M40

• M37 to M41 The Shadows Descend - Darkness and dissolution descend upon the Jericho Sector, restoring it to the name of the pre-Imperial Jericho Reach and initiating the time period in the region known as the Age of Shadows. From this point onwards, the records of its history are no more than a few fragments of an unknown whole, with only the Deathwatch’s tireless vigil maintaining any semblance of Imperial involvement in the region.
• 052.M40 The Corewar of Cocholos - The Necrons of the Tomb World of Cocholos awaken to find their planet's inner fires dead. The lords of the re-emergent Oltep Dynasty delve deep beneath the empty Imperial hab-blocks that disfigure the surface of the world, discovering a subterranean network of tunnels that defy characterisation. The Necron Lords drive their Necron Warriors ever deeper into the cylindrical passageways, hoping to find out why their world has become a lifeless orb. They eventually find the truth in a colossal hollow sphere at the planet's core, where the Daemon Prince Beublghor now makes his lair. The titanic entity, having grown mighty after slaughtering the humans of Cocholos, takes exception to the metal ants stalking through his burrow. Taking the form of a vast, armoured leech with a Warp vortex in place of a head, he summons his daemonic legions and plunges headlong into the Necrons. Battle rages in the darkness. The Necron armies are undone when Beublghor's tunnels begin to shift and flow into new shapes at his command. Beublghor and his innumerable Bloodletter armies crush the isolated Necron strike forces one by one. The Necrons of the Oltep Dynasty are obliterated, and their metal skulls are still heaped deep within the planet's cold womb.
• 123.M40 The Threefold Curse - Two heavily defended Battlefleet Calixis watch-stations and a sizable capital ship taskforce, lead by the Grand Cruiser Fire of Heaven, are destroyed by unknown assailants in the outer reaches of the Hazeroth Abyss, forcing an Imperial retrenchment, effectively shrinking the border of the sector and ending further military expansion in the region. The only clue to the cause is found carved on a bulkhead in the hulk of the watch-station Sentry-17, which reads, “The worms that walk have come for us all”.
• 249.M40 The Long Night of Verronus - The Hive World of Verronus, once a bright star of Imperial majesty and the seat of the ancient Jericho Sector’s power as well as the last vestige of Imperial dignity amidst the growing shadows of the Jericho Reach, finally succumbs to centuries of slow collapse. Verronus' last threads of civilisation fall into darkness as the ill-tended powerstems that maintain its hive city spires flicker and finally die. Foul cults, witches and abominations that have thus far been kept in check only by the direst sacrifices of Verronus’ last defenders rise up, their hour come at last. With the failing of the light, all that remains is a final long night of anarchy, famine, and living nightmare.
• 325.M40 The Hereteks of Samech - An Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleet battles its way through the Warp Storms shrouding the Jericho Reach to re-contact the Forge World of Samech. The ships are lured into close orbit and fired on by the defence systems that ring the world. The Cult Mechanicus declares the Forge World Apostate under a penalty of death, an order that has yet to be carried out.
• 360.M40 The Coming of the Carnivores - A modified, marauding "war sphere" vessel belonging to the mercenary (and highly carnivorous) xenos species known as the Kroot appears in the Jericho Reach and attacks outlying worlds in the Black Reef region. Hunted and stalked by Deathwatch vessels and repeatedly raided by Kill-teams, the massive Kroot warship is badly damaged but manages to flee, driven away from the region.
• 433.M40 - Imperial Governor of planet Krieg declares his world's independence and renounces the Emperor. Colonel Jurten of the Imperial Guard regiment the Krieg 33rd unleashes a campaign of atomic cleansing that lasts 5 years to put down the rebellion, turning the world of Krieg into a radioactive wasteland. From then on, the Death Korps of Krieg's forces embark on a quest of absolution for this terrible deed.
• 550.M40 Destruction of Grymm's Landing - One of the first and most reliable of the Dark Angels' recruiting worlds is destroyed in an uprising, instigated by the Alpha Legion and supported by elements of the Night Lords.
• 552-570.M40 The White Sorrows - Dark Eldar corsairs of the Kabal of the White Sorrow plague the area of space known as the Periphery with a devastating series of raids. The corsairs are shattered and their threat ended at last when confronted and brought to battle by a force consisting of Battlefleet Calixis, Explorator and Rogue Trader forces (aided it is rumoured by unknown xenos forces) under the overall command of the Rogue Trader Kobras Aquairre. The battle turns when Aquairre’s flagship, The Son of Seth, successfully rams and boards the corsair flagship Altar of Torment, Kobras himself slaying the enemy’s Butcher Archon in single combat.
• 561.M40 Nexxas Exculpation - The Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marines face the forces of the Imperial Guard on the world of Nexxas.
• 600.M40 Vior'la Triumphant - A massive Ork fleet invades the Tau Empire's Vior'la Sept but is defeated by a masterful campaign. Vior'la annually passes through a gap between its two stars, a time called the Trial by Fire. It causes deadly plasma storms to ravage the planet, whose inhabitants survive by closing protective domes around their cities. Ork Warlord Garskrak and his invading army are lured into this deadly storm where they are utterly destroyed by the raging plasma radiation.
• 656.M40 The Fury of Hell - The Hadex Anomaly comes into being in the Jericho Reach, swallowing the Hive World of Verronus, once the Imperial capital of the region. It is believed that the Anomaly emerged due to the bloody rites performed by those dark souls that abided there. Across the Jericho Reach, nascent psykers burn and daemons stalk the land as a sudden wave of unholy power ripples through the localised area of Warpspace. Those afflicted psykers are either sent irrevocably mad or transfigured into short-lived and murderous demigods who kill thousands and further push those few worlds that remain under civilised control over the brink. On Watch Fortress Erioch, a full third of the Astropathic choir dies, weeping blood. The Omega Vault opens, yielding up a holo-projector that shows only the image of a face mask in the shape of a golden human skull.
• 666.M40 - An Imperial patrol force first engages Necron warships in the Yuctan System. Only a single Cobra-class Destroyer escapes; when an Imperial fleet returns to the system, all the colonists are missing.
• 673.M40 Return of the Cauldron of Savagery - The Space Hulk Cauldron of Savagery returns to blight the Drusus Marches Sub-sector of the Calixis Sector, breaking forth from the Great Warp Storms at the edge of the sector during a period of unprecedented Etheric turbulence which disrupts communication and passage within the sub-sector. A loose alliance of Rogue Trader vessels under the leadership of the infamous privateer Esme Chorda and a threadbare contingent of the Imperial Navy's Battlefleet Calixis defenders confront the dread wanderer. The Space Hulk is bombarded and successfully driven into the primary star of the Pellucidan System before its nightmarish inhabitants can ravage Pellucida’s worlds. The Pellucian sun is said to be scarred for nearly three decades afterwards, vivid greenish stains burning upon its harsh white surface. The Rogue Trader line of Chorda is gifted freedom of the sub-sector in addition to its usual Warrant of Trade. Although repealed a century later for malfeasance, this benefice cements them as one of the most powerful Rogue Trader Houses operating out of the Calixis Sector.
• 675.M40 - Hive World of Vidium lost to the Dark Eldar.
• 709.M40 Tanis Incident - The thriving Hive World of Tanis and its surrounding star system, which had been an outer bulwark of the Calixis Sector’s power in the Hazeroth sub-sector, is visited by an unexplained stellar phenomena in the shape of a baleful black “Tyrant Star” that presages destruction, madness and death. Within a period of weeks, the Tanis System is ravaged, resulting in over two billion dead or missing. Survivors are only found on the Agri-moon of St. Astrid’s Fall, which itself is badly ravaged. The “Tanis Incident” is covered up with full Inquisitorial authority and declared a forbidden subject on pain of death. Civil data is adjusted accordingly so that Tanis never existed in the public records of the sector. This event, taken with a long and erratic slew of other dark mysteries and a rising weight of deadly prophesy, leads to the formation of the current incarnation of the Inquisition's Tyrantine Cabal to investigate the matter and take whatever action is necessary to combat what is now classified as the phenomena of the Hereticus Tenebrae.
• 738-741.M40 The War of Brass - The Hive Worlds of the Gelmiro Cluster fall into sedition against the Imperium, following the charismatic leadership of a figure calling himself the “Emperor of Brass”, debasing themselves into the worship of the Ruinous Powers. Heavily militarised, the Renegades quickly sponsor and arm rebel groups on nearby worlds and when counter-attacked, reveal the hand of dark forces from the Eye of Terror in their ranks. The so-called “War of Brass” that followed was comparably brief but bloody, involving forces drawn from across the sector, and the involvement of the Adeptus Astartes and the Titans of Legio Venator, it rendered the once thriving worlds of Gelmiro blasted, rubble strewn rocks. Classified as War Worlds and the haunt of murderous scav-mutants, Renegades and wreakers ever since, the Gelmiro System is still a shunned no-man’s land to this day.
• 896.M40 Mass Migration - The greatest Tau Water Caste envoy, Por'O Dal'yth Kais Twi Lui'tan, better known as the Golden Ambassador, leads the effort to recruit new alien worlds into the Tau Empire. During this period the Thraxians, Greet, and Formosian races are welcomed into the fold of the Greater Good. The Hrud and Arachen reject the Tau's offers of union with their empire and are driven out of the region.
• 917-924.M40 Founding of Port Wander - Port Wander is founded by the Imperial Navy in the Rubycon II System of the Calixis Sector: A large and heavily-armed space station designated Port Wander is built and equipped as a staging ground to investigate the loss of many vessels and other incidents on the fringes of the Drusus Marches Sub-sector over the course of the preceding centuries. Using Port Wander as a base, Battle Group Trajan is assigned to carry out deep patrols beyond the bounds of the sub-sector. Nothing concrete is found and Navy starships are quickly removed to other duties owing to unrest in the sector core, leaving the station for the moment as little more than an oversized watchpost, heavily dependent on Rogue Trader traffic for its survival and protection.
• 924.M40 - Vindicare Assassin destroys an Ork Gargant and terminates the Greenskin Warlord Urglak the Unstoppable on the world of Roxanzand, effectively stopping the formation of the WAAAGH! with a single shot.
• 989.M40 Imperium Detects Yme-Loc - Eldar Craftworld Yme-Loc first detected in the West Quadrant of Segmentum Obscurus.
• 997.M40 The Discovery of the Maw - Rogue Trader Purity Lathimon succeeds where dozens of other Rogue Traders have failed and perished, discovering and plotting safe passage through what she dubs "the Maw" to the Koronus Expanse beyond. Fated and cursed in equal measure in some quarters, Purity Lathimon’s crew returns largely too insane or troubled in mind to travel the void again, and she barters her knowledge for vast wealth with the other Rogue Traders posed to exploit her discovery. Purity herself is said to have disappeared back within the Imperium after imparting her secrets to those who would follow her. According to some apocryphal stories she is said to have purchased her own paradise world outright and in others to have met a far darker fate.
• 999.M40 Disappearance of the Sceptre'd Rose - The Sceptre’d Rose, a Rogue Trader barque under the command of the Lady Juno Dach’man and one of the first vessels to traverse the new route through the Maw, disappears in transit. The voidship enters Koronus lore as perhaps the Expanse’s first ghost ship but is far from its last. The vessel is sighted on scores of occasions in the centuries to follow, both visually and as an "auspex phantom," and is generally regarded as an ill-omened sight at the start of a voyage, and a good omen if sighted upon returning to port.

Sources

• Dark Heresy Apocrypha - Dark Heresy Timeline by Alan Bligh (RPG Web Supplement)
• Codex: Chaos Daemons (6th Edition), pg. 22
• Codex: Dark Angels (6th Edition), pp. 35-37
• Deathwatch: Know No Fear: History of the Jericho Reach (RPG)
• Rogue Trader: Epoch Koronus - A History of the Koronus Expanse (RPG)
• Codex: Tau Empire (6th Edition), pg. 28

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