Not long ago.
The Imperial supreme command bastion.
"The Colonial Crusade isn't looking too good—"
Ron watched the war unfold from within The Bastion. Whether the first battle ended in victory would determine the momentum of the entire colonization plan.
He was somewhat worried.
The reason the Empire called humanity's plan to occupy the Warp the Colonial Crusade was simple: the word "colonial" carried more initiative and aggression.
It was a definition.
It meant humanity was no longer passively suffering as it had in the past, but actively seizing territory that had originally belonged to humanity and was now held by the beings of Chaos.
At the same time, this could also ease people's fear of the Warp. Humanity was the invading side now—if you were still scared, wouldn't that make you a coward?
If one took it more seriously, shouldn't you be stripped of your human status outright?
What proper human would be that afraid of Daemons? One look and you're clearly not human. Your human status must be revoked!
Doing this was somewhat extreme, but sometimes, to correct an error, one had to overcorrect in order to see results quickly.
Of course, the prerequisite was that humanity truly had to seize the initiative in the war against Chaos and display aggression.
They had to prove that the Empire's operations in the Warp really were a colonial war, not a passive beating.
In other words, the Empire's vanguard army had to fight its way out, rather than merely defend passively, or even lose the territory of its colony worlds.
Otherwise, everything the Empire had done during this period would become a joke, the momentum of the colonial effort would be thwarted, and they could only huddle inside the defensive perimeter of the colony worlds.
That would be troublesome.
Ron