The Imperium

The Beginning

More than 25 millennia ago, Mankind began the first tentative steps to the stars. Equipped both with shockingly primitive technology and a burning desire for exploration and conquest, Man slowly, blindly, made his way to the nearest systems outside his own. Generations lived and died on the long interstellar voyages; the first Humans to set foot on another planet had never seen the cool green hills of Terra, nor had their parents, nor their parents’ parents.

The first colonies were completely on their own, cut off by untold miles and uncounted years from any assistance. Most colonies died alone and unlamented; a scattered few survived and prospered. And the exodus continued.

With the discovery of the warp drive came the great Expansion, as what was once a journey of serval centuries became a journey of several days. Warp space was tricky and dangerous stuff, and not to be entered lightly. Many ships simply vanished, never to be seen again. The discovery of the navigator gene, which allowed ship’s pilots to make longer, more accurate warp jumps, interstellar travel became much safer, and soon Men were exploring all the nearby stars.

Alien contact followed shortly thereafter, and, with grim inevitability, the first Alien Wars. The pattern was set.

The Dark Age of Technology

Exploration brought new ideas, new wealth, new arrogance, and Science became God. The machines of travel and conquest achieved incredible levels of sophistication. There seemed nothing that Man couldn’t do. Man, himself was changing, and psychic powers, once stuff of quack science and trashy pulp thrillers, came to be accepted, and studied.

Though few realised it at the time, the end of the Age of Technology was heralded by the appearance of psykers – humans capable of using psionic powers such as telekinesis. The trigger for this appearance has never been precisely determined, but within mere centuries psykers were recorded on almost every planet known to man. Some went mad; uncounted millions were burnt as witches, destroyed by ignorance and fear, and, possibly, prescience. A few, those on civilised, ‘enlightened’ planets, were protected and nurtured, allowed to test and explore their new-found skills.

This was to prove the greatest calamity that man has ever perpetrated upon himself in a long history of foolish arrogance and stupidity.

Untrained and ignorant of what they meddled with, the novice psykers opened the galaxy to invasion. Daemons – fell creatures in the warp, born of Chaos – attacked the minds of the unprotected psykers, and through them, gained entrance to our galaxy. Monsters walked the worlds. Ignorance and madness replaced enlightenment and technology. Aliens, sensing Man’s weakness, attacked savagely, attempting to regain all that they had lost. The Age of Strife was born.

The Age of Strife

For more than five thousand years, warfare wracked Mankind. Nation battled nation, planet fought planet, system laid waste system. Man fought himself, Daemon, and Alien. The fragile bonds of Civilisation were lost. Abandoned colonies perished by the scores or reverted to barbaric savagery. Outspacers and aliens plundered and grew fat on the wreck of Humanity.

It was at this time that the mutants began to appear in great numbers. As science crumbled, terraformed worlds slowly reverted to their natural conditions; the Men on them adapted or died. Thus, were born the abhumans – the stocky Squats, the powerful Ogrens, the mad Beastmen, and many others.

Only the worlds where psykers were rigorously suppressed survived intact. The retrenchment of Mankind was almost total.

The Rebirth of Man

Perhaps Man’s greatest strength is His ability to create heroes in time of need – the greater the peril, the greater the man. The Age of Strife, arguably the greatest peril Mankind has ever faced, brought forth the greatest man history has every recorded – the man who would be known as the Emperor of Human Space. A shrewd diplomat, he gathered the loose fragments of Humanity into a single Empire. A brilliant soldier, he conquered those who would not join of their own volition and reclaimed the worlds lost to the Aliens. The strongest psyker the galaxy had ever seen; he drove the Daemons back into the warp from whence they came.

The Emperor is immortal. For ten thousand years he had ruled the Imperium. For ten thousand years he has ordered the lives of men. For ten thousand years he has protected Mankind from the threats which abound in this hostile universe. For ten thousand years he has sacrificed himself on the altar of Humanity’s hopes for the future. For ten thousand years the Imperium has endured, established out of strife and discord, a bastion of light in the darkness.

The Emperor

Ageless and ancient, the Emperor is the undisputed master of Humanity. Wounded during the great conflagration known as the Horus Heresy, the Emperor caused a life-support machine of incredible complexity, the Golden Throne, to be built on Terra. Once it was completed, he was placed within its confines, where he has remained ever since, ruler and prisoner, sustained by life-energy drained from millions of human psykers. His will maintains the navigation beacon known as the Astronomicon and binds Humanity together.

Throughout the Imperium, the Emperor’s Will is carried out by two colossal organisations; the Inquisition and the Adeptus Terra. Tens of billions of men and women – adepts, scholars, priests, governors, soldiers and Inquisitors – exist only to serve the Emperor.

The Inquisition

The Inquisition is responsible for scouring the Imperium for rouge psykers, mutants and alien threats. Answerable only to the Emperor Himself, they are also charged with weeding out the corrupt and inefficient within the Adeptus Terra. Inquisitors are granted tremendous power and independence of action: few Imperial servants would dare deny any request made by the Inquisitors.

The Adeptus Terra

The Adeptus Terra has charge of everything else within the Imperium – from the disposition of the Imperial Fleet, to the maintenance of the salt collectors on the watery world of Argon II. The Adeptus Terra is responsible for the spiritual as well as physical well-being of the Imperium; countless priests, officials, warriors, technicians, doctors and others are employed in this vast, system spanning bureaucracy.

The Adeptus Terra is divided into many bureaucracies and departments. The most important ones are:

The Administratum

The largest single department in the Adeptus Terra. The men and women of the Administratum are responsible for most of the day-to-day governing of the Imperium; there are members of the Administratum on almost every planet in Imperial space, applying policy, levying taxes, ordering the movement of Imperial troops, and carrying out the million other details of the Imperial Will.

The best servants of the Administratum are appointed as Imperial Commanders. They are given charge of planets, and sometimes entire systems, to run as they see fit – providing tithes are paid and their loyalty is firm.

Space Marines

They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them and in the furnace of war I shall forge them. They shall be of iron will and steely sinew. In great armour I shall clad them and with the mightiest weapons shall they be armed.

They will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight them. They shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines…and they shall know no fear

The Space Marines or Adeptus Astartes are foremost amongst the defenders of Humanity, the greatest of the Emperor of Mankind’s warriors. They are barely Human at all, but superhuman; having been made superior in all respects to a normal man by a harsh regime of genetic modification, psycho-conditioning and rigorous training.

Space Marines are untouched by plague or any natural disease and can suffer wounds that would kill a lesser being several times over and live to fight again. Clad in ancient power armour and wielding the most potent weapons known to man, the Space Marines are terrifying foes and their devotion to the Emperor and the Imperium of Man is unyielding. They are the God-Emperor’s Angels of Death, and they know no fear.

The Astartes are physically stronger, far more resilient and often mentally far removed from the lot of most normal Human beings. In the presence of the Astartes, most people feel a combination of awe and fear, and many cultures on the more primitive worlds simply worship them outright as demigods or angels of the God-Emperor made flesh.

They should feel so, for many Space Marines feel little compassion for those they have sometimes termed “mortals” in comparison to themselves, seeing the very people they were created to protect as little more than obstacles to a more efficient eradication of the Imperium’s enemies.

Terminator Armour

Tactical Dreadnought Armour, more commonly known as Terminator Armour, is an advanced form of powered armour developed for close-quarters melee fighting done by Space Marine Terminators, for whom slaying power is more important than manoeuvrability. Massively thick armour plates and powerful servo-muscles drive these defensive shells, and only the best and bravest of a Space Marine Chapter may don this ancient and sacred battle-harness.

These sealed environment suits enabled maintenance crews of spacecraft to operate in extremely hazardous environments such as hard vacuum or in other adverse atmospheric conditions. Exo-armour was constructed from heavy gauge Plasteel plating, forming an armoured shell that could withstand even the colossal impact of high-speed orbital micro-debris.

Terminators are best used during starship boarding actions where the cramped conditions and tight starship corridors maximise the effects of a Terminator’s superior firepower while downplaying his lack of manoeuvrability, as the environment means flanking attacks are unlikely.

Credits

Original Game Design: Richard Halliwell.
This Advanced Edition Revision: Ken Allen
Original Expansions and Revisions Design: Jervis Johnson, Matt Forbeck and Andy Chambers.
Additional Material: Paul Murphy, Alex Goh, Dean H. Bass and Martin Kay.
Illustrators: Dave Andrews, John Blanche, Wayne England, David Gallagher, Jes Goodwin, Pete Knifton, Ian Miller, Steve Tappin, Kevin Walker, Paul Bonner, Fangorn, Mark Gibbons, Paul Green, Gary Harrod, Tony Hough, Richard Wright, Tony Ackland, Nick Coleman and Ken Allen.
Tactical Cards and Additional Counter Designs: Ken Allen
Copyright: All original game design, artwork, concepts and story are owned by Games Workshop: UK – Games Workshop, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS – US – Games Workshop, 6711 Baymeadow Drive, Suite A, Glen Burnie, Maryland 21060-6401 – Australia – Games Workshop, 23 Liverpool Street, Ingleburn, NSW 2565 – Canada – Games Workshop, 2679 Bristol Circle, Unit 3, Oakville, Ontario, L6H 6Z8

The owner of this web site advises visitors to buy original products, where available, from Games Workshop. The contents of this site are intended as additional fan-made material for existing owners of the original editions of Space Hulk by Games Workshop only.