Konor is an Imperial Forge World and a former Research Station of the Adeptus Mechanicus as well as the second world in the Konor System. It is a dominion of the Realm of Ultramar that is ruled by the Ultramarines Space Marine Chapter and lies in the Ultima Segmentum. Its moon of Gantz is also a very powerful Forge World in its own right, and at various times in the history of the byzantine politics of the Mechanicus, Gantz has actually outranked its sibling world in the hierarchy of the Priesthood of Mars.
Located at the heart of Ultramar, Konor has been one of the principal suppliers of munitions and war machines to both the Ultramarines and the various regiments of the Astra Militarum raised within the borders of Ultramar. When the Plague Wars of the early 42nd Millennium consumed Ultramar, the Forge World came under sustained attack by the Forces of Chaos in service to Nurgle, but the Imperial forces valiantly rallied to reclaim Konor for the Emperor.
During the Great Crusade, Konor was one of the four ruling worlds of the Tetrarchy that governed Ultramar, a status it lost in the millennia after the Horus Heresy but which it reclaimed in the 42nd Millennium after the resurrection of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman and his reorganisation of Ultramar during the Plague Wars. The Ultramarines Chapter's First Captain Severus Agemman was appointed as the new Tetrarch of Konor by Guilliman, and tasked with expanding the territory of Ultramar to the galactic north.
History
Konor, one of the founding worlds of the Realm of Ultramar and presumably named for the adopted father of Roboute Guilliman, had long played host to a large population of the Adepts of the Machine Cult. The pre-Compliance orbital shipyards of both Konor and Calth manufactured, in excess, the large number of steadfast Cruisers and multi-role strike craft of the Ultramarines Legion. Within the fledgling Realm of Ultramar, during the 30th Millennium, there were as yet no Forge Worlds of the magnitude of ancient Accatran, with only the newly-established Forges of Anuaris, still tied both in tribute and loyalty to distant Accatran as much as Macragge, and the reclusive magi of the iron-bound moon of Konor called Gantz ranked as true Forge Worlds within the boundaries of Guilliman's fiefdom. However, there did exist a large number of Mechanicum enclaves scattered throughout the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar. These enclaves ranged from tiny collectives such as the Cult Logis enclave on Sotha which numbered less than a dozen Adepts, to the sprawling Mechanicum cantons of Konor, a world denied the status of a true Forge World only due to its extensive connections to the political hierarchy of Ultramar, which were considered unseemly by the envoys of Mars. Though individually there was no comparison between these separate Mechanicum enclaves of Ultramar and any of the great Forge Worlds, taken as a whole they were a mighty force of technological might, possessed of much esoteric lore and efficacious machineries of war. Where the great Forge Worlds were often dogmatically tied to a single overarching doctrine, even amongst the varied magi and cults which composed their synods, the lesser enclaves encompassed many fields of esoteric technological endeavour unknown to their brethren, some of which verged on tech-heresy. Such dangerous experimentation was common at the very fringes of the Emperor's vast domain, but was tolerated in those turbulent times where it could be turned to greater purpose.
By the early 31st Millennium, the Mechanicum cantons covered nearly three quarters of that world and its industrial output far exceeded that of the nearby moon of Gantz -- which held the title of full Forge World by ancient treaty with Mars and its allies on the Forge World of Tigrus. Yet Konor was not to gain the full freedom of the status of Forge World until the Age of the Scouring for reasons of Imperial politics. The Archmandriture Council of Magos on Konor had placed before the Synods of Mars a petition to grant Konor an official charter as a full Forge World, with all the rights and privileges attendant to that position, on several occasions in the waning years of the 30th Millennium. On each occasion the appeal was denied by the express order of the Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal, citing the ties held by the world of Konor to the ruling hierarchy of the Realm of Ultramar. That Konor also played host to one of the four Tetrarchs of Ultramar, Eikos Lamiad -- the Iron Warden of Konor -- as well as a sizable garrison of the XIIIth Legion, and ceded some part of its own authority to that of Primarch Roboute Guilliman on Macragge were reasons enough in the eyes of many within the byzantine and dogmatic structure of the Cult Mechanicus to disregard the request. Yet in the years which followed the great wars of the Horus Heresy and those of the Scouring, this and many other decisions made by Kelbor-Hal were re-examined and found to carry hidden within them the Warmaster Horus' poison.
Located at the heart of Ultramar and one of the principal suppliers of munitions and war machines, to both the XIIIth Legion and the various regiments of the Imperial Army raised within the borders of Ultramar, Konor was perfectly placed to serve the Warmaster as a cancer in the breast of that realm. If it could be turned to his purpose, either knowingly or not, it could become a weapon that would cripple his brother's armies without disturbing any of the other forces that had pledged their loyalty to him. While all attempts to overtly gain the loyalty of the magi of Konor proved to be a failure, it was far easier to spread the twin curses of jealousy and mistrust amongst their ranks. With the Fabricator-General's continued denial of their petitions and Guilliman's reluctance to relinquish any authority over the world of Konor, vital to his realm as it was, the magi of Konor succumbed to the Warmaster's plans, unwittingly contributing to his cause. The paltry contributions made to the forces ultimately sent to Calth, their divisive meddling in politics beforehand and the belated response to the Traitors' incursion into Ultramar were all symptoms of this infamy.
The Calth Conjunction and the Battle of Calth
When the call to arms for the Ghaslakh Campaign reached the Mechanicum enclaves of Ultramar, the various magi were quick to see the logical advantage of combining their forces. Alone they would be subsumed into one or other of the Imperium's other formations and likely employed with minimal efficiency; together, acting as one body, they would operate at optimum efficiency and prove a valuable military tool for the coming Crusade and the advancement of their own enclaves. Amongst the ranks of the Imperial Army or certain of the Legiones Astartes, such a decision would have prompted many solar months of posturing and political conflict as the various leaders sought one amongst them to lead, not so among the warriors of the Mechanicum. Yet the various magi held on Macragge state that the resulting debate lasted for exactly fourteen solar seconds. Conducted entirely in the binary cant of the Machine Cult, the fraught negotiations granted primacy within the Taghmata Omnissiah to Archmagos Cronn Barbarel, due both to his eminent seniority and fealty to the lords of Gantz who remained neutral in the ancient feud between Konor and Anuaris. Only by deft compromise were the contingents of both Konor and Anuaris kept within the ranks of the Taghmata and even so, the magi of Konor were to delay their arrival at Calth by several solar weeks over supposed disagreements that the muster order favoured the taghma of Anuaris over their own. Indeed, the forces of the Taghmata assembled from the various enclaves was amongst the last of the formations to arrive at Calth, with detachments from over a dozen individual worlds, moons and Monolith-class factory hulks from across Ultramar. When arrive they did, each was assigned a muster site as space became available amongst the teeming horde of military might assembled upon the surface of Calth, with taghma from the greater Taghmata scattered across the planet's surface.
The vast flesh-thrall hordes of Konor's lacyraemarta Adepts were assembled on the rolling plains of Barrtor alongside the Ultramarines 2nd and 16th Chapters and the armoured autokrator squadrons of the Anuaris taghma, the magi at the head of those taghma being at pains to ensure that their old rivals would not seem more efficient than their own vassals as they stood in flawless ranks alongside the cobalt blue files of the Ultramarines. The spindle-legged walkers and ornately augmented magi of the taghma assembled in the deep space drift-refineries of Zeta-Orizus IX were deployed among the desert spires of northern Erud and a regiment of the newly raised 43rd and 44th Erud Infantry regiments.
When the Battle of Calth began with the Word Bearers Legion's betrayal of the Loyalists and the revelation that it had sided with the Warmaster Horus, the Tech-priests of Konor proved reticent to send more reinforcements to the aid of the Ultramarines, as some questioned why they should aid the Loyalist cause when the Loyalist Mechanicum had refused to grant their petition for full Forge World status. Some among their ranks felt that Konor should side with the Warmaster and his Dark Mechanicum in return for recognition of their proper status, but in the end the world maintained its bonds with the Ultramarines. It provided needed Mechanicus military reinforcements throughout the long-duration of the terrible fighting on and below the surface of Calth.
Post-Heresy
After the end of the Horus Heresy, in the early years of the Great Scouring, Konor was at last accorded the formal status of a Forge World in the politics of the Mechanicum. However, at some point between the early 31st Millennium and the 41st Millennium, this status was once more revoked and Konor was downgraded to the political status of a Research Station in the Adeptus Mechanicus' hierarchy. Yet, by the time of the Plague Wars when the Konor System was invaded by the Forces of Chaos, Konor was once more granted the status of a full Forge World of the Mechanicus.
In 111.M42, in the wake of the Indomitus Crusade's end and Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman's return to Ultramar with reinforcements to bring an end to the Plague Wars, the resurrected Primarch announced that he had made a mistake ten thousand years before when he had allowed Ultramar to shrink to a handful of star systems. At that time, he had felt that Space Marines should not rule over large swathes of Mankind, and had granted many of the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar their autonomy from his rule. But in the age of the Noctis Aeterna and the Great Rift, this was a recipe that allowed humanity's myriad enemies to divide and conquer. Guilliman declared that the Five Hundred Worlds would be reborn. He reestablished the ancient Tetrarchy that had ruled Ultramar during the Great Crusade era and restored Konor's place as one of the four primary worlds of Ultramar in that system. He named the Ultramarines First Captain Severus Agemman as the Tetrarch of Konor, tasked with expanding Ultramar to the galactic north.
The Plague Wars
When the Plague Wars began, Ultramar burned. The putrid warbands of the Death Guard, led by the Daemon Primarch Mortarion, launched a furious assault upon the Ultramarines' stellar empire. This eruption of all-out war threatened to drown the stars themselves in bloodshed and terror. Legions of Heretic Astartes and Chaos-spawned monstrosities have already rampaged across world after world, spreading the malignant corruption of the Dark Gods in their wake. Yet all hope is not lost. The return of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman to the region with the end of the Indomitus Crusade has stalled the seemingly unstoppable momentum of the Chaos advance. In a series of bloody battles, the armies of the Imperium -- reinforced with mighty Primaris Space Marines -- have reclaimed many worlds thought lost, forcing their hated foes to retreat and regroup.
The worshippers of Chaos sought to regain their advantage by smashing a path through the Imperial battle line to Macragge, homeworld of the Ultramarines. Had they succeeded, the greatest Imperial stronghold in the sector would have been gravely threatened, and Guilliman's forces cut-off and surrounded. To achieve this end, the Forces of Chaos had to conquer the well-located Konor System. Powered by the industrial might of the Forge World of Konor, this centre of produce and production feeds the Imperial war machine with vital shipments of munitions and machinery. Populous and prosperous, with a large and well-equipped defence force, the Konor System embodies the glorious dream that is Ultramar. Crucially, it also guarded one of the few stable Warp transit routes to the Macragge System. If the Chaos advance was not halted, Konor would have fallen, and a path to the heartland of Ultramar would be laid bare to the forces of the Ruinous Powers.
Yet the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes had no intention of ceding their rightful domain without a fight. The Ultramarines stood against the Chaos onslaught with nobility and courage, smiting the foe with Bolter and blade. And they are not alone. The military sledgehammer of the Astra Militarum rumbled into action, an armoured fist of devastating tank columns and endless regiments of soldiers that ground all before it into ashes and dust. Scattered Space Marine Chapters rushed fresh reinforcements to the war zone, seeking to aid their embattled kin. Enigmatic Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus sent forth their legions of steel, and mighty Imperial Knights bestrode the slaughter like ancient gods of war.
Every single warrior -- every Bolter round and bomb -- was vital, for the Chaos host sweeping across the Konor System was vast beyond imagining. Warriors of the Death Guard marched implacably forward, enemy fire spattering harmlessly from their rusted, ancient Power Armour and pallid, twisted flesh. In return, they unleashed bombardments of noxious toxins and flesh-melting plagues. Daemonic legions surge alongside the Chaos advance, exulting in the chance to wreak torment across the material realm. Warbands of Heretic Astartes, millions upon millions of depraved mortal Chaos Cultists, and a thousand other horrors converged upon Konor, drawn to its aura of agony and death like sharks to blood.
Circling this firestorm of destruction were predatory xenos races, ever seeking to further their own mysterious ends. Orks surged into the war in their millions, delighting in the spreading carnage. Craftworld Aeldari and Drukhari circled from afar, offering their services as mercenaries to both sides or launching raids to fulfill some unknowable agenda. Tyranid and T'au forces spilled in from the Eastern Fringe, capitalising on or drawn by the escalating conflict, while even the Necrons sent undying invasion forces to exploit the infighting of the younger races and expand their ancient empires.
No part of the Konor System was left unscarred by the war. If the Heretic Astartes' plans came to fruition, the system's own worlds would have been weaponised and turned against Ultramar. The Forces of Chaos intended to force open a route to Macragge, and that shining light of the Imperium would face obliteration.
As a Forge World, Konor is a vital cog in the war machine of Ultramar, its sprawling manufactorum districts pumping out a ceaseless stream of weapons, ammunition and battle tanks.
Konor is the manufacturing and fuel-producing capital of its eponymous system, and thus this Forge World was a vital target for both Imperial and Chaos forces during the Plague Wars. The Death Guard and their allies assembled a vast invasion force for the conquest of the planet, including detachments of xenos mercenaries and millions-strong hordes of fanatical cultists.
Manpower was vital in the attritional conflict to come. The Chaos assault on Konor opened with an apocalyptic orbital bombardment, plague-ridden Space Hulks and Chaos Despoiler-class warships ravaging the holdings and armies of the Adeptus Mechanicus with waves of inferno missiles and toxin cascades, churning the planet's atmosphere into a hellish cocktail of flesh-melting viruses and choking smoke. Almost half of Konor's industrial capability was utterly demolished during the initial assault, and the invaders landed an increasing tide of troops planetside. The prodigious level of destruction was judged appropriate by the Heretic Astartes commanders responsible for prosecuting the slaughter, for even with so many manufactorum districts shattered, Konor was still capable of pumping out colossal quantities of battle tanks and munitions. With the billions of slaves claimed by the invasion fleet put to work in the manufactoria, the Forge World would produce even more still should it fall under Chaos control.
The Imperium of Mankind's war effort in the Konor System, and indeed the wider conflict raging across Ultramar, would be severely derailed if Konor was lost to Chaos. Thus, the Imperial High Command authorised the despatching of several armies to relieve the besieged defenders. Archmagos Gother Zymus and his Skitarii Legions yet retained control of Forge Temple Cladis and its surrounding domain, and were aided in their stubborn defence by the Imperial Knights of House Raven. Yet outside their rapidly receding kill-quadrants and excoriation zones, the enemy pressed ever closer, with heavily armoured assault troops and Daemon Engines grinding their way through the shattered innards of manufactorums and hab-arcologies. In this hellish no man;s land, squads of dead-eyed killers stalked the choking sprawl for fresh prey, looking to secure key objectives such as Vox relays, Promethium refineries and precious intact generatorums.
After days of bloody fighting, the Imperium regained control of Konor. Its sprawling manufactorum districts were soon pumping out fresh munitions and weapons once more for the Imperial war effort.
Their armies reinforced by fresh conscripts and supplies after the victory at Astaramis, the Konor System's defenders entered the raging battle for the Forge World of Konor with eager fury. They found themselves battling through a nightmarish hellscape of industrial devastation, a maze of shattered manufactorums and debris-strewn labour-halls where they were as likely to be sliced into pieces by malfunctioning machinery as they were to be slain by one of the roving bands of Chaos marauders that haunted the ash-choked streets.
Worse still, hordes of opportunistic Orks had descended upon the stricken Forge World, seeking to strip as much scrap metal and fuel as possible from Konor's vast reserves. These violent looters were equally dangerous to the forces of the Imperium and the Chaos invaders, as they rampaged across Konor in their smoke-spewing war machines, hacking and bludgeoning to death any unfortunate enough to cross their path.
Nevertheless, the soldiers of the Imperium went about their task with grim courage, pushing through the ravaged districts towards vital strategic targets. In a bloody and attritional grind, elite units of Adeptus Astartes warriors forced back their hated foes, the Traitor Marines. Terminator and Aggressor armour clashed and sparked under ceaseless volleys of Bolter fire, and Dreadnoughts and monstrous Daemon Engines rumbled through the carnage, crushing and blasting the life from their foes. Many heroes fell in this crucible of slaughter. Yet, with freshly bolstered detachments of well-armed Astra Militarum veterans at their side, the Loyalist counter-assault overwhelmed the embattled Chaos forces.
Though victory came at a heavy cost, Imperial control of Konor was secured, and a sizeable percentage of its precious production capability remained operational. Within solar hours of the battle's end, the Forge World's recaptured manufactorums and assembly halls were sanctified with machine blessings and reactivated, and began to churn out vital equipment and machinery for the escalating war effort across Ultramar.
Geography
The Forge World of Konor and its moon the Forge World of Gantz, displaying the Manufactorum Gamma-Forvech (centre)
The Forge World of Konor and its moon the Forge World of Gantz, displaying the Promethium Sump (near southern polar region)
The Forge World of Konor and its moon the Forge World of Gantz, displaying the Sygnus Generatorum complex (centre)
The world of Konor possessed several areas of ultimate strategic import for any force seeking to maintain or seize control over the planet during the Plague Wars. These included:
- Manufactorum Gamma-Forvech - The largest remaining manufactorum on Konor, Gamma-Forvech is a city-sized industrial complex that once churned out squadrons of tanks and millions of small arms every day, fodder for the ever-hungry Imperial war machine. Though much of the plant's infrastructure has since been turned to charred scrap by the raging conflict on Konor, whichever force gained control of Gamma-Forvech would find itself in command of a formidable engine of mass production. Such domination would be far from easy to achieve. The manufactorum became a smoke-filled charnel house of ruptured bodies and shattered metal during the conflict, a cramped, choking deathtrap in which one was as likely to be slain by malfunctioning machinery as by the enemy. Vicious close-range firefights erupted around the complex, dominated by the most heavily armed and armoured warriors.
- The Promethium Sump - Konor's vast Promethium refineries were heavily damaged by the opening engagements of the war. With the majority of their assigned Tech-priests and surveyor-primes either dead or missing, there was no one to regulate the hazardous process of redirecting fuel. Pipes burst under pressure or were pierced by flying shrapnel and stray rounds. Torrents of Promethium and toxic run-off seeped into the earth, turning the ground around the refineries into a bubbling, searing swamp of lethal chemicals. Scattered about this vast quagmire, on islands of charred slag, are several extractor stations, huge pumps used to draw raw Promethium from deep beneath the earth. These mechanisms are vital, and are the only method of extracting fuel on Konor. Vanguard forces were deployed here in great numbers by both sides to secure the extractor stations, and the boiling lakes and rivers of the Promethium Sump played host to a series of lightning-fast skirmishes and hit-and-run engagements.
- Sygnus Generatorum - Deep underground, siphoning energy from Konor's roiling molten core, is the sprawling Sygnus Generatorum, a colossal geothermal power plant that powers hundreds of manufacturing districts. Numerous cramped utility tunnels snake from the central facility like pulmonary veins, winding through the dense obsidian rock of Konor towards the surface. These tunnels and caverns are ravaged by regular toxic spills and avalanches of shattered rockcrete, symptoms of the raging conflict above. The opposing forces in the Plague Wars fought bloody attritional battles inside these access ways, as well as through the cluttered maze of pipework and pulsing machinery that is the generatorum itself. Whoever won the fight would control the distribution of power on Konor, allowing them to kick-start the planet's stalled production once more, as the Imperium immediately did after its victory.
Fate of Konor Summer Campaign
The Konor System on the eve of the great Chaos invasion of the Plague Wars in the early 42nd Millennium
The Konor System was the location for the 2017 worldwide Fate of Konor Summer Campaign, conducted by Games Workshop to herald the arrival of the 8th Edition of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop war game. Each week, players at officially-recognised locations around the world, such as various game and hobby stores, would play a series of campaigns set on each world of the Konor System, representing either the Imperial defenders or the attackers of Chaos. Each battle's outcome was then logged with Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 website. The collective outcome of all those battles determined which force ultimately won canonical control of each planet in the system during the Plague Wars.
See Also
Sources
- Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), pg. 31
- Dark Imperium (Novel) by Guy Haley, Ch. 20
- The Horus Heresy - Book Five: Tempest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 20, 50, 68, 81, 133-134
- Know No Fear (Novel) by Dan Abnett, pg. 62
- Galaxy in Flames: Fate of Konor Website
- Week Two: Konor
- Imperial Victory on Konor!