Enceladus s/s

Charybdis Cluster

Charybdis - Chaos **EXCOMMUNICATE TRAITORIS**

While the some of the worlds of Aleph Sector had peacefully accepted compliance, the Enceladus subsector had been a hard and brutal campaign with a resentful populace, particularly the Charybdis system where a technologically advanced society had violently resisted. The primary hospice of the Iron Warriors was placed with the garrison on Charybdis Major and left to the care of Lycurgus, who was forced to remain with the garrison. Surrounded by broken and dying Iron Warriors and a rebellious populace, an already broken Lycurgus heard of Olympia's rebellion and Perturabo's vengeance. Kardis had been the first city to suffer Perturabo's rage, utterly destroyed by orbital bombardment, Perturabo had the pict recordings spread throughout the IV Legion where possible. Like so many in the IV, the genocide of Olympia darkened Lycurgus' soul. Lycurgus was bitter, clearly mentally suffering beyond the resilience of even an Astarte after the horrors the IV had endured, and here he began his experimentations, swearing he would not lose anymore of his patients.

The Heresy
It is thought that the technologies of the fallen Charybdian societies helped Stahl in his efforts, thought to be forbidden by the Mechanicus of Mars. Nevertheless Stahl succeeded; 25 warriors at first deemed too damaged even for a Dreadnoughts sarcophagus were returned to active duty. To outsiders the 25 Iron Warriors were monstrous, a melding of machine, grown organics and less identifiable elements. It quickly became obvious that the warriors held greater loyalty to Stahl than any other. Stahl, the 25 and most of Lexer's Grand Battalion were at Istvaan Massacre, other Iron Warriors referring to 144th Battlion as “the Reforged” or less favourably “the Broken”. Among all the Grand Battalions, the 144th suffered some of the lowest death tolls, but highest injury rates. The 25 had formed an honour guard for Stahl, who had become indispensable to the 144th, much to Lexer's chagrin.

At the attack on Terra, the 144th Grand Battalion were assigned as the triage teams behind the front line, Lexer was thought to be apoplectic at this slight, his battalion again overlooked and all Stahl's fault. Because of their tactical position, the withdrawal from Terra was quick. The 144th withdrew to their fortified garrisons in Enceladus and Aleph Sector. Many of the Aleph Sector had joined Horus in treachery and the reconquest of the sector was arduous during the great Scouring. The last subsector to face the vengeful loyalists was the Enceladus Subsector.

Creation of the Charybdis Rift
Under siege and out of time, Stahl was under greater pressure to heal those injured in the defence. War raged in space and on the ground. Warsmith Lexer, suspected to have lost his mind by this point, was resigned for them to die in the defence, the failure of Horus meaning the death of them all. Stahl believed otherwise, he wouldn't let his works go to waste on the whims of a fool. How it came about exactly is unknown, but was is known is that Stahl murdered Lexer in cold blood and declared himself Warsmith of the 144th, which none dared nay-say. Stahl devised a daring escape plan, to destroy the whole system to cover their escape. The 144th Grand Battalion's command ship Stone Born, a Despoiler Class Warship, was hurled into the Charybdian Sun. Warsmith Stahl set the Warp Drive of the Stone Born to dramatically overload, creating a Warp event within the Sun and causing a massive warp laced supernova. But he miscalculated and, rather than destroy the sun, time ceased to have meaning at the point of the Storm Born's Warp drive overload, with the plasma drives syphoning power from the star itself and eternally fuelling themselves in overload. An everlasting timeloop was caused repeating the final moments of the ship. In realspace, the warp event that would become known as the Charybdis rift destabilised the whole subsector, pulsing to life at each loop and causing violent Warpstorms to engulf the Enceladus Subsector. The 144th were hurled into the warp, reappearing above Medrengard, only later retracing their journey through the warp, finding an eddy current that would take them to Charybdis and back again.

Post Heresy
For 10,000 years Charybdis was accessible to Medrengard and vice versa, a secret that Stahl kept  from rivals, using the resources of the system to use against rivals Warsmiths. Stahl, like many traitor Apothecaries, spent time studying with Fabius Bile at the Apothecarium Consortium, however Fabius' obsession with the “New Men” set the two at odds. 


While the warp storms were strong, Charybdis was not able to be used to attack the Aleph sector directly as there was no stable route through. It is unknown why the route became more stable but this led the Warsmith Lycurgus Stahl and his Iron Warriors to invade the Aleph sector once more.