The Beheading - Vangorich's Fall: Following the departure of the Imperial Fists from Terra, Vangorich was left to oversee the reconstruction efforts of the Imperium and to act as Thane's voice in the council of the Senatorum Imperialis. But over the course of the War of the Beast, Vangorich had grown contemptuous of the political machinations and squabbling of the fractious High Lords during the conflict.But he remained committed, at first, to do his best to work with them in the rebuilding of the shattered Imperium. However, Thane had warned Vangorich of Fabricator-General Kubik and his self-interest. Eventually Vangorich discovered the full extent of the fabricator-general's plans. The head of the Adeptus Mechanicus had utilised matter displacement technologies plundered from the Greenskins' Attack Moons to secretly teleport the Ork capital city of the world of Ullanor, Gorkogrod, aboard the immense Adeptus Mechanicus vessel Ark Majesty instead of carrying out an Exterminatus on Ullanor as Chapter Master Thane had demanded. Kubik was intent on plundering the Greenskins for every scrap of their advanced technology. Enraged by Kubik's deception, Vangorich decided to act.The Grand Master of Assassins understood that the Officio Assassinorum was a tool to be used to check the follies of empire. He knew what it could do and what an abuse of power it could be to use as the Emperor intended it to be used. That is why he had avoided acting, until now. Vangorich came to the conclusion that the squabbling rabble in the Senatorum Imperialis were irredeemable. They had done nothing for a thousand standard years but stuff their greedy faces with the wealth of the Imperium. Vangorich saw no other choice but to act, for the Imperium had become corrupt from within. The deadwood needed to be disposed of, and the new given a chance to germinate.Striking swiftly, Vangorich ordered the death of the High Twelve, which was carried out in a single solar day. Only Wienand, the joint-Inquisitorial Representative, was spared, as Vangorich harboured romantic feelings towards the female Inquisitor.Thus, in 546.M32 the byzantine politics of the Imperium of Man took a calamitous turn when the High Lords of Terra were all assassinated. This lamentable event came to be known as "The Beheading." Vangorich moved swiftly in the chaotic aftermath to install new High Lords of his choosing, who acted as a puppet Senatorum Imperialis for the lord protector to do with as he willed.Though he did not say as much, Vangorich believed that the acting Lord Commander of the Imperium had more or less given unspoken permission to his lord protector to remove the chafe from the wheat. Whilst out on his Imperial Crusade, Thane received reports of what Vangorich had done, but did not move against him, as he decided to let the lord protector lead the newly-installed Senatorum Imperialis and rule the Imperium effectively for once.Vangorich would go on to govern the Imperium for nearly a standard century. Though he eventually became a tyrant, he was an effective one, and oversaw the reconstruction and re-fortification of Terra and the Imperium, the rebuilding of Imperial military forces as well as the Fourth Founding of the Adeptus Astartes as Thane had wished. However, after nearly eighty Terran years of rule, the lord protector had begun to display a variety of troubling behaviours and uncontrolled paranoia.Seeing enemies everywhere, he called for unnecessary purges and massacres among the Adeptus Terra, which only seemed to grow in number on a daily basis. Receiving troubling reports from abroad about the lord protector's growing instability, Maximus Thane decided that the Imperial Fists would return to Terra to remove the troublesome Vangorich.