Sable Stars

[Tyrannicide]

As an attempt to actually commence writing on this blasted IA article, I've decided to get some groundwork for the Sable Stars done. As it stands now, I've only started work on the 'origins' section of the article.

 

 

ORIGINS

In response to the rising influence of immorality and corruption within the Imperium’s borders, the High Lords of Terra quickly elected to establish a twenty-sixth Astartes founding. Of the Chapters created, one stands out above the rest. Founded in the closing years of the forty-first millennium, the Sable Stars quickly proved their worth to the Imperium.

 

The Sable Stars gene seed was chosen from none other than that of Rogal Dorn’s finest, the Imperial Fists. A wise, battle-ardent Imperial Fist named Adrastos led the founding cadre of Space Marines into the stars on a campaign to cleanse the Reductus Sector of the Heretic, the Mutant, and the Xeno. Equipped with one battle barge and a mix of other, smaller starships the Chapter hastily set out to begin their oath to protect the Imperium from all manner of enemies. After nearly two decades of crusading and an upstart series of crucial victories, the Chapter awarded their Master the epithet ‘Adrastos the Undaunted’ for his outstanding valor and bravery in battle.

 

Adrastos led the Sable Stars into the Cerberus system after vigilant squads from the Chapter’s tenth, scout company alerted the Chapter of the civil bloodshed raging across the surface of a small planet called Saratoga. Realizing that the conflict endangered the lives of Imperial citizens, Adrastos set forth and the Chapter readied itself for war.

[Reyner]

It sounds promising actually. It would be logical to assume that the survivors are very hard after an ordeal like that; survival of the fittest. I wouldn't say something like the planet has become irradiated as which Chapter would recruit people with radiation poisoning and mutations running rife!

[Tyrannicide]

Thanks Reyner. I had originally envisioned it to occur about a hundred years before the Chapter finds the planet, but I may skip it all together.

[Reyner]

I think you should run with it to be honest. A world that once might have been a hive world is now more like something out of Fallout (or any game/film about post-apocalypse) with all the buildings in ruins and overgrown with descendants of the survivors scraping a living out of it. Lots of gang warfare, stuff like that?

[Tyrannicide]

It's certainly all possible. For some reason the name Reclaimers popped into my head a minute ago. Is it taken? If not are any of you opposed to the sound of it?;) I personally think it would fit the Chapter well. I could also insert another concept of the Chapter reclaiming the galaxy, fending off all attackers but still on a quest for the Imperium.

[Keyoz Devastrius]

I had an idea of a Chapter's homeworld being used as an interplanetary scrapyard. The planet literally serves as a giant garbage dump.

 

I'm not sure how would that work. Transports flying from other planets to dump their wastes there? If those wastes are not toxic or radioactive waste I dont think it would happen (and if they are most imperial planets would not do it anyway).

 

I wouldn't say something like the planet has become irradiated as which Chapter would recruit people with radiation poisoning and mutations running rife!

Blood Angels ;)

 

BTW what happened with the Torch Bearers?

[Commissar Molotov]

I'm not sure how would that work. Transports flying from other planets to dump their wastes there? If those wastes are not toxic or radioactive waste I dont think it would happen (and if they are most imperial planets would not do it anyway).

 

I can see the concept working, actually - planets like Forgeworlds would produce huge amounts of waste - I can see this waste being funnelled somewhere. The concept exists in other science fiction universes. If nothing else, then Darth can have it occur just because he needs it to for his story - the 'rule of cool'.

 

That said, I do find some of the ideas you've presented here to be confused and somewhat contradictory, Darth. Putting your world on the Eastern Fringe, like 90% of DIY Chapters, is silly. You need to have them near a massive forgeworld or the like. The point is not that they're isolated, but that they've overshadowed. Forgotten. The people are waste, too. They've been thrown on the scrapheap - but your Chapter comes along and redeems them.

 

Also, I think that you're trying too hard to make the people perfect paragons of Imperial faith. You're trying to make them perfect. They're not. They live amongst waste, they scavenge for what they can - there's gangs that fight for control - that fight for the resources they need to survive. Your Chapter takes them, breaks them and remoulds them into Marines. Nobody cares about people who are perfect - people who are trying to reach that perfection are far more interesting. :P

[Tyrannicide]

Hey Keyoz, as Molotov stated I've decided to move the homeworld back into the middle parts of the galaxy, they will indeed be located near a forgeworld. And Torchbearers may one day see light, now the focus is on these guys.

 

Mol, I see what you're getting at with the world's populace and I agree perfect humans may not be the best option, plus they need to be somewhat characterful as the Astartes will be slightly bland compared to these scavengers.

[Keyoz Devastrius]

What kind of waste would a Forge World produce that the Adeptus Mechanicus would want to dispose of so badly they transport it to another planet? Space transport is costly, and most AM would probably not mind that their Forge Worlds are polluted – they spend all their time in the workshops and factories anyway. Hive Worlds are usually very polluted and no one seems to bother ,Forge World is the next step in industrialization of a planet- why would AM bother? When you talk about scrapyard the first thing that came to my mind was big amount of metal. While you may say many things about AM they seem to be quite good at recycling metal and mechanical parts so I don't thing much would be transported offworld.

[Telveryon]

What kind of waste would a Forge World produce that the Adeptus Mechanicus would want to dispose of so badly they transport it to another planet? Space transport is costly, and most AM would probably not mind that their Forge Worlds are polluted – they spend all their time in the workshops and factories anyway. Hive Worlds are usually very polluted and no one seems to bother ,Forge World is the next step in industrialization of a planet- why would AM bother? When you talk about scrapyard the first thing that came to my mind was big amount of metal. While you may say many things about AM they seem to be quite good at recycling metal and mechanical parts so I don't thing much would be transported offworld.

 

Actually it make perfect sense. Forge Worlds are described as being planet-wide factories, wasting valuable space with junk would be counterproductive and simply dumping it in space carries the risk of incoming ships colliding with it. Dumping it on nearby planet solves both problems with just minor extra expense, since short trips to nearby systems don't require Navigators. And if the occasional junk ship gets lost in the warp, the Mecanicus would just build anther.

 

Darth Potato, this is a very cool idea! I can't wait for the whole fluff on the chapter!

[Keyoz Devastrius]

Well the problem is that “junk” on a forge world would be mostly metal (plus ceramics) and chemicals. Scrap metal (and probably the ceramics) could be quite easily recycled on the place(melt and reforge- technologies known to every feral world blacksmith, AM wouldn't have problem with that) and used to build weapons/vehicles etc. instead of being transported somewhere to corode. The other form of waste -the chemicals that were used in the production would be more problematic , and could be transported somewhere (thou most Forge Worlds don't do anything with them). The problem with the chemicals is that they could be too toxic and dangerous for the Darths chapters homeworlds population, and promote mutations.

[Hubernator]

This sounds interesting :D If I can shoot and idea in here, you could have scrap robots running loose and shredding everything on the planet's surface :P

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

[Telveryon]

Well the problem is that “junk” on a forge world would be mostly metal (plus ceramics) and chemicals. Scrap metal (and probably the ceramics) could be quite easily recycled on the place(melt and reforge- technologies known to every feral world blacksmith, AM wouldn't have problem with that) and used to build weapons/vehicles etc. instead of being transported somewhere to corode. The other form of waste -the chemicals that were used in the production would be more problematic , and could be transported somewhere (thou most Forge Worlds don't do anything with them). The problem with the chemicals is that they could be too toxic and dangerous for the Darths chapters homeworlds population, and promote mutations.

Actually, there's plenty of wasted metal even in this day an' age. The Imperium, with the huge amount of resources at it's disposal, would be even less inclined to recycle. Plus, don't forget, the Mecanicus are extremely superstitious, they would never use material that was considered junk to make new machines since that would definitely anger the machine spirit, they even dread to replace parts of a machine with new ones let alone with parts made of recycled junk. As for the liquid residue, you could say that it's dumped only in certain parts of the planet and the other parts aren't affected as much.

 

In my view a planet like this would look like an underhive, a planet wide underhive. Actually, I think these guys would have it better since they would have at least sunlight 12 hour a day.

[Hasoroth]

I quite like the concept, and the name Junkers actually sounds really cool, even if it sounds like a gang instead of an Astartes Chapter.

 

I look forward to seeing more, I'd be interested if you took this Chapter in an Alpha Wolves sort of direction, blurring the line between proud Space Marines and normal dog soldiers.

[Nakuth]

It is kind of funny that you mentioned this recently, as I've been having thoughts of a (semi) similar nature. Whilst not relating to the whole scrap yard planet thing, I had thought of a chapter recruiting human 'waste', such as gangers (nothing new there). Anyway, the whole point of my post was in regards to the paint scheme and what it symbolises.

 

My whole idea is loosely based on the 'left/right hand paths' and as such, the left side of the armour would be dark (very dark grey, almost black), and the right shiny gold. This would represent the dichotomy of both each Astartes' origins and the ultimate result of training/genetic manipulation; as well as the split between what they do (wage war, kill, etc; represented by the 'dark' side), and what they represent (hope, saviour, redemption, etc; represented by the 'gold' side).

 

Alas, apart from that, I've little ideas on what else could be done for such a chapter, but I shall be watching this post closely to maybe get some inspiration.

 

Cheers!

[Keyoz Devastrius]

Actually, there's plenty of wasted metal even in this day an' age. The Imperium, with the huge amount of resources at it's disposal, would be even less inclined to recycle.

 

We don't live in a factory that works 24h/day seven days a week, in a cyclic work system never stopping, and producing the same product for centuries. The today's wasted metal comes from used/damaged/destroyed products of factories – the products of forge worlds are transported to other worlds to be used/damaged/destroyed there. The “scrap metal” on a forge world would be the leftover materials and half products from one batch of the minerals- with cyclic production system they would be simply used later with next batch. (The “recycle” word was poorly chosen by me.)

[Prtyjedi]

The idea is cool and certainly original. But Junkers isn't a name I'd give to the Space Marines, though. How about Recyclers? And all-green armour, too :rolleyes:

[Tyrannicide]

Asleep until noon, and finally decide to get my arse out of bed. Then I come to this explosion of a debate on the matter of a scrapyard planet. My thoughts on the subject:

 

I believe it is easily a feasible idea, as Telveryon pointed out forgeworld's produce so many items, that there would have to be a place for it all to go. Yes Keyoz, I'm sure they would have foundries and the like to melt most of the scrap back into usable material, but as you stated we don't live on a planet that is a vast factory that works 24/7 and produces everything from power weapons to Guardsman Smith's dog-tags. How would you be so certain, that there is no such thing as a scrapyard planet in the 40k universe? There has to be a couple out there, considering there are millions of world's in the Imperium.

 

Also Telveryon raised an interesting point when he said that using scrap metal for future products could be looked down upon by the Ad Mech, as it may upset the machine spirits. At this point, I'd have to agree and it makes perfect sense. While I appreciate the concerns Keyoz, I'll be sticking with the idea.

 

 

Hubernator: Have you seen Star Wars before? Me thinks so.... a lot.

 

Coys: Thanks, hopefully I can inspire you.

 

Hasoroth: I'm not so sure I want to go down that path, actually. I think it would be more interesting and perhaps ironic, if the people of the world were all hardened scum, and the Chapter that recruits from them are much more angelic and monk-like, very similar to the "basic/vanilla" Space Marine. I've considered using Blood Angels gene-seed for the Chapter, but I may go with Ultramarines, as it seems no one uses it in Liber.

 

Prtyjedi: Well Junkers actually wasn't the name I was going to use, nor Recyclers. :P I had named the thread so, to draw attention. I did however, consider the name 'Reclaimers' as a possible candidate. Seems no one caught that part of my post, farther up in the thread.

 

I urge you to post, if you have any more thoughts on the concept. (Good or bad) :P

[Hubernator]

Hubernator: Have you seen Star Wars before? Me thinks so.... a lot.

:P I have seen Star Wars alot but that's not where I got the idea from. I was thinking of a game :P

[Hyperion]

Hmm, inhabiting a junk planet ...how about you call them Junkions ...and they're able to transform into bikes ...and they speak in TV soundbites! ^_^ (I can't believe no one has mentioned this already - I am such a nerd).

 

As for Reclaimers, they've already been mentioned in the fluff, in the Ciaphas Cain series. They all have mk 6 armour (beakies) and are a joke based on the Wombles! (Techmarine Tobermory). :angry:

[Tyrannicide]

As for Reclaimers, they've already been mentioned in the fluff, in the Ciaphas Cain series.

Damn. I'll keep searching for names then.

[OwenCrute]

Seems rather heretical, Tzeentch style. However, not wanting to 'change' things and sending all you scrap/obsolete stuff to a nearby world would invite decay, and thus Nurgle. Weird tha random things you think up, pondering someone's IA.

[Tyrannicide]

I'm completely lost with your ramble about Tzeentch. ;) However I'll address your thoughts on the disease and corrosion of all the scrap. I envision that there are teams of the scavengers that group together in small packs and venture out into the trash with sanitizer packs, and clean what is near their settlements. I don't see them traveling miles to do this, but what is near their villages. Perhaps there are a greater number of robotic servo-skull like creatures that roam the entire surface doing the same. I haven't really thought too much into it, but having disease and sickness present does not equal Nurgle's work.

[Commissar Molotov]

Perhaps there are a greater number of robotic servo-skull like creatures that roam the entire surface [cleaning].

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z121/mnesimache/wall-e_2.jpg

[Tyrannicide]

;) You sly dog. I should've known.

 

We'll just toss that idea out the window then.