Legio XVII: Liberators

Legio XVII: Liberators

Primarch’s Name: Andrieu Ulliann
Homeworld: Eleutheria
Background: Thinker
Psychic Potential: Normal
Gene-seed: Stable
Talent: Inspirational
Legio XVII: Liberators
Colors: Red/burgundy (wine red) with Steel/Metallic trim
Battle Cry: Freedom awaits!

History

So close to the unknown, so far from the light of civilization – such was the fate of Eleutheria, a once-advanced world on the very edge of the galaxy where the night sky lit up with only sporadic, scattered clusters of dim red dwarves and burnt out shells of ancient stars. Once upon a time, when the human spirit boldly pushed the borders of the void, it was a triumph of ingenuity, a testament to the far-reaching genius of human race. By the time the savior pod carrying the Seventeenth Primarch burned through the atmosphere of the sole planet tidally locked against the red dwarf star, it was but a shell of sophisticated society that once thrived – a dark, cold world with skies polluted by fumes of coal-powered industries, where countless masses huddled in the slums of squalid cities under the uneasy reign of aristocratic and commercial elites.

As Eleutheria was divided into several competing empires, which extended direct or indirect influence over the lesser nations, a complex system of alliances kept the global peace, only occasionally broken by proxy conflicts in the puppet nations and colonies, diplomatic scandals, and ruthless commercial exploitation of the colonized people. Chief amongst the empires were the nations of Garuz, Attelan, Jin-Chi, and Malbolge, each powerful enough to be a regional hegemon, but not to claim global dominion.

The Primarch was fortunate in that he landed at a countryside estate belonging to a wealthy Attelanian industrialist, who, upon seeing the miraculous arrival, decided to take the child as his own ward. Attelan was nominally a republic, however, the actual power was concentrated in the hands of several noble families, and industrial barons whose wealth bought them admission to the ranks. The elite lived in relative luxury, free to spend their time on artistic or pleasurable endeavors, while the more ambitious amongst them entered politics, military, or business. For most citizens of Attelan, however, life was full of hard work for meager pay, deplorable squalor, and living conditions better suited for rodents than humans.

Named Andrieu Ulliann, the Primarch was brought up amongst his adoptive father’s own children, and given the best education money could buy. While Andrieu excelled in every subject his tutors exposed him to, he displayed a particular talent in poetry, and before long, his sonnets and poems earned high acclaim and great popularity amongst Attelan’s elite. Before long, the Primarch was an international celebrity as his works were translated into multiple languages, and read all across Eleutheria. If his adoptive father was disappointed in his ward’s lack of interest in business, warfare, or politics, he certainly allowed himself to bask in the glory of Andrieu’s celebrity.

All the while, Andrieu accepted the order of life on Eleutheria as natural. As one of the elite, he had next to no contact with Attelan’s ordinary citizens, and did not think much about their plight. His poems, so eloquent and full of hidden metaphor and elaborately woven verse, spoke of emotions and nature of beauty, idle pursuits and heroic epics of distant past. Ballrooms and salons of Eleutheria’s powerful could not sing him enough praise, no matter which side of political or national divides they were on, and Andrieu took it in stride, as was his right.

But just as the Primarch’s prodigious intellect and abilities lent themselves naturally to artistic accomplishments, they also led him on a different path that would eventually define him and his legacy. Traveling to a noble estate for a reading of his newest work, Andrieu’s horse-drawn carriage suffered an accident while passing through a squalid industrial slum. For the first time in his life, Andrieu saw how his fellow citizens truly lived, seeing the faces of the destitute up close and witnessing the shameful foundations of his and his family’s wealth and power.

For the first time in many years, no one knew who Andrieu was, for his celebrity was limited to the planet’s educated classes. To the workers of Attelanian cities, he was but another pretentious fop more at home in the palace than on the street, a living symbol of everything that kept them in their miserable state. As Andrieu walked through the narrow, winding streets that crawled through the torturous maze of tiny apartments piled on top of one another, he forgot everything about his reading, or even about the great work he was eager to present. Here, in the slums, was another source of inspiration, far more powerful than the abstract elegance of his past works, or aristocratic indulgence of his social circle.

In that instant, Andrieu tore the manuscript apart, vowing that he would never again treat art as entertainment or as a form of amusement for the bored nobles. No, he said to himself, art is supposed to change the world, to speak up for those who do not have the power to stand for themselves, to transform the collective consciousness towards a better future.

From that moment, Andrieu Ulliann was a changed man. With the fervor that only a new convert could muster, the Primarch wrote scathing, biting, politically charged works that accused the ruling elites of Attelan of ignoring their responsibilities to its citizenry, and proclaimed the virtues of the “honest downtrodden folk” over the debaucheries of the nobles. At first, the aristocrats embraced the change in Andrieu’s style, believing it to be an attempt to provide shock value for entertainment’s sake, but before long, the sincerity in his works became too obvious for Attelanian authorities to ignore. Andrieu was taken into custody and sentenced to house arrest, as befitting a wayward member of the elite, in hopes that the threat of punishment would make him reconsider his views, and return to more socially acceptable forms of art. But the rulers of Attelan did not recognize the strength of Andrieu’s conviction, and the Primarch continued to write poems and pamphlets that criticized them, called for social change, and pointed out the injustices of the current order. Despite the best efforts of his minders, the Primarch’s writings made it out to the public, helped by sympathetic servants and even some of Andrieu’s aristocratic friends, who developed interest in the plight of the common man.

After repeated warnings, the masters of Attelan made their move. Andrieu was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a remote prison on trumped up charges of sedition, where he would never threaten the established order again. However, greater fate awaited the Seventeenth Primarch.

As Andrieu was led through the courtyard of a prison camp in Eleutheria’s frozen night side, destined to work in the mines alongside common criminals and other political prisoners, Andrieu saw scenes of casual brutality and wanton neglect. The wardens would abuse the prisoners as they saw fit, treating them as slaves or toys for their own amusement if the prisoners were young and attractive. The very thought of law and order was but a distant memory; there was only the frozen tundra, the nickel mines, and the never-ending beatings.

As Andrieu arrived, escorted by dozens of heavily armed guards, he witnessed the guards attempt to abuse a young prisoner. Something inside the Primarch snapped. For all his prodigious physical and mental abilities, Andrieu Ulliann had never raised a hand in anger against another human being. For his entire life, he believed that words, human wisdom, and intellect could solve every problem the universe would throw at him. The reality of the prison camp told him the lie of it.

Before the wardens had any chance to react, Andrieu freed himself from his shackles and turned on them. What followed was absolute slaughter. Bullets and swords could not harm the Primarch unleashed. Even the strongest of reinforced doors were caved in or torn off their hinges as Andrieu discovered his strength and fighting ability to the terror of the guards. The one-time poet and socialite became an unstoppable killing machine.

As Andrieu freed the prisoners without regard for the nature of their crimes, he found himself in charge of the prison. Now, the prisoners looked to him for guidance, helped by his ever-spreading fame amongst Eleutheria’s lower classes as their champion. While Andrieu was not used to having actual responsibility for the lives of others, he was a Primarch, a natural leader able to inspire his followers to great feats, and, perhaps surprisingly to all, he was able to organize the rag-tag group into the beginnings of an army.

Tellingly, not all of Andrieu’s men were political prisoners, for his exploits also freed petty criminals, gang members, and bandits from imprisonment. These rough, cynical men and women saw not only hope for deliverance, but also a chance for further mayhem and advancement of their own personal causes. While some quickly scattered into Eleutheria’s wilds, hoping to continue their lawless and selfish lives, others often rose up to positions of Andrieu’s lieutenants, paying lip service to his ideals while amassing power under the Primarch’s command.

For Andrieu, the experience of being a leader was exhilarating. No longer would he be content with preaching the gospel of freedom. His experience in prison made him realize that the only way to liberate the downtrodden of Attelan was through armed struggle.

The Primarch led his makeshift force, armed with weapons salvaged from the prison guards, to march through the frozen country and towards the day side of Eleutheria. Many prisoners perished in the harsh conditions, but the broken terrain and lack of major population centers kept Andrieu’s forces from being easily discovered by his enemies. When he did give battle, his lack of adherence to military dogma of the time served him well, and Andrieu soon developed a reputation for unpredictability and surprising military brilliance. At the same time, the Primarch sent undercover emissaries to the cities, who recruited the destitute and the working class to his cause. Through his lieutenants’ contacts in Eleutherian underworld, Andrieu was able to forge alliances of convenience with gangs and criminal syndicates, believing his underlings that those people only turned to life of crime because of lack of legitimate opportunities. Soon, his newly dubbed Liberation Army numbered thousands, with many more sympathizers in Attelanian cities.

The ruling elites responded by tightening security in their strongholds while sending several large conscript armies led by noble officers to deal with Andrieu once and for all. Each time, the Primarch triumphed against all odds, outthinking and outfighting his enemies. Every victory turned more citizens to his cause, and now even some minor provincial governors began to enter wary negotiations with him in defiance of the central government, seeking to save themselves and their holdings from the rebel predations.

This situation made the neighboring nations of Garuz and Jin-Chi look enviously at the rich Attelanian lands, now torn by rebellion. While in the past, each empire was too strong for others to take down, now the weakness of Attelan created a window of opportunity for her enemies. Just as several Attelanian armies marched against Andrieu’s forces, Garuz and Jin-Chi invaded. The resulting three-way war ravaged the country, but ended with Andrieu being victorious against both the old regime and the invaders, who could never make common cause and were defeated one by one.

After two years of brutal warfare, the Primarch was able to force a peace treaty on Garuz and Jin-Chi, while installing himself as the sole ruler of Attelan. For a short while, uneasy ceasefire reigned. Andrieu used this time to nationalize the industries, sweeping the old aristocracy and business interests out of power while inflaming the passions of the masses with his fiery speeches and decrees giving ownership of the land and factories to people who actually worked them. Some former nobles went along with this reorganization, however, many resisted, and were violently suppressed. To Andrieu, this was the necessary price of people’s liberation, even if one of the aristocrats purged in this manner was his own adoptive father. As far as the newly dubbed Liberator of Attelan was concerned, he had to make sacrifices at the altar of freedom.

But time did not stand still, and even as Andrieu reorganized his new realm, the other empires of Eleutheria recognized his regime for the threat it was. In an unprecedented alliance, Garuz, Jin-Chi, and Malbolge joined forces to ostensibly restore the old regime of Attelan, and to suppress any thoughts their own workers and peasant might have had about rising up. Their plans did not account for the Primarch’s genius and ability to delegate military responsibilities to capable underlings. The eventual war was long and bloody, costing millions of lives, but in the end, Andrieu’s military victories, combined with the spread of his Liberation ideology to the workers of enemy nations, decided its ultimate outcome. As the dust of the greatest conflict in Eleutheria’s history settled, Andrieu Ulliann found himself not only the undisputed ruler of Attelan, but also the ideological leader of the wave of change sweeping the planet.

By the time the forces of the Great Crusade discovered Eleutheria, much of the galaxy was returned to human dominion. Uniquely amongst the Primarchs, Andrieu was greeted not by the Emperor, but by his brother Mohktal of the Illuminators, in charge of the Seventh Expeditionary Fleet tasked with scouting the far reaches of the galaxy. The initial contact was reasonably amicable, thanks in no small part to certain similarities between the two Primarchs. Both shared some idealism and penchant for intellectual endeavors, albeit Andrieu’s was tempered by the blood of a planetary conflict and zealotry of his cause. It took the Emperor’s personal appearance to convince the Seventeenth Primarch to voluntarily join forces with the Imperium, and to take command of the Seventeenth Legion, which he dubbed the Liberators after their mission to free the human galaxy from oppression and ignorance.

Legion Organization

As the last Primarch found in the Great Crusade, Andrieu Ulliann was able to take advantage of combined expertise of his brothers, and the body of military knowledge acquired from the human reconquest of the galaxy. He recognized the value of consistent Legion structure championed by Iskanderos, and organized the Liberators into Great Companies of approximately 1,000 Space Marines each led by Generals, divided into 100-man companies composed of 10-man squads. Unlike the sons of Iskanderos, the Seventeenth Legion assigns its armored assets and specialists to Great Companies, from which the Legion’s officers can requisition vehicles and other specialist machinery as needed for their company-level campaigns.

By the time Andrieu Ulliann was discovered, much of the organized opposition to the Imperial advance was already conquered, and the nature of the Great Crusade shifted to smaller-scale actions against individual alien worlds, pocket empires obscured by their remote locations, or renegade enclaves that attempted to renege on their oaths to Terra. With the few remaining major campaigns were jealously claimed by the more established Legions with track record of overachieving, the Liberators adapted to excel in smaller scale actions that their better known cousins considered beneath their notice.

As a result, the Legion structure became heavily decentralized over the next few decades. Generals and Captains were given more and more responsibility and latitude on how to perform their duties, and many Crusade forces counted small contingents of Liberators among their number. In this capacity, individual squads, companies, and Great Companies were exposed to a multitude of tactics, strategies, command structures, and technologies utilized by Imperial military and other Legions. Invariably, these ideas spread across the Legion, with individual captains often adopting tactics and organizational structures that bore little resemblance to each other.

Interestingly, recruitment into the Seventeenth Legion is typically also done at the Great Company and company level, with each General and even Captain able to choose new recruits from variety of worlds and backgrounds. Frequently, individual companies may operate alone under command of their fiercely independent captains, who are given freedom to pursue objectives as they see fit. As a result, the actual composition and structure of Great Companies can significantly vary, depending on the personality of each General and his lieutenants, their chosen tactics, or the needs of a given operational theatre. This allows the Legion detachments to operate independently for extended periods of time, often acquiring beliefs or traits that are significantly different from others in the same Legion. At the same time, critics pointed that the Legion appears to lack a singular focus, and its loose command structure and differences between units make it somewhat inconsistent in approach and reliability.

Combat Doctrine

While Andrieu Ulliann was educated by the best minds of Eleutheria, and could instinctively grasp advanced strategies and tactics, he did not have to assume military command until much later in life. As such, he could be best described as a talented dilettante rather than a true military genius. His tactics are, therefore, frequently impulsive and often ignore well-established military theories. At times, this unpredictability led to setbacks, however, it also served to confuse Andrieu’s opponents and forced them to vacillate between strategies, never certain what stratagem the Seventeenth Primarch could employ next.

This unpredictability is further accentuated by high degrees of independence exhibited by the Legion commanders. The Liberators are encouraged to consider non-traditional approaches, and to share tactics and strategies at each meeting of the Legion’s Great Companies. While each General and Captain tends to favor a certain approach, most Liberators officers employ a wide variety of tactics to the point where it is nearly impossible to predict what any given leader would consistently do.

This is accentuated by the independent nature of the Legion's officers, and by the practice of individual companies operating on their own, with little direction from the higher ranks. Because of this, the Liberators Generals often maintain their positions as first amongst equals rather than as a part of strict chain of command. This necessitates reaching consensus when multiple companies are assembled, which often depends on which officer is able to sway his peers towards his own solution to military problems at hand. More often than not, such decisions are based on the officers' relative prestige within the Legion, or on long-standing favors and politically-minded pacts between them. Some rumors even point out to the use of divination as the means to decide upon a battle strategy, although naturally, the secular Imperium frowns at such notions.

Legion Beliefs and Practices

The diversity of the Legion’s subdivisions led to the spread of many different beliefs that are often at odds with each other. Ostensibly, the primary tenet of Andrieu Ulliann’s creed is that the Seventeenth Legion is tasked with liberating humanity from ignorance , tyranny, and alien oppression. In reality, while some of the Legionaries enthusiastically adhere to the Primarch’s ideology, others find aspects of it to be naïve and perhaps too detached from reality.

This duality comes from the earliest beginnings of the Legion, where a hard core of combat-tested veterans survived a series of devastating campaigns, forming an uncompromising worldview centered on distrust of others and self-reliance. The discovery of the Seventeenth Primarch did little to temper it, for while Andrieu was idealistic and driven by humanistic beliefs, he exercised only a loose control over his Legion, allowing many commanders to continue as before. As the Liberators began to recruit heavily from Eleutheria, many new initiates came from that planet’s criminal underworld, thanks to the influence of Andrieu’s lieutenants with criminal backgrounds. These Legionaries were brought into an atmosphere where ruthless, pragmatic cynicism was often encouraged; as some of Andrieu’s lieutenants were still young enough for induction into the Legion, they saw it fit to mold their Great Companies and Companies in accordance to their own beliefs.

Due to these practices, many of the older Terran Legionaries found common cause with the Eleutherian inductees, while the more idealistic of the new recruits tended to be formed into separate units, often consigned to recruiting from the worlds they liberated. These new additions to the Legion made it even more diverse in terms of beliefs, and while broadly speaking, most officers subscribe to either the idealists or the pragmatists, there exists a wide spectrum of philosophies, customs, rituals, and even quasi-religious beliefs amongst the Liberators.

Recruitment and Gene-Seed

The Liberators are the smallest Space Marine Legion due to heavy losses incurred in campaigns immediately preceding Andrieu Ulliann’s discovery, and to this day their numbers have not yet recovered. The variety of recruitment grounds and gene-seed implantation techniques led to a degree of genetic drift which, while not impairing the Legion’s ability to reinforce its numbers, has somewhat impeded its growth.

Each Great Company is responsible for its own recruitment, and while some only take initiates from Eleutheria, others do not hesitate to induct any promising youths they encounter on their campaigns. As a result, there are several genetic lines within the Legion, each formed by unique interactions between Andrieu Ulliann’s gene-seed and the genetic heritage of each distinct recruitment population. For now, those differences are minor and tend to result in more pronounced temper shifts, as well as slight differences in efficiency of various implants, but if left to their own devices, they could diverge to the point where the functionality of Liberators gene-seed may vary greatly.

The Great Crusade

Due to the remote location of Eleutheria and the Primarch’s late discovery, the Liberators had few notable victories to their name during the Great Crusade. By the time the Seventeenth Legion was allowed to campaign independently, most of the large organized opposition to the Imperial Rule was already subjugated, and most promising areas of future expension were claimed by other, better established and better known Legions. As a result, the history of the Liberators in the Great Crusade is a story of a thousand small campaigns, often focusing on subjugation of a single world, or on the destruction of threats deemed too insignificant by the larger, glory-seeking Legions.

Frequently, the majority of the Legion operated with greater degree of independence than any of their peers, sending representatives to previously agreed upon meeting stations once per decade but otherwise remaining out of effective communication reach. This led to the Primarch being unable to account for most of his Legion at any given time, or to even be able to account for the true numbers under his command, the disposition of his forces, or the location of the current endeavors.

The very lack of celebrated conquests pushed the Liberators to seek out conflicts and venues of exploration even after the Emperor declared the Great Crusade to be officially over. The Seventeenth Legion’s penchant for going where no others would have gone, and for spreading its forces over multiple theaters ensured that even with most of the galaxy under the Imperial control, there remained multiple isolated polities, one-system kingdoms, or other outposts settled in the bygone eras yet not large enough to catch the attention of the Imperium. As soon as the Emperor’s declaration was made, Andrieu Ulliann immediately returned to direct yet another campaign, which led him to be generally unaware of the coming civil strife.

During the Heresy

It is not certain when the Liberators first began to hear the sibilant whispers of Tzeentch, as the Legion’s records were fraught with contradiction and lacked a central unifying organizer. The widespread, loosely organized nature of the Legion did, however, lend itself to a number of independent commanders who were often free to build their personal power base, and who often jockeyed for the influence with the Primarch. With the Legion’s homeworld located in one of the furthest, hardest to reach locations from Terra, Eleutheria remained a relatively insular society, not helped by Andrieu’s frequent and extended absences and often left to its own devices under the rule of the Imperial governor or the Legion garrison commander. Therefore, the key events that determined the ultimate fate of the Liberators took place out of the Imperium’s sight.

On a world of Marathon, the Liberators led by Andrieu Ulliann encountered a civilization that darkly mirrored the Eleutherian society prior to the Primarch’s coming. A small elite of Clerics of Industry ruled over a billion-strong population of malnourished factory slaves and illiterate peasants. When the Legion attempted to bring the planet into compliance, however, the Liberators found that the world’s downtrodden people had little appetite for deliverance, despite all of the benefits and freedoms the Seventeenth Primarch had promised them.

Even though the Legion was considerably superior to the meager forces mustered by the planet’s defenders, Andrieu was shocked to find that the Marathonians fought to the last, even when there was little reason for them to do so. After multiple battles resulting in wholesale slaughter of the human colonists, the Liberators finally uncovered the secret behind this resistance – a mind control network from the Dark Age of Technology, guided by impossibly complex and inhuman intelligences who seemingly anticipated every step of the war, and strove to play upon the Liberators’ own insecurities.

As the Liberators realized the true nature of their enemies, the battles got considerably more difficult. Despite his natural gifts, Andrieu found his generalship challenged at every step, as if the intelligences controlling Marathon were capable of plotting his every move in advance. Growing increasingly desperate, the Primarch ordered his commanders and Librarians to seek the means to counter the forecasting capabilities of the enemy.

History does not record the specifics of the Liberators’ solution, however, its results were clear. Through means both technologically advanced and arcane, the Legion was able to negate the enemy advantage, though at a terrible cost – the means the Liberators used to negate the enemy’s foresight were tainted by the touch of the Warp. During the final assault on the hiding place of the planet’s hidden masters, the Legion suffered high casualties, prompting Andrieu to return to Eleutheria to replenish the ranks, and to contemplate the things he had seen at Marathon.

It is here that the somewhat sinister figure of Leon Amalitan enter the galactic history. Once a small-time criminal turned rebel against Eleutheria’s industrial tycoons, Leon was young enough to join the Legion upon reunion between Andrieu and the Emperor. As a Legionary, he uncovered a talent for command, which led to series of promotions culminating in a rank of General. Unlike most of his peers, however, Leon’s ambitions lay not in the glories of conquest, but in governance – therefore, while most of the Liberators would have chafed at the thought of being reassigned as the governor of Eleutheria, Leon actively sought such posting, and was finally installed as the Primarch’s representative on the homeworld roughly sixty years prior to the end of the Great Crusade.

As a governor, Leon was able to install an industrialized system of recruitment into the Legion, while expanding the planetary industries to exploit the mineral wealth of the Eleutherian system. Unfortunately, these accomplishments came through the most underhanded of means, including forced labor, careless disregard for environmental consequences, and systematic imprisonment and extermination of all who dared to raise their voices in opposition.

It is not certain how long this state of affairs would have lasted, had Andrieu Ulliann not decided to visit Eleutheria while the opening movements of the civil war played out elsewhere in the galaxy. Though Leon Amalitan made sure that the Primarch was greeted with the most elaborate of celebrations, it did not take long for Andrieu to discover the truth behind the governor’s successes. As the Primarch confronted his underling, the governor pleaded that not all of the downtrodden knew a better way, and that his methods, though often brutal, served a greater good. Did Andrieu himself not commit many atrocities in the name of progress?

Angrily, the Primarch ordered his lieutenant to stand down and face judgment, however, Leon refused. A throng of Liberators loyal to the governor burst into the room, threatening Andrieu to leave. They, however, did not account for the Primarch’s unnatural capabilities – and for the terrible cost he paid for the victory at Marathon.

Ever since the victory at Marathon, Andrieu was plagued with prophetic dreams that foretold him the events yet to come, leading him to see possibilities unfold. Though at first the Seventeenth Primarch was wary, his innate belief in his own exceptionalism won out, and he began to trust the dreams to guide his way. Laughing, Andrieu told Leon and his would-be assailants that he knew all along what would happen, and revealed his own hand – a squad of elite Liberators who attacked without warning, leaving the governor’s men dead. Leon Amalitan was executed by Andrieu’s own hand, ending his takeover of Eleutheria less than two days after the Primarch’s homecoming.

Thus emboldened, Andrieu considered his path. He freed worlds without number, and freed his own home planet twice – first from its original overlords, second from his own unfaithful lieutenant. That thought, however, was unsettling. If one of his own men could turn on him, who else could betray the bonds of loyalty that tied the Legions together? With the Emperor no longer an active participant in the Imperium’s affairs, would any of his sons seek to strike out on their own?

As Andrieu brooded on Eleutheria, the first of the news began to come in. The news of massacre at Apella; the news of devastation at Taramin and the war in the galactic north. It seemed that the worst fears of the Seventeenth Primarch came true – just like the bonds preventing the Legionaries from turning on their sire proved to be too weak, so did the bonds of fraternity. Without reliable communication, and with only his dreams for guidance, Andrieu decided to issue orders to all Legion commanders to return to the homeworld, and to consider his next move.

While the Warp storms made communication and travel difficult elsewhere through the galaxy, most of the Liberators were able to return to their distant home with relatively little trouble. Here, in front of the assembled Legion officers and other dignitaries, Andrieu Ulliann declared his intentions.

The Seventeenth Legion was always the champion of freedom, he said, his silhouette cast against the red haze of Eleutherian twilit sky. Therefore, it remained the Liberators’ duty to cast down tyrants wherever they would emerge, even if they were of the Legion’s one-time fraternity. With the memory of one of Legion’s own turning to tyranny still very recent, Andrieu declared that the Liberators would not commit to either side of the civil war until they were certain who was in the right.

Some of the assembled officers might have cheered in genuine support for their Primarch’s noble aspirations; others applauded for wholly different, more cynical reasons. As the Legion continued to gather in strength for perhaps the first time since its reunion with the Primarch, more news from the wider galaxy trickled in.

These reports told of Iskanderos’ inexorable advance toward Terra, of savage trails of dead worlds left by Kthuln’s Legion, or the brutality of the Death March campaign. And, eventually, the news of Galen IV trickled in.

Andrieu was incensed. Not only did the Council destroy a loyal world, but it managed to slay a loyalist Primarch while he was least expecting a betrayal. As Andrieu learned of Gideon’s withdrawal from the Council cause and the ever-tightening rule of Rogr Hemri, his mind was made up. His voice shaking with emotion, the Seventeenth Primarch declared that his Legion would fight to eradicate the tyranny of the Council, by any means necessary.

Already cognizant of possibilities offered by his dreams, Andrieu decided that the best way to ensure the end of the Council would be to act as an ally until such time when he could deal the killing blow. In this, he ordered his men to disperse across Segmentum Solar, making covert contact with the rebels while the Seventeenth Primarch himself made way for Terra.

By the time the Liberators flagship arrived at Terra, the war was in its final stages. With the Council rule teetering on the bring of complete collapse, Rogr Hemri was glad to find another ally, and did not take long to accept Andrieu’s explanation for his earlier absence. With Nyxos still away arranging for the Council’s contingency plans at Puritania, Andrieu did not face any considerable scrutiny upon his professions of loyalty, and was welcomed into the Council as a willing partner.

Andrieu made certain to understate the available fighting strength of the Liberators, hiding the majority of the Legion until they were needed to ensure that the bulk of front-line fighting fell to others while his own Legion remained in reserve, ready to act when needed. With the Warp storms blanketing Segmentum Solar to make communications slow and unreliable, the most efficient way of relaying orders remained to be via courier ships, and in this role, the Liberators excelled. However, while the Council was initially thankful for their alliance, soon irregularities began to emerge.

Orders were relayed, but considerably after they were useful. Commands and supply routes were inexplicably compromised, and convoys were destroyed in surprise rebel attacks. Previously hidden outposts and secret bases were attacked by rampaging rebel forces, though never directly connected with the Liberator influence.

By that point, Andrieu began to have second thoughts. Like Baelic before him, the Seventeenth Primarch started to become cognizant of the type of allies Iskanderos had, and of implications of Chaotic influence. He realized that the source of his dreams was similarly tainted, and that perhaps, some things were not meant to be touched no matter the advantages. Horrified, Andrieu considered pulling out of the war effort altogether, or, at the very least, using his Legion’s position to critically harm both sides. That, however, was not to be.

The independence of the Legion’s commanders was Andrieu’s downfall. As the officers of the Liberators already enjoyed considerable freedom, many began to give in to their ambitions. Close contact with the rebels taught them that power unlimited lay at their hands, and that their ambitions could go considerably further without the idealistic, often irrational Primarch hampering their efforts.  A plan was quickly hatched between the top Legion commanders to sabotage Andrieu’s ship so that its Geller fields would fail at the most inopportune time, damning the Seventeenth Primarch to a horrifying end.

With Andrieu disposed of, the Liberators continued in their work, believing that Iskanderos offered them considerably greater freedom with the entire galaxy their playground. As the Council prepared for its final stratagem, the Liberators were already suspected of being unreliable; however, their true allegiance was not revealed until after the Council fleet departed Terra. Rather than give battle, the Liberators fled en force, joining Iskanderos and relaying all their knowledge of Terra’s defenses as the Council fleet found itself beset by Warp storms and daemonic incursions.

Some Liberators were present at the Fall of Terra, however, the majority of the Legion had departed on their own paths as soon as the Council became aware of their true allegiance. Already a heavily decentralized Legion, the Liberators were quick to abandon any pretense of acting as a coherent force, spreading out across the galaxy on quests of personal ambition, adventure, and plunder.

Post-Heresy

The Liberators were already at best a loosely organized Legion, and with the Fall of Terra the last of the tenuous alliances holding the Seventeenth Legion together were gone. While some Generals and Captains continued their mutual alliances out of habit, or perhaps due to previously made arrangements, most of the Liberators spread out across the galaxy, carving their personal paths into the future. As a result, despite the Seventeenth Legion being the smallest of the twenty, it gave birth to a wide array of warbands, reaver gangs, and pirate cliques.

Already tainted through Andrieu’s dealings with the Warp, the Liberators did not take long to fully succumb to the lure of Tzeenth, the Changer of Ways, and the Lord of Lies. While some Legionaries did take interest in the occult and the arcane, for most of the Legion this allegiance manifests in attempts to forecast and influence the future, to infiltrate the targeted worlds or systems under false pretense, or to create complicated plans to accomplish their goals through underhanded or otherwise unconventional means.

As a Legion known for its improvisational skills and disunity, the Liberators no longer have anything resembling a unified doctrine or chain of command. Instead, each of the many warbands formerly drawn from the ranks of the Seventeenth tends to be considerably distinct from others of their kind, often developing their own heraldry, recruiting grounds, idiosynchrasies of command structure, and ethos. As ambitious warlords began to look to their own desires, more than a few embarked on programs to expand their forces through the use of substandard recruits and gene-seed acquired from dubious sources. As a result, with many of the warbands already subject to genetic drift due to multitude of recruiting worlds, and with the baleful influence of Chaos, most splinter units of the Liberators now have little resemblance to their Legion predecessors in terms of appearance, equipment, or even gene-seed.

Through all of this, twisted shades of the Legion’s original purpose still remain. Just as the Liberators were tasked with rooting out injustice throughout the galaxy, many of the Legion’s warlords still hold on to ideologies and beliefs they had acquired over the course of their travels. For some, it translated into an outright dedication to Chaos, while for others, it is represented by a prevalent ideological fixation on specific types of causes, particularly hated enemies, or difficult, often practically unattainable goals. Because of this, the present-era Liberators are often at the head of daring endeavors, foolish crusades, or adventurous schemes where the risks are immense, but the rewards can be considerable.

Other Legion warlords, especially those who adhered to more cynical and realistic philosophies, scoff at the notions of noble ideals and religious devotion. For them, only the present matters, and all that matters in the present is temporal power. They are the builders of planetary kingdoms and buccaneer empires, the lords of wastelands and the mercenary captains out for themselves. Though some of them still entertain the idea of reuniting the scattered Legion under their own banners, most understand that the nature of the Seventeenth Legion would make any such endeavor a futile task.

Though a succession of Liberator warlords continue to rule Eleutheria, they hold no special status within the remnants of the Legion. For a long time, the wayward sons of Andrieu Ulliann were drawn from all across the galaxy, and as a result, very few of them still hold any attachment to the Legion’s homeworld.

For that reason, Eleutheria remains on the outskirts of the galaxy, as isolated and ignored by the rest of the galactic powers as before. Pillars of smoke still rise into the twilit sky under the light of the weak, red star as millions of the downtrodden folk continue to labor for their uncaring overlords. The more ambitious Liberators had long left the Legion’s homeworld for adventure, glory, and power, leaving a hard core of cynical Legionaries jealously guarding their private domain built on the backs of their mortal charges. These mortals still whisper the legends of the Great Liberator himself, Andrieu Ulliann, who may some day return to set them free as he had done before.

Of Andrieu Ulliann, there was no sign since his fateful disappearance before the Fall of Terra. That said, rumors continue to trickle across the galaxy of his eventual fate. Some think that the Last Primarch had perished for good, his destiny fulfilled, his legacy a Legion scattered across a thousand worlds. Others claim that the Primarch survived his sojourn in the Warp, and continued to psychically communicate with the more dedicated of his followers, preparing for his return and for restoration of the Seventeenth Legion to what it once was.

Another possibility, however, remains. For thousands of years, spacefarers across the galaxy reported the sightings of a baroque vessel responding to no known hails. Its form, though corroded with age and Warp exposure, still has hints of something sleek and graceful underneath; its proud decorations bristle with the twisted sigils of another, more noble and elegant age, yet they never appear the same twice, no matter what means the observers use. In its wake, worlds go dark and best laid plans come undone; warlords and empires falter, and tyrants fall.

Some claim that the vessel is guided by a luminous being much taller than even a Space Marine, who appears without warning as if pursuing some strange, inexplicable agenda, only to disappear just as quickly. Where the vessel appears, nothing ever remains the same – not the planets, not the societies, not even the flesh of the mortals who dwell there.

Only one word remains as the clue of the vessels’ allegiance, and the identity of its master. Written in the abandoned battlefields, spoken by the tongues of monstrous mutants, ringing from the bell-towers of the ravaged cathedrals, is the word Freedom…