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Reign Of Anarchy

Fuelled by the growing demands of the Cardinals, Ecclesiarchy tithes were increased once more. Unfortunately, much of the populace was already stretched to breaking point and this further increase was seen by many as unnecessarily exorbitant. Across many worlds of the Imperium the populace openly rebelled against the Ecclesiarchy and refused to pay. Even Planetary Governors spoke out against the excesses of the Ministorum, but they went unheeded.

The Ecclesiarchy responded with a vengeance, sending its armies to crush any sign of revolt and executing higher officials as heretics. Alexis XXI used the Officio Assassinorum to eliminate several Governors who redirected their tithes to pay for their own Planetary Defense Forces, and is quoted as saying, ''they had forsworn the Emperor's protection for their own worldly gains.'' The tithes were used to build ever-larger temples, to line the highways of planets with statues of past Ecclesiarchs and to decorate the Ecclesiarchal palaces with the rarest metals and gems. The unrest continued, massive uprisings spreading across the Imperium, only for the Frateris Templars of the Ecclesiarchy to arrive and quell any insurgencies. All those who defied the rights of the Ecclesiarchy were decried as heretics and suitably punished. Some thought the Ecclesiarchy's bloody methods of control were excessive, but it was nothing compared to what was to come.

Even as the Imperium struggled to survive amidst bushfire wars and a lack of true leadership from Earth, further disasters befell humanity. In the early 36th millennium the incidence of warp storms started increasing. Travel between all but the warp soon became a tumultuous mass of roiling tempests and storms. Navigation became difficult everywhere and hundreds of systems were totally isolated. With the resources of the Administratum and Ecclesiarchy turned towards their power struggle, much of the Imperium devolved into anarchy. In those few worlds still accessible by starships, the power of the Ecclesiarchy was brutally enforced by the Frateris Templars and any slight deviation from the holy decrees was marked as heretical, with the burnings and hangings, which attend that crime.

Seeing the turmoil wracking the Imperium, Chaos raiders poured forth from the Eye of Terror to attack and despoil their ancient foes. Ork Warlords rampaged across vast tracts of the galaxy and there was nobody who could halt

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