Event · M30

Liberation of Lycaeus

The Liberation of Lycaeus was the slave uprising on the mining moon of Lycaeus — later renamed Deliverance — against the Tech-Guild rulers of Kiavahr, led by the young Corvus Corax. Working in secret among the subjugated mine-labourers, Corax organised them into disciplined fighting teams, promoting the most capable among them as squad leaders, and built up a network of hidden caches in which weapons and equipment were stored against the day of revolt. In the months before the rising he waged a sustained campaign of psychological pressure, inciting riots and strikes that drew ever more followers to his cause while wearing down the strength and morale of the garrison charged with keeping order. When the moment was judged right, Corax’s fighters struck at the moon’s key security points simultaneously, taking them by direct assault or by sabotage, and killed every member of the Lycaeus defence forces stationed there. Kiavahr’s rulers despatched forces to retake the moon, but these were outmanoeuvred and ambushed by Corax on the ground, and their supply lines were cut, leaving them unable to sustain the campaign. Corax then directed a bombardment of Kiavahr itself from Lycaeus, sending a single atomic mining charge against each of the planet’s five largest cities, the devices carried down to their targets aboard small transport shuttles that descended through a supply gravity well; Corax himself remained on the moon throughout, directing the strikes rather than taking part in them on Kiavahr’s surface. Thousands died in the resulting destruction. Deprived of the mineral wealth on which their power rested and with their military strength all but destroyed, the Tech-Guilds fell into civil war among themselves, and millions of enslaved labourers across the system were freed. In celebration of their freedom, the liberated populace renamed Lycaeus as Deliverance. The Emperor arrived on the moon not long afterwards, and it entered the nascent Imperium as the homeworld of the XIX Legion.

See where Liberation of Lycaeus occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.

Open in universe