| abstract | - To the west of the Palatine's empire was the Empty Quarter, a barren grassland with few resources, and as such it was never invaded by the Palatine's armies. It was home to wandering tribes of vicious horsemen who fought each other for their ancestral lands. The Palatine would sometimes lead forces into the Empty Quarter to capture slaves or merely to hunt the tribesmen for fun. Khan's legacy began here. He was found by Ong Khan, leader of a small tribe called the Talaskars, who saw the young Primarch as a gift from the gods. It is said he had a fire in his eyes, the sign of a great warrior. He was hated by the other tribes because of his ability to see beyond the constant warfare on the steppes to a vision of unity for all the downtrodden peoples of the Empty Quarter. It is said the most influential moment in Jaghatai's life was the slaying of his adopted father by the rival Kurayed tribe. Khan, even as a young child, was the greatest warrior of the tribe and gathered Talaskar troops to avenge the death of his father. They moved on the Kurayed tribe and razed it to the ground, killing every man, woman and child in a killing frenzy. Khan took the head of the enemy tribe leader and mounted it on his tent. This is what shaped him into a man of fierce honour, loyalty and ruthlessness. From then on, he swore to end the fighting, unite all the people of the steppes and bring an end to their practice of brother fighting brother. Khan fought hundreds of battles against other tribes and defeated hunting packs sent by the Palatine. Each tribe the Talaskars conquered was absorbed into the Talaskar confederacy and Jaghatai made military service mandatory while splitting tribes up and merging them with others to remove and ameliorate tribal differences and long-standing feuds. His warriors were fiercely loyal and Khan promoted from the ranks based on merit and ability. Ten summers after his arrival on the world, as the tribe moved to their winter settlements, the Primarch was traveling on a mountainside with a group of his followers. A vast avalanche pushed him and his group back down the mountain, killing the normal men. Jaghatai survived, but could not get back up the mountain in time before the tribe moved on. Khan was caught by one of the Palatine's hunting bands lead by the son of that ruler. All that returned of that band was one mutilated rider with the head of the son of Palatine and a note saying that the people of the steppes were no longer his toys. When the snows cleared, an enraged Palatine gathered a massive army and determined to march west to wipe the tribes from the face of the planet. He had, however, underestimated the power and ability of Khan and brought his highly-disciplined army of heavily armoured warriors and arquebusiers. This proved to be his downfall as they could not catch the lightly armored Talaskar tribesmen. The constant rain of arrows from the tribesmen took their toll on the tight ranks of the Palatine's warriors. Eventually the tribesmen defeated the army of the Palatine, who escaped back to his capital with a select few bodyguards. The rest of the army was slaughtered, almost to the last man. After the battle, the tribal elders gathered and announced that Jaghatai Khan was now Great Khan of the Empty Quarter . Khan now began the long process of conquering the rest of the planet, which possessed only a single continent. He gave those cities he besieged two choices, to surrender or be wiped out. Most surrendered, but many were destroyed, utterly wiped from the face of the planet. Eventually they came to the Palace of the Palatine, where he demanded the head of the Palatine on a spike. His request was obliged by the capital city's population, which turned on its own ruler to save their own lives from the fierce tribesmen. Jaghatai Khan adorned his tent with his greatest conquest's head, just as he had with his first enemy two decades before. In only twenty years he had conquered the largest empire in his world's history. He now had the problems of ruling that empire, not something he had originally expected. His nomadic people had no wish to rule these new, settled lands, only to carry on living in their old ways. The Talaskar people dispersed back to a tribal existence and Khan ruled over them all with his generals by his side. Six months later, the Emperor of Mankind arrived on the world as part of the Great Crusade and Khan knew at once that this man could fulfill his dream, to unite all of the stars above them and all of humanity in one mighty empire. In front of all of his generals, he dropped to one knee and pledged his service to the Emperor. He was given command of the V Legion of the Space Marines, the White Scars, who had been created from his own genetic material. Khan eventually grew close to Lion El'Jonson, the Primarch of the Dark Angels, and his Marines would work in conjunction with the Dark Angels on many occasions.
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