A Chaos Space Marine
Chaos Space Marines, also sometimes called Traitor Marines, Renegade Marines, or Heretic Astartes, were former Space Marines of the Imperium of Man who have chosen to abandon the service of the Emperor of Mankind and dedicate themselves to Chaos to achieve their own ends. They were one of the greater forces from the Fop'lla Universe and part of the Forces of Chaos, which also include daemons and lesser humans. Chaos Space Marines came in many forms and tend to have cults of both human and non-human followers. Depending on the philosophy of the legion, they are deeply devoted to certain chaos deities, either one or all of them, but on rare occasions none of them.
Unlike many other factions from their home universe, rather than being united under the umbrella of a higher figure or as loosely affiliated groups, they were fractious, fickle, refractory and prone to infighting amongst themselves, even during the First Multiverse War and the Chaos Wars when they were a loose 'member' of the Horde, mostly for their own purpose of spreading death and carnage to all of the The Known Multiverse as they could. They were only truly unified in their will to survive, hatred of the Emperor Of Man and their fight against the Empire of the Combine Race, other rival dark cult factions and their desire to help Chaos become the ruling power of creation via acts of unspeakable evil. Only when the Warmaster of Chaos (The current being Abaddon) launched a new temporary Black Crusade that would have had the vast majority of chaos warbands unify, for the sole purpose of wreaking as much havoc and destruction upon their home galaxy as possible, the Imperium in particular.
They were a formidable force against the Alliance of Nations and the Axis of Empires during the Great War, until the revival of the God Emperor himself and his remaining Primarchs fought them back. By the time of the Fall of Chaos, the Traitor Legions had been weakened considerably, having been reduced to a few bands at most fighting a desperate last stand against both the Multiversial Federation and the TransRace Empire.
History[]
Chaos Founding[]
Similar to other versions of the Chaos Space Marines' origins, it stated in their home universe, the Fop'lla Universe that dated back in the 31st millennium. Back then, eighteen legions of genetically modified super-soldiers, the Space Marines, fought to unite the galaxy under the banner of the Imperium of Man in a campaign that history later called the Vop'lla Great Crusade. The Emperor of Mankind claimed that the intention of this campaign was to unite humanity under one banner, wipe out any alien race that threatened their dominion or survival and establish humanity as the ruling force in the Milky Way galaxy. In truth, however, the Emperor knew about the existence of the Chaos Gods and the dangers they posed (and possibly other forces beyond their reality). His secret agenda was to their install the principal of the Imperial Truth - an atheistic doctrine, which would turn their species away from the elements that served as the Chaos Gods' power source, thus eradicating them once and for all.
Perhaps fearing the eventual result, Khorne, Nurgle, Slaneesh and Tzeentch, as well as the lesser gods of chaos of their reality stopped their own conflicts to interfere with the works of the God Emperor. The first step was to scatter his genetically modified children, the Primarchs across the galaxy thus ensuring that the Emperor could not raise or teach them under his own philosophy from an early age. As such each of the Primarchs would face his own trial and tribulations before the Emperor rediscovered them, which in some cases sowed the first seeds of resentment against their father.
Only once the Great Crusade was already underway, would the Chaos Gods seize their chance. Starting with the Emperor's disenfranchised son, the pious Lorgar Aurellian, who became disillusioned with his father following an incident in which the Emperor publicly humiliated both him and his legion, the Chaos Gods seduced Lorgar into Chaos-worship. When the Primarch undertook a pilgrimage, they showed him horrifying visions of the future under the Emperor and convinced him that without the aid of Chaos, humanity would share the fate of the Aeldari. Having won over a powerful leader and orator into their cause, the Chaos Gods' campaign to subvert the Emperor's faithful soldiers had begun.
After purging his Legion of all elements with any loyalties left to the Emperor, Lorgar sent his First Captain Erebus as an ambassador. Erebus, keeping his Legion's new faith a close secret, began organizing the Warrior Lodges, secretive fraternal orders within the Space Marine Legions that existed outside of the Legion's regimented and ordered structures. Though these were under the guise of providing brotherhood without rank, they were instrumental in fomenting sympathies and paving the way for the coming betrayal.
Erebus proved instrumental for setting the stage to the Horus Heresy after seeding the Warrior Lodges into a full half of the Legions and successfully engineering the fall of Horus into Chaos by stealing a powerful weapon known as the Anathame and giving it to a rebellious planetary governor who injured Horus with it. Desperate to save their leader ,Horus' troops were tricked into bringing him to the serpent's lodge, a group of supposed mystical healers who unknown to them were secretly chaos worshippers. Using this opportunity the Chaos Gods managed to convince the injured Horus to turn against the Imperium in exchange for healing him and he quickly rose to power as the leader of the Chaos forces.
The resulting conflict stretched across the known galaxy all the way to the throne world of Holy Terra consuming billions upon billions of lives, devastating countless worlds and ultimately leading to the Emperor's permanent interment upon the life support system known as the Golden Throne. In the end though Horus' rebellion cost him his life and his fellow traitor troops were forced to retreat into the realm of the Warp through the dimensional rift known as the Eye of Terror in order to avoid the wrath of the vengeful Imperial forces. Never the less a new deadly enemy had been created, from amongst humanities own ranks.
Combine Invasion and New Cults Emerging[]
For over 10,000 years, the fractured chaos legions would periodically emerge from the warp to wage war against the Imperium. Their lives unnaturally prolonged and their bodies and minds twisted thanks to otherworldly energies of the Warp and the daemons that live there. Though they also fought against the invading the Empire of the Combine Race, and many new followers of The Entities, the Chaos Legions slowly united under the leadership of Warmaster Abbadon the Despoiler.
The Multiverse Wars[]
When they became aware of alternate realities, many far different to their own but few similar, the forces of Chaos sent their traitor legions into those realities to invade and spread their influence but had been forced to limited to raiding and destroying target worlds and fleets when they found that many universes lack the connection of the Warp for them to sustain their immortality and power, but have recruited other worshippers from other parallel versions of their reality, such as the Vop’lla and Xop’lla Universes to ignore the wars and bring terror to their enemies.
The Chaos Legions 'joined' the Coalition of Independent States as their aggressors and need to take on cultist worshippers of powerful Entities, as well as to fight the Alliance of Nations and the Axis of Empires.
Fall of Chaos[]
Known Chaos Legions[]
Alternate Universes[]
Foreign Relations[]
Gallery[]
