Event · M31
Molech Gate
The Molech Gate was the ancient warp gateway beneath Lupercalia on the Knight world of Molech, sought by Horus in 008–009.M31. Molech was a frontier world of the Segmentum Solar, held since the Great Crusade by House Devine, and tradition recorded that the Emperor himself had once communed with powers beyond mortal reckoning through the gate. [Horus](/characters/horus-lupercal), Warmaster of the Imperium, led an expedition to Molech under the sanction of a compliance action, ostensibly to secure the gateway against unspecified threats. The stated purpose concealed his intention to draw upon the gate’s power, toward ends he shared only with his closest confederates among the [Sons of Horus](/faction/sons-of-horus). The gate’s significance is inseparable from the fighting that surrounded it, which is treated in full under [Horus on Molech](/events/horus-on-molech). Nearly a dozen Knight houses owing fealty to Devine, [Imperial Army](/faction/imperial-army) regiments and the Titan crews of the Legio Gryphonicus, Legio Crucius and Legio Fortidus defended the world, reinforced by warriors the Emperor had sent in advance. Against them stood the Sons of Horus, allied Army formations and four Traitor Titan Legions, including the Warmaster’s own Legio Mortis. The loyalist line broke when the reactor of the Imperator Titan Paragon of Terra was destroyed and House Devine turned upon the defenders, leaving the approach to Lupercalia open. Horus was grievously wounded during the campaign, and accounts hold that the Ruinous Powers turned that wound to his damnation rather than his death. The passage of Horus through the gate is recorded as the point at which he received the full favour of the Ruinous Powers as their chosen champion, and it is counted among the opening beats of the Horus Heresy. After it, reconciliation between the Warmaster and the Emperor was no longer possible. Molech was not wholly claimed as many other worlds were, and its liberation was not completed until the Great Scouring, recorded as the [Liberation of Molech](/events/liberation-of-molech-in-the-scouring). The later condition of the gate itself is not firmly recorded, and accounts differ on what, if anything, remains of it beneath Lupercalia.
See where Molech Gate occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.