abstract
| - Cyclothrathe was a former manufactory world known to the Imperium only by the most ancient texts, its name purged long ago by umbra-net data-phages by order of the highest possible authority. This minor Tertius Grade Forge World was located in the Coronid Deeps within the Segmentum Obscurus where it directly borders the Ultima Segmentum to the galactic East of the Cyclops Cluster. This Forge World was one of many worlds that were a part of the sovereign domain of the Mechanicum, known as the Cyclothrathine Holdfast, that had been founded within the devastated heartlands of the former Mitu Conglomerate. Although it could not rival the far more ancient neighboring Forge Worlds of M'Pandex and Mezoa in terms of industrial output, Cyclothrathe nevertheless vastly surpassed any traditional world's manufacturing capabilities. The Cyclothrathine Mechanicum has always been an insular and aloof sect of the Mechanicum, even when it was still counted amongst those loyal to the Imperium of Man, few were those who readily trusted them. Born not of ancient history, but rather some of the darkest and most horrifying conflicts of the Great Crusade and long withdrawn into secret ways and the study of the arcane, they were recognised by their strange arachnid symbol and their robes not of traditional Martian crimson, but of deepest hearts-blood and sable, and by the fathomless storm-cloud hues which adorned their servants and engines of war. For years they had garnered a reputation for ruthlessness and aggression, both in defence of their domains from any xenos that crossed the frontier, and in pressing any claims they made to resource rights and territory. Imperial law and the intercession of Mars had been called upon on more than once occasion to keep Cyclothrathe's expansion in check. Bellicose and arrogant, the black-clad Magi of Cyclothrathe kept their distance even from others of their own kind, and where they walked, they walked alone. During the Horus Heresy, the Warmaster Horus played on the jealousy and ambition of the Cyclothrathine Mechanicum to whom Mars was at best an unwanted and distant authority. The future would decide for this world an infamy seldom matched in the ranks of Forge Worlds. During these years, its name would become a byword for dark deeds and atrocity amongst the entire Imperium, as was its position within the Dark Mechanicum and the reputation of its dire Warlord, Archmagos Draykavac, cemented in the blood of countless planets. In the late 41st Millennium, it is many Inquisitors' beliefs that certain factions amongst their outcast kin in league with fallen Adepts of the Machine have recently re-established contact with the Traitors of Cyclothrathe, returned to threaten the northern marches of the Segmentum Solar as they did so many long millennia ago.
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