Imperium of Man - Imperium Sanctus: Though certain that the opening of the Great Rift in the Era Indomitus was the work of foul Heretics, few in the Imperium know the truth of how or why this catastrophic chain of Warp storms erupted across the galaxy. It is clear only that the Imperium is split apart, torn in two by a roiling belt of malevolent empyric energy that has left the Emperor's realm divided as never before.The vast galactic region known as the Imperium Sanctus is the half of Humanity's realm that fared better in the wake of the Great Rift's opening. Of course, in this time of nightmares "better" is a comparative term. Consisting of the Segmentum Pacificus, Segmentum Tempestus and Segmentum Solar, and parts of both Segmentum Obscurus and Segmentum Ultima, the Imperium Sanctus has Holy Terra at its heart. From here flows the psychic light of the Astronomican, a magnificent golden beacon that shines through the madness of Warpspace to act as a guide for voidships navigating that perilous realm.Throughout this immense region of the galaxy, Imperial worlds of every sort raise their tithes of military manpower and vital resources, sending them forth to bolster the armies of the Astra Militarum and feed the never-ending hunger of Humanity's stellar empire. Space Marine strike forces surge from one war zone to the next, battling the deadliest threats to the Emperor's realm while vast Imperial Navy battlefleets engage in blistering void wars against invasion swarms of every sort.Crusades of the Sisters of Battle bear the word of the Ecclesiarchy into the fiery heart of battle, purging Heretics against the Imperial Creed wherever they are found. Countless Imperial agents work the Emperor's will -- overtly or secretly -- throughout the Imperium Sanctus, while upon Mars and her countless subsidiary Forge Worlds the Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus horde the arcane secrets of the Omnissiah; they use this dimly understood lore to fashion the technologies and weapons Humanity's armies require to battle their foes.This is not to say that the Imperium Sanctus is a well-oiled machine. Only astropathic communication can bridge the vast distances between Imperial worlds; passing from one straining Warp-sensitive mind to another through the treacherous dimension of the Immaterium, this process of psychic messaging is heavy with symbolism, vagary and inaccuracy.Worse still is the very monolithic bureaucracy by which the Imperium Sanctus is governed; mindless and uncaring, glacially slow, the machineries of administration grind all into dust. Millennia of historical learning are lost amidst dusty catacombs, sealed away behind barriers of religious censure. Response times to crises can often be measured in standard years, solar decades, even centuries. To this vast bureaucratic machine the fates of entire worlds barely register, while individual lives mean less than nothing. The living beings of the Imperium are but grist for its ever turning mill, a resource no different to the promethium that fuels its engines, the steel and adamantium that armours its warriors and war engines and the protein gruel that feeds its armies in the field.Most of the men and women who populate this sprawling empire are born, live their lives of toil and fear and eventually die from hardship, malnutrition, exhaustion or some barely remarked upon industrial accident without everhaving seen an alien, a Heretic, nor even a warrior of Humanity's armies; crushed down by the oppressive dictatorial rule of Imperial law, and comforted in whatever desperate fashion by faith in the Imperial Cult, every one of them has served their part in Mankind's galactic war just as does a bullet fired from a gun or a blade driven into an enemy's guts. Truly, only those who take to the stars to war or conquer in the Emperor's name stand any chance of seeing more of existence than this, and even then much of what they witness is invariably horrific.For all its nihilistic misery and soulless oppression, the Imperium Sanctus continues to grind onwards, its sheer weight and momentum carrying it forwards through tragedies unnumbered and hardships untold. This is Humanity's every effort turned wholesale to sustaining total war, all the while praying to the Emperor that one day this nightmare may finally end.