Bight Warden chemical weapons and weaponized pathogens

## Introduction

Before anything else, it is necessary to state how the second legion divides it various chemical weapons and pathogens. The chemicals are divided into groups based on primary purpose. The groups being, termination, pacification, blinding and attrition. What exactly the groups entail will be expanded upon later. The pathogens are also divided into groups based on their purpose exactly as the chemicals are, but they are further divided into groups based on the type of pathogen. The types of pathogens used are viruses, bacteria and fungi.

Now to elaborate on the purpose of each group. Termination speaks for itself, chemicals and pathogens in this group have as primary purpose to simply kill. Pacification, chemicals and pathogens made to pacify targets in one way or another, often has some overlap with termination. Blinding, chemicals in this group serve mostly to create a thick fog to blind the opponent and is often combines with various forms of jamming technology. There are also no pathogens that have blinding as primary role. Attrition, as the name suggests chemicals and pathogens in this group are designed to weaken the opponent over the long term.

## Most common chemical weapons

Here the most common chemicals used across the entire legion will be specified. Each chemical has its own designation starting with a letter for its primary purpose and followed by a numerical designation.

### T-007

T-007 is the most commonly used chemical in the legion. Its reliability and ease of production being the main reasons for this. This toxin is relatively heavy causing it to thin out relatively slowly while it also has a fairly high boiling temperature allowing it to remain as a gas on most worlds for long periods of time. The third reason it is used fairly often is that it can kill just about any creature that requires oxygen to survive. Given the density of the toxin it lowers the oxygen levels as the oxygen rises to the point where it is above the toxin. This means that given a thick enough toxic cloud you can kill almost any foe through asphyxiation.
In the case the foe has equipped their forces with oxygen tanks and rebreathers the toxin still creates a fairly thick cloud obscuring any incoming Astartes forces.

### P-004

A toxin that tricks the pain receptors on the body into giving the target a pain sensation equivalent to being on fire. Though not lethal on its own it is the second most commonly used toxin. Given that any contact with the toxin is sufficient to pacify almost any foe for a significant amount of time it is most commonly used to break through heavily defended positions. Its only weakness is that it dissipates relatively quickly and thus requires sustained deployment. As secondary effect it also makes the pain of any wound caused significantly worse. This has caused it to be most commonly used by bombers alongside shrapnel bombs. Lastly this toxin is a refined version of the waste that results from the creation of A-002. Side note, it was found that contact with particularly sensitive organs such as the tong and privates results in a significantly more painful result. Given a subject with a low enough pain tolerance this could cause the subject to lose consciousness.

### B-001

B-001 one of the emperor’s gifts to the legion upon its creation and the chemical the legion was originally named after. It has a fairly low boiling point, -30oC, and in gaseous form it becomes a really thick and heavy fog blocking sight and slowing movement due to air resistance. When in gaseous form it is dense enough to suspend small particles of metal and rock in a high enough quantity to mess with certain forms of sensors, in particular when the metal in question is aluminium due to this metal being able to reflect UV and infrared light. Lastly B-001 does little in the way of damage when it comes into contact with tissue. Its only effects being mild to severe irritation depending to length of exposure and blindness after eyes are exposed to the toxin for more than two hours. Lastly B-001 serves as a great insulator and absorbs fairly high amounts of heat over time. It has been documented to increase battlefield temperatures by at most 10oC after nigh constant use.

### A-002

A-002 is the second chemical gifted to us by the Emperor. It is a chemical specifically made for the purpose of attrition. Its high boiling point and density just higher than that of water make it perfect for this role. After deployment it quickly condenses and liquefies upon contact with any surface below a temperature of 40oC. After this it quickly mixes with the ground water supply. A-002 is highly toxic to humans and most xenos and will kill them after they ingest more than 1 gram of the chemical. Lower quantities till cause severe reactions from the body such as vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms usually seen after severe allergic reactions.

## Pathogens

Here I will specify the most common pathogens used across the entire legion. Each pathogen has its own designation similar to those we give to chemicals starting with a letter denoting the type of pathogen followed by a latter stating its primary purpose which in turn is followed by a numerical designation. A V as a first letter designates a Visus, a B designates the pathogen as a Bacteria and a F designates it as a Fungus. The first three numbers designate a specific pathogen. Later numbers are represented by an amount of Xs that designate a specific strain of that pathogen. The number is represented by Xs because the true number is often unknown due to many being made and then put aside due to ineffectiveness compared to other versions.

### VT-078-XXX

The VT-078 strain group is the most commonly used group of viruses in the legion after active combat engagements have taken place. It is highly infective and highly resistant to most common treatments. This virus is specifically designed with humans as its primary host and is capable of quickly shutting down the immune system and terminating the host as a result of complete organ failure. Due to how fast it kills the disease often runs out of hosts. This causes results in the disease needing no clean up after most wars as it dies out on its own.

### VP-001-XXXXX

VP-001 most commonly known as the common flue. A virus of which any strain can be deployed on almost any human world during negotiations without the natives noticing it did not originate from their world.  Perfect for weakening a population beforehand. Symptoms range from simple coughing to life threatening fever.

### VP-209-1

A virus specifically designed by Lu Yueh to be used during the Apostasy. VP-209 refers to a modified version of the world eater virus, designed specifically to weaken Astartes. Though the virus still maintains its ability to eat through the weak points of power armour it is no longer able to liquify organic matter at a rate anywhere close to that of the original. Instead the virus will cause a burning sensation very much akin to that of being liquified by the original virus. Resulting in an amount of pain that will even hinder the ability of an Astartes to fight and cause most mortals to go into shock, rendering them unconcious.

One of the greatest strengths of this virus though, is the fact that Blight Wardens have the ability to create antibodies that are able to keep the virus at bay. Lowering the amount of pain felt to something akin to what a first degree burn feels like to a mortal. Lu Yueh then later used these antibodies to create a vaccine for his own forces and those of the other traitor legions. Allowing the BW to make use of this virus even when non BW forces are present.

Sadly, due to all the modifications made to the virus it doesn’t multiply as quickly, nor is it simple to modify the original world eater virus. This has severely limited the ability to produce large quantities of the virus. Limiting its deployment to a handful of important battles.

### BA-019-XX

A variation of a bacteria that has caused great suffering on Terra, BA-019. Strains of this bacteria cause very watery diarrhea and vomiting with accompanying pain in the chest and abdominal area. As can be guessed from the symptoms the bacteria spreads through contaminated water sources and most versions used by the legion have thus been augmented to be able to pass through most simple water filters. Due to the nature of bacteria the removal of BA-019 and related strains from a planet is nigh impossible. Meaning that any human to arrive on the world before the disease has died out, has to be vaccinated to avoid being affected.

### FA-145-X

A fungus created by Lu Yueh Zhi Zi himself it is the greatest weapon we have against orcs. This fungus feeds of the fungal spores released by the orcs upon death, drastically lowering their manpower supply in the long term. After a field experiment it was found that FA-145-X can even develop in already established orc fungal colonies. This can no longer occur in regions where the orc ecosystem has fully taken hold and has started producing new orcs. At that point only the aerial spores and spores that have only just takes root are vulnerable.

## Non-combat pathogens and chemicals

These are creations made to assist in cleaning up any leftover chemicals and particularly harmful pathogens to enable swift colonization of compliant worlds by Imperial citizens. The purpose designation of these pathogens and chemicals is C.

### BC-01-XXXX

A group of bacteria of which each is designed to consume a specific chemical employed by the IInd legion and turn them into less harmful chemicals. Various strains of this bacteria are released upon worlds directly after successful compliances to clean up most if not all chemical weaponry used during the compliance. Sadly this bacteria does have a slight problem in cleanup. It is relatively slow and can take decades to truly remove all the chemicals used by the IInd. Beyond that these bacteria can also hamper the production of certain materials at later points in time. As bacteria can survive for at least a century without food and as such can easily find a home inside factories. If this occurs on a large scale the Blight Wardens will sent a shipment containing the virus VC-024-0292 to be released upon the world and clean up the bacteria.

### VC-24-XXXX

Similar to BC-001, VC-024 is used to clean up any pathogens left behind by the legion after compliances. Though it is faster than BC-001, viruses can die out before their work is done. Simply spreading too fast and killing the target pathogens faster than they can infect them. As such standard medical aid will still need to be given after the deployment of VC-024.

### C-34

A neutralizing agent created by Lu Yueh, capable of neutralizing all of the most commonly used chemicals of the legion. It is designed to be deployed in places where chemicals have pooled to levels that would be dangerous to the world for centuries or millennia. C-34 reacts with these chemicals such that they break down alongside C-34 into many less harmful chemicals such as carbohydrates, sugars, water and sulfates.