HH2节译：征服虚空
The Conquest of the Void
The Great Crusade was the largest and most ambitious military endeavour ever undertaken by Mankind. It was a campaign fought on all fronts; from the ancient lost colonies of human past to nightmarish alien worlds without number, from doomed expeditions to the galaxy's perilous core to missions cast out to the entropic darkness of the intergalactic horizon. As mighty and valiant as the hosts of the Emperor were, this epic undertaking would have been entirely impossible without the countless thousands of Warp-capable vessels that transported hundreds of thousands of the Legiones Astartes and many millions of Imperial Army soldiers from one star's light to the next.
大远征是人类进行过的规模最大也最具雄心的军事行动。这是一场在所有战线上展开的战役：从人类往昔古老的失落殖民地，到毫无人烟的噩梦般外星世界；从对于银心地带注定要失败的危险探索行动，到在银河系间的混乱黑暗地区执行的任务。尽管帝皇的军队是如此强大和英勇，但如果没有成千上万的能够进行亚空间旅行的舰船，这一史诗般的任务是完全不可能完成的：帝国需要用星舰把数十万阿斯塔特军团战士和数百万帝国军士兵运往一个又一个恒星系。
The Great Crusade saw a staggering array of vessels constructed, reclaimed or pressed into service. Some were used for a matter of months before being declared obsolete or wearing out and degrading to destruction, quite apart from losses incurred in battle, while others gained a permanent place in the canon of war, with successful designs endlessly copied and modified as the decades progressed. The first vessels to enter the service of the nascent Imperium were constructed in the orbital foundries of Terra, and later Mars and Saturn, under the scrutiny of the Emperor and the Forge-wrights of the Mechanicum, and indeed it was only that in alliance with Mars that the trans-solar expansion was possible in any meaningful way. This was further aided when at last the Satumyne Dominion, with its accomplished ship-masters, joined the Imperium after their alien overlords were overthrown, and as the Imperium expanded, many more great shipyards were added: Voss, Grulgarod, Lorin and Cypra Mundi, all grew to near rival Mars itself in ship production.
大远征见证了数量惊人的舰船被建造、回收和投入使用。某些舰船在被使用数个月后，帝国便宣布它们已被淘汰或出现磨损，将它们退役后拆解摧毁，完全未经受过战损；而其他舰船则在战争准则中获得了永久的地位，它们成功的设计也随着数十年的发展被不断复制和修改。新生的人类帝国投入使用的第一批舰船是在泰拉的轨道铸造厂中建造而成的，之后火星和土星也在帝皇和机械神教铸造技工的严格监督下制造星舰。事实上，只有泰拉与火星结盟后，跨太阳系扩张才能以各种有意义的方式变得可能。在统治当地的异星人霸主们被推翻之后，土星自治领和此地熟练的舰船主管们最终也加入进了帝国，这进一步协助了大远征的开展。随着帝国扩张，更多伟大的造船厂也出现了：沃斯，Grulgarod, Lorin和Cypra Mundi,这些世界都发展出了几乎能与火星相匹敌的造船能力。
Driven by the will of the Emperor, the first Expeditionary fleets pushed outwards into the galaxy. Preceding each great Expeditionary fleet of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of vessels often ranged smaller contingents of independent flotillas led by a class of martial leader that would become known as the Rogue Traders Militant. Many of these individuals were former rulers of the numerous realms the Emperor had cast down first during the Unification Wars and later as the Great Crusade spread, formerly independent worlds. They were offered a stark choice—bend their knee before the Emperor and swear service to the Great Crusade, or die by his hand. Though many set pride before what they regarded as slavery, others chose service and took up the Emperor's warrant. There was a price, however. The Rogue Traders Militant were expected to scout ahead of the leading edge of the Great Crusade, accompanied by their own armies as well as whatever assets had been ceded them by the Emperor. Operating so far ahead of the Emperor's crusading armies, the Rogue Traders Militant could expect little or no aid should they encounter foes too powerful for them to overcome. After several decades penetrating the inky black of the void, many Rogue Trader Militant fleets appeared as ramshackle vagabonds, many of their ships taken from defeated enemies, sometimes including xenos vessels of entirely novel or esoteric form. They were forbidden to return to Terra, for in his wisdom the Emperor sought not just to rid himself of powerful rivals, but to ensure that even in their deaths they might serve Mankind. Many vanished alone and unheralded; slain, consumed or enslaved by nameless xenos abominations far from the light of Terra.
在帝皇意志的驱使下，第一批远征探索舰队奔赴了浩瀚银河。每支庞大的远征探索舰队都包含数百艘舰船，有些时候甚至是数千艘；而且通常会有小型的独立舰队排列在前方为它们先导开路，而率领这些独立舰队的军事领袖们被后世称为行商浪人。他们中的许多人都是帝皇在统一战争中推翻的众多王国的前统治者，之后随着大远征的推进，许多独立世界的前统治者也成为了行商浪人。他们要进行一个残酷的选择：在帝皇面前屈膝下跪，发誓为大远征服务，或者被帝皇处死。尽管有很多人傲慢地拒绝了这种在他们看来是奴役的“恩赐”，其他人则接受了帝皇的授权书，选择为帝国效劳。但他们也要付出代价。行商浪人被要求在大远征的前沿进行侦查，陪同他们的是他们自己的私兵和帝皇转让给他们的任何资产。行商浪人们是在距离帝皇的远征军队极其遥远的区域行动，如果遭遇了强大到无法战胜的敌人，他们几乎不能指望得到任何援助。在漆黑的虚空中穿行了数十年之后，许多行商浪人舰队看起来就像破烂不堪的流浪船队，许多舰船都是夺取自被击败的敌人，有时还包括型号完全与众不同或怪异的异形舰船。他们被禁止返回泰拉，因为英明的帝皇不仅要剪除自己强大的对手，还要确保他们哪怕到死也仍能为人类服务。许多行商浪人都无声无息地孤独消失了：他们在远离泰拉（星炬）光芒的区域被无名的异形所杀戮、吞噬或奴役。
As the Imperium expanded, so too did its fleets. Countless long-lost wonders of technology were recovered, some wrested from the dead hands of unwilling custodians, and others surrendered willingly as fitting tribute to the Master of Mankind. Some vessels were unique, constructed by methods even the most accomplished Adepts of Mars could not hope to replicate: the Terminus Est, the Nicor, the Mirabilis and Phalanx foremost among them. Other patterns and classes proved possible to reproduce and replicate, and before long the various arms of the Imperium's military acquired their own distinctive panoply of war ships. Those of the Legiones Astartes were often blunt of prow and slab-armoured, built to endure the withering storm of fire that accompanies a planetary invasion, their plasma furnace-hearts powering some of the most destructive weapons known to Mankind. But beyond these practical needs, each fleet favoured the nature of its Legion, from the sable black marauders of the Raven Guard to the baroque crimson and gold battlecruisers ofthe Blood Angels to the brute functionality and unadorned steel of the Iron Warriors siege-barques.
帝国舰队也在随着帝国的疆域一同拓展。帝国回收了无数长久遗失的科技奇迹，某些是从被杀死的不情愿守卫者手中夺取的，其他的则是有自愿归降者们作为合适的贡品献给人类之主。某些舰船是独一无二的，哪怕最为熟练的火星技师也无望复制它们的建造技术，终焉号、水怪号、神异号和山阵号是其中最为著名的。其他型号和级别的舰船被证明复制和再生产，而且不久之后，帝国军队的各兵种就拥有了自己独特的战舰装备。阿斯塔特军团的战舰通常有平宽船头和厚重的装甲板，能在星球入侵中承受风暴般的火力进攻，这些舰船的电浆炉心为人类已知的一些最具破坏性的武器提供动力。但除了这些实际需求之外，每支阿斯塔特舰队也都偏好符合军团特性的舰船，从暗鸦守卫漆黑的掠夺舰，到圣血天使金红配色的巴洛克风格战斗巡洋舰，再到钢铁勇士粗犷实用且不加雕饰的钢铁色攻城巨舰，莫不如是。
The ships of the Emperor's wider naval armadas were more diverse affairs, built for void supremacy. They ranged from stately battleships, multi-kilometre long engines of doom, their armour concentrated to the fore and their flanks replete with rank upon rank of broadside batteries, to lithe and deadly destroyers and stripped-bare Warp Runners, to watchful piquet frigates and lumbering star-fortresses. Beyond these were innumerable classes of transports, arks, conveyers and supply ships, the forge vessels of the Mechanicum and their own strange space-going engines of war.
帝皇更庞大的海军舰队的舰船则更为多样化，它们是为夺取虚空霸权而建造的。它们范围广泛，从壮观的战列舰——它们是数千米长的毁灭引擎，装甲集中在前方，侧翼布满了一排又一排的舷侧炮塔，到轻盈修长但也致命的驱逐舰和缺乏装甲的亚空间快船，再到警惕的哨戒护卫舰和笨重的星堡，都包含在内。除此之外还有无数种类的运输舰、方舟巨舰、货船和补给船，以及机械神教的铸造舰艇和他们自己拥有太空旅行能力的奇怪战争引擎。
As the terrible extent of the Warmaster's treachery unfolded, other disturbing characteristics revealed themselves slowly amid the vessels under the Traitors' command. Fell runes appeared upon the flanks of the Warmaster's vessels and the barrels of their cannon were mutated or re-forged into gaping, fanged mouths. Viewports flickered with the fiery glimmer of the beyond and once true and solid forms became twisted into hideous mockeries of respected and familiar classes.
随着战帅的背叛的严重程度显露出来，其他令人不安的特征也在叛军指挥的舰艇中慢慢显露出来。战帅麾下的舰船侧面船体上出现了堕落的符文，它们的舰炮炮口也变异或被重新铸造成满是尖牙的张开的巨口，舷窗闪烁着自外而来炽热的微光，曾经真实而坚实的形体也遭到了扭曲，变成了对于它们受人尊敬和相似的姐妹们的可怕的嘲弄。
As both sides girded themselves for full scale war after the terrifying events at Isstvan V, so the centres of production each controlled increased output exponentially. Demand was insatiable, and while the Emperor had once overseen the creation of the Imperium's fleets according to His own all-encompassing vision, following His return to Terra such matters were turned over to others. The Council of Terra made ever more strident demands on the Forge Worlds of the Mechanicum as the awful scope of the coming war became clear. To make matters worse, many Forge Worlds declared for the Warmaster, assets and materiels were co-opted or plundered for the armouries of the Traitors. Both sides had pressed into service every class of vessel at their disposal, from mighty and unique relics of the Dark Age of Technology to the newly-produced and often all but untested scions of newly established Forge Worlds. Before long, those warships unsuited to total war would be reduced to void-drifting nebulae of super-heated vapour and broken hulks, the tombs of all aboard, while those that survived would go on to fight in the greatest battles of the Horus Heresy and forge legends both bloody and glorious in their own right.
随着双方都在伊斯特万三号的恐怖事件之后做好了全面战争的准备，每个生产中心也都因此控制着成倍增长的产量。需求是无法满足的，虽然皇帝曾经根据自己的全面愿景监督帝国舰队的创建，但在他返回泰拉之后，这些事项被交给了其他人。随着即将到来的战争的可怕程度变得清晰起来，泰拉议会对机械神教的锻造世界提出了越来越过分的要求。但更糟的是，许多铸造世界宣布效忠于战帅，物资都被征用或掠夺以充实叛军的武库。双方都将各个等级的舰船投入使用，从黑暗科技时代强大且独一无二的遗物，到新建立的铸造世界所提供的几乎未经过测试的新进生产出的舰船。过不了多久，那些不适用于全面战争的战舰就会沦为一团由过热蒸汽和破碎的船体组成的漂浮在虚空中的星云，所有船员也都葬身于此；而那些幸存下来的战舰会继续参与荷鲁斯叛乱中那些最伟大的战斗，凭借自己的力量铸造出血腥而光荣的传奇。
