Steel Legion

Steel Legion armorial with Legion iconography.

Steel Legion colour scheme.

### Observed Strategic Tendencies

Siege Warfare, Electronic Warfare, Urban Warfare, Intelligence Gathering, Zone Mortalis Operations, Naval Warfare, Combined Arms.

### Allegiance

Suzerainty
(*Socius Solicitus*)

### Unique Organisations

The Collective, Skill Inloading, Command Override, Djinn-Visors, Assistance Protocols

### Warcry

(To be added)

"*He who has the information, has the power.*"
— Nomus Sardauk, Primarch of the Steel Legion.
An oddity among the Legiones Astartes, the **Steel Legion** stand apart from their cousins who pursue enhancement of the body, instead seeking to improve their minds by linking themselves together via a neural network that allows a Legionary to share information, images, even memories with a mere thought. Hailing from the remote world of Saepio, the Steel Legion seek not simply to secure Humanity's place in the Galaxy, but to rekindle the embers of Mankind's scientific wisdom for the betterment of all. The argent XVIIIth are led by their brilliant but distant Primarch Nomus Sardauk, a technological genius struggling to reconcile his cyborg nature with his longing to understand the Human condition. Denounced by some as more machine than man, Nomus's idealism and naivety would be manipulated by the Stormborn to trick him and his Legion into betraying those they once called brothers.

## Legion History

### Origins: The Legion That Never Was

"*The XVIIIth? Do not speak to me of those deplorable tinmen, they've no honour, no warrior spirit amongst any of them, Nomus may as well rule over a Legion of servitors.*"
— Bellucadrix, Primarch of the Crimson Lions
As the XVIIIth Legion, the future Steel Legion was founded late in the Unification Wars, at a time when all that remained of these once monolithic conflicts were a few tiny wars of subjugation and the suppression of rebellions. As such, when looking for recruits for his XVIIIth Legion the Emperor cast his net far wider than he had when founding the earlier legions. Rather than simply drawing recruits from one region, such as the Vth Legion and Jermani, for the XVIIIth the Emperor drew recruits from all of the great industrial cities of Terra: Detra, Thebes, Ur, Kart-hadash, Tenochtitla, Hattusa, Antyokka, Alexandrya, Delhi and Djakart. Together, these ten cities had a greater population than the rest of Terra combined and were home to enormous manufactories that churned out arms and armour for the Emperor's armies day and night. However, these cities were also home to another important commodity: manpower. In addition to and because of their giant populations, these cities were riven with violent gangs, whose wars were a part of everyday life in the lower levels and indeed, nearly every one of these cities' manufactory workers was part of one of the hundreds of gangs that made their kingdoms in the lower levels of these cities.

As such, even once the Unification Wars were over and other nations began to lose their experienced warriors to old age, these hives were able to supply the Emperor with the battle-hardened manpower he needed for his legions. While some were used to reinforce other legions(notably the XVth Legion and XVIIth Legion) the majority of these new recruits would be used as the foundations of a new legion, the XVIIIth. However, during the implantation process it was discovered that there was a problem with the gene-seed of the XVIIIth legion. While it took more easily to the flesh of recruits who were borderline acceptable and so had a theoretically greater recruitment pool, it took less easily to recruits’ minds. Great willpower and strength of mind was required for the recruits mind to survive the process and if the recruit did not possess these characteristics, then they would go insane, their mind torn between themselves and their gene-seed.

Because of this, the tests for aspirants who were to join the XVIIIth were made significantly more stringent than they had been, with more emphasis placed on strength of mind than strength of body. However, this had its disadvantages. In most legions, little was remembered of a legionary’s life pre-ascension. He was, mostly, to all intents and purposes a clean slate upon which the legion could build. Not so with the legionaries of the XVIII. While their strength of mind was necessary to survive ascension intact, it also meant that they remembered more of their life prior to ascension and things which had gone with it, gang loyalty foremost among them. In fact, not only did they remember them and still feel them, the battle for control of their minds that ascension forced them through often increased the strength of these feelings and memories.

Yet for all these problems, the XVIIIth's founding did not seem particularly problematic, especially not when compared to the near extinction the XVth and XVIIth had suffered. The legion continued to grow at a steady, if relatively slow, pace and its recruits consistently performed better than average in training exercises where endurance and mental fortitude were required for success, leading the instructors overseeing such exercises to theorise that the XVIIIth would excell in siege warfare. However, the XVIII could not remain in training forever. At the frontlines of the nascent Great Crusade the need for legionaries was great and could not be fully satisfied by the existing legions. So, after many years of training and expansion, it was decided that the XVIIIth would finally be given a chance to prove itself under command of officers from the Ith Legion. The battleground which would be the XVIIIth's proving ground was to be Jupiter. With Terra and Luna subdued, the legions had begun to spread across the rest of the Sol System, bringing its worlds into line one by one, either by force or through alliances, such as that forged between the Emperor and the Tech-Priests of Mars, exterminating any xenos presence they found.

### Compliance of Jupiter

Jupiter was one of the worlds upon which there remained a xenos presence, in Jupiter's case the deadly vapour wraiths. Therefore, a legion presence was required to annihilate them. However, given the nature of the battlefield,a gas giant, it may seem strange that the Emperor chose to send the XVIIIth rather than a tried and tested legion, such as the XVIth who thrived in such deadly battles. However, this misses a key fact which is that Jupiter was designed as a test of the XVIIIth's capabilities and so had to be challenging and there is no battlefield more brutal and unforgiving than that of a 3D battlefield. And tested the XVIIIth would be.

The initial assault began well. Orchestrated by the experienced officers of the Ist, it took full advantage of the XVIIIth's unusual degree of small unit cohesion. This cohesion was direct result of the fact that the squads and companies of the XVIIIth were organized along gang lines, meaning that no extra work was required to breed into the XVIIIth a sense of loyalty to their squad and company brothers. Indeed in many cases they had been fighting alongside one another since the age of six, younger in some cases, scratching out a living amidst the slag heaps and slums of the lowest and most brutal levels of Terra's hives. As such, they pressed the attack ruthlessly, fighting as one with a practiced ease and determination to succeed.

However, it was during these initial phases of the assault that the officers of the Ist first noticed an oddity in the XVIIIth: each unit was fighting individually. They didn't coordinate their advance amongst themselves. Every unit fought as if it was the entirety of the legion, paying little attention to its neighbours and the effect its actions would have on them. So, while the XVIIIth's small unit cohesion was excellent, its cohesion as a whole was non-existent. The result was a disjointed assault, moving forwards far faster in some regions than others and with units not reinforcing or supporting each other, each one fighting its own private war against the vapour wraiths. It was through this that disaster struck.

The 1st Company had been fighting in the XVIIIth's vanguard and had taken heavy casualties because of it. However, through sheer bloody mindedness its legionaries had ground on and pushed forwards alongside their brothers, refusing to withdraw while their yet remained vapour wraiths on the field and, more importantly in their eyes, while their rival companies remained on the field. This would be exploited by the vapour wraiths who, being exterminated without mercy, launched a last desperate assault to try and force the invaders off of their home. The unit who would be hit hardest by this assault would be the 1st company. Barely above half strength, they fought with all the might they possessed and yet they could not alone turn back the tide and so, with an entire company at risk of being wiped out, the officers of the Ist issued orders that they needed reinforcement. Yet not a single squad from another company lifted a finger to help them.

The orders were repeated twice more and twice more the rest of the XVIIIth failed to reinforce the Ist, who they saw as their rivals. So it was that the few Opsequiari assigned to the XVIIIth drew their weapons and the executions began. While many Opsequiari had the XVIIIth turn on them once they started to execute legionaries, a few accomplished their role and the 1st company was reinforced by elements from several other companies. However, even then the lack of legion wide cohesion was evident, as many legionaries paid little attention to whether they were hitting members of the 1st Company or vapour wraiths, forcing the Opsequiari to make several more executions.

Eventually the vapour wraiths were driven back and destroyed. However, the 1st Company of the XVIIIth legion had perished along with them and while it had accomplished its objective, the XVIIIth had failed its first test as a legion.

### The Emperor's Judgement

Following their failure on Jupiter, the XVIIIth Legion were taken back to Terra in shame, there to await the Emperor's judgement. That judgement, when it came, was brutal: decimation. They had failed to unite as a legion and so one in every ten of them, selected by ballot, would be beaten to death by his comrades. Yet, as if this brutal punishment weren’t enough, three more were heaped upon the XVIIIth. The first was that they would no longer fight as a united legion. Because they had shown that they were incapable of fighting together, they would be broken up into numerous smaller units which were then often assigned to other legions or smaller expeditions. The second was that their officers would not be their own. Instead, they would continue to be drawn from the Ist legion for as long as was deemed necessary. The third and most humiliating was that they would be assigned almost an opsequiarius for every squad and all of these opsequiari would hail from different legions. When the Emperor's Judgement was complete, hundreds of the XVIIIth had been killed by their own brethren and the legion's pride had been utterly broken.

When the XVIIIth returned to the front, it was with the pall of the Emperor's Judgement hanging over their heads that made them virtual outcasts among the other legions. However, they rapidly proved their worth in these smaller units. As gangers in the hives that had been their home, they had often needed to work in the shadows to avoid the attentions of both other gangs and the Arbites. Once learned, this skill for moving unnoticed in the dark places of the world is not easily forgotten and the XVIIIth began to put it to use in service of the Emperor.

Operating in advance of the legion to which they were assigned, the legionaries of the XVIIIth quickly became known for conducting special operations of assassination, sabotage and intelligence gathering, skills that were rare within the legions. While these skills were in great demand, as many compliances were brought to an early end by an assassination of a planetary governor or when the gates of a fortress were mysteriously thrown open from within, it also garnered the XVIIIth a reputation for callousness with regards to collateral damage. Many a time, still-inhabited hab blocks were brought down on columns of enemy armour or thermal reactors were sent into melt down, killing millions but causing chaos and seriously undermining the enemy’s defences prior to an Imperial assault. However, while their methods caused casualties to the civilian population, they saved countless numbers of Imperial troops and so were deemed to be justifiable by all but the most honourable.

With this newfound role in the Great Crusade, the stigma of the Emperor’s Judgement that had hung over the XVIIIth legion since its earliest days began to fade and they began to be accepted by their fellow legions. This process was greatly helped when, in 826.M30, the XVIIIth was given the right to have officers selected from amongst its own ranks rather than those of the Ist. In this many saw the hand of Icarion at work, trying to mend the long-standing rift between the XVIIIth and Ist that had been caused by the practice of Lightning Bearer officers commanding the XVIIIth. While the heightened number of Opsequiari remained, several other legions had similarly high numbers of discipline officers among their ranks, notably the IIIrd and XXth. The deep wounds of the Emperor's Judgement were beginning to be healed.

This process was furthered once more when the XVIIIth was called upon to fight beside the Emperor and the newly discovered **(Add Primarch)** and his newly renamed **(Add Legion)** on Kressen. While not all the XVIIIth was present, it was the largest gathering of them since that first fateful attack on Jupiter, with around 17,000 being deployed to Kressen. There, alongside the Halcyon Wardens they fought a lighting campaign lasting barely three months, with the XVIIIth destroying routes of reinforcement and supply and opening the gates of fortresses to the Halcyon Wardens who then charged in in the armoured assaults for which the Vth was so famous for. It was during this campaign on Kressen, that the XVIIIth first took up a name other than the XVIIIth legion: the '*Silent Choir*'. As the tale is told, the powerful telepath wished to use his power to observe the XVIIIth in action. Alexandros was surprised to witness the marines effortlessly infiltrating the enemy bastions and communicating solely by Astartes battle-cant and HUD rune-blinks, struck by how in-sync each marine is with his squadmates with their actions flowing together perfectly like notes in a song orchestrated by some unseen conductor.

However, despite all this, there remained a bitterness in the Silent Choir. They were still not allowed to operate as a separate legion and were still required to remain attached to this legion or that legion. Because of this they were repeatedly forced to witness other legions discover their primarchs and then forced to obey these newly discovered primarchs, rubbing salt into the wounds caused so long ago by the Emperor's Judgement and the wound caused each time a primarch was discovered who was not their own. Yet one day, the Emperor called the legion together for the first time since the Judgement. The world over which they gathered was called Saepio. There he told them. Their penance was at an end.

Their father had been found.

### A Lonely Cradle

As had happened to all his brothers, Nomus had been scattered to the four winds by chaos. The world upon which he landed was called Saepio. This name, a bastardization of the Proto-Gothic verb "to think", hailed back to the world’s earliest days. Unlike most of the worlds upon which primarchs found themselves, Saepio had not originally been intended as a colony. Instead, it had been a military installation, an entire world devoted to the creation and testing of new, ever more terrible, weapons of war. Yet at some stage its past it had been the site of an experiment that had gone horribly wrong, transforming the world’s surface into an uninhabitable hell hole. It was on this surface that Nomus crashed.

Even for a young primarch, the world’s surface would be uninhabitable for more than a few days without protective gear. However, the young Nomus had barely taken a few steps from his pod when he was found by Saepian scavengers, drawn to his location by the crash. They had expected the wreck of a ship. Instead, they found a metal pod and a dazed, confused child, unprotected against Saepio’s radioactive winds. They took him in and took him back with them to their home: a sprawling slum complex many kilometres under Saepio’s surface.

The people who had found Nomus were descendents of Saepio's earliest inhabitants, the military personnel and scientists who had overseen that last, dreadful experiment. They lived in massive slums underneath Saepio's surface, only going up to the surface to scavenge what machine parts they could from the ruined facilities on Saepio’s surface. Yet nonetheless, they had not completely escaped the effects of the radiation that swamped their world. Most were sickly, suffering from rad-lesions and similar ailments due to their long exposure to the radiation. They were also often malnourished, thin and stunted as a consequence. Because of their long existence underground, all had adapted to have pupils that were larger than those found in the eyes of normal humans in order to take in as much light as possible. Due to all these mutations and sicknesses, the Saepians of this lower caste, the Laborans, were obsessed with the machine, incorruptible and strong, compared to their flesh. Among them it was deemed a great honour to have been able to replace a limb with a bionic. It was among these people that Nomus began to grow to adulthood.

However, as he grew older and his abilities became more apparent, he came to the attention of Saepio’s ruling class, the Prudens, or wise. Unlike the Laborans, the Prudens lived in floating sky cities, far above Saepio's hellish surface and in these cities they had "transcended" their humanity, integrating themselves into a vast AI network which they called the Overseer. Through this network, they ruled Saepio, each one of them having immediate access to all the information collected by the combined network, giving them an unrivalled vantage point from which they could observe everything that transpired upon Saepio. They used this to extract as much from the Laborans as they could, taking all the basic materials scavenged by the Laborans and giving them a drip feed of vital machines, water purifiers, solar power units and even medicine, in exchange. This exploitation enabled them to live lives of stupendous luxury in their grand cities in the clouds.

However, all this brilliance was merely a mask. Underneath it all, the humans on Saepio was slowly dying. As a military installation, they had never been intended to function as a separate world and so had been heavily reliant on imports from off world. Following the catastrophe, all off world support had been withdrawn and so the Prudens had been forced into a desperate search for something capable of stopping the eventual dying out of human life on Saepio. While they had made progress, they had not found any definitive solution, only stop gap measures. Then they found Nomus and in the child’s remarkable abilities they saw the potential to finally stop the decay and death of humanity on Saepio. So, without thought for the child’s feelings or indeed that he had any, they took Nomus from the only home he had known outside his pod and integrated him into the collective as a central processing unit for the massive network.

In the years after his integration, things seemed to look up. Materials were processed with a new efficiency, new places and methods to produce food found and the opulence in which the Prudens lived increased a hundred-fold. Yet at the centre of all this was Nomus, watching, waiting and learning. While his feeling were dulled by his new connection with the Overseer AI, he was still able to feel a sense of injustice, both at the task he was being called upon to perform, oppressing the Laborans for the benefit of the Prudens, and at his abduction from what had, until then, been his home. However, he realised that he could not fight the Prudens. Not yet.

So for years he lay in wait, learning of them and observing, planning. Then one day, inefficiencies began to appear in the Overseer. Resources going missing or failing to be taxed off of the Laborans. More facilities given to the Laborans than necessary. Information regarding unrest among the Laborans “failing” to be acted upon. Through such seeming inefficiencies and glitches in the Overseer, Nomus managed to feed a spirit of rebellion among the Laborans and sure enough, after little more than a year of inefficiency within the Overseer, they rose up in furious revolt.

With weapons cobbled together from scrap, they took the fight to the mechanical armies of the Overseer. Many times, these war-machines marched out against them yet always, they would make a crucial mistake, react to slowly to a battlefield development or leave an opening in their line, that led to them being defeated. Finally, the Laborans began to storm through the cloud cities of the Prudens, slaughtering their oppressors and discovering the machinery which had been kept hidden from them for generations.

Finally, as they closed in on the last of these cloud cities, the Prudens within it scrambled, trying to man their defences or desperately trying to escape off world. Observing this, Nomus addressed them, stating "I am ðμþ-13768230/Σ, heart of the Overseer system. I have watched and now let it be known that I judge you guilty. I have decided that the following sentence is suitable: death." Following this announcement, he shut down all of the city's defensive systems and all ways of leaving it, trapping the Prudens and leaving them open to the sentence he had judged them worthy of, leaving it to be delivered at the hands of the Laborans.

At the head of the Overseer, Nomus began to rebuild Saepio from the wasteland that it had been reduced to. However, barely had his work begun than Imperial vessels manned by elements of the XVIth Legion arrived in the Saepio system. While Nomus was at first oblivious to their presence, as they drew closer to Saepio the long-range scanners of Saepio's orbital defences picked them up. Intrigued by the new arrivals, Nomus did nothing to impede them. Instead, he boosted the capacities of Saepio's comms interceptors and began to listen in on the Imperial’s inter-vessel communications. From what was intercepted, he deduced that not only were these vessels just the precursors to a larger force, but they were also part of a larger human empire. He therefore took what appeared to be the most logical choice and sent them long range hails, entering into negotiation with the Imperium.

For their part, the Imperials were eager to negotiate with the Saepians as doing so would save them the effort and blood of a full-blown invasion of Saepio. However, as negotiation became longer and more drawn out, Mechanicum analysis could find no discernible pattern in the negotiating stance of the Overseer like they would normally expect in an AI yet the capacities of the Overseer were far in advance of those possessed by an ordinary human or even Legionary. It began to be whispered by senior figures in the Expeditionary Fleet command that this was no normal ruler or AI system but one of the Emperor's lost sons, a Primarch.

So it was that they sent word to the Emperor himself who made haste to Saepio to investigate these reports of a being far in advance of ordinary humanity. At his side came Icarion of the Ist and Pionius of the XIXth. Upon arriving over Saepio and engaging in negotiation with the Overseer, the Emperor was able to see not only that it was one of his sons but also which of his sons it was and so sent word that the XVIIIth Legion was to join him in orbit over Saepio.

However, during these negotiations it was not just the Emperor who discovered Nomus' origins but also Nomus himself. Shortly after meeting the Emperor, Nomus made the connection between his own peculiar abilities and the godlike being who ruled the Imperium. Where some of his brothers fought their father, Nomus accepted his role and, with it, command of the XVIIIth.

### A Legion Reforged

Nomus had been found and the entire XVIIIth were gathered and eager to be led into a new and glorious age by their father. However, there would be no rousing speech, no joyous union of father and sons between Nomus and the XVIIIth. Instead, Nomus locked himself in his chambers aboard the XVIIIth's flagship and demanded that their entire service record be brought to his chambers. There he stayed, for weeks, reading through his sons' history, analysing their strengths and weaknesses and ingesting every last morsel of information about them and what he found disturbed Nomus. While he fully understood the necessity of human emotion in warriors and its potential uses in binding legionaries together, his sons went too far, with their emotions seemingly clouding their judgement to such a degree that they had been incapable of fighting as a united force.

Therefore, when he emerged from his chambers, Nomus did not announce any grand first campaign that he would fight at the head of his Legion. Instead, he declared that their first action would be a training exercise upon Saepio’s surface. However, rather than show a reborn Legion, this first exercise was a disaster. Far from curbing his sons’ inability to work together, Nomus’ presence fractured his Legion even further. With their father watching them, the legionaries of the Silent Choir all vied to come to his attention, seeking to gain favour both for themselves and for their company, leading them to engage in acts of great recklessness and stubbornness.

However, far from impressing Nomus, his sons' acts disturbed him deeply. He had sought to temper his legion by his presence, exercise control over them and turn into a fighting machine to rival the famed Lightning Bearers. It is possible he could have done so, for primarchs are beings of inestimable ability, yet a legion who can only be controlled by one individual is as good useless for it can conquer only as quickly as that individual can move. In addition, unlike his brothers, it seems that Nomus understood his own mortality, in a distant, analytical way. As a result, he foresaw the possibility that he would one day perish and if his legion was entirely dependent in him for its leadership, it would be left utterly broken in the wake of his demise. So, once again, Nomus secluded himself in chambers, pondering how best to rebuild his legion into an effective instrument of war.

For weeks Nomus pondered this dilemma, looking over the records and absorbing all the information within, hoping to find an inkling of a solution. And eventually he did. He learned that key to the legions success was their primarchs, who epitomized their sons strengths and weaknesses. Yet Nomus' own legion had little to no similarities to him. Therefore, if he were to transform them into the tool he wished them to be, Nomus discovered he must look inside himself and find what made him efficient where his sons were deficient. After days of introspection, he found it. His lacked emotion. His sons were ruled by it. That was their flaw. It clouded their thoughts, prevented them from taking rational decisions. Therefore, to reform his legion, Nomus needed to drive emotion from out of their minds. Yet how? Emotion was a part of the human mind that could not easily be excised, that much Nomus knew from his observations of them on Saepio. Once again, Nomus searched within his own past for days before finding the answer. Had he not too possessed emotion until his integration into the Collective had driven it from his mind to replace it with reason?

Nomus had his answer. All he had to do was replicate his own neural implants, a task which he set to with steely single mindedness working day and night with the legion's most skilled techmarines. Yet as Nomus worked, unease was rising among his sons. All had been delighted when their primarchs was found, seeing his discovery as a new dawn, free from the shame of their past. However, their primarch was more machine than man, seemingly indifferent to glory and confused by the concept of his sons. Not only that, but where every other primarchs had instantly leapt into the Great Crusade and led his sons to ever greater glories, their own father secluded himself in his chambers for weeks on end. As this unease began to turn into anger, ten of the XVIIIth's leading officers went to Nomus and demanded to know why they lingered over Saepio when the frontlines of the Great Crusade had long since moved on from Nomus' home world. Nomus gave them no reply save to say "You are not yet ready". So the legion waited for weeks. Weeks passed and dragged into months. Violent brawls broke out between legionaries from rival companies as their frustration rose. A primarch's charisma is great but not inexhaustible, and Nomus had little charisma compared to his brothers. Some legionaries began to whisper that their primarch was a weakling, with no stomach for war and they had best strike out on their own.

When news of these troubles reached Nomus' ears, he simply sent the troublemaking companies away, to vent their frustrations on the front line where they would accomplish something. As he did, the number of Legionaries in orbit over Saepio shrank by the day until only the most disciplined companies remained. These companies were finally rewarded when Nomus emerged from his seclusion and announced that he had finally completed the means by which he would reform the Legion: an implant named the Symbios. He declared that his will was that all of his sons would receive the implant eventually. However, for the moment there were not enough implants for all of them to receive them at once. Instead, he declared that he needed ten volunteers who would be the first to receive the implants. Eager to gain their father's favour, those of the Silent Chorus who remained volunteered to a man. Forced to choose who would undergo the procedure from among tens of thousands of Legionaries, Nomus worked methodically, sifting through each and every one of their service records, selecting the most hot headed and irrational, reasoning that if the Collective could tame them then it could tame the Legion.

Foremost among those chosen was Captain Vytaudae. Recruited from the small hive of Vilna, he was infamous for having taken control of his company after he butchered his predecessor in an honour duel. An assault captain, he acted entirely on impulse with no thought given to strategy and less to risk or objectives. Yet after he went under the knife, the emotions which had governed every aspect of his life before were muted to a surprising degree. In their place was cold rationality, a mind inclined to data and statistics. His case was a foreshadowing of things to come for the XVIIIth continued to go under the knife willingly and each who did so came out changed, logical where they were once impetuous, cold where they were once full of hate. The Legion was slowly being reborn.

### The Collective

After having undergone the operation which implanted the Symbios into their brain, these first ten Legionaries emerged as what all of the XVIIIth would become. However, to their brothers who looked on, the benefits of the Symbios were not immediately apparent. Instead of being in any way enhanced, the Legionaries walked the corridors of the Silent Chorus' flagship, seemingly distant and silent from the physical world. What their brothers couldn't see was that this distance was a result of the enormous amounts of information flooding into the brains of these newly implanted Legionaries, for while they now had access to the Collective, they did not yet filter the information it gave them as they later would, leading to their distance, as they ceased to notice the world around them, instead focusing on sorting the new information flooding their brains. Yet from the outside, this appeared as confusion and apprehension in the Legion rose as the Legionaries looked on at the seemingly lost Legionaries who had received the implants their father had promised would bring their Legion to a new dawn. This apprehension rose further when Nomus ordered each of the newly implanted Legionaries to seclude themselves in their chambers and rumours began to be whispered that something had gone wrong. However, eventually, after a month, Nomus visited each of the Legionaries in turn and after his visit, they each emerged from their chambers and no longer did they seem lost, but rather they were the Silent Chorus recast in their father's image.

In order to test these legionaries, Nomus ordered that they be divided into two teams of five and engage in a mock battle. Observed by every legionary still present over Saepio, the results were impressive. Before the implants, the legionaries of the Silent Chorus had fought as a mass of individuals, loosely bound together by gang loyalty. Yet these newly implanted legionaries fought in perfect unison with one another, as if they were limbs of the same being. There remained individual quirks to how they fought, some more aggressive, others too stubborn to take even a step back, but now the other legionaries in the individual's squad were aware of these quirks and took steps to compensate for them. Not only that, but where before the legionaries would have competed to be favoured by their leader over others, they now seemed heedless of favour, compensating for their brother's weaknesses not exploiting them.

With this show of the transformation wrought by the Symbios, all apprehension in the legion vanished and the legionaries once more vied to be chosen to undergo the operation to graft the Symbios to their minds. Soon, entire companies were undergoing the procedure at once. After the procedure, all shared the same appearance of confusion and being lost that had been apparent in the first legionaries and so all secluded themselves in their chambers until visited by one of the first legionaries or Nomus himself. However, there were some whose minds seemed unusually adept at melding with the Symbios. These gifted sons Nomus took into his own tutelage, teaching them everything there was to know about Symbios and the Collective until finally he deemed them ready to enact the "Awakening". Quite what this process involves is unknown, for none of Nomus' sons has ever talked of it to an outsider. All that is known of it is that is the culmination of their month's seclusion and after it, there is little separation between the legionary's mind and the Collective. While each legionary maintains his individuality, he is now merely a small spec in the enormous cloud of the Collective.

Those legionaries who conduct the "Awakening" were called "Tech-Chaplains" by the Imperial Army troopers attached to the XVIIIth and indeed, they fulfil a function similar to that of the chaplains of other legions. Yet this is not a name ever used among the closed ranks of the XVIIIth are known simply as the (Illumoi?), a word that means the "Illuminated" in the jargon of Saepio, a name which refers to the greater degree of integration into the Collective possessed by these legionaries. Yet the respect the Steel Legion have for these individuals goes beyond simply respect for the knowledge they possess, for the Steel Legion also know full well the price these individuals paid for this greater integration and knowledge. Ancient tales of Terra tell of a god named Vothan who tore out his eye in exchange for wisdom and knowledge. The Illumoi face a similar dilemma. In the case of all other legionaries, they retain much of their humanity after receiving the Symbios, albeit muted and restrained. Yet for the Illumoi to gain their gift, they must sacrifice their humanity entirely. As such, they are beings who embody the Collective, yet retain none of their humanity.

On the other end of spectrum from the Illumoi are the lost souls whom the XVIIIth call the Fractii, the broken. Just as with the XVIIIth's gene-seed, it takes great strength of mind to properly accept the Symbios. Not all who undergo the process possess this strength of mind and if a legionary doesn't, his mind breaks from the strain. Flooded by information and assaulted by other minds, the unfortunate legionaries brain shuts down all but its most deeply ingrained functions. As such, the Fractii are a terrifying warning of the dangers posed by the Symbios. Much of the time they are dribbling wrecks, staring blank eyed into the distance. However, just when one is certain they shall never awaken again, they explode into life, howling in agony at the pain of their broken minds, laughing insanely or charging forth as the combat instincts their lives as legionaries hammered into them drive them to spill blood, although their shattered minds make no distinction between friend and foe. These poor souls are given the mercy of one last chance to perish in glory by their brothers and those who don't are given the Emperor's peace.

Yet for the vast majority of legionaries of the XVIIIth, caught between these two extreme ends of the Symbios' effects, there is one major side effect of their new implants: brotherhood. It is a commonly repeated trope that the XVIIIth are cold, logical and distant, incapable of properly feeling brotherhood as their fellow legions do. While it is true that they lack the roaring, feasting, boisterous brotherhood of the Crimson Lions as Iron Bears, the XVIIIth possess a brotherhood which goes far deeper. Where they were once a legion notorious for their lack of brotherhood, after the Symbios brotherhood became the prime virtue in the XVIIIth, for their are bound not only in blood but also in mind. Not even death parts them, for even after a legionary's body has rotted away, his mind lives on through his brother's in the Collective and dreadnought's, so often lonely and distant in other legions, forever separated from their brother's by their rebirth, continue to enjoy the warmth of brotherhood even in their cold tombs. Brothers of the XVIIIth are rarely apart, for the Collective binds them more closely than blood can, and whatever trials a legionary of the Steel Legion endures, he shall never endure them alone for he is forever in his brother's company, even when they are long since dead in body.

Yet none of this was at first apparent in the weeks that saw the entire Silent Chorus reunite over Saepio, the unruly units being called back from the front lines, and have the Symbios implanted in their brains. So it was that Nomus declared that the Silent Chorus should once more descend to the surface of Saepio. There, he would test them again and see if he had succeeded in forging himself a sword sharp enough to wage the Great Crusade with.

With the number of his sons implanted with the Symbios nearing 100%, Nomus determined that it was time to test his sons once more. As such, he declared a second training exercise upon Saepio’s surface. It was to be an effective rerun of the first training exercise which Nomus had ordered upon Saepio's surface. Rather than testing the XVIIIth as he had the first time, Nomus' goal this time was to gauge the effect of the Symbios upon his sons in combat and to familiarise himself with the changes it had wrought in their minds.

The results were impressive. Whereas before the XVIIIth had fought as a group of individual gangs all fighting towards the same objective, they now fought as a perfect war machine, each unit aware of every other’s movements and taking steps to adjust their own strategy to fit in with the difficulties or lack thereof being encountered by their fellow units. While there remained some units who were more impulsive and others more cautious, there fellows were now aware of these tendencies and so adjusted their own strategy accordingly. There is no greater encapsulation of the change the XVIIIth underwent than Nomus’ statement at the end of the training exercise: "No longer call yourselves the Silent Choir. That is a name associated with failure. You have not failed me.:"

So it was that the XVIIIth was reborn, and just in time for the lack of a Legion at the Great Crusade's frontline had begun to show. The XVIIIth were desperately needed at the front and nowhere more than in the Garask system, a system in the galactic west of the nascent Imperium and under assault by the parasitic Y'ssh. There, the Steel Legion would prove themselves and to their brother Legions of their newfound skill and unity. From there, the Steel Legion would go on to accrue honours and victories as they prosecuted the Great Crusade.

### A Legion Reborn

With the number of his sons implanted with the Symbios nearing 100%, Nomus determined that it was time to test his sons once more. As such, he declared a second training exercise upon Saepio's surface. It was to be an effective rerun of the first training exercise which Nomus had ordered upon Saepio's surface. Rather than testing the XVIIIth as he had the first time, Nomus’ goal this time was to gauge the effect of the Symbios upon his sons in combat and to familiarise himself with the changes it had wrought in their minds.
The results were impressive. Whereas before the XVIIIth had fought as a group of individual gangs all fighting towards the same objective, they now fought as a perfect war machine, each unit aware of every other’s movements and taking steps to adjust their own strategy to fit in with the difficulties or lack thereof being encountered by their fellow units. While there remained some units who were more impulsive and others more cautious, there fellows were now aware of these tendencies and so adjusted their own strategy accordingly. There is no greater encapsulation of the change the XVIIIth underwent than Nomus' statement at the end of the training exercise: "No longer call yourselves the Silent Choir. That is a name associated with failure. You have not failed me."

In this way, the XVIIIth was reborn and just in time for their presence on the frontlines was being sorely missed. In the galactic west, the parasitic Y’ssh had exploded from their home world and were carving a bloody path into the Imperium’s western flank. It was against this vile foe that the newly reborn Steel Legion deployed and over the course of the campaign of extermination that they prosecuted against the Y'ssh, it became apparent just how much the formerly unruly XVIIIth had changed. Gone was the glory hunting and jockeying for favour that had been universal in the legion’s earlier days. In its place, the Steel Legion now displayed an unswerving pragmatism, their approach to warfare devoid of any concepts such as personal honour, instead dominated by a cost-results calculus.

Because of this no-nonsense and ruthlessly logical approach to warfare, the Steel Legion soon developed a specialism in siege and naval warfare, where these characteristics, and the superior coordination brought to them by the Symbios, came into their own. In sieges, the Steel Legion were able to avoid the usual confusion that came with the chaos of an escalade due to the Symbios, which meant that every Steel Legion unit was always aware of the position of its fellows and Steel Legion artillery was able to pick its targets through use of its Symbios connection to the forward units rather than relying on spotters or other such relatively crude methods. This same coordination also greatly enhanced the Steel Legion's capabilities in the realm of void warfare, where the Steel Legion was only surpassed by the Void Eagles. Indeed, it was once commented by Captain Lotara Sarrin, commander of the Dragon of Autumn, that the Steel Legion fleet in battle resembled nothing more than a high hive ballet, the movements of every ship perfectly coordinated with those of its neighbour as if choreographed in advance.

Yet while this coordination and logic based approach to war won the Steel Legion many victories, it also gained them a number of detractors. Foremost among these were Hectarion Mycenor, primarch of the Crimson Lions, and Raktra, primarch of the Berserkers of Uran. To the Mycenor, the Steel Legion were little better than servitors, lacking the honour that a warrior should possess, meanwhile to Raktra the Steel Legion were weaklings who had neutered themselves to gain the approval of the Emperor. The Steel Legion were also unpopular with much of the Imperial Army, although this was more due to their seeming lack of humanity than any particular dislike of their manner of waging war.

However, while some reviled them, there were others who held in the Steel Legion in high regard, such as Daer'dd Niimkiikaa, primarch of the Iron Bears, who greatly admired the technological achievement of Nomus in creating the Symbios and Nomus upon Daer'dd's closeness to everyday humanity as an example to be followed, not derided. It was this brotherhood between their primarchs that drew the Steel Legion and Iron Bears together, creating an odd situation whereby the most famously inhuman legion and the most famously human were close brothers. This brotherhood was cemented in blood during the infamous Rust Belt campaign. Lasting throughout the 990s.M30 into the early years of the 31st millennium, it was an enormous campaign to subdue a number of realms in the galactic south whose power was built on old and little understood technology from the Golden Age of humanity. While eventually successful, the two legions paid a heavy price in blood for each victory won meaning that combined squads drawn from both legions were not uncommon by the end of the campaign and it was usual, even into the middle years of the Insurrection, to see Steel Legionaries armed with equipment normally only seen in the arsenals of the sons of Huron and vice versa.

However, it was not just their brother legions with whom the Steel Legion developed ties, for they also forged a strong alliance with the Mechanicum for whom the Symbios and the Collective were regarded as two important steps toward enlightenment. As such, the armies of Mars were far more willingly to fight alongside the Steel Legion than many others. Despite this camaraderie rooted in both forces’ understanding and use of the machine, there always existed a strain. The Symbios was of a design not authorized by the Fabricator General nor the Tech-Priests of the Omnissiah. Thus, no matter how much it was responsible for the Steel Legion's admirable precision, it could never be sanctioned by Mars and was viewed by many Tech-Priests as heretical. Furthermore, the Symbios merely muted the emotions of Man instead of eliminating them as would have been the Mechanicum ideal, meaning the Mechanicum could never bring themselves to completely trust their undeniably still human Steel Legion allies. On the Steel Legion’s part, the Mechanicum remained secretive and jealously possessive of their secrets, refusing to share any more than a fraction of them, which proved a constant frustration for Nomus and the Steel Legion command.

### The Breaking of Steel

Under Nomus Sardauk, the Steel Legion served the Emperor capably and faithfully for many decades. On battlefields across the Great Crusade, such as the four-year long Siege of Tyre and the annihilation of the Heliokrids in the great orbital battles of the Twighlight Stars, the Steel Legion carved out a new reputation for themselves that rose to eclipse the failures of their early years, which one struggles to find any more than passing reference to these days.

However, the efficiency and logic with which these victories were won did not shield the Steel Legion from falling from the Emperor's light. Their fall began, as with so many legions, with the Emperor's departure from the frontlines of the Great Crusade following the Qarith Triumph. Like every legion, the Steel Legion gave the new Warmaster, Alexandros Darshan VonSalim, their loyalty and placed themselves at his command outwardly but inwardly his appointment had planted within them the seed of doubt. To the sons of Nomus, who revered logic above all else, they could find no logical reason for the Emperor's departure and Nomus himself, while also confused by the seeming lack of logic in his father’s decision, was more disturbed by the Emperor’s choice not to inform his sons of the reason for his decision to return to Terra.

The Steel Legion would be further sent reeling by the Vizenko Prosecution and resulting Chaplain Edict, a decision based seemingly in superstition rather than logic. To Nomus himself, he was forced to look on helplessly as new edicts came from the bureaucrats on Terra demanding new taxes from the conquered worlds. In these edicts, Nomus saw less and less of his father’s dream and more and more of the oppression that had been inflicted on the laborans on Saepio and that he had been forced to oversee for so many years. As a result of this, Nomus and the Steel Legion grew disillusioned with the Imperial administration they had helped pave the way for, in most cases trying to keep contact with it to a bare minimum.

It was this disillusionment that would be exploited by Icarion to bring the Steel Legion to his rebellious banner. Together with Koschei, Icarion warned Nomus of a dark future that would doom the Imperium and humanity at large unless they took immediate action. Yet in spite of all this, Nomus still could not bring himself to betray the Emperor or the Warmaster. The final turning point came when Icarion showed Nomus a vision of a short rebellion, in which they rose up against the illogical tyranny the Imperium was becoming and, joined by the Warmaster and his Halcyon Wardens, marched on Terra and set matters right. Whether this vision was a simple plan or a true gift of Icarion’s powers is not known. However, what is known is that this vision, whatever it was, brought the Steel Legion to the Stormborn's banner and upon the Day of Revelation, the Steel Legion readied themselves to shed blood in his name. Only hindsight would reveal this to be a mistake that would hound the Steel Legion evermore.

### Creeping Irrationality

What would follow would be decades of meritorious service as the Steel Legion, as they came to be known, would work hard to close the achievement gap between themselves and their brother Legions. Guided by Nomus, the Steel Legion would become renowned for precision and the economy of force. When the Imperium required the strength of the Astartes yet the meticulous of a machine, the Steel Legion were summoned. Their victories, while not as bombastic as the Crimson Lions or the Iron Bears, often were studied by students of war who wished to emulate their discipline. While none could argue the results of Nomus' use of cybernetics, reactions were divided among their cousins. At worst, outright disgust was evident as in the cases of the Crimson Lions and the Berserkers of Uran who found the Steel Legion's detachment to be utterly unworthy of a proper warrior. At best, there existed a deep sense of trust and coordination. This was exemplified in campaigns with the Lightning Bearers and the Halcyon Wardens. In the former case, the Lightning Bearers' foresight and grace in war allowed them to easily fight alongside the Steel Legion, while, in the latter case, the use of telepathy to coordinate Wardens was of similar nature to the Steel Legion's Symbios.

In contrast to the Legiones Astartes, a strange alliance with the Mechanicum developed. The Symbios and the Collective were regarded as two important steps toward enlightenment where the Mechanicum was concerned. As such, the armies of Mars were far more willingly to fight alongside the Steel Legion than many others. Despite this camaraderie in the mechanical, there always existed a strain. The Symbios was of a design not authorized by the Fabricator General nor the Tech-Priests of the Omnissiah. Thus, no matter how much it was responsible for the Steel Legion's admirable precision, it represented a barrier between the two forces. Furthermore, the Symbios merely muted the emotions of Man instead of eliminating them as would have been the Mechanicum ideal. For this 'weakness', the Mechanicum would never fully reveal its secrets of the machine to the Steel Legion.

Unfortunately, the vaunted logic of the Steel Legion did not confer an immunity to manipulation. The Emperor's retirement from the Great Crusade would befuddle Nomus and his sons. While Nomus maintained a close relationship with Alexandros and offered his complete support to the new Warmaster, the Emperor's disappearance would leave a wound of confusion, especially the Emperor's choice to not inform his sons of the reason for this abrupt course of action. The ensuing Vizenko Prosecution and Chaplain Edicts would add to the disorientation.

With this gaping hole in information, Nomus and his sons could not fully adapt to the new state of affairs. It would be this turmoil that would allow Icarion to exploit for his own purposes. Together with Koschei, Icarion warned Nomus of a dark future that would doom the Imperium and humanity at large. Although trusting of Icarion, Nomus was not easily persuaded to betray the Emperor or the Warmaster. It would take Koschei's idealism and Icarion's promise of a short conflict to eventually reason him to the Stormborn's side. It is claimed Icarion offered a vision, whether a mundane plan or a true gift of his powers is unknown, in which the Warmaster sided with the Insurrectionists and delivered Terra to them.

It would take this last manipulation, or deception, before Nomus would swear himself to Icarion's cause. As the Steel Legion prepared for the Day of Revelation, only hindsight would reveal this to be a mistake that would hound the Steel Legion evermore.

## Legion Organisation and Structure

The Steel Legion is heavily technologically aspected. But where others would be about physical enhancements primarily, the XVIIIth improve their minds. Every Astartes is part of a collective; sensation, information and even experience can be shared between members. As a marine falls, his consciousness is disseminated through this link so that the experience is not lost and as more marines in a unit fall the remainder become more and more effective. Eventually too few, or only a single Astartes is left. A single marine is given command of a new initiated squad so they can benefit from his experience. Units that have been whittled away and are too small for effective battlefield use are amalgamated with other likewise reduced units. Eventually over several repetitions of this process come out veteran marines who have the combined knowledge and experience of dozens and effectively have skills honed over hundreds or even thousands of battles.

### Unit Formation and Structure

The XVIIIth Legion functioned less as a traditional army and more as a multi-faceted machine. Every Legionary was given a specific role and purpose, even if it was nothing more than being a standard line Legionary. At its core, the Steel Legion was defined by the Collective. It guided their every tactic and strategy as they prosecuted the Great Crusade.

Yet, this was not made obvious in appearances as far as structure was concerned. Although Nomus had insisted upon the adoption of the Collective, he too adopted the doctrines of the *Principia Belicosa* wholesale. Within its precepts, Nomus found a system of organization that allowed for great tactical and strategic flexibility as originally designed by the Emperor. As such the Steel Legion manifested as though they had simply stepped from the earliest days of Terra with the Legion organized by chapters by battalions and so on all the way down to the ubiquitous tactical squad. Tradition proved to be a capable ally.

However, tradition was not regraded as sacred. Application of proven theory would be the line of distinction between the Steel Legion and its forebears. Cybernetics would be the tool of synthesis between the old ways and the new. In particular, Nomus viewed reconnaissance squads, not with grudging necessity, but as a critical element in war. Data itself would become a weapon in the hands of the Steel Legion as cutting-edge technology was lavished upon the humble reconnaissance squad. With improved equipment, reconnaissance squads could see more, learn more and utilize the Collective to transmit this information to their brothers.

Furthermore, with this emphasis on knowledge, the stratagems of the Steel Legion naturally lent itself to more precise applications of warfare. While not given over to embellished strategies for its own sake, comprehensive intelligence and honed reaction times allowed the Steel Legion to perform detailed and layered tactics that could overwhelm opponents with measured firepower from multiple trajectories. One happy side effect was a mastery of siege and urban warfare. Accurate artillery would be the bane of defenders as bombardments reduced fortifications to rubble, while expertly-timed cross-fire and perfectly-placed emplacements shredded aggressors. The other emphasis is electronic warfare and combined arms.

### Specialist Formations

* **Praevians of the Steel Legion** - Many Legions of the Space Marines make use of Battle-Automata, indentured into their service by the Legio Cybernetica – some come to be considered as battle-brothers by the Astartes, especially in those Legions with a strong warrior-spirit or a close relationship with the Mechanicum. However, Battle-Automata – by their very nature – can never be integrated into the XVIIIth Legion's Collective. As such, the Steel Legion do not feel any kinship with indentured robots, let alone grant them the honour of being considered battle-brothers. This puts the Legion's Praevians in a singularly complex position: though they are part of the Collective, they are also connected to their Battle-Automata charges. Stimuli from both Astartes minds and Artificial consciousnesses coalesce in the Praevian’s brain, which can make it complex to focus on the immediate necessities. This problem was first identified at the battle of Khalastaer, as the three Praevian-led units of Castellax were misled by Eldar attacks falling in coordination on multiple parts of the Steel Legion’s lines, drawing fire from the Battle-Automata onto the Astartes’ own men. As a result, new Praevians have only ever been promoted from Legionnaires that have lost their entire squads but have partially ostracised themselves from the Collective in order to deal with their loss, in opposition to those who embrace the consciousnesses of the fallen when becoming Aeterna.
* **Destroyers within the Steel Legion** - Within many legions, the destroyer cadre was a unit to whom assignment was a punishment. In this, the Steel Legion were no different from other legions. However, within their ranks assignment to the destroyer cadre bore an added weight. It has long been known that the rad weaponry carried by destroyers will, over time, gradually destroy both the equipment and body of the legionary carrying them. For a legionary of the XVIIIth, the same applies to their implants that connect them to the neural network of the Steel Legion, bond them to the collective. In a legion where, despite their reputation as machine men, brotherhood is held to be the highest human emotion due to the deep connection every legionary has to his brothers, to be cut off from this network and his brothers was a punishment without equal. Worse, the destruction of this link was not sudden. Instead it was gradual, a fading rather than obliterating of this connection, made all the more frustrating for the legionary undergoing it due to his helplessness to stop it. One legionary once likened it to watching a ship slowly vanish across the horizon and being unable to do anything but watch. Many legionaries were killed in action before their weaponry completely nullified their implants. However, those few who did and who made up the backbone of the XVIIIth's destroyers were cold, self-isolating individuals with little to fill the gaping hole their separation from the collective left.
* **Omnia Reconnaissance Squad** - Very small (limited to 5 marines) units of sharpshooters. They all carry specialised Stalker-pattern Boltguns and have advanced training in cyber warfare. So much so that they can hack into and disable enemy buildings/vehicles on the field of battle.
* **Aeterna Veterans** - The product of multiple cycles of squad mergings. They are highly skilled in all methods of combat and are highly versatile warriors. They move together instinctively able to cover each others openings in ways that no lesser warriors are able to emulate.

### The 51st Echelon

When the Stormborn commanded his legions to strike upon the loyalists during the operation that we will forever remember as the Day of Revelation, he ordered the Steel Legion to tackle the main of the Void Eagles, their fleet the only one able to compete with the Starborn's. Lesser detachments would be assigned to the Drowned, but there remained one formation that remained impossible to ambush: the 5th Fleet, a chapter-sized section of the legion, which had been unaccounted for in the five years before the Insurrection, rumoured to have been destroyed by unknown threats beyond the light of the Astronomicon.

However, Sardauk could not simply assume that these rumours were true, as this would amount to leaving a potential threat in his back. To that end, he ordered the 51st Echelon — a company specialized in intelligence, and speculated to dabble in forgotten technology to better study their enemies — to scour the void beyond the Galaxy, cut out from the wider Collective in a hunt for the Sons of Nothingness. None knows for sure what happened to the 51st Echelon, but the bizarre armour patterns bore by Alavator's raiders upon his return to the Galaxy suggests that they failed in their mission.

## Legion Combat Doctrine

### Tactics, Strategy & Warfare

The XVIIIth's tactics rely on a complex interplay of units of different specialisations acting in perfect concert to achieve their goals. However, one thing that is almost always a factor is the use of preliminary bombardments, either saturation or precision depending on the situation, to suppress and kill the enemy without risk to the Sons themselves. As such they have heavy artillery and naval elements allowing them to strike at some foes with impunity.

Where such bombardments would prove ineffective the XVIIIth will engage on the ground. Here they do not focus on a single aspect of fighting, but use each unit to cover the weaknesses and blind spots of the others. Most marines show a greater propensity for ranged warfare, however whether this is due to some preference passed down via their cybernetic links or simple expediency is unknown.

### Machines of the Void

While the Void Eagles were famed for their skill and the Harbingers for the quality of their ships, the Steel Legion earned its own notoriety among the stars. Not only is the XVIIIth's fleet extremely large, diverse and powerful, benefiting with enhanced and augmented with the most potent of bleeding-edge technology, but their crews benefit from a more physical connection between warrior and warship as Steel Legionaries would often install access stations on their ships. With these stations, Legionaries could meld their minds directly into their assigned roles. This resulted in warships with increased weapon accuracy and improved reaction times. Boarding Steel Legion ships became nightmares as enhanced point-defence systems could expertly eliminate entire boarding waves before threatening the ship. Boarding teams who had survived the onslaught would immediately come under fire from defenders in position and establishing kill zones.

### Specialty

Due to their ability to analyse their enemies quickly and accurately, fixed emplacements are especially vulnerable to the XVIIIth Legion, because they cannot adapt or change so breaking them is a simple task of applying sufficient force to weaknesses until they crack. The XVIIIth also specialise in the mixing of fleet and ground operations, their ships being in the precise place they need to fire lances or macrocannon shells into concentrations of the enemy.

There is also an incredibly high incidence of cybernetic augmentation within the XVIIIth Legion. All Legionaries have some allowing access to a collective neural network allowing for instantaneous transfer of information during battle without that unnecessary speaking part. Others go further in an attempt to emulate their Primarch allowing them to act as nodes for their brothers, holding vast stores of knowledge on tactics or weapons for faster access when fighting.

## Legion Wargear & Equipment

### An-Temural Drop-Pod

Main article: An-Temural Drop-Pod
Drop-pod bunkers. They don't carry marines, but can be shot into the no-mans land outside enemy defences in order to provide strongpoints and cover for besiegers. They can also be used defensively allowing for the rapid creation of fallback locations from which to defend against an advancing foe.

## Notable Campaigns

### The Garask Campaign

The Y'ssh were a species first encountered by the Imperial forces assigned to the 444th Expeditionary Fleet, chief among them four companies from the XVIth legion. Finding evidence of xenos life, the XVIth had deployed to the Y'ssh home world's surface and launched an all out assault upon the Y'ssh hives. At first the assault had gone well, with the XVIth butchering all the Y'ssh they found and leaving the hives charnel houses. However, what at first seemed a routine compliance quickly began to turn into a nightmare. Three weeks into the compliance legion casualties quadrupled. Where before the Y'ssh had engaged the legionaries directly, they now employed ruthlessly effective ambush tactics, slaughtering entire squads in their hives' narrow corridors. With this increase in casualties, reports from the surface became increasingly grim until finally, they stopped coming altogether.

It is unknown what became of the rest of the 444th Fleet, although given the events that followed their abortive attack on the Y'ssh homeworld it can be assumed they were destroyed by the Y'ssh's strange vessels. Unlike any other vessels encountered by the Imperium, the Y'ssh ships were not constructed of metals nor even wraithbone like those of Eldar. Instead, they were woven out of plants and organically expanded over time as those plants grew. How the Y'ssh accomplished this is unknown and no Magos Biologis has ever been able to provide a concrete answer. None the less, for all their strangeness, the Y'ssh ships were no less effective than their Imperial counterparts and soon the Y'ssh had burst out from their homeworld and begun tearing into the Imperium in two prongs, one going north the other south, overrunning any Imperial world in their path. On these worlds, the Y'ssh rarely stayed long for they had no interest in the world's resources or manufacturing capacity. Instead, all that interested them was the world's human population, whom they used as living cocoons for their young, who would burst out of their host when fully formed (normally, although not always, killing their host in the process) and then devouring their hosts flesh to fuel the last stages of their growth.

Twenty two worlds were lost in this way before the Imperium responded. The first force to come to the aid of those worlds in the Y'ssh's path was a force of Shepherds of Eden led by Hastur Sejanus. They deployed against the northern prong and halted it in six months of fighting on the world of Kersk, saving many billions of lives in the process. However, this victory cost them dearly, for 76% of the Shepherds of Eden were killed in the fighting. While one prong had been halted, it was clear the Shepherds of Eden could not halt another and the southern prong of the Y'ssh invasion still ran rampant. So it was that the Emperor decided to send the XVIIIth into action once more, Nomus at their head.

The world which would be the XVIIIth's second proving ground was named Krakdesh. A densely populated world, it was also a fortress world, guarded by mighty defences built in mankind's Golden Age. Now, it's defences had been bolstered by nearly 100,000 legionaries of the XVIIIth. When the Y'ssh launched their assault upon the world, the he world the changes wrought upon them by the Symbios. Instead of each squad competing for glory and favour, they now provided each other with overlapping fields of fire instinctively and without need for orders. When orders were issued, it was via the Collective, meaning the XVIIIth now fought in complete silence rather than wasting breath on shouted orders and battle cries.

The embodiment of this was Nomus. Unlike his brothers, Nomus made little effort to take part in the fighting, only using his weapons when the battle came to him. Instead, he stood in silence observing the course of the battle through the Collective and the information transmitted through it, then issuing orders over the Collective, masterfully maneuvering his units like pieces on a board, his orders being followed without a second's hesitation by his sons. A commander of the Krakdesh Defence Forces who was observing the battle through a hololith likened the XVIIIth to a well-forged steel blade, flexing where it needed to and yet staying hard and unyielding but above all not a single movement out of place or wasted. None know the truth of why the Steel Legion took possible, is unknown but it is rumoured Nomus heard of the commander's comments and found the likeness to his liking and so renamed his legion the Steel Legion. It is unlikely any know the truth of the matter save Nomus himself, although some have questioned whether he's capable of feeling that degree of human emotion.

Regardless, the Steel Legion encircled the Y'ssh assault force on Krakdesh and destroyed IFP with volleys of disciplined bolter fire and storms of artillery, a strategy many would soon come to associate with the Steel Legion, for because of the Collective their artillery gunners had no need of spotters, for they could get all the information they needed from their brothers in the tactical and assault squads. Their casualties had been light, barely 12%, when compared to those of the Shepherds of Eden and under Nomus' command they began a counter attack to push the Y'ssh out of Imperial space and exterminate the vile species once and for all.

However, if Krakdesh was a new dawn for the legion, the glory they won there was soon tarnished by their actions afterwards. It proved no issue for the Steel Legion to retake the lost Imperial Worlds as the majority of the Y'ssh forces had been destroyed on Rasya and Krakdesh. However, on every world the Steel Legion retook they initiated a programme of cleansing. Determined to stamp out all traces of the Y'ssh and make sure their annihilation was complete, the Steel Legion slaughtered all of their human hosts, butchering tens of billions in the process until they finally reached the Y'ssh homeworld where, rather than wasting the effort on cleansing the hives from within, Nomus simply ordered that they be shelled with incendiary munitions and left to burn.

The Steel Legion had announced their rebirth to the world and it was clear how they would now wage war. Gone was the glory seeking of earlier years. In its place, they were remorseless and logical, winning every battle with the least expenditure of ammunition and effort possible, no matter the methods they had to employ to do so.

### Compliance of Bulta Majoris

Little is known about this campaign, although Paleon Ephricos is known to have risen to prominence during its prosecution.

### Compliance of Epsilon-Theta

Although the benefits of the Steel Legion's unique neural network cannot be denied, much like the gene-seed, there is a level of risk associated when first integrating a new individual into the Collective. While the Steel Legion takes extreme care to minimize poor outcomes, Nomus Sardauk was unable to completely eliminate rejection incidents. For reasons that span biological to mental to simple error, there are a number of Space Marines who, instead of becoming connected, suffered repercussions. Although rare, legionnaires have been documented as biologically rejecting the implants as immune systems attack the foreign constructs. The most visible rejections belong to a group that has been nicknamed the Fractus. These are Astartes who, for whatever reason, mentally could not cope with joining the neural network. With shattered psyches, the Steel Legion re-purposes these extremely rare cases with more cybernetic implants that return a degree of combat ability, in essence, becoming Space Marine-level servitors.

The one battle where the Fractus were deployed in force throughout the Great Crusade was the Compliance of Epsilon-Theta. A planet-wide dictatorship, Epsilon-Theta was ruled by a cruel tyrant named Anguis. To ensure his rule, Anguis had seeded his own palace with traps that would kill a trapped telepathic psyker in an excruciating manner. Whenever one of these telepaths died, they would unleash a psychic disturbance that would obliterate nearby minds.

Since it was unknown if the Steel Legion's neural network or psyker contingent could accurately counter this danger, Nomus gathered what members of the Fractus available and deployed them in first wave of drop pods around Anguis' fortified palace, supported by precision bombardment targeting the more mundane defenses. The mind-damaged marines advanced as ordered into Anguis' sanctum. The tyrant quickly triggered his psychic bombs but to no avail.

The Fractus' advance was finally put to an end when Anguis deployed his personal bodyguard. While retaining the endurance of a Space Marine, the Fractus were quickly outwitted and outmaneuvered. Yet, they served their Primarch's purpose with aplomb. As the last of the Fractus fell, Nomus personally led a second wave, which had been deploying while Anguis' warriors had put down the Fractus. The resistance almost instantly crumbled before the Son of the Emperor with Anguis executed in the dawn's morning light.

Freed from their hated torturer, the rest of Epsilon-Theta gladly submitted themselves to the Steel Legion.

## Legion Gene-Seed

Both the Preomnor and Omophagea act at a diminished capacity within the XVIIIth and they are able to only gain extremely limited information through consuming a foe's flesh, also they are slightly more susceptible to poisonous substances than other marines. However their Sus-an Membrane seems to be highly responsive allowing even the most critically injured marines to survive the vital moments for their memories to be uploaded to the collective.

## Legion Beliefs

### The Collective

Upon being accepted as a full Battle-Brother, every Legionary undergoes the process of receiving the cybernetic implants that allows them to become one with the Collective. These implants are small and non-evasive, designed to integrate into the human body as comfortably as possible. One side effect is a more logic-based mindset due to implants in the Frontal Lobe improving the brain's ability to process large amounts of information and puzzle solving skills, leading to the more robotic "inhuman" attitude.

The risk that comes with the Collective is that of mental collapse, marines whose wills can't endure and minds can't adapt to the added mental weight of memory downloads and general information overload have their minds collapse under the strain. When this occurs the downloaded memories blur together with their own into an indistinct static of sensations, identities, names, faces, places, etc as the afflicted lose all sense of self-identity and become vegetables, only temporarily becoming animate again as certain stronger memories briefly rise to the fore of the marine's shattered psyche before fading. A few marines can be saved from this fate before they reach the stage of complete collapse, being treated/trained by Tech-Chaplains (specialist Chaplain/Techmarine hybrids) who help them piece together and reorganise the marine's mind within virtual simulations within the Collective. After Nomus was reunited with his Legion and introduced the Collective to his sons, he personally trained the first batch of volunteers on how to use it and then had them spread this knowledge to the next batches of volunteers before forming the specialist rank of 'Tech-Chaplain' from those Astartes who showed the most aptitude and understanding. These Tech-Chaplains are also the ones responsible for training marines in how to safely integrate into and utilise the Collective when they first receive their implants, Nomis himself founded and mentored this specialist group following the Collective's introduction into the Legion.

Those who cannot be saved, known as the Fractus, are granted one last opportunity to fight, their bodies augmented with cybernetics that effectively turn them into Combat Servitors so they can seek an a honourable death in combat against the enemies of mankind, they are unleashed into battle in small units lead by one of the same specialist Chaplains.

## Notable Steel Legion Members

* Asima Ginaz - Captain of the Third Company

## Legion Fleet

The Steel Legion possess a substantial Legion fleet comprised of around 6,000 ships. Though their fleet is smaller than some of their fellow Legions, such as the Void Eagles, due to their preference for emphasising quality over quantity, their fleet is still within the top three (size-wise) of the Great Crusade's Expeditionary Fleets, and each ship is more sophisticated and technologically advanced than any other Legion. The Steel Legion has one of the most advanced fleets among the Legiones Astartes, as their vessels pack a substantial punch and can take more punishment than their contemporaries in other Legions. Plus, with the addition of more specialised vessels, such as the *Umbra*-class, the Steel Legion are able to strike a foe in unexpected ways. The Steel Legion also possesses a dedicated carrier class vessel that can deploy large numbers of strike craft, including squadrons of disposable 'drone' craft that are piloted by Cybernetica-style machine spirits that are themselves controlled and directed by Praevian specialists via the Collective.

### Notable XVIIIth Legion Vessels

* ***Binary Eternity***
* ***Antithesis***
* ***Momentum of Progress***
* **I*rresistible Force***
* ***Unyielding Reason***
* ***Warmind***
* ***Truesilver***
* ***Liberation of Knowledge***
* ***Ascension of Steel*** **(Battleship)**
* ***Occam's Razor***
* ***Newton's Law***
* ***Enlightenment's Arrow***
* ***Order's Approach***
* ***In Argent Clad***
* ***Herald of Saepio***
* ***Velocity & Intent***
* ***Inquisitive Mind***
* ***Exultant Logic***

### *Umbra*-Class Intelligence Cruiser

As the XVIIIth Legion favours a more cerebral style of warfare, their wargear and equipment tends to reflect the technologically advanced and sophisticated Steel Legion. For instance, the *Umbra*-Class Intelligence Cruiser, a rare (and highly secret) variant of Astartes Strike Cruiser custom-designed from the ground up by the formidable mind of Nomus Sardauk himself. The *Umbra* carries a lighter weapon loadout than it's sister ship, but that's just to make room for the advanced sensor suites, electronic warfare centres, hangar bays and emission heatsinks. All of these things make the *Umbra* a fantastic reconnaissance ship capable of slipping into hostile star systems and lingering there unnoticed for days before it needs to discharge it's built-up emissions, all the while remotely hacking into planetary networks, intercepting/decrypting enemy communications, covertly deploying Legion forces in-system (most often Omnia Recon Squads), the *Umbra* is even capable of launching crippling cyberwarfare attacks on other vessels in combat, leaving them completely vulnerable to capture or destruction. The *Umbra*'s hangar bays are no bigger than a standard Strike Cruiser, however, that by itself is fairly impressive in scope given rapid deployment of forces is what Strike Cruisers are designed for. In addition given the *Umbra*'s purpose it carries a full complement of gunships and drop pods, all of whom have been modified for covert insertions with similar stealth tech as the *Umbra*.

## Legion Appearance

### Legion Badge

The Steel Legion's badge is a stylised representation of their Primarch Nomus Sardauk, facing fowards. The ancient Grecian symbol emblazoned upon the head represents the letter 'S' or Sigma. This symbol symbolises the sum of the XVIIIth Legion. The power of the 'Collective' is the sum of its individuals, and the Sigma symbol is the direct representation of this.

### By the Steel Legion

"*He who has the information, has the power.*"
— Nomus Sardauk, Primarch of the Steel Legion
"*I am the Collective.
I am the Sum of all parts.
I **am** the Eighteenth Legion.*"
— Nomus Sardauk, Primarch of the Steel Legion
"*Brother, I believe we should combine our efforts to improve Human and Astartes physiology, with our combined intellects we could make the species superhuman, combining the strengths of both with neither's weakness."
(Primarch Name) "An intriguing proposition Nomus, one I find myself strongly considering, we could revolutionise the field of genetics!"
"Humanity as a whole could be improved."
(Primarch Name) "Harder."
"Better."
(Pionus) "Faster."
"Stronger.*"
— A conversation between Primarchs Nomus Sardauk and (Primarch Name) of the (Legion Name), debating the merits of making improvements upon human physiology
*Feel free to add your own*