Utania

Utania is an Imperial hive world located in the Zylos Sub-Sector and an Astra Militarum Homeworld of the Utania Urban Warriors. Utania is by no definition a good place to live. Even by hive world standards, the hives of Utania are a bleak, horrendously violent place to live. Crime rates are exorbitant even reaching into the upper hive, as deep-rooted gangs murder each other senselessly for their own selfish benefit. Many of those who live on Utania only do so because they fight, or pay protection fees to someone that can.

Background
Utania was first colonized during the Dark Age of Technology, as was much of what is today the Zylos sub-sector. Many of its monumental hives date back to that period, as the old Human Empire erected them to support a massive and thriving population. When the Age of Strife began, and the world was cut off from its supplies, rioting immediately broke out and escalated, reaching a point far beyond the efforts of the planetary authorities and forcing the nobility to seal themselves in the top tiers of the Hives. In the chaos that followed, those who wanted to survive had to steal what they could, so crime became the new normal on Utania, and soon, major gangs had managed to rise, some numbering within the thousands in membership. As the galaxy burned around it, so did Utania.

When the Imperium arrived, this endless cycle of gang warfare had become a contestant on Utania, and served as the main focus of the planet’s culture. It was the Blood Angels that came to Utania first, the Primarch Sanguinius himself at their head. Alongside soldiers from newly vassalized Battencia, the Blood Angels embarked on a rapid campaign of subjugation. Quickly, gang after gang surrendered in the face of the Legiones Astartes, and compliance was achieved over most of the world. Despite this, those who continued to oppose Imperial rule simply retreated to the lower levels of the Hive, and the world was never truly pacified, especially with the eventual outbreak of the Heresy drawing Imperial forces away from the world.

Some time after the Horus Heresy, the Imperium of Man turned its gaze back to Utania. Through further expenditure of time, treasure, and blood, an agreement was worked out. The Imperum managed to redirect the homicidal tendencies of the Utanian populace towards their enemies, by instituting a system wherein the gangs agreed to take the worst of their violence down to the lower hives, and to make themselves available for service in the Imperial Guard. With that agreement, the Utania Urban Warriors were born.

Astra Militarum Recruitment and Training
Utania is a particularly good recruiting ground because it is both a place that breeds warriors by its nature, and one that most people are desperate to leave. Those people would do anything to get off Utania, and even service in the Imperial Guard can be safer than its streets. Entire families wait until their youngest are of age and enlist together, anything that is necessary to escape, even if it means a high risk of death on a battlefield somewhere across the galaxy. Many Utanian recruits already have many months, if not years of experience from the Gang Wars. Therefore, training is rather lax, only instilling the bare basics of discipline and organization into the recruits, with varying degrees of success.