Early Exploration

The Galthan Apocrypha
Accounts of early human forays into the Vlaktes Mare are as rare as they are vague. References to the “Straits of Vlaktes '' date back to mid-M34, though what the name meant is unclear. Likely, these sources make reference to the Tectonian Throat, that warp strait which holes the Mare and connects our sector to the wider Imperium. The use of the plural “straits” is notable. Some of the more radical members of scholasticae believe this to be a reference to there once having been more than a single ingress point through the Mare, though what could have caused these to collapse is unclear. More likely, the plural-form of High Gothic has suffered syntactic drift over the years, and there was always just a single strait.

Most extensive of these early records is the Galthan Apocrypha. Written by multiple authors from approximately 570-590.M35, the Apocrypha is based around the cargo manifests, crew records, and captaincy logs of the founding ships of the Bruder Dynasty, a prominent rogue trader household which was active within the Mare a full millennium prior. The sequestors of the Galthan moons, themselves a former colony of the Bruder Dynasty, received these documents at some point in that intervening millennium and, with proper piety and reverence for the sector’s earliest explorers, began to dutifully dramatize and embellish the manifests, rosters, and logs to tell a properly mythological account of their colony’s founders.

Most of the apocrypha concerns itself with the founding of the Galthan moons, circa 700.M34, one of the earliest stop-over points within the Mare, and how the Bruders’ oathsworn militants fought back the “malodorous, many-angled ones.” These xenos are never referenced by name within the Apocrypha, but several other descriptions of them having “crept within those false-lunas” and making “havoc of men’s dreams” leads the scholasticae to conclude that the creatures may have been the Yubi-Yubi, a species of warp-tainted mind controllers which were driven out of the Mare by the arrival of Saint Lothair in M36.

Perhaps more interesting, the Apocrypha does mention several other locations and actions taken by the trader dynasty over the millennium, including the charting of the Fell Stars and an unfamiliar string of stars and worlds referred to as Abner’s Reach. The Apocrypha still resides within the fortress-sequestory on Galthan V, zealously guarded by the descendents of the sequestors who penned it. No other copy of it exists, and most of what is known of it is recounted from-memory by those rare few outsiders whom the sequestors have deemed fit to read its pages. Of these outsiders, several answers persist about just which part of the now-sector was once mapped as Abner’s Reach. Some claim that the Reach covered much of what is today the Lothairian Marches, while others point to the Ketamoa Deep as the Reach’s new name. Some even place the Reach beyond the rim of the Mare, to coreward, beyond where the tumult now encroaches. If such is true, then what missing worlds and myths might lie in that direction, forever smothered in the Mare’s embrace?

The Bruder Dynasty itself has been a regular feature in the sector since its inception. As one of the under-dynasties, the Bruder’s charter gives it illimitable trade dominion over the stars beneath the galactic plane, and the ships and captains of their venerable fleets have long grown wealthy within the Mare. The Bruders have held close ties with sector nobility and Battlefleet Vlaktes for generations. That they were responsible for the initial exploration of the sector might be surprising, but is not altogether impossible.

Mechanicus Advent
In 120.M36, an explorator fleet under the command of the tech-priesthood of Mars breached the Mare. With the exception of Bruder’s vessels and the meagre colonial convoys they escorted, no significant traffic had plied these stars in millennia. Why the explorators journeyed so far beneath the galactic plane is unclear, though it is certain that, if not for deposits of Noctilith discovered on the planets bordering the Mare, the Mechanicus would have left the foundling worlds to themselves, and this region of space would be like any other of a number of backwater sectors throughout the Imperium. The Noctilith, however, was too weighty a prize to ignore. It’s existence ensured a sizable Mechanicus presence within the sector. Over the next century, explorator fleets from across the length and breadth of the Imperium began arriving in order to establish Mechanicus colonies on the fringe worlds.

But as the mines expanded, so too did the Martians’ need for manpower.

The Red Harvests
The Priests of Mars looked to the people of the foundling worlds to meet demand. Crimes that were once seen as minor infractions soon became punishable by servitorization, and forge-ships of the Adeptus Mechanicus were logged throughout the sector automating as much of local manufactorums as was feasible. At first, citizens and nobles alike hailed the tech-priests as saviors. Xenos predation and separation from the wider Imperium had made their plight dire indeed.

In time, all strata of humanity in the sector would come to learn that the Mechanicus’s large scale automatization of the sector’s manufactorums was not an attempt to ease the burden of living in a heavily industrialized sector, but instead a plan to free up line laborers to be drafted into working the mines instead. When these efforts failed to produce enough workers for the Mechanicus’s liking, a series of colonial incentivization campaigns from bordering sectors was implemented to try and keep up with work force demand.

Referred to colloquially as “Red Harvests '' by the citizens of the foundling worlds, these forced relocation pogroms collected imperial citizens without regard. This process began in 180.M36 when the Bruder Dynasty, seeing a for-profit opportunity in the making, mediated a deal between the Mechanicus priesthood and the ruling nobility of the neighboring Charybdis and Scylla Sectors. The deal was mutually beneficial: the Mechanicus would gain its workforce, and the Charybdis and Scylla leadership would gain new worlds to offload their old and burgeoning populations. The Bruder Dynasty, with its exclusive cargo and collection services, stood to become more prosperous than ever before. If the young foundling worlds were in fact settled with help from the Bruders, then it must have seemed a bittersweet betrayal indeed when their former allies turned against them. Aye, equally as likely to round up the noble sons of the foundling worlds as it was menial laborers, this culling saw millions drafted to work in the Mechanicus mines. This wanton collection, and the subsequent uncaring nature of their distribution led to widespread dissent amongst the new citizens of the Low Stars. By the time the grim process was at an end, in 250.M36, estimates from administratum adepts in the neighboring sectors projected that it would take decades to make up for the loss of manpower in the neighboring sectors.

The foundling citizens’ complaints are as understandable as they are wrong-headed. It has ever been the right of nobility to bear the weight of guilt for such a ruthless but righteous calculus. May we ever be in their debt.

The Second Wave of Colonization
As the Mechanicus stabilized the region and began its methodical strip-mining operations, the influx of settlers from outside the Mare caused a new boom period of colonization and exploration. Some of this was headed by the Bruder Dynasty, though for the first time in history, this area of space saw the attention of rival trade dynasties. Everything from free traders to chartist consortiums to pirates flocked to this budding sector beneath the galaxy. A multitude of fresh colonies were founded in what are today the Ketamo Deep and Lotharian Marches Sub-Sectors.

Resources and coin flowed into the coffers of the Mechanicus and the new nobility of the foundling worlds. Talk of incorporation with the wider Imperium began, and for the first time, the Adeptus Ministorum began to take an interest in the faith of the colonies. Small wars of faith broke out among the foundling worlds as conflicting and divergent sects of Imperial worship butted heads with missionaries militant brought in on the coats of the trade fleets.

Yet with expanding trade and colonization came a resurgence in threats long-since avoided by the early settlers.