Chapter 1: The Founding
In the beginning, we of the Black Saints were created for a unique purpose, the goal of a group of now heretical Inquisitors and more radical elements of the Mechanicum. We are of the cursed founding, my young acolyte.
Back in those dark days, mere mortals thought to play at being more than themselves and took it to their heads to alter the holy gene seed of the Astartes. Many failures resulted, those amongst them numbering the doomed Wolf Brothers, and Flesh Tearers.
We, however, were of perhaps a more safe and yet all together horrendously wrong experiment. The Arch-Magos Veneratus Ihyen was once in charge of the hidden and locked vaults containing our gene seed. None could withdrawal any without his approval, and he was known to have become senile in the end, and several things he created I will not mention... One of his only surviving experiments and the sole one to not have turned to Chaos, is our very Chapter.
It was Ihyen, and the Inquisitor Teldan who started the project that lead to us. In that age, rebellion and strife were as rampant as wild fire. The bulk of the Imperial forces were proving too cumbersome to wield, especially amongst the bureaucracy controlled forces like the Imperial Guard.
It was noted, to no surprise, that the mighty forces of the Astartes were best at controlling rebellion. And amongst the best of that best were chapters like the Raven Guard and Blood Angels – noble Astartes famed for their assault prowess, and in the case of the Sons of Sanguinius, brutal fighting techniques.
I tell you this for one reason... To know where we come from, and thereby our strength and flaws, it is essential to know why we were created. And we were created in part to fulfill the mad theories of a Adeptus Mechanicus magi, and in other parts to help stabilize the Imperium.
When Ihyen was approached by Teldan and given orders for the founding of a pure strain Blood Angels sucessor, all appeared fine, The Chapter would be to full fighting strength on schedule, and deployed to the Western fringe with all haste. The planet Sentarii, a world famed for it's proud and noble fighting history, and already a staunch contributor to the Imperium by way of master and artificer crafted weaponry and armor, would fit the bill both in location and compatibility to the geneseed. It was also hoped the stoic and calm nature of the worlds populous might help to off set the Flaw.
It might well have.. We Sentarii might have conquered the Curse of Sanguinius. It will never be known. For Ihyen was too far gone at that point. It was a more secretive practice of the Mechanicus that they were splicing geneseeds of multiple Chapters together to create new stock. This was done in an attempt to weed out imperfections. In some cases, like the Lamenters, it seems to have succeeded. In others, like us... It failed miserably, or worked in ways with unknown consequences.
Trial experiments on early Sentarii warriors proved a genetic incompatibility with a combination of the genetic material of Croax and Sanguinius. Something in the reultant mix, or perhaps some unknown factor from Corax's genetic make up, resulted in horrendously mutated monsters. Brutes half again as large as any other Marine, and with barely an Ogryn like awareness. Ihyen began to grow desperate, and taking the genetic scan of the last pool of recruits that he had been granted, he did something forbidden by Mars and the High Lords themselves.
Ihyen accessed the deepest vaults of the gene seed, wherein samples of the Traitor Legions geneseed, before corruption, was store in the days before and during the Heresy. The most stable of these were the Emperors Children, and the Night Lords.
When combined with elements of Fulgrims seed, the resultant projections showed an unstable combination, in that the metabolism of the marine, as well as the temperament, contained a propensity for fluctuation that would lead to the Astartes with that blend literally wasting away to nothing within decades of creation.
The final test was of primarily material taken from Sanguinius. But, he isolated several abnormal markers still believed to be psychic imprints on the Geneseed, and replaced them with elements of Night Lords stock... The result showed a stability rate, in computer testing, of 95.6%.. no mutation markers were tested, and indeed, reflex times were estimated to be a total of .5 times quicker. Ihyen had achieved success... Or, so his colleagues thought.
In truth, the night before the last Sentarii recruits were to begin implantation, Ihyen was reported voxing that he needed to see the Fabricator General himself immediately. Odd though the request was, given the prestigious achievements of Ihyens work on the Sentarii chapter, the Fabricator General consented. He arrived however, to find Ihyen slumped across his desk, dead of apparent cardiac arrest, his notes nowhere to be found in the room. And they weren't found until millenia later, when the Lord Adonis was to come to us.
What we know now of our own origins tells us this... We excel in assault.. Yet, as you have surely noticed, those who show a particular propensity for such combat are often paranoid. Unnecessarily violent. And genuinely blood thirsty. Though we have, for most extensive purposes, conquered the flaw, it's few remaining touches are crippling.
The trace amounts of Night Lords geneseed used in our development, whilst not enough to even show on most Mechanicus scans, was enough to interact with the flaw in unique ways. Our Susan-An Membrane has a slight deviation, in that it has conflicting interactions with the Catalepsean Node and Omophagea. Our Omophagea no longer functions in the sense of a normal Space Marines.
When a Sentarus warrior is implanted with the Geneseed of the Chapter, he begins to change mentally even whilst nothing else may happen. When he sleeps, he will dream. Remembering the past lives of those from whom the gene seed he was just implanted with came from. Often times it is just glimpses and gleanings. Remembering a particularly effective way of slaying an Ork Squiggoth.. Or a rather useful evasion maneuver whilst a jump pack is engaged.
Rarer still are those that can remember names, places, and day to day events of those who have come before them.. And there is the Lord Adonis and myself. We who remember back to the deck of Horus' battle barge, and the dieing visage of our Primarch. We who remember wearing the read armor of a Blood Angel..
Most who are like the Lord Adonis and I are driven insane, and join the ranks of the Mortis Angeli, the Death Angels. Most who are like us often suffer such a grievous wound they suffer delusions and slip into the Black Rage, their mind unable to deal with the memories.
This, coupled with the tendency to paranoia and use of fear tactics from the Night Lords has made us a Legion of split markings.. Those who become Assault Marines seem to all fall invraibly under Father Curzes shadow, and descend dangerously closer and closer to insanity, until the join the Angeli..
Though, there are the rare few in who the Shadow simply does not hold, and Father Sanguinius shines through. For those few, they are tasked often with leading their brothers. To lead men of this Chapter is to conquer fear itself.. To walk amongst the shadow, and yet burn with Light and Shepard the Lost.
Mortals think we Astartes have no fear. That is not true. We are simply trained, bred, and indoctrinated to ignore and overcome it with ease. “
Finally, Remus stopped talking, and stood. Whether through laxity, or some witchery of the Chief Librarians voice, Icarus had not noticed the servitors that had entered and were now exiting. Lain out on a silk cloth were jet black fatigues, and the black and white armor of a Scout Marine.
A bolt pistol, gleaming still with forge oil, was lain in a stiff, dull leather holster emblazoned with a matte steel aquilla. A curious scope on it, equipped with what Icarus realized as a psyoculoum and targeter wargear..
Sheathed in a bandoleer designed to hang across the chest of the scout armor was a short, yet deadly gladius like on his home world, the keen blade seeming a solid line, but Icarus knew there were tiny microscopic serrations.
Yet, painted on the left shoulder pad was a stylized rams head, with flames pouring from the eyes. He had been recruited to train under the Sinner... He was to go to the Librarium after all.. Thousands of things welled up in his mind, yet he merely stood and bowed, the implications of Remus' silence easy for him to know as he knelt and begin to strip the Karskin issue carapace armor off and set it to one side...
As he picked up the first piece of the freshly forged Scout armor, Icarus locked eyes once with his mentor, and something within him prompted a speech that seemed to stun the elder.
'For His will and honor..'