Event · M41

Farsight Expedition

The Farsight Expedition was a T’au campaign of about the 750s.M41 in which Commander Farsight crossed the Damocles Gulf and founded his Enclaves. The expedition followed the Damocles Crusade. On the advice of Aun’va, the Ethereal Supreme Aun’Wei, head of the T’au ruling caste, approved a new campaign to restore confidence within the T’au Empire, and the Ethereal Council gathered a large fleet for it. Farsight travelled in cryogenic stasis to avoid ageing during the long crossing. He first reclaimed worlds the Imperium had taken during the crusade. On meeting a large Ork fleet beyond the Gulf, he chose to engage it before completing the reconquest, the first time a T’au of any rank had disobeyed an order of the Ethereal Council. With the Air caste admiral Kor’O’Li’Mau’Teng he defeated the Ork fleet in the Vorac asteroid belt and pursued its survivors. The Ork Warboss Grog Ironteef, Warchief of Alsanta, outmanoeuvred Farsight repeatedly. On Atari Vo an Ork asteroid shower killed millions of T’au, and Farsight’s forces were ambushed in the impact craters; he served only as an adviser for the remainder of that battle. Another account dates an Ork invasion of Atari Vo by Grog to 815.M41 and records that it was defeated by the forces of Dal’yth with Farsight as an unexpected ally. Grog then struck at the worlds Farsight had already taken. Farsight withdrew for several months to meditate in his battlesuit, a suit of piloted powered combat armour, on the ocean bed of Vior’los, and then resumed command. On Tinek’la he ignited propellant gas released by Air caste pilots to destroy Ork aircraft; on Salash’hei seismic nodes built by Earth caste engineers raised a tsunami against the Ork fleet; on Lub’grahl he lifted besieged spire-nodes into orbit and buried the Ork army in a landslide; and on Vior’los artificial firestorms destroyed the invaders. He then isolated Grog and killed him in single combat, and spent about ten years securing the region against further Ork attacks. The expedition ended on Arthas Moloch, an Ork-held world where daemons emerged from a portal at the Great Star Dais. The Ethereals accompanying the expedition were killed, and Farsight closed the portal with the Dawn Blade, an alien sword he found there. Ordered to return to the T’au Empire, he refused, and consolidated the worlds he held into the Farsight Enclaves, established by 760.M41 and independent of Ethereal rule.

See where Farsight Expedition occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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