Squats (Original) - Squats (Original): Note: This article discusses material that was once considered canon but which has now been superseded by the Leagues of Votann.The Squats (Homo sapiens rotundus) are short, stocky and physically hardy Abhumans, a subspecies of Humanity, who were on average 1.4 metres tall and were adapted to the heavy gravity conditions that predominated on the worlds they had settled near the core of the Milky Way Galaxy.Of all the Abhuman types encountered by the Imperium of Man, the Squats most closely resembled baseline Humans. Squats were the descendants of Human settlers who had colonised the worlds around the galactic core in the far distant past. These worlds are some of the oldest in the galaxy, formed when the galaxy's structure had not yet been fully stabilised.The Squat species was ultimately destroyed by the invasion of an unnamed Tyranid splinter hive fleet that consumed their homeworlds in the 41st Millennium, though some survivors still serve in the Astra Militarum, hoping for revenge and to find a new beginning for the remnants of their people.The Squats' ancestors were genetically baseline Human colonists who reached the heavy-gravity, mineral-rich worlds around the galactic core during the time of the initial expansion of Humanity beyond Earth's own Sol System during the Age of Technology.This was many Terran millennia before the emergence of the Emperor of Mankind and the dawn of the Age of the Imperium.The colonisation came at the right time, as Old Earth's own mineral wealth had been largely depleted. The worlds at the galactic core were rich in rare and unique strategic minerals, but in terms of the existence of life they were barren and unsuited for Human colonisaton without significant terraforming.These worlds were dark and bleak planets. Their gravity was intense, usually two or three times that of the Earth. Their atmospheres were either thin or non-existent. Even those planets that did possess atmospheres were continuously blasted by tremendous radiation storms produced by the massive black hole located in the galaxy's core.Once settled, these planets became rich Mining Worlds. The colonists were forced to become self-sufficient, providing their own underground, hydroponically-grown food.Due to the hostile nature of these worlds' surfaces, the colonists formed underground societies. During the long isolation of Mankind produced by the Warp Storms of the Age of Strife, the Squat subspecies genetically adapted to their new homes, adapting or genetically engineering themselves to better suit their environment, becoming far tougher, more resilient and physically shorter with a denser skeletomuscular system than found in the baseline Human genome.The Squats had some of the best scientists and engineers in history who explored the frontiers of Human science and technology without the constraints of religion and ritual, in contrast with the dogma-bound Humans of the Adeptus Mechanicus who followed a very different path on Mars during the same period.Some say the real history of the Squats began in the Age of Strife when their worlds were cut off from Terra and the subspecies first developed its defining physical characteristics, but their actual origins are found much earlier during the Age of Technology, or as the Squats call it, the "Age of Founding."In war, the Squats used squads of motorcycles supported by massive artillery barrages from outlandishly large super-heavy tracked vehicles such as the Land Train, Colossus, Leviathan, and Cyclops.