The Great War

"In the Sidereal year 582.M41 the Great Enemy invaded. Many tell tales of those first days as the 'lectorscopes and astro-telepathic relays in the outer sectors reported the first attacks.   The attacks were devastating, this first strikes by the Ork Warfleets are remembered in legends as “The Blood Tide” - the Orks left only blood and destruction in their wake as they tore through the outer reaches.   Imperator Baraqu of House Baraqu led the Imperial Navy to a last, glorious stand against the Blood Tide at the core. The cost was immense in every sense of the word, but the Ork assault was staggered. Under the Imperator's inspired leadership the Caliphate Houses were aligned and the Imperial Fleet began counter-attacks and strategic strikes.   The exact details of the bravery and sacrifice of the Great War have been lost or consigned to lost storage vaults, or sealed in the logbooks of ships that drift endless on long orbits around the sun. Stories passed down within families and the few records that remain accessible tell of a time of starvation - until the population dropped low enough for the strained resource-producers to keep up with. The centuries of war held ever-present death and destruction on a scale that’s hard to imagine. The remains of the war can be seen all over the system, everywhere one cares to look there will be plentiful scars; shattered wrecks of star-forts and voidships are a ubiquitous presence, ruined worlds, in some places the vacuum-frozen corpses of fighters have drifted for over three-hunred-years. The void itself is filled with electromagnetic screams, calls for help and high-energy radiation hash that make long-range communications and auspex readings essentially impossible.   Recorded in every person's heart is the final defeat of the Ork Warboss in 872, a year that will live as long as there are humans alive to remember it. The great war-leader, another hero from the Great House Baraqu, led a cadre of elite soldiers equipped with the finest Imperial arms and armour aboard the Ork's flagship - a monstrous vessel bearing down on Primus. There they fought hordes of Ork and managed to destroy the enormours vessel's engines. The ship was unable to maintain orbit, and smashed down to Primus, enveloping the entire planet in a dust cloud, and killing every Ork aboard instantly, unfortunately also ending the lives of any survivors from the boarding team, including the Noble Baraqu.."   - From the 'Momoirs of a survivor', attributed to Joachim Claudus.