Persephon IV
| Name | Persephon IV |
|---|---|
| |
| Sub-Sector | Primus |
| Type | War World |
| Population | approx. 1 billion |
| Climate | Temperate |
| Status | Imperial (partial), Conflict |
About Persephon IV
Persephon IV is a habitable planet revolving around a normal yellow star (Persephon) in Subsector Primus. Long inhabited by Man, it was conquered early in the Prosperitas Crusade and has grown to be a shining beacon of the Imperium in the Sector, green and verdant continents with scattered rural settlements and farms, and on each of the four major continents there were two or three hive cities, containing much of the populace of about three billion. It stood as a self supporting world without specialising into a specific role: however, it had sufficient industry to tie it into the interplanetary trade networks, and as a stop off point for many space faring vessels passing through the area.
Any major assaults from outside forces on the Persephon system were in distant antiquity, and barely remembered by the local populace. It raised a modest levy of regiments for the Imperial Guard, and maintained a planetary defence force for its own protection.
That was until 563.M41 when, out of the Galactic East, a massive raiding force of the savage xenos known as Orks emerged, rampaging through the worlds the Prosperitas Crusade had previously believed to be safe, having long since been conquered and brought into Imperial compliance. At Persephon IV however, this green tide ‘Waagh Gazbag’ smashed against the noble men and women of the Persephon Imperial Guard Regiments and the planet’s Planetary Defence Force. While the progress of the Ork‘s was stalled at Persephon long enough for the threat of the Waagh to be contained, the verdant world was almost entirely overrun with xenos, leaving Persephon IV’s Primaris Hive Persephon Prime besieged.
Although Persephon Prime managed to erect its forcefields to extend some protection to the city itself, the outlying suburbs were razed to the ground, with many of the survivors left as refugees in their own city. Though Persephon held against these savage Xenos, it has paid dearly for it, in their efforts to develop crude industry to support their fight against the noble men and women of Persephon, the Xenos have all but destroyed the planet’s ecosystem. And over the last few years since the invasion, the once-verdant world has been reduced to an ash blasted dustbowl of dried earth. Only Persephon Prime survived as a bastion against the invasion, with supplies being shipped in from the other less war-torn planets.
The isolation of the city on the Xenos battlefront, under siege and bombardment for so long, with rationing and overcrowding prevalent, damaged the psyche of the inhabitants, and slowly the despair and destruction became too much. What started off as obscene graffiti took hold and within a short period, the rot had set in, the innocuous ‘old religion’ of the Sector had taken root and blasphemy and rebellion had began to circulate within the populace. Ultimately erupting into a bloody civil war in Hive-structures of Persephon Prime leading to the noble regiments of Persephon IV being forced to take arms against those they had sought to protect.
Though the noble actions of the Persephon Regiments held the line, the underlying threat of rebellion turned the Hive Primaris into a stronghold under martial law as the conflict grew ever more desperate.
Persephon IV is no longer a green and pleasant place. Whilst most of Persephon Prime’s infrastructure survives, most of the production that was once shipped off-world is now channelled into the war effort, in an attempt to prevent the whole world succumbing to conflict.
Recent History
The triumphant conclusion of the war against the Greenskin menace finally came in 594.M41 - the Waagh vanished in an unholy ritual after an Imperial strike team attetmpted to assassinate its leader, and the planet left finally free of the Xenos menace. The propaganda department of the Officio Praefectus works overtime to come up with a convincing version of the victory which involves Imperial blood and steel, rather than occult circumstance.
Rebuilding is slow but steady, with seed-exchanges with nearby agri-worlds to reseed the blighted terrain. Troops are being stripped from the surface as fast as they can be redeployed, and sent to secure more desperate fronts. Colonel Giancarlo Firenze, the Hero of Persephon, is credited with the victory; his name and portrait adorn picts and holo-shows the Sector wide, usually accompanied by exaggerated depictions of his victory over the Ork masses.