Cadia

And they say there are no female commanders among the Guard...especially among Cadians.

Cadia is an Imperial Guard fortress world located right beside the Eye of Terror. Due to being proximate to the only safe warp-passage into and out of the Eye, as well as large Xenos mobilization throughout the sector, it has become a fortress world and a strategic gem for the Imperium of Man. On another note, that place is a hellhole. Avoid if at all possible. It might be a good vacation spot if you LIKE trenches filled with bodies and tracer fire lighting up your hotel room... on second thought fuck that shit!

so stupid

Cadia, officially known as Cadia Prime, is a terrestrial, Earth-like planet that has been classified as both a Civilised World and as the Imperium of Man's most important Fortress World by the Administratum. It guards the only known navigable route to and from the massive Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror, a passage called the Cadian Gate. The world's dangerous proximity to the Eye of Terror has made it necessary for the people of Cadia to heavily fortify the planet. Cadia is always the first target of the Chaos Warmaster Abaddon the Despoiler's assaults and Black Crusades, when the Forces of Chaos Undivided launch themselves from the Eye of Terror every few centuries in an attempt to break out and invade the Imperium proper as they did during the Horus Heresy.

Cadia's natural environment is much like Terra's was millennia ago, with a large ocean covering 70 percent of the planet's surface. The land mass that does exist is divided between incredibly thick pine forests and vast glaciers. The planet is slightly cooler than most human-settled worlds but not to the point that it adversely affects growing conditions. Settled before the onset of the Age of Strife by a branch of humanity that eventually fell to the worship of the Chaos Gods and played a major role in the ultimate corruption of the Space Marine Legions, Cadia was re-settled sometime in the early 32nd Millennium by Loyalist humans of the Imperium. The world's landscape is dotted by strange black pylons of clear xenos origin called the Cadian Pylons. These devices were actually constructed by the Necrons millions of years ago to hold back the psychic energies of the Eye of Terror from the world, which was an ancient Necron military base during their war with the Old Ones.

The Cadian Pylons are what create the unusual area of realspace stability known as the Cadian Gate near the Eye of Terror that is unaffected by the constant Warp Storms that surround that Warp rift. Cadia's location directly adjacent to the dangerous Eye of Terror has made it necessary for the people of Cadia to fortify the planet to an extent where almost the entire population lives in massive fortress-cities known locally as "Kasr". Thus Cadia has an odd mix of dense urban areas and vast open tundras and other natural landscapes. It is always against Cadia that Abaddon the Despoiler, the Warmaster of the Chaos Space Marines and the Forces of Chaos, fields his continual assaults or Black Crusades from his hold in the Eye of Terror

Cadia: A very, very shitty place to live

It just sucks to live on Cadia, period. Yes, there are several manly, redeeming qualities (see below) about the planet, but if you live on Cadia you're too busy replacing the batteries in your flashlight to notice. A short list includes, but is not limited to:

• Being drafted before you can walk, learning to shoot before you can count, and getting thrown in the the meat-grinder (mostly figuratively, sometimes literally) by age 16.
• Learning how to shoot so young that when you're toilet-trained you're told to aim your dick like it's a lasgun.
• Marauding bands of Chaos Space Marines and assorted heretics trying to kill you.
• Random WAAAGH!!!s of greenskins trying to kill you.
• Stealthy platoons of Space Elves trying to kill you.
• Your own superior officers trying to ki-*BLAM!*
• No privacy whatsoever for your entire life.
• Constant fear of death before you reach puberty.
• Constant fear of death during puberty.
• Constant fear of death after you reach puberty.
• Superior officers barking orders down your neck for the 10-16 years that you're alive.
• No time to screw around, you're always on duty.
• The top fashions in Cadia are camo patterns and body armor.
• Heretical cults springing up by the dozen every week.
• Voices keep telling you to ditch the duty and relax, let loose, call in sick, or try something different.
• The fact that the planet's main only export is Soldiers should clue you in.
• Mutants springing up everywhere wanting to try out the new pincer claw they just got in your neck.
• Abaddon finally stopped failing and is currently sending so many daemons through the Cadian Gate that even Creed is having trouble forcing them back now. And rumor has it that the Daemon Primarchs are on their way too...
• Even after you die, Cadia doesn't stop being shitty to you, because once the engraving on your tombstone is illegible, it means you've been dead for so long nobody alive cares about you anymore, so your corpse is dug up and thrown into an incinerator while a fresh corpse is thrown into your hole. And then they will be dug up and thrown away as well.

Seriously, it just sucks to live there, just take my word for it. Avoid prolonged stays on Cadia at all costs.

Redeeming Qualities

Yes it sucks to live on Cadia, sucks beyond all Hell, but there are several reasons why it's one of the most awesome places in the Imperium.

Cadian Shock Troopers

First and foremost, the finest (and perhaps most numerous) breed of the Imperial Guard are born, trained, and live on Cadia. You see the Cadian as the common model for your generic, garden variety guardsmen figurine, and as such they are the most easily recognized. They fight tenaciously for the Empra and die with the same degree of vigor. Manliness is never in short order here on Cadia, making it one of the most awesome planets around.

Their elite troops are the Kasrkins, basically the elite of the elite of the Guard. Only SPESS MEHREENS are better. But the Kasrkin are probably scarier than the Spess Mehreens anyway, because they do about the same on the battlefield, without wearing a concrete wall on every inch of their body and not having mini-rocket launcher guns, no, they're just humans with balls of steel, both of which have their own pair of balls of steel. To be fair though, they get shit done while wearing cardboard instead of the Guardsman's t-shirts, and they use pewpewpew Hellguns that shoot a lot more light than the Guardsman's flashlight. For example, a Kasrkin Sergeant literally jumps on the back of a rampaging Daemonhost (which has already incapacitated the majority of an inquisitorial retinue) and stabs it with a regular ol' combat knife to save the life of an Inquisitor. Balls. Of. Steel.

Defended

Despite what is said about how much of a hellhole Cadia is due to the constant warfare, because of that selfsame constant warfare Cadia is one of the most well-defended planets in the Imperium. In fact, it's the 2'nd most heavily defended world in the Imperium of Man, only Sol System is better defended than Cadia. All cities are arranged in interlocking blocks that require roads to snake around buildings with blind corners and are defended by rockcrete and adamantium walls, all to favor the defenders in urban combat. Massive shield generators keep the cities safe from all but the heaviest bombardment, forcing enemies to pay for them meter by bloody meter. All "civilians" are technically Cadian military reservists, and have been through the same life-long military training that all Cadians are subject to. As dangerous as Cadia is, the locals have learned to handle that danger and weather it as well as possible. Given its strategic importance, the Imperium is more than willing to commit substantial other resources to the planet's defense, which means lots of ships patrolling the system and lots of depots stationed in nearby systems to quickly reinforce Cadia at a moment's notice.

Creed

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!!! This article has infiltrated your computer. You just got tactical geniused.

Reproduction

Birth rate and recruitment rate are synonymous. And if you see how many men and women die on the battlefield every day... better start doing your part for the Imperium. On Cadia, you're encouraged to fuck around wildly and have your partner push out the kid in a barracks to increase efficiency in recruiting.

Violet Eyes

Ever fancied having more eye color than is standard for man? Move to Cadia and your kids will likely get glowing purple/violet eyes.

The Place of Lorgar's Enlightenment

While the Imperium would consider this quality the highest order of heresy, perhaps the greatest reason for Cadia's importance is that it is, in many ways, the birth place of the Horus Heresy. It was on Cadia the forces of the Word Bearers met with Ingethel the Chosen and were inducted to the service of the Great Powers. As such, Cadia holds tremendous ideological importance and sentimental value for the Champions of Chaos.

That's right; Cadia is Israel on the planetary scale.