Index Mardannon: Mardannon Subsector

This section of the Warhammer 40,000 Battles Book details the Mardannon subsector, the chief stronghold of the Imperium in our portion of space. This treatise includes Ordavis, in the Carpithica system. These entries change from time to time as battles are fought and won, and the fortunes of these distant stars wax and wane. After The Battle for Ordavis, I'll post an update for the Carpithica system when I update the Battles Book. Until then, familiarize yourself with the 'core' planets of the Mardannon Sector! Included is a small Warp Chart for planning those pesky jaunts through the Immaterium!

Mardannon Subsector

		6						1	Mardannon
			1			5		2	Bulgaris
								3	Garrinax
		2						4	Kathis Mundanus
					3			5	Drogo
	4							6	Carpithica

The Seat of Imperial Power

Mardannon is the highest populated Imperial-controlled subsector, for it is the seat of the Throne’s power throughout this region of space. This was the first subsector colonized in the Old Crusade, and maintains the proudest traditions venerating this fact. Mardannon is strongly controlled by the Imperium, and the hope remains that once the rebellions here are quelled, Mardannon’s might will surge forth and cleanse the rest of the sector as well.

Mardannon is one of the most advanced and civilized of the subsectors listed here, due to the relative safety of the zone. It is far away from most of the alien dangers in the sector such as the Orks of Magnum Sierra, but is not entirely untouched. Daemonic cults seem to flourish in the population, and the Inquisition is known and feared throughout the subsector.

Mardannon System

• Mardannon Prime

• History: Colonized in the early part of the Old Crusade, Mardannon has become a massive hive world sporting no less than eight massive hive spires. The orbital docks and shipyards surrounding the planet are top notch, as Mardannon serves as Battlefleet Command for the entire sector.

• Geography: The surface of Mardannon Prime is covered in snowy mountains and low plains. The hives belch smog continuously into the atmosphere, and after five thousand years the sky is perpetually grey. Although there aren’t any major ash deserts the southern wastes are particularly hot and deadly.

• Inhabitants: The people of Mardannon Prime are a generally happy lot, generally free of corruption and are an industrious and productive people. Service in the regiments of the Imperial Guard is voluntary, and there are always thousands of hivers seeking another way of life in this manner.

• Mardannon Secundus

• History: Terraformed shortly after the colonization of Prime, Mardannon Secundus is a thriving Agri-world. Secundus produces food bound for several systems within the subsector, and is guarded like a treasure. The planet sits not far from Prime itself, with the Fleet close by.

• Geography: Most of Secundus is flat plain littered with Agri-Domes and the Habitats of the Serfs. In the north, massive mountains dominate hemisphere. Most of the southern hemisphere is under high density water.

• Inhabitants: On Secundus, the farmer’s way is the only way. The Agri-Barons rule in a feudal manner, with the top Agri-Barons trading with off-world merchants for the highest profits. For the serfs themselves, life is made easier with abundance of technology, but only slightly.

• Ortaph Maximus

• History: As soon as Mardannon Prime was slated for colonization, Adeptus Mechanicus Explorators arrived on this small and nearly barren planetoid and began the construction of what would become one of the most important Forge Worlds in the entire sector. Today, Ortaph Maximus is covered nearly entirely by Mechanicus compounds and orbital shipyards.

• Geography: Ortaph Maximus is inhospitable and barren, with a broken and jagged granite-like surface. Abundance of many minerals within the crust of the planet is cited as the reason for Explorator colonization. Human life cannot exist outside the Forge Hives due to the weak and polluted atmosphere.

• Inhabitants: Nearly all the inhabitants of Ortaph Maximus are adepts of the Machine God. The most important items churned out by the Forge Spires of Ortaph Maximus are myriad pieces intended for the construction and repair of capital ships. Naval munitions are also fabricated here.

Bulgaris System

• Bulgaris

• History: Discovered not far from Mardannon, this gas giant was quickly recognized as an abundant source for Pyrrin, a gas that when condensed becomes a highly flammable liquid. Prized as a source of fuel for the sector’s battlefleets, Bulgaris is well monitored and defended.

• Geography: Bulgaris is a binary star system, and the radiation of the twin suns is fatal to humans. However, it is exactly this radiation that produces the environment needed to create the Pyrrin gas. The planet itself is entirely composed of various stellar gases and liquids towards the surface. It does not have a breathable atmosphere and the gas miners avoid entering it.

• Inhabitants: Bulgaris has many orbital stations in geosynchronous counter-orbit, keeping them in the shadow of Bulgaris at all times. The inhabitants of these stations are Adeptus Mechanicus and various guildhouse workers from the nearby systems of Carpithica and Mardannon.

Garrinax Seclusia System

• Garrinax Seclusia

• History: Colonized during the initial expansion into the sector, Garrinax Seclusia became the repository for malcontents during the Crusade. As the oldest penal colony in the sector, Garrinax Seclusia has quite a reputation throughout the Guard and Navy, as well as hive criminals who have a notion that the place exists.

• Inhabitants: Only home to inmates and their tenders, Garrinax is almost totally devoid of human settlement. There are more living people scattered throughout the systems’ asteroid belts, of which it has three. The asteroids are rich with plenty of minerals used in a multitude of industrial processes, including metals and gases. The Adeptus Arbites train members as prison guards here before they are moved to active duty on worlds throughout the sector.

• Geography: Garrinax Seclusia has a rocky surface with barely any water or vegetation, and where such occurs is limited to zones around the equator. The equator of the world is wracked with seismic activity and is generally considered uninhabitable. The planet also teems with various mineral deposits that, while valuable, are extremely dangerous to harvest. Nonetheless, inmates are still assigned to harvester teams to mine resources from the planet as a means of punishment and / or execution.

Kathis Mundanus System

• Partisan Imperious

• History: One of the oldest hive worlds in Mardannon, the hive cities here are over five thousand years old. The relative high tech of the entire Kathis Mundanus system is maintained by Guilders closely working with adepts of the Machine God. Since the 13^th Black Crusade, this world has been embroiled in terrible wars of faith with guerilla insurrectionists.

• Inhabitants: There are eight huge hive cities on Partisan Imperious, and the factorums churn out materials that are needed all across the sector. Lucrative trade agreements with the Imperium have made the aristocracy rich. The majority of the populace still lives in the depths of the hive cities, but enjoy higher tech and comfort than similar Imperial worlds.

• Geography: Partisan is not badly polluted, but most of the surface is covered in high density water, unsuitable for drinking unless processed. The hives are built half in the water and half out, as only about twenty percent of the planet is dotted with islands of habitable land.

• Mordredus

• History: Colonized a thousand years after Partisan Imperious, this world was once home to marauding ork pirates. After being granted this cleansed world, the remnants of the Catachan 146^th worked closely with the Adeptus Mechanicus to erect the hives. Like nearby Partisan Imperious, the people of Mordredus have had to contend with guerilla insurrectionists in all of the hives and at large elsewhere on the planet.

• Inhabitants: Descended from the Catachan 146^th, the populace of Mordredus lives within three huge hive cities. As a production facility of assorted wares, these cities always deliver a surplus of goods that is sold off to Guild traders from Partisan. The hivers live well enough, as the hives are for the most part open and the atmosphere non-toxic.

• Geography: Mordredus, in stark contrast to Partisan Imperious in the same system, is largely covered in rolling mountain ranges. About forty five percent of the surface is covered in greenish water that when condensed and purified is highly nutritious. Static storms of varying magnitudes careen across the surface during storm season, but for the most part the world is idyllic.

Drogo System

• Drogo

• History: Drogo has been a primary source of income for the sector’s trading guilds for as long as it has been a recognized system under Imperial compliance. For about five thousand years, the crystalline surface of Drogo has been mined for Drogite, a very special mineral that can be rendered a hundred different ways for a hundred different reasons – at least so say the Mechanicus.

• Inhabitants: Inhabited by the Guilders and Mechanicus rendering installations, Drogo is a very heavily populated system – just not on the world itself. The space stations orbiting Drogo are in geosynchronous orbit with the corresponding mining station on the surface, and giant ‘crystal crawler’ machines till the soil in a systematic harvesting of the Drogite encasements that are literally spilling out of the surface, even after five thousand years. On the surface, ignorant techno-barbarians avoid the installations and mining crawlers and eke out an existence near the salt oceans, where the Drogite crystal does not form as readily.

• Geography: Drogo is covered in a thick, mineral laden soil which when exposed to oxygen and sunlight can actually begin to grow a crystalline residue when cultivated in certain conditions. The entirety of the planet has been converted by the Guilders and Mechanicus to actually promote this nutrient crystallization transfer. Much of Drogo is covered in differing kinds of water, and near the alkaline seas of the northern hemisphere is where the Imperials make their presence. The techno-barbarians regard the entire region as haunted by metal snakes that churn the earth – the crystal crawlers.

• Araba

• History: An explorator world, Araba is home to some of the most sophisticated equipment in the sector. Several Mechanicus Skitarii regiments are stationed here, as is the majority of the Mechanicus fleet presence in the sector.

• Inhabitants: The Explorator Corp of the Adeptus Mechanicus is the sole body responsible for events and equipment on Araba. The installations here are used to instruct new Mechanicus Adepts and refit stations all over the sector. As a result, there is a very machine-like and cold society on this world.

• Geography: A vast desert world made up of varying topographic terramorphs, Araba is generally considered quite a hostile environment. In the massive Mechanicus dome cities, life is lit by primitive haloglobes in dark corridors. Mountains of vast proportion jut from the earth in windswept upturns, their jagged spires piercing the very sky.

Carpithica System

• Carpithica

• History: For nearly four thousand years, Carpithica shone as a pristine example of the realization of the Imperial ideal. It was colonized shortly after the rediscovery of Ordavis, another planet in the system. It is a civilized world not overpopulated (due to heavy tithes of personnel to the Imperial Guard and other Imperial agencies) or heavily polluted. Vast tracts of land were set aside for farming, and the planet was a prime source of agro products for several systems. Until the Orks arrived.

• Inhabitants: Carpithica has been a war zone for nearly 8 years, where the human population has been pitted against a horde of Orks of various tribes united under the Waaagh!! of an as yet unknown warlord. Due to the large area of agro land between the population centers, the ork invaders and the human farm workers have been fighting a running battle in the fertile no-man’s land. At present, the orks control a large area near the equator, but are pressing northward into the human controlled area of the planet.

• Geography: Most of Carpithica is covered in salt oceans, but there are several large continents dotting the globe. Two of these continents are used by humans for the fertile agro land in the northern hemisphere, and a third continent in the southern hemisphere is the industrial zone. Heavy jungle and mountains ring the equator, where the ork base camps are. Ice continents have formed around the north and south poles, all in all Carpithica is one of the nicest worlds in the sector, environmentally speaking.

• Ordavis

• History: A massive hive world, Ordavis was brought into compliance with the Imperium once again during the Old Crusade. The people had lost contact with the Imperium for nearly a thousand years following a massive warp storm in the area, but continued to maintain throwback traditions that identified its folk as belonging to the Imperium.

• Inhabitants: Stern hive workers form the body of the population, while a few Guilder and Imperial noble houses handle trade and other off-world business. Orks arrived in the system 8 years ago, during which time reinforcements from the Imperium have arrived piecemeal, not enough to break the grip the ork flotilla has secured on the sector.

• Geography: A small planet with a grey skyline, a good portion of Ordavis is actually rocky crust of the planet, resembling at times a rock quarry. Many of the hives are built down into the crust, while others are built as spaceports and stretch into the stratosphere. There isn’t much drinkable water, and several hives are actually giant mega-condensers that struggle to support the atmosphere of the planet, which is only just barely livable by human standards.

Warhammer 40,000 Project Log

July 25th, 2010

Season: Warhammer 40,000

Army: Alpha Legion (1000 pts) - The Umbral Stalkers Cabal

Unit: Commander Maargoz's Legionnaires!

Whazao!

It's Bone again, this time with a heapin' helpin' of good news. Turns out, the Alpha Legion of the Umbral Stalkers Cabal is doing really well in the Battle for Ordavis, and we'll get to that soon enough with a blog entry of it's own. The prize today is the last of my units plotted for my 1000 points of Chaos Space Marines - a unit of regulars I call Legionnaires!

These fellows had a few extra metal bits, and by bits I mean pieces ranging from metal shoulder pads to metal bodies. The astute among you may note the presence of old metal veterans in my army, and one of them is present in this unit (he's the heavy metal one second from the left)...

The Aspiring Champion of this unit I originally started to paint back in 2003...I don't know why, I began on him one night, then stopped...not returning to the project until the beginning of this project log nearly six (?) years later. I think it turned out well, for my part...I don't want to take this long on any more projects!

I really enjoyed my time spent on these warriors, and went to town on the brass bits. There's a little more on the last five members of this squad than almost anywhere else in the army, but they still look slick and evil. Also, everyone knows that a painted model actually fights better on the battlefield. It's scientific fact. I'll get a pic of the entire army together with it's terrain set piece, of which I intend to construct for every force I collect.

There will be more frequent updating this week as several projects come together at once. I tend to work on tons of things at the same time, so occasionally there is some overlap and certain posts will have a longer time at the top...but it's entirely random, trust me!

One more thing...if there's anything anyone would like the Wargate to talk about I'd love to hear your ideas. There are a ton of round-table discussions that we can use this site for, so if something has caught your attention and you'd like to discuss it, either send me a suggestion for the topic or write the article yourself and I'll publish it here for everyone to read and digest.

The power of the internet compels you!

Warhammer 8th Edition!

The 10th of July was the big release day for the new edition of Warhammer!

We gathered a few of us together and went down to our local game store to attend the release event, but didn't have too much time to hang around at the store. Not much going on, except the putting together of a few Empire models. The store was filled though, and I wanted to stay (someone had requested a short demo) I simply couldn't hang around. This upcoming Saturday I'll be doing demos down at The Cave, so why not stop in and check out the new edition?

The book itself is silly to behold! It feels like it's twice the size (and weight) of the 7th edition book, which is similar in size to the 40k rulebook. I always like to get the big version of the rulebooks, but now I'm going to have to get one of the small rulebooks that will probably be published in the Isle of Blood boxed set. I didn't bother with the last edition's small books, but now it's simply a must - a few minutes with the book in your hand and you'll see how cumbersome it is! It's a damn pretty book though.

We also got some new units! We'll be gearing up for a Mighty Empires campaign for Warhammer which will see me take the Empire paired with our buddy Joe's Ogres to dominate the landscape in competition with two other teams: the undead forces of Josh and Skim and the alliance of Greg's High Elves and Shawn's Lizardmen. It should be quite a hoot, but is some distance off.

I already had an Empire box set for my first unit in the upcoming escalation league, so I grabbed a box of Crypt Ghouls to add to my Mordheim Undead.

Joe was with us all day, and you can see him here breaking out his second unit of Leadbelchers. I'm glad these Ogres will mostly be on my side during the grand campaign.

Shawn finally decided that it was OK to have Saurus, and grabbed a box. Now he's threatening to get more. Already the Temple Army he's plotted is nearing 4000 points!

Skim grabbed some Tomb Kings! This makes him the first Pharoah or something, because no one else in our group has ever grabbed these up! He's not sure yet what they'll become, but we'll probably be seeing tons of his skeletal infantry mobbing our lines soon enough!

Release day came and went, but the fervor for Warhammer remains! Very soon I'll be calling one-offs of Warhammer, Mordheim, Necromunda and Lord of the Rings after our 40k campaign comes to a close, so prep those armies, warbands and gangs to subjugate your foes!

Index Mardannon: Sector War 2004

This particular article has been in the Warhammer 40,000 Battles Book we keep here at the club - a thick, black binder filled with presentation sheets containing articles, maps, and tales of valor. This particular article was penned back in 2004, after the Battle for Vogen was fought and gave a narrative to the two campaigns we fought in 2003-2004. Since these began the storylines for our entire Warhammer 40,000 campaign structure, I thought it relevant to post this. It has since been subsumed into a new essay (containing a distilled version of the narrative given here) that is the introduction to our Battles Book. I'll be posting additional sections from all our Battle Books here for everyone's perusal in the future. There will be more Wargate material coming soon!

The Mardannon Sector War

(Late .M41)

Although plagued by strife for its entire existence, the Mardannon sector became a truly war torn place during the height of the 13^th Black Crusade. Abaddon’s forces erupted from their hiding spots and drove for the most vulnerable of the Imperial worlds, and succeeded in subjugating and enslaving entire systems.

At the end of the Black Crusade, forces loyal to Chaos still have full sway in some zones of the sector. The most dangerous subsectors have very little Imperial presence beyond a few outposts or naval bases. The wake of the Black Crusade has damaged Imperial rule throughout the galaxy, and the Mardannon sector feels this keenly due to proximity to the Eye of Terror. Indeed, on every world in the sector the sky pulses with the unnatural light of those tainted stars.

Notable Actions

• The Exparos Incident – At the height of the 13^th Black Crusade, Inquisitor Lord Lucian Kylan of the Ordo Malleus divined a terrible disturbance in the Warp around Exparos, deep in the Magnum Sierra subsector. These Warp tremors were caused by an alien artifact of Eldar make, and with this portent Kylan foresaw the artifacts purpose was to resonate psychic energy and generate and a build up of Warp energy for an unknown purpose.
• Inquisitor Kylan dispatched his protégé, Inquisitor Dominic Gustav, to reconnoiter the ork held world and find the exact location of the artifact. The ork tribe inhabiting Exparos, a splinter of the dominant Black Skull Goffs, had sensed the Warp focus and built crude shrines to their gods. This amplified the psychic resonation in the buried artifact to extremely dangerous levels. If left unchecked, this resonation could build to critical levels, resulting in a cataclysmic Warp-realspace breach of unknown magnitude.
• Inquisitor Gustav and his task force reconnoiter the area and locate the artifact quickly, in the middle of a large ork encampment around their newly constructed idols. Though severely outnumbered with limited supplies in enemy territory, Inquisitor Gustav knows the artifact must be destroyed, even at the cost of his own life and the lives of his men. Grand Master Hess of the Grey Knights had accompanied Gustav at Kylan’s request, and used his expert military planning to ensure the handful of Grey Knights and stormtroopers in the expedition were as effective as possible.
• In a daring teleport assault by the Grey Knights, the Inquisitorial task force entered the underground ruins of an ancient Eldar city and disabled the artifact, an Eldar psychic power grid. Its resonating energies dissipated with much less catastrophe due to Gustav’s powerful psychic might. Only ork encampments and idols were destroyed in the resulting blast, and nearby systems were unaffected. No Warp storms were triggered, a deep concern that Gustav and Hess shared.

• The Battle for Vogen – On Tetrazom Tertius, in the Urbanus Scapulare subsector, the capital city of Vogen once stood as a bastion against the plagues of heretics that scarred the landscape of this formerly beautiful and civilized world. However, decades of civil wars against heretic guerilla uprisings and militias left what few Imperial forces remained scattered and stretched to the limit.
• During the 13^th Black Crusade, Tetrazom Tertius was nearly lost entirely to Chaos and alien forces. At the time, no reinforcements could be diverted help Tetrazom Tertius…the long battle for the Cadian Gate demanded the most of the sector’s military resources due to its relatively close proximity to Cadia and the Eye of Terror. Conflicts at home flared in absence of Imperial presence, and proved to be a little too much for the Planetary Defense Forces.
• The traitorous Alpha Legion had long used this planet as a secret staging area, supplying heretic armies with weapons and converts to Chaos. The secretive and inscrutable Alpha Legion sorcerers directed their operations here, and eventually the capital city of Vogen became the primary target.
• Fate can change her mind at any time. What was assured victory for the machinations of the Alpha Legion was thrown into question by the arrivals of military forces previously not present.
• A large force of Black Skull Goffs crashed into the planet in a ramshackle ork rok, in close proximity for Vogen. The capital city became their first target in their planned domination of the humans occupying their new playground. Led by the tenacious Warboss Gigi, the orks began to smash all military forces directed their way.
• As if guerilla armies of daemon worshippers, a renegade space marine legion, and a horde of orks dropping from the sky weren’t enough for Imperial forces on Tetrazom Tertius, another threat appeared from space shortly after the general evacuation of Vogen by Imperial authorities. A Tau hunter cadre had wandered dangerously far from home using an unstable Warp rift, and several thousand Sa’cea Fire Warriors began to establish a beachhead on the war-torn Imperial planet they had “discovered”. Many Imperial citizens responded favorably to the policies implemented by the new arrivals, and a Tau protectorate formed in just a few months inside Vogen, which was now largely abandoned by Imperial forces.
• In the midst of all this conflict between so many different military powers, the cults flourished and drew power from the bloodshed and depravity in the lawless city. The sorcerers of the Alpha Legion supplied the heretic bands throughout the city and surrounding area with powerful rituals and spells designed to bring forth the energies of chaos. Quickly, the negative psychic energy surrounding the city built to a critical mass, opening the way for malignant daemons and other manifestations of chaos.
• A terrible thing then happened. The spells and rituals the Alpha Legion seeded in the heretic cults opened a way for a powerful Daemon Prince of Slaanesh. Once a noble space marine of the Emperor’s Children, he attained daemonhood quite recently. His daemon fleet arrived through the Warp, and quickly seized the star port in Vogen. Daemons of Slaanesh polluted the very reality around the city, and violence between the Tau, Orks and heretics escalated to a new level.
• It was then that the Titan’s Hammer and escort the Avenging Talon arrived in orbit around Tetrazom Tertius. The Lord Inquisitor Lucian Kylan had arrived to do battle with Kal’Duraas, an enemy of mankind that Kylan had pursued for many years. This time, however…the Chaos sorcerer had become a true daemonic entity. Lord Kylan assembled a task force on Cethrax, including Grand Master Hess of the Grey Knights, and his protégé, the young Inquisitor Dominic Gustav.
• The two powerful Imperial ships vastly outclassed the ragtag collection of smaller, ill-maintained transatmospheric ships that the heretics possessed. Although the Imperial achieved orbit over Vogen and held it without contest, the Imperials simply could not control the amount of small craft on the surface. The Emperor’s Children maintained atmospheric air superiority throughout most of the battle for the city.
• Imperial control of Tetrazom Tertius was waning. As the Inquisitor surveyed military reports, he realized there were less than two areas of solid Imperial control on Tetrazom Tertius, both thousands of miles overland from Vogen. Lord Kylan immediately assumed command of all remaining Imperial military units, and ordered all loyalists to consolidate and defend the two remaining fortress cities of Abbacia Inheritus and Inveteratus. Imperial forces immediately established a strong line of defense and began to push the heretics and aliens back.
• Kylan’s forces then entered the capital city, first as tentative reconnaissance units. As areas of the city were cleared enemy presence, the Inquisitorial task force began to search for its real objectives on Tetrazom Tertius. The Inquisition was not there to defend or provide soldiers for garrison. Kylan wished to root out and destroy the minions of Chaos responsible for this and many other atrocities: the sorcerers of the Alpha Legion and Kal’Duraas the Daemon Prince.
• The battle for Vogen went on for five more months. The Alpha Legion fled or went into hiding after just a few engagements with Inquisitorial forces. In the end, the Emperor’s Children controlled enough area of Vogen to influence the heretic cults that worshipped Kal’Duraas to commit a massive ritual suicide, the resonating psychic force of which enabled Kal’Duraas and his traitorous brethren to escape Tetrazom Tertius. The Inquisition succeeded in capturing several important areas of Vogen, but could not hope to control the city. With the Daemon Prince gone, the frequency and magnitude of the manifestations of Chaos in and around the city returned to normal, but the damage was done. The area was tainted by daemon blood. The Alpha Legion’s sorcerers responsible had disappeared, whereabouts unknown. The Lord Inquisitor’s task force left Tetrazom Tertius to return to Cethrax for supplies, leaving the Planetary Defense Force to defend the cities and await Imperial liberation.
• As for the aliens present during the battle for Vogen, the Black Skull Goffs defeated a truly remarkable amount of enemy forces during the campaign. Their fury was unmatched, and every enemy they encountered paid a high toll, in blood. The horde was very powerful, but could not maintain effective control of the city. The ork attack eventually lost momentum as losses were taken too quickly to be replaced. Hundreds of ork warbands scattered into the hinterlands as the campaign wore on.
• The Tau Hunter Cadre controls a large portion of the city and became popular with the remaining Imperial citizens who did not flee Vogen or become tainted with Chaos. The alien heresy remained for several months after the battle as the only presence in Vogen besides insane bands of daemon worshippers. In the end, they knew they were too far from home to continue the colonization, and opted to flee Imperial retribution. Taking many willing humans who allied themselves with them, they launched their ships and fled into the Warp to an unknown destination.
• Tetrazom Tertius, to this day, is a dangerous world scattered with the battle scarred ruins of its cities. The two Imperial fortresses have been reinforced with Imperial Guard regiments since the end of the 13^th Black Crusade, but Imperial power here is still weak. Proper steps have been taken to ensure an Astartes Crusade to reclaim the planet…if the defenses of the Imperial citizens hold until that day.