Cobalt: The Armory
Cobalt is the world after which the subsector it is located in is named and it is renowned for being a near unassailable bastion of orky ingenuity.
The defences of the world were formidable, and it took the genius of Rotbart the Great to eventually batter them down. Even after this there was still several years of fighting before the orks were eradicated and colonisation could begin as planned.
Cobalt is for the most part a rather black world despite its name. Its climate has been severely polluted by thousands of years of orkish industry. The soil is however, very fertile, mostly due to the amount of ash mixed into the soil*. When combined with the climate and meteorology of the planet which allows for almost permanently blue skies (from which the planet really draws its name) plant life is actually flourishing on the planet, feeding on the large amounts of carbon dioxide.
In terms of natural resources Cobalt is a bounty, as expected of a Factory world. Massive seams of metal run deep within the planet, and the fertility of the world has produced large underground lakes of promethium ready for extraction.
A unique metal too, has been found on cobalt. Dubbed "Colarium" by the Mineralogists, the locals refer to it as Cobalt. The material has several strange properties. First it is extremely Hard. Second it conducts heat incredibly well, although its low melting point does not allow it to take advantage of this property, indeed it only takes even a very weak flame to start melting the metal, although this does make it very easy to process it. Finally, the metal is useless for weapons. In its base form it is incredibly brittle and will break almost instantly if hit with a sword.
However, that is not what its truly useful for as its true purpose lies in alloying it with other metals. Blue Steel is perhaps one of the planet's most well-known products and it is simply steel alloyed with blue metal. The end result is three times as strong as regular steel for the same weight. The metal can be alloyed with many other metals, though currently it has not bonded with either high grade adamantium or angel steel. However, a more interesting alloy has been blue gold. When alloyed together blue gold is around as durable as bronze, but it is an extremely effective psycic conductor, even more so than regular gold**. Because of this, despite its expense many psykic artisans utilise blue gold in the construction of force implements.
While the planet itself may be rich in metals, the rest of the system is as well with asteroid fields dense in valuable minerals a small fleet of mining ships extracting their bounty, several planetoids and small moons already operating small mining colonies and finally three gas giants from which additional promethium is being extracted.
The incredible speed at which the system has been converted for the Trust should be of no surprise it was directly managed by the low council itself and had a large amount of expertise and resources poured into it to facilitate its role as sub sector capital.
The planet's populace is incredibly diverse, even by the standards of the Trust's colony worlds. Being a subsector capital, it was decided that no one group should form too large a majority, save for the Midgardians of course, so there were groups pulled from all over the Trust to provide their skills.
This has payed off in impressive fashion in many sectors.
Economically the planet still sees weapons of war as its primary function and so its foundries are at work day and night creating new armaments for its growing PDF, or building new macro cannons to add to the cities defences. Of course, it still produces much material and other goods to sell and drive its economy of course.
The most dramatic way this can be seen is in the Cobalt shipyards, the largest of their kind in the Trust colonies. Created quickly by piggybacking the remains of the ork ship yards, they are the largest of their kind in the colonies, a single large ship yard with three small ones, though thanks to the sponsorship of the Trust plans have already been made to expand them even more.
The reason for this is that instead of focusing on large ships, these ship yards focus on escorts. The primary construction being the Soldier Class Destroyer, the cheap ever reliable work horse of the Trust Fleet, it is anticipated that Cobalt will become the central manufacturing plant of these ships in years to come. From these ship yards, over one hundred have already been commissioned into service with many hundreds more on the way.
The planet's defences are considerable, unsurprising given its importance, however they are constantly being upgraded ever higher by the fevered efforts of the populace. More importantly the military of the world are extremely determined, well trained and equipped, with a large number of power armoured troops. More importantly than that they are very experienced. The orks of Cobalt may not be as dangerous as Dead Man's rock, but they are determined none the less.
The Governor selected for this task is Bridget Rosa. An Avernite by birth she was an early recruit for the Trust Guard having risen to the rank of colonel of a 105st regiment of Helltroopers who were raised to join the Guard. A graduate of both the Avernus officer academy and the Trust academy on Midgard she worked her way steadily up the ranks with an impeccable record. The regiments under her command were always extremely well run, with incredibly low casualty counts compared to other commanders. She also became known as the Whip due to her intolerance of mediocrity, mentoring many soldiers and officers whether they showed promise or not. Despite her occasionally draconian methods she has many friends in the Trust due to her beating many a young man or woman into shape. She finally retired from active service following the end of the Expansion War and was selected as Governor of Gehenna by the low council, a task she has excelled at, balancing the needs of the people to make them one of the most content of the colonies, but also keeping the best interests of the Trust at the forefront of her mind.
*Ash from burning the ork biosphere to nothing
**Gold does have relatively minor force conducting abilities, which is why it and other precious metals see frequent use in psycic rituals.
Exhausted going to bed now
@Durin
Any comments/things to fix?
