A provincial trading post in a galactic backwater
On the galactic scale, Neomunda was always an insignificant planet. Settled relatively recently by Imperial standards, it had been classed a ‘Gamma Class – Civilized World – Developing’ by the Administratum, indicating it had no specific specialisation thusfar. For most of its history, it was home to no more than a few scattered communities surviving on basic subsistence farming. Communities enjoyed the temperate climate and fertile soil, and huddled together during the harsh winters.
During the latter centuries of the 41st Milennium, Neomunda had become the center of local shipping and trading lanes. Shifting tides in the warp had made it a suitable resting point on longer voyages. The planet’s natural resources began to be extracted and traded. Better farming equipment and technology could be afforded by Neomundans and the population continued to thrive. It did not take long until the first city centers grew closer and formed the seeds of the first Hives, large metropolises that vied for economical and political supremacy.
Still, most of the planet remained sparsely populated and the fresh planet was generally unburdened by overpopulation and the levels of pollution that plague genuine hive planets. Neomunda was able to sustain itself on its own locally farmed produce, trading excess resources and expanding into a manufacturing industry of its own.
Located far away on the Eastern Fringe, the Imperium had never been very close, but it was never far off either. The institutions of this vast interstellar empire had little regard for this remote backwater. The Imperial tithe was usually easily paid, with the sluggish Administratum slow to match the size of the tithe with the growth of the planet.
However, due to the efforts of itinerant Ministorum preachers, Imperial culture and faith was deeply ingrained. Most households had a little altar dedicated to the Imperial Creed and He-Who-Sits-On-The-Golden-Throne. This strict yet benevolent father figure kept his loyal subjects safe from the horrors wrought by the Xenos, the Heretic and the Mutant. Generations of farmers toiled the land, dreaming of visiting the paradise that is Holy Terra.
For the people of Neomunda, war was nothing more than exciting gossip from distant worlds, brought by visiting traders.
However, this was about to change…
The Opening of the Great Rift and the First Xenos Invasion
The advent of 42nd millennium saw a pulsating, gaping wound open in the sky. The Cicatrix Maledictum, as it is called by official Imperial records, wreaked havoc through the warp, disturbing insterstellar communication and navigation.
Alone on the fringe, locked off from the wider Imperium, Neomunda was gripped with panic. The fear turned out to be wellfounded.
Not long after the rift in the sky had opened, a lone Tyranid hive ship suddenly appeared in the planet’s orbit. Whether a conscious, probing attack, flung there by a freak warp storm, or redirected there by a third party, the arrival of the Xenos shook the populace to its core. The shock only deepened as these strange, unfamiliar creatures ripped through the meagre orbital defences and settled down on the planet.
The invasion was the first real test for the Planetary Defence Forces. Though untested in combat, they bravely defended the soil of their homeplanet, and only through the blood shed by millions of martyrs was the swarm contained. The Hive ship was finally taken out of the sky through a last ditch suicide attack by the few remaining spaceworthy battleships, crashing it into the sea. Still, it took years for the arduous war of extermination to be considered concluded, and for the Xenos to be officially declared extinct.
But Neomunda’s suffering had only just begun.
Aftermath of the first Xenos war
Though the ordeal steeled some in their faith in the Golden Throne, justifying their hatred for the Xenos, others looked upon the experience differently. Where was the Empire and its Imperial Guard regiments when they were needed? Would they be able to survive a full scale attack by these ravenous insects, especially now their orbital fleets were gone?
These doubts made fertile ground for the first dealings with the T’au Empire, a strange breed of Xenos that reached out to Neomunda in the wake of the Tyranid invasion. Though the planetary government publicly executed the first alien envoys to arrive on the planet, to loud cheers from a bloodthirsty crowd, others saw an opportunity emerge.
Looking to to expand their power on the planet, several large trade cartels set up secret meetings with Water Caste spies. This secret cabal was unified under the name of the ‘Enlightened Ones’. They plotted to overthrow the planetary government, hoping to become the new ruling power as a subsidiary of the T’au Empire. A decades long conspiracy was set in motion.
When the Imperial ships missed the deadline of their once-a-century pickup of the Imperial tithe, these ‘Enlightened Ones’ grew bolder. They claimed that the Imperium had either fallen or forgotten about them, and that Neomunda should look to the future and seek a new destiny amongst the stars. With bribes, assassinations, handouts and propaganda, they strengthened their grasp on the planet. In secret, they prepared for an armed uprising whilst the paralyzed government looked on in fear and confusion.
However, the Imperium had not forgotten about this galactic backwater. When the warpstorms wrought by the Cicatrix Maledictum had somewhat abated and the tithe ships appeared, along with their Naval and Imperial Guard escorts, a civil war broke out.
Brother fights brother
“These people, they’re like ghosts. Always in the shadows, always hiding behind lies and proxy soldiers…”
Neomundan Planetary Governor, seconds before her assassination. The identity of the sniper remains unknown, as is the make of the murder weapon, which punctured several inches of armoured glasscrete window. Official post-war records attribute her death to ‘a jilted ex-lover’.
Seeing a chance to turn the tide, the planetary government quickly instituted a crackdown on any Xenosphile actors. People were lifted from their beds and shot in the streets, forcing the ‘Enlightened Ones’ to show their hand.
In secret, the Trade Cartels had fostered contacts with several large crime syndicates and had subverted trading restrictions, arming and supplying their private militia’s with weapons based on Xenos technology. T’au advisors supported their efforts, with some specialists occasionally engaging in combat themselves, clad in stealth suits. A choatic civil war broke out in the streets, with no clear frontlines to be drawn.
The Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard quickly came to the defence of the beleaguered Planetary Defence Forces. Civilians were caught in the crossfire, and collateral damage caused resentment towards both sides. Millions perished in brutal streetfighting and orbital bombardments. However, the loyalists to the Golden Throne seemed to be fueled by His Holy Fire, and the war effort was going in their favor.
Until the crenelated prows of Imperial tithe ships began to run aground on Neomundan soil…
The Second Xenos Invasion
As soon as the uprising had started, T’au infiltrators and the circle of Enlightened Ones had sent out a call for aid. After a few long weeks of desperate battle, they saw the answer appear in the Neomundan sky. The arrival of the enormous Xenos fleet caused massive panic under the local population. Many chose to flee or took their own lives, especially those in communities that remembered the horror wrought by the first Xenos invasion.
The invasion fleet assaulted the Imperial positions with overwhelming force, engaging in naval battles and aerial bombardments. Dropships filled with T’au Fire Warriors and battlesuits, ruthless Kroot mercenaries and other Xenos auxiliaries blotted out the sun. The resulting Second Xenos war was brutal for soldier and civilian alike.
It was also decided in a mere ten days.
A generous offer
When it could no longer be denied that the Imperials were fighting a losing battle, the T’au Ethereal commander made a magnanimous offer to the admiral of the opposing fleet; Concede, and have your remaining ships evacuate as many surviving Imperial troops left on the ground as possible, or fight on and be utterly exterminated.
Despite pleas from the planetary government, the admiral had no choice but to bow to these demands. He had been ordered to extract planetary tithes and was only equiped with the means to intimidate a rambunctious backwater planet, not to engage in a fullscale war against a technologically and numerically superior foe.
The resulting evacuation was marred by chaos and tragedy. Not nearly enough ships had survived to evacuate the Imperial forces left stranded on the planet, let alone all high ranking dignitaries or officials within the local Imperial administration.
The rich bribed Navy pilots, and the desperate tried to storm the ships and clamber aboard, only to be halted by warning shots or trampled by a nervous, stampeding crowd. When the last Arvus shuttle took off from the launch pad in front of the planetary governor’s palace, it rained down the screaming bodies of those that had made the futile decision to try and hold onto its hull as it ascended into high orbit.
Abandoned Neomundans and Imperial Guardsmen alike raised their eyes to the sky in fear, wondering what the future would bring…
trying to either evacuate or capture important Imperial personnel before the evacuation deadline had passed
Nyo’munda, a Brave New World
“It has come to my attention that some have lately called me a collaborator, as if such a term were shameful. I ask you, what greater endeavor exists than that of collaboration? In the current state of the universe, refusal to collaborate is simply a refusal to grow – an insistence on suicide, if you will.
In order to be true to our nature, and our shared destiny, we must aspire to the Greater Good. And only the universal union that is the T’au Empire can carry us there.”
Father Brenling, Planetary Administrator
With the hasty retreat of the Imperium, there was little choice for what was left of the planetary government but to surrender to the T’au occupiers. In the shadows, the Enlightened Ones had already started manoeuvering against one another, though they were able to find a consensus figure in the form of the pliable Kundov Brenling, a former Adeptus Ministorum deacon. It was hoped that having a former follower of the Imperial Creed as the figurehead of the new planetary administration would help the Neomundans swallow the bitter pill of Xenos occupation.
The new planetary government quickly opened negotiations with the Water Caste diplomats. Under the watchful eyes and gunports of the T’au military fleet, an accession agreement was quickly reached.
The Vi’shi (‘Our Shared Victory’) Proclamation abolished old Imperial institutions and formally recognized the T’au Empire as the rulers and protectors of the planet. The Planetary Administrator would rule at the behest of a council composed of T’au representatives, esteemed leaders of industry, and representatives of state institutions such as the newly composed planetary security and defence forces.
A regular tithe of labourers, resources and Gue’vuesa regiments would be sent to support the T’au Empire, and the Imperial Creed was abolished as the religion of state. Its organisational structures and holdings were dismantled. However, freedom of religion became allowed, and a sanitized version of the Imperial Creed could still be preached, though it would soon fragment into many competing sects and interpretations, as planned and foreseen by T’au social engineers.
Finally, the planet was renamed to Nyo’munda, a mix of High Gothic and the T’au language, meaning as much as ‘Encircled/Enveloped/Embraced World’.
Water Caste social engineers had long since found that enacting cultural change flowed smoother when incorporating elements of the previous culture, hence the similar name. The name also refers to the T’au metastrategy of ‘Rinyon’, of envelopment and encirclement, though more cynical observers rightly note that the literal translation of ‘Rinyon’ is ‘circle of blades’.
The Resettlement Policy
“Welcome. Welcome to Nyo’n Prime.”
“You have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers. I thought so much of Nyo’n Prime that I elected to establish my administration here, in the Spire so thoughtfully provided by Our Benefactors. I have been proud to call this city my home. And so, whether you are here to stay, or passing through on your way to parts unknown, welcome to Nyo’n Prime.”
“It’s safer here.”
Father Brenling, repeating pictscreen broadcast at the Nyo’n Prime central grav-train station
One of the first legislative acts to be approved by Father Brenling and the Ruling Council was the resettlement policy, or the “Grand Housing Act”. The planet was divided into two areas, namely Zones of Habitation and the Zone of Exclusion.
Zones of Habitation, composed mostly of those pre-existing city centers that had been left mostly untouched by the war, were the only regions where citizens were allowed to settle. The Zone of Exclusion was deemed uninhabitable. Those who still dwelled within were marked for evacuation, to be completed within the year. Since citizens were only allowed in the Habitation Zone, it logically followed that anyone outside was a non-citizen, bereft of any rights.
Officially, the Grand Housing Act was intended as a way to focus reconstruction efforts and to concentrate the population in areas where relief aid could be easily offered. It would also ensure a safe haven free of unexploded ordinance, terrorist attacks from die-hard supporters of the old regime, and possible leftover Tyranid nests from the first Xenos invasion.
Unofficially, the Grand Housing Act would allow for easier surveillance of the population and make it dependent on the new planetary administration for food and income. It would also weaken the power of the landowning Imperial nobility, and give the planetary government, the trade cartels and the T’au Empire a playground to experiment with to their heart’s content.
Law and order under the occupation anno M42.077
“The Tau Empire is your friend. The Tau want you to be happy. Happiness is mandatory. Failure to be happy is treason. Treason is punishable by summary execution.”
Graffiti on hab block bathroom stall, unknown author
Almost twenty years have passed since the T’au Empire claimed the planet.
For the most part, the T’au have been content to rule from afar, leaving daily affairs to be managed by the collaborating government. T’au and other Xenos ships regularly dock to extract resources such as minerals, as well as economic and military manpower. A token presence of drones and Fire Warriors are maintained at security checkpoints, military encampments and local commanderies. Their rule is assisted by the law enforcers of Civil Protection, the soldiers of Civil Defence and, when on-planet, Gue’vesa regiments from the Nyo’mundan Auxiliary Space Army.
Areas inhabited by the inner circle of high ranking collaborators are well protected. Others less so, but harsh crackdowns and repressive surveillance equipment try to compensate for longer periods of absence. The population is kept docile through marginally better living standards, based on cheap pharmaceuticals and gadgets, including mechanical augmentation. Housing conditions are cramped in the densely packed hive cities.
Citizens that don’t ask too many questions, loyally serve in the new government’s institutions and profess their undying adoration for their glorious Xenos benefactors, are accorded higher social adjusment scores and treated as higher class citizens, receiving access to better housing, food, healthcare, career and entertainment options.
Deviants and Xenosphobes are punished on the spot or sent to reeducation camps, where are taught how to become productive members of society. They are rarely seen again, and those that do return, seem as emotionally stunted and meek as a worker bee.
However, rules are different for the affluent. There is little that power and money can’t buy, and that’s what the crime syndicates and trade cartels have in droves…
NYO'MUNDA 