Sector Summary and the Hadron Expanse

While the Crusade, Alliance and Loyalists continued to battle for the Libria system, in 03.016M42 an opportunity presented itself in the dark unknown void of the Hadron Expanse. To the eastern edge of the Aleph sector a vast area of Wilderness space, largely unexplored by the Imperium, became navigable for a brief time due to the unfathomable nature of the warp. There was limited time to exploit this potential resource however, and all the races immediately prepared expeditionary forces to the area to see what riches they could plunder before the warp closed in once more.

The Hadron Expanse had remained unexplored throughout the duration of the imperium. Warp storms, unpredictable in nature boiled their way across the region, preventing any kind of warp travel into our out of the region. Occasionally someone would claim to have penetrated the veil, the area of systems on the edge of the expanse marking the de facto limit of navigable space, but few were believed.

The webway certainly had access to the Expanse, but the eldar guarded it jealously and never informed the tau of their knowledge during their time on the alliance. Worshippers of chaos sometimes managed to make successful jumps into the area, but this relied too much on the fickle nature of Tzeentch, and reliable travel was all but impossible.

The great becalming started in late 015M42, with the warp storms of the Hadron Expanse temporarily moving away, to be replaced with a calm quiescent empyrean. It wouldn't last, the Expanse would be open for a few months at the very most, perhaps a year, but then the storms would close in again. Immediately Inquisitor Vorushko readied an expedition to the area, keen to take advantage of anything to further the Crusade's hold on the Libria system. The tau, federacy and loyalists too prepared forces and fleets to begin the exploitation of the Hadron Expanse.