Celestial Fleet Trantor

The Celestial Fleet of Trantor is that of a golden age, exemplary of the extensive power of the Adeptus Administratum to bring the gargantuan force of the Imperium to bear. Through the unending work of bureaucratic legions. Trantor's fleet is one precisely managed clockwork of military might, its forces integrated seamlessly into the sector-wide tapestry of imperial assets.

## Doctrine

Directed by the Bureau of Celestial Command, the Fleets highest order is the protection of Triumvirate resources and assets. To this end all worlds in Gondwana's constellations are assigned place and rank in one continuous system determining priority and value of every last vessel, building, coin and soul.

### Ancient Catalogue of deterministic action

The fleet's actions are directed according to deterministic plans, archived in encrypted data catacombs buried deep within innermost shells of Trantor. This catalog contains all plans ranging from response protocols of singular ratings as high as entire planned-out crusades, accommodating every conceivable outcome for every conceivable action, creating the ever more branching decision tree of sector fleet command.

#### Strategem Secrets of the Dark Ages

These archives of Trantor are unfathomably ancient, reaching into an ancient past predating the Imperium. Legends tell of plans and star charts within the fleet action catalog encompassing entire formations and fleets of long-lost patterns and hints to eldritch weapons summoned during the ancient's war on the Men-of-Iron.

The catalog is accessed and interpreted by Trantors fine-tuned bureaucratic machinery of legions of scribes, translators, logicians, and analysts. Like singular processing units of cogitator machines, each singular soul upon Trantor works only with encrypted fragments of the catalog, from which nothing could be gained on its own. It is said only a High Inquisitor of the Emperor's Holy Inquisition could order the planet's governance to gain comprehensive access to the catalog as a whole, allowing to actually trace back the origin of orders, tactics and entire strategies brought forth from the bureaucratic machine.

#### Versatile Archive Admiralty

Despite its huge cost in processing power and resources, the catalog has proven its worth in millennia past, as its vast array of strategies and tactics transcends the conservative transitions and personal preferences of human admirals and ship's masters. The catalog has been known to produce highly sophisticated strategies of century-long wars, as well as most primitive orders according to the situation.

Whilst the catalog determines orders without regard for anyone ship or soul, it gives orders also without the influence of personal feuds or the incompetence of commanders holding their rank only by birthright. As a result, the Celestial Fleet enjoys particularly strong discipline and is seldom routed even when set against impossible odds.

## Astrography

The Celestial Fleet hails from its homeport nearby Trantor, in synchronous orbit high above the tallest spire of the Hives Incandescent. At a crossing of several orbital rings, there is set the celestial citadel, the majestic bulwark rebuilt since the last great siege. Its shipwrights maintain dockyards and forges to sustain the standing fleet and more reserves are held in the voidfarer sanctuaries dotting the sky above the shell world.

Throughout the Trantor System, the fleet dominates a vast network of voidborne defenses, outposts, and depots. These are augmented by lines of deep-space staging grounds amid the interstellar dark and anchorages set along the length of the Trantor Reef, where lone watchmen stand and hold out for any sign of a new invasion.

### Watchmen of the Thetys Rift

These are the innermost layers of a much grander frontline against the Thetys Rift, which has been heavily strengthened since the cataclysm at the end of the 41st Millennium. Many of the old star fortress fleets guarding the Thetys No-Man's-Land have been integrated directly into Trantor's supreme command. As much of the sector prepares for a Crusade of Brass and Iron, the Celestial Fleet consolidates its defenses and fortifications and sets up the golden Aquila on ancient sites, where once the wars of the Great Crusade were waged.

## History

### The Emperor's Crusade

During the waking days of the Imperium, when mankind reached for the furthest stars of an all but conquered galaxy, the first generation of the Celestial Fleet began as mere humble garrison forces in the wake of the Great Crusade. Vessels torn by the long and harrowing journey from the inner worlds, or damaged during the pacification of Gondwana, flocked around the newly reclaimed worlds and, supplemented by few escort squadrons, were tasked with the protection of the Emperor's youngest domains. Those early fleets stood guard chiefly at four key systems of the Trantor Reef. And those worlds are, to this day, displayed on the Celestial Fleet's proud banner.

### Stranded after the Great Crusade

But all the worlds changed when the Great Crusade came to an end and all the works of the Emperor were nearly brought down by Horus, the treacherous Warmaster. When chaos took the very children of the Emperor and turned them against their own, the Galaxy shook with the clash of all the titanic forces brought forth by Holy Terra. And whilst the Throne World lay besieged, the far Sector Gondwana lay almost forgotten.

The Great Crusade in this region as never completed, Fleets abandoned and military campaigns interrupted. In the wake of the Horus Heresy, the Celestial Fleet was one of few forces left functional in the waning sector, with moth other troops rapidly retreated and drawn to fronts of greater import.

### To Stand against Thetys

For an entire Millennium, the Celestial Fleet of Trantor stood all but alone against the Rift of Thetys, a sole defender keeping the ruinous powers at bay whilst other worlds of Gondwana regathered their strength and the Adeptus Mechanicus protected only interests of its own.

Under the vigilant protection of Trantor's never-ending guard, the worlds of Trantor thrived and finally paid their tithe in forces and crowns to the Administratum Terra. And quickly the first world of the Triumvirate began sharing its burden with others of the Imperium.

### Limes Gondwana

The front of the Rift Thetys remained closely guarded for many centuries and finally, at the end of the second Millennium following the Horus Heresy, the Limes Gondwana was completed. A line of Starforts along the length of the warp-storm, all just a few light years apart, to stand watch over the perpetual tear in space and time. The Limes Gondwana was the single greatest fortification in all of Sector Gondwana and remained unrivaled for seven Millennia to come.

### Stagnation and Delegation

At first, the Limes Gondwana was administered by Trantor alone, but the Triumvirate world soon delegation much of its authority to local forces and governors. Some forts remained in the hands of the Imperial Navy, others in those of planetary defense forces and a few gained full independence, becoming worlds of their own, thriving or dying with the tides of the Galaxy. Over Millennia of waiting, fending off merely few scant warp incursions, the watch over Rift Thetys grew lacking and the vigilance of its guardians failed. The once proud watchmen of the Great Crusade had neglected their duty and with many billion souls, they would pay.

### Thetys Surge and the Siege of Trantor

Two Thousand and Five Hundred years before the present day of the Imperium, the Rift of Thetys surged and grew strong once more. Within the first months of its resurgence, forty percent of the Limes Gondwana have swept away, broken and swallowed by the Warp. Entire fortresses of stars were ripped from reality, worlds fell to cults of chaos and corruption and in the shadow of the Warp, there traveled wicked Xenos allies with the demons of ruinous powers. Corsairs of the Drukhari came, and monstrosities without a mind. They threatened to break the Subsector Cambria whole and for two centuries the bloody war raged.

The Erinnyenmere were ravaged, the nebulae of Trantor's Reef torn apart. The skies of Trantor itself were set alight with the purple flames of the Ruinous Powers and the end seemed nigh after the outer shells all had fallen.

Even the knight worlds of the Mechanicus stood at the brink of destruction until the arrival of one sole vessel turned the tide of the war. The coming of Astartes, those of the Hallowed Glaive, brought with it the Emperor's light and in years to follow, the Warp-Storm lightened, allowing for the gathered strength of Sector Gondwana to rejoin the fight. A great Crusade of Thetys was called and the Siege of Trantor Lifted. Angels of the Emperor descended from the skies and the Celestial Fleet rejoined the effort to quell the Thetys Tide. On the day when the last of the chaos forces fell, it was sworn by all admirals and ship's masters of the Celestial Fleet, never to let the guard of Thetys down again.

### The resurgence of the Watchmen

Following the disastrous Siege of Trantor, the Celestial Fleet took its place as the watchmen of Thetys once more. The Limes Gondwana was reinstated but strengthened and reinforced at its core. All souls serving on the endless line of forts were closely observed and controlled by the Administratum, and all fleets along the Rift were to be reinforced by Battle Groups of the Celestial Fleet. As such, across the vastness of space, along with all the length of Subsector Cambria, forces of Trantor are spread, keeping watch and waiting for the time when the Rift Thetys will surge once more and the main fleet will be called to the frontline once more. Never, they swore, will the Limes be broken again.

## Notable Vessels and Classes

### A Fleet clad in Imperial Glory

Embroidered in brass and gold the vessels of the celestial fleet reflect the glory of the Emperor's Light in a display of wealth unparalleled among the distant constellations of Gondwana. Seldom are seen works of such divine art, a thousand iterations of the Aquila upon each ship, a thousand times more statues of saints and scenes of glorious battle preserved in stained glass. To the ends of the universe, the ships of Trantor are sworn to carry the imperial creed and push further the borders of mankind's Imperium.

#### Cereus Patrol Frigate

Arisen from the many forges of the Hives Incandescent, vessels of the Cereus class serve to uphold the supremacy of the Celestial Fleet of Trantor. Through them, the skyward bulwarks of Trantor's civilization are guarded and alongside the grand fleets of their homeworld, these ships wage war under distant stars. Within them lies all the splendor and determination and the sacred history of the ancient shell world, and a such they are blessed with all the craftsmanship and knowledge this old world can muster.

#### Scintilla Picket Ships

The emperor's light is strong with those who hold his creed close to their heart and his wrath shall strike down those who forget their duty and their part in the great work of His creation that is the Imperium of Mankind. Such is the message chiefly carried by Scintilla Pickets to the many worlds of Sector Gondwana closely tied to the Administratum World Trantor. Their part in sector governance is the vigilant watch over imperial worlds and all their souls, so they may not stray from His light.

Small vessels such as the Scintilla are among the most prominent in commoners lives, as they visit many worlds and demonstrate imperial might, either through force or the sheer presence of such richly adorned craft far above the rugged and toiling masses.

In open combat, the Scintilla takes on a much less prominent role, covering the flanks of larger battler groups and securing supply lines. Then these crafts demonstrate the ideals of Imperial life in loyal servitude and the willingness for sacrifice to further the ends of the Emperor all-mighty.