| rdfs:comment | - To most outsiders, Fenksworld has a reputation as a grimy, roughshod place, a Hive World that, while notoriously independent in sector politics, is seen as lacking the significance or sheer size of the likes of Scintilla or Malfi. The truth of the matter is that Fenksworld's independence and measure of self-sufficiency is bought at a price, and its bustling façade hides a number of dark secrets. The Fenksworld that most outsiders see is Nova Castillia -- a vast towering edifice of sky-piercing spires and busy supply depots, noble enclaves, covered hab-stacks and bustling neon-lit entertainment 'burgs. Although a little ramshackle and dirty, it is not unlike many other hives across the Imperium. While Castillia houses much of the planet's famously mercurial ruling elite and the bulk of the
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| abstract | - To most outsiders, Fenksworld has a reputation as a grimy, roughshod place, a Hive World that, while notoriously independent in sector politics, is seen as lacking the significance or sheer size of the likes of Scintilla or Malfi. The truth of the matter is that Fenksworld's independence and measure of self-sufficiency is bought at a price, and its bustling façade hides a number of dark secrets. The Fenksworld that most outsiders see is Nova Castillia -- a vast towering edifice of sky-piercing spires and busy supply depots, noble enclaves, covered hab-stacks and bustling neon-lit entertainment 'burgs. Although a little ramshackle and dirty, it is not unlike many other hives across the Imperium. While Castillia houses much of the planet's famously mercurial ruling elite and the bulk of the planet’s population, what is not widely realised is that it also holds two subordinate hives in a merciless grip to ensure this position, hives that most off-worlders, if they are fortunate, never see. The first, Magnagorsk, sinks deep into Fenksworld's crust. Heavily industrialised, it is a hellish place of molten metal and volcanic fires, where warship armour is forged and poisonous ash fumes the air. The hive exists purely to serve the Battlefleet Calixis port anchorage in high orbit. The conditions are so harsh that a native of Gunmetal City or The Lathes might count themselves fortunate on seeing them. Magnagorsk is controlled by the fractious and pitiless foundry guilds. To them labour and metal are the only coins of the realm, and one guild master would think nothing of sabotaging or murdering his rivals, or kidnapping entire work gangs to help meet his production quotas. Life is cheap in Magnagorsk, violence commonplace and death and maiming everyday hazards, but the helots that toil thanklessly there know that it could be worse; they could be exiled to Volg. Rather than towering above or delving into the earth, Volg sprawls for hundreds of square kilometres like a vast cancer of corroded gantries and phosphor-lit domes that have spread over Fenksworld's acidic salt-fens. The sprawl itself is made up of vast moisture-traps, reprocessing plants, waste-biomass recycling reservoirs and the mad clusters of stilt-supported shantytowns that cling to them. The simple truth is that without these facilities' output, famine, pollution and poisoned water would destroy Fenksworld in a few short standard years -- the toil of millions is needed to keep billions more alive. Named by some as the vilest and most misbegotten place in the whole Calixis Sector, the toxicity and terrible conditions in Volg are on the very limit of human survivability. Matters are made worse by Fenksworld's many unutterably lethal and horribly mutated native creatures. Volg was initially set up as a vast open penal colony for Fenksworld and the surrounding sub-sector, and the inmates were left to found their own societies and to make what they could of their lives -- so long as clean water and protein flowed up-hive to where it was needed. Control was further maintained through the trade in cheap arms and vital supplies, and it transpired that Volg's population was mostly too occupied trying to survive to attempt escape or plot revolt. Over the centuries Volg, to the surprise of many, prospered and became a hive city in its own right with a population in the tens of millions. While new inmates (or "clean meat" as they are known in local parlance) are sentenced to exile there still, the majority of its inhabitants are now freeborn, some "six generations in the Volg" and free to leave -- if they can afford the exorbitant passage out. Life in Volg is violent, anarchic, blighted and often very brief, but as for the Volgites themselves, they are born survivors. Few Death Worlds breed hardier or more ruthless fighters.
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