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Steel Brethren


The Colossus

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What would you refer to a single member of the Steel Brethren as? Space Wolves becomes Space Wolf, Alpha Legion becomes Alpha Legionnaire (similarly with the black legion) and so on. Best I can come up with is Steel Brother. But it doesn't sound right.
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As far as I know, "Brethren" is one of the two plurals of the noun "Brother", depending on the situation...so a "Steel Brother"?

 

My first language is not English though, so I might be faulty...

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Thanks for your thoughts, thinking about it, "Steel Brother" is right, I guess the original name sounds strange to me for a Chaos warband.

 

I don't like to subscribe to the happy family chaos, so brethren doesn't cut the mustard for me haha.

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Well, happy family or not, a warband could be glued together by the feelings of brotherhood and community....and bloodshed perhaps... :)

 

I mean, there is a reason why marines don't just abandon their warband all the time when a stronger one appears, there has to be some form of loyalty between fellow marines, corrupted or not...

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Well dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster only list it as a plural. It IS a plural after all, so using it to refer to a single person just makes no sense because plurals exist for a reason. Using Brethren for Brother makes as little sense as using Brothers.
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I think it could also be steel brethren. If you google dictionary brethren, then it tells you that the plural is also brethren, so brethren couLd apply both to the legion and the single man

 

Yes.

 

For instance, it would be correct to say, "I am a Steel Brother."

It is also correct to say, "I am one of the Steel Brethren." Or, "I am one of the Steel Brothers," which doesn't sound like what you are going for here.

To say, "I am a Steel Brethren," can be correct, too.

I think you can really leave it to personal preference as to which word you want to use in reguards to brother or brethren, since they are more or less the same word. This is just a case where the language has changed and brethren is hardly used in modern English. Or rather, modern English can accomodate the word in more contexts. This is at least American English, British may well be different.

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The whole reason this question came up was I wanted to say something along the lines of "the squad includes a Crimson Fist, Black Legionnaire, Steel Brother/Brethren, and a Marauder". And then I ran in to my conundrum. :tu:
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The whole reason this question came up was I wanted to say something along the lines of "the squad includes a Crimson Fist, Black Legionnaire, Steel Brother/Brethren, and a Marauder". And then I ran in to my conundrum. :P

 

I won't lie I'm not 100% on what this rule is or where it came from but your sentence is grammatically incorrect (I'm really not trying to be a jerk or anything, trust me it could help you solve your problem. False Throne, knows that we all have grammar/spelling issues.)

 

In my schooling I was taught that when making a list, you either, for example, put 'a' in front of everything, or only the first one. You have put 'a' in front of two objects on the list.

 

If I am not mistaken the sentence can look two ways

1

'...the squad includes a Crimson Fist, Black Legionnaire, Steel Brethren, and Marauder.'

 

or

2

'...the squad includes a Crimson Fist, a Black Legionnaire, a Steel Brethren, and a Marauder.

 

Personally, I would go with door number 2. I think both are correct, and sound about the same. I would just say a Steel Brethren, making the the plural singular(O english thou art a complex and heartless witch)

And once again, I haven't taken an English class in close to 4 years... So yeah... I could be dead wrong.

 

Also, that's an interesting demographic to make up a squad.

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You can always rephrase it to something like "the squad consists of marines from the Crimson Fists, Black legion, Steel Brethren and The Marauders"...

 

Genius!

 

The whole reason this question came up was I wanted to say something along the lines of "the squad includes a Crimson Fist, Black Legionnaire, Steel Brother/Brethren, and a Marauder". And then I ran in to my conundrum. ;)

 

I won't lie I'm not 100% on what this rule is or where it came from but your sentence is grammatically incorrect (I'm really not trying to be a jerk or anything, trust me it could help you solve your problem. False Throne, knows that we all have grammar/spelling issues.)

 

In my schooling I was taught that when making a list, you either, for example, put 'a' in front of everything, or only the first one. You have put 'a' in front of two objects on the list.

 

If I am not mistaken the sentence can look two ways

1

'...the squad includes a Crimson Fist, Black Legionnaire, Steel Brethren, and Marauder.'

 

or

2

'...the squad includes a Crimson Fist, a Black Legionnaire, a Steel Brethren, and a Marauder.

 

Personally, I would go with door number 2. I think both are correct, and sound about the same. I would just say a Steel Brethren, making the the plural singular(O english thou art a complex and heartless witch)

And once again, I haven't taken an English class in close to 4 years... So yeah... I could be dead wrong.

 

Also, that's an interesting demographic to make up a squad.

 

Yeah, I added an extra "a" before Marauder by accident... It's for a squad of Red Corsairs, hence the odd composition.

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It was going to be background only, but I've been thinking, probably I'd make the ex-loyalists look more like loyalists, without the eight pointed star, and probably using shoulder pads in their original chapter colours, suitably defaced, whilst the Steel Brother would be loaded with bionics and red and black hazard stripes on weapons. The Black Legionnaire would be the hardest, but I think just using the yellow Eye would give the idea, and I'd use only Chaos bits for him. The squad is actually led a Marine Malevolent, so I've had to be careful which chapters I include because of their rivalries. He, uh, was "promoted" to command after the former leader, a Star Phantom renegade.

 

I've got a Traitor Guard army to finish yet though. It's likely that the Red Corsairs would find themselves as allies eventually.

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Been trying to think on the grammar of Brother/Brethren there. My first instinct is that the singular would be Steel Brother, plural Steel Brethren - Brethren is an old English word similar to children and oxen. We used to indicate pluralisation with -en, so I could have one house or two housen. In this way, it would indeed be one Steel Brother.

 

But it's a Proper noun. The chapter is specifically known as the Steel Brethren, so applying the Proper noun in the singular, it would be Steel Brethren. That said, if the chapter was the Steel Brothers, you wouldn't to the single marine as a Steel Brothers. It would just look strange. In the same way the chapter is the Space Wolves, but you find a single Space Wolf now and again.

 

English is fun. We have way too many rules that make no sense and get sporadically applied, so I would choose whichever one you prefer and run with it. And say FU to anyone who challenges your grasp of grammar.

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The whole reason this question came up was I wanted to say something along the lines of "the squad includes a Crimson Fist, Black Legionnaire, Steel Brother/Brethren, and a Marauder". And then I ran in to my conundrum. :D

 

I know its not answering the question using english language, so problem remains for future, but quick fix could be:

 

"the squad includes Crimson Fist, Black Legionnaire, Marauder, and Steel Brethren marines".

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