Phosis T'Kar - Triumph of Ullanor: Four solar months after the collapse of resistance on Shrike, word came that the last text of the Phoenix Crag library had been copied into the archive stacks of the Photep. A day later, the 28th Expeditionary Fleet broke orbit, and Magnus the Red gave the order to make best speed for an isolated shoal of spatial debris in the galactic east of the Ark Reach. The various shipmasters of the 28th Expedition queried the coordinates, as they were far from the calculated system Mandeville Point, but Magnus' order was confirmed.This region of space would allow their vessels a calmer entry to the Great Ocean of the Warp, and only when the fleet had reached this newly declared jump point did Magnus reveal their ultimate destination. The 28th Expedition had been summoned to the Ullanor System, and excitement spread through the fleet at the prospect of joining the war against the Orks. More thrilling was the prospect of joining forces with the Emperor Himself, who fought in the forefront of the Ullanor Crusade, smiting the savage foe alongside Horus Lupercal.Hopes of glory to be earned and battles to be fought were dashed, only to be replaced by awe, as it became known that the campaign was already over. The war against the Greenskins of Ullanor had been projected to last for standard years, solar decades even. The Emperor's summons was not in the name of war, but of victory.The Thousand Sons were to stand with many of their brother Legions in a Great Triumph honouring the Emperor's victory, a spectacle the likes of which the galaxy would never see again. Under Magnus' expert direction, the fleet Navigators plotted a razor's course for the Ullanor System. Fourteen Space Marine Legions had answered the Emperor's summons, 100,000 of the greatest warriors in all Human history, and nine of the primarchs were in attendance, the rest too scattered by the demands of the Great Crusade to reach Ullanor in time.Eight million soldiers of the Imperial Army had come, and a dizzying plethora of banners, battle flags, trophy standards and icon poles were rammed into the ground in the centre of each armed camp. They stood proud alongside thousands of armoured vehicles and hundreds of Titans of the Legio Titanicus. Towering above the mortal soldiers, the treads of the mighty battle engines were like a city of steel on the march. The Thousand Sons were amongst the last Legion forces to make planetfall.The entire continent sweltered like a blacksmith's forge, the hammer of history ready to beat the soft metal of existence into its new form. Only an event of galaxy-changing magnitude could warrant such a spectacle. Only the greatest being in the galaxy could inspire such devotion. This was to be a gathering like no other.Horus was to be given the new honour of an Imperial title above and beyond any that had been bestowed before; a title, it could be said, that would forever carry the echo of his name. After declaring Horus as Imperial Warmaster and the new supreme commander of the Great Crusade, the Emperor, to the shock of those assembled, announced His own intention to return to Terra to pursue a secret project intended to benefit all Mankind.After more than 200 standard years of hard conflict by the early 31st Millennium, over two million Human-settled worlds across the Milky Way Galaxy had been reclaimed by the Emperor in the name of the Imperium of Man. Beside Him stood the primarch Horus, who had fought alongside the Emperor for the early part of the Great Crusade as His only rediscovered son and primary military commander, glorying in the singular attentions of his father. The long wars had forged a strong bond between them, and they were truly father and son. But now the Emperor had to consolidate His newborn Imperium, and undertake the next phase of His Grand Plan for Humanity.At this announcement there was much shock and outrage. Many of the other primarchs did not understand why the Emperor was leaving them to fight the enemies of Mankind alone and, worse still, why Horus should be raised as the first amongst equals. The situation only grew worse when the Emperor announced that He would be creating a civilian administrative bureaucracy known as the Council of Terra that was comprised of Imperial bureaucrats and nobles to carry out the day-to-day governmental affairs of the Imperium, replacing the direct rule of the Emperor while He was engaged in his secret Imperial Webway Project.The Council of Terra would implement and administer the new galaxy-wide tax of resources and manpower called the Imperial Tithe and other matters of day-to-day law in the burgeoning Imperium of Man. The primarchs would be relegated to a primarily military role as the Imperium's most preeminent commanders.Many of the primarchs, including Horus, were deeply disturbed that their father would make them subject to normal, mortal men and women who had never shed blood in the establishment or expansion of the Imperium and that he would remove them from the political positions of rule to which they believed they were entitled.Yet the Emperor sought to create a civilian bureaucracy for the Imperium precisely because he wanted regular Human beings to learn to govern themselves once more and not become beholden to a permanent, genetically-enhanced ruling class. The Chaos Gods would ultimately use the primarchs' resentment as one of the all-too-Human weaknesses they could exploit to corrupt half their number.