Splinter Fleet Vivax

The planet Vivax was once home to a thriving Imperial civilization, renowned for its highly sophisticated fabricator facilities that produced components of Emperor Class battleships. For all of the technological expertise and political capital at their disposal, however, the wealthy rulers of the system did not foresee the destruction that would come about with the quiet founding of a religious sect on Vivax called the Faith Crimson.

Subsequent investigations have determined that the first recorded appearances of this denomination coincided with the arrival of a deep-space freighter bringing heavy ore from Ghent tithe planets beyond the eastern rim of the galaxy. The sect’s reinvigoration of the Imperial creed was extraordinarily popular, and as a result the Faith Crimson became tightly intertwined with Vivax culture. According to the new sect, every imperial citizen carried the blood of the Emperor in their veins, and loyal subjects were expected to regularly donate small amounts of it in symbolic return for his gifts to all of humanity. Iconography displayed by the planet’s defense forces now included small circles on either side of the imperial “I”, which the faithful believed represented the watchful eyes of the Emperor. Unfortunately, these subtle changes and apparently harmless fads had much more sinister implications. When isolated groups of more conservative citizenry refused to adopt this new “flavor” of worship, what might have otherwise remained a strictly theological disagreement flared suddenly into armed clashes. The planetary Governor declared Hullandose, one of the most conservative hive cities, a den of blood hoarders and heretics, and the city was subsequently occupied by his military. What truly came to pass in Hullandose is unknown, but after a matter of months all resistance to the Faith Crimson disappeared completely. Communication between Vivax and other planets in the system began to break down. Scheduled visits by representatives of the Administratum and Cult Mechanicus were either bribed off or rescheduled indefinitely. After a minor outbreak of a bacterial contagion in one of the smaller hive cities, all traffic from off-world was detoured to the planet’s main orbital station. Something strange was obviously happening on Vivax, but the other planetary governors were too distracted by their own political and economic challenges to effectively relay their concerns to higher authorities. They did not know that the citizenry of Vivax was entirely indoctrinated with a new faith, one that inspired them to construct elaborate temples with vast underground tunnel networks, and inured them to the increasing frequency of mutation in their newborns. And so it was too late when a splinter of Hive Fleet Kraken penetrated the defense cordon on the Eastern Fringe and made its way to Vivax. Greeting their long awaited masters with jubilant celebration, the “human” population went willingly aboard the enormous hive ships, along with the innumerable broods of genestealers they had been breeding below the planet’s surface. As most Imperial forces were committed to the fighting at Ichar IV, the other planets in the Ghent system could afford very little resistance.

Several of the worlds are now declared perdida, their mycetic infestation resistant to even the most devastating bombardment the Imperial navy can muster. Orbital scans show that Tyranid forms still survive deep underground on Vivax and several other nearby worlds in a state of suspended animation. The splinter fleet itself has since moved on to unknown locales.