 Matters in the Badab sector were bluntly not good. The chaptermaster of the Astral Claws and self-proclaimed tyrant of Badab, Luft Kurran, was facing a wave of Xenos attacks, piratical raiders, and cult uprisings, all spinning out of the swelling of the maelstrom, while, at his back, the baying of the Administratum and the Carthand shipping cartels grew even louder. The complete cessation of the payment of the imperial tithe, the seizure of the entirety of the sector's resources in the name of its defence, had infuriated the Carthans, who relied on the steady flow of material from the maelstrom zone to not only line their own pockets, but provide boons to their own tithes. The situation was a tinderbox in dire danger of an open flame, and soon that flame would be lit. No then that this is a further record of the Badab war, the point of the schism to the declaration of the articles of just cessation, and the ensuing red harbinger crisis. The heavy hand of the Administratum was beginning to ponderously move in the direction of the shipping cartels, and frantically they had petitioned the segmentum court authorities to grant them rights of claim under jurisprudence. Not only that, but clamouring from the Majos biologist Invigila had finally joined the voices against Huron, with the adeptus mechanicus now only realising that the lack of gene seed shipments from the astral claws carried with it no just reason, that the chapter's postponements could not be brooked by any assurances of mere bureaucratic errors, shipping delays or wartime exigencies. Preliminary word from the court rulings were in the Carthan favour, deeming the actions of Huron in breach of the Lex Imperialis, nominally speaking, although with contingencies requiring more deliberation owing to the often ill-defined reach of the adeptus astartes. Ignoring the cautionary words of the remaining yet to be ruled upon decisions, the Carthans and their allies within the Administratum seized upon the opportunity to deliver a strong statement. It is likely that the subsequent attempt of showing force was a move in the Carthans part more spurred by desperation than actual vindictiveness. Whereas in the case of the Administratum, the only explanation of worth was seen as an unconscionable lack of awareness of the true state of the Imperium beyond their tithe offices. Motivations were broad and difficult to ascertain with certainty given all that would follow. Regardless, the die was cast. The relationship in cartels and the bureaucrats assembled an investigation fleet under the purview of an Administratum assayer general, the highest investigative office of that adeptus. The fleet was joined by Surveyor-Barks from the Adeptus Mechanicus biologis carrying invigilum magi, merchant tenders from the Carthagos sector authorities and families, and at least one inquisitor, independently overseeing so diverse and motivated a civilian coalition as is the Inquisition's want. The flotilla made full wake for Badab Prime itself, intending to demand the wholesale surrender of the entire zone's tithe, with interest, as well as the missing gene seed from the astral claws themselves. Three Imperial Navy cruisers were seconded to the fleet to form its heart, escorting a dozen or so mass conveyors with hungry, empty holes. It was a threat, that much is certain, plainly stated, with the implicit violence of the cruiser's macro-lances as obvious a statement as the empty conveyors were. The fleet was entirely destroyed, as it attempted to pass through the Badab system's ring of steel. Circumstances around this pivotal act in Imperial history are a morass of claim and counter-claim, accusation, and defence, all coated with a thick veil of political, military, and even religious expediencies. They have never been, and likely will never be, properly explained. What we do know is the Grim Tally, on a single ship survived the hurricane of shot and lance and shell, and over twenty thousand servants of the throne, perished within the void. The Dvox records speak of a tense standoff between system defence monitors and the incoming fleet, with both sides asserting their authorities with rapidly escalating intensity. The Badab defence forces asserted the necessity of following proper maelstrom zone security protocols, as the sector was a dangerous volume at the best of times, perennially beset by enemies of the Imperium, but the tithe fleet brandished the seal of the Adeptus Terra and the holy writ of the Leximperialis, stating that Badab and its tyrant had lost all claims to the shield of laws and protocols when they had reneged on their dues to the throne. Huron himself was adamant that his men had discharged their duties with all possible diligence and righteousness, and allowed the tithe fleet plenty of time and warning before hostilities had inevitably, seemingly, broken out. The tyrant, in his own report to the segmentum adepta, demured on the topic of who had fired first. As the scrambled all-spec screeds were inconclusive, and he did not wish to muddy matters with accusations, although other authorities in Badab did not share their overlords opinion in this particular matter. Indignation at the incident in the Carthagos sector flared into outright fury after the delivery of the chaptermaster's statements. The Carthaglords were now baying for the open censure of Huron and the Astral Claws, reparations for their dead, and sanctions on all further trade. What little of the latter that indeed remained open between the two sectors became now a war in proxy, with escalating levies, taxation, customs duties, and seizures all becoming the norm for all shipments. Meanwhile, the local Majos in Vigila, outraged on the loss of their own colleagues, petitioned the distant Synod of Mars for political aid, finding themselves quite on the outs in terms of clout next to the rich and influential shipping cartels. Even the Administratum escalated the issue to the Adeptus Terra, their expedition having failed utterly to bring the obstinate Badab sector into imperial heel. Progress on all fronts was simply glacial. Despite the massive loss of life, despite the keen severity of the crisis in retrospect, the Imperium's attentions were pulled as they always are a thousand different ways, and in the vastness of the galaxy, a conflict surrounding taxation in an outlying system was of little concern compared to, say, the emergence of dormant Necron dynasties, the brewing tumult in the Eye of Terror and the Cadian Gate, a spike in Drukhari raids, or even the ongoing fortification of the Damocles Gulf. A thousand wars may require the Eyes of Terra upon any one day, and compared to the myriad of crises both actual and potential, the loss of 10,000, 20,000 bureaucrats, magi, and merchants was a minor affair at best. Calus? Yes, this is the Imperium we are discussing here. Even without the pressing concerns of eternal wartime governance, the legal issues involved were muddied by countless special interests and clashes of competing, but nonetheless legitimate authorities. The Adeptus Terra was owed its due, and that a loss of life had occurred under the watch of the Astral Claws was indisputable, but said loss of life had occurred within an active warzone. The Astral Claws remained an Adeptus Astartes chapter in full custodianship of that warzone. The Maelstrom was one of the most lethal volumes of space within the emperor's borders. Warders of the zone were a bastion of righteous imperial defense against the predations of the alien, the mutant, and the heretic. No evidence of the Tithe fleet's loss was considered satisfactory for an open condemnation of Huron. And so the years ground on, bitterly and inconclusively. As the inertia of the Imperial machine panes takingly inched forward, the Carthan lords remained subjected to their Tithe obligations by the segmentum Administratum, whom, for lack of any other options, returned to levying Terra's dues with customary heavy-handedness. In desperation, they dispatched two more Tithe fleets to Badab over the course of three years, under the same auspices as the first, but with far less interdepartmental cooperation. Both fleets were completely lost, purporting, according to both the tyrant's subjects, and Carthan operatives in Badab itself, to never have reached their intended destination. The cartels railed against the barbarians of the Badab sector, accusing them of everything from dereliction of duty to protecting imperial citizens, to actively destroying the fleets themselves. But there was nothing approaching proof of the latter, and little could be done of these pronouncements except to pronounce them. The fact that this came with an increase in disappearances of merchant shipping on the sector border was, however, troubling to more than just the cartels. While mails from Zone Patrol Pickets blamed the ongoing issues with pirate raiders and a marked uptick in Xenos and Arch enemy activity across the volume, the fact that such instances were now occurring within the Carthago sector at the nadir of relations between the two only added to matters. Each lost convoy just raised further the suspicions that Huron and the Astral Claws were now hunting Carthan shipping, doubts that were worrying enough to reach the ears of the highest echelons of the Administratum. Desperation began to take hold amongst the Carthan lords. Faced with the tithe stonewalling from Badab, bankruptcy, and debtors, their hand was forced. The shipping cartels began to attempt to extract their taxation quotas directly. In combined operations with equally pressed local Administratum forces from Sagan, they sent ships on perilous routes to the pale stars, and attempted to browbeat what local planetary governors in Badab itself that they could into supplying them with materials to meet their commitments. By 903 M41, agents at the behest of the Carthans were now upon Holy Terra itself, spreading word to any member of the Senatorum they could find of the moral corruption, treachery, and vain glorious pride of the tyrant of Badab. Segmentum authorities, swayed now by what little influence the Carthan and their adept allies could wield, now pressed the High Lords as well, until, finally, word came from within Badab itself. Just as the clamouring of the merchants, the bureaucrats, and the Magi had reached its zenith, as centuries of tension had finally reached an apex, Huron spoke with words. That would ultimately shake the foundations of the Imperium. The Articles of Just Secession, as a chaptermaster called them, were issued to the stunned Segmentum authorities and courts temporal. They were explicitly designed to state the Maelstrom Zone's position from that date. The volume would no longer fulfill the demanded tithe obligations to neighbouring sectors. In perpetuity. The Articles were a response to, and I quote from their records, many grievous insults, presumptions, and denials of the Emperor given rights of the adeptus Astartes by the false and wayward servants of the Administratum, the Carthan Lords, and their allies. The demands of all parties named therein were to no longer be given Maelstrom's own recognition under the Lex, declared void, as were obligations to defend them. That being said, the Articles did take care to fully reaffirm the Maelstrom Warder's commitments to defending the Imperium from the enemies of humanity. Only that they will now be doing so under their own judgement, free from the corrupt interference of those who claim to serve him, but seek instead their own glory and greed. As legal precedent, the Articles cited the original founding documents of the Maelstrom Warders themselves, as well as adeptus Astartes' rights and principles that guaranteed chapter independence from a plethora of Imperial regulatory measures. The Articles concluded with both a reassertion of this historic Astartes' sovereignty and calls for an investigation into the shipping cartels and local Administratum branches to root out a rotting corruption amongst those who pledged to serve the throne, but were content to let others bleed in its defence. Documents presented by Huron were not the sole sanction of the Astral Claws, but were in fact co-signed by the chapter masters of their fellow Maelstrom Warders, the Mantis Warriors and the Lamentors. Needless to say, the Articles were akin to a frag grenade thrown into a reactor core. But it may surprise Acolytes to learn, despite how incendiary they may seem, the response to them was far from immediate. While any just Imperial citizen, upon reading them now and having a modicum of knowledge of the events that were to come may be shocked and horrified, it should be noted that as with so many points upon the escalating curve of this crisis, the wheels of Imperial rule were slow to turn and even more ponderous to react. Little was done in the immediate aftermath of the issuing of the Articles of Just Secession, as the court's temporal received them, as yet another chapter, in the ongoing legal feud between sectors Badab and Carthago, Astartes and the Imperial citizen. They may have been shocked and surprised, but once that had worn off, it became just another footnote. However, as the legal luminaries of the segmentum hummed and hawed and debated and discoursed, Imperial shipping lanes on the edges of the Maelstrom Zone began to become subject to higher than normal disappearances, blamed of course on Xenos pirates. However, these reports were soon joined by other, more disturbing ones. Worlds beholden to both the Carthan cartels and the Administratum within the Zone suddenly went dark, sending out fragmented communiques screaming of attacks committed by Astartes forces. Horrified by the losses they were now yet still enduring and telling the few Imperial government outlets that would listen that they were under full assault by the Emperor's own Adeptus Astartes, the Carthans rushed petitions for military support to the segmentum departmentum Unitorum and naval command echelons at Port Rhiza. In both cases, their demands were outright refused, with both organs of the Imperial military utterly unconcerned with the mulling of merchant shippers who they saw as being inconsequential players in an internal dispute. There is of course one glaring example of an Imperial organization that the Carthan lords did not implore or invoke, the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition. While yes, a rather glaring omission in their grand tour of Solicitus claims, one must understand, to the majority of the Imperium, the Inquisition is to never become involved in one's dealing if one can help it. Inquisitors are as diverse a collection of characters, ideologies and zealotries as any group of humanity is. One can never be sure just what aspect they may be on the receiving end of. We all strive for justice and for truth, but just as often, what such well-intentioned petitioners may receive is a righteous firebrand concerned with rooting out any and all who fall under their own personal definition of being wayward from the path of his Imperial Majesty. Invoking the Inquisition is the most dangerous game one can play within the borders of this Imperium. That the Carthans were squaring up against three Astartes chapters and did not seem to even consider it, well, that should tell you all you need to know. Even if their records of trade had been spotless and one highly doubts this was the case, all too often the Inquisition is adept at finding treachery in the most surprising of places. This all being said, records from the time show that even without the cause of the cartels, the Ordos were nonetheless keeping a weather eye on the developing situation. The authorities were mostly occupied with a variety of investigations and military engagements across the segmentum and as such were content for now to merely passively observe. As it must be remembered that at this point in the schism, there was nothing in the way of evidence of either heresy, treachery, or the taint at play. Yes, an Inquisitor had lost their lives in the Tithe Fleet debacle, but one must remember that this was seen as simply a tragedy born of a complex and bitter legal dispute. Something that is far from uncommon within the Imperium. At the end of their tether, refved of options and with coffers empty, the Carthan lords now took steps to mobilize for war, if for nothing else than to defend what remained of its shipping with a show of force against hated Badab. The secession had pushed the Carthago sector to the brink of economic collapse, exhausting the last of their credit, the Carthan lords under Satrap Tanit Canig established a formal military alliance with administrative elements within the sector and levied vast numbers of additional troops to swell the planetary defense regiments under their direct gubernatorial purview. Canig, now voted Satrap general by her peers, took this one step further. She sent open appeals to the one branch of the Imperial military yet to be invoked by the cartels in this crisis, the Adeptus Astartes. Submitted for inquisitorial questioning in the aftermath of this whole affair, Canig professed her reasoning at the time was rooted in the belief that only Anastartes force could provide sufficient military opposition to another. The Emperor's Angels of Death were of course superlative and unique, a law, as the previous decades had amply shown the Carthans, unto themselves. The implication in enlisting the aid of other space marines was not to provoke an actual open conflict, she assured her interrogators, but merely to provide one adamantine bulwark against the encroachment of tyrannical Huron. At best, she claimed escalating the conflict in this manner would lead to a plateauing of tensions, a standoff where both sides feared mutually assured destruction. During the desired standoff, the Carthan cartels would then seize the opportunity to re-establish commerce, extract their tithe, and return to some semblance of the status quo, ensuring free access to the riches of the Maelstrom zone were once again within the rights of the Carthago sector and all Imperial citizens. With the benefit of hindsight, the idea of escalating to Astartes involvement and expecting what had become a monstrously tense crisis to simply stalemate is unspeakable arrogance. It was folly, but the folly of the beyond desperate, merchants and bureaucrats found stripped of their temporal and economic power by a force of superhumans dictating to them beyond the bounds of their own stars. Yes, they had been comfortable, and yes, they had been idly benefiting from the blood spilled by the Maelstrom Warders, but let us not think that when backed into a corner, even the most pampered of creatures cannot but become unpredictable and dangerous as baser instincts take over. Stonewalled by the Imperium, bogged down in interminable legal actions as their coffers were worn to dust. The Carthan cartels acted in haste and in stupidity, and oh, the calamity they wrought. The Fire Hawks chapter of the Adeptus Astartes answered Satrap Canex Cole. The bellicose collection of space marines, if ever there was one, the Carthans had millennia old ties with the fleet-based chapter, having provided them succor, anchor, and resupply at highly discounted rates at the cartel dockyards in orbit of Sedon Ultra, in exchange for which the Hawks had often come to the aid of the merchant clans during times of piratical Xenos raids. The relationship was an old one, little utilized, yes, but invoking it spoke of the desperation the Carthan lords were no doubt feeling at this point. Additionally, the warlike reputation that the chapter held was doubtlessly factored into their decisions. The Carthans no doubt hoped that Huron and the Warders would be cowed to have such potential opponents. At the direct request of the Satrap, the chapter elements made full wake for the shipping lanes of the Zone, with the intent on investigating the disappearances of Imperial vessels therein. One such ship, the Red Harbinger, breached the boundaries of the Andemian Cluster in 350904 M41, a volume of space under the purview of the Mantis Warriors, outraged at what they saw as unwarranted encroachment on their sovereign territory, remember acolytes that the Mantis Warriors had also signed the articles of just secession, they immediately dispatched their own strike cruisers to intercept. A tense chase led to the Harbinger finding itself surrounded in the Galen system, where increasingly aggressive communiques were traded between the two chapters, as the Mantis Warriors demanded the hawks stand down and submit to boarding and inspection. If ever there were a pair of Astartes forces to meet in opposition, whose characters were least suitable to an amiable conclusion, it were these. Proud, stubborn, and quick to anger on both sides, the situation escalated to just base insults, until, provoked into rage, the Mantis Warriors ships opened fire on the intruders, crippling the firehawk cruiser before launching a full-scale boarding action. Despite the engine loss rendering it dead in the void, the Harbinger was still an Astartes battle cruiser with a full complement of marines, who were now far beyond the reach of diplomacy. Casualties on both sides were horrendous, as history has taught us that all Astartes on Astartes conflicts are. Only twenty firehawks survived to be captured, but the sacrifice of their battlebrothers allowed an astropathic communion to be sent to their chapter, informing them of the treachery of the Mantis Warriors and the grievous losses the chapter had now sustained. Finally, the first shots had been fired. Astartes blood had been shed by fellow Astartes. Acolytes may balk, at this account, for I know many have in the past. When studying the unfolding conflict in Badab, they are often heard remarking, How could this have happened? Surely some must have seen it coming. I'm sure you, diligent student of the truth, as I hope you are, have the same questions. I would hope that, in parsing the sad and unfolding tale of the crisis so far, you will have seen how at every turn, none involved were even incognizant of just how dire it was going to become. All too often throughout history, and not just imperial history, has this been the case. A demagogue leader rises, authoritarian in his tendencies, open in his declarations of intent, and indeed all too often, has this figure not been curtailed. For those who should ordinarily oppose such aims cannot fathom the truth in his words. Instead choosing to believe in a comfortable world where systems put in place ages before shall ultimately constrain. The Badab schism was the result of imperial indolence, inertia, and carelessness, of a lack of attention paid to issues pressing and immediate simply because others were deemed, well, more pressing and immediate. The Imperium's very macro structure allows all too readily for such situations to emerge, with the hopes that, ultimately, they play out in a way beneficial to the overall empire, if not for the personages and powers involved. Endling of the Badab conflict is one stoked by the very system it was born of, a rising sequence of crises precipitated by bullishness, greed, and pride. Upon the next time we meet, I shall outline the beginnings of the civil war itself, but, as always until then, Ave Imperator, Gloria in Excelsis Terra. This video and this channel were made possible thanks to the very kind donations and support from my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com. 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