Long War - The Great Scouring: In the wake of the Horus Heresy, the Imperium was a dismal, shattered thing. As the beauty and grandeur of the Imperial Palace had been burned black in the flames of betrayal, so great swathes of the Emperor's star-spanning realm had suffered a similar fate. The Master of Mankind was a broken husk, and His dream of unity erased forever -- yet for all this, the Imperium retained might enough to exact a bloody revenge upon its foes.There could be no forgiveness for the crimes of the Traitor Legions -- those who now ruled in the Emperor's name had neither the ability nor the desire to prevent a war of reciprocity. So began the time known in the histories of the Imperium as the Great Scouring. Before actually being confined for all time within the life support mechanisms of the Golden Throne, the Emperor had pronounced judgement on the Traitors: He declared them Excommunicate Traitoris, and determined that they were to be driven into the hellish region of the Warp rift called the Eye of Terror, which would hold them for all eternity.All records and memory of the Traitor Legions were to be expunged from the Imperial archives. The Traitor Legions' associated troops from the Dark Mechanicus, the Titan Legions or the regiments and starships of the Imperial Army that had turned to Chaos were to be destroyed or driven into the Eye. It would be as if the Traitor Legions had never existed to sully the Imperium with their betrayal.This was a period of monumental violence, of confusion and darkness. Though the newly founded Imperium fought to root out corruption and expose wrong-doers to the cold light of Imperial justice, the galaxy's scope and dark, shadowed reaches worked against its defenders. With new betrayals and cries for vengeance emerging daily, a great many bloody-handed deeds went unseen.The ravaged Space Marine Legions were no exception to this, with many striving to cover up their own misdemeanours or exact their pound of flesh from those who wronged them. The Dark Angels, the Space Wolves, Iron Hands and even the Ultramarines, all followed their own agendas as the wars of the Great Scouring gathered pace. Fighting continued for another seven standard years after the Heresy had ended with Horus' death on the bridge of his great flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, before the Traitor forces were wholly destroyed or exiled into the Eye of Terror.Many Chaos-corrupted star systems were cleansed and placed under the watch of the newborn Inquisition. Horus' death had not ended the fighting, but it had renewed the resolve of the Loyalists to destroy the Traitors. Many Imperial worlds during the Heresy had refused to commit their forces to either side, or seceded entirely from the Imperium to regain their independence.Such indecision was punished by Loyalist and Traitor forces alike. These forces were often bled white attacking the rebel strongholds of worlds that only wanted to be free of the Imperium entirely, whether it swore allegiance to the Emperor or to the Dark Gods.Within the Eye, the Traitor primarchs and their Legions found sanctuary amongst the nightmarish Daemon Worlds. They warred amongst themselves for dominance and territory, while factions split from the Traitor Legions to found other warbands and armies, but they have never stopped fighting against the Emperor. This struggle has lasted for ten thousand solar years and even now besets the Imperium. The Horus Heresy is a distant memory, little more than a legend, but the taint of Chaos still threatens to corrupt -- the Long War continues.