This second report moves on from establishing in part one the original Space Marine formation, most likely the First Legion, was made up of prototype Marines who bore the geneseed of the Emperor and existed, such as the Legionary Leetu, before it was refounded with the Sons of the Lion, to the potential legacy they left behind. The Emperor, and his second in command Malcador the Sigillite, had a history of using clandestine forces of Space Marines- and the secretive prototype Marines might be linked to one or all of them. Be warned: the potential implications if even a fraction of the following is true are staggering.
The Mentor
Legionaries
The
Ghost Legion
“Of the early solar decades of the
XXth Legion on Terra and during the re-conquest of the Sol System
almost nothing can be said with any accuracy whatsoever, and even the
cluster of myths and rumours that would later grow to surround the
Legion's activities is absent. What remains instead are a few sparse
but suggestive fragments, anomalous records of unknown Legiones
Astartes units carrying out targeted strikes, abductions and
assassinations, both on Terra and beyond, and reports of Space Marine
units answering to no known masters or Legion allegiance passing
through war zones on high priority missions and under the writ of
unassailable clearance codes which broached no question.
Rumour and supposition even
surrounded the designation "Alpha"....”
It is hard to imagine that an
experienced force of Astartes, literally the very first, or Alpha,
Marines made from the Emperor's own genetic material would be
discarded and not continue with their clandestine operations. It also
seems as if the Emperor intended the 20th Legion to be a
clandestine force, and on his orders their founding was shrouded in
far more secrecy than that of other Legions: it is not hard to
imagine that the secret force of Astartes who had been engaged in
shadowed campaigns for the Emperor were not used to train the 20th Legion, indeed they could have been the original "Ghost Legion". The proto-type Marine heritage might be behind the Cognomen
“Alpha Legion” if their founding officers or instructors were the very first (or
Alpha) Astartes, or that the prototype Marines preformed their
clandestine operations under the designation “Alpha” and then
past it onto the 20th Legion who were their tactical
successors.
While to some it might seem very far
fetched that a force such as the Prototype Marines could have
possibly trained both the Dark Angels and Alpha Legion, there is one
account which give pause for thought:
“During the Rangdan
Xenocides, a representative of the XXth Legion appeared
before Lion El'Jonson. Though identifying itself as "Alpharius,"
the representative acknowledged that their Primarch had not yet been
found but would be in time.
This Alpharius offered aid to The
Lion against the Rangdan in hopes that one day the Lion could be made
the Imperial Warmaster. This "Alpharius" revealed that
the XXth Legion preferred the Lion be made the Warmaster over
someone like Roboute Guilliman as they shared similar views
on war and secrecy.
Though a Primarch, not even Lion
El'Jonson had been explicitly aware of the XXth Legion's
existence, though he had been privy to the rumours of a "Ghost
Legion."”
If both Legions had the same
mentors, it would seem likely that they would share similar views on
war and secrecy.
I fear I would be amiss if I did not
mention an ever so tenuous potential link, most likely lies, of the
origins of the Primarch Alpharius which if true could be used to link
him to the clandestine Prototype Marines in some way:
"This account also offers a
contradictory version of events, saying that Alpharius alone,
unfinished in some way, had been spared or at least some part of him
had remained behind though gravely injured when the rest of the
Primarchs were scattered across the stars through the Warp by
unknown hands.
There, in the shadow of Terra, he
grew and was nurtured alone of the Primarchs by the Emperor Himself,
his existence a jealously guarded secret even from those closest to
the Emperor, lest the dark fates move against him. Upon his maturity
he became the Emperor's own secret hand and his greatest shield,
until he was at last parted from his father, his destiny to fulfill."
Of course while most likely one of the
many false accounts given by Alpharius of his origins: although it
becomes chilling when it is known his secret twin Omegon possesses a
suit of grey power armour that he kept hidden from even his brother
Alpharius: grey like that of a proto-Legion....
The Lost Legions
In an account of the Primarch Dorn
investigating the deaths of workers preparing the Imperial Palace for
Horus assault, he discovers a chamber with two doors marked II and
XI, thinking them to be the private quarters of the Lost Primarchs,
even though they are on the other side of the Palace. Malcador the
Sigillite enters and in the ensuring dialogue he revels that the
marines of the Lost Legions were not destroyed but mind-wiped and
given secret assignments. While it could be speculated that the
Prototype Marines could have been involved in retraining these
mind-wiped legions and leading them on secret missions, it is another
testimony of the Imperial use of clandestine forces of Space
Marines... from three Lost Legions...
The Grey Knights
During the Horus Heresy Malcador the
Sigillite created a clandestine force of marines called the Knights
Errant who gathered their number from many Space Marine Legions,
including Loyalists from those that turned traitor. The Knight
Errant later went on to found and train new recruits for the most
secretive of Space Marine Chapters: The Grey Knights.
While the Prototype Marines that are
the subject of this record never became members of Knights Errant,
their contribution to the Grey Knights might have been arguably just
as vital: The geneseed of the Grey Knights is derived from the
Emperor himself, as is the geneseed of the Prototype Marines like
Leetu. This potentially makes the Grey Knights a genetic successor
chapter of the original First Legion of the Prototype Marines that
existed before the creation of the Primarchs and their gene-lines.
Some describe the armour of the Grey
Knights as sliver, were it is actually listed as “steel grey”- one could be forgiven for describing it as either a type of grey
or sliver. Curiously Leetu is described as having a sliver suit of
power armour.
The Dark Angels
Lastly we must look at the potential
legacy of the prototype Marines on their replacements: the Dark
Angels. Officially the First Legion was named the Dark Angels by the
Lion after a Caliban folk tale, and he also choose the winged sword
as the Legions symbol. The Dark Angels are also famous for depicting
a hooded angel wielding a sword in their iconography. We must examine
all these elements as they seem to actually predate the
reunion of the Lion with the First Legion of his gene-sons, and might
go back to the original proto-Legion.
That the First Legion, at one stage the
entirety of Astarte-kind, were referred to as 'the Angels of
Death' seems likely behind the Lion's decision to select the similar
name “Dark Angels” from Caliban folklore- so while the name was
selected by the Lion there was a historic naming convention behind
it.
Of the winged sword symbol famously
associated with the Dark Angels, chosen by the Lion himself- this
definitely predates the Legion itself. The memory is perhaps lost
over countless millennia as we can see in the pic-capture below in
maps dating from the Great Crusade we see that Terra itself, seat of
the Emperor himself, is represented by a winged sword symbol:
Indeed the Icon for the Adeptus
Astartes is a winged sword as shown below:
It is impossible that a symbol chosen by one of the later founded Primarchs was chosen to represent Terra and the Astartes as a whole who are the “Angels
of Death”. It seems the winged sword, the wings pointing to the angelic and
the sword as an instrument of death, was always the symbol for the Space Marines and given their central role in the Great Crusade it makes sense the same symbol is used for the homeworld were the Crusade started. There are also accounts that the First Legion at their debut at the Palace Coup had the winged sword icon already, long before the legion was united with the Lion.
Many who believe that the Lion created
the symbol did so as a type of shorthand for the hooded angel icon
associated with the Dark Angels: although some sources suggest the
subject is not from folklore but from history.
While not well known there are
records of “The Angel”, created by the Emperor, which fought
during the Pacification of Terra and stood twice as tall as a man
with great wings on it's back, wielding a great flaming sword and who
had a glowing halo of energy about i's personage- some have theorized it was a prototype Primarch,
although seemingly far more powerful than the later sons of the
Emperor, clearly designed to defeat powerful chaos deamons. Due to
flaws in its creation it became more than was ever conceived and
came to the belief that mankind would fall to Chaos so needed to be
wiped out before this happened. After murdering a population of an
entire world the Emperor put the Angel to sleep in a stasis coffin,
and referring to the Angel as his “favourite son”. As we can see
in the pic capture below on the stasis coffin we see a winged sword
symbol used long before the rediscovery of the Lion, on a subject
closely linked to the Emperor.
Whether the hooded angel represents this Angel is unknown, as is the question to whether the winged
sword symbol is intrinsically linked to the hooded angel.
It seems linked that the Emperor made
an angelic 'Proto-Primarch' and then created the Space Marines who he
termed his “Angels of Death”. Questions can be raised if the
winged sword iconography was associated with the Prototype marines
like Leetu and the role of the Pepetual Erda, mother of the
Primarchs, in the creation of the Angel- although for now the best I
can do to answer this is to link to the pic-capture below of Erda at
the residence she shared with Leetu which has a statute of a winged
hooded angel holding a sword on a table that looks like a shrine with
candles burning on either side:
Is this a dedication to a lost son by
Erda or one by Leetu, a prototype Marine, to his former Legion?
My final act is to to draw a parallel
between the winged sword symbol of the Dark Angels and the chapter
symbol of the Grey Knights- which shares the same downward facing
sword although instead of open wings in a similar styling it is
flanked by an open book.
As the Emperor accepted Malcador's proposal for the creation of the Grey
Knights, Astartes created from his own geneline, it makes sense that
he based the iconography of either the Angels of Death symbol or that of the Legion he once lead himself- if the latter it could be a sign that the true genetic origins of the
Grey Knights lay with the prototype Marines from the original First
Legion.
The eight founding masters of the Grey
Knights who were once Knights Errant and before that Legionaries,
founded a Brotherhood and assigned them symbols that are in use to
this day, many of which seem based on their chapter of origin. For
example one was an Ultramarine and the symbol of the First
Brotherhood seems to be based on the Ultra/'U', another was a Night
Lord with the 8th Brotherhood symbol seemingly based off
the one for that legion- and another was a Dark Angel and the symbol
of the 7th Brotherhood is a downward facing sword.
Conclusion
Of the true fate of the proto-type
Marines drawn from the Emperors own genetics, his lesser sons who
could call a Primarch brother, none can say. They are clearly the
first “Angels of Death” existing before the Sons of the Lion,
there is a definite link between them and the Grey Knights as they
sharing the same gene-father, and as a clandestine Marine force
perhaps they are more successful than the Alpha Legion, as one is
known of and the other is not. There are even suggestions that one of the Iron Hand Legion masters, Autek Mor, was a prototype Marine.
Even if you believe they had nothing to do with the institution of the First Legion that became the Dark Angels, there was a force of prototype Marines that came before any Primarch let alone Astarte- making them historically "First". Whether they were the foundation for the "First Legion" will require more research, but hopefully the data file I am waiting on containing history of the Thramas campaign with an attached file containing another history of the Dark Angel Legion will shed some light onto the matter.
They were a first of a breed that
shaped the galaxy, the very first Legiones Astartes and for that they
deserve all the honour we can given them, even if just this
chroniclers stumbling speculation based on little knowledge.
In this record I have made many bold
claims, and now must rest.
Sources:
Information
referenced about Leetu and Erda can be found in the novel Saturnine,
and regarding the Lost Legions in the short story Chamber at the End of Memory.
(The Horus Heresy Book Nine: Crusade is up for pre-order)
