Mechanicum and Unforgiven Alliance

[jbaeza94]

So I've had this idea for an unforgiven chapter, and also a forge world. I'd like to know what you guys think and if this would actually be plausible.

 

So the Mechanicum are are always very secretive and and jealous.  They go to extreme lengths to make sure they get the STC's and not another forge world. So here is my idea. A yet to be named chapter in its zealous pursuit of a Fallen pursued the traitor to a star system where a tech priest and his fleet were searching for archeotech.  The ever jealous tech priest began to ask questions on to why space marines where in that area, especially with no xenos threat or uprising in the immediate area. The senior master spins a tale, but the magos is no novice to body language, speech patterns, or even space marines. Suspicious as he was, he asked the unforgiven to stay away from their fleet and their searches, in return they would not bother them either.

 

As they both continue they're search, the fallen manages a to find warhound class size plasma reactor, said to be more efficient and powerful than the Lucius pattern and mars patterns own. He and his small war band of soldiers rig the plasma reactor to blow up, and this, neither the Unforgiven nor the Mechanicus can afford. The Master demands that the Techpriest and his Skitarri stay away, but under Imperial order, they all the right to stay to pursue technology and in fact should be in a sense of command. Again, the tech priest says for a quick alliance for a common goal, they each get what they want. As the "Ravenwing" (they would have a different name) deploy, the magos is amazed by the warp technology they posses, some of it not at ll in its nueral records, and this puzzled him, why would space marines have technology that the mechanicum didnt have? he wanted it. For the Mechanicum, no, for his Forge world and his glory.

 

As the forces moved in, a Dark Talon was able to capture the fallen for interrogation in a stasis field, but not before the tech priest got a good look at him. Odd, black MK III Space Marine Armor, a red Dark Angels icon, strange for modern space marine heraldry, a boltgun  he didn't immediately recognize, why was this traitor so different than most chaos tainted space marines? He ran a quick search in his neural banks and even linked into his flag ship to make sure he was thorough. He then realized, this WAS a Dark Angel Legionary, but not just that, he was (insert name), Master of the 4th Company of the 14th Chapter of the 1st Space Marine Legion. Not only was the fact of a 10000 year Dark Angel odd to the magos, but that a successor chapter was the hunter raised a lot of flags, and he immediately knew, he could take advantage of this situation. The battle raged on, the rebel soldiers destroyed by the crushing power of the Skitarri and the elite 1st and 2nd company of the Unforgiven. The reactor stabilized, the Master extended his thanks to the Magos, as did the magos to the Master. But as they were about to depart, the Magos said

"It was quite odd that a glorious and honorable company master suddenly disappears from dark angels logs for 2 years,  and then labeled dead under unusual circumstances, it evens seems he was attempted to be expunged from records, yet i saw him before my eyes, and no, he was not killed, he was captured by your forces, care to tell me why?

instantly the master knew the magos was on to something, and this was no good and in fact dangerous. he told the magos it was one of his business and should mind his words, but the magos replied, 

"It is, and it is not. i care little for your past, i care about finding the creations of the Omnisiah."

after much discussion, the tech priest proposes an odd proposal, one never seen in unforgiven history. The Forge World would pledge secrecy and loyalty to the hunt. The Forge World would provide the full force of its knight house, and give the support of its titan legion.in return, the Unforgiven had to hand over all technology they may find, and to share the knowledge of their archeotech with them and them exclusively. no other forge world. the Master laughed, he knew he was in a bind, he couldn't just eliminate them, and the whole fleet, the ever savvy tech priest had uploaded his memories to the ship and had already sent it off to a second and third fleet, each in an oppisite direction, with orders to open the files only if he did not send word within 2 weeks of receiving the message. But this also brought on knew opportunities, the skitarri could always be mind wioed after each event, and the moderati as well, receive full aid, without the aid remembering they gave aid. and thus, an alliance was formed, to hunt the fallen, to search for technology. to serve the Emperor.

 

So this is it. what do you guys think? its basically just fluff justification to play my skitarri and cult mechanicum alongside my dark angels. why do i have knight titans? why is there a tech priest in your army? why does your skitarri have deathwing? Forging a narrative.  could you guys see this happening? i also just want to get a warhound a field him haha

[Father Mehman]

I believe the Tech-priest might very well question why the Space Marines were in uncharted territory, but I doubt he would go out of his way to say "back off. This archeotech is mine." He would probably mind his own business, to be honest. It doesn't help having Imperials about when you are working. Well, until you need the help because the Eldar are making you cry. Anyway, that doesn't seem all that plausible.

 

The fact that the Tech-priest knows any information about the intimate workings of the Dark Angels and their Successors seems too far-fetched. Tech-priests study one area, usually, and Space Marine lore isn't one if them, as far as I know. It isn't under their purview. How to build a Space Marine Battle Barge? Absolutely! The third member of the seventh company circa M34? No.

 

If you want to field some Imperial Knights, a simple way to go about it would be for the Dark Angels, or whoever, to have aided their home world and the Knight has been dispatched on his honour to now aid the Chapter in their time of need. For Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii, maybe there is a Forge World nearby that has stakes in a war the Chapter is fighting and it is in the best interest of all parties to join together for the duration. That's why we have Campaign Badges.

 

Hope that helps!

[Cactus]

I think it's broadly plausible. The devil is in the details and, 40k being what it is, whether those details are plausible is the realm of head-canon. Personally I would tone down the amount of Fallen information the Magos has access to. A traitor marine is shameful enough for the story to work without revealing the trump card that he's just one of many from 10,000 years ago. The fact that he's already disseminated the little he knows to two other fleets is enough to stop your chapter from simply making him disappear, that would leave too many loose ends that could be followed up an inquisitive authority. Conversely he knows enough-but-not-too-much such that when the Unforgiven are offered the deal of secrecy for technology it's a deal worth accepting. Even if it's just to keep tabs on the upstart and disappear him later.

What I really like is that the story highlights one perspective on the Hunt that isn't demonstrated by the Dark Angels and their published successors - the idea that it's actually not a big deal to others.

Also, breaking the text up into a few more paragraphs might help with getting people to read it.

@Mehman, my reading was that the Magos searched his data storage and found some pertinent information on Dark Angels heraldry. Very unlikely, but not impossible. Especially when you consider that the Adeptus Mechanicus never rarely deletes anything. How old is the Magos? How old is his ship? How old is the database machine spirit that has been carefully transplanted from ship to ship over ten thousand years of repairs and refits?

[Father Mehman]

@Cactus- Since my post got eaten by my iPad, I'll make it short. That an Explorator ship in the middle of nowhere has datafiles pertaining to a non-Mechanicus ship, a Space Marine ship, in particular, is a bit serendipitous. Could it be possible? No one can say no. But, in the end, it's all about your own fluff.

[Terminus]

@Cactus- Since my post got eaten by my iPad, I'll make it short. That an Explorator ship in the middle of nowhere has datafiles pertaining to a non-Mechanicus ship, a Space Marine ship, in particular, is a bit serendipitous. Could it be possible? No one can say no. But, in the end, it's all about your own fluff.

Not to mention that he seems to be accessing wider Imperial records, which did not have data on the fall of Caliban in the first place, and this sounds too much like he googled it and there it was.

 

You could achieve the same effect just by having the Priest notice that they took a Chaos Marine alive rather than kill him, and remark something along the lines of "I would think imprisonment of heretics was the realm of the Inquisition. Should they be informed?"

 

And the deal is kind of sweet for the Unforgiven here, an entire Forge World's resources at their beck and call just for some gear they barely understand? I would say some sort of collaboration, where the Tech priest provides occasional support and access to his information network in exchange for examining the Chapter's technology (something technically a Forge World could request from a Chapter anyway, especially with a mandate from Mars) plus some favors "to be named later". This arrangement could further benefit the Unforgiven if the Forge World in question manages to reverse engineer the technology and put it into production. I'm sure they aren't exactly flush with plasma talons back at the Chapter artificer.

[Cactus]

That's a good point about who benefits. Access to some of the Forge World's data (current and future) is the sort of intelligence the Unforgiven could potentially use to further the Hunt. If they already have reason to suspect there's something useful in that data - maybe the Magos encountered a Fallen but didn't identify him - it makes any deal even harder to refuse. The Magos doesn't actually need to know any more than "These guys like to check my records occasionally for hints about traitor marines" and maybe even less than that. The deal is still plausible without anyone saying the F word. In fact I find it more plausible that way.

[Father Mehman]

Hmm...after reviewing the data, I say yes! There's an edge there for a DIY Chapter in that they have access to Mechanicus datafiles, to root out some heresy. Maybe this has made their Techmarines play a bigger role in the Chapter? If you heard a boom just then, brothers and sisters, it's because my mind just exploded from awesome.

[jbaeza94]

Sorry guys for not getting back sooner, but thanks for the feedback! So the way i imagined the priest doing his search is like a reverse image search of the heraldry, this is what they did in Death of Integrity ,not necessarily he searched within dark angels records, he is still unaware of the fall of caliban, but the fact that a dead Dark Angels hero was in front of him and being captured instead of killed.   im sure records of great heroes would be hidden somewhere right?

@Mehman , the tech priest would in fact say back off, ass seen in their jealousy in and bluntness in Skitarrius and Tech-Priest, but also in Death of Integrity,when they threaten to destroy 2 chapter fleets (Novamrines and Blood Drinkers) if they got in their way of them getting their archeotech, in the end they convince the two chapters into into sending troops multiple times the space hulk but each time refuse to give them any vital info about what they can sense inside or about what the danger their equipment would put them in, leading to some serious losses throughout the campaign, just for an AI. if they did that for forbidden tech, what would they do for allowed tech? im sure an ambitious enough tech priest would push the bar.

@Terminus , i think you might be right about who actually benefits, and a simple magos explorator could infact not speak for the Fabricator General, so pledging a forge world seems unlikely, however,pledging his Explorator Fleet and his secrecy, he could claim that he found all the tech still, gaining higher prestige in the eyes of the Forge world and other magi. i believe this would be more likely.

 

Any new input?