Traitor Ultramarines Allegedly

[Petitioner's City]

Another thing to consider is Chaos itself - this could have been the temptation, or the breaking point, for any Legion group. You can apply any "becoming traitors" story or trope from the next ten millenia too - attacked by a friendly force and forced to fling in their lot with "traitors" to survive (Astraeus and his fellows in Ahriman), tired with imperial oversight/control and full of pride in transhuman governance (Lufgt Huron?), transhumanism curdled to inhuman cruelty (many!), corruption by something daemonic (a common trope, for sure, and given the "unlocking of the doors" seen across the heresy, that is possible), captured and broken down too (we see this in the heresy too, with that Raven Guard following Sevatar, and you can imagine poor Ultramarines being corrupted during the Shadow Crusade in this way). 

 

But the inclusion is a great narrative choice - hopefully we will see more forces on the other side. Heck, now you really can have Loyalist Word Bearers too - Narek's sons, if you will, and an Esoterist allows you to field daemons, loyalist or traitor!

 

 

 

The Piercing the Veil section in Malovolence is also important:

 

 

While the anecdotes in it are specific to points in the heresy, it provides extra narrative around why and how different legion forces used and were abused by the warp.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Petitioner's City

[Indefragable]

I’ve been toying with the idea of Traitor UM for a little while now. There’s a blurb in Inferno about a UM contingent Horus orders to wipe out a detached TS outpost around the same time as The Burning of Prospero.

 

It’s more of a “because” idea than a real passion project, but it’s fun to speculate on the motivations of any sizeable Loyalist contingents that would actively side with Horus.

[N1SB]

This has been a great thread.  I'm actually convinced I, too, will go with "Traitor" Ultramarines, and I've persuaded another friend.  We'll be in the same Company.

 

I would make them censured just for the red-helmed visual signifier that marks them as not quite normal Ultramarines.  I think they would be censored for something trivial in Monarchia...in the pursuit of the efficiency they were famed for, they didn't make the Word Bearers kneel long enough or something really pointless like that.

 

They shall be my Unlucky XIIIth and they shall know no luck.  Their warmachines...Predators and Dreadnoughts...seem to have all sorts of technical issues.  There's something wrong with their Machine Spirits as the Emperor is their Machine God that vehemently denies he is such, causing a logic error more dangerous than scrapcode.

 

(Yes, I plan on running Armoured Breakthrough or Fury of the Ancients for a easy to do project.)

[Gamiel]

Some alternative reasons to why a group of Um could turn to Horus:

- They believe themself betrayed for some reason, and one of the Traitor Legions are the ones they see as showing them the light or came to their rescue when their fellow Um did not (this from their perspective, if you ask the Um proper they may have another version).

 

- They were part of a united force togheter with one (or more) of the Traitor Legions, that was part of a explorer-fleet/similar and during that time Um did things they feel ashamed for and feel it easier to just side with the Traitor Legion (who has no problem with that they have done) than return to their Legion and admit what they have done.

 

- they are not real Um but Alpha Legion marines pretending to be Um

 

- they are old guards and non-Ultramar recruits (maybe from a bastion force or an explorer force) that don't like what the Gulliman and/or the Emperor is doing to the 13th Legion and belive that Horus will return things to how they were.

 

- believed lost to the Legion and in deep danger they made pacts with things the Imperial Truth deny exist, those new allies/masters have told them to fight alongside Horus forces

 

- they belive that the Gulliman will side/have sided with Horus and are only doing his will by fighting alongside fellow Horus sworn

[WrathOfTheLion]

They could view the Imperium Secundus as treasonous and decide to make the call to side with the Warmaster.

[Petitioner's City]

They could just be bad eggs! :D 

[WrathOfTheLion]

They could be. Maybe they were running a small front in the Great Crusade recruiting from questionable sources, doing things "not how Guilliman would want". By the beginning, they're just bad and decide, why not?

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Yeah all the reveals have sold me.

 

Just have to decide... Horus sycophants or Lorgar sympathisers.

[Gamiel]

Just have to decide... Horus sycophants or Lorgar sympathisers.

Luther!

 

:P

[WrathOfTheLion]

I'm biased to Lorgar sympathizers :D

[Valkyrion]

Traitor Ultramarine Lorgar sympathisers is the most heretical thing I've ever heard, so I vote for that.

[Dantay VI]

Why not renegade rather than traitor?

 

Guillemanns Imperium Secundus is heresy to the Emperor, but Horus has sided with Chaos and can't be trusted.

 

So they do the only practical thing, they turn from Guillemann and Horus, to protect the Imprial Truth as they see it, and begin defending parts of the Imperium wherever they are.

 

However when they are linked up with loyalists after the Heresy ends, with Guillemann now creating the codex etc, they are deemd to be non-loyalist and facing annhilation they flee into the outer dark as outcasts.

 

So Blackshield Ultramarines?