Our story begins with a god-like
being of immense power known only as the Emperor
uniting the warring factions of Earth and
embarking on The Great Crusade to reunite
all of mankind's lost colonies. He did this
by creating 20 legions of post-human genetically
engineered badasses known as Space Marines,
each with an even more ridiculously OP Primarch
to lead them. Unfortunately, the 4 Gods of
Chaos who weren't really into that sort of
thing intervened and scattered the Primarch's
across the universe while still in their infancy.
Rather annoyed by this, the Emperor lead the
legions across the galaxy, reclaiming, subjugating
or annihilating every world they could find,
gradually picking up the lost Primarchs along
the way. Eventually the Emperor decided there
were more important things to do and retired
from his career of galaxy plundering to go
and muck about with ancient science back on
Earth, leaving his favoured Primarch Horus
in command of The Crusade. All was going well
until the Chaos-tainted Chaplain Erebus engineering
a plot in which Horus would also fall to Chaos.
Already suffering from some pretty serious
Daddy issues, Horus gathered half the Space
Marine legions to his side and set about waging
civil war against the Emperor. This conflict
would be known as the Horus Heresy and culminated
in a massive invasion of Earth. The Emperor,
knowing that his forces were outnumbered and
on the verge of losing the battle, teleported
to Horus' flagship to engage him in mortal
combat, but being a sentimental old sod, could
not bring himself to kill his favoured son.
Horus having no such qualms, beat the snot
out of him. Finally seeing sense, the Emperor
killed him with mindbullets and the loyalists
were victorious. Near death, The Emperor was
placed in a huge machine known as The Golden
Throne which maintained his psychic essence
at the bargain price of the souls of 1000
unlucky sods every single day. The Imperium
fell into a state of technological regression
and brutal dictatorship and for 10,000 years
has been under siege from all sides by every
single nasty the universe can throw at it.
Basically life sucks, there is only war and
you're probably going to get eaten by Tyranids.
Have fun.
