History
Founding: 8th Founding, M33-M34
In late M33, an Administrative conclave of the Segmentum Solar
determined that reported levels of insurrection arising from within the great
and empty expanse of the Solarus Void had become too high to entirely ignore.
For many centuries the scattered worlds that bridged the gap between Terra and
the vast arm of the Segmentum Pacificus had been quiet, their remoteness being
their own defence. Whilst the warp-routes that traversed the realm to the
critical hiveworlds of Methalor and Macharia were amongst the most stable in
the entire Imperium, those that turned into the lightless realms of the Void
quickly became fractious and unreliable.
Close though the Solarus Void was, few upon Terra were
unduly troubled by its dissent. Proximally near, but locked within the chilled
space of the galaxy’s arms, the Solarus Void was void in more than name alone.
Ships that ventured from the great warp-routes were slowed for many a week,
their machinery and their servants slowed by the black tarry night that
suffocated the region. A full-strength crusade might never emerge once it had
entered.
As heated debate continued for many a year, a petitioner
from within the Solarus Void became well-known to the conclave, a captain of
the vessel which had brought warning of Ossurus’s fall to their attention. She
spoke of a clutch of stars upon the threshold of the Void, their small
populations not yet riven by warfare. She implored the conclave to save them
from abandonment and destitution. Her words caught the conclave upon the
turning of their attentions, and the High Lords of Terra acted upon it and
decreed the eighth Founding of the Emperors holy Astartes.
Along with an unknown number of others, a Chapter would be
formed to guard the darkness.
Without resources, without clear objective, a contingent of
the Adeptus Mechanicus, a number of core Astartes representatives, and a great
number of Terran scientists arrived upon the nearmost planet of the Solarus
void; the jungle-world of Comacha. With them came the only innumerable resource
that Terran and its colonies had in any free abundance; its criminals and its
convicts.
As the Astartes established a base of operations upon
Comacha the Adeptus Biologus contingent began to sample the local population
whilst they awaited the gene-seeds arrival. Tasting the genetic strains of the
great convict convoys for stability and strength. During this period, more of
the dark worlds of the Void turned silent and still as their foci turned
inwards, bolstering planetary defences in fear of fermenting rebellion. The
arrival of the Geneseed; Ultramarine in origin, on a lone Mechanicum runner
heralded the implantation of recruits and the commencement of the campaign.
Foundations were sunk and a great monastery began to take shape amongst the
jungles of Comacha, the eyes of the fledgling Astartes within fixed firmly upon
the empty sky above.
Early History
Many Chapters are characterised by their Founding Primarchs.
Many by their founding Chapter Master or their homeworlds, some by their flaws.
The Sons of Omega were entirely characterised by their early years amidst the
darkness of Comacha.
With the small group of Astartes that accompanied the
Genetor fleet occupied by the scale of the task before them, the as yet-unnamed
Sons quickly found that their small numbers forced them to attach themselves to
the probing squads of Astartes that sought to end the uprising on the planets
of the Solarus Void. This sporadic form of warfare gave them a wide
interpretation of the Codex Astartes, as the varied squads they accompanied
prosecuted the rebellion in completely different ways. From heavy land assaults
alongside the hammer hands of the Imperial Fists, to the rapid mechanised
strikes and sallies of the White Scar’s successors; the Rampagers. But it was
from an unexpected source that the true personality of the Chapter began to
reveal itself.
The prison fleets.
As more and more Neophytes became Battle-Brothers the eldest
among them noted that none of their number had arisen from the gene-stock
supplied by Comacha, all had been pooled from the prison-ships and the penal
fleets that had been pressed into the war effort. It seemed that for every
hundred psychopaths that died to the rebels, a handful of iron-hard youngsters
would survive, true in faith but false in law. These would be passed to the
Biologus and the Ecclesiarchical contingent for screening, they, demonstrating
purity of spirit unknown would excel throughout the training and implantation
processes, and would emerge as the superhuman warriors that the burgeoning
chapter needed.
After years of warfare the Campaign to reunite the Solarus
Void ended abruptly, the remaining rebels surrendering to the whim of the
Imperium and the arrayed Astartes. The initial instigator of the rebellion that
had swept the region was never discovered, though fragmentary reports still
exist in the monastery archives, closely guarded by the core Command staff of
the Chapter.
It was with the dissolution of the campaign that the Sons
were founded formally, their armour colour taken from the pale jungle
surrounding the monastery, their name taken from a barrack-room story that had
remained with them throughout their first warring years.
Brother Marine Kwaye Horcora;
‘’Sergeant Parhis tells the story best but if I must, I will
tell it. When the Mechanicum broke the great seals of the gene-vaults to forge
us anew they saw endless ranks of sealed vessels bearing the Ultramarines
sigil. All sat uniform and ordered. But, when the geneseed reached us upon
Comacha, somehow the flasks that had been upturned in their containers, and the
emblem of the Ultramarines had been inverted. To those viewing, the upturned
Ultra had become an Omega. Some saw this as an omen, some as a portent. However
taken, the Mechanicum are pragmatics to the core and so nothing more was said.
Fortuitous or not, it was from this one simple misplacement
that we Sons got first our nickname, our origins, and from there we have
inherited it as our legacy.’’
Homeworld
The Sons of Omega still maintain a fortress-monastery upon
Comacha, fused into the mountain ranges of the equatorial jungle-belts. For
light-years around, the slow-moving trade in the Solarus Void is kept safe by
the large fleet maintained by the Chapter and though the persistent depth of
the warp within the Solarus Void still slow many a ship, the Captains of each
know that the Chapter is watching over them.
On the most part, few Astartes dwell upon Comacha and due
the nature of their recruitment the Sons rarely return to their fortress in any
strength, preferring longer periods of self-sustained action. Coinciding with
this , few relics are kept, the commonly held belief among the Chapter is that
the glory of each artifact is only as long as its practical use.
The Chapter remains as a roaming collection of companies and
squads that are swift to mete out the justice of the Emperor, while not
necessarily that of the Imperium.
Recruitment
Instead of recruitment from deep hive-worlds and the most
desperate of environments instead the Sons of Omega take the bloody-knuckled
flotsam from whichever prison or colony will spit them out. Sergeants from the
Chapter are frequently sent to dredge Imperial facilities of their entire
complement of human flesh, throwing them upon the guns of the nearest conflict
to see who will survive. From there, the Apothecarium strip away those deemed
too heretical, too bestial, too far beyond repentance or remorse and begin the
process of implantation and indoctrination.
Once they have satisfied the Apothecary’s stringent
processes the scouts are attached to whichever conflict has most need of their
skills, honing their lethal repertoire to aid wherever they can. This
attachment persists throughout the Chapter wholesale, so it is rare that more
than a Company be dispatched as whether a border dispute or a decade-long
crusade, each task force will remain attached until the current need is
satisfied and their duty to the Emperor is done.
Combat Doctrines
In war, the Sons of Omega are a malleable force. Able to
adapt to the changing course of battle with lightning speed, reordering
formation and deployment in a moment, fluidly and without hesitation. This
flexibility stems from the extensive secondment training they experience during
their formative years and beyond, though their ability to adapt to the
battlefield amidst wholesale carnage a legacy of the manner in which they were
initially captured.
Another remnant of the brutal manner in which the Chapter
ranks are populated is a healthy disregard for Imperial rule. Whereas the upper
echelons of the Chapter may infrequently be required to deal with the
bureaucracy of Terran politics, a Son of Omega is taught to remove themselves
from the politics and the Imperium and to focus on the will of the Emperor over
all others.
Many an Imperial authorities has been removed from power by
the very force they requested aid from, should the Chapter find them wanting in
the eyes of the Emperor. This means that any Planetary Governor must choose
carefully before calling for them, lest they be deposed for the less corrupt,
or the more pious. Aside from combating Xenos incursions in the Solarus Void
and protecting the many planets therein, the Chapter have been known to
dispatch aid to the smaller colonies of the Imperium, the taskforces
self-sufficiency being of great aid in such remote systems.
Organization
Without a clearly defined Primogenitor chapter to align to ,
the Sons of Omega have come to have no adherence to the Codex Astartes in
formation or function. At any one time, there will be a standing body of a
thousand Marines, dependant on recent conflict.
When one or more formations are made there is no one structure that the
Chapter maintains for any period of time, other than that of the ‘the twinning
of strengths’.
A well-honed methodology, this core principle of twinned
force permeates through the Chapter and ensures that no one force has a
weakness or an overt strength which the enemy may easily counter. In open
conflict, this may mean a Devastator company may be deployed alongside an
Assault company, a Scout squad may be joined by a Terminator armoured Veteran.
Through this manner, the Sons Of Omega rarely find themselves without the
support of a familiar Brother or Squad.
It is due to this twinning that the Son’s of Omega chose to
specifically not add unit markings to their armour, for what need does an
Astartes have for identification than the knowledge of their Brother-Marines.
Aside from venerating the Emperors insignia and the wearing of purple to
signify rank, the Sons are bereft of device or heraldry.
Another notable legacy from their proximity to the Sol
system is that the Chapter maintains a high number of Techmarines and rarer
variants of esoteric Mechanicus machinery and few Sons of Omega on prolonged
deployments will venture afar without the access to the works of a Techmarine.
As a mark of respect for the Chapters patronage of the Red Planet, any
augmentations and repairs made upon the battlefield will be used over and above
a more elegant replacement, until such time as the original augmentations
function fails.
Beliefs
In devotion to the Emperor the Sons of Omega are
near-fanatical, the Chapter’s legacy as a true servants of the Master of
Mankind cemented during the age of
Apostasy and the fall of Cardinal Vandire.
During late M33 and the first few hundred years of M34 the
Chapter entrenched its hold over the Solarus Void and began to take an active
involvement in the defence of the Imperium’s wider borders. As the newly
cemented Imperial Creed began to become Holy law the Sons found themselves too
often fighting with those that resisted the heavy-handed tactics of the
Ecclesiarchy. Whereas the Ecclesiarchical fleets would ride rough-shod over the
populace of any planet whose manner of devotion did not fit with the newly-writ
creed, the Sons more often found reason to protect those they saw as faithful
to their Lord.
Those few planets that the Sons had granted their protection
not only retained their cultural idioms, but were then able to contribute more
and more to the Imperium and the Emperor both. When the Reign of Blood erupted,
the Sons sped to the aid of the few solar systems in the Solarus Void which had
shown signs of disruption, their very presence in a disturbed system enough to
calm any who doubted their safety, for who but the Sons of Omega knew those
below to be true servants of the Emperor?
During the final stages of the conflict, the Chapter openly
refused to draw blood upon Holy Terra. Instead, in rare form their entire
strength was fielded in combat, first to protect (some would say needlessly)
the Emperor’s palace and his holiest of temples, and secondly to hunt down the
few fleets of Vandire that preyed upon the Mechanicum and its outposts. Whilst
this earned the Chapter the approval of the Adeptus Custodes and the blessing
of the Fabricator General, it earned the ire of the High Lords of Terra that
felt they should have added their strength to the siege of Vandire’s
stronghold, rather than sitting sentry.
As ever, the Sons of Omega cared not, the Emperor knew his
own.
Battlecry
"For the Emperor above all!"
Geneseed
Since their inception almost six millennia ago, the
Ultramarines geneseed from which the Chapter is derived has remained as stable
as expected. The only slight mutation of note is a slight bronzing of the
pigment of the skin, perhaps inherited from the verdant jungles of their
homeworld.
Some observers would note that the Sons Of Omega are only
truly raised to wrath when the sanctity of the Emperor, or those that uphold it
is put at risk. The Mechanicus have also long noted that the Geneseed tithe
that the Sons return to Terra comes sealed within ancient Ultramarine emblems
upon the canisters, inside inverted containers.
Later years and last recorded contact
For increasing years leading up to the 41st
Millennia, the Sons of Omega began to dedicate increased resources to
understand their genetic make-up in the light of prognostications by their Psyker
brethren. For a Terran standard year the Chapter undertook a pilgrimage to
Macragge to better understand the genetic disposition that characterised them.
When they arrived, in an event that would mark them forever they were shunned
by the Mechanicus brethren that had beckoned them.
Without warning, the Principal Collegia of Biologis Majoris
denied them access to their genebanks, retracted their welcome and turned their
faces from the Sons entirely, sealing shut their Macro-weapons, shuttle silos,
laboratories and factorum at a single signal. It appeared they had been waiting
for their arrival.
As the Ultramarines contingent stationed upon Macragge sided
with the Mechanicum and rose to meet them, the Sons became enraged. As the
fleet sat at peaceful anchor, awaiting satisfaction, the 1st Company
launched a clandestine assault on the most poorly defended Mechanicus facility,
their archives. It gave the Sons Of Omega chapter their long-sought answers,
though they were unexpected and alarming.
The Sons Of Omega were not of Ultramarine Gene-stock. The
closest match that the Collegia has found were not Imperial in nature at all,
they were traitor-kin. They were Alpha Legion.
As the Ultramarines armoured might detected the incursion
and began to close around the Sons, their fleet broke free and fled.
Disbelief and guilt wracked the Chapter as they fled through
the warp. All was for naught! Their legacy was heresy. What would they do?Were
they to lament their conception at the hands of the unknown and submit
themselves for censure, rail against those that had held their secrets for
their own gratification, waiting for their discovery? Should they even embrace
their dark heritage? At the zenith of their torment their path became clear.
For the Emperor, above all…
Determined to ascertain their origins and to safeguard the
Lord of Mankind the Sons of Omega turned their prows into the darkness of the
Eye of Terror, beginning their long crusade far from the eyes of the Imperium.
 |
| Courtesy of 40k Wikia |
A lonely vox-burst was the last heard voice of the Sons of Omega.
++We will cleanse our bastard heredity with
Do not watch for us, we only watch for Him++
Thanks guys, it was fun.
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