Timeline

This is a detailed **timeline** of the history of the Universe. Note that nearly all events are not attached to specific dates; they may not be in exact chronological order, and adjacent events in the list may be separated by spans of only a few days or several centuries.

## Age of Terra and the Stellar Exodus (M1-M18)

For millions of standard years after the Necrotair and their captive C'tan Shards went into hibernation on their Tomb Worlds, the devastated sentient populations of the galaxy slowly recovered from their "red harvests." In time, the Álfarii emerged as the most dominant civilization within the galaxy, with the core of their star-spanning empire located in the region of the galaxy that would later become the Great Maw Void Rift.

But on the planet called Earth and later Terra by its inhabitants, an intelligent, mammalian humanoid species known as Humanity was rising to prominence over 90,000 standard years ago. During the Age of Terra, or the Age of Progress as it is sometimes called by Imperial historitors, the Human race advanced beyond its ancient pre-industrial past to obtain spacefaring capability and began to slowly settle the terraformable worlds in its own solar system and in the star systems near its homeworld using massive sublight starships.

The Stellar Exodus which occurred during the Age of Terra is a poorly-understood period of Human history which is generally accepted to cover the majority of Mankind's initial forays into interstellar space and the genesis of most of the oldest Human extrasolar colonies, beginning at some unknown point in the mid-to-late 3rd Millennium.

This period is generally understood to lead into the so-called "Golden Age of Technology" sometime around the 29th Millennium A.D. During much of the Stellar Exodus, Humanity lacked any knowledge of the existence of the Immaterium or Warp-Drive and so was forced to travel between the stars in great sublight generation ships or using cryogenic hibernation.

* M1 - The Age of Terra (also called The Age of Man) begins
* M2
* M3
* M4
* M5
* M6
* M7
* M8
* M9
* M10
* M11
* M12
* M13
* M14
* M15
* M16
* M17
* M18
* M19
* M20
* M21 - True A.I is created and implemented throughout the Empire
* M22
* M23
* M24
* M25
* M26 - Human Warp Drives are designed, and Human settlement increases 3 fold.
* M27
* M28
* M29 - Age of The Millennium Empire

### Golden Age of Technology (M19-M63)

Much of the era of Human history known to Imperial historitors as the Age of Technology or the "Golden Age of Technology" that lasted between approximately the 29th Millennium and the 49th Millennium A.D. is mysterious. It was in this time that the psychic mutants called Navigators were first born or created, and combined with the invention of the Void-Drive, allowed Humanity to travel between worlds faster than the speed of light by using the dangerous hyperdimensional, psychically-reactive medium of the Immaterium or the "Void."

Long before the rise of the Emperor and the birth of the Imperium Dominus, during the Age of Technology Humanity reached out to the stars, eager to occupy new worlds and expand its burgeoning interstellar empire. Vast colonization starships carried eager Human settlers, along with all the resources they might require, and landed on far-flung, often isolated worlds.

The first Knight and Titan Worlds were founded at the very start of the Age of Technology, before the discovery of the Void-Drive in the 38th Millennium, when scouts from Terra traveled far through the galaxy seeking planets to use as agricultural worlds to provide food for Mankind's burgeoning population, or as mining colonies to provide the materials needed to fuel their expansion across the stars. Indeed, the so-called "Knight Worlds" had already been established for tens of thousands of standard years when the Imperium was first founded in the 90th Millennium.

When those first Human scout ships discovered a suitable planet for human colonization, gigantic, sublight spacecraft were dispatched to settle them. These ships were part of Terra's "Long March" fleets, named after the duration of their voyage and their destination among the stars. The name was apt; as each of the Long March colony starships carried thousands of settlers on a solar decades-long journey to a far distant planet. Upon arrival, the colony ship would land and be immediately cannibalized by the colonists to provide the raw materials needed for their first settlements; there was no hope of return to Mankind's now distant homeworld.

The struggle for survival on many of these worlds was grim. On some, the settlers found themselves the prey of vicious predators or were attacked by native alien races, which saw the Human settlers as invaders. On other worlds, extreme weather conditions or an unbreathable atmosphere made travel outside of domed habitat-zones next to impossible.

However, problems like these had been anticipated, and in order to deal with them, the settlers were supplied with both the Terran Pattern World Engines designed to terraform uninhabitable worlds into ones with almost identical atmospherics and topography as that to an Ancient Terra, and the Standard Design Template (SDT) databases and fabrication facilities that allowed them to build powered suits of exoarmour. The pilots of these bipedal walking machines were protected by a hard shell of plasteel and armed with an array of military-grade heavy weapons.

The suits would prove invaluable to the colonists as the World Engines terraformed: few, if any, natural predators or hostile alien warriors could dare stand against them, and they could travel through even the most dangerous environment with ease. These towering armored figures soon became a common sight on the colonies, where they were known as "Knights" by the settlers, after the legendary armored warriors and protectors of ancient Terran history.

Compelled by the mind-altering effects instilled by the Thrones Vi-Mechana (a mind impulse control platform that allows a pilot to mentally interface with their Knight battlesuit), over the course of a few generations, these elite warriors gradually developed a society that evolved into the knightly houses. The plasteel plates of the original exo-skeleton suits were slowly replaced with more ornate armor made from adamantine, providing better protection as well as a panoply befitting the wearer's prestige and rank in their society.

The more mundane duties that the Knights had once taken part in on the colony worlds -– logging with their mighty Reaper Chainswords, for example, or blasting apart rock ore with their rapid-fire Battle Cannons -– were delegated to those of lesser ranks, allowing the Knights to focus on the arts of war and governorship.

Dwelling in tall strongholds, these "Nobles" strove to protect the lives of their subjects (as they now saw the settlers they protected) and to bring order to the primeval maelstrom on the planets that were their homes. The knightly houses proved to be highly successful at both of these things, and soon became a vital part of Human society during the long march of the Age of Technology.

The existence of rapid interstellar travel eventually provided by the Void-Drive would allow Human colony worlds to interact on a normal timescale for the first time and interstellar commerce and communication became possible, allowing like-minded Human worlds to join into political and economic combines for their mutual benefit. Eventually, at some point during this era, all of Humanity was united beneath some form of interstellar government. What is also known (largely from the works of Keeper Cripias) is that a group known as the Men of Gold relied on the works of the Men of Stone in order to create a fantastically prosperous interstellar society, but one devoid (by later Imperial standards) of spirituality or piety, focused instead only upon the advancement of science and technology.

The Stone Men are known to have created a third group, the Men of Iron, postulated to be some form of artificially self-aware automata or thinking machines, in order to assist them in their labors and carry out military duties. These Machines became uncontrolled and rebelled against their Human creators, and a cataclysmic conflict broke out, resulting in a partial Malthusian catastrophe across much of the Human-settled galaxy in which there were no longer enough resources to support the vast populations of Mankind. From this time onwards, it became an article of faith in Human societies that the creation of thinking machines should be forbidden.

Even worse, following the destruction caused by the war against the Men of Iron, Human psiots began to appear in large numbers across many Human colony worlds, one of the harbingers of the final decline of the Álfarii Empire which controlled even more of the galaxy than Mankind did in these ancient years. The result was Humanity's first introduction to the "daemonic" entities that dwelled within the Void and the ultimate collapse of Human interstellar civilization during what became known as the Dark Ages of Humanity. On Terra, this period would be remembered by a much different name -- "Long Dark."

* M30 - The Golden Age of Technology
* M31
* M32
* M33 - The Writtenbrook Void Drive Incident
* M34
* M35
* M36
* M37
* M38 - The Early Collapse Begins
* M39
* M40
* M41
* M42
* M43
* M44
* M45
* M46
* M47
* M48
* M49
* M50 - The Machine Wars
* M51
* M52
* M53
* M54
* M55
* M56
* M57 - The Sol Scouring
* M58
* M59
* M60
* M61
* M62 - The Voidfallen return from The Over Void
* M63
* M64

## M65

### - The Beginning of the Age of The Long Dark -

In the aftermath of the Great Collapse comes the Long Dark. A time of vast suffering and terrible evil, The Long Dark Begins.

### - The First Human Enclaves -

Many Human survivors of the Great Collapse gather across the known Galaxy within secret enclaves in desperate attempts to survive. Some of these Pilgrims return to Terra and the Voidfallen fully emerge but their memories have been irreparably damaged.

* M66
* M67
* M68
* M69
* M70
* M71
* M72
* M73
* M74
* M75
* M76
* M77
* M78
* M79
* M80
* M81
* M82
* M83
* M84
* M85
* M86
	+ **M86.Unknown - The Prometheus Project is Launched -** Which was initially begun at some point in the late 86th Millennium by the scientists of the Imperial Biotechnical Division, far beneath the surface of Terra in the God Emperor of Man's gene-labs, marked the Emperor's attempt to begin the creation of the first generation of Imperial super-soldiers to fight in his Great Crusade. These were the Luminarchs, twenty extraordinary superhuman beings who would be His generals -- great warriors, intellectuals and political leaders who would conquer thousands of worlds in His name.
	+ **ca-M86. 550. The Primordial Strain -** The Emperor begins His Imperial Marine project beneath the Kilminjaro (Kilimanjaro) Mountains, creating the Primordial Strain of prototype Legionaries using the genetic material already created for the ongoing Primarch Project. These warriors are unstable and imperfect, but form the foundation for His future work building the Space Marine Legions.
	+ **ca-M86.460 – M88.872– Cruel Gene Failures -** Even with the Knowledge of genealogy held by Him and His Imperial Biotechnical Division, the creatures first created by the Emperor during the Prometheus Project had been disgusting things. Broken creatures who were ensured to never see the light of Sol. Genetic failures created from the Emperors ancient gene-stock, malformed beasts, born to become impossibly strong and large by their divine blood. But always having been born wrong. Often crippled in body or mind, or twisted and steeped with vile strength and born with shattered minds. Some born with their organs outside of their malformed bodies, or mouths within places they shouldn’t have been, some with just too many limbs. These beasts would be locked away within the deepest reaches of the Dark Vaults cages.

## M87

### ca-M87.017 - Beginning of The Terran Unification Wars -

#### **Early-M87.Unknown - The Launch of the Daedalus Project -**

The Emperor begins the Daedalus project beneath the Kilminjaro (Kilimanjaro) Mountains, creating the *Primordial Strain* of prototype Legionaries using the genetic material already created for the ongoing Prometheus Project. The Daedalus Project was a research offshoot of the larger Prometheus Project and was an early Imperial super-soldier program aimed towards the unification of Terra. It was originally launched in the 88th millennium.

* M87.029 - Creation of The I'cartes
* The Seraphim are sent into battle

## M88

### **M88.873 – Birth of Gazardiel the Enfeebled Princeling -**

Born feeble of body, and frail in mind when compared to his later Demi-God kin, yet perfectly Human. Gazardiel born as a feeble little creature, would become the catalyst to the future of its kindred. Through testing and vivisection of the mind and body of His feeble child The Emperor rectified His first mistakes made in the first creation of his malformed spawn. He would spend several decades in the pursuit of the perfected Human form, a form that would be untouched by plague or age, and wrapped in steely muscle, and a mind that could take in metric tonnes of information and data, and was created with the ability to both comprehend and digest the information at blaring speeds.

## M90

### **ca-M90.772 -**

Creation of The Angelus Inheritance-Helix / Beginning of the Era Angelus

### **M90.780 - Dawn of The Imperial Silver Legions/The Genesis Ultima -**

Utilizing the genetic material derived from the still-embryonic Luminarchs, the Emperor, with the aid of the scientists of the Imperial Biotechnical Division and its director Dr. Ino Nysa, created the first strain of the Inheritance-Helix and implants it into His already elite Terran soldiers. These warriors provide the genesis of His *Legiones Angelus*. The 20 original Imperial Marine Legions are created during this so-called "Genesis Ultima." The *Imbrius Theorem* provided the solution to solve the diminishing stability of the Imperial Marines' Inheritance-Helix Gene Stocks through over-use, due to the rapid expansion of the nascent Imperium Dominus by the *Legiones Angelus* in this era. This theorem demonstrated that a Luminarch's genetic code could be used to stabilize and expand existing Angelus Inheritance-Helix stocks with what was hoped to be "minimal deviation" and mutation from the baseline genetic code. Accelerated gene-culturing techniques were implemented, reducing the processing time to create an Imperial Marine from a mortal man to often a single solar year. However, the Inheritance-Helix produced by these accelerated processes possessed unseen fundamental flaws.

### **ca-M90.792 - The Scattering of the Light** -

The Emperor's greatest work of gene-craft would near its completion, combining advanced science with otherworldly secrets to create 20 superhuman children -- the perfect generals, pro-consuls and diplomats to lead his *Legiones Angelus*. These so-called Luminarchs are second only in power and skill to the Emperor Himself, but shortly before the Prometheus Project's completion an unforeseen catastrosphe engineered through the machinations of Unknown Powers. The gestation pods containing the Emperor's unborn children had been emptied, their contents scattered through the Void to human colony planets long since lost to Mankind during the Long Dark. The Embryonic children were ferried through the Void, their physical forms psychically implanted into the wombs of Human mothers across the Milky Way, to be raised upon human worlds still caught in the ravages of the Long Dark. But all was not lost, as the Emperor and his scientists still possessed their gene-sequences, which He had utilized as the genetic templates for the creation of His *Legiones Angelus*.

### **M90.800 - Battle of Mount Forra'kiir -**

The Emperor accepted the deaths of the many innocents that resulted from the conquest of Terra with great remorse in order to achieve the greater good of unifying Humanity and protecting it from the manifest predations of the Void and Xenos of the galaxy. Unimaginably large, full-scale battles during the Unity campaign would last for solar decades on end, with body counts in the billions that sundered mountains and split entire continents. Future Imperial scholars would later dismiss these victories as lurid hyperbole, refusing to believe that such clashes of arms could possibly have been fought, but indeed they were. The Imperial historical chronicles tell of the last battle of the Terran Unification Wars, known as the Battle of Mount Forra'kiir, which was fought in the Kingdom of Ka'laske. During this final battle the remaining I'carion Regiments -- powerful but short-lived precursors to the Imperial Marines -- were slain to a man. The chronicles recorded that the famed I'cartes Warrior Croa Idaeus, known as the "Defiant Storm," would raise the Banner of Imperial Lightning at the final declaration of Unity which established the rule of the Emperor of Mankind over the entirety of Terra before dying of his wounds. It was a measure of the I'cartes' heroic sacrifice that they had all died to win the last and greatest victory for the Emperor. While reports say they fell in valiant battle, rumors abound that the Emperor ordered them purged to make way for his nascent *Legiones Angelus*. One source claims that it is the nascent Xth Legion that was tasked with the elimination of their remaining I'cartes ancestors, alongside the *Legiones Seraph* when the I'carion Warriors rebeled against the Emperor soon after the first introduction of the Angelus. According to this tale, the I'cartes realized after learning of the Imperial Marines' functional immortality that their inevitable decline into insanity and death was the result of the Emperor's imperfect augmentations of their bodies, and they felt betrayed by their creator.

### **M90.803 - First Lunar Pacification -**

This early Imperial campaign was the first operation mounted by elements of the early Imperial Marine Legions beyond the skies of Terra while the Terran Unification Wars were still raging across the surface of Mankind's birth world. The Imperium's first off-world target was Terra's own moon Luna, a domain of the Selenar gene-cults, whose technology was vital to further expanding the numbers of the *Legiones Angelus*. The Selenar rejected the diplomatic overtures of the burgeoning Imperium, and three nascent Imperial Marine Legions were unleashed to force their Imperial Compliance. The combined force of the Ist, IInd and Vth Legions (later named the The Dawnguard Paladins, The Avenging Shields and The Iron Asha'karii, respectively) lifted from the surface of Terra in a scattering of rocket flame. The as yet unnamed Ist Legion had been chosen to serve as the Imperial force's vanguard, and had brought its full strength to bear. In a daring surprise assault, the Ist Legion launched a planetary strike while their brother Legions drew fire from Luna's defensive weapons. Within six solar hours of the first shot being fired, Luna had been pacified and brought into Compliance, the first off-world conquest of the Imperium Dominus.

#### **ca. M90.810 Treaty of Jupiter (Treaty of Europa) -**

Realizing that war with the Tech-Guilds of the ancient Jovian Moons of Jupiter would be a costly affair, the Emperor would instead brokers an alliance. In return for constructing a mighty war fleet and supplying weapons and machinery for his Imperial Legions, the Jovian Mechanicus were granted autonomy as a client state of the Imperium, and continue to practice their machine faith as the Cult Jovian. When the Emperor of Mankind came to Jupiter's largest moon of Europa. At their first sight of the Master of Mankind, many of the Guilds Tech-priests were overcome with the feeling that they had met the living embodiment of the Logossiah, their Machine God clad in Human form. In return for peace between Terra and Jupiters Moons, the Emperor granted recognition of the Tech-priests' right to practice their faith and their right to maintain autonomous control over both Jupiter and the other Forge Worlds they had settled across the galaxy. In return, the Mechanicus agreed to build and maintain the Imperium's starships and provide the war material necessary for the armies of the Emperor's Great Crusade. The Guilds also agreed to be bound by the Emperor's commandment to never develop certain forbidden technologies such as "Abominable Intelligence" (artificial intelligence). With the signing of this agreement, known as the Treaty of Jupiter or the Treaty of Europa within the Guilds, the Cult Jovian became the corps of scientists and engineers of the newly-forged Imperium Dominus, and the Palatine Aquila was refashioned to bear two heads, one for Terra and one for Jupiter, the twin foundations of Mankind's interstellar dominion.

#### M90.817 - The 20 Original Imperial Throne Ships would begin construction above Jupiter

An Imperial ship-yard is built above Jupiter, within its moons. And from these ship yards the 20 individual Throne Ships were created

### **M90.818- The Creation of the 2nd Generation of Imperial Power Armor -**

**The Mark II Carapace Armor** And its's Sub-Patterns Were developed by the Jovian Tech Guilds of the Uh'ier under the oversight of the Emperor, towards the end of the Terran Unification Wars and at the onset of the Angelus Legions en masse, and were used during the dawn of the Imperium Dominus by the Imperial Marines who carried out the Emperor's Great Crusade to reunite the lost worlds of Mankind in the new Imperium Dominus. After the final conquest of Luna by the Emperor's new armies of Imperial Marines and the peaceful unification with the Jovian Tech-Guilds, the gas planets orbiting factories were set to work constructing a new type of Armor purpose made for the Emperor's newborn Imperial Marines.

The *Carapace Armor* and its Sub-Patterns were a set of frontline assault suits mainly used by the Imperial Marine Legions. Designed with advanced survival but few bio support technologies. The Mark II armors were built primarily using a lightweight form of Plasteel plating. Whilst lacking a true power source or the servos, and actuators that would later become a staple of further marks. Soon though most MkII's and their subsequent Sub-Patterns were seconded to the Imperial Troop regiments once advancements had been made in Power Armor design.

#### **M90.830 - The End of the Terran Unification Wars -**

The Emperor finally consolidates His control over Old Terra and formally declares victory in the Terran Unification Wars, bringing centuries of conflict to a close. Work intensifies on enforcing the rationalist state ideology of the Imperial Truth across the planet.

## **M90.793 - Departure of the Great Crusade** -

Following the successful conclusion of the Terran Unification Wars on Old Terra, the Emperor launched His interstellar quest to reunite the disparate worlds of Mankind and reforge them into one vast, galaxy-spanning empire known as the Imperium Dominus. He intended this unity to usher in a new golden age for all Humanity.

##### **ca-M90.798 - The Unseen Crusade -**

This terrible conflict was fought among the Encaladean Stations of Saturn in the days before the Great Crusade fully broke the bounds of the Sol System. Named for the Moon of which the Encaladeans constructed their Starships and Stations upon, these Encaladean Stations were a linked crescent of void citadels, home to a collection of artisans and near-space scavengers. And these newly Compliant Encaladeans turned to fueling the Great Crusade as conscripts for the starships of the *Armada Imperialis*. But soon they faced a threat in the form of the Solar Pirates, remnants of a confederation of Renegades, mutants and Xenos cabals. Soon full war would rage, as the moons of Saturn were embroiled in conflict. The XVIIth Legion heard the cries of the Encaladeans and assaulted the void stations. A force of 1,000 Angelus made their way inside where the Solar Pirates had fortified themselves. Sensing defeat, the pirates released a psy-plague, an ancient weapon thought long since eradicated during the Unification Wars. In a heroic display of bravery, the unnamed Bulls sacrificed themselves so as not to allow the psy-plague to escape the confines of the void station. The Angelus overloaded the station's reactors, causing the installation to explode. The "Screaming" was never visited on Mankind again, and it is said that when the Emperor heard of the valiant sacrifice of these 1,000 Bulls Palatine, He ordered the newly-raised *Bell of Lost Souls* in the Imperial Grand Palace tolled for the first time.

**M90.815 - The Great Crusade Begins** - With the furthest reaches of the Sol System firmly under Imperial control, the Emperor and his Imperial Marine Legions begin the Great Crusade. The first Jovian Tech-Guild Explorator fleets leave the system to reclaim surrounding sectors of what will become the Solar Proxima, carrying the hopes of Humanity with them.