Okay, it’s about time we talked about the story so far. With the new map update we’ve put some names to faces but more importantly, some of the basic details of the story have gone from “news post on fatshark’s website nobody’s read” to “part of the main game’s story cutscenes” and we can talk about them without sounding like a crackhead.
The central focus of the plot if the world Atoma, a forgeworld that- like necromunda- is not wholly under the authority of the adepus mechanicus, which we know by merit of the world’s leadership (and most of the maps) being being representative of the greater imperium. Given how rarely we see admech symbols they most likely are only on-world as technical support and have no greater authority on the planet. Atoma is also importantly the the source world for the imperial guard regiment the Moebian 6th, who is currently rebelling and attempting the seize the major industrial hive city on the world.
What we know about the Moebian 6th is fairly complete. The 6th has been recalled to atoma (most likely being one of those rare regiments to serve long enough without major casualty losses that the planet can replace the whole regiment whole-cloth and recall the veteran regiment to stiffen planetary defenses and improve the training of the planet’s guard tithe going forward) and due to a combination of awful morale and some misconception of how they would be received, widely believed it would be best to overthrow the planetary government and take over the hive city tertium, which contains most/all of the population and manufacturing power.
The 6th throws in with a local cult (of nurgle), seizes one of the “slices” of the hive city, and wages war to engage in taking over the rest of it which the onsite militay responds to by blowing most of the paths between that slice and the rest of the city. This sets up the current situation darktide operates during, with the moebian 6th fighting against the planetary garrison on the primary front at the base of the hive city as well as the few connection points between the slices remaining, and the inquisition sending disposable strike teams into the captured portion of tertium to run disruption raids and strategically vital ops (this is you, by the way).
This rebellion started at least partially before actually landing on-world (or more likely the since of the regiment meant that the returned in waves) which led to part of their leadership being captured before returning, including Captain Wolfer who is on a prison barge along with the player’s character(s). So up until the starting mission the 6th was missing their leader and possibly other elements of their command regiment, and therefore was probably not openly engaged in warfare with the imperial forces until roughly the time the game starts.
The important details seem to be:
-The 6th largely seem to believe the emperor has failed them, and presumably the entire of atoma. it’s not clear if this is something they believed before arriving on atoma due to their war campaign or the result of seeing the extreme level of disrepair in their hive city when they returned, but they clearly see imperial leadership as being useless and by extrapolation the emperor must not be watching over them, so he must be dead.
-The 6th is fighting a signifigant ground war at the border of the hive city itself. Several missions involve capturing supplies intended for the front lines which means the 6th is utalizing the hive resources to supply their main force properly, which is why a large amount of the normal guard formation isn’t present (heavy weapon teams, most specials and armored elements) and most likely key to how the inquisition forces are able to sneak into their rear elements
-The 6ths line forces seem not to be aware of what a chaos god is. Mentions of nurgle or chaos are limited to the dreg cultists, and the mentions by the guard players seem to indicate that the average guardsman doesn’t know what nurgle is exactly. We can assume the higher ups in the rebelling 6th forces know at least the general details of the cult but in general it seems that the average scab soldier has no idea what the cult is about. With the new carnival mission what can guess that the infection spreading through their ranks is actually a side effect of the tainted stimms being supplied through the cult. We can assume they were fighting in border wars against various xeno threats rather than against chaos forces as a result.
-The 6th believes they are fighting a war of liberation. The line elements overwhelmingly seem to believe that they are working to improve things for the people of the hive city as a whole and do not seem to be aware of their role in the blight, (admittedly, there seem to be a fair amount of other sources of illness in tertiem so maybe they’re not the primary vector the cult is using) & as a result they may be unaware of what’s causing the poxwalker degeneration. Thanks to this there haven’t been any major acts of mass destruction through military hardware in tertiem.
This ultimately means that the 6th is sometimes working at cross-purposes to the cult, but we don’t know if they’re aware of it. The cult we have much less information on, due partly to the fact we have only seen their lower-level followers and all leadership has been elements of the 6th.
What we do know is that the cult is most likely been in operation on atoma for some time and likely predates the mobian 6th returning to the planet. It’s a largely typical nurgle cult, playing off the timeless cult logical trap of “that religion is a lie! I know that so mine must be true! join me!” and counting on the people getting worked to death by an unseeing bureaucracy willing to give anything a try to not be force into working 14-hour shifts only broken by short sleep breaks at their working area (as we’re shown they do in the smelter mission).
The cult’s almost certainly been operating in the hive city’s lowest levels for a very long time, as most of the place seems to have growths of “daemonic matter” (plague tumors, probably outgrew their victims and just get left clumped up where they are) and the cultists we do see are all the absolute lowest level citizens, but we haven’t seen any of the cult’s leadership which may cue that the nerves of the cult are actually higher up.
Outside of the cult’s active areas of influence, the hive city seems to have been suffering from a massive lack of maintenance. Walls are crumbling along the outside, large swathes of the city is running on last-resort systems, supplies are just kind of piled up implying that the storage areas are either filled or in such disrepair they can’t be used to store all the boxes we’re using as cover in-game, the whole of tertium seems to be suffering from a total failure to maintain a basic standard of care which means that the cult has likely had near free access to most of the hive city’s lower areas as anyone actually going in was most likely too overworked to notice a given band of ragged under-levelers were sus.
What we do know about the cult goes as follows:
-The cult is openly a nurgle cult. Due to most of the imperial citizens on-world not knowing anything about chaos, the cult is able to openly declare their allegiance without drawing significant attention from authority and recruit people directly into heresy and chaos worship. It seems to focus on “renewal” as a theme similar to redemption, which is likely just the usual chaos nonsense of sounding like they have a positive to offer while trying to get cultists to commit enough they can’t get back out (like a timeshare deal)
-The cult has significant technical knowledge, at least in regards to augmentation. Many of the “elite” units we see inside of the cult toumain have some sort of metabolic enhancement, with the rager, mutant, and monstrosities all sporting large cybernetics pumping them full of some green stimulant. It’s not impossible that nurgle mutated some machinery into them, but from the looks of it, there’s some sort of standard procedure used in enhancing them which suggests there’s someone experimenting with the devices. Outside of these augmentations the cult is limited to salvaged or low-quality materials like discarded metal beaten into swords and typical hiver autoguns.
-The cult was not openly acting against the government until the war starts. Outside of the areas in enough disrepair to discourage the authorities from caring the hive seems to mostly have been working normally (if in awful shape) imperium propaganda is up and in generally decent shape with only recent signs of defacement, and enforcer stations were only recently attacked often with their supplies still intact indicating the enforcers were largely loyal and in active operation in the now-captured hive city. Until very recently the cult has been acting quietly on the sidelines and avoiding attention, and has only moved to open conflict now that they have a ready army under their influence.
-The cult has signifigant material support outside of the cult’s actual area of operation. While we don’t know who it is, we know that the traitor army has managed to secure the covert material support of outside elements who they have to pay off for their efforts. Given the nature of manufacturing on Tertium, it’s reasonable to guess the augments used by the cult are a significant part of this support. It’s almost impossible for these connections to have been made by the moebian 6th, and the cult has been in operation for some time so the contacts are likely directly with the cult. The cult has likely been collaborating with another group that has interests in destabilizing the local government or privately securing some area of tertium for their own purposes, which is most likely some minor noble house or rouge imperial element that disapproves of the ruling house on atoma. This is most likely the reason for the imperium not sending in the space marines or other forces, as the inquisition has likely put their thumb on the scales to ensure they find and root out the source of all corruption on atoma.
-The cult and the inquisition are aware of each other. Grendyl’s presence here relates to the cult, not the traitor army and the betrayal of the 6th might have happened well after grendyl involved themselves with the hive city. While several of the missions involve sabotaging the traitor army, most of those are incidental and a majority of the mission objectives involve either sabotaging or identifying the movements of the cult or else fixing the cult’s sabotage of the hive city’s vital operations. similarly, the cult has at least at one point introduced their own agents into the inquisition’s forces enough that they had someone providing intel from the morningstar. This is most likely a conflict that has been going on for some time, and has only recently escalated to the point it’s at now. It’s even plausible that the cult operates on other worlds and tertium may or may not be the brains of the operation.
-The cult has committed a direct act of terror to start the game’s main conflict. At least one major population hub in the slice of hive city they currently have control over was hit with a train carrying what’s called the blight in-game, infecting the surrounding population centers at and below which has led to the swarms of poxwalkers (terminal) and groaners (heavily infected) littering the maps. It’s likely that there’s few if any imperial citizens in the occupied slice of tertium uninfected at this point.
This final detail is important to understanding the story because of what we don’t know about it. Specifically, we don’t know when it happens. If the mass infection event happens with the full awareness of the moebian 6th, then the whole army is solidly in the bag for the cult’s plan and if the even happens without it (or even before the moebians return) then the traitor army is largely or even entirely misled and the inquisition revealing the details could cause a massive lack of morale and result in the main war for the hive city turning in imperial favor swiftly.
Whether the main enemy is the leadership of the moebian 6th, or the currently unseen cult leadership is dependent on this detail and finding the timing of this attack will define a lot of the game’s events going forward.
