Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Cognomen (section)

===The Forge of the Borderlands===

Cognomen defends itself.  Unlike certain Forge Worlds, which rely on the constant movement of Imperial Guard forces through their Worlds to defend them from invasion, Cognomen fields a vast variety of forces in its defense, and occasional offensives.  Although established after the end of the Scouring, and therefore without the ancient strength of an archaic Titan Legion, nor a network of Knight Worlds in its fealty, it has the means to build both.  Modeled after the ancient forces of Mars, which has its own domestic House of Knights, Taranis, Cognomen is slowly building up Titan and Knight forces from its own population.  Even other Forge Worlds that do not know of this accuse Cognomen of executing a power grab, which may be fair.  Cognomen's Explorator fleets are always on the lookout for other Forge or Knight Worlds that may be within the greater Cloudburst area, which it could add to its holdings.  The possibility that any Forge World so long removed from Mars may be either disloyal or far more advanced than Cognomen itself seems not to have occurred to Lord Fabricator Beraxos.

The Explorator forces also seek to find or make a Knight World of its own, out in the lightly exploited Cloudburst Circuit.  The fact that this is not traditionally permitted in the highly tradition-bound Mechanicus is something that Lord Fabricator Beraxos has chosen to disregard, respectfully.  Rather many of the lower-ranked Techpriests of Cognomen have debated reporting this to Mars; this has been a subject of ongoing discussion for many decades with no sign of letting up.  When pressed by his nervous subordinates, Beraxos insists that building an unauthorized Knight World is a crime, not a heresy, a distinction about which he cares more than most others would.  ABX202020 is a planet of infinite potential, in his mind, and a chance to show that even a world born in isolation and schism can be loyal, productive, reliable, defensible, and proper in the eyes of His Most Blessed Circuitry.

The establishment of a Titan Legion is far less controversial, and the Cognomen military has embraced it wholeheartedly.  So far, Cognomen has established the formal structure of Legio Congelatio (or Frostbite Army in Low Gothic) and the transports needed for twice their number.  The Legion is recruiting Principes and Moderatii from any population that can produce them and building smaller models before moving on to the more complex ones.  They have made remarkably little progress given the centuries of hard work that have gone into the process, but it is also a determined effort – Congelatio would be larger, but the first six Titans of the Legio were lost in a catastrophic battle against the forces of the Dark Eldar and Chaos.  The three-way war in the Corumbino Nebula, two hundred years prior in the Naxos Sector, cost Cognomen all of its progress; the capture of the Nebula seemed small consolation to the ruined Cognomen army.  Frantic rebuilding is now underway.

Of course, Cognomen is first and a foremost a Forge World.  The extensive military preparations and exploration they undertake are secondary to the manufacturing they perform on behalf of the Cloudburst Sector.  Appliances, vehicles, farming equipment, mining gear, and ship components alike churn out from the massive Cognomen factories by the gigaton.  The factory blocks of the main Fabrication Centers are new, and purpose-built.  Though they lack the ancient honors of the more established Forges of other worlds, the Cognomen Forges are expanding rapidly, and produce new products every year.  The ultimate goal of the sector’s Tech-clergy is to make Cloudburst import-neutral, and perhaps even export-positive.  Of course, Cognomen has been working for thousands of years to achieve this, but the sector’s population is also growing, and the fresh colonies that the Administratum and Rogue Traders have established in the last two hundred years have eaten heavily into Cognomen’s manufacturing balance.
However, Cognomen has been able to dispatch some of its Tech-Priests and Enginseers to Civilized Worlds in the Cloudburst Sector with orders to set up satellite trading posts and manufacturing centers there, both to ease their own burden and show Mars their commitment to spreading the Omnissiah’s Word and Works.  The success of this program on Celeste, Thimble, Maskos, and other Subsector Capital Worlds, but most of all Septiim Primus, has led Cognomen to plan for greater efforts in this regard.  Their hope is that this will allow worlds in the Sector to pay their tithe with processed minerals instead of raw ores, which are both harder to ship and time-consuming to process.  This, in turn, will allow Cognomen to shift vast percentages of their workforce towards the kind of precision manufacturing that Forge Worlds hold as their pride and holy joy.