Index Malleus: Barret's Privateers

[Barret]

Index Malleus: Barret's Privateers

Oh, I was told we'd sail the warp for Imperial gold,

We'd fire our guns, shed their blood!
Now I'm a broken man in an Inquisitor's cell,
The last of Barret's Privateers...
--Excerpt from "Privateer's Lament", suppressed 999.M41 by Inquisitorial Edict

Origins

The personal flag of Elcid Barret

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/ElcidBarret/Renegades/BP_Flag.jpg

T

here are some men who should never be granted the ascendancy from mere human to Space Marine, for even the Emperor's Finest are prey to the follies of men: pride, arrogance, hubris, fear, hate, ambition. Elcid Barret was one such a man, taken from his home as a boy and destined, hundreds of years later, to inflict all the fear and woe upon the Imperium that had rejected him that only a renegade Astartes can. Little is known about his early life; even what Chapter he was recruited into is suspiciously absent from what material does exist. Why this is is a subject of some debate amongst those tasked with knowing his history. Some say he is the last survivor of an extinct Chapter, their very existence erased to hide the shame of the loss. Others take the more practical view that his origins are a jealously guarded secret; after all, whoever created him a Space Marine must answer to how an individual so obviously unsuited to the role was selected as a Neophyte.

What is known about the origins of Elcid Barret, Captain of the dread ship Morrigan's Revenge and Reaver of the Eastern Marches, was that he was a hero of some renown before his fall. He had achieved the rank of Captain in his Chapter and was admired as a charismatic and skilled warrior, though one prone to bravado and deeds of insane risk. His men followed him with fanatical devotion, for they always heaped themselves with glory following him though many of them fell in the process. It was barely a secret that he coveted the position of Chapter Master for himself, and this loft position was continually denied him. Between this apparent apogee of his career as a loyal servant of the Emperor and the infamous actions on Outport Station VI there is little record, but it can be assumed that he eventually went too far and was banished from his Chapter, or escaped death at the hands of his fellows or, perhaps, he was the only survivor of a horrible catastrophe. Whatever the reason, seven years after the conclusion of the Badab War, Elcid Barret and the so-called "Barret's Privateers" were to arrive in the Eastern Fringes and begin a reign of terror and blood that has lasted almost a century.

In 919.M41, seven years after the final defeat of the Astral Claws and Lufgt Huron's assumption of the moniker "Blackheart", the Imperial Navy ship "Morrigan's Revenge", an aging Dauntless Class Light Cruiser assigned to the Eastern Fringes, put in for repair and resupply at the backwater Outport Station VI. It had been there three days before a boisterous crew, nigh-uncontrollable after years away from port, turned from revelry to outright riots and, after the first few executions, mutiny. Most of the officer cadre were quickly murdered before the Captain opened the armouries, armed those who remained loyal and turned the mutiny into a slaughter. Meanwhile, the mutineers came under the command of the rebellious Lieutenant Hornigold and seized many of the ship's critical systems. The fighting dragged into a stalemate for several days, the better-armed loyalists unable to overcome the entrenched and numerous mutineers. It was then that Elcid Barret arrived on the station by means unknown and threw in with the mutiny. The Captain and his crewmen, armed only with shotcannons and other boarding weapons, could not resist the fury of even a single Astartes leading a horde of enraged ratings, and Barret cut out the Captain's heart personally, baptizing his new ship in blood. Barret declared himself master of the ship and Lieutenant Hornigold the new captain. The mutineers' loyalty was quickly won with the promises of plunder and freedom from the Navy's oppressive discipline. The Morrigan's Revenge disappeared into the warp, and when the Navy finally responded to the distress call a week later they found Outport Station VI a cloud of dust.

After the destruction of Outport Station VI, the Morrigan's Revenge and her crew were not seen for several months, and the Navy officers tasked with recovering or destroying the ship began to conclude that the renegades had torn themselves apart in a power struggle, as was not uncommon with mutinous crews. However, their hopes were dashed when a ship matching the description of the Morrigan's Revenge began attacking and pillaging private shipping in the Eastern Marches. At first Barret and his crew were able to use their appearance of a Navy ship to sidle up to their unsuspecting victims before boarding, but the regional Lord Admiral was quick to ensure all captains in the area were aware of the threat, and Barret turned to ambushing ships at regulation warp entry points and amongst the many nebulae and asteroid fields that dot that area of space. The threat was largely ignored at first as the Morrigan's Revenge only attacked private convoys and retreated in the face of Naval escorts. However, two incidents brought the seemingly small threat under the full wrath of the sector fleet.

In 935.M41, the Morrigan's Revenge attacked and destroyed the Asperios, a private cargo ship belonging to a Rogue Trader named Issac Donnell. The ship's entire cargo, a shipment of arms and equipment destined for a minor warzone in the sector, was stolen and reappeared soon after in the hands of a dissident Chaos cult, and the Rogue Trader himself was murdered and left aboard the burnt-out hulk of his ship in several gory pieces. Following that, in 939.M41, the prominent Essenmar merchant family began reporting losses to a pirate ship matching the description of the Morrigan's Revenge, which culminated in the capture of the family's flagship, the Bullhowser, its entire cargo of 800 colonists and half a cubic kilometer of colony supplies. The youngest scion of the family was commanding the ship and his body, like Donnell's, was horribly defiled. With this financial and political disaster, the Essenmars applied their formidable influence on the sector Imperial authorities to hunt down and destroy Barret and his pirates. A Navy squadron of three cruisers, tasked with the destruction of the Morrigan's Revenge, tracked the ship to an asteroid field and engaged, confident of victory through well-disciplined crews and superior firepower. Barret, however, had fought on hundreds of battlefields for centuries, and laid a cunning trap. He lured the squadron into the dangerously dense asteroid field, where mines and explosives demolished whole asteroids and crushed two of the Navy ships in a hellstorm of debris. The lead ship, the Imperial Anne, managed to escape with only minor damage when the captain powered his ship forwards on all engines, a risky, but successful, gambit in a dense field of floating rocks. The Morrigan's Revenge, expecting her foes to be all destroyed, was caught off guard by the first salvo and sustained damage to her prow. However, the powerful torpedo batteries and thick frontal armour of a Dauntless-class Cruiser are not to be underestimated, and they punished the Imperial Anne, knocking out her forward and topside shields in a single salvo. Before the reeling Navy ship could react, the Morrigan's Revenge pushed forward and launched a wave of boarding torpedoes from her flank torpedo tubes. The initial fight was a brutal affair fought between the screaming reavers and the Imperial Anne's well-drilled security troopers. However, a second wave of boarding craft, forcing entry through the ship's hanger decks and led by Barret in person, quickly turned the stalemate into a massacre. The battle was lost from the moment the renegade Astartes set foot on the Imperial Anne, but the crew held out gallantly for a further twelve hours before Barret forced entry to the bridge and slaughtered the command staff.

The Pillage of Mining Post INE-391-Beta

The capture and looting of the isolated mining station designated INE-391-Beta is remarkable in the history of the actions of Elcid Barret for a number of reasons, especially the skill and tactical precision with which it was executed, as well as its completely bloodless resolution.

The world of Hermius I is a small, blasted orb in close orbit of its star. Geologically unstable and with no axial rotation, Hermius I hides a vast wealth of precious stones and metals in its crust. To mine these ores, however, is a dangerous and costly process, as the worlds proximity to a star has left one half of the planet a blasted and burning hell, and the other in eternal night and wipped by raging windstorms. The principal mining station is located on the nightside, nestled among a collection of mostly dormant volcanoes as a shield against the heat, radiation and storms. The station is guarded by several listening posts and defended emplacements on the peaks of these volcanoes which combine with the natural hazards to make any attack on such a tempting target a daunting prospect. Nonetheless, Barret tried and succeeded in plundering the mines' riches in a most spectacular fashion.
Utilizing the radiation of the star and the planets' bulk as a shield, he brought the Morrigan's Revenge into dangerously low orbit on the dayside before approaching the mine. When the mighty ship suddenly appeared overhead and threatened destruction, the station had little choice but to surrender. Barret and his crew spent two days filling the hold of the Morrigan's Revenge with precious metals and gems. During this time, the logs and journals of the station workers report being held under close guard, but not mistreated or harmed. After the Morrigan's Revenge left and Imperial forces responded to the station's belated distress calls, the foremen and overseer were executed for allowing their payload to be stolen, and a program set in place to vastly improve the installation's defense.
One observer dryly called the whole event an overwhelming victory for the pirates, as they not only made off with a hugely valuable cargo which would otherwise have enriched a sector governor, but they also forced the Imperium to expand more time and resources into the mine than the planet would yield in decades of mining.

Suddenly, Barret found himself in control of two powerful ships. He was not seen again for several years, presumably while repairing and refitting the Imperial Anne and expanding his vile crew to fill both ships. When he did strike back, in 941.M41, it was a with a viciousness previously unseen from him. He expanded his targets from fat merchantmen to Navy installations and patrols, wreaking havoc across the north-eastern Imperium. He even sacked three major colonies in the subsequent thirty years, overrunning their defenses and pillaging everything remotely valuable. He did not go unopposed, of course, and was repeatedly engaged by the Imperial Navy. Although the Imperial Anne and the Morrigan's Revenge were damaged several times, he always managed to slip away to wherever he was based. Historians of the time have speculated that he was working with the Red Corsairs, as their goals were apparently in alignment, but this is not commonly accepted, as Barret was showed no signs of devotion to Chaos or the fell powers of the warp, and operated far from the Maelstrom. It was also pointed out that Barret's temperament and ambitions would not likely be conducive to bending his knee to Huron Blackheart.

Finally, as the closing decade of M41 began, Barret and his cruel fleet apparently vanished from the galactic east. It is now known that he had caught wind of the coming Black Crusade and had set course for Segmentum Obscuras to take advantage of the chaos that would soon be reigning there, but Imperial analysts concluded at the time that he had been lost to the warp, some Xenos aggressor, or simply to a mutiny within his lawless crew.

Barret and his scabrous mutineers joined the conflict around Abaddon's Thirteenth Black Crusade early in the fighting, intending to take advantage of the chaos and a distracted navy to plunder and pillage the supplies and shipping heading towards the Cadian Gate. This was a grave mistake on the part of the pirates, as the Imperial warmachine, already struggling against the scrofulous tides of the damned, was not prepared to suffer the predations of Barret on their desperately needed supplies. After the Morrigan's Revenge and the Imperial Anne struck but twice a Naval squadron was tasked with their destruction, led by newly minted Captain Maynard of the Lyme and accompanied by the line cruisers Ranger and Pearl. Maynard's small fleet first engaged the pirates over the ruins of a supply convoy, striking while the renegades were glutted with plunder and slaughter. The Morrigan's Revenge and Imperial Anne returned desultory fire at the superior force before fleeing to the galactic north, around the perimeter of the Eye of Terror. Maynard pursued hard, determined not to lose his quarry into the violent warp storms.

After several days of searching, Maynard found Barret lurking in St Francis' Reach, a small inlet of stable space into the fury of the Eye. He blockaded the entrance to the Reach, but was unwilling to enter and face down the waiting guns of both renegade ships with no room to maneuver. As he pondered what to do, an Astartes Strike Cruiser, the Servant of Guilliman, approached, identifying itself as part of the Praetors of Orpheus Chapter and carrying a contingent of their First Company, commanded by Venerable Brother Giurescu, long entombed within a dreadnought sarcophagus. Giurescu, after being told of the situation by Maynard, agreed to lead the attack. The Imperial Anne and the Morrigan's Revenge were caught in their own trap. Without any room to manuever or escape, they were helpless before the full fury of a Strike Cruiser and the wrath of the Praetors. The Imperial Anne was completely disabled by a full salvo from the Servant, and the crew later surrendered to Maynard and were handed over to the Inquisition. The Morrigan's Revenge unleashed all her guns on the Strike Cruiser, and managed to batter down their dorsal shields. Taking advantage of the momentarily stunned Servant, the Morrigan's Revenge attempted a dash for open space, but was stymied by Maynard and his fleet. Caught between the Servant of Guilliman and the hard line of the Navy ships, the Morrigan's Revenge was quickly boarded by the Praetors. Giurescu himself ramapaged through the lower decks, crushing renegades and mutineers beneath his armoured body. Hornigold attempted a last ditch defense of the engine room, but died in the attempt. Barret counterattacked against the Praetors and killed several, but his bitterness and fury were no match for the cold hate of the loyal Marines, and he was carried away by his desperate crew. Giurescu turned his guns on the warp engine, and the Praetors of Orpheus made a swift retreat back to the waiting Thunderhawks. The Morrigan's Revenge, burning badly and with an unstable warp core, was sucked into the Eye and disappeared.

Barret's defeat and assumed death were celebrated, briefly, as a small victory in the overwhelming darkness of Abaddon's onslaught, but the end of so minor a threat was largely overlooked. Unfortunately for the Imperium, Barret would prove not so easy to kill.

After the events at Medusa V, reports began to filter in about apparently random attacks on isolated Imperial settlements and installations along the Eastern Marches in the galactic north-east. At first, they were assumed to be more of the usual raiding behaviour typical of the heretics, xenos and renegades that inhabit that dangerous frontier. It was only after a few Inquisitors began collating those reports that a pattern emerged, and it was concluded that a single force was responsible for all the attacks. An Inquisitorial task force was dispatched, under the purview of Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Arameus, to investigate and, if possible, halt these vicious raids.

Arameus followed the trail of destruction, appalled at the carnage left behind; great mounds of corpses, many impaled on great spikes or with their viscera pulled out and in greasy piles. However, he began to notice that these were more than simple mass murders. Everywhere this mysterious villain struck, the supplies needed to fuel a war machine were taken, and he concluded that the horrific slaughter left behind was a secondary mission at worst, an attempt at misdirection at best. Whatever the reasons, Arameus concluded that whoever was behind these attacks was a bitter enemy of the Imperium and a taint that had to be expunged. Calculating the next likely target for the reaver, Arameus laid a trap.

Inquisitor Arameus, 003.M42

No threat is too small, no heretic too minor, no wound too trivial, no infection too limited to be ignored, for it is by the thousand cuts that the Imperium of Man shall be bled dry.

Details of what followed are sketchy at best, as Arameus and all his forces were lost. From surviving logs and pict-recordings, Arameus' trap was sprung by a heavily modified Dauntless-class Cruiser, that was later to be identified as the Morrigan's Revenge, and his ships were boarded by a strong force of renegade Astartes, some bearing the livery of the heretical Red Corsairs. From the burnt and gutted corpse of Arameus' personal combat-servitor were extracted the most disturbing records: Elcid Barret, returned from the dead and now apparently having assumed the full mantle of a Lord of the Red Corsairs. The Ordo Hereticus concluded that after the Battle of St Francis' Reach, Barret and the Morrigan's Revenge were able to limp to the Maelstrom and strike a pact with Huron Blackheart, trading support and troops for tribute and cooperation with the Tyrant's twisted goals.

The despair and rage that must have driven Barret, who previously spurned bending his knee to anyone, to submit to the will of Blackheart can only be imagined, and are likely the cause for the vicious slaughter he has been inflicting across the Eastern Marches since his return. Where before plunder and glory were his goals, now he lives to inflict pain and death upon the Imperium that rejected him and seeks his death. That he now holds command over a score or more renegade Astartes of the Red Corsairs has made him all the more of a threat, one the Ordo Hereticus seeks to end, and quickly.

The Morrigan's Revenge and The Maelstrom

S

ince the Battle of St Francis' Reach and the heavy damage inflicted upon by the Praetors of Orpheus, the Morrigan's Revenge has undergone significant renovation, turning it into a vicious tool of piracy. The dorsal lance weaponry and prow torpedo tubes remain, but the flank batteries have been entirely replaced by launching bays for boarding torpedoes and a horde of ship-to-ship transports. Much of the internal space has been replaced by expanded engines and shield systems, enabling the Morrigan's Revenge to withstand significant fire while she closes for the kill and to escape with alacrity that few ships can match. In short, she has become an ideal platform for her captain's bloody pirating.

Little is known of what lies within the Maelstorm, save that it is home to several pirate and Ork empires, including the domain of the Red Corsairs. It is assumed that Barret and the Morrigan's Revenge make use of facilities held by the Corsairs within the vast warp storm, but seem to spend as little time there as possible. Doubtless Barret has little want to be reminded of the fact that he is now someone else's minion, a fact that must chafe against his endless ambition.

Organization

G

iven his command over more than a few Red Corsairs, including several of the original Astral Claws, and his relatively free reign over his activities and targets, it is assumed that Barret has no small standing within the Red Corsairs. This position and rank he likely gained by bringing Huron a powerful, well-crewed ship and centuries of experience, as well as promises of plunder and damage to the Imperium. This is not to say, however, that he is exactly a trusted servant. Huron is doubtless aware of Barret's ambitions, and so the commander of the Astral Claws assigned to Barret, a hardened marauder named Rades, is there to watch over Barret and to ensure the piratical renegade heeds Huron's decrees as much as he is to act as Barret's second. This had led to no small amount of friction between the two Astartes.

Last words of Casnewydd Bach, at Inquisitorial Trial

In the Emperor's service there is low wages, hard labour and cruel tyrants. On the Morrigan's Revenge there is pleasure and ease, liberty, wealth and power. Who can blame us, as for all we hazard, the worst we face is your swift retribution. No, a glorious life and a short one shall be my epitaph. Burn me or shoot me, I regret only the time I lived under your yoke.

From the interrogation of the captured Imperial Anne crewmen and a few taken in Barret's later raids, a great deal has been gleaned about Barret's practices aboard ship, both before and after his defeat at the edge of the Eye of Terror. Before St Francis' Reach, Barret appeared to run a surprisingly egalitarian ship. Officers, other than himself and Captain Hornigold, were frequently elected by the men, and all were due an equal share of any plunder, with compensation being given to those were maimed or badly injured. Indeed, compared to the often tyrannical discipline of the Imperial Navy, and the fact that a greater shipboard population meant less work for all, serving aboard the Morrigan's Revenge would have seemed a powerful lure to many and is doubtless the reason Barret was able to attract so many to his crew. However, after his defeat and subsequent alliance with the Red Corsairs, it became a very different story. Like many of the most bitter foes of the Imperium, Barret has become a veritable tyrant on his ship. Brutal discipline, summary executions and a much less pleasant quality of life rules the Morrigan's Revenge. Despite this, it is no secret that crewing the Morrigan's Revenge and ships of her ilk can be a fast route to wealth and glory, for her holds are always full of ill-gotten plunder. What concerns Imperial analysts, though, is the nature of Barret's targets. Where before he sought mostly common plunder, he now seems bent on capturing more martial material. Inevitably some of this is paid to Huron as tribute and swells Blackheart's armies, but Barret appears to be hoarding much of it himself, possibly in an unknown stronghold. It can only be concluded that he is preparing to attempt to build an empire of his own.

Because the majority of the forces at Barret's command are comprised of human renegades and corsairs with a small minority of rebel Astartes, the Marines are typically divided up and each command an assault group of human pirates. A Marine will usually command enough pirates to fill anywhere from a wave of boarding torpedoes to a whole wing of assault craft. Thus, these formations of Marines and humans are referred to within the crew as "storm brigades" or just "storms". Similarly to how loyalist Astartes mark squads for easy identification in the heat of battle, each commanding Astartes has his own personal flag or emblem that is displayed proudly in battle so that the corsairs can more easily rally around and follow their commander. These flags almost invariably displays images of death, favoured weaponry or motifs signifying a lack of time or mercy offered to those under attack. When Barret and his fellow renegade Marines do take to the field as a strictly Astartes force, these massed banners are both impressive and fearsome to behold.

Beliefs

A

s is common amongst renegades across the galaxy and in the Red Corsairs specifically, there are widely varying levels of devotion to the Chaos Gods. Many are simply opportunistic rebels, seeking to carve themselves some temporal wealth from the Imperium, while others are outcasts seeking vengeance against those who rejected them, and still others see themselves as servants of the Fell Powers doing their unholy work. Barret himself has shown no sign of devotion to Chaos, and, judging by the testimony of captured pirates, rejects that worship as being no better than devotion to the Imperial Creed. Instead, bitterness and spite have combined with his endless ambitions of power to drive him as much as the most frenzied zealot.

Regardless of this, Barret and his crew seem to take great delight in terrifying and demoralizing their prey with horrifying blasphemies and refutations of the Emperor, screaming them in battle and blanketing the vox channels with them as they strike. One particularly loathsome pirate captured during the defense of an Imperial listening post had every inch of his flesh tattooed with crude renderings of the Emperor and all the Saints in lascivious and vile congress with daemons and the Chaos Gods themselves.

Combat Doctrine

A

fter nearly a century of attacks, the Imperial Navy and Inquisition have become familiar with the typical tactics of the Morrigan's Revenge and her vicious crew. Given the chance, the Morrigan's Revenge will attack from ambush, seeking to surprise and disable her prey before they know what is happening. Usual targets for the traitors' guns are engines and shield generators to leave her luckless target immmobile and defenseless. If ambush or a stealthy approach is not possible, as when attacking a ship at a re-entry point or a fixed installation, Barret tends to attempt to simply bluff it out, broadcasting as a Navy ship and boldly approaching. This gambit is aided by his refusal to decorate the Morrigan's Revenge with the blasphemous sigils and runes common to other renegade ships, but authorities in his usual hunting grounds have gone to great pains to disseminate his ship's profile and non-standard configuration in an attempt to prevent this bluff from working. If all else fails, Barret simply relies on speed and resilience to close with his prey before they can escape or mount a suitable response.

In any case, once the Morrigan's Revenge has sidled up close to the chosen target, torpedoes and prow batteries are used to batter down enemy shields, followed by a massed launch of boarding torpedoes and assault craft, carrying hundreds of vicious corsairs, renegade Marines and, in the forefront of every attack, Elcid Barret himself. Once the pirates are aboard a ship, it is only the most well-trained, determined and heavily armed crew that can stymie their assault. Resistance to the pirates is, especially in the case of Navy ships, frequently hampered by spontaneous mutinies by oppressed crewmen eager to take part in the relative freedom of a pirate under Barret's command, short and brutal as such a life usually is. Where once Barret sometimes allowed particularly gallant or surrendering crews to live, now he leaves every ship and every base a gore-slicked abattoir, monuments to hate and slaughter to horrify those who come after. He has perfected a number of particularly savage methods of execution he reserves for Captains and other senior officers, one of them involving a man's ribcage, a large cargo hook and a heavy object.

No longer do Barret and his renegades content themselves with capturing and looting ships. He has attacked and razed several Imperial installations, typically isolated listening posts or resupply depots, but a handful of colonies and settlements have felt his wrath, too. Because of their predilection for preying on those weaker than themselves, some have accused the crew of the Morrigan's Revenge of being cowards and little more than bullies. This is not entirely a fair conclusion, as has been shown in the surviving records of their attacks on fixed defenses. Because these attacks are meant to capture supplies and material for further use and not just to wreak destruction, Barret is unable and unwilling to use the power of his ship, or even most conventional armour, to reduce his enemies and must instead rely on the strength and fury of his renegades to overpower often formidable and determined defenses in close actions. Thus, far from being cowards and bullies, every man on the Morrigan's Revenge is a hard-bitten and hard-biting veteran of more conflicts and brutal fights after a few years than many Imperial Guardsmen see in their entire careers.

Gene-Seed

B

arret's gene-seed, like his parent Chapter, are unknown to Imperial authorities. If the Chapter he was in before turning renegade are still extant, they aren't claiming him. Those renegade Astartes under his command are the typical mix of bitter outcasts from a dozen or more Chapters, along with a few veterans of the Astral Claws. Such groupings are never self-sustaining, as they have lost the facilities needed to generate new geneseed and create new Marines. Or, at least, so the Imperium dearly hopes. It is unknown if Huron Blackheart maintains that ability, but surely at least a few of the Chapter's Apothecaries might have survived the flight from the Palace of Thorns. Whether the Astral Claws geneseed, under the influence of Chaos and the warping effects of the Maelstorm, is stable enough to implant into new initiates is another question.

For all of this, a disturbing rumour circulates around Barret's actions. It is whispered that where his subordinate Astartes, or those loyalists they manage to overcome in battle, have fallen, their progenoid glands have been crudely removed and spirited away. If there is any truth to these rumours, it could indicate that either Huron or Barret has secured or is seeking the means to create new Marines, not outcasts and rejects, but fully-fledged heretics born into darkness. That facility in the hands of either of these bitter renegades is a frightening prospect, indeed.

[BlackRaptor93]

Wow, That is one nice peice of fluff!

 

 

Very well thought out and written!

 

(Ever thought of writing a Fanfic? That would be nice!)

 

Thanks,

 

BlackRaptor93

[Barret]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! As might be guessed by the fact that my username and this character are drawn from the same source, this idea is fairly close to my black, pirate-loving heart. :tu:

 

As for fanfic, I had certainly never considered it, and you will most definitely not find a WIP Thousand Swords fanfic if you follow this convenient link to my blog. :shifty: :huh:

[BlackRaptor93]

I did not find that story awesome, and i do not advise you to write more :Shifty:

 

Very good story

 

(You HAVE to write another Fanfic for Barrets Privateers!)

 

Thanks,

 

BlackRaptor93

[Barret]

Glad you enjoyed it. :tu: It's been on hiatus for quite some time, so I need to finish that one before I start another, but I suspect a Privateers fic'll be next.

[mekboy bigdakka]

Looking good Barret. Give Elcid Barret an eyepatch, come on, I dare you. :rolleyes:

 

If this turns out anything like thousands swords and it does look to be going that way, I look forward to it's submission to the Librarium.

 

*begins singing an old sea shanty*

 

Mek

Legio B&C Codicier

[Barret]

That's quite the compliment mekboy. I'm pleased you're liking it so far. As far as taking it to the same level as the Thousand Swords, you do have any ideas or critisms for me? I haven't had a huge amount of feedback on it so far, as I've been writing it largely in secret until now.

 

As for the eyepatch, in my mind, no-one's ever seen Elcid Barret with his helmet off, but it wouldn't be much of stretch to have a big scar in the helmet over one lense. :rolleyes:

[Sigismund Himself]

Very nice, Barret :). Just a few questions/sugguestions.

For the Essenmar merchant family, maybe make the loss a little bigger. For example, say the son of the head of the family was the captain of the ship and was killed/captured/mutilated etc.

 

And a question. You said that he now spares no crews. What happens to those that rise against their officers in favour of him? Are they taken aboard, slaughetred unmercifully afterwards, left to die on their ship with the cruel laughter of Barret ringing in their ears etc. That's all for now :)

[Barret]

Made of bunch of smallish changes and fixes, thanks to feedback from Darrell. Most are wording or grammar fixes, but I also toned down some of the viciousness of pre-Corsairs Barret to make his transition to full-fledged Chaos Marine a little more dramatic.

 

 

As for the mutineers who support his boarding actions, I think implication in my mind was that any survivors would be permitted to join the Antelope's crew, but I can make that a little clear if need be.

[Codex Grey]

He has perfected a number of particularly savage methods of execution he reserves for Captains and other senior officers, one of them involving a man's ribcage, a large cargo hook and a heavy object.

Aahh, the images in my head!

 

Just have to say I really like this. I love the mysterious feel to it, even though I think it's a bit strange how Barret managed to espace the battle at St Francis' Reach. Care to explain? Anyway, that is not important. Congratulations on a excellent fluff piece.

[Roisin]

Great fluff sticks to the original song quite well!

[Grey Hunter Ydalir]

I like it. Finally Pirates that arent so... cliche.... :P

 

You are so obsessed with Pirates Barret...

[Barret]

Codex Grey ~ Ah ha! My imagery worked! Mwa ha ha! ;) Glad you enjoyed the piece. As for how Elcid Barret and the Antelope escaped the St Francis' Reach, well, that's a mystery, and probably involves the horrible things that lurk in the warp and their incomprehensible motivations.

 

Roisin ~ Cheers! I'm pleased to see someone else who knows the source.

 

Grey Hunter Ydalir ~ That's what I was trying to do. And yes. Yes, I am. :P

[Barret]

Pimpified the layout with BBCodes, added a sprinkling of sidebars and quotes, appended a paragraph to Organization detailing the Privateers' use of banners, and added the personal standard of Elcid Barret. I think it's sufficiently creepy. :D

[st.germaine]

Very good stuff, my good man. A fellow fan of the late and very lamented Stan the man? Only had the chance to see him once before he died. I had to smile when the Antelope was mentioned as my suspicions were confirmed.

[Barret]

Very much a fan of Stan the Man, but I tragically never got to see or hear him in person as he died the same year and a week after I was born. I think it's hard to be a truly patriotic Canadian without an appreciation of the Stan. :)

 

As a side note, are you familiar with his song "Canol Road"? I grew up near there, and we used to use the southern half of it until they improved the alternate highway.

[Aurelius Rex]

I have been mulling this on and off for a few days now, and will get back to a more detailed discussion in the future. It is certainly an interesting departure from the usual IA, and certainly deserves the IM title. It did feel like I was missing some backstory in some places, as if it was alluding to a story that I didn't recognise. Was this a transposing of another story? The reference to Stan the man (Stan Rogers I guess from two minutes detective work with google and wikipedia.)?

[Barret]

The basic story here is loosely based on and inspired by the song "Barret's Privateers" by Stan Rogers, a piece of Canadiana that details the short-lived career of fictional privateer Elcid Barret and his crew, based in turn upon the activities of Nova Scotian and British privateers against the Americans during the War of Independence. The song excerpt at the start of the article and in my sig is a paraphrased piece of the chorus.

 

That said, I don't think knowledge of the song is a requirement for this, though I could well be mistaken and would like to be so informed. The life and death of Blackbeard is also a source of inspiration for some of the events, as are a lot of stuff from Caribbean pirating in general.

 

Aurelius, if you do feel that bits of the story are missing that need be told, please let me know and I'll look at fleshing it out more.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Barret

[Aurelius Rex]

It did feel like I was missing some backstory in some places, as if it was alluding to a story that I didn't recognise. Was this a transposing of another story?

Aurelius, if you do feel that bits of the story are missing that need be told, please let me know and I'll look at fleshing it out more.

I don't think that it is a case of bits of the story being missing, more that there were a lot of references to specific engagements in the earlier section that had more detail than seemed warranted, or were obviously relevant to the piece. There seemed to be too many details of the engagements and acts of piracy, and the inclusion of the names and places gave me the impression that you were including them as namechecks to specific real-world historical events. I don't know that much about the history of piracy other than the deeds of captains Sparrow and Pugwash, but from your post above I got the impression that you did transpose real events. Forgive me, but I am not sure how well I can explain it...

 

Overall I think that the article has a very strong core, and the character development from lone wolf to beholden to the Astral claws was a great touch. My biggest concern was the over-long nature of the origins / discussion of specific engagements above. To me it did slow the pace of the piece down considerably, so I wonder if it is possible to compress this section so that the same impression can be given in a much briefer form? As you have shown, sidebars are a very good medium to throw in the specifics of a particularly characterful engagement or battle, so you don't have to lose stuff you really love.

 

I know it is a pretty big thing to ask to severely edit down the origins section, but I think that you could tighten up the piece significantly without destroying the characterful flavour of the piece. Just my opinion.

 

Anyway, I will get back to you with some more feedback tomorrow lunchtime. :)

 

Aurelius.

[Barret]

Thanks, Aurelius. I appreciate the response. There definitely are a few references to historical pirates and acts of piracy (the Battle of St. Francis' Reach is patterned after the defeat and death of Blackbeard, for example), but my hope was that knowledge of these events was not a prerequisite to reading this article. Having said that, one of the reasons I went into so much detail about the various engagements and acts of piracy is that because this is dealing with such a relatively short period of time (less than a century) I was having trouble finding things other than those engagements to go into the Origins section, and the article is a lot shorter than average. Part of that is probably my own fault for wanting to maintain a sense of the enigma, I suppose. Unlike a full-blown Chapter or Legion, the history to date of Elcid Barret and the Antelope have been little more than a string of raids, attacks and battles, which is why it reads as a series of descriptions of battles. I would prefer to flesh out the Origins a little more, as you suggest, and move some of those accounts to sidebars or at least less detailed descriptions, but I'm not sure what would replace them...

[Aurelius Rex]

Admittedly the IM format is different to the IA one to that normally seen here and there are not as many examples to compare, but you have said yourself, this doesn't span many years or go too deeply into the character of the main protagonist as you are keeping him enigmatic.

 

In this particular form, perhaps the article need not be the same length as a chapter IA where you have a long history, a theme and all the other things to cover. The article came out at just under five thousand words, or nine A4 sides, and most IA's are about six thousand words.

 

Of course, if you are happy with what you have written and included then of course keep it, but don't feel obligated to keep writing to a certain length such as an IA size, especially if you can get the message over as well in half the words... I can think of a number of books that I have really enjoyed (Neal Stevenson's Baroque cycle, Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth / Night's Dawn series, even Mary Gentle's excellent Ash) but felt would have benefitted greatly from a good prune from an editor... and how much better would the Harry Potter books be if Joanne Rowling had cut out the interminable pointless tangents about SPEW and such...

 

But that is another subject altogether.

 

Anyway... what I was trying to say (in a tangential and long-winded way!) was that if you establish the character of Barrett and the Antelope early and economically then there will be little need to add more to replace what has been removed.

 

Now, from my reading of the piece the most important things to focus on are establishing his initial 'soft and fluffy' side :D then his rise and eventual fall, and then his reappearance after having to go begging to the Astral Claws and his shift in alignment and attitude. That alone is a solid foundation that can be decorated suitably with tales of his raids and misdeeds.

 

Barrett has a good character development with this, but he does seem shrouded in mystery. I know that this was done to keep him enigmatic, but could he stand just a little more fleshing out? As the piece is all about him I could do with knowing just a bit more, although how to do this I am not sure. :D

 

(I don't have my detailed notes with me at the moment, so I will get back to you with those later, but there are only a few typos / replications.)

 

Aurelius.

[Barret]

I have written, or at least conceptualized, more detailed info on Elcid Barret himself; what he looks like, how he fights, etc. I've just been trying to decide where to put it, as there didn't seem a good spot for it in Origins that wouldn't disrupt the flow.

 

I think the transition from his original character to full-blown Corsair could use more detailing. In my mind, at the beginning of his time with the Antelope he's much more of an adventurer and a leader than the tyrant and renegade he truly becomes. That's why I wrote the sidebar on the bloodless capture of the mining post. What if I were to focus more on his actions against non-Imperial targets at the beginning? Perhaps he almost exclusively preys upon Xenos and other renegades after the capture of the Antelope, but the Imperium takes action against him, which causes him to attack more Imperial targets, which makes the Imperium respond more, thus leading up to his more vicious anti-Imperial attacks.

[Aurelius Rex]

That could work! As I am sure you know, Privateer is effectively a pirate sanctioned to attack the enemy shipping... Wikipedia has a better description. I am not sure how well this would work in the context of the Imperium, but is there a way of making him more of a privateer in the early stages? :blink:

 

I suppose he could initially have been tolerated if the Antelope only attacked Xenos or other enemies of the Imperium, until he moved to attack imperial installations and shipping... Otherwise they could just call themselves Privateers rather than pirates as it gives them the self-delusion of being the good guys - the difference between freedom fighters and terrorists.

[Barret]

Hmm.... I have much to cogitate upon. I'll take a stab at revising this tonight and see what I can do. I think the existing sidebar on the raid of the mining station could probably be chopped down to make room for one or two more short sidebars briefly detailing specific engagements.

[Aurelius Rex]

Hmm.... I have much to cogitate upon. I'll take a stab at revising this tonight and see what I can do.

Aren't you glad you asked me to comment on this. :blink: ;) No, honestly, I hope this has been helpful to get a fresh set of eyes for the piece, and that it opens up new directions that you are happy to take the article. It is certainly not my intention to make you write it in the same way I would write it, or push you away from what you want from the piece. :)