My original origin story for my Space Marine chapter, the
Unity Marines, was extremely derivative of the backstory of the Dark Angels
Space Marine chapter/legion. Although this was unintentional, I was unhappy
with it. In recent years I have been brainstorming a new, and I hope original
and unique backstory for the Unity Marines. This is the first time I have tried
to extract it from the jumbled mess of half-formed ideas in my head, so it may
not be flawless (or lucid) but I will probably refine it over time.
Inquisitor Helenica of the Ordo Xenos has only recently been
promoted to the rank of Inquisitor. She has been sent to the Byridian Sector to
work with the famed Inquisitor Pilate of the Ordo Malleus. Inquisitor Pilate is
hundreds of years old and has inveigled himself into every aspect of Byridian
Sector government, he has friends and allies everywhere, and those friends and
allies have eyes and ears everywhere.
There are rumours, whispers in the dark places, that Orks
have been collecting tainted artefacts of Chaos and even fighting alongside
daemonic entities. The Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus are to work together to
investigate and counter this threat.
Inquisitor Helenica discovers that Inquisitor Pilate has
been corrupted by the ruinous powers. The Orks are working for him and
gathering artefacts of Chaos for his personal collection. Perhaps to begin
with, he thought that he could use their dark power to fight against Chaos, but
now he has fallen deep within the thrall of the Chaos Gods.
There is no one she can turn to for help. She does not know
how far the corruption has spread, and she has no evidence, she cannot move
against him openly. Inquisitor Pilate knows that she has discovered his secret,
but he does not know what evidence she has or who she has told. Until he knows
how far his secrets have leaked he cannot move against her openly either.
Inquisitor Helenica formulates a crazy and desperate
long-term plan to save the Byridian Sector from Chaos and to stop Inquisitor
Pilate once and for all. She must found her own Space Marine chapter. Only then
will she have the power to stop Pilate’s dark schemes, no matter the odds
stacked against her.
She begins by travelling far and wide chasing rumours and
legends of Space Marines exiled from their chapters. Exiled for breaking the
strict tenets of the Codex Astartes and the rules of their chapters, but still loyal to
the Emperor and to the Imperium. I got this idea from Graham McNeill’s
excellent Ultramarines series of novels.
She finds six exiled Space Marines scattered across the
sector and convinces them to band together, to regain their honour and to aid
her battle against Chaos. She names them the Unity Marines, for they are all
from different chapters, come together, unified in their desire to serve and
protect the Imperium and its citizens.
Her first objective completed, her second step is to
legitimise her chapter. She sends a group of her most loyal acolytes to Terra
on a mission to infiltrate the Administratum. There they insert false backdated
records of the founding of the Unity Marines, legitimising their existence.
Meanwhile she sends her band of loyal Space Marines on a
mission to raid an Adeptus Mechanicus transport to requisition, or steal, the armour,
weapons and equipment that they need.
Inquisitor Helenica now needs to expand her fledgling
chapter. She seeks out a Magos Biologis exiled from his forge world for
conducting forbidden experiments on Adeptus Astartes corpses. She finds him and his
secret laboratory and convinces him to help her make more, new Space Marines.
However he does not have the facilities or the equipment necessary
to make a new Space Marine. But his research has led him to believe that there
may be a piece of ancient technology hidden deep within a space hulk called ‘The
Tomb of Knowledge’ that will help.
Helenica sends her six Space Marines into ‘The Tomb of
Knowledge’ to recover the ancient technology the Magos Biologis requires. They encounter
a Tyranid infestation and one of their number is killed. But the others are
able to recover and escape with the archeotech, which turns out to be a partial
STC (Standard Template Construct) from the Age of Technology which contains
advanced medical knowledge and machine schematics.
The Magos Biologis is able to construct the machines
recorded in the STC in his new laboratory on board Helenica’s star ship. He
believes that with the machines he has constructed and the knowledge that he
has gained from the STC, he will be able to produce new Space Marines, even
from older volunteers than is otherwise possible, albeit with possible side effects.
But he does not have any of the necessary genetic raw
material, the gene-seed.
Helenica sends her Space Marines on a distasteful mission.
They travel far and wide to the sites of recent battles and harvest gene-seed
from fallen Space Marines of numerous chapters, before their own chapters could
recover their dead.
Now they have everything they need to expand their Chapter.
Helenica presents them with a gift a Strike Cruiser, crewed and loaded with
equipment, freshly requisitioned from the Mechanicus and painted in their new
livery. This will serve as their Chapter headquarters and armoury. She sends
them on their way to grow their numbers and to function as an autonomous Space
Marine Chapter until they are strong enough to assist her in her coming
confrontation with Inquisitor Pilate.
Now, many years later they have grown into a full and
established, although slightly under-strength and under-equipped, Space Marine
Chapter.
Unfortunately Inquisitor Pilate has not sat idly by, ignorant
of Inquisitor Helenica’s activities. Enlisting the aid of Fabius Bile, Pilate’s
forces mounted a raid on the Unity Marines strike cruiser and stole genetic
samples, samples which Fabius Bile has used to grow an army of corrupt clones,
thus providing Pilate with his own chapter of Chaos Space Marines, ‘The
Harbingers of Discord’.
This is a really brief overview of my current ideas for the origins
of my Space Marine Chapter, ‘The Unity Marines’ and my Chaos Space Marine war
band ‘The Harbingers of Discord’. I will probably flesh them out in more detail
in the future and I would like to try my hand at writing some fiction featuring
them at some point.
Any feedback you can give me would be much appreciated,
particularly if you can point out any continuity errors, logic problems or
mistakes in the Warhammer 40,000 setting and lore that I have made. I hope that
this second iteration is more original and unique, but if I have unwittingly
recycled something I’ve read somewhere else please let me know that too!
Current Size of the Unpainted Legion: 248 models.
Currently Reading: ‘The Guns of Tanith’ by Dan Abnett.
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