Antara Sigma

**Antara Sigma** is a loyalist Adeptus Mechanicus forge world located in the Ultima Segmentum in the Artemis Sector and is aligned with the Imperium of Man. It is truly the definition of a forge world, every landmass covered in industries and forges. Once, this place was an isolated forge world, going into self imposed exile for what happened to the world during the Horus Heresy.

For nearly 10,000 years, Antara Sigma stood isolated, and where once its name rang throughout the Artemis Sector, it was now a forgotten place, a fallen idol from a better time. It slowly rebuilt over these many years, and by the time it returned, it was nearly back to its former glory.

The forge world returned after Hive Fleet Anubis descended upon the world, and after the hive fleet was thought defeated, it returned to the galactic stage, realizing that isolation will not get them anywhere. The fought many more campaigns alongside House Valkia, the Penitent Scorpions, and many other Imperial allies.

## History

### Founding

Antara Sigma was founded during the turmoil of the Age of Strife, somewhere in the 26th Millennium, when a Mechanicum fleet launched from Mars arrived on the pristine world that was named Antara Sigma. The settlers traveled the world, claiming more land and established countless more forge cities. When the Antarans discovered that the world was rich in adamantium, they began digging further into the ground, and mining they near limitless supply of raw materials.

It was also discovered that the oceans of Antara Sigma contained vital elements to produce and refine promethium, and if they could refine the liquid in the right way, they could produce a near-limitless supply of promethium fuel. Grand refineries were built along the coastlines of the worlds three continents, and the recipe was soon perfected, allowing for the fuel to be produced at very efficient rates.

The Antarans also were able to construct a massive orbit ring much like the Ring of Iron of Mars, and named it the Celestial Foundry. It was a truly massive installation, for not only was it a shipyard, but forged and produced the materials needed for itself, and also harvested the asteroids of the planets ring. Four "elevators" connected the Celestial Foundry to the surface of Antara Sigma, dividing it into four quadrants.

### Great Crusade

When the Great Crusade finally launched into the stars, the world was rediscovered in 835.M30 when a fleet of vessels from the Blood Angels Legion rediscovered Antara Sigma. The world, by this time, was almost entirely covered in metal, and the oceans were refined into promethium, and the Celestial Foundry sat in orbit, forging and mining the resources needed for survival.

It was discovered also that the Antarans had colonized the two inner worlds of the system as well, Enin and Uren, as mining worlds for the forges, and also the gas giant Querin, which lay on the outer bounds of the system, to harvest the gasses in the upper atmosphere. The Blood Angels, seeing the potential that the forge world possesed, made contact with the Fabricator-General Bosch-Vaiix, who, after seeing the fellow Tech-Priests from Mars accompany the Astartes, pledged their world, and system, to the cause of the Great Crusade.

Antara Sigma was informed of an Imperial Knight World in the neighboring Sunder system, on the world of Indivia, home to House Valkia, and that they were to send Tech-Priests and other magi to the world to aid them. The magi indoctrinated the local artisans into the Cult Mechanicus to better aid in the maintenance of the Knight suits, which had fallen into disrepair during the era of Age of Strife.

House Valkia was deeply grateful for the repairment of their few remaining Knights, and the construction and delivery of dozens more to the world. All Antara Sigma asked for in return was food, minerals, and workers in exchange for the constant delivery and maintenance of their suits, and House Valkia agreed. House Valkia and Antara Sigma became grand allies, and fought in many campaigns together throughout the Great Crusade.

### Horus Heresy

#### Corruption of Antara Sigma

After Warmaster Horus declared his rebellion against the Imperium of Man and the Emperor, the Mechanicum were not spared from the internal division. Horus sent agents of the traitorous Mechanicum to Antara Sigma, knowing that the world was a prize and asset to be taken.

Horus would send corrupted magi to the world to sway Fabricator-General Bosch-Vaiix to the cause. These corrupted tech-priests, ensnared by the promises of forbidden knowledge and dark power, arrived on Antara Sigma disguised as emissaries of the Mechanicum. Their efforts were clandestine and calculated. They exploited the existing discontent within the Forge World's ranks, subtly insinuating that the Emperor's vision had faltered, that the Mechanicum's destiny lay with the ascendant powers of Chaos. They whispered of arcane technologies and blasphemous rituals that promised untold power and dominion.

The Bosch-Vaiix, a figure of unwavering loyalty to the Emperor and the Omnissiah, was not easily swayed. Yet, the tendrils of Chaos have a seductive power, and they wormed their way into the hearts and minds of some of Antara Sigma's most trusted Magi. These corrupted acolytes, deceived by promises of greater knowledge and power, secretly conspired with the agents of Horus.

The situation on Antara Sigma grew increasingly precarious. Loyalties were fractured, and a shadow of uncertainty loomed over the Forge World. Bosch-Vaiix, sensing the undercurrents of treachery, sought guidance from the Emperor through sacred rituals and divinations, but the warp itself had grown turbulent, making communication with Terra nearly impossible.

#### Betrayal of the Fabricator-General

As the whispers of Chaos continued to weave their dark web within Antara Sigma, Bosch-Vaiix, a figure of unwavering loyalty to the Emperor and the Mechanicum, found himself increasingly drawn to the promises of Horus Lupercal. The corrupted Magi dispatched by the Warmaster had insidiously sown the seeds of doubt, exploiting the Fabricator-General's ambitions and curiosity. Slowly, imperceptibly, he began to entertain the heretical notions that had taken root in his mind.

The turning point came when Bosch-Vaiix, unable to resist the lure of forbidden knowledge and power, secretly pledged his allegiance to Horus and the forces of Chaos. However, word of the Fabricator-General's betrayal did not go unnoticed by the loyalist factions within Antara Sigma. Loyal tech-priests and Skitarii who had discovered the Fabricator-General's heretical pact were shocked and appalled by his betrayal. With grim determination, the loyalists launched a preemptive strike against the traitorous leader in the capital of the world, the mighty forge city of Archo Antaris, hoping to eliminate him and quell the insurrection before it could fully take hold. It was a desperate gambit to protect the Forge World and the secrets of the Machine Cult from falling into the hands of Chaos.

The battle that ensued within the sprawling mechanical labyrinth of Antara Sigma was fierce and unforgiving. Loyalist forces fought valiantly, employing their considerable technological prowess against the traitors who had embraced the dark powers of Chaos. Thousands died as the loyalists attempted to find and kill the Fabricator-General.

In the midst of this chaotic clash, the loyalist tech-priests managed to confront the Fabricator-General. The confrontation was a harrowing battle, but in a final, desperate act, Magos Dominus Mohulan Nirian was able to kill the traitor by driving his power sword through his heart and beheading him, but the cost was high.

#### Open War

The assumption that the traitors would be defeated and retreat was wrong, and the death of the Fabricator-General only angered them, and many saw the death of him as an act of betrayal, and sided with the traitors. The plan ultimately backfired, and instead of preventing conflict, it sparked open war as the traitors and loyalists fought each other in the unending cities of the world. Titans fought Titans and Skitarii clashed with their brethren as the forge world was torn apart by the civil war, but greater tragedy was about to strike.

##### Destruction of the Celestial Foundry

The traitor's knew that the Celestial Foundry was the prized possession of Antara Sigma, revered amongst the denizens as an image of the Omnissiah. What the traitors had hoped was a swit takeover of the ring and for the forge world to surrender once the knew that the ring was under threat. This was not the case, and the battles that rang across the ring saw it harder and harder for the traitors to take it.

With the ring becoming increasingly difficult to seize, the traitor's decided that, if the could not have it, then no one would, and devised a plan to destroy the Celestial Foundry. The traitors fought to claim the elevators so they could prepared to sever them by planting a nuclear weapon on each of them. The traitor's hastily planted the bombs, wiring them and preparing a dark ritual, but soon, the loyalists began striking back and fighting to get to the bombs, but the traitors detonated them, and the fall of Antara Sigma began.

With a stroke of good luck, only three of the four bombs detonated, as the loyalist managed to get to one of them and disable it before it could be activated. The other three bombs did detonate, and it caused a catastrophic chain of events that shattered the Celestial Foundry. With the elevators severed from the orbital ring, this caused them to collapse and crash from high orbit in thousands of giant pieces, descending to the surface and slamming into the world, destroying countless manufactorums and forge cities. Large sections of the ring also collapsed and fell from orbit into the world, and billions of lives were killed and an unthinkable amount of death and destruction was caused.

##### The Loyalists Rally

In the wake of the destruction and devastating toll of the destruction of the Celestial Foundry, the surviving loyalists would rally. Mohulan Nirian, the warrior who killed the traitorous Fabricator-General, would rally the surviving Skitarii, Tech-Priests, Titans, and any others still loyal to the Emperor to assault and eradicate the traitors once and for all. The loyalists assaulted traitor strongholds and cities, as they fought amidst the endless ruin and remnants of a former power, Skitarii fighting traitorous brethren and Titans battling each other out.

The destruction of the Celestial Foundry was untimely the traitors undoing, as the wreckage that destroyed much of the worlds cities and industries had destroyed all the worlds spaceports and spacecraft, leaving the traitors unable to flee the world. The loyalist on the Celestial Foundry had reclaimed what remained of the ring, as most of the traitors died in the explosions as the fought to hold the loyalists from stopping them. The traitors all fell in the final battle in the remnants of the forge city of Arkhun, and Antara Sigma was reclaimed by the loyalists, but at an unthinkable cost that would change the forge world forever.

### Post Heresy

Antara Sigma was in ruins, its entire surface littered with crumbled buildings, shattered Titans and war machines, and the bodies of billions of souls that perished, and the pieces of the Celestial Foundry that lay scattered across the world. Most of the Celestial Foundry had fallen from orbit, though some chunks and pieces still remained in orbit, such as the elevator that did not get destroyed.

The forge world would slowly withdraw from the galaxy after these events, rarely making contact with the wider galaxy, as they focused only on rebuilding their world and shunning all contact from those outside the Antara system. They delved ever deeper into the crust of the world, and eventually the adamantium ran dry, used up to rebuild the shattered world. They moved on to the Antaran Belt, an immense asteroid belt separating the inner two planets, Enin and Uren, and the outer two planets, Antara Sigma and Querin, and mined the massive asteroid fields for the much needed resources to rebuild their world.

For the next ten millennia, Antara Sigma lay dormant, a once great power that suffered so greatly that it withdrew from the Imperiums affairs, and many forgot about its existence. The Celestial Foundry was repaired to best of the forge worlds ability, but so much archived data was lost that it was near impossible to restore it to its former glory. The Celestial Foundry was irreversibly damaged, and the Tech-Priests did what they could to repair the damage over the next ten millenium. What remained of the Celestial Foundry in orbit was built off of, and, though the Celestial Foundry by the time of the late 41st Millennium was almost fully repaired, it was never activated, and lay a dormant, empty place.

### Recent History (41st Millennium)

#### First Anubian War

When Hive Fleet Anubis descended on the Artemis sector, Antara Sigma had fallen far. Its Titans had not been activated for millenia, and many of its foundries lay dormant and cold, unused for thousands of years. In 769.M41 the Tech-Priests of the world detected the ominous signs of the Tyranids, and would face a difficult path to choose from.

The Fabricator-General, Arkius Ich-5, ordered a council to be held to determine what to do about the looming threat of Anubis. Many wanted to stay and die, not wanting to call for help, others wanted to retreated, to live another day and establish a new home somewhere else. A rare few wanted to send a distress signal to the Imperium, asking for help in the matter to defend their world from the Tyranids.

Arkius finally decided that a distress signal was the best option, and ordered those in orbit to send a call for help to the Artemis sector. As the message echoed into the void, the forge world prepared to meet the coming storm, as Titan not awoken since the days of the Horus Heresy were brang back to life to help defend the world. Millions of Skitarii were mustered to prepare for the fight and the billions of citizens were armed with anything they could get. The Celestial Foundry, the grand ring that encircled Antara Sigma, was, for the first time in ten millennia, was awoken to best of the worlds ability, its defences brange back to life to defend the world.

Anubis was soon detected near the forge worlds moon, Skerula, as it descended on the lush forests and devoured it without slowing down, and moved closer to Antara Sigma. The weapons of the Celestial Foundry opened fire, blasting plasma bolts, lance strikes, missiles, and other weapons as the hive fleet descended on the world. Thousands, tens of thousands, then millions of Mycetic Spores were rained down upon the surface of the world, and though many thousands were destroyed, many more land, offloading their cargo as the battle began.

Titans and Hierophants clashed as the Skitarii fought the never ending waves of gaunts, and Kastelan Robots and Dunecrawlers clashed with Carnifexes. The grand forge cities and endless expanse of factories, so carefully reconstructed since the Horus Heresy, crumbled again as the war raged across the forge world. The fall of the forge world was inevitable, and if reinforcements did not arrived soon, then Antara Sigma would become just another dead world in the galaxy.

As the last Titans began to falter and crumble, and the near inexhaustible numbers of the Skitarii began to run dry, a glimmer of hope arrived, as the Penitent Scorpions and House Valkia descended from behind the hive fleet. The Penitent Scorpions descended on the hive fleet, catching them from behind and carving a path for House Valkia and the drop pods of the Penitent Scorpions to descend to help the beleaguered defenders.

Clad in their red and grey armor, the Astartes unleashed a storm of bolter fire upon the Tyranid hordes. Chainswords roared to life as the Astartes engaged the bioforms in brutal close combat, their genetically-enhanced strength and skill turning the tide of battle. The Knights blasted hordes of Tyranids apart and carved a path through them with their Reaper Chainswords, and beside them, fought the remnants of Antara Sigma.

In space, the Penitent Scorpions fleet executed a daring ambush. They swooped in from the void, catching Anubis off guard as they ambushed them in a pincer movement, leaving them unable to escape. The Tyranid bio-ships, focused on the ground assault, were ill-prepared for the sudden onslaught. The Astartes unleashed a volley of torpedoes, lance strikes, and boarding actions that tore through the Tyranid vessels. The bio-ships were all eliminated, though, unknown to the defenders, some did manage to escape, and would come to ravage the sector once again.

The Tyranids on the surface, severed from the hive mind, went feral, losing all the coordination they had, and attacked both the Imperium and themselves. They were easily moped up, and Antara Sigma was saved from oblivion, and the leaders of the many different Imperial forces gathered to discuss the future.

With the war over, Antara Sigma realized futility of staying isolated and shut off from the galaxy, and finally cast off the cloak of isolation after 10,000 years. Antara Sigma restored the treaty of trade with House Valkia, vowing to construct them new Knights in return for food and minerals. As for the Penitent Scorpions, the forge world pledged to provide the Astartes with the best war machines, weapons, and power armour.

Antara Sigma returned to the galactic stage, aiding the Imperium in its endless wars and its close allies, and, thinking the Tyranid threat had been destroyed, House Valkia and the Penitent Scorpions departed, going their separate ways until they crossed paths again. What none of them knew, was that, Anubis still survived, and would lay hidden for over a century until it returned, and would bring on more death than before.

## Geography

### Overview

Antara Sigma is made up of three continents: Vorron Prime, Reach Omega, and Atlas. Most of the continents are covered entirely in massive industries, factories, massive wastelands, and armories. The continents are connected by a number of large bridges and railways that ferry cargo to and from their destinations. They are large enough that five whole Titans could walk side by side with room to spare, and there are also railcraft that speed along the tracks.

Dotting the costs and covering the outer shores and coastlines of the continents are massive refineries that process the world's ocean water into promethium fuel, where they are shipped across the world and the Imperium for the Emperors and Omnissiahs armies.

### Vorron Prime

Vorron Prime was the first of the continents to be settled, and where dense and lush forests and a wealth of biodiversity, now sits only metal, miles upon miles of it. Vorron is the most densely populated of the three continents, being home to about half the population, and is the industrial heartland of the world.

The capital city of Antara Sigma, Archo Antaris, was the first forge city to be established on the world, and also encompases the massive mountain of Antaris Omega, where the mighty *Legio Antaris*, the mighty Titan Legion of Antara Sigma, is located.

The northern coastline and inner lands is home to the Wastes, a vast dump-field where the continents industrial runoff, scrap, and other garbage is sent. The Wastes is home to many incinerators and reclaision centers where the garbage is broken down, destroyed, and repurposed to be manufactured again.

## Production

### Promethium

The forge world's oceans, even today in the 41st Millennium, still stand strong, albeit much smaller than in the days of the Great Crusade, and is continually refined for its unique properties. The oceans consist of many elements vital to the production of promethium fuel, used to power almost everything in the Imperium, and if the Antarans could give the liquid the few missing elements, they would have a bountiful and almost inexhaustible reserve of promethium.

### Adamantium

Once, in the distance past, during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, Antara Sigma once had a bountiful supply of adamantium buried deep beneath the surface if the world.

## Military Forces

### Skitarii Legions

Antara Sigma has large numbers of Skitarii within its ranks, throwing countless of their number into battle against the enemy. Skitarii Vanguard and Skitarii Rangers are the most prominent of these groups, Rangers being used as cover fire and to move fast ahead of the front lines. Vanguard are the bulk of the force, moving in large numbers in the worst environments to eliminate the enemy with sheer numbers and firepower.

### *Legio Antaris*

The *Legio Antaris* are Antara Sigmas Titan Legion, based in the mountain of Antaris Omega where the Titans are stored. They have fought in many battles throughout its history, and was nearly eliminated many times as well, during the Horus Heresy, Anubian Wars, and many other campaigns.