Iron Hand

Ferris Gorga - the Iron Hand

Ferris Gorga was born on the industrialized war torn planet of Medusa. The once highly industrialized world had fallen into chaos through a number of technological disasters followed by wars. On this harsh world, gangs of survivors geeked out a meager existence digging for scraps amidst  the wastes. Though still technologically advanced, the world was also impoverished and war torn, a terrible place for any child to grow to adulthood.

Ferris Gorga was the son a of technological scavenger, part of a band that roamed the ruined cities and looted for high-tech equipment to either sell to merchants from off world or to utilize themselves. These bands fought with each other for territory or for old grudges. Ferris learned to fight from a young age as well as learning how to recognize valuable merchandise and even repair and modify some devices that he found. Ferris was a ruthless warrior that became feared even as a young boy for his lethality in battle as well as his cunning. He also had a knack for machinery that surpassed almost any other. Gorda was large and powerful, towering over most normal men, with a stern demeanor leathery tanned skin, short cropped black hair and black eyes. 

As a young man Ferris Gorga had grown to be the leader of his band and commanded absolute authority from his underlings. He eliminated or assimilated other gangs and eventually built up a bit of an empire amidst the ruins. He was able to understand much of the ruined technology within his domain, to restore it or modify it. With his technological knowledge, he was soon able to reopen old abandoned factories and manufacture goods to sell off world, eventually being his own trading vessels and building a fortune for himself - much of which would go to buying additional weapons for his men to retake the planet.

Ferris Gorga ultimately longed for order above all else, not the chaos that had claimed the lives of so many of his family and friends during his childhood. He learned that he could only create this order through utterly crushing his enemies and forcing lesser men adwomen to comply. For humanity are capricious and selfish creatures and they will act out destructively unless their spirits crushed and their wills broken and so Ferris Gorga must become the make to break humanity to save it form itself. 

Ferris Gorga managed to carve out a massive nation for himself on Medusa, one that he ruled with absolute authority. His soldiers bore absolute obedience to him and would kill at his slightest whim. As he built great factories and refineries (as it turned out, precious substances still lay beneath the surface of Medusa) he enslaved surrounding gangs and communities - forcing men women and children to work themselves to death. Even the slightest disobedience was met with harsh punishment.

During the height of his rule, Medusa was invaded by a vicious and technologically advanced alien race. Ferris Gorga, tyrant and warrior both, met them in open battle and through his ferocious leadership and braver, the human forces were able to defeat the aliens. During one battle Gorga lost a hand to a massive alien war machine, though he kept fighting on despite his terrible wound, enhancing his reputation on the planet even further. Ferris Gorga had his hand replaced with a cybernetic one and so a nickname arose for him - the Iron Hand, not only for his literal cybernetic hand, but for his method of ruling his nation.

Not long after the Emperor sought out Ferris Gorga and offered him a place among the great generals of mankind. Gorda could not pass up this opportunity and joined with the Emperor, swearing undying reality to him. 

Gorga made a highly effective general and leader in the young Imperium. He relished the opportunity to have access to greater Imperium technology and to utilize it to its fullest extent. He had his soldiers heavily modified with cybernetic, increasing their efficiency in combat at the expense of their humanity. On conquer worlds he set up massive factories as he did on his own world, utilized the Adeptus Mechanicus’ advanced technology and adding his own ideas. While the worlds he conquered produced more than those worlds conquered by any other of the Primarchs, there were great costs. 

Ferris Gorga would turn entire planets of billions into slaves, working them 15 hours a day or longer without a break until they died from exhaustion, stripping every ounce of precious material from the soils, tearing up mountains and poisoning ocean and sky with pollution. Within a a brief number of years, a planet’s material goods were extracted and contributed to the Great Crusade and the planet was left in ruin. Those populations that resisted were purged, with mass murders that sometimes numbered into the billions, with survivors sometimes lobotomized and turned into servitors, forced to work themselves to death with their humanity stripped away. 

As his technological abilities increased, Ferris Gorga saw the value in replacing flesh with steel and wire, turning more of his workers into servitors and his warriors into cyborgs. He even had parts of his warriors’ brains removed, replaced with electronic components that would feel no fear of the enemy nor compassion for the conquered.

The Iron Hand’s name became notorious within the Imperium and he became a man highly feared by rogue planets, some of which sought out other Primarchs to surrender to in order to avoid the fate that awaited them his the Iron Hand claimed their world. Even the Emperor himself began to grow wary of the name Ferris Gorga was making for himself and the ruin that he was leaving in his wake. Though the Emperor held his tongue and did not chastise Ferris Gorga, for he knew the time was fast approaching when he would need the Iron Hand’s ruthlessness. That time would come sooner than he expected as Horus started his rebellion.

Horus, knowing Ferris Gorga’s cruelty and avarice, thought he could bribe him to join the traitor forces. A mistake that almost cost the Warmaster his life, as Ferris Gorga was fanatically loyal to his Emperor and the Imperium. Ultimately, while Gorga committed many terrible acts, his ultimate dream was to bring order to the galaxy and thought that no sacrifice is too great, so joining with Chaos was antithetical to Ferris Gorga. Even Roboute Guilliman, who considered Gorga a monster, was forced to remark that Ferris Gorga was one of the “Dauntless Few”  - the 4 most loyal Primarchs to the Emperor. 

The Iron Hand turned out to be as ferocious in his war against Chaos as with any other conflict. At any sign of Chaos corrupt, he would lay waste to entire worlds and turn their surfaces to slag and their atmospheres to ash. 

In the early days of the Horus’ treason, Ferris Gorga joined his fleet with that of the Primarch Konrad Curze. Curse betrayed the Iron Hand, slaying him by surprise and launching an attack against the Iron Hand’s legions which inflicted terrible casualties. It was with that act that Konrad Curze declared his treason to the Emperor and the Imperium, sending out a message to all that no being was above justice - not The Iron Hand and not the Emperor. It is said that the head of Ferris Gorga, along with his cybernetic hand, were taken as trophies and that somewhere the forces of Chaos still have both.