IA Steel Claws

[Allgame]

Gene Seed: Ultramarines

Founding: 20th

Home world: NA (fleet based)

 

 

 

Chapter Fleet and Home World:

 

The Steel Claws are a fleet based chapter. The Steel Claws fleet is centered around a factory vessel that is capable of producing some of the arms and equipment the chapter needs. Around the factory ship many smaller vessels contain the survivors of their lost homeworld. A Battlebarge now serves as the chapters fortess monastery.

 

 

Chapter Company Organization:

The chapter is organized similarly to the Space Wolves in that instead of having fixed reserve companies, all the companies operate independently as battle companies. When a company needs resupply in the form of either more men or more equipment it will return to the fleet to take on supplies. A resupplying vessel will stay with the fleet for several weeks or months before heading out again.

An additional way that the chapter is unique is how the companies are organized. Instead of exclusively being focused in the First Company the chapter’s force of Terminators is spread among the company. The chapter’s scouts are also spread out instead of being focused in the Tenth Company as is normal.

 

Relations with Other Forces of the Imperium:

 

Steel Claws vehicles are typically driven by chapter serfs as the chapter believes that space marines are too valuable to waste on vehicle operation. The Steel Claws have a large amount of respect for normal humans due to large amounts of interaction with them during training and during combat operations. The Steel Claws are a fairly humanitarian chapter in that the chapter takes great pains to minimize civilian casualties if possible. This outlook is out of necesity. Do to the loss of so many marines in the civil war humans are needed to make up the shortfalls to allow more marines to fight. The chapters concern for humans is due to its loss of its homeworld. Without the surviving ordinary humans the chapter could not exist. This outlook has extended to other humans of the Imperium.

 

 

Chapter Recruiting and Training:

 

For the purposes of recruitment and medical reasons all citizens of the fleet are genetically screened from a very early age. When the chapter is in need of additional recruits, children of the age of six that have the appropriate genes are brought to the Fortress Monastery vessel to be raised and trained to become space marines. The families of the children consider it a great honor for their children to be selected. The recruites are then put through a brutal training program that goes until they recieve the nessecary implants to become space marines. This is to ensure that all recruits are of the correct temperament. It is also done so that the recruits have the correct physiology for the augmentations necessary to become a space marine.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: I have come up with the basics of the chapter history that might justify the current situation. Sorry about the mistaken uniqeness of the orginazation I am not as well versed with the fluff as I should be.

 

Chapter History

 

The Steel Claws is a 20th founding ultramarines successor. They origanally were based on a world (still thinking up the name). Heresy came to the home world, and more devestatingly to the chapter its self. Nearly two-hundred astartes fell to chaos. A civil war raged across the planet, destroying much of the population and infrastructure. By the time the heresy was quelled almost half of the chapter had been destroyed. Realizing that while the war ahd been won, the world had suffered horrendous damage a would not be able to support life much longer. In order too escape destruction the chapter comandeered every space fareing they could find in the system. They placed as many civilians on these vessels and left their world behind.

The chapter has done what they can to form a functioning civilazation in space. They have managed to add additional vessels to the fleet, including craft that are capable of producing the food the population needs.

In the opening days of the civil war the heretics were able to launch an attack the decapitated the chapters command structure. The heretics were able to sneak a neclear weapon into the chapter's fortress manastery. While most of the planetside marines were spread out fighting the heretics, most of the chapter's leaders including much of the first company were killed. This caused a significant loss of cordination in the chapter. The reserve companies were unable to coordinate without their leaders. Due to this loss the astartes were forced to fight without the necessary support and equipment.

After the war the chapter reformed its companies into ten independant battle companies so that this could never happen again.

 

 

 

 

That is the basic chapter profile. What do you guys think?

 

Edit: Fixed a few embarassing mistakes. Geneseed is now Ultramarines and explaned the recruitment program.

[Ecritter]

You're gonna get a lot of 'whys', you have to have a reason for changing something that's worked for 10,000 years.

 

Why is the geneseed unknown? Gene legacy is one of the biggest marks of pride in a Chapter, and the AdMech isnt' likely to simply forget either. So you've got to have a very good reason for it to be unknown.

 

Why doesn't the Chapter remember who trained them? Are they flawed with short attention spans or something like that?

 

Millions of people in the fleet .. that may be a bit much. And when I say may, I mean is. Also, where did the Chapter get all these ships?

 

Why is the Chapter organized in this manner?

 

So you screen millions of potential recruits ... again way too much.

 

And leave the "known for the founding of several elite Imperial Guard Regiments" out, its not realistic.

[lothbrok]

i think its a good statt but the whole founded imperial guard regiments is something i'd get rid of. It just goes against part of the space marine idea and violates the seperation of powers in the codex. otherwise not bad

[Allgame]

You're gonna get a lot of 'whys', you have to have a reason for changing something that's worked for 10,000 years.

 

Why is the geneseed unknown? Gene legacy is one of the biggest marks of pride in a Chapter, and the AdMech isnt' likely to simply forget either. So you've got to have a very good reason for it to be unknown.

 

Why doesn't the Chapter remember who trained them? Are they flawed with short attention spans or something like that?

 

Millions of people in the fleet .. that may be a bit much. And when I say may, I mean is. Also, where did the Chapter get all these ships?

 

Why is the Chapter organized in this manner?

 

So you screen millions of potential recruits ... again way too much.

 

And leave the "known for the founding of several elite Imperial Guard Regiments" out, its not realistic.

 

I have edited to fix some of these problems and embarising mistakes. I wanted the history of the chapter to be intentionaly hidden. The chapter may have gotten the ships from the ruins of another chapter. The ships may be a bit much but I really like the general idea. I am thinking the chapter might have been founded using the ruins of a chapter that did something terible, something that if the Inquisition found out the chapter would be destroyed. Also the gene testing shouldn't be that taxing

 

Thank you for the input.

[Apothete]

The Steel Claws are a fleet based chapter. The Steel Claws fleet is centered around six enormous habitat vessels. The habitat ships contain millions of people essentially creating a mobile home world for the chapter. The habitat vessels house the population and food production facilities of the fleet. The Steel Claws and the home fleet are supported by a forge ship that contains dozens of manufactorum facilities. The fleet also includes a vessel that acts as the chapter’s fortress monastery and training facility.

 

Not to put too fine a point on what Ecritter started, but this is a bit beyond the believable, especially considering that a fleet of that size and complexity would require either enormous resources, pre-Heresy technology, both resources and lost techniques, or something even stranger to complete. As such, why would they place such a huge number of civilians onboard what amount to floating cities, risking them in the kind of wars that Astartes are known to fight? Without extremely tight ties to the Mechanicum, where are you going to get a ship the size of even one Forgeworld manufactorum, let alone dozens of them? Why would the Chapter risk the possbility of losing their geneseed or aspirants by having a single monstarey aboard a single ship?

 

The chapter is uniquely organized in that instead of having fixed reserve companies, all the companies operate independently as battle companies. When a company needs resupply in the form of either more men or more equipment it will return to the fleet to take on supplies. A resupplying vessel will stay with the fleet for several weeks or months before heading out again.

An additional way that the chapter is unique is how the companies are organized. Instead of exclusively being focused in the First Company the chapter’s force of Terminators (which due to the forge ship is considerable) is spread among the company. The chapter’s scouts are also spread out instead of being focused in the Tenth Company as is normal.

 

Unique?

 

This sounds like textbook Iron Hands crossed with the Space Wolves.

 

Steel Claws vehicles are typically driven by chapter serfs as the chapter believes that space marines are too valuable to waste on vehicle operation. The Steel Claws have a large amount of respect for normal humans due to large amounts of interaction with them during training and during combat operations. The chapter has a deep respect for the imperial guard because they lack the enhancements and armor of the space marines they yet battle the same foes.

 

They use unaugmented humans as chauffers because Astartes are too valuable, yet they hold unaugmented humans in high regard? That seems a bit contradictory. If you want to make this Chapter seem more humanitarian, there are ways to go about it that don't involve towing around a huge, vulnerable, hindering cluster of civilians and less able combatants. Insistence on continuing down that path means that you need to come up with some justifications and reasoning that stands up to scrutiny.

 

The Steel Claws are a fairly humanitarian chapter in that the chapter takes great pains to minimize civilian casualties if possible. This has caused conflicts with the Marines Malevolent and similar chapter that have complete disregard for or intentionally cause civilian casualties. This also causes friction with the Inquisition for similar reasons.

 

This reads like namedropping and less like a compelling reason.

 

You need to tell us why they're such huggy-touchy, caring guys rather than just telling us that they try their best not to blow up people who are in the way of the prosecution of a war. Facts are generally going to be the least interesting part of a writeup. Motivations, intrigue, complications, flaws, and other confounds that make them stand out from the background noise are going to be infinitely more engaging than just giving us a fiat declaration.

 

I don't want to know that your Marines don't shoot civvies. I want to know why and under what circumstances they might break.

 

For the purposes of recruitment, medical, and other reasons all citizens of the fleet are genetically screened from a very early age. When the chapter is in need of additional recruits, children of the age of six that have the appropriate genes are brought to the Fortress Monastery vessel to be raised and trained to become space marines.

 

What "other reasons" would there be, besides screening for recruitment or maintaining health?

 

Just how does living shipboard for their entire lives prepare someone for becoming an Astartes? What privations do they face that prepare them for a life of zealotous, unrelenting strife in the name of people who will fear them almost as much as the enemies they fight? How does their time shipboard affect their outlook, their training, their tactics? Do they specialize in boarding actions and close-range combat because of growing up in comparatively claustrophobic spaces?

 

Not only do you need to explain your choices to us, you need to make those choices apparent and natural in their outcomes.

 

Much of the chapter's history is shrouded in mystery. While there have been many Inquisitorial inquiries little has been uncovered. It appears that much of its early history has been intentionally obliterated. This missing knowledge could reveal the actual reason the chapter lacks a home world.

 

Pardon me, but weaksauce...

 

This is a lazy copout that adds nothing to the Chapter. It's not mysterious, it's not fascinating, it's just a hole that sucks away even more credibility from your other ideas. The Astartes are some of the most well-documented military organizations - at least in origins - in the Imperium. There's going to be Adeptus Mechanicus records of not only their original geneseed but the stability, purity, and lineage of their tithes as they're sent in (something that a six thousand year old Chapter has plenty of time to be doing). Don't forget the requisitioning of wargear, vehicles, and other materials like starships, the training of Techmarines at Mars, the drydocking and repair of warships, and, and, and... Then there's their dealings with the rest of the Imperium, because I guarantee you a Chapter of sufficient age will have run into other Astartes, the Inquisition, the Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus Terra, the Adeptus Munitorum, hell, perhaps even the Arbites and other institutions.

 

Nobody knows anything? Really?

 

That's a huge, sweeping swathe of records to be expunged in multiple locations at various levels of security and access restriction.

[Allgame]

Thank you for the input. I have realized the rediculousness of the habitat vessels and will change it to a fleet consisting mostly of repurposed cargo ships. Also the civillian vessels stay well out of the combat zone, sorry for that poor presentation.

 

I have come up with the basics of the chapter history that might justify the current situation. Sorry about the mistaken uniqeness of the orginazation I am not as well versed with the fluff as I should be.

 

Chapter History

 

The Steel Claws is a 20th founding ultramarines successor. They origanally were based on a world (still thinking up the name). Heresy came to the home world, and more devestatingly to the chapter its self. Nearly two-hundred astartes fell to chaos. A civil war raged across the planet, destroying much of the population and infrastructure. By the time the heresy was quelled almost half of the chapter had been destroyed. Realizing that while the war ahd been won, the world had suffered horrendous damage a would not be able to support life much longer. In order too escape destruction the chapter comandeered every space fareing they could find in the system. They placed as many civilians on these vessels and left their world behind.

The chapter has done what they can to form a functioning civilazation in space. They have managed to add additional vessels to the fleet, including craft that are capable of producing the food the population needs.

In the opening days of the civil war the heretics were able to launch an attack the decapitated the chapters command structure. The heretics were able to sneak a neclear weapon into the chapter's fortress manastery. While most of the planetside marines were spread out fighting the heretics, most of the chapter's leaders including much of the first company were killed. This caused a significant loss of cordination in the chapter. The reserve companies were unable to coordinate without their leaders. Due to this loss the astartes were forced to fight without the necessary support and equipment.

After the war the chapter reformed its companies into ten independant battle companies so that this could never happen again.

 

 

I will post more later.

That is some of the basics of the chapter's history. I guess this is a lesson about using old chapter material without checking to see if my thoughts had changed. Hopefully I can salvage most of the chapter's backround. Do you guys think there is any chance this can be made to work with sufficient effort?