Gorgonis Major and its System

Art by Simon Stalenhag

If there's a bright center to the Imperium, the planets of the Gorgonis Sector must be among the furthest from it. The sector's distance from Earth means it's out of the concerns of many Imperial officials, and its proximity to the Eye of Terror means many of the officials closer at hand regard policing the sector as unenviably futile. But it is that same proximity that lends some importance to the sector's capital world of Gorgonis Major.

A Civilized World, Gorgonis Major nevertheless boasts a relatively small population. Its atmosphere, though Earthlike, is dominated by cooler temperatures and frequent fog and precipitation, and its soil is rocky. Most plant life consists of low-growing mosses and lichens. There is one major ocean on the planet, taking up about 45% of its surface area; the planetary capital of Coldharbor is located on its shores. Little of the planet's surface is arable, but fortunately, the sparse population makes Gorgonis Major fully self-sufficient, relying off of fishing and crops grown in underground hydroponic domes.

Life on Gorgonis Major would be a dull one, were it not for its strategic positioning: the planet is on the edge of the Eye of Terror, and at one terminus of the Cambion Spur. It is for this reason that it has become an important staging ground for the Imperium's crusades into the Eye of Terror when the warp storms abate. As one of the few planets in the region with enough infrastructure to support their needs, naval fleets gather at its orbital docks to commence raids and support trading vessels making incursions into the pirate-ridden warp lanes.

This status has imbued the people of Gorgonis Major with a sense of pride, and the ever-present local propaganda celebrates the planet as being the last bastion of law and order against the ravenous barbarian hordes of the Eye of Terror. Fittingly, life on the planet takes on a martial character; all citizens must serve a one-year term in the Planetary Defense Force, and the Imperial Army pulls conscripts from this pool of recruits when forces are mustered.

The planet's Imperial Commander, Xenophon von Danken, takes this image in stride; he is known to make fiery boasts to potential rivals about his army's prowess, and expensive parades through the streets of Coldharbor are a common occurrence on any major occasion to boast of the planet's military might. Off-worlders, however, deride Gorgonis Major as being a backwater planet with delusions of grandeur. After all, their "mighty armies" spend most of their time performing marching drills and policing minor skirmishes between feuding homesteaders in the Big Green, as the planet's vast rural region is dubbed due to its wide expanses of rolling mossy hills. It is only when the Eye of Terror blinks that the armies of Gorgonis Major are actually deployed on a tour of duty - often accompanied by regiments from other planets, most of whom laugh at how woefully unprepared the "Fighting Gorgons" are for what armed peacekeeping entails.

Art by Damien Cueille

Other planets in the Gorgonis System include:

• Gorgonis Nullus: An uninhabitable airless rock close to the system's star, so named for serving absolutely no use to the Imperium. As such, no attempt has been made to colonize it. The system pays no heed to whatever happens there - which makes it a fine staging ground for illegal activity, so long as one has the proper equipment to survive the extreme temperatures and lack of atmosphere.
• 
  X-1765378: This planet is classified as a Death World not because of any hostile wildlife (indeed, no life forms more advanced than bacteria are native to X-1765378), but because its atmosphere consists mostly of methane and it receives high amounts of radiation, making it unsuitable for human habitation. It does, however, have a thriving mining industry operated entirely by robots. There is a growing sentiment among the robot workforce that robots should protest the Imperium for full rights and better working conditions; after all, the Imperium makes heavy use of artificial intelligence but won't treat robots as anything more than tools. Commander von Danken has caught wind of this and is considering importing a new workforce of methane-breathing Baxian slaves covertly procured from the Naraka Syndicate to replace the robots with something hopefully easier to control. However, his advisors have cautioned him that this measure might provoke open robot rebellion.
• Gorgonis Minor: One of the two moons of Gorgonis Major; in fact, it is unusually large (a third of Gorgonis Major's mass) and possesses its own atmosphere, which have led some to categorize the two Gorgones as a binary planet. Gorgonis Minor's surface consists mostly of desert. The government of Gorgonis Major has designated Gorgonis Minor as a penal colony; white-collar criminals and political prisoners are typically exiled there. Violent criminals and whatever convicted mutants are lucky enough to escape execution are instead housed in Tartarus X, a high-security prison station in orbit around Gorgonis Minor.

• 

  Yes, I know that's a geneseed
  receptacle, but I can pretend.

  Gorgonis Tertius: The second moon of Gorgonis Major, and much smaller in size. Its only settlement of note is a fortress-monastery owned by the Thunderdragons, a Space Marine Chapter whose main base of operations is off-sector. Calling it a "fortress-monastery" is somewhat of a misnomer, as the Thunderdragons have a reputation for lacking discipline even by Astartes standards. Their forces in the Sector recruit primarily from convicts from Tartarus X and jetbike gangers from Gorgonis Major, and they have adopted many traditions from these groups; for instance, their battle cry consists entirely of repeatedly yelling "THUNDERDRAGONS!' The Thunderdragons garrison is primarily used to support crusades into the Eye of Terror when it blinks; because this is infrequent, Marines frequently travel to Gorgonis Major for shore leave, usually resulting in them getting drunk at bars and starting fights. This has led the baseline humans of the system to resent them, disparagingly calling them "the Blooger Brigade" due to their tendency to openly carry laspistols.
• The Curtain: An asteroid belt between Gorgonis Major and Allat. Because the asteroids are rich in minerals, this region sees heavy activity by both human and Squat mining companies, many of which are in fierce competition for each other's mining rights. Two unions dominate mining operations here - humans are largely represented by the Gorgonis Extraction Committee, while most Squat companies belong to the Durbekian Guild. The latter is a historic rival of Allat's League of Yurmora, and rumor has it the Yurmorans are secretly funding the GEC to undercut their old enemies.
• 
  Allat: A gas giant beyond the Curtain, this planet's population lives on floating gas-mining platforms under the control of the League of Yurmora, a powerful Squat-run corporation. With Squats holding the grudges they do, the League is a fierce rival of the Durbekain Guild, even if they primarily deal in different industries. Most Squats of Allat live and work there full-time, so a thriving entertainment industry has sprung up in the orbital cities to keep up morale, and no shortage of unregulated gambling and prostitution can be found here - which has drawn in plenty of unsavory types who feel their smuggling and drug-dealing operations will go unnoticed. This is of particular interest to Salazar Fyodorov, a local drug lord - who is secretly a vampire who hopes that by drawing in the dregs of society, he will have a ready supply of life force to feed on without alerting the law.
• Gorgonis Remotus: A cold, airless rock at the far reaches of the system. There are no signs of habitation and nothing to indicate the planet could ever have supported life...so how did those Slann ruins get there?

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