XVI Legion Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus: Origins & History (Warhammer 40,000 & Horus Heresy Lore)

Do the sins of the father truly damn his children? Are the iniquities of our sires passed along to us down the generations casting us as inheritors of foul deeds burdened with consequence we ourselves did not choose. philosophants and rhetoricists a plenty have rendered many an opinion therein citing with the concept of free will and individual determinism quite often pleasant fictions of ages by gone from the perspective of your most humble servant insconced within this librarium never to see the sun behind the ashen skies of holy terror committed to a life of scholarship and collared by hands that claim to hide themselves. We are born into stories already being told. We are destined doomed to repeat cyclical horrors, progenies of the crushing weight of history and time and deed. We are shaped and molded by our creators and our circumstances. both products of lineages ephemeral [music] and all too monstrously real. Subjects of this chronicle are inextricable in memory from the sins of their father. They occupy a space identical in what historical record we retain and are permitted to parse. They were not the first betrayers, but they were the most vicious, the most fervent, the most viperously quick to follow their sire into a damn nation beyond imagination. One extended to the rest of our sorry souls. Know then that this is a record of the legion of the selenic wolf, the once paragonss, the rancerous get of Cathonia and of the wararm master. A record of the 16th legion lunar wolves and later sons of Horus. As with each of their contemporaries, the origins of the 16th Legion lie within that ancient crucible, the unification wars. Seeking to unite the human home world for the first time in millennia, the emergent emperor of humanity battled the horrors of the age of strife upon the wastess of war torn terror. At his side were the Thunder Warriors of the Legio Catagius, his first genetically enhanced super soldiery, as well as the mortal hosts of the naent Imperial Army and other sundry organizations, clans, and tribes that made up the great human tapestry of the benited home world. As has been covered by your humble servant in other records, the Thunder Warriors were a stop gap measure for the Lord of Lightning. He required finer, more stable, and more lethal soldiers to bring his plans to fruition. And so labored in the development of the Legion Austard, the first of which saw deployment in the waning years of the unification's centuries long struggle. The numerical designations of the legions do not necessarily correspond with their deployment. All were developed roughly contemporaneously and deployed for their first combat operations within a similar time span with the exception of course being the first legion dark angels whose deployment during the palace coup of the late 600s of M30 marked the first tread of the space marine upon terror's soil. We have little in the way of accurate information on early Aart's deployments and certainly nothing approximating accurate dates. But we can surmise that there was an almost 40-year period from approximately 670 M30 to Unity's declaration in 712 M30 where a startardis of the Legion were active upon Terra and in her near orbital space with the 16th Legion quite verifiably amongst them. Recruitment for the earliest Aardis legions was drawn from a myriad of population bases. With the benefit of historical hindsight, one considers it a safe conclusion to surmise that the gene stock for the each legion was seemingly tailored to correspond to the emperor's wishes for the eventual character of that legion and their respective primarchs. A supposition supported by the work of the posth heresy scholar Diamadan of Luna. This certainly tracks in the case of the 16th. Gene Smith findings state that the first population bases subjected to recruitment tides for the legion with the hunter clans of the Sam Satan subplate slums as well as a jutrian bowl. Having endured for millennia in lives of ceaseless privation and conflict, these clans possessed the ruthlessness and independence only those who forever dwell upon the margins of survival are quite capable of. The abrasive aggression translated almost immediately over to the Legion. While an estartis loses nigh all their memories of lives before ascension, they still retain some measure of their baseline human character. Such were the number of clanners and tribesmen inducted into the legion that it developed a fighting force of merciless, efficient killers who rapidly became synonymous with shock assaults and brutally brief engagements. Theirs were attacks more preemptive than not, vicious targeted strikes authored to bring the foe to a swift and wholly conclusive destruction. They acted in large part as the scum gangs and waste clans they were drawn from. When such groups fought their rivals, they cared only for the fastest possible victory. The quick shank blade to the neck, for they have little in the way of resources to spare, and such conditions breed a rugged practicality out of absolute necessity. The battles of the Fire Winter and the breaking of the Corololis enclaves are counted amongst the 16th Legion's earliest honors. And while we know little about these conflicts, their passage left a distinct mark upon the psyches of the populations that endured them or beheld them. It is in these wars that the term wolf first began to swirl around the Legion. itself a mytho analog scarred into humanity by historical imaginings of a long extinct cannid predator. Even thousands of years later, the gambling dens of the Capridian sinks upon Terra still referred to the number 16 as the counting of the wolf. And indeed, the term was apt. The 16th Legion operated much in the same way as the pack of ancient long-lost predators once did. hunting in the shadows and only attacking when victory could be seized. Per an oft remarked adage at the time, the 16th were unleashed to fight wars their opponents did not even know were being fought. Flights of Stormbbird and Storm Eagle gunship transports flanked by lightning crow attack fighters, plunging into the midst of an enemy to discourage power armored Darties. These battles were conducted wholly in keeping with the reputation of those that fought them. Aggressive and vicious, yes, but controlled and tempered, given over to neither ritual, bravado, or senseless butchery. In many ways, they were the ideal soldiers of the age. All the fury and lethality needed to wage wars against mutant nightmares and technological abominations, but wholly reliable. A bellacosity chained by disciplined minds. Perhaps the best example of this lies in the tales that spun out of the pacification of Soman, a network of suborbital principalities that had for decades resisted diplomatic intreaties made to them by the emperor and his officients. Soman Prime, a thin needle-like space station in the global south, yet dained to receive the Emperor's final delegation. Though all joining it, knew what lay before them would simply be receiving the invective of the ruler, the Panarch. Despite knowing this, the delegation had for months petitioned the Legionnaire estates for a representative to best display the wonders of imperial science and the benefits of joining the burgeoning regime. In addition to the unsuttle threat a space marine would clearly represent. Captain Lirkon Hearn of the 16th Legion's third company was granted this dubious honor and when seated at the diplomatic table became the obvious target for the panarch's relentless diet tribe. For more than an hour, the imperial delegation sat in awkward silence as the ruler hurled insult, denunciation, and abuse at the estartis, listing their existence as one of the Imperium's many, many manifest sins. Its presence here the proof of the emperor's peridity. Bearing no armaments, Captain Hearn clearly did not wish to be there. Indeed, it is a staggering rarity of the time that Anartis would be present anywhere other than the battlefield. Hearn appeared wholly bored with the proceedings, paying the panarch absolutely no heed, driving the demagogue, of course, into greater heights of impotent fury. In a final attempt to get some sort of rise from the estates, the panarch spat upon his armor and struck it with his jeweled scepter, again to no response. It was only after the ruler had collapsed into his chair from the sheer exhaustion of speaking so much that Hearn did act. He slew the panarch's bodyguards in two single blows of his bare hands and subsequently tore the despot's head from his shoulders. Suffice it to say, the negotiations with the remaining principalities were swiftly concluded following this, delivering Son into the Imperium at the mere cost of three lives. It is, of course, the first pacification of Luna that truly defines the 16th Legion in those early days. Even besides its status as one of Unity's most important campaigns, despite taking place in the waning years of the wars in 703 M30, it was far from unification's final battle. The wretched cardinal Tang yet held fast within the forces of the Indonesic block and several other intransited enclaves remained besides. Yet upon Luna did the Emperor set his sights. Fater's sole natural satellite held one of the keys to his grand designs. The moon was a domain of gene cults, collectively known as the Selinar. Though in truth a conglomeration of cults and varying lineages, the Selinar were united by their matriarchal ruling cast of resurrectionists and bound by a shared belief that human nature was fractured, fractal, and transcendent. Humanity to the Salinar was wrought in the flesh and mind of the individual, yes, but that individual was an echo of those that had come before them. How this was expressed varied from subcult to subcult. Some defined themselves by cultural mimemetic archetypes, others by numerology, others by sunundry other forms of symbolism. In the matriarchal cast were often combined idea forms. For example, the personage of Andromeda 17, 17th of her line, 17th iteration of the original human she had ever been. Gancraft was of course central to this. A human mind shephered through dozens, even hundreds of iterations could only do so with the finest of dark age science. Resurrected in body again and again, each cult member was an iterative attempt at embodying the truest essence of their archetype. Simultaneously, person, idea, and experiment in one. Despite the air of occultism that pervaded these cults, their ideology was firmly rooted in the scientific. And despite this, still their opposition to the Imperium was absolute. The Emperor, in the eyes of the matriarchs, was yet another petty warlord, another man with an ego that surpassed his capabilities. Just another in a long line of absurd despots who could bring only death and devastation to the species. They courteously but steadfastly refused all intreaties from terror and many were those intreaties for the Selinar possessed everything the burgeoning Imperium desperately needed. The lunar gene looms and the scientist lineages that wielded them were unequaled in all respects saved by those insconced within the Emperor's own laboratoria. With Terra approaching unity and the galaxy beyond beckoning, the Emperor required the genetic might of Luna to scale up his Aart's production to the degree the upcoming crusade demanded. Terra alone could not meet these demands in time, and time was ever the essence for the master of mankind. Luna must be captured, and it must be captured intact. This the Selinar knew, as for millennia, they had held at bay Terran warlords and Martian magi both. The looming threat of the Imperium had united the normally factional cults under the matriarchs like never before. As Terran unity drew closer, and the missives from the emperor turned to threats over offers of kinship, the Selinar prepared for a war inevitable. When the final Terran ambassador delivered the emperor's ultimatum, the Selinar returned them to their lege as a still screaming soup of liquefied flesh. Thus did the emperor order his legions to pacify the moon. But the undertaking demanded precision and tact for the precious gene looms could not be risked, nor could the accumulated lore and expertise of the gene witches themselves. The 16th Legion were selected for the Vanguard, operating in their full Legion strength for the first time and supplemented by forces from the 7th and 13th. Once free from Terara's atmosphere, the attack ships of the Estartis were powered down, exposed to the hard void, and set to drift into lunar injection. Only Estartis in sealed power armor could ever have accomplished such a maneuver, but it allowed them to seize upon the moon wholly undetected. The 16th breached the habitats of Luna as the other legions launched a showy diversionary assault. Striking at predefined targets assessed by Imperial agents embedded into previous ambassadorial delegations, the 16th comported themselves precisely as demanded. Shock assaults that left no defenders alive and all objectives brutally achieved. One by one, the Salonar's defense systems failed, allowing the remaining estates to affect landings in force. The capitulation of the moon was delivered in a mere 6 hours with the Salinar Gene Witches delivering their surrender to the emperor by begging him to call off his wolves. Thus did the 16th Legion earn its first epithet, the Luna Wolves. While some consider the message of the Selinar to be apocryphal, it's verifiable in Disio Militarus records that after years of informally being known as the Emperor's Wolves, the name formally stuck following the first pacification of Luna, earning the 16th their official title even before unification had been achieved upon Terra. The wolf's head, superimposed upon a crescent moon, became the symbol of the legion, appropriate in many ways, as what remained of the cannids legacy were in mere jeantocks reserved for the breeding of attack cyborgs. The 16th embraced this with relish. Within scant months, the wearing of pelts drawn from said clone beasts became commonplace amongst its officer class. They were the first legion to be granted the honor of a name and an identity beyond their numerical designation and preferred combat doctrine. Others would soon follow, of course, but the 16th were foremost amongst them, a primacy that would continue to define them for the decades to come. Indeed, for the honor of their taking of the genetic forges of the Selinar, the Luna Wolves were granted the greater part of said forg's initial output of Terran estartis, doubling their number in a very short span and contributing heavily to their nigh omniresence in the many battles and campaigns fought to bring unification to the rest of the Saul system. A period of history immediately following the wars upon the home world entered into annals as the solar reclamation. There is a figure looming large over this record and one must admit the introduction of which proves difficult both from a basic point of historioggraphy and from the sheer potency of his presence. Horus Lupercal, primarch of the 16th Legion, first found, brightest star, favored son, arch traitor, user, foulest of the emperor's demagog progeny, an individual who cast down the Imperium, betrayed his brothers, his father, his species, falling into pitiles damnation and tearing us down with him. And it must be noted a man who perhaps more than any other primarch by virtue of both imperial propaganda and his own sewing of personal myths is extremely unevenly documented in historical record. While this is in a sense true of every primarch to greater or lesser degrees, Horus is a figure so titanic in the history of the Imperium. A being of such profoundly seismic impact that contradiction, omission, redaction, mythologizing, demagoguery, and so much more. Dog his every biography, nay, his very mention. What facts can be established across all accounts of the primarchs are thus? He was officially the first found of that scattered brood by the emperor of mankind. He served alongside his 16th legion, his lunar wolves, earlier in the great crusade than any of his brothers. Beyond these two cornerstones of record, nigh everything is impossible to accurately establish. Some accounts claim that Horus never left the emperor's side to begin with. The sole primarch not scattered by the calamitous incident that tore the gestating infants from the laboratoria upon terror and flung them through the warp to all corners of the galaxy. Others say that though his incubation pod was still lost, it was only depaced in time, not location, plummeting back to terror as the unification wars were finally finishing. Yet others, credible sources all, claim he was found upon Luna or elsewhere in the Saul system or in Saul's nearpace volume, Scarasen, for example, to quote one account. The commonality between these versions of the Horusian myth is that the primarch learned the arts of war makingaking at the emperor's side, being embedded within the growing imperium at its very beginning and evolving as it did, forging some of its early alliances and being at the right hand of his lord father at all times. These accounts are mirrored in some ways and disputed in others by the word of the primarch Alfarius who in the cognto hazardous tome the transit of the human soul through strife claims that he not Horus was first found and upon Luna a secret that was buried by the emperor for the sake of both Horus's legend and Alfarius's better utilization. Alfarius, as he is want to do, also states that this account is in and of itself a lie. This indeed is not even as fancible as yet other accounts, some of which state Horus returned to the Imperium at the head of a vast fleet, having already conquered a stellar empire of his own. But others state that the emperor clasped the infant's hand as he fell through the war portal that consumed his brethren. or a soul story that tells of Horus stepping out of that portal, fully adult, onto the bridge of the Emperor's own starship. Many other credible sources, indeed perhaps the majority, state that Horus Lupal was scattered alongside his Primark brethren, but fell to the n feral mining world of Cathonia, located very close to the Saul system in galactic terms. A planet of rock burning under the baleful light of a blue star. Cathonia was a carcass world. Being so close to terror, it had for long millennia of human progress been subjected to all the most advanced resource extraction technology mankind could develop. In harvesting the planet's mineral wealth, humanity of thousands of years had delved deeper and deeper into its crust, devouring ores, crystals, gemstones, and every scrap of useful mineral that could be found. Vast subterranean archies emerged, protecting inhabitants from the radiation of the angry star, while above them, hive spires reached into the choking atmosphere. Whole warren of slums emerged in the underground to house itinerant workers and indentured surfs. Cathonia's long history had by the time of the coming of the Imperium left it a gutted husk. Even the mighty processing hives that dotted the surface were crumbling. Many being consumed by the crust itself. The absurd levels of geological torment inflicted by humanity now returning the favor by eating what remained of our cities. Humanity, as is our want, yet endured in those sump warren, in the mining tunnels, in the corroding carcasses of dark age extraction machines. These deeps were echoes of the underworlds that had earned the planet its name. places of heat and sulfur, of rocks warmed by the life magma of the world itself. Even during Cathonia's prime, the mines were places where death came easily. Short lives lived in lightless depths. Humans untold claimed by earthquakes, cave-ins, poisonous gases, and a myriad of other fates. Whomsoever had been this world's masters were long, long gone, with little in the way of record that would allow us to even establish who they were. Cathonia was an orphan, as with so many human worlds following the passage of old knight. Yet still, against whatever odds there were, humanity persisted in its infernal Naders. By the coming of the great crusade that Cathonia remained inhabited was a matter of imperial record. Given its proximity to the Saul system, the world had been visited by occasional mining or salvage expeditions from both Terra and Mars during the age of strife. Entrepreneurial or suicidal ship captains reasoning that even the risk of a short warp jump would be worth the spoils of that seemingly abandoned world. Many of these expeditions simply vanished as soon as they made planet fall, only to be discovered by future expeditions, by the presence of a single corpse with curious mirror-like tokens upon their eyes, or more commonly by smears of blood upon tunnel walls. Over the years, and after disastrous intreaties had been made to the uncommonly encountered humanity of Cathonia, a picture emerged of a world dominated by gang clans that that swarmed like vermin through the world's abandoned tunnels. The scavenging remnants of the original workforce reduced to barbarity by circumstance. The lives of these people were brief, violent, and filled with the vicious urgency such a planet would turn a human to. Their only concerns were survival. No law governed them, save for that of the knife. There was nothing approximating a regime of government or even centralized authority. Every gang was a nation unto itself in perpetual conflict with the others. Some were extremely territorial. Others made their existence nomadic, weaving through the shadows of the mining tunnels. Some gangs were deeply hierarchical, almost petty monarchies or feudal kingdoms in aspect, demanding tribute from smaller ones they subdued, however briefly. Other gangs simply reaped supplies from all those they encountered. The status quo, such as it was, fluctuated constantly, a shifting web of uneasy alliances, vendettas, and conquests, with blocks forming and dissolving in often in mere solar weeks. Somehow, the murderous humanity of Cathonia endured, the strong shing the weak, reeving their spoils and propagating in the sulfurous depths. By far the most established and accepted account of the life of Horus Lupercal is that unto this hell his capsule plunged. Indeed, it is the one that the wararm master was oft fond of repeating both to his own legion and to Imperial remembrancers who were granted interviews. In this account, the infant was discovered by the Cathonian ganglord Kagodon and granted the no-name of Nurgi, a Cathonian slur readil of a person's worthlessness. The boy was raised in Kagadon's kill gang, serving the warlord's constantly shifting ambitions, but wholly unable to be anything more than the proverbial runt of the litter. It is unclear if the infant Horus in this telling displayed the same prodigious growth or mental acuity as his siblings did. Indeed, aside from phenomenal regenerative capabilities, his body was apparently stunted and weak, even by the standards of the malnourished Cathonians. Nurgi is routinely assailed by vision dreams of a world beyond the tunnels of a destiny he will one day achieve but is punished for expressing these beaten cruy by his adoptive father. According to the tale, the boy's life took a seismic turn when, fleeing from the cruelty of his gang, he discovered the pod he had been found in being examined by strange cybernetic figures clad in robes of red. Despite earning his first kill by murdering one, the others did not attack him, instead beckoning for him to join them. Nui instead rushed back to his gang, believing the kill he had just made will finally earn him the respect he deserves. He is instead beaten publicly by his father, who declaims that these individuals were clearly off-worlders and that the boy has doomed the clan to their fury. Unable to withstand any more mockery and abuse, Narui, channeling his years of torment into the blow, plunged his dagger into Kagodon's heart. In doing so, the boy's body was overcome by an incredible transformation. Every cell ripping itself apart and reforging itself a new, a human form ferociously becoming what it was meant to be. Nurgi was gone and in his place stood the adult Horus, Primarch, 16th son, emperor maid, now ascendant. This is certainly the most narratively fulfilling of Horus Lupal's foundling myths and was apparently the one most commonly repeated by the primarch himself. Certainly to the point that it entered established imperial record as canonical. It bears several curious outliers that to one's mind cast doubt upon its veracity. The infant Horus not possessing his brother's physical or mental strengths from the time of his emergence is deeply curious, as in no other account of primarch rediscovery is this the case. It must be noted, of course, that the primarchs were alike in many ways, yet differed in others, possessing often extreme genetic idiosyncrasies that granted them uncanny abilities, such as Vulcan's regenerative capabilities, or Corax's powers of passing unseen by mortal sight, or even Magnus the Red's prodigious psychic talent, one cannot help but suspect that the means by which Horus came to be where his genetic gifts activated to be apocryphal. The slaying of the father figure, given Horus's eventual fate, it rings with a narrative symbolism that somewhat beggars belief. That also being said, it has been noted by scholar Alente that the warp wrought nature of the primarchs and the abominable nature of their creation tied them to the immaterium in ways we will simply never understand. And the immaterium is after all a place where ideas where narrative has tangible power. The tale of Nurgi must be considered for if not its veracity than its primacy within the myth of Horus Lupal. Clearly, it was the Primark's preference to make it known. But Horus spread other tales about himself with a certain glee that one must now consider to be the 16 sons idea of a grand joke. His past was a mystery seemingly known only to himself and the emperor and Luprical was clearly quite happy with that particular arrangement. The historical fact remains that Haurus was indeed the first primarch publicly announced and Cathonia, a planet associated with him through reality or propaganda, was granted to his legion, the 16th Luna Wolves, as their F. Having distinguished themselves so admirably during the Solar Reclamation, their successes were marked enough that the Devisio Militaris and the Emperor wished to build upon them by introducing to the Legion the vast Gantock of Cathonia. Its close proximity to Terra had marked it as a target for the very first expeditionary fleets, but the assessment by Imperial adepts was less than promising, at least initially. The Imperium desired easy victories, worlds that could join the burgeoning empire with minimal fuss, providing it with new population and industrial bases and new resources to fuel the ramping up of its military juggernaut. Cathonia was barely any of these things. The planet was effectively stripped of everything of value by untold millennia of human greed, leaving behind what one description called, quote, "A nest of serpents coiling in the dark that we would be better to destroy." The human population was considered beyond the possibility of civilizing. But perhaps, thankfully for them, the Imperium did not need them to be. Cathonia had one resource left. its youth. Adolescents were harvested on mass for induction into the Legion, while young adults were impressed into the service of the Imperial Army, forming such regiments as the infamous Cathonian head hunters. Cathonians proved perfect specimens for Estart's ascension. Hardened, vicious killers, even as children, all having been put through the trials of a life in niteral hell. Much of what the Imperium had learned through recruitment upon Terra was writ large upon the Cathonian intake. The ruthlessness of their existence, preparing them for the rigors of organ implantation and psycho conditioning. They were also the test bed for how a new population can shape the legion they had been brought into, for they were the first populace outside of the light of Saul to be inducted. So the Cathonians remade the 16th Legion. however unconsciously bringing with them customs, traditions, and attitudes wholly foreign. Generations of violence they were grim inheritors of could be tempered by Estart's mental conditioning, but not bred out. This was in all likelihood the point. The Luna Wolves had since their induction been gangers at their heart, ruthless killers with a street smart pragmatism. Cathonian culture was in many ways this exact sentiment but on a planetary scale. And this is almost certainly why the subsumation of Terran customs happened more rapidly with the 16th than almost any other legion. The orderly traditions of the home world codified within the Principia Bellosa were replaced by those of a distinctly Cathonian hue. Never one for decoration, the lunar wolves subtly shifted towards a vulgar ostentation. Mohawks and topnots became common hairstyles amongst its aartis, eventually in the case of the latter becoming a status symbol for senior officers to wear as accutrants above their power armor. Particularly impressive kills in battle were recorded upon ceramite plate, an affectation that would have been seen wasteful by terrorist artis. The cathonian term for the slitting of the throat, athan became used as terminology for the completion of a campaign. And perhaps most tellingly, personality and charisma became the hallmark of the legion's officers and a key factor in their ascension through the ranks, flowing, of course, from the very peak with the overwhelming presence of Horus Lupal. It was, of course, Horus that guided and shaped and merged the Cathonian transformation of his legion. Regardless of the nature of his origin and recovery, or precisely even when it occurred, Horus was present for every moment of his legion's profound cultural shift. His Cathonian itself, the rough barbarian language of the mining tunnels, was immediately perfect, although many Cathonian-born officers would note that it was so perfect as to lack any subtleties of accent or regional dialect, as if it had been learned from a book. Others demured, saying that such a thing was a deliberate choice by the primarch to not favor any one gang lineage over another, or even any geographical region. Given that, as the story of Nurgi demonstrated, Horus would have held no special love or attachment to the clan of his upbringing. The primarch oversaw a merging of the two cultures to produce one singular united legion crafted upon Cathonian principles. Yes, but retaining the discipline of the terrans that had preceded it. The rough vulgarity of the 16th new f did not break down the coherency of command and authority that it had possessed before. Rather, it reinforced it. Officers now seeking to become compatriots and brothers of those under their charge rather than simple fonts for a commander's authority. The vicious ferocity of the underworld gangs was channeled into the legion's already impressive bellacosity, further augmented by the sheer tactical genius of Horus Lupau. Reunited with Primark, unique in culture and possessing more estates than any other legion, the Luna Wolves were ascendant, the bannerbearers for the early Imperium during the initial decade of Crusade. Overwhelming application of force remained their hallmark. The deployment an inevitable victory earning the Imperium dozens of systems that were previously feared to have required massively costly campaigns to take. The Legion's approach to the Crusade was direct, inelegant, conducted with the swagger of a gangland killer in a drinking den, but it was undeniably effective. Though never ones to engage in senseless butchery, the Luna Wolves would not bulk at unleashing massive orbital bombardments and tens of thousands of Aardies upon heavily populated cities if it meant the destruction of an enemy's command network. Fleeing or surrendering foes would likely be destroyed without mercy if the order was given, as would the annihilation of civilian populations deemed unsparingly weward. The goal in all cases was victory by the quickest and most efficient means possible. Sometimes, as one officer noted, you had to gut and string up a gang lord's family to convince him to give into your demands. The main distinction for the lunar wolves over, say, the the sadists of the eighth legion was that such violence was only ever unleashed by the word of their primarch or his legion commanders. The Luna Wolves had honed their instincts for the application of force relentlessly, as they were keenly aware, especially in the earliest days, that the human worlds of the galaxy were a resource the Imperium dearly needed. Wastefulness in that regard was to dereliction of duty. 16th Legion deployments, followed through upon by Exertus Imperialis and the Imperium civilian administrators, often found populations in states of numbed shock. the brutality they had just witnessed wholly cowing them to the rule of terror, but delivering them alive nonetheless. Expeditionary fleets with Lunar Wolves elements made rapid and bloody progress through the galaxy. War became a matter of identifying their enem strengths and following through with a knife to the throat as quickly as possible. To accomplish this, the 16th Legion strove to maintain a large degree of tactical flexibility. This was no mean feat, as it essentially demanded the Luna Wolves maintain an armory and a methodology that would allow them to apply their doctrine of overwhelming force to almost any enemy, either known or unknown. Horus's status as first found son alongside the legion's sterling record of victories were crucial in allowing them to achieve this. Beyond the secret vaults of the first legion dark angels, the 16th maintained perhaps the most diverse and welltoed armory of any of the legion estates. Having brought many forge worlds into compliance in the early crusade years, the lunar wolves were on excellent terms with the mechanicum of Mars in general and many individual forges that sought their influence besides, allowing their supply lines to extend far beyond any other legions, and ensuring their primacy of place in accessing new arms and armaments developed by enterprising magi. Horus likewise ensured that the legion never rested on its proverbial laurels or became too hidebound by any means of war makingaking that risked becoming tradition. Lupal akin to an ancient Terran Aavian would pick and choose formations, tactics, and means of warfare from other legions. having seen their efficacy firsthand in battle. For example, following the Latrical onslaught, the prowess of the breacher squads of the Seventh Legion, Imperial Fists, [music] impressed Horus so much that their presence in the Lunar Wolves quadrupled in short order. The primarch was a vocal advocate for the advancement of the tactical dreadnot armor project, throwing the full force of his political weight behind it and ensuring that his connections within the divisio militaris and mechanicum secured for his legion a large proportion of the first terminator armor suits that rolled off the production lines. If Horus rested his faith in any one constant, it was the Legion tactical squad, the standard division of Aartis numbering from 10 to 20, all armed with standard bolter weaponry. Horus was known to appine on many an occasion that he was confident there was no challenge the great crusade could present that could not be overcome by a lunar wolf and his tactical squad brethren. This remark certainly made for excellent fodder for the propaganda reels. And while one could list a hundred examples of it being actively disproven in the field, the primarch was not incorrect in his faith in the tactical squad's sheer ubiquity. Even if a battle could not be carried upon their backs alone, the tactical squad was never an unwelcome addition to the line of battle. The Luna Wolves were often known to hold such squads in reserve and unleash them upon the enemy where torrents of bolter fire could reap the most devastation. These so-called despoiler squads were effectively 16th Legion variants of the tactical squad, made unique by their training in fire saturation and stated battlefield roles more than any unique armor or armorament patterns. The Luna Wolves likewise is assued all restraint on destroyer type weaponry, specialized arms or ammunition that utilized chemical, biological, or radiological means of destruction. While not committed to the reckless application of such annihilation munitions as their cousins in the Death Guard, the Lunar Wolves scoffed at the moral high ground taken by legions like the 13th Ultramarines in their employment, ensuring to keep significant number of destroyer Estartis trained and capable to ensure readiness if their skills were needed. Flexibility also came to define the legion's disposition when on campaign. The lunar wolves were rarely deployed in the same configuration twice. Their order of battle even appearing to outsiders to be chaotic or disorganized. The company nominally the standard military division amongst the legion could number anywhere from a historic high of 972 aartis to a historic low of just 36. all depending on factors like casualty attrition, deployment demands, and the vagaries of a campaign or battle's tactical outlook. The requirements of the campaign and the will of Horus were all that counted. The Primarch was known to avoid the usage of further military subdivisions such as the battalion, cohort, or chapter in order to provide maximum flexibility and the shortest, most robust chain of command possible. companies and even individual squads, tactical support or otherwise could be grouped together as demand necessitated, supplemented by armored divisions or special weapon batteries, or even other imperial allies where needed. A captain of the Lunar Wolves would be appointed to lead this formation, and if the formation was especially large, other captains could be appointed to serve as effective left tenants. Quite how this layer of command was arranged was entirely dependent on the personalities of the captains at hand. In many cases, simple seniority would win out, but in others Horus vested his trust in the abilities of much junior captains, and by the will of the primarch, the veteran leaders below him would accept their standing, albeit with some goodnatured ribbing of their new field commander. It is a testament to the tactical brilliance of Horus and his nleendary judge of character that this almost ad hoc approach to warfare and legion organization never once seemed to fail the Luna Wolves, continuing to deliver them victory after victory with scarcely any blemish upon their honor roles. The legion was present for the entire two centuries of the great crusade. Building upon their initial success and close kinship with their primarch to deliver a staggering tally of victories in the Imperium's name. Their white ceramite and lupine emblem were ubiquitous across the front lines with the 16th becoming nigh emblematic of what imperial estarties should aspire to be. Their manifold successes and near omniresence in so many of the Imperium's expanding frontier war zones allowed them to reap experience and laurels from an untold number of campaigns and battles. Seeing them fight arm-in- arm with every single Astartis legion and almost every other armed force of the Imperium besides in one form or another. Their size, especially in the early crusade years, led to them taking on a sort of mentorship role with several fledgling legions, notably the third, later the Emperor's Children and 19th, later the Raven Guard, effectively utilizing fellow legions as auxiliaries to their main force. Such was their prestige and preeminence. The respect earned by their cousins was in some cases inevitable. For all their barbarian vulgarity, the Luna Wolves ever had a friendly ease to them that rarely ever hove into the egotistical. Despite their position as the peak of the imperial war machine, their esties remained affable and brotherly to their cousins, winning them friends even amongst quite insular legions. These selfsame legions, hostile to others of the vast kindred that was the leadionist, almost always requested and prioritized Luna Wolf support over others, and were readily granted it in kind. Much of this reputation can also be attributed to Horus Lupal and his unequaled preternatural charisma. Combined with a record of victory that only the lion could rival, Horus's ability to tap into, understand, and utilize the talents of his brothers and their legions placed him as the fulcrum around which that fractious family revolved. Students of one's records well know the shifting web of rivalries and conflicts that the primarchs dwelled within. Horus somehow was able to rise above it and seemingly with ease. Ever the diplomat, the 16th Primark, could navigate the humors of his brothers, deafly, negotiating, cajoling, and befriending, never once appearing to do so with anything other than the deepest sincerity. He was the only one of his brethren who could be said to command the respect, indeed love, of every one of the emperor's offspring. Others possess skills beyond his, insights Horus could never hold, specializations he could hope to rival. But none could thread that middle ground such as he. Horus alone could see every perspective should it be explained to him, consider every viewpoint presented to him, and arrive at a solution that would merge all to solve the problem, that could deliver victory, that would crush the enemy. It is easy to see how magnetic a figure like this could be and why to be the son of such a primarch commanded an immediate respect in and of itself [music] due to their very nature. It is unclear when the practice of the warrior lodges first emerged within the lunar wolves. Most chronicers will state that the lodges were adopted following the compliance operation on the planet Davin and its moons following contact between the 16th Legion and their brethren in the 17th Legion wordbearers with the world's close-knit communities of barbarian tribes. Both that world and the wordbearers are infamous cancers within the broader history of the Imperium. And if Davenin itself was not the source, it is almost certain that the 17th Legion spread the lodges into others. Practice within the warrior lodges were deeply idiosyncratic, dependent on Legion. Yet all were veiled in secrecy, exhibiting many aspects in common with mystery cults and esoteric brotherhoods throughout human history. All of which obviously was in deep contradiction to the emperor's atheistic imperial truth philosophy making the existence of the lodges a closely guarded secret by their members. The largest commonality between the lodges and certainly the defining feature for them within the lunar wolves was their suspension of rank and seniority behind closed doors. A captain could share frank conversation with the most junior of line estartis, while a sergeant may count themselves more experienced as an inductee within the lodge than a member of the primark's own inner circle. This subversion of the established legion chain of command was only possible due to the secrecy of both the lodg's existence and their meeting points. A single chamber in the bowels of a legion starship. coded phrases, ritual symbology, and even the use of a special version of Cathonian mirror coins were used to gain entry. In some prospective inductees were suggested by all members, while in others, only the most innermost cabal would provide those selections. These inductees would sometimes enter the chamber blindfolded until inducted, whereas others were guided personally by their sponsor. Induction often took place with the embibing of a cup of water or soured wine or even blood. From there, the inductee would be a full and equal member of the lodge with the only remaining decision for them to be whether to rise within the lodge's own specific ranks, themselves utterly separated from the mundane legion's chain of command. In the Luna Wolves, and indeed all other legions save one, there was no religious element to the lodge. No god was venerated within their chambers. Brotherhood defined the meetings, removing the impediment of hierarchy in the frank exchange of views between a starties of all stations. Their occult trappings did of course provoke suspicion, being frowned upon as a propaganda disaster waiting to happen, but they were ultimately tolerated as harmless for their promotion of fellowship between brother Estartis. This catastrophic misjudgment would have consequences beyond imagining for the Imperium, but not until it was far too late. As the Great Crusade entered its second century, the ascendancy of the Luna Wolves continued unabated. They had, of course, benefited from much that came from their early head start, so to speak. One has explored much of this already, but events within the great crusades long march conspired to allow them to retain their lead. The Rangdan Xenocides, for instance, savagely wounded the first legion dark angels, consuming an almost catastrophic number of their Aardies, and it has been said, depriving the Lion of hoping to match Horus' victory tally. Given the nature of the Dark Angel's role in the early years of the Crusade, a great number of the First Legion's victories were wholly expuned from Imperial record or never even recorded in the first place, likely placing their actual tally much closer to the Luna Wolves than in public reality. One should note that that while this is important to bear in mind, it has little bearing on what became popular official imagination at the time. Other legions by the turn of M31 were approaching or had eclipsed the Luna Wolves in sheer disposition such as the 13th Ultramarines, fourth Iron Warriors, 17th Wordbearers, and quite plausibly 20th Alpha Legion. Yet all were legions whose skills were altogether more specialized, commanders less capable or nature's more insular. None could be at the forefront of as many theaters of war as the peerless Luna Wolves and deliver the same results. It was in this environment at the turning of the second crusade century that the Lunar Wolves delivered to the Imperium a victory that would forever change it. And they themselves. Upon the fields of the planet Ulanor did the Legion play a pivotal role in the breaking of the largest orc empire ever encountered. The Xenos realm had long stood as an existential level threat to the Imperium and by the coming of the Pgation campaign was considered by Strategos to be the last final challenge to mankind's undisputed rule of the galaxy. It is perhaps difficult to imagine in this era of ceaseless mortal threats to our very existence that the galaxy could ever possibly be on the verge of such a status quo. But it was indeed thus. The importance of the campaign is thus equally difficult to grasp. Its impact profound beyond our ability to understand. With the destruction of this orc empire, the Imperium would never could never be destroyed. Threatened, yes, wounded, of course, but never wiped from the galaxy. Not since the Rangdan Xenocides had such a campaign been mounted. And not since the Xenocides had such a foe even emerged. Horus himself slew the warlord Ulak Urg as his legion and others he led burned the empire of the tyrant to the ground. The victory was seized upon by the emperor himself as an opportunity for a radical shift in the Imperium status quo. A grand celebration was declared, a triumph as of old. The magi of Mars flattened an entire continent into a perfectly level parade ground, erecting a mighty deis for the emperor and his sons to gather upon. Before the lord of lightning, and fully nine primarchs, forces of the legion estates, the exertus Imperialis, the collegia titanica, the qutorious households, and the mechanicum tagmata marched in exaltation. But even this unprecedented display of marshall might was not the apex of celebration. Before the assembled hosts of his Imperium, the Emperor presented Horus Lupal with the title of war masteraster, announcing that his time at the forefront of the Imperium had ended. After two centuries, the Emperor would return to Terror to work upon the Imperium's future. Horus was invested with full strategic command of the great crusade and its continued prosecution. As war master, the primarch was elevated above all other beings in the Imperium, even his brothers. Second now only to the master of mankind himself. When fleets sailed, when armies marched, when worlds burned, they did so now by the will of Horus Lupal alone. The immediate, by extension, elevation of the Luna Wolves above their peers resulted in a bizarre interim period for the Warm Masters Legion. Horus was ill at ease with this new title. While he of course accepted immediately and without protest, in private, the Primark remained introspective, feeling the weight of this new responsibility quite keenly. As he pondered upon this new and unclear future, he drove his legion back to campaign, unwilling to waste precious time upon personal meditation, resolving to conduct internal debates within the fires of the crusade. The conquest of 6319 was one of many battles fought by the Legion during this period, as was the extermination of the Xenos, native to the planet known only as murder. campaigns during which the Luna Wolves conducted themselves with the same admirable dedication to their slaughter craft as ever. It was not until the conclusion of the Interex debacle that Horus truly settled into his new mantle of war masteraster. The calamity covered by your most humble servant in a separate chronicle accessible within this archive profoundly affected Horus' view of his role and of the Imperium's mission. This was symbolically reflected by his assession to the Emperor's soul remaining bequeathment, a gift or demand, depending on one's point of view. The Luna Wolves were no more. The galaxy would never again, but for one extremely potent instance, see the pale gray white of their plate. Now in their place stood the seag green estarties of the 16th legion, sons of Horus. A second time reborn, a second time recast, the legion rose alongside their genansire to now unparalleled heights. This renaming and recoloring led to other pronounced shifts in the legion's presentation and character. always a legion typified and proud of its barbarian vulgarity. The culture of Cathonian gangers became more profoundly visible following the interrex debacle and certainly following the primarch's fall upon the moon of Davenin to the cursed blade of the traitor governor Yoyen Timber. The Luna Wolves and laterally the Sons of Horus had always adopted honorific titles for their squads or formations over simple numerical designations, typically ones associated with an especially capable sergeant or a means of war making. Examples would include Jerox Reavers, the Death Makers, the First Sons, the Weted Blade, Gregorodon's Delvers, and Sundry others. This obviously Cathonian tradition grew steadily with the legion's intake from the world. But upon their renaming to the sons of Horus, it became equally associated with the use of Cathonian gang sigils, a sort of runic script or scrimshaw argo. The sigils were carved onto Legion power armor to mark especially famous displays of prowess, becoming a means for a warrior to boast his reputation upon the skin of his very battle plate. The transition marked a cultural shift in the legion that coincided with the seismic events in the life of the primarch. The interex incident had shaken Horus' resolve with the course of the crusade and his fall upon Davin and subsequent recuperation was marked by many historian as the moment his true fall to the depradations of the dark gods occurred. As the influence of terror bled away, the influence of Cathonia rose in its place. With the restrained brutality of the Sons of Horus becoming more open and taking on an altogether more merciless edge, the fall of the 16th Legion is inextricably bound up with the fall of their father, the arch traitor himself. And as to why the Primarch fell, a librarian of theorizing alone would be needed. What we do know is, as mentioned, that Horus fell to a rebellious governor upon the moons of Davenin, and that he was born to the Davanite tribes, his legion, had years before made compliant for healing, as some form of infection or sickness beyond the ken of the legion's apothecaries, and indeed all conventional Imperial medical science had taken hold. Horus entered the Serpent Lodge on Davin and emerged days later. And as to what occurred within, we will simply never know. What has been placed within the realm of near certainty, at least in the historical sense, is that some manner of ritual was conducted, beseeching the greater intelligences of primordial annihilation, the so-called dark gods of chaos, to enter the primarch's mind and user it. This was to certainly the moment of Horus's fall, its beginning. Although the tendrils of doubt could have been present within the primarch's mind for many years beforehand, that this was accomplished as a part of a grand conspiracy is equally near certain. The presence of damnable Arabus, first chaplain of the wordbearers, is nearly proof of that he and his father, Lorgar, having fallen to worship of the warp decades beforehand. From here it was simply a matter of time and loyalty to exert themselves upon the sons of Horus to damn the estarties of the legion alongside their primarch. Horus following Davin was set upon the path of heresy and rebellion and worked his plans accordingly. The warrior lodges were the perfect vector for the sins of perod to enter the legion's bloodstream and for it to spread outwards. They became hubs of poisonous ideology, spread first as discontent and becoming quickly treasonous, a social force of peer pressure and fellowship, proving incredibly effective at turning loyalist astartises to the war master's new faction. Likewise, the culture of Cathonia perfectly usurped by chaotic influences within the legion being so rooted in bloodletting and interissan warfare. Legion commanders, ever the charismatic leaders of men, were turned, focused upon by the heretic faction, the forces of their personalities made work upon the souls of their men. This was not, nor ever could have been, a total success. The sons of Horus reckoned quite early with the certainty of a loyalist branch of their legion that would never turn from obedience to terror and the emperor and worked to identify this element with as much certainty as possible. Acolytes are welcome to produce one's record upon the Istvan 3 atrocity for a full chronicle as to how this would occur, but it has only been through updated study and the discovery of sealed records that an even more wholesome picture of the 16th Legion's rot can be discerned. A crucial example of this is the presence of a 16th Legion detachment at the burning of Prospero in 005 M31, demonstrating that the wararm master's plans had already advanced significantly in the space of a mere four years Terran standard. This has been taken by other chroniclers of good standing indeed as proof of the war master's fall upon Davin as being merely a precipitating incident for a rebellion that had been within Horus's mind long beforehand, perhaps even before the triumph of Yulanor. Others have argued that he and the sons of Horus had merely moved with astonishing rapidity once the mind of their primarch had been turned. Regardless, the burning of Prospero has long been regarded in historical thinking as a situation that though long gestating was hijacked by Horus's own ends. Namely, the maming of the Sixth Legion Space Wolves and the destruction of the 15th,000 Sons. The former having been deemed impossible to sway to Horus's side, and the latter having been considered too much of an uncertain factor. Horus's commitment to the event, or at least he and his legion's attempt to prosper from it, are evident in the presence of 5,000 sons of Horus during the burning, led by Chieftain Boris Karna. While destruction raged across Prospero's capital, Tiska, Karna and his legionaries were responsible for the wholesale kidnapping and abduction of a significant number of civilians, as well as the brutal harrowing of the mortal Prosperine Spireg Guard auxiliaries. It has largely been agreed upon in record that these poor civilians were, given the high degree of psychic gene presence in the population, utilized as genetic livestock for experimentation, demonic usurppation, and weaponization as throlled battle psykers. Although often considered a historical footnote, one considers the sons upon Prospero as having demonstrated foresight significant enough to be a damnable indicator of how far they had already fallen. Prior to the events of the heresy, the sons of Horus counted among their number between 130,000 and 170,000 estarties based on various estimates compiled by the Devisio Militarus. This number places them in the upper third of legions by numerical scale, but their victory tally, experience, and armory all provided the sons with a potent force multiplier. As many of this number as could be mustered were gathered by Horus for the Istvanthri campaign, ostensibly an unheard of show of force to punish through annihilation a recidivist Imperial world. Four legions, the 16th, 3rd Emperor's Children, 12th Worldeaters, and 14th Death Guard had been gathered for the task, more esties than had even broken the orcs at Yulanor. It was at face value intended to be a public relations exercise, a demonstration by the war master of the price of defying terror and the emperor. It was of course anything but in reality a scheme most vile to allow these traitor legions to purge their ranks of loyal estates. [music] This has of course been covered by your most humble servant, but suffices to say that the atrocity cost the sons of Horus some 30,000 estartis. both enslain loyalists and those traitors that had perished in accomplishing such foul peridity. As many as 60,000 traitor sons of Horus were present for the subsequent drop site massacre on Istvan 5, leading historians to postulate that a large number of them had already been dispatched across the galaxy by the war master as the retribution feat was gathered and on route to bring him to Imperial justice. There were, of course, scattered remnants of the Loyalist 16th that had survived throughout the age of darkness. All their individual tales, triumphsome tragedies manifest. And for the Legion as a whole, the path had been set to damnation. It is likely that none who first cast their lot behind their corrupted genes sire could possibly comprehend what awaited them. But they did so with the same hunger for animal victory that had ever dwelt within their twin hearts. So perished the 16th Legion. All that remained was a tale of its long slow death. Until such a time as one may elucidate your fine selves further. A imperator Gloria in excelsis terror. This video and this channel were made possible thanks to the very kind donations and support from my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com/occulousimperia. If you'd like to receive more updates about the channel and any future videos, you can contact me or follow me on Twitter @ Oculusmperia. Otherwise, please like, subscribe, comment, let me know your feedback. 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