Oligorkia

At the heart of the Scallop Stars lies a system which now contains only two large planets. Both are largely habitable, each containing huge landmasses with all kinds of terrain. Both are warm planets – largely tropical by Terran standards, with mountainous polar regions and huge equatorial desert belts.

This is not the interesting factor, and nor are the gigantic indiginous reptiles and other fearsome beasties that prowl the exceptionally verdant jungle regions. The biggest point of interest lies in the colonists who have claimed the worlds as their own, for this system is entirely inhabited by what passes for the echelons of orkish nobility: the biggest and most fearsome orks imaginable.

Spartork Prime:
This world is dedicated to Gork – famed for being brutal but cunning – and is inhabited by huge roving warbands of monstrously powerful orks, utterly obsessed with strength and the brutality of close combat: more so even than normal orks, and to such a degree that it is to the detriment of all else.

The fighting pits are in constant usage as they permanantly battle to prove who is 'da 'ardest'. If a warboss recruits (or originates) from Spartork Prime you can expect his warband to feature mightily powerful ork warriors, armed with the most brutal close-quarters bloodletting implements ever witnessed.

Myrmydork II:
Dedicated to Mork, the ork god who is cunning but brutal, the inhabitants of this planet appreciate the value of good firepower. This is not to say that they don't like close quarters brutality, (they are orks, after all!) but they especially enjoy things that make loud noises, bright flashes and blow huge holes in things. Consequently Myrmydork II is home to alot of mekboyz, the ork equivalent of techpriests, and they are in high demand. Everyone wants the flashiest, snazziest, loudest and shootiest new bit of kit, and they are constantly trying them out on each other. A warband recruited from here will comntant lots of crazy vehicles and random unpredictable firepower.

Every so often an ork will emerge on one of these planets, fight his way to the top, and decide the plannet is not big enough for his ambition. As his warband sets off to conquer more space, it must first rumble through the Scallop Stars. Whichever way it goes it will crash into more orks and, if it doesn't get squished or assimilated by an existing warlord and his force, it will draw in – or pressgang – followers, eventally amassing a huge force before crashing into one of the neighbouring subsectors. There is generally no logic or reason behind this beyond orks' natural state: spoiling for a fight.

The neighbouring sectors generally view these sallies from the Scallop Stars as natural phenomena that cannot be avoided, but must be weathered out like a storm. If you are lucky it'll blow itself out fighting other orks, if unlucky it'll destroy all in its path.

Standard Imperial doctrine holds that the Oligorkia system should be invaded and its population sufficiently culled, with expectations that it would drastically reduce the frequency and brutality of these incursions for at least a millennia or two. While in practise there are sufficient brave/insane Imperial generals and soldiers, none of the occasional crusades into the Scallop Stars has succeeded in doing much except battering itself against the ork border systems and limping home.

As a point of interest there used to be a third planet in Oligorkia. The original Myrmydork was an oddboy world extremely rich in resources, and was a planet where the orks dumped all the differently-minded orks – the ones that were useful but uncomfortable to live with – until they needed them. Weirdboys, Mad Doks, Mekboys, Runtherds, Madboys and the like made up the majority of the orkish population of the planet, and vast herds of snotlings roamed the savannahs and scampered through the fungal jungles.

No-one knows what happened to the planet, though ork folk rumours talk of a new MekDok who had taken charge and was attempting to build a new type of warmachine, bigger and more devestating than anything before. He had combined stolen alien psycho-reactive compounds with shokk attack tech, powered by madboy-exercabated weirdboys, in a giant cybernetic conglomeration. All diplomatic teams have been able to glean was a sudden 'big purple flash' and the planet was no longer there.

Inquisitorial investigation has shown a number of links between the Ork Warlord Snazgutz and this system.  It is entirely possible that WAAGHH Snazgutz started here before breaking out from the Scallop Stars although oddly enough it is likely that Snazgutz started his career as a mekboy on Myrmydork (rather than Spartork).  WAAGGHH Snazgutz still appears to recruit from here - it is thought that isolating the system (or culling on it) would reduce the threat level of the Snazgutz offensive.