Dark Angels - The Inner Circle: After the destruction of Caliban, the senior members of the Ist Legion assembled in secret conclave. They decreed that knowledge of the fall from grace of their brothers must remain undisclosed for all time, and that no outsider must ever learn of the schism that had split the Legion or that some Space Marines of the Dark Angels Legion had turned to the Ruinous Powers like the Astartes of the Traitor Legions.Should this dreadful truth ever become known, they feared that the Dark Angels would come to be reviled as Traitors like those who had followed Horus, and all hope of expunging the stain to their honour in the Emperor's eyes would be lost forever.As the decades following the Fall of Caliban turned to centuries, the Inner Circle took shape. It grew from an ad hoc conclave into a formal, if still furtive, organisation that spread through not just the Dark Angels, but their Successor Chapters as well. Recruitment planets were founded and new generations of Dark Angels were added, replacing the ranks of those lost in battle.The regimens and drills of the Chapter were strict, with special emphasis on brotherhood and loyalty. However, the Masters and elder warriors who led the instruction told the Neophytes nothing of the sins of their forefathers. The truth of what occurred and knowledge of the Fallen was withheld, now known only to the increasingly small number of brethren who had survived it.The Inner Circle was comprised of the Legion's most senior officers, formed to forever guard this dangerous knowledge, and each member swore oaths of unspeakable secrecy. The Inner Circle is currently comprised of the Dark Angels Chapter's Supreme Grand Master, all of the other Grand Masters, the Masters of each of the Chapter's companies, the members of the Deathwing and the Ravenwing Black Knights. However, even the members of the Inner Circle receive gradations of the truth, and only the Supreme Grand Master of the Chapter is currently privy to all of the Dark Angels' many secrets.The Grand Masters of the Inner Circle swore that so long as even one of the Traitor Fallen Angels remained alive and unrepentant, the Dark Angels would bear the stigma of the Unforgiven, cursed by their own brothers to atone for all eternity for the sins of the past.Until every last Fallen Dark Angel was captured and made to repent, there could be no peace for those sons of the Lion who had remained true to their duty. This would be the true mission of the Inner Circle, and, through its secretive machinations, of the entire Chapter.The Inner Circle hides its true face even from its own. Where many Space Marine Chapters openly celebrate their ancestors' achievements, the Dark Angels take great pains to tell their story one passage at a time. Much of the Dark Angels' teachings to their brethren on this subject are couched in allegory, parable and myth, the same essential truths told again and again in one form after another. As veterans rise through the unseen levels of trust, more of the truth is gradually revealed to them by the ranking members of the Inner Circle.The first such allegory a Dark Angel is told recounts the so-called Tale of Two-Heads-Talking, in which a band of Deathwing Terminators returned to the planet of their birth to find their people enslaved by hideous xenos overlords. Daubing their armour white, as was the tradition of their native people, the Terminators began their death-quest. They defeated their enemy, but at the cost of the life of their beloved Librarian.Similar tales are told at every stage in a Dark Angel's progression through the ranks, the details changing from one story to the next, but the essential truth remaining. Each tells of a group of heroes returning to their homeworld to find their people enthralled by a Traitor, and only at the cost of eternal humiliation and dishonour are the enemies defeated. Even then, some always escape, to be hunted down later.Only on his ascension to the elite 1st Company, known within the Dark Angels Chapter as the Deathwing, will a battle-brother of the Dark Angels or the other Unforgiven Chapters begin to learn the truth of the events that transpired at the very dawn of the Age of the Imperium. This is the first ring of trust within the Inner Circle and those who are considered for membership are observed, unaware, by those within the hidden order and also by the diminutive Watchers in the Dark, the mysterious humanoid creatures that haunt the lower levels of The Rock.It is essential that only those who have proven their loyalty to the Chapter time and time again across the decades are allowed to progress. Silent and hooded brothers lead any aspirants before the assembled Inner Circle for the great rituals of judgement, and those chosen are elevated to the Deathwing, or disappear forever, further casualties of the Unforgiven's shame.While a new member of the Inner Circle might suppose he has now been told the whole truth about his Chapter, such is not the case. There remain circles within circles, levels within levels, with each step accompanied by its own rituals. Entering the 1st Company is only the beginning of a Dark Angel's journey towards the truth.Rising through the intricate and convoluted ranks of the Inner Circle, he learns more and more, the secrets one by one revealed as his Masters' trust in him increases. Only upon ascension to the rank of Grand Master (leader of an entire specialty of the Chapter) is the whole truth revealed, and even then, it is likely that there remain revelations known only to the holder of the title of Supreme Grand Master, the Chapter Master of the Dark Angels.Given the planning skills inherited from their primarch, the Dark Angels have instituted fail-safe systems that automate the passing on of knowledge should key members of the Inner Circle die without being able to properly reveal their secrets to their successors.There are some revelations that are known only to those who gain ascension to the rank of Supreme Grand Master. And yet, there remain secrets of the Chapter to which even he is not privy...