A wandering chapter

[blut_und_glas]

Some bits and pieces:

 

"So, chapter master, which should become your homeworld?"

"Which is the best one?"

The arch-prelate's face grew dark. "Try them out. Try them all out if you cannot decide and do not come back before you have sampled them all!"

"As you wish." was Malchus' answer.

We have been wandering from world to world ever since, questing for the one world that is perfect.

 

Something along these lines runs the founding myth of the chapter. Charged, some say cursed, with the impossible task of identifying the Imperial planet best suited for marine recruitment before being allowed to settle down, the chapter is essentially fleet based but with an unusually wide dispersion pattern and accompanying unorthodox organisation.

 

To better comb the neigh endless domain of Man the chapter has been split in the smallest possible yet self-sustaining units, with independently operating escort vessels acting as the most common base of operations. The ships carry a usual complement of ten to thirty marines along with the same number of scouts and including a full spread of officers and specialists, blessing the chapter with a disproportionally huge number of these valuable assets (the one exception being its woefully undersized Librarium). Even the larger vessels - of which the chapter operates only two (a single battlebarge and strike cruiser each) - carry only comparatively small detachments, usually one and a half companies on the barge and just under one company on the cruiser, though both ships are well equipped with mechanised assets (which are mostly lacking on the escorts due to space restrictions).

While it could be maintained that the extravagant size of the chapter's officer corps was due the same vanity that led to its ancient curse, the reasons, though they do tie in to the chapter's monumental task, are far more pragmatic and result from their recruitment practices.

 

All the chapter's units make a point of stopping at every Imperial planet they encounter, not leaving again before at least a single recruit has been drawn from its population. The fact that a planet has thus been tested for recruitment suitability is painstakingly noted by the chapter's scribes and their few overseeing librarians, whose main tasks lies in the upkeep of exacting records of previous recruitment places and the record and evaluation of every marine's performance.

 

The practice brings the chapter into more contact with other Imperial institutions and the populace at large, and finds them engaged in battles and wars beneath the notice of other marine forces. Stints at garrison duty, pacification of feudal planet civil wars, and defense of minor agri-worlds are thus a common fare for the small sub-company bands of the chapter. The Administratum, originally at a loss of what to make of the non-standard deployment, have grudgingly come to see at least some value in the chapter's wide dispersal and inclussion in unimportant wars, and mark their appearances off as contributions to the Imperial propaganda and stabilisation efforts. The navy, often mildly disapproving of marine operations due to the implied challenge to their status as the only masters of Imperial spaceways, are unusually fond of the chapter, as some marine detachments have been known to travel on Imperial navy ships or even merchant vessels following the loss of their own ships in combat, this lending potent boarding troops to the commanding admirals for the price of just a simple journey to the next Imperial planet, which has yet to be visited in the chapter's grand survey mission.

 

These are pretty much the basics.

 

What interests me about this are three key concepts: Exploring the myth of the wandering jew in an Imperial context, interaction between marines and other Imperial organisations, and force composition.

 

The main question I have been pondering is this: What happens when they reach a world claimed by another chapter?

 

A prominent side question is the name. Both itinerant and eternal work well as elements for obvious reasons but they also are a bit overused. Wanderers is pretty bland. A direct bible/mythology reference seems out of place. So the options are thinning out.

 

Regards,

jdw

[Shadow Captain Corveus]

Seems a very plausible scenario to me...

 

:( Go for it