Welcome to Lexicanum! Log in and join the community.

Terra

From Lexicanum

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

Planetary Summary

Map Basic Data Planetary Image
px Name: Terra
Segmentum: Segmentum Solar
Sector: Solar
Subsector: Sol
System: Sol
Population: Unknown
Affiliation: Imperium
Class: Hive World
Tithe Grade: Aptus Non

Terra, homeworld of the mankind and of the Emperor, is the most holy and revered place in the Imperium. Pilgrims throughout the Imperium flock to Terra - even the barren soil that pilgrims tread upon is considered holy. It is effectively a temple the size of a planet.

As the main headquarters of many important organizations of the Imperium as it is the capital world of the Imperium.

There is a fear toward Space Marines among the people who live there, due to events dating back to the Horus Heresy, when much of the planet was leveled and terrorized by the Traitor Legions.

Old Earth

The Age of Old Earth is known as the time from the dawn of mankind to the founding of the Imperium. Cities such as Atlantys and Nova Yourk are cited as being the most legendary and ancient cities of Old Earth. Nations known as Jermani, Merica, Britania and Bania are said to have prospered and wilted during this time.1

Geography

Terra is a hive world, the earth has long ago been stripped of all forms of resources - its soil is utterly barren and its atmosphere is a fog of pollution. Massive, labyrinthine edifices of state sprawl across the vast majority of the surface. Its oceans have long ago boiled away. Many mountain ranges have been leveled, perhaps all but the Himalayas, which seemingly remain all but untouched, due to the laboratories said to be underneath and the chambers of the Astronomican that course throughout the whole mountain range. Despite being devastated during the Horus Heresy and earlier than that, the long Age of Strife, Terra is probably the most vastly-populated and built-up hive world in the Imperium. Beneath countless layers and millennia of urban accretion, catacombs hold older cultures, completely different from the surface ones.

Much of the population of Terra exists in the most terrible squalor; their greatest hope that one of their offspring might be accepted into the Adeptus Terra, the Priesthood of Earth, as a Menial, an adept of the lowliest sort.2

A square meter of land on Terra costs more than a palace on any Hive World; only the most wealthy can even afford to own a small section of land1.

Locations

Terra is the heart of the Imperium, and of many of its most important organizations. Most importantly it is the home world and resting place of the Emperor of Mankind. The most important places and organisations based on Terra include:

  • Imperial Palace - One of the largest structures on Terra, the Palace is more like a sprawling hive-city. It covers the better part of the northern hemisphere, is guarded by the Adeptus Custodes, who rarely leave the Palace, and is the heart of the Administratum, as well as incorporating the Sanctum Imperialis, the great throne room of the Emperor. The Palace is divided into Inner and Outer Palace. It is described as "an endless, black hive of forbidden technology and subterranean passages delving deep within the bowels of the planet."5.
  • Eternity Gate - The largest entry to the Inner Imperial Palace's Sanctum Imperialis. A mile long passage leads to the Eternity Gate, lined with the banners of thousands of the greatest and long-dead Imperial heroes, including Lord Commander Solar Macharius. It constitutes the end of the galactic pilgrimage trail, and is itself the most important pilgrimage site.
  • Sanctum Imperialis - The throne room and heart of the Imperial Palace. It is the massive chamber housing the Golden Throne and the Emperor's body. It is guarded by a select group of three hundred Custodes.
  • Adeptus Terra - The Adeptus Terra, known commonly as the Priesthood of Earth, is the government of the Imperium, consisting of many organisations and departments. Besides the vast destitute population of non-adepts, much of Terra's population are members of the Adeptus Terra.
  • Administratum - The Administratum is the administrative and bureaucratic division of the Adeptus Terra, consisting of untold billions of clerks, scribes and administrative staff constantly working to manage the Imperium at every level, from assembling war fleets to levying taxes. It is the largest of the departments comprising the Adeptus Terra, and ten billion Administratum adepts work in the Imperial Palace alone.
  • The Forbidden Fortress - Built throughout the mountain range of the Himalayas. A single peak is carved to form the Chamber of the Astronomican, where ten thousand psykers continuously power the Astronomican beacon with their own life energies. The "psychic light" of the beacon reaches thousands of light years across the warp. The Astronomican is utilized by the mutant psykers known as Navigators to guide interstellar ships through otherwise trackless chaos of the warp. Without it long distance warp travel would be impossible and the Imperium would disintegrate.
  • Office of the Inquisition - The Inquisition's headquarters on Terra, it is a sprawling complex built beneath the south polar ice caps.2
  • Officio Assassinorum - although its agents operate throughout the Imperium, the organization is based on Terra - its School of Assassins and most of the temples that comprise the Officio are said to be located on Terra, although their actual locations are closely guarded secrets.
  • Adeptus Astra Telepathica - The Adeptus Astra Telepathica is the organisation responsible for recruiting and training psykers for service to the Imperium. The infamous Black Ships travel throughout the Imperium, gathering psykers and returning with them to Earth. The psykers are analysed and sorted according to their psychic power and strength of character. The first levels are trained at the Scholastia Psykana for five years before being sent for further training elsewhere. Some of these becoming Astropaths, specialist psykers who are trained to send and receive messages over interstellar distances (no other form of fast interstellar communication exists). Others are requisitioned by the Adeptus Astronomica for service in the Astronomican choir. The most powerful, those deemed as possessing a strong enough character to resist daemonic possession on their own, often enter the Inquisition for training as Inquisitors. Those psykers deemed too weak or dangerous to live become sacrifices to the Emperor, their souls are "fed" into the arcane technology of the Golden Throne so that the Emperor may continue to live. Only psykers that have been trained at the Scholastia Psykana are sanctioned by the Imperium.
  • Ecclesiarchal Palace - The headquarters of the Ecclesiarchy, the Ecclesiarchal palace sprawls over almost the entirety of Terra's southern continent. Also home to one of the two major convent-fortresses (the Sanctorum) of the Adepta Sororitas (The Sisterhood)3,4.

Related articles

Sources

Retrieved from "http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Terra"
Personal tools
In other languages