101ST_Belial
4th Aug 04, 1:58 PM
DARK ANGELS LEGION HISTORY.
The Dark Angels were the very first Space Marine Legion. They were formed by the Emperor more than 10,000 years ago and where at the forefront of the Great Crusade that reunited the scattered outposts of humanity, and carved out the boundaries of the Imperium which have lasted almost unchanged to this day. They are regarded as the epitome of the dedicated Space Marine warrior: serious-minded, slow to anger, but tenacious and all but unstoppable in their zeal once aroused.
Almost uniquely amongst the Space Marine Chapters, the Dark Angels have no home world. Instead their base of operations is a huge space-borne fortress-monastery known simply as ‘the Rock’. Once an asteroid, the Rock has been mined and converted into a spacecraft of truly gargantuan proportions, dwarfing in size all other space-going vessels apart from the largest space hulks. The Rock travels slowly through the imperium, constantly changing course and heading, now appearing at one point, then vanishing only to reappear at a point hundreds of light years distant. Some say that the Rock cannot be controlled in the same way as other imperial craft and is moving randomly through the warp, while others argue that its course is determined at the whim or fancy of the Supreme Master of the Dark Angels.
The origins of the Dark Angels Legion are shrouded in mystery. There are no records of its beginnings or any mention of its part in the Emperor’s Great Crusade. Any reference in the Imperial histories of its deeds during the accursed times of the Hours Heresy has been deleted. But yet a legend persists that once the Dark Angels teetered on the brink of Chaos, that a terrible betrayal besmirched all of the legions feats of valour and left an enduring stain on the legions honour. Such is their shame that from that time on they have striven for absolution from the sins of millennia past.
The Dark Angels are now considered to be one of the greatest of all the Space Marine Chapters with their Deathwing Company being particularly revered. Only the highest ranking members of the Dark Angels Chapter know the terrible, shameful secret of what happened ten thousand years ago – a secret that drives the Dark Angels to search throughout time and space for the final conflict that will bring them redemption or damnation…
THE PRIMARCHS
To under stand what happened to the Dark Angels we must return to a time more than 10,000 years ago. To a time before there where any Space Marines: to the time when the Emperor created the Primarchs. To help him in his Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy for humanity, the Emperor, in his wisdom, created the genetically-engineered superhuman Primarchs. The mutant genes used as the basic building blocks for these elite warriors had taken centuries to gather and refine, and despite the Emperor’s best efforts of psychic shielding, his industry did not go unnoticed by the Dark Gods of Chaos. Not having the resources to actually destroy the incubator capsules in which the embryonic Primarchs grew, the Chaos Powers combined their energies and instead stole them away from the Emperor, scattering the amniotic tanks and their foetal occupants throughout the warp.
The twenty incubation capsules drifted through the warp for decades or even centuries, until finally coming to rest on human-inhabited worlds throughout the galaxy. The capsule of one Primarch, he who was to become known as Lion El’Jonson, founder of the Dark Angels, was dropped on an isolated planet on the northern fringe of the Eye of Terror – the death world of Caliban.
CALIBAN
Caliban was as cruel and harsh an environment as any in the galaxy. In the bleak forests that covered the globe lived creatures that had been warped by Chaos, and which were of such ferocity that mere day-to-day survival was a constant struggle. The human inhabitants of Caliban were forced to live in huge fortresses and castles, located in clearings hacked from the forests of the planet. Cut off from Earth by the warp storms that had savaged the galaxy in the Age of Strife, civilisation on Caliban devolved back into a semi-feudal stat, with most of the population ruled over by a small warrior elite.
The nobles’ life was one of constant struggle as they fought against the multitude of chaotic creatures that threatened to overrun their small settlements. Sometimes a particularly fearsome creature would stay in one area and terrorise it, in which case the ruler of the community would declare a quest against the monster, and nobles from all around would come to attempt to kill the beast. Slaying a quest-creature could bring honour and fortune for the noble lucky enough to kill it – more often than not though it brought only bloody and horrific death at the teeth and talons of a hell-spawned abomination.
THE YOUNG LION
Such then was the planet where the young Primarch’s capsule crash-landed. Most of the other Primarchs were fortunate enough to be found and raised by the local human inhabitants of the planet they landed on. Such was no to be Jonson’s fate, for his capsule landed in a remote and isolated region of Caliban many miles from the nearest human settlement. How Jonson survived those early years on Caliban is a complete mystery. By rights he should have died within the first few minutes he was exposed on the planet. But Jonson did not die, somehow, as a young child on one of the most deadly death worlds in the Imperium he not only survived, but grew strong and tall. What it was like for him in those grim and dark days no-one can say, for there was no-one there to record the events of his life, and Jonson never spoke of those times himself. All that can be said for certain is that for a decade Jonson was forced to trust to his own wit and skill in order to survive. He had no-one to aid him; he could rely only on himself. And so it was, in this state, that at the turn of the decade since his arrival on the planet, the Primarch encountered his first humans.
THE ORDER
The brave warrior knights he encountered belonged to a group known simply as the Order. The Order had a reputation across all of Caliban for the honesty, nobility and fearless skill of its brother-knights in battle. Uniquely amongst the knights of Caliban, the members, or brothers, of the Order were selected by merit rather than inheritance. Anyone could join the Order, no matter how low-born they might be. Contingents of brother-knights from the Order travelled across the planet, giving their aid wherever it was needed.
It was while on one of there great expeditions that a band from the order came upon the wild man that lived in the forest. Thinking him a monster, the knights were ready to kill the Primarch when one of their number, sensing that there was something more to the creature than was at first apparent, halted his fellows, Luther, for such was the name of the Primarch’s saviour, and the other knights returned to civilisation, taking with them the man born of the forest.
Because of his appearance and the place of his discovery, the Order gave the wild man the name of Lion El’Jonson, which meant ‘The Lion, Son of the forest’. Jonson easily adapted to the ways of humans, learning to speak remarkably quickly. But of his time growing up in the forest he never spoke.
Over the following years Jonson and Luther rose through the ranks of the Order. Their exploits became the stuff of legend on Caliban, and the reputation of the Order rose accordingly. The number of young warriors wishing to join the order grew and grew, so that in time many new fortress monasteries had to be built. As the Order grew in size Jonson and Luther argued for a crusade against the monsters that infested the forests, to cleanse the planet once and for all of their foul presence. The oratory of Luther convinced the Grand Masters of the monasteries and most of the nobles of the planet to join in the crusade, but it was Jonson’s supreme ability at planning and organisation which ensured that within the course of a single decade the entire planet of Caliban was cleared of the monstrous creatures that had once inhabited it. A golden age dawned for the inhabitants of the once troubled planet.
In recognition of his triumph against the creatures of chaos Lion El’Jonson was proclaimed new Supreme Master of the Order and Caliban. Although Luther did not openly begrudge Jonson the great honour he had won, he would have not been human if he did not feel some twinge of jealousy. Thus was lit the first small spark that would lead to the schism which would tear the Dark Angels Legion apart. But all this was in the future – for the present the people of Caliban enjoyed a time of peace and plenty.
THE EMPEROR REACHES CALIBAN
Meanwhile, unbeknown to Jonson and the people of Caliban the Emperor was waging his great crusade across the galaxy, reuniting humanity and purging entire star systems of their alien oppressors. As the Imperium’s wave of conquest advanced across the galaxy, Imperial Scouts rediscovered the isolated world of Caliban.
It was not long before the Emperor was at last reunited with the Primarch and was filled with joy as would a father on finding his lost son. The Emperor’s first action was to give Lion El’Jonson control of the Dark Angels Legion. This body of Space Marines had been created by the Emperor from its Primarch’s gene-stock and had fought alongside the other Imperial forces as the Great Crusade was waged across the galaxy.
Caliban was made the home world of the Dark Angels and the whole of the Order moved to join its ranks. Those knights who were still young enough had the Legion’s gene-seed implanted within them, while those too old for this process underwent surgery to transform them into elite warriors of the Imperium. The first to be brought into the Legion in this way was Luther, who became Jonson’s second-in-command, just as he always had been within the Order.
The Great Crusade of course had to go on: there were countless human worlds that were still under the influence of chaos or suppressed by the harsh rule of alien races. So it was that Jonson and many of the Dark Angels set out with the Emperor to continue the battle for humanity and Luther was left behind in charge of the remainder of the legion on Caliban. Despite the importance of Luther’s position, it was not the one that suited his ambitious personality.
As Jonson’s fame spread throughout the galaxy and reports of his great deeds and prowess in battle reached the Legion’s home world, Luther felt robbed of his share of the glory. He wanted the fame and recognition that he felt he deserved as Jonson’s equal. His role as planetary governor of some half-forgotten backwater world seemed more and more to him like an insult. The seed of jealousy and dissension that had been planted within Luther when Jonson was made the Supreme Master of the order now began to grow and rankle within his heart as the Primarch became more and more celebrated and famous.
THE LION AND THE WOLF
After the Emperor had found his lost sons he set about reuniting the many kingdoms of Men. The Emperor’s Legions raced outward bringing the true faith to those who would listen and death to those who would not. Mighty wars raged: for there were many in those days who doubted the Emperor’s word and turned their faces from his light. Some were honourable men, merely misguided. Some were tyrants and traitors greedy to retain there powers. And some listened to the whispered promises of daemons and raised their war banners against all humanity. The Space Marines fought an endless succession of foes and were undismayed, for they were mighty and their leaders were invincible.
The war was fought not only against renegade men but against Orks and Eldar and other beings too terrible to be named. It was a time when a man could win glory and respect in the sight of the Emperor. It was a time of darkness, of terrible massacres and noble deeds. But it was also a time of hope: for the living Emperor walked among men, and he brought the promise of a stable and peaceful empire and freedom from the tyrants of the dark powers and their servants.
In this savage and noble age the Primarchs walked the worlds like mortal gods. In those days, before the Fall, Horus was the Emperor’s favoured son and the Lord of Humanity had every reason to be proud of him. He led the forces of mankind to victory after victory. Noble he was and proud, respected and trusted by all. For he was the bravest of the brave and the mightiest of the mighty. His words were well-spoken and his opinions always reasoned and fair. His promises were always kept and his threats always enacted. He had never been beaten in battle.
Hours was always first among the Primarchs but there were others of near equal renown: Jaghatai Khan of the White Scars, cunning master of the lightning raid. Eagle-winged Sanguinius of the Blood Angels: with a keen eye and pure heart. Leman Russ of the Space Wolves: impetuous, fierce and bold. And of course there was taciturn Lion El’Jonson, whose silence concealed a deep wisdom. The Primarchs were a band of brothers, and as with all brothers there was a certain rivalry, as they vied for the glory and the attention of the Emperor. And as with many brothers there were bonds of kinship but there was also animosity. Sometimes feuds sprung up. The most famous and enduring of these was the one between Russ and Jonson.
It is said that the two men disliked each other on sight, when they first met in the great marble chamber in the Emperor’s Hall on Old Earth. Russ thought Jonson too aloof and disdainful, Jonson believed Russ to be boastful and coarse. It is said that the two barely exchanged a word in the whole time they where on Terra, but then Jonson rarely spoke and only Russ took this personally.
If Jonson was quiet he was also brave and a mighty leader of men. During the great Crusade only he and Horus achieved a greater tally of victories than Russ. Russ, ever concerned with his honour and good name, and ever keen to tell the noble saga of his deeds, found this exasperating. Matters came to a head on the world of Dulan when the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves were set to assault the Crimson Fortress of the tyrant Durath. Durath had personally insulted the Emperor and had ritually sacrificed ten thousand believers to his patron daemon in order to assure his victory. Both Primarchs were keen to claim his head.
Russ, ever headstrong, felt that he should lead the assault. Durath had claimed that Russ was the Emperor’s puppy and that he would feed Russ’s heart to his pet grox. The Lord of Fenris was enraged and determined to wipe the out this stain on his honour. He swore a mighty oath that he would personally slay Durath and cut out his heart. So angry was he that he ordered Jonson to stand down and let the Space Wolves attack the Crimson Fortress headlong. Jonson, who had spent days laying planes for his assault, and who had personally scouted out all its weak points, ignored this command and began the assault. The Dark Angels stormed the mighty citadel and Jonson killed Durath in single combat, on the keep’s walls. Russ, caught in the swirling melee at the foot of the battlements, could only look on and howl with frustrated rage.
So great was his anger that when the battle was over and Jonson sat in triumph within Durath’s hall, Russ walked up and struck the Dark Angel. Jonson rose to his feet and stuck back. A space was cleared in the great hall and the two Primarchs wrestled back and forth while there assembled men watched and shouted encouragement. For a day and a night they fought back and forth, each perfectly matched in superhuman strength and speed. Russ was slightly stronger but Jonson was slightly quicker and so the two were well balanced.
Both had been schooled in hand-to-hand by the Emperor and by Warmaster Horus. Each knew every trick and feint. The fight rolled on out of the Hall and across the battlements. After a full day passed they eyed each other wearily over the shattered ruins of Durath’s Fortress. Russ, quick to rage but quicker to mirth, saw the funny side of what had happened and began to laugh. As far as he was concerned the fight was over: both men had taken each other’s measure, and honour was satisfied.
Jonson was not amused; he was slow to anger and slower to forgive and Russ’s first blow he saw as treacherous. As Russ laughed Jonson walked up and struck him unconscious. The prone form of Russ was carried from the fortress by his men while the Dark Angels looked on and jeered. Now Jonson considered honour satisfied.
When Russ awoke the Dark Angels were gone, summoned by the Emperor to take part in the Alisore campaign. Russ swore that he would have vengeance on Jonson for his low blow. Thus began a feud that was to last for centuries. To this day when Space Wolves meet Dark Angels one of their number is called upon to re-enact this ancient duel with one of Jonson’s sons, in order that the honour of both chapters may be satisfied.
THE FALL OF CALIBAN
Then came the terrible days of the Horus Heresy. As the Emperor fought Warmaster Horus for the possession of the Erath, Lion El Jonson was far away fighting for humanity alongside Leman Russ. Hearing of the potentially disastrous proceedings taking place around Earth, the two generals hurried back as quickly as they could. Coming into Earth’s orbit they realized they had arrived too late. Events had already taken their terrible course and the cataclysmic final battle was over. The forces of Chaos had been defeated, but they had left the Imperium in ruins. And for Jonson one final, shattering betrayal remained to be discovered on his return to his home world of Caliban.
It had been many long years since Jonson had been to Caliban, and he longed to see his home world once more. As the unsuspecting ships of Jonson’s fleet moved into orbit they were met by a devastating barrage of defence laser fire. Ships exploded into flame and crashed to the surface like monstrous comets. Stunned by the attack Jonson withdrew and attempted to find out what had happened.
A captured merchant ship soon provided the answer: Luther had used this skills at oratory to lead the Dark Angels under his command to the path of chaos, instilling his own feelings of jealousy and rage in the Dark Angels who had been left on Caliban during the Great Crusade. Luther had convinced them that they had been shamed, that the Emperor had turned his face from them.
While Jonson and those Space Marines who had gone with him battled for humanity light years away, Luther’s feelings of anger and jealousy had grown within him like a corrupting canker until they were his only purpose and driving motivation. Luther was now a man obsessed, whose own neuroses had pushed him over the edge and made him dangerous beyond imagining.
The fury of Jonson and the Loyal Dark Angels at learning this horrible information knew no bounds. They had fought from one end of the galaxy to the other and thought that the curse of chaos had been cleansed from the planets of the imperium, and now they found that there own home world, and there own brethren, had been corrupted and turned against them. Jonson Immediately ordered an assault on the planet. The massed guns of the fleet easily disabled Caliban’s defence laser batteries and then scoured the planet, driving the rebel Dark Angels back to their Fortress monasteries.
Knowing that one surgical strike was all that was needed to end the conflict Lion El’Jonson le an assault on the greatest of the monasteries him self. He knew that this is here he would find Luther: and so it was there the two former friends, now mortal enemies, faced each other. Even though the Primarch possessed superhuman powers, the two opponents were equally matched, for Luther’s own, already considerable abilities, had been enhanced by the dark gods of Chaos.
What followed was a fight of titanic proportions during which the two equally-matched adversaries laid blow for blow against each other, tearing down the monastery around them until the whole massive edifice had been levelled
By there battle. Meanwhile the masses guns of the fleet carried on pounding the planet, reducing the other fortress monasteries to rubble. The very surface of Caliban began to crack and heave under the strain of the Bombardment.
As the planet itself started to break apart, the battle between Jonson and Luther reached its climax. Luther weakened by the long combat, staggered and fell, leaving himself open to a death blow from Jonson’s power sword. But Jonson could not bring himself to strike the fatal blow. As he hesitated, Luther, aided by the powers of Chaos, unleashed a furious psychic attack that knocked Jonson to his knees and left him mortally wounded. But as the dying Primarch Struggled to stand, his noble features wracked with pain, it was as if a curtain was lifted fro Luther’s eyes and he realised the full extent of what he had done. His was a triple betrayal: of his friend, of the Dark Angels, and of the Emperor. The truth shattered his sanity and he slumped down beside Jonson, no longer willing to fight.
Luther’s psychic cry of pain and despair echoed through the warp and the Chaos gods realised that, once again, they had been defeated. They lashed out in fury and frustration. A rent appeared in the very fabric of space and a warp storm of unprecedented fury engulfed Caliban. In an uncontrollable, swirling flood of psychic energy the warp rushed in to the physical universe. Those ‘fallen’ Dark Angels who had served under Luther and his clandestine masters were sucked from the face of Caliban in to the warp and scattered throughout space and time. Caliban, already weakened by the loyal Dark Angels bombardment, was ripped apart and destroyed, the debris being sucked into the warp.
The only part of the planet that survived the storm was the huge fortress monastery where Jonson and Luther had fought. Protected by force fields of awesome power, the monastery and a huge chunk of bed-rock of Caliban held together. When the storm abated this was all that was left of the once magnificent home world of the Dark Angels.
The dark Angels flew down to the surface of the rock and gazed about them in horror at all that remained of their once beautiful home world. The great fortress had been razed to the ground and all the living things that that once teemed across the face of Caliban only one remained. At the hart of the ruined wasteland the Space Marines found Luther. The warriors were unable to get anything coherent out of the shell of a man who had once been Jonson closest friend. And second-in-command. Luther just constantly repeated the same words over and over again: the Primarch had been carried away by the Watchers in the Dark and one day he would return to forgive Luther for the terrible sins he had committed. Of the mighty Primarch, Lion El’Jonson, there was no sign.
THE ROCK
Following the destruction of Caliban, the Dark Angels made the rock there new home, drilling out a huge network of rooms and halls in the bedrock under their ruined fortress monastery. In time engines were added, allowing the rock to travel through out the warp as the Chapter continued on its secret mission across the galaxy.
Beneath the shattered ruins of the order’s great fortress monastery, the Rock hides many dark secrets. The further anyone gets inside it, the closer they come to the truth. At the very hart of the gargantuan Rock, is the deepest, darkest and dankest dungeon. There, kept alive for ten thousand years inside a stasis field, languishes the broken man that was once Luther.
Because of his link o the warp, during rear moments of lucidity, the Dark Angels are able to use Luther as an oracle. Each Supreme Master in his turn has tried to get the arch-heretic to repent but none has ever been able to get through to him: Luther just continues to rant and rave saying that he does not need to repent because one day Lion El’Jonson will return and forgive him.
The Rock itself dose not stay in any one place for very long, at most only a few generations. As a result the Dark Angels do not recruit from any one planet. It’s for this reason the order needs strict levels of admission and rigorous tests of loyalty. The masters of the order have to make sure that all who come to the chapter become true Dark Angels. As member of the order come from such mixed variety of backgrounds, the Dark Angels rely on their heritage for their sense of camaraderie. Once a prospective Space Marine has passed through all the appropriate levels, only then can he be considered a true Dark Angel. For then he will be driven by the same shame and secret purpose that has driven all Dark Angels since the death of Caliban: to hunt out every last one of the Fallen and reclaim the honour of the Chapter.
THE CHAPTER TODAY
This story of treachery and betrayal is the Dark Angels secret shame. None know of it other than the Dark Angels, there Successor Chapters and, maybe, the Emperor on his Golden Throne. Even with in the Chapter itself very few Brother-Marines know exactly what happened during those fateful days.
THE FINAL SECRET
The only people who know about the disastrous events that took place on Caliban all those millennia ago are the Emperor and the Dark Angels themselves, The Dark Angels will never reveal the truth to anyone out side of the Chapter, for they could not bear others to know the truth of their terrible shame. And all the while, deep within his cell, Luther, the betrayer, speaks of what is yet to com. Yet even the highest ranking of the dark Angels do not know everything, although they may think they do.
Buried even deeper within the Rock, is the final, greatest secret of the Chapter. Only one person in the entire universe knows the truth – the Emperor himself. For hidden inside a secluded, unreachable chamber at the hart of once what was called the planet Caliban, Lion El’Jonson lies sleeping, waiting with the Watchers in the Dark for the time when he will be needed once again to defend the Imperium against its enemies.
The Dark Angels were the very first Space Marine Legion. They were formed by the Emperor more than 10,000 years ago and where at the forefront of the Great Crusade that reunited the scattered outposts of humanity, and carved out the boundaries of the Imperium which have lasted almost unchanged to this day. They are regarded as the epitome of the dedicated Space Marine warrior: serious-minded, slow to anger, but tenacious and all but unstoppable in their zeal once aroused.
Almost uniquely amongst the Space Marine Chapters, the Dark Angels have no home world. Instead their base of operations is a huge space-borne fortress-monastery known simply as ‘the Rock’. Once an asteroid, the Rock has been mined and converted into a spacecraft of truly gargantuan proportions, dwarfing in size all other space-going vessels apart from the largest space hulks. The Rock travels slowly through the imperium, constantly changing course and heading, now appearing at one point, then vanishing only to reappear at a point hundreds of light years distant. Some say that the Rock cannot be controlled in the same way as other imperial craft and is moving randomly through the warp, while others argue that its course is determined at the whim or fancy of the Supreme Master of the Dark Angels.
The origins of the Dark Angels Legion are shrouded in mystery. There are no records of its beginnings or any mention of its part in the Emperor’s Great Crusade. Any reference in the Imperial histories of its deeds during the accursed times of the Hours Heresy has been deleted. But yet a legend persists that once the Dark Angels teetered on the brink of Chaos, that a terrible betrayal besmirched all of the legions feats of valour and left an enduring stain on the legions honour. Such is their shame that from that time on they have striven for absolution from the sins of millennia past.
The Dark Angels are now considered to be one of the greatest of all the Space Marine Chapters with their Deathwing Company being particularly revered. Only the highest ranking members of the Dark Angels Chapter know the terrible, shameful secret of what happened ten thousand years ago – a secret that drives the Dark Angels to search throughout time and space for the final conflict that will bring them redemption or damnation…
THE PRIMARCHS
To under stand what happened to the Dark Angels we must return to a time more than 10,000 years ago. To a time before there where any Space Marines: to the time when the Emperor created the Primarchs. To help him in his Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy for humanity, the Emperor, in his wisdom, created the genetically-engineered superhuman Primarchs. The mutant genes used as the basic building blocks for these elite warriors had taken centuries to gather and refine, and despite the Emperor’s best efforts of psychic shielding, his industry did not go unnoticed by the Dark Gods of Chaos. Not having the resources to actually destroy the incubator capsules in which the embryonic Primarchs grew, the Chaos Powers combined their energies and instead stole them away from the Emperor, scattering the amniotic tanks and their foetal occupants throughout the warp.
The twenty incubation capsules drifted through the warp for decades or even centuries, until finally coming to rest on human-inhabited worlds throughout the galaxy. The capsule of one Primarch, he who was to become known as Lion El’Jonson, founder of the Dark Angels, was dropped on an isolated planet on the northern fringe of the Eye of Terror – the death world of Caliban.
CALIBAN
Caliban was as cruel and harsh an environment as any in the galaxy. In the bleak forests that covered the globe lived creatures that had been warped by Chaos, and which were of such ferocity that mere day-to-day survival was a constant struggle. The human inhabitants of Caliban were forced to live in huge fortresses and castles, located in clearings hacked from the forests of the planet. Cut off from Earth by the warp storms that had savaged the galaxy in the Age of Strife, civilisation on Caliban devolved back into a semi-feudal stat, with most of the population ruled over by a small warrior elite.
The nobles’ life was one of constant struggle as they fought against the multitude of chaotic creatures that threatened to overrun their small settlements. Sometimes a particularly fearsome creature would stay in one area and terrorise it, in which case the ruler of the community would declare a quest against the monster, and nobles from all around would come to attempt to kill the beast. Slaying a quest-creature could bring honour and fortune for the noble lucky enough to kill it – more often than not though it brought only bloody and horrific death at the teeth and talons of a hell-spawned abomination.
THE YOUNG LION
Such then was the planet where the young Primarch’s capsule crash-landed. Most of the other Primarchs were fortunate enough to be found and raised by the local human inhabitants of the planet they landed on. Such was no to be Jonson’s fate, for his capsule landed in a remote and isolated region of Caliban many miles from the nearest human settlement. How Jonson survived those early years on Caliban is a complete mystery. By rights he should have died within the first few minutes he was exposed on the planet. But Jonson did not die, somehow, as a young child on one of the most deadly death worlds in the Imperium he not only survived, but grew strong and tall. What it was like for him in those grim and dark days no-one can say, for there was no-one there to record the events of his life, and Jonson never spoke of those times himself. All that can be said for certain is that for a decade Jonson was forced to trust to his own wit and skill in order to survive. He had no-one to aid him; he could rely only on himself. And so it was, in this state, that at the turn of the decade since his arrival on the planet, the Primarch encountered his first humans.
THE ORDER
The brave warrior knights he encountered belonged to a group known simply as the Order. The Order had a reputation across all of Caliban for the honesty, nobility and fearless skill of its brother-knights in battle. Uniquely amongst the knights of Caliban, the members, or brothers, of the Order were selected by merit rather than inheritance. Anyone could join the Order, no matter how low-born they might be. Contingents of brother-knights from the Order travelled across the planet, giving their aid wherever it was needed.
It was while on one of there great expeditions that a band from the order came upon the wild man that lived in the forest. Thinking him a monster, the knights were ready to kill the Primarch when one of their number, sensing that there was something more to the creature than was at first apparent, halted his fellows, Luther, for such was the name of the Primarch’s saviour, and the other knights returned to civilisation, taking with them the man born of the forest.
Because of his appearance and the place of his discovery, the Order gave the wild man the name of Lion El’Jonson, which meant ‘The Lion, Son of the forest’. Jonson easily adapted to the ways of humans, learning to speak remarkably quickly. But of his time growing up in the forest he never spoke.
Over the following years Jonson and Luther rose through the ranks of the Order. Their exploits became the stuff of legend on Caliban, and the reputation of the Order rose accordingly. The number of young warriors wishing to join the order grew and grew, so that in time many new fortress monasteries had to be built. As the Order grew in size Jonson and Luther argued for a crusade against the monsters that infested the forests, to cleanse the planet once and for all of their foul presence. The oratory of Luther convinced the Grand Masters of the monasteries and most of the nobles of the planet to join in the crusade, but it was Jonson’s supreme ability at planning and organisation which ensured that within the course of a single decade the entire planet of Caliban was cleared of the monstrous creatures that had once inhabited it. A golden age dawned for the inhabitants of the once troubled planet.
In recognition of his triumph against the creatures of chaos Lion El’Jonson was proclaimed new Supreme Master of the Order and Caliban. Although Luther did not openly begrudge Jonson the great honour he had won, he would have not been human if he did not feel some twinge of jealousy. Thus was lit the first small spark that would lead to the schism which would tear the Dark Angels Legion apart. But all this was in the future – for the present the people of Caliban enjoyed a time of peace and plenty.
THE EMPEROR REACHES CALIBAN
Meanwhile, unbeknown to Jonson and the people of Caliban the Emperor was waging his great crusade across the galaxy, reuniting humanity and purging entire star systems of their alien oppressors. As the Imperium’s wave of conquest advanced across the galaxy, Imperial Scouts rediscovered the isolated world of Caliban.
It was not long before the Emperor was at last reunited with the Primarch and was filled with joy as would a father on finding his lost son. The Emperor’s first action was to give Lion El’Jonson control of the Dark Angels Legion. This body of Space Marines had been created by the Emperor from its Primarch’s gene-stock and had fought alongside the other Imperial forces as the Great Crusade was waged across the galaxy.
Caliban was made the home world of the Dark Angels and the whole of the Order moved to join its ranks. Those knights who were still young enough had the Legion’s gene-seed implanted within them, while those too old for this process underwent surgery to transform them into elite warriors of the Imperium. The first to be brought into the Legion in this way was Luther, who became Jonson’s second-in-command, just as he always had been within the Order.
The Great Crusade of course had to go on: there were countless human worlds that were still under the influence of chaos or suppressed by the harsh rule of alien races. So it was that Jonson and many of the Dark Angels set out with the Emperor to continue the battle for humanity and Luther was left behind in charge of the remainder of the legion on Caliban. Despite the importance of Luther’s position, it was not the one that suited his ambitious personality.
As Jonson’s fame spread throughout the galaxy and reports of his great deeds and prowess in battle reached the Legion’s home world, Luther felt robbed of his share of the glory. He wanted the fame and recognition that he felt he deserved as Jonson’s equal. His role as planetary governor of some half-forgotten backwater world seemed more and more to him like an insult. The seed of jealousy and dissension that had been planted within Luther when Jonson was made the Supreme Master of the order now began to grow and rankle within his heart as the Primarch became more and more celebrated and famous.
THE LION AND THE WOLF
After the Emperor had found his lost sons he set about reuniting the many kingdoms of Men. The Emperor’s Legions raced outward bringing the true faith to those who would listen and death to those who would not. Mighty wars raged: for there were many in those days who doubted the Emperor’s word and turned their faces from his light. Some were honourable men, merely misguided. Some were tyrants and traitors greedy to retain there powers. And some listened to the whispered promises of daemons and raised their war banners against all humanity. The Space Marines fought an endless succession of foes and were undismayed, for they were mighty and their leaders were invincible.
The war was fought not only against renegade men but against Orks and Eldar and other beings too terrible to be named. It was a time when a man could win glory and respect in the sight of the Emperor. It was a time of darkness, of terrible massacres and noble deeds. But it was also a time of hope: for the living Emperor walked among men, and he brought the promise of a stable and peaceful empire and freedom from the tyrants of the dark powers and their servants.
In this savage and noble age the Primarchs walked the worlds like mortal gods. In those days, before the Fall, Horus was the Emperor’s favoured son and the Lord of Humanity had every reason to be proud of him. He led the forces of mankind to victory after victory. Noble he was and proud, respected and trusted by all. For he was the bravest of the brave and the mightiest of the mighty. His words were well-spoken and his opinions always reasoned and fair. His promises were always kept and his threats always enacted. He had never been beaten in battle.
Hours was always first among the Primarchs but there were others of near equal renown: Jaghatai Khan of the White Scars, cunning master of the lightning raid. Eagle-winged Sanguinius of the Blood Angels: with a keen eye and pure heart. Leman Russ of the Space Wolves: impetuous, fierce and bold. And of course there was taciturn Lion El’Jonson, whose silence concealed a deep wisdom. The Primarchs were a band of brothers, and as with all brothers there was a certain rivalry, as they vied for the glory and the attention of the Emperor. And as with many brothers there were bonds of kinship but there was also animosity. Sometimes feuds sprung up. The most famous and enduring of these was the one between Russ and Jonson.
It is said that the two men disliked each other on sight, when they first met in the great marble chamber in the Emperor’s Hall on Old Earth. Russ thought Jonson too aloof and disdainful, Jonson believed Russ to be boastful and coarse. It is said that the two barely exchanged a word in the whole time they where on Terra, but then Jonson rarely spoke and only Russ took this personally.
If Jonson was quiet he was also brave and a mighty leader of men. During the great Crusade only he and Horus achieved a greater tally of victories than Russ. Russ, ever concerned with his honour and good name, and ever keen to tell the noble saga of his deeds, found this exasperating. Matters came to a head on the world of Dulan when the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves were set to assault the Crimson Fortress of the tyrant Durath. Durath had personally insulted the Emperor and had ritually sacrificed ten thousand believers to his patron daemon in order to assure his victory. Both Primarchs were keen to claim his head.
Russ, ever headstrong, felt that he should lead the assault. Durath had claimed that Russ was the Emperor’s puppy and that he would feed Russ’s heart to his pet grox. The Lord of Fenris was enraged and determined to wipe the out this stain on his honour. He swore a mighty oath that he would personally slay Durath and cut out his heart. So angry was he that he ordered Jonson to stand down and let the Space Wolves attack the Crimson Fortress headlong. Jonson, who had spent days laying planes for his assault, and who had personally scouted out all its weak points, ignored this command and began the assault. The Dark Angels stormed the mighty citadel and Jonson killed Durath in single combat, on the keep’s walls. Russ, caught in the swirling melee at the foot of the battlements, could only look on and howl with frustrated rage.
So great was his anger that when the battle was over and Jonson sat in triumph within Durath’s hall, Russ walked up and struck the Dark Angel. Jonson rose to his feet and stuck back. A space was cleared in the great hall and the two Primarchs wrestled back and forth while there assembled men watched and shouted encouragement. For a day and a night they fought back and forth, each perfectly matched in superhuman strength and speed. Russ was slightly stronger but Jonson was slightly quicker and so the two were well balanced.
Both had been schooled in hand-to-hand by the Emperor and by Warmaster Horus. Each knew every trick and feint. The fight rolled on out of the Hall and across the battlements. After a full day passed they eyed each other wearily over the shattered ruins of Durath’s Fortress. Russ, quick to rage but quicker to mirth, saw the funny side of what had happened and began to laugh. As far as he was concerned the fight was over: both men had taken each other’s measure, and honour was satisfied.
Jonson was not amused; he was slow to anger and slower to forgive and Russ’s first blow he saw as treacherous. As Russ laughed Jonson walked up and struck him unconscious. The prone form of Russ was carried from the fortress by his men while the Dark Angels looked on and jeered. Now Jonson considered honour satisfied.
When Russ awoke the Dark Angels were gone, summoned by the Emperor to take part in the Alisore campaign. Russ swore that he would have vengeance on Jonson for his low blow. Thus began a feud that was to last for centuries. To this day when Space Wolves meet Dark Angels one of their number is called upon to re-enact this ancient duel with one of Jonson’s sons, in order that the honour of both chapters may be satisfied.
THE FALL OF CALIBAN
Then came the terrible days of the Horus Heresy. As the Emperor fought Warmaster Horus for the possession of the Erath, Lion El Jonson was far away fighting for humanity alongside Leman Russ. Hearing of the potentially disastrous proceedings taking place around Earth, the two generals hurried back as quickly as they could. Coming into Earth’s orbit they realized they had arrived too late. Events had already taken their terrible course and the cataclysmic final battle was over. The forces of Chaos had been defeated, but they had left the Imperium in ruins. And for Jonson one final, shattering betrayal remained to be discovered on his return to his home world of Caliban.
It had been many long years since Jonson had been to Caliban, and he longed to see his home world once more. As the unsuspecting ships of Jonson’s fleet moved into orbit they were met by a devastating barrage of defence laser fire. Ships exploded into flame and crashed to the surface like monstrous comets. Stunned by the attack Jonson withdrew and attempted to find out what had happened.
A captured merchant ship soon provided the answer: Luther had used this skills at oratory to lead the Dark Angels under his command to the path of chaos, instilling his own feelings of jealousy and rage in the Dark Angels who had been left on Caliban during the Great Crusade. Luther had convinced them that they had been shamed, that the Emperor had turned his face from them.
While Jonson and those Space Marines who had gone with him battled for humanity light years away, Luther’s feelings of anger and jealousy had grown within him like a corrupting canker until they were his only purpose and driving motivation. Luther was now a man obsessed, whose own neuroses had pushed him over the edge and made him dangerous beyond imagining.
The fury of Jonson and the Loyal Dark Angels at learning this horrible information knew no bounds. They had fought from one end of the galaxy to the other and thought that the curse of chaos had been cleansed from the planets of the imperium, and now they found that there own home world, and there own brethren, had been corrupted and turned against them. Jonson Immediately ordered an assault on the planet. The massed guns of the fleet easily disabled Caliban’s defence laser batteries and then scoured the planet, driving the rebel Dark Angels back to their Fortress monasteries.
Knowing that one surgical strike was all that was needed to end the conflict Lion El’Jonson le an assault on the greatest of the monasteries him self. He knew that this is here he would find Luther: and so it was there the two former friends, now mortal enemies, faced each other. Even though the Primarch possessed superhuman powers, the two opponents were equally matched, for Luther’s own, already considerable abilities, had been enhanced by the dark gods of Chaos.
What followed was a fight of titanic proportions during which the two equally-matched adversaries laid blow for blow against each other, tearing down the monastery around them until the whole massive edifice had been levelled
By there battle. Meanwhile the masses guns of the fleet carried on pounding the planet, reducing the other fortress monasteries to rubble. The very surface of Caliban began to crack and heave under the strain of the Bombardment.
As the planet itself started to break apart, the battle between Jonson and Luther reached its climax. Luther weakened by the long combat, staggered and fell, leaving himself open to a death blow from Jonson’s power sword. But Jonson could not bring himself to strike the fatal blow. As he hesitated, Luther, aided by the powers of Chaos, unleashed a furious psychic attack that knocked Jonson to his knees and left him mortally wounded. But as the dying Primarch Struggled to stand, his noble features wracked with pain, it was as if a curtain was lifted fro Luther’s eyes and he realised the full extent of what he had done. His was a triple betrayal: of his friend, of the Dark Angels, and of the Emperor. The truth shattered his sanity and he slumped down beside Jonson, no longer willing to fight.
Luther’s psychic cry of pain and despair echoed through the warp and the Chaos gods realised that, once again, they had been defeated. They lashed out in fury and frustration. A rent appeared in the very fabric of space and a warp storm of unprecedented fury engulfed Caliban. In an uncontrollable, swirling flood of psychic energy the warp rushed in to the physical universe. Those ‘fallen’ Dark Angels who had served under Luther and his clandestine masters were sucked from the face of Caliban in to the warp and scattered throughout space and time. Caliban, already weakened by the loyal Dark Angels bombardment, was ripped apart and destroyed, the debris being sucked into the warp.
The only part of the planet that survived the storm was the huge fortress monastery where Jonson and Luther had fought. Protected by force fields of awesome power, the monastery and a huge chunk of bed-rock of Caliban held together. When the storm abated this was all that was left of the once magnificent home world of the Dark Angels.
The dark Angels flew down to the surface of the rock and gazed about them in horror at all that remained of their once beautiful home world. The great fortress had been razed to the ground and all the living things that that once teemed across the face of Caliban only one remained. At the hart of the ruined wasteland the Space Marines found Luther. The warriors were unable to get anything coherent out of the shell of a man who had once been Jonson closest friend. And second-in-command. Luther just constantly repeated the same words over and over again: the Primarch had been carried away by the Watchers in the Dark and one day he would return to forgive Luther for the terrible sins he had committed. Of the mighty Primarch, Lion El’Jonson, there was no sign.
THE ROCK
Following the destruction of Caliban, the Dark Angels made the rock there new home, drilling out a huge network of rooms and halls in the bedrock under their ruined fortress monastery. In time engines were added, allowing the rock to travel through out the warp as the Chapter continued on its secret mission across the galaxy.
Beneath the shattered ruins of the order’s great fortress monastery, the Rock hides many dark secrets. The further anyone gets inside it, the closer they come to the truth. At the very hart of the gargantuan Rock, is the deepest, darkest and dankest dungeon. There, kept alive for ten thousand years inside a stasis field, languishes the broken man that was once Luther.
Because of his link o the warp, during rear moments of lucidity, the Dark Angels are able to use Luther as an oracle. Each Supreme Master in his turn has tried to get the arch-heretic to repent but none has ever been able to get through to him: Luther just continues to rant and rave saying that he does not need to repent because one day Lion El’Jonson will return and forgive him.
The Rock itself dose not stay in any one place for very long, at most only a few generations. As a result the Dark Angels do not recruit from any one planet. It’s for this reason the order needs strict levels of admission and rigorous tests of loyalty. The masters of the order have to make sure that all who come to the chapter become true Dark Angels. As member of the order come from such mixed variety of backgrounds, the Dark Angels rely on their heritage for their sense of camaraderie. Once a prospective Space Marine has passed through all the appropriate levels, only then can he be considered a true Dark Angel. For then he will be driven by the same shame and secret purpose that has driven all Dark Angels since the death of Caliban: to hunt out every last one of the Fallen and reclaim the honour of the Chapter.
THE CHAPTER TODAY
This story of treachery and betrayal is the Dark Angels secret shame. None know of it other than the Dark Angels, there Successor Chapters and, maybe, the Emperor on his Golden Throne. Even with in the Chapter itself very few Brother-Marines know exactly what happened during those fateful days.
THE FINAL SECRET
The only people who know about the disastrous events that took place on Caliban all those millennia ago are the Emperor and the Dark Angels themselves, The Dark Angels will never reveal the truth to anyone out side of the Chapter, for they could not bear others to know the truth of their terrible shame. And all the while, deep within his cell, Luther, the betrayer, speaks of what is yet to com. Yet even the highest ranking of the dark Angels do not know everything, although they may think they do.
Buried even deeper within the Rock, is the final, greatest secret of the Chapter. Only one person in the entire universe knows the truth – the Emperor himself. For hidden inside a secluded, unreachable chamber at the hart of once what was called the planet Caliban, Lion El’Jonson lies sleeping, waiting with the Watchers in the Dark for the time when he will be needed once again to defend the Imperium against its enemies.