Wheel of Fire
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This article is about the Subsector; for the Great Crusade battle, see Wheel of Fire Campaign. |
The Wheel of Fire is a subsector of Imperial space otherwise known as Eastern Spiral Subsector 4.
It was originally the site of a massive campaign between the Space Wolves and Orks during the Great Crusade[3] but presumably lost to time. Long thought to be inaccessible due to surrounding warp storms of notable violence, a stable warp-route into it was finally discovered in the year 981.M41 by the Navigator Durlan Occellati. Having been cut off from the Imperium for millennia, it was divined that a large force of the Space Wolves Space Marine Chapter should investigate and cleanse the subsector of any threats. This mission was accomplished after a five year crusade, ending in 987.M41.[1]
History
The Wheel of Fire was originally conquered by the Space Wolves during the Great Crusade, in which a third of the Legion was destroyed.[3]
Later in 987.M41 the Wheel of Fire again became notable thanks to the accidental arrival in the subsector of a large force of Orks of the Charadonian Empire, who jumped into the area by accident and could not plot a way out. They took over several dozen worlds and fractured into several small wargroups which began warring upon one another, their Space Hulks either abandoned or used for supplies.[1]
The Ork forces were eventually broken and all but wiped out by the Space Wolf crusade, although they did inflict notable damage to the Imperial forces. The end for the Orks came on the planet Xit, when their last stronghold was eliminated by a multi-pronged Space Wolf attack, the last action in their successful 519th Crusade.[1]
Worlds
The inhabited worlds in this subsector mostly host Human and Ork populations, although other Xenos species are reported to have had various holdings there. There is only one known safe warp-route through the Wheel of Fire, the passage now known as the Straits of Occellati, after the Navigator who discovered the route.[1]
Conflicting sources
- In The Horus Heresy Book Seven - Inferno, the Wheel of Fire is discovered by Durlan Occellati and conquered by the Space Wolves under Leman Russ himself during the Great Crusade, not in M41.[2] It's possible that the region simply was lost or forgotten as opposed to a canonical error.
See also
Sources
- 1: Warhammer 40,000 Chapter Approved - The Book of the Astronomican, pgs. 2-3
- 2: The Horus Heresy Book Seven - Inferno, pg. 79
- 3: Wolfsbane (Novel), Chapter 9
