would have had around a century to establish a duelling tradition before he was inducted; I don't know if that's enough time for it's duelling culture to have "classic" styles, though I suppose it could be. There are "classic" styles of video games in the real world, after all, that are far younger.

 

//

 

The 'Kallax' shelf is released by Ikea in 2014. Coincidence? I think not.

 

//

 

In 2016's The Path of Heaven (Chris Wraight), Eidolon is described as "[gazing] down from the throne with the dull-eyed, listless mien of the Chemosian aristocracy... In what remained of the III Legion's military hierarchy, that still counted for much, although there were many, Lucius perhaps foremost, who had treated it with a contempt..." (In Eidolon: The Auric Hammer he is said to be from Terra instead.) Taking place mid-Heresy, Eidolon has a new breastplate chased with silver "bestiary from Old Terra and Chemos". The pre-Heresy colour scheme is described as the "old armour of Chemos"; "the colours of the Legion as they had been forged on Chemos."

 

//

 

Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix (Josh Reynolds, 2017) has a number of points where Fulgrim reflects on the world of his upbringing:

• When Fulgrim travelled to Terra he visited the noble families of Europa and got them to renew the contribution of sons to the Third, in an effort to boost the number of initiates; he also had claimed the firstborn sons of a thousand conquered worlds.
• The story takes place around 837-840.M30 (after Guilliman is discovered, before Magnus), and involves a small team of seven Emperor's Children taking a world (as a show of superiority). Narvo Quinn, a Terran, thinks of the new Chemosian marines: "...there was little to mark the natives of Chemos out as suitable warriors. They were drones, drudges and dullards. That the Phoenician doted on them so was a constant irritation to him." He notes that it seems that the upper ranks of the Legion are quickly being filled by Chemosians.
• Lord Commander Abdemon, when reminiscing about his first glimpse of Fulgrim, describes him atop his "fortress of glass and steel", wearing gleaming "executive robes". Chemos he calls a "drab, silent world" except for where Fulgrim strode - there, colour and sound flourished. He watches Cyrius (not yet a Lord Commander) duelling, and notes that many Chemosians are duellists. "They possessed a strong thread of personal combat in their cultural weave. It revealed itself not simply in blade-work, but in all forms of activity, even poetry and music." 
• When talking with Fabius, Fulgrim notes that he had known workaholics on Chemos. Left to themselves, they could work themselves to death. Fulgrim also learned on Chemos the importance of having the right man for the job, and believes Fabius is the one who can cure The Blight. Fulgrim has gone out of his way to quash any talk of the "necessary evils" previously committed by Fabius (so that he doesn't face distraction/challenge).
• There are spiders, of a sort, on Chemos; which ever spin their webs - never slowing or stopping. They refine chemical sludge into perfect crystalline latticework. Chemosian shaft-cats are also named. (Cyrius' sword's hilt is carved from one's jaw.)
• The "remaining oceans" on Chemos are almost devoid of life, despite Fulgrim's efforts. The waters are grey and cold.
• Fulgrim reminisces about the Sulpha people of Chemos. They had been nomadic tribes that believed the only fit occupations for men were duelling and dancing. Fulgrim had spent time with them, and learned their ways. A wild folk, they had been the last thing on Chemos not under his control, and so he had destroyed them. He wonders how he would have turned out, had he been found my them instead of two downtrodden factory workers (Corrin and Tullea). "Life in the fortress-factory of Callax had broken them early..." Fulgrim keeps busts of his parents in his room: unadorned marble, expressions of weary acceptance. 
• It is said that Fulgrim took control of Callax "within a few months of being put to work there." Chemos was a dying world, it's mines tapped and ores plundered. The Sulpha people had been the largest of the primitive groups, but not the only one. He remembers fierce fighting against the cannibal tribes in factories gone cold, the doomed expedition to Deep Processor One, and "the monstrous thing he'd faced on the fourble board" (a reference to the episode The Thing on the Fourble Board of the late 40s radio fantasy/horror show Quiet, Please!). There is also mention of folk heroes like Dig-Operator Jak and Nimble Tolliver. 
• For 50 years he waged war against the planet's decline, and on the day he won the Emperor appeared.
• Fulgrim recognises the bureaucracy that's forming in the Imperium, and thinks that his brothers don't see it (though maybe Horus has an inkling). Fulgrim had grown up in such, and been forced to navigate spheres of influence as he broke down and rebuilt the Executive system. It is said that on Chemos, treachery was just another weapon in the Executive's arsenal; deals were made and broken easily, and honour was a fluid concept. "An oath to a fool was no oath at all. The only true consequences were those you couldn't adapt to."
• When the Emperor's Children are about to deploy, there are Chemosian musicians playing them off. "It was a dolorous composition... Something from Chemos, she supposed, given the origins of the musicians. A drab little world, with equally sombre music."
• Fulgrim's Stormbird Firebird is equipped with a bafflefield that Fulgrim designed as a boy to protect the ears of deep-ore hauler crews. It is mentioned that there used to be wretched slums on Chemos, but not any more.
• Fulgrim says that "The Phoenician" was a nickname bestowed upon him by an unknown member of the Emperor's court, as a reference to his purple panoply. This is in conflict with Fulgrim, which states that the title is a reference to the Phoenix, and it is then a bit perplexing that the book names the capital of Chemos as Phoenicia. And this does not appear to be a recent change - "[Phoenicia] had withstood many of the ravages that afflicted the rest of the world, and under Fulgrim's guidance, it had ascended to heights undreamt of by its citizens." Fulgrim describes it as being quite beautiful.
• The Emperor's Children fight alongside the Archite Palatines - a Solar Auxilia regiment drawn from the noble houses of Europa, Terra. A character wonders about "Fulgrim's programme of inducting common-born Chemosians into the Legion." They conclude that "Even the most illustrious bloodline needed an infusion from hardy peasant stock every century or so, after all."
• Fulgrim remembers labour disputes during his upbringing - worker protests, and the harsh responses of the Executives (including searing gas and the use of shock-batons by the Caretakers). Fulgrim was with his parents, amongst the protestors. As he grew older his views shifted, and he replaced concepts like right and wrong with efficiency and necessity; a broken cog had to be replaced. Fulgrim still valued broken cogs, though, and believed that they could become something new and beautiful. He notes that secret societies were rife on Chemos during his youth - with masks, secret handshakes, and childish cyphers. They were a rebellious response to the "Brutal working conditions, malnourishment, inadequate shelter. Crimes of negligence, rather than intent... The workers were deprived of their humanity in order to increase compliance."
• One of the Emperor's Children is recording the sounds of gunfire and musing about setting them to music later. He notes that he's always found gunfire soothing - "He'd heard similar sounds often enough on Chemos as a child... The whine of low velocity slugs hitting sheet metal, and the screaming that followed. Always the screaming."
• Another marine, when in a cacophonous ore-processing facility, thinks that it reminds him of Chemos. Or what he imagines Chemos to be like, since he's never actually travelled there and has no desire to ever do so.
• Cyrius thinks about how he was the son of an Executive, and that aristocracy was the same everywhere (no matter what it called itself locally). When duelling some opponents he bows low to them, which is considered an insult on Chemos (ascribing more respect to someone than they deserve).

 

A bit of an interesting mix. We get people both expressing that Chemosians are boring dirt-farmers, but also... that duelling is very much a Chemosian thing? (And this is only around a decade after compliance - even if the book uses the "50 year old Fulgrim" figure which no longer matches GW's dates - so there's no time for a duelling culture to have matured post-compliance.) We also have the presentation of Chemosian society in the factory-fortresses as a little more "normal". Cyrius thinking of the Executives as being run-of-the-mill aristocracy, and not something interesting and unique. The workers striking for better conditions, instead of needing to work every waking hour at the recyclers to stave off death. There being slums, and the sounds of gunfire, etc.

 

The introduction of the Sulpha clans are a little wonky for me, as if nomadic peoples could survive outside the factory-fortresses it makes Chemos sound a little less awful. What were these nomadic swordsmen/dancers eating and drinking? (Technically, their existence doesn't break the idea of Chemos lacking a "strong martial culture", as by the time the Imperium showed up Fulgrim had killed them all.) Of course, I'm not a fan of their introduction, as that means that Fulgrim was a "warrior" pre-compliance. Also not a fan of the "cannibal clans", for both the reason that it's more people able to exist on Chemos and... like, Chemosians should all be cannibals? The factory-fortresses reprocess everything; surely they're all eating their dead as well.

 

(Not sure why there is the name change of "Coryn and Ptolea" to "Corrin and Tullea".)

 

//

 

2017's Fabius Bile: Clonelord (Josh Reynolds) mentions "obscene Chemosian gutter-poetry". It describes the accent of Chemos as "lilting", and mentions that on Chemos that Fulgrim himself had conducted biological experiments (such as procedures to extend lifespans and cure various ailments like "glowlung"). Fabius had knelt to Fulgrim on Chemos, as one of the 200 Legionaries presented at their reunification. The book says that Fulgrim means "water-bringer" or "saviour" in the language of "old Chemos".

 

In 2020's Fabius Bile: Manflayer (Josh Reynolds), Fulgrim's daemon world is possibly named Callax (as of 140.M31), though that might just be the name of the place a character is in. When Bile arrives, he notes it to be a drab, grey "mote of factorum grit" - a recreation of Chemos. A barren landscape of tumbled stones and dust dunes amidst rusting heaps of abandoned machinery, beneath a sky leached of colour, with the lifeless skeletons of refineries and factories dotting the horizon. It is said that Chemos had been a warring planet before Fulgrim took it over, and on his daemon world Fulgrim has recreated his rise to power (repeatedly attempting to "perfect" his choices).

 

There appear to be mountains in the distance, but they're actually mounds of corpses - and a character comments that Fulgrim was "Always so wasteful... You’d think growing up on a world like Chemos would have taught him better." As the characters progress they meet others: monks carving erotic imagery on each other, pilgrims bathing in acidic pools of runoff, Noise Marines engaged in sonic duels that reverberate for miles, and inhuman merchants hawking things including weapons forged in the hour of Chemos' destruction, "gilded copies of the Chemosian Cantos", and the skull of the last High Executive. 

 

Fulgrim is residing in the Garden of Sixfold Pleasure, which does not (in M37) appear very garden-ish but consists instead of abandoned hab-blocks and manufactoria surrounded by high walls of flesh. He mentions that he "took" Chemos. (And not, as in 2001, that the factory-fortresses allied to him because he was making things better.)

 

At one point Narvo Quinn (a Terran) reflects on his reason for seeking out Fulgrim: trying to repair the Legion, in a way that Eidolon, Julius Kaesoron, Lucius (or even Fabius) weren't interested in. "No Chemosian-born gutter-rat, certainly" he thinks. 

 

//

 

David Guymer's novella Dreadwing (2018) is about the Dark Angels campaign of destruction against the homeworlds of the Traitor Legions on their way to Terra (in an effort to get said Traitor Legions to peel off support from their attack on the Sol System, and force them to defend their seats of power). They are surprised by the lack of care that the Emperor's Children (et al) seem to have for Chemos (et al); noting that if Caliban was threatened they'd have "set phosphex to the galaxy, to the Throneworld itself, before allowing such harm to come to [it]."

 

Later in the story an Emperor's Children voidship Captain/daemon tells a Dark Angels strike group: "Prince Fulgrim forwards his regards, and tenders his regrets. He assures you that he entertains no hard feelings over the destruction of Chemos. He has quite outgrown it, you see, and would have inflicted the same upon your world if he could but care enough to recall its name."

 

//

 

In White Dwarf 178 (2022) Chemos is said to have been completely obliterated by the Dark Angels via seismic macro-charges, followed by orbital bombardment, which caused the detonation of the planet's core (with slabs Chemos sent tumbling out into space). The First Legion declared the system Perdita, and set up warning beacons threatening reprisal against any who dared enter. Notably, it describes Chemos as having had "glittering metropolises" at the time of its destruction. 

 

//

 

Apocryphally, the Fandom Wiki says "As beautiful forests were planted on ground once mined for metals and wondrous cities of glass, gold, crystal and steel rose to new heights of glory...", but that site (very frustratingly) refuses to properly source anything.

 

Googling around, it might have been lifted from a 2019 entry on this blog, which also doesn't present a source? If anyone knows where this comes from, I'd be much obliged.