Macharius - Macharius: Macharius was the lord commander solar, the chief military commander of the Imperium's Segmentum Solar, a warmaster of the Imperium and one of the High Lords of Terra. He is also perhaps the most famous commander of the Astra Militarum.Granted the rank of Imperial warmaster by the Senatorum Imperialis, he undertook the Macharian Conquests, also called the Macharian Crusade, of 392-399.M41, which in only seven standard years added nearly 1,000 new worlds to the Imperium at the very edge of the Milky Way Galaxy in the Segmentum Pacificus. He was also later canonised as a saint of the Imperial Cult by the Ecclesiarchy.Macharius launched a vast campaign, unrivalled since the Emperor's own Great Crusade that founded the Imperium of Man, to expand the boundaries of the Imperium into uncharted regions of the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond. Macharius' operations have become textbook examples of how to run interstellar military campaigns and he is considered one of the greatest military minds to have been produced by Humanity, easily the equal even of the genetically-engineered superhuman primarchs.His conquest was only halted by the refusal of his troops to continue due to their fear of what lay beyond the known reaches of space. This fear arose in Macharius' great host when the Macharian Crusade's path of conquest had reached all the way to the outer border of the psychic protection and interstellar navigation afforded by the Emperor's Astronomican at the farthest edge of the galaxy.Beyond that point, Warp travel would become much more dangerous, slow and difficult. It is said that when Macharius learned that he would be unable to conquer any more worlds in the name of the Emperor of Mankind, he fell to his knees and wept, a man broken by the Human frailties of those around him which he did not share.Most Imperial savants agree that Macharius, a native of the Civilised World of Donia in the Segmentum Pacificus, was the most successful and brilliant Imperial Warmaster since the Arch-Traitor Horus.Nearly a thousand worlds were brought into the Imperial fold in only seven standard years of fighting, yet upon his death the newly-won territories erupted into the civil war known as the Macharian Heresy as Macharius' various generals vied for control over what he had won, fighting over the spoils as degenerate warlords who cared more about their own glory than that of the God-Emperor.The Lord Solar Macharius' forces consisted of seven army groups of the Astra Militarum, each led by a general appointed by Macharius himself, including Sejanus, Tarka, Lysander, Borgen Crassus, Arrian and Cyrus of Larrentine. Though Macharius was prepared to capture a thousand more worlds, his armies were not, for they had been pushed beyond the point of endurance and were exhausted by the relentless pace with which Macharius had driven them.His troops had followed him from world to world on one of the greatest Human adventures of all time, but his subordinates refused to travel any further when they reached the edge of the known galaxy. It was whispered that the stars of the Halo Zone beyond the boundaries of the Segmentum Pacificus were haunted and the worlds which orbited them were inhabited by ghosts.At the edge of the galaxy Macharius prepared to move onwards but his armies, never beaten once by any enemy, wavered and crumbled at the prospect of exploring the psychic darkness at the galaxy's edge. The conquests of Macharius thus came to an end.The Lord Solar had finally been defeated, not by any opposing warlords, but by Human fear and frailty. Reluctantly, Macharius agreed to conclude his campaign and return to Imperial space. The Lord Solar was never seen alive again, for he died during the voyage back to his homeworld to announce the full extent of his conquests to the Senatorum Imperialis.The exact nature of Macharius' death remains shrouded in mystery. Yet no Imperial leader has led the armies of the Astra Militarum to more victories or on to greater conquests, nor won so many worlds for the Imperium since the Great Crusade itself.Many things and places throughout the Imperium have been named in honour of Macharius, including the Imperial Navy battleship Lord Solar Macharius commanded by Captain Leoten Semper, the Macharius Heavy Tank, and the battleship Macharia Victrix.The planet Macharia, in the Cadian System (not to be confused with the Shrine World of the same name in the Segmentum Pacificus described below), was destroyed by Abaddon the Despoiler's Planet Killer superweapon during the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41.