Pelegius - History: Little is known about the early history of Pelegius. Few accounts of it remain from the time of the lost Jericho Sector, and it seems that there may have been little to begin with, the world having been a blasted wasteland since long before the Great Crusade.If any during that time discovered the mineral wealth of Pelegius, or the ancient ruins beneath its surface, no evidence remains of their discoveries.Regardless, whether the world was known to the Imperial authorities within the Jericho Sector or not, it was identified by forward scouts for the Achilus Crusade while the Iron Collar was being initially fortified, and marked as a world requiring investigation rather than military intervention. Six solar months later, an Imperial Navy battlegroup led by Captain Tylian Kynassis moved into the system to conduct a preliminary survey, only to discover that the T'au had arrived there first.Faced with a newly deployed waystation and a significant T'au force surveying Pelegius itself, the Scintillan 145th Battlegroup was heavily outgunned and caught by surprise in a battle that left most of the group as drifting hulks, and ended with the battlegroup's captain and the flagship Imperious Fortis surrendering to the T'au.When word of this reached the crusade's High Command, retaliatory actions began almost immediately, directed not only at the T'au, but at the traitorous Captain Kynassis.The magnitude of this reprisal was, however, limited by the needs of Operation Hammerfall, and while the T'au fleet was driven from Pelegius' orbit, it was not without cost to the Imperial Navy. With the world now freed from xenos dominance, the personnel of the Adeptus Mechanicus began to move in, the survey ship Meticulous Scrutiny arriving two solar days after the retaliation force had given the "all-clear."After a survey lasting for eight solar weeks that saw hundreds of Servitors, menials and lay-technicians succumb to the hostile environment and indigenous macrofauna, Magos Thaniel Axiom declared the world to be rich in valuable natural resources and sent a series of astropathic messages urging that Lord Militant Tiber Achilus begin the exploitation of those resources as soon as possible.Before that could occur, the T'au returned in strength, employing vox ciphers secured from the Imperious Fortis ' cogitators to deceive and confuse the Imperial forces.However, in spite of their trickery, the T'au could not completely drive the Imperial fleet from the system, and both sides withdrew to the clustered asteroid fields and gas clouds at system's edge to regroup and prepare for a renewed assault. In the solar decades that have followed, this state of affairs has changed little.Neither force can easily gain the upper hand against their enemy due to a slow trickle of reinforcements, sufficient to replenish losses but insufficient to give a significant advantage, due to the more desperate needs of other war zones.A long war of intermittent skirmishes have characterised the void around Pelegius for a very long time. Amidst this, a similar ground war has sprung up, with both T'au and Imperial forces clashing across vast expanses of irradiated desert while engineers, archaeologists and administrators seek to uncover the secrets of Pelegius.