Editing Nobledark Imperium Drafts (section)

==== The Destruction of Lilarsus ====

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For years, the Tau Empire has had problems with Dark Eldar. Every time the Tau Empire have had a problem, whether A.I. rebellion or tyranid invasion, the Dark Eldar are always there like the vultures they are ready to prey on the vulnerable and the helpless. The primary source of these problems is Archon Andross Klax of the Kabal of the Hand of Deft Spite. The Tau Empire is effectively “his” space, at least by the standards of Commorragh, and other Kabals had to treat with him if they wanted to privilege of raiding there.

The Tau were fed up with Klax. The bounty on his head was staggering. The Tau usually don’t believe in bounty hunting, feeling that if you do kill it should be for duty or defense or something a little more noble than simply selfish greed. With Klax they’ve just stopped caring, the Empire want him dead. Especially Aun’Va, who had to put up with Klax’s shit more than anyone else. Klax was enough to make Aun’Va wistful for the old days of the Mont’au, back when you wanted someone dead you raised an army to do it and told the troops to put the offender’s head on a stick to make sure they were gone.

In M39, after an invasion by a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan resulted in a series of pyrrhic victories that only ended with Imperial assistance, the Tau Empire was once again considering closer relations with the Imperium. This would have been a disaster for Klax, for whom Imperial support and resources would have meant an end to the easy raiding he had been enjoying for the last one and a half millennia. And so to preserve his hunting grounds Archon Klax hatched a cunning scheme.

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In 876.M39, Klax created a false flag operation, making it seem like the Maiden World of Lilarsus was really a Dark Eldar world and Klax’s base of operations. The Kabal of the Hand of Deft Spite planted chemical evidence in the atmosphere, making it seem like the planet was experiencing substantial industrialization and spaceship traffic despite its primordial veneer. Surface observations would have shown the planet’s population was mostly Eldar, which would hopefully damn Lilarsus further in the eyes of the Tau. To someone who wasn’t familiar with how the Exodites worked, it looked like a textbook pirate hideout. The hope was that the Tau would attack Lilarsus and provoke a Tau-Imperium skirmish, souring relationships between the Imperium and the Tau. At best, it was hoped the act would spark the Tau-Imperium war both the Dark Eldar and their more debauched Crone World kin had always desired.

The Tau, already incensed with the Kabal of the Hand of Deft Spite for their raid on the Sept of Kel’Shan shortly after the tyranid invasion, took the bait. The Ethereals ordered Lilarsus burned to the ground in order to wipe out the space pirate and his cronies once and for all. The Tau attack took the form of nuking the population centers from orbit and letting the fallout from the airburst kill the rest. It was cheap, quick, and effective, especially since this was back in the days when the Tau were only just developing more extensive and expensive methods of Exterminatus for scouring tyranid-infested worlds to the bedrock. Thousands died. Fortunately, because the bombardment was focused on population centers not every Exodite died in the bombardment and the World Tree wasn’t compromised in the attack. This one of the few things that kept the situation from escalating faster than it already did.

It was only after the bombardment that the Tau realized that Lilarsus wasn’t a Dark Eldar world. The Tau tried to apologized to Lilarsus’ patron Craftworld of Iyanden and offered to help repair the damage they had done, but found their offers icily ignored. However, for Iyanden it wasn’t enough. Klax would pay in time, but the Tau had offered them an insult that couldn’t go unanswered. In the months following the bombardment of Lilarsus several Ethereals were subject to assassination attempts by Iyanden rangers, and the commander of the ill-fated expedition was found impaled on a wraithbone spear along with his command staff.

These assassinations in spite of the Tau’s offers of weregild enraged the Ethereal council, and the Tau Empire mobilized to go to war. The response of Craftworld Iyanden, who had the largest space navy of any Craftworld, was in effect “bring it”, and the eldar began to assemble their own retaliatory fleet. The two fleets intercepted each other in a dead star system to the galactic west of the Damocles Gulf. However, as the Eldar and Tau fleets squared off, suddenly an unknown fleet translated into the system and the Eldar and Tau’s ships stalled. The Tau didn’t know what to make of this. It wasn’t like their ships had been hit by an EMP, as life support systems and artificial gravity were still on and they didn’t even know what an EMP would do to Eldar ships, it was like their ships were being…physically restrained.


Up until this point, the Tau had comforted themselves by believing that the border skirmishes they had fought with the Imperium in the past were evidence that their great and mighty fleets were capable of holding off the aggressive and might of the "whole Imperial war machine". The more knowledgeable among the Ethereals and Fire Caste knew that it was merely the navy of the Segmentum Ultima, but they still figured that was a sizeable portion of the Imperium’s military might, and liked their odds in the event of a confrontation.

That was until the Tau got a good look at the ''Bucephalus'' and its hangers-on translating into the system. Those weren’t any Segmentum Ultima navy ships they had ever seen before. Hell, they hadn’t seen most of those ship classes before. And perhaps more importantly, this new fleet not only outnumbered but outgunned both the Tau fleet and Eldar fleet put together. If people started shooting this new fleet would annihilate both of them, only stopping to wipe the ship debris off its metaphorical boot.
And then the face of Oscar, Last of the Golden Men, Emperor of the Throne, Servus Servorum Imperium, Emperor-Consort of the All-Mother and Defender of the Realms Uncounted appeared on the Tau’s communication array to request the presence of their leader at his next earliest convenience to discuss "recent events". The Tau were just as surprised at the appearance of the Emperor’s face on their screens as they were at the arrival of the Bucephalus, this being was clearly different from any gue’la they had ever seen. He told them they wouldn’t have to worry about Iyanden striking while they were distracted as his wife just told the other side to go home and tend their wounds and sure enough Iyanden, who seemed previously out for blood, was doing so without hesitation or complaint to the surprise of the Tau commanders.

It was be at that moment, that exact moment, that every Fire Caste present realized just how deep the pit they are standing over really is, and the Tau Empire realized that the “tall tales” of Por’O M’arc visiting the Imperial capital were more than just tall tales.



After three days of intense debating, a ceasefire was eventually reached and war was narrowly averted. Lilarsus ended up being garrisoned with Aspect Warrior and wraithguards from Iyanden to protect the world tree until the radioactive fallout subsided, along with several unarmed Crisis battlesuits from the Tau empire scrubbing radiation. Surprisingly enough, the presence of the latter was actually a request of the Tau Empire, Iyanden said the Tau didn't have to be there and quite frankly didn’t want the Tau anywhere near the planet, but the Tau insisted. Crisis battlesuits and other suits of their size class doubled as really good environmental hazard suits. Projections and farseer visions foresaw that most of Lilarsus would be uninhabitable for nearly 450 years, but with active cleanup of the radioactive fallout it could be cut down to nearly a third of that time. Maybe even quicker for major population centers. The faster it was cleaned up, the faster the Exodites could return to their home. In the minds of the Tau, it was their misjudgment that led to the bombing of Lilarsus, and therefore it was their duty to make amends. It was a matter of personal honor for them.

After the stand-off, Spiritseer-Admiral Iyanna Arienal, essentially the "face" of Iyanden's seer council, disappeared from the public eye for a few months. When asked where she had been after return her only answer was "with Yriel". Perhaps not coincidentally, Archon Klax was never heard from again.

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