Korimesta

Name	Korimestra
Sub-Sector	Primus
Type	Hive World
Population	22.2 Billion
Climate	Polluted
Status	Imperial

“Frankly I have never thought much of the so-called planetary ‘nobility’ of the Spires; I find them small-minded and parochial next to the true Void Aristocracy. The entertainments here, however, can be thoroughly diverting for a young traveller with time and money to spare…” – Travel Diary of Lucius di Firro, 580.M41

About Korimesta

Early records indicate some Human inhabitation prior to M25, however as with all proto-civilisations prior to the Age of Strife, little knowledge has been retained from this time and any ruins that once existed have been built over and subsumed by the all-encompassing Hives which are now present on Korimesta.

Korimesta shows signs of Crusade era unification including typical fading icons of the era presumably after the existing civilisation was brought to bloody compliance.

At some stage the planet was turned over to manufacturing weapons of war. Many of these manufactora still stand in M.41 after the planet's liberation.

By planetary lore at some point during the reign of the Regency, the planet was invaded by long-forgotten Xenos.

The planet was a war world for several centuries, it is possible that there were several invasions and independent wars, but all differentiation of those records have been lost.

Eventually, the planet was liberated and all traces of the xenos were purged from the planet, and it continued as an Industrial planet. Local lore refers to this as the Xenopurge, but no clear records of the event exist.

As time went on, its importance dwindled, as other planets nearby (in galactic terms at least) became colonized. However, by this point, the planet was heavily industrialized, the atmosphere already becoming toxic, trapped within their Hive Cities the planet was a faded shadow of a once-proud world when the Prosperitas Crusade reached it.

Korimesta did not put up much of a fight against the invading Imperium. Many of its leaders were all too quick to bow to their new Masters. Those who resisted were not killed by Imperial guns, but Korimestan knives, in one bloody night the Korimestan political order shed itself of any Regency-loyal or Anti-Imperial Families that stood against surrender and capitulated to the Crusade.

Korimesta sacrificed much to comply with the Imperium, breaking the Labour Guilds and accepting Adeptus Mechanicus overseers to improve the output of their aging Manufactora in the vain hope of regaining a position of glory.

Despite everything, however, the Planet is still a faded reflection of the stories of its golden age that its natives cling to.

The culture inside the great spires of the Hive Cities clings to the remnants of its old glory – the time of the Xenos occupation is romanticized, and strength of arms is seen as a sign of blessing. Blood sports are common, and not just among the lower hive – the nobility of the upper hives have regular ‘hunting trips’ into the lower, hunting mutants, scum and escaped slaves. Pit slave fights are the favorite entertainment of all, and mutated creatures bred from native stock are trained to fight and kill.

Hives on Korimesta are generally built around the remains of mountainous regions, little is left of the rocky outcrops that originally supported these huge structures. Instead glistening spires of crenellated Iron and glass poke out above the pollution layer, where the rich and wealth can enjoy all the fine things of Imperial life, safe from the noxious atmosphere behind their reinforced gas, with their scrubbed and cooled air to breathe. Life is less so pleasant as one drops down the hive, at ground level slums cascade outwards from the metal spire bases. Air filtration is rough and ready at best, with most lower hivers having some form of respiratory disease and chronically shortened life spans. Here lie the grand manufactora which keep the planet, from economic ruin, many of the lower hive population live as little more than slaves under the harsh eye of the Adeptus Mechanicus overseers brought in by the Ruling Families to overhaul them.

This has created considerable conflict with the remnants of the former Labour Guilds many of whom now form insurgent terrorist groups within the Industrial sectors, ostensibly arguing they are trying to assert the rights and free Korimestan labour from the oppression of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ruling Families who have sold the planet to the cruel and corrupt Imperium and turn the common people into slaves.

The Devastation of Hive Secundus

In 582.M41, Hive Secundus, the largest hive on the Southern Continent and the second largest Hive on the entire planet, suffered a major attack by unknown forces. It is not entirely known what happened, and although many terrorist groups have laid claim to the attack no evidence to support any claims has ever been substantiated. What is known, is that during the Hive’s night-cycle, a high-yield nuclear weapon was detonated in the underhive.

The initial explosion killed millions, and disrupted the foundations of the Hive causing sections to begin to collapse – as a direct consequence of the explosion and as sections of city collapsed into the underhive, the Hive’s aging generators ignited in a massive chain reaction that killed the entire Hive population in one explosion so bright it could be viewed clearly from space.

Immediately after the devastation, the shockwave flattened several minor arcologies in the surrounding wasteland and irradiated the lesser sibling-hives of Hive Secundus – since 582.M41 the Southern Continent has remained an irradiated Nuclear wasteland, the resultant loss of production has been devastating for the planet, with entire Families ruined or destroyed overnight.

Hive Primus

The Planetary Captial, Hive Primus, occupies much of the planet's northernmost mountain range. It is a vast sprawl with a long and storied history, it claims to be the rallying point around which the people of Korimesta rallied against the Xenos invaders – it is an ancient structure and the source of much of the architectural evidence of the planet's occupation by Imperial forces during the Great Crusade. It has many spires labeled alphabetically, as ‘Spars’ with Spar A being traditionally the seat of power of the ruling powers of the Hive.

Like most of Korimesta, however, it is a rotting ruin of what it once was when Imperial forces invaded and one of the first projects undertaken by the Administratum was the grand construction of a brand-new spire structure, reaching higher than any of those that came before it – known as the Spar A Urban Construction Project. It took close to four hundred years for the project to be completed before in 587.M41 the new Spar A was completed.

The Newspire, as it is locally called, supplanted the ancestral homes of the Hive’s Families in the newly reclassified Spar B referred to colloquially as Oldspire. This resulted in a mass exodus of all the families wealthy enough to buy estates in the Newspire, leaving Oldspire to Houses too poor to afford estates, many of which had been devastated by the loss of the Southern Continent.

Many locals have a vastly more disparaging name for the Oldspire, the Pauperspire, as many families there truly represent once-proud Families clinging to the pretense of nobility in a rotting tower.