Editing Fallen Angels (section)

===Further Analysis===
[[Image:Fallen-angel.jpg|250px|right|]]
It has been shown that not all of the fallen angels are followers of [[Chaos]], which makes an awful lot of sense, because frankly, given what they had to grow up with, no child of Caliban is likely to be enticed by anything with the stink of chaos around it (Luther being the exception due to his feelings of immense betrayal and that his exposure to chaos was through reading a bunch of naughty books, rather than a more overt vector). Furthermore, many (possibly even most) of them regret their Heresy-era actions and realize that they were wrong; these members of the Fallen have gone into exile and try to blend into the local population and live a "normal" life, although quite how a seven-foot tall post-human with enough muscle to tear a bear limb from limb and the external ports from his Black Carapace poking through his skin is supposed to just "blend in" with anyone outside of the [[Blackshield|Deathwatch]] is anyone's guess.

[[File:Fallen angels.jpg|250px|thumb|right|A rare sighting of three fallen angels working together]]

Not only that, but the Fallen were said to be fighting among themselves before the Lion even arrived in orbit; as mentioned previously, many of the Terran legionnaires (and some Calibanite Dark Angels too) were uncomfortable with the way that Luther was comporting himself and tried to get a message out to Terra or the Lion to inform them of what was happening to their planet. They managed to amass a force of several thousand Astartes and tried to storm one of the astropathic relays but were double-crossed by one of the First Legionnaires, '''Astelan''', ''a guy who was one of the first 5000 space marines EVER and remembered the [[Thunder Warriors]]'', who sought his own advancement and was unhappy with the way that the Lion commanded the legion that "used" to be mostly his before the Lion showed up. These Imperial-Loyalist forces were all rounded up and placed into dungeons underneath the Rock. Which is kinda strange since Astelan had to have known there was no chance in Hell of winning against the Lion and his fleet. So, he'd lose everything. On the bright side [[Noblebright|maybe those loyalists ironically survived the destruction of Caliban due to being imprisoned deep within/under the Fortress Monestary, getting the last laugh when their brothers freed them.]] It's also possible those "Fallen" who were actually loyalists that appear are where those mysteriously appearing Chapters of the First Legion come from.
*It is a testament to Astelan's over-bloated sense of self-worth that he believes the Dark Angels would be better off under his command, especially considering that despite being one of the first 5000 Astartes ever created he did not rise to the position of chapter master until after the Lion took control of the legion. His attitude towards the Lion and the newer Dark Angels is very similar to that of the Custodians in ''Master of Mankind'', viewing all those that came after as below him; after all, he was one of the first, and was directly commanded by the Emperor in person; why should he take orders from a lesser being? He is very much a mercenary at heart, and as long as you remain the biggest kid on the playground then he will be your best friend, but as soon as an even bigger kid shows up you can bet that Astelan will do what is best for Astelan.
*In his defense though, things only really turned sour when he actually tried to uphold the initial values of the Great Crusade as set forth by Big.E. (i.e. integrate lost human civilizations into the Imperium instead of [[exterminatus|bombing them into oblivion with extreme prejudice]]) and a Caliban-born Dark Angel, Belath, manipulated events so the planet had to be [[rape|forcefully subdued]] and (insult to injury) made him look incompetent in the process. Doesn't excuse his actions after that, but it does give him a reason as to why he believed Johnson & co were just self-serving opportunists waiting to see who'd win during the Heresy.

Therefore as the Heresy has progressed several different factions of Dark Angels emerged:
:*The [[Dark Angels]] who follow the [[Lion_El'Jonson|Lion]], either accompanying him to [[Imperium Secundus]] on the far side of the Galaxy, or who are accompanying his Paladin Corswain on the other side of the Ruinstorm.
:*The [[Dark Angels]] who were on [[Caliban]] and remained loyal to the [[Lion_El'Jonson|Lion]] and [[God-Emperor_of_Mankind|the Emperor]], but who were ambushed and imprisoned beneath [[the Rock]].
:*The ''Order'', who rejects their Primarch and Emperor, who follow [[Luther]] and yearn for a return to the glory days of a free and independent Caliban regardless of whether Horus or the Emperor win the Heresy. To ensure Caliban’s “freedom and glory” Luther and the Order decided it would be a good idea to expand upon their power base by conquering… did I say conquering? I meant '''liberating''' all the nearby inhabited systems thus bringing them under Luther’s command. But you know, conquering and subjugating entire populations in order to accelerate your own personal agenda is only a bad thing when the Imperium does it; when the Order takes control of your home by military force it’s all in the name of “freedom”… yeah, this is not going to end well. (This would also make the Dark Angels' big secret a lot worse; if in their rage and grief they had to “'''deal'''” with these renegade systems that had knowledge of what had happened on Caliban… just think about it). Luther would later encounter Typhon in the Zaramund system, which gives further support to the idea that the Fallen's influence was no longer confined to one planet, but was, in fact spreading out over multiple systems. As the Heresy raged around them Luther and his buddies were busy carving out their own anti-imperium galactic empire (no wonder the Dark Angels at the time freaked out and tried to cover the whole thing up).
:*The ''First'' who follow '''Astelan''', who reject the Lion as an unworthy liege but at least put lip service to the idea that the Emperor is their true master. At the current point in the storyline, Astelan supports Luther out of political convenience. (Not all the "First" follow Astelan; many sided with the Lion and are imprisoned with the others beneath the Rock.) 
:*[[Zahariel]]'s ''Mystai'', who have secretly fallen under the influence of the [[Ouroboros]] and want to see it freed from its prison buried within Caliban. Closet Chaos worshippers even if they don't realise it yet.
:*The Watchers, and the (possibly former/deceased) Lord Cypher, who have their own agenda that no other faction really knows about, but who know the truth about Chaos and the Ouroboros and want to keep it contained.
:*The current Cypher (who may or may not be Zahariel), whose motives are a complete mystery.

Over the years, some of the captured Fallen have claimed that it was Lion El'Jonson who was the traitor and took his sweet time to get to Terra, implying that Lion El'Jonson was trying to wait and see who would win the civil war and side with the victor. This is probably the Fallen lying, as they would have no way of knowing what the Lion was actually doing at all, considering he and his Legion would have been scattered across the Galaxy and never called home to see how things were going. The Lion certainly had reason to be displeased with the Emperor ''([[Horus]] correctly suspected that he resented not being chosen as Warmaster, as he was the "First" [[Primarch]] as well as the Primarch most renowned for his [[Creed|tactical genius]])'', however the consensus viewpoint amongst fa/tg/uys seems to be that these are just the ramblings of tortured Fallen repeating lies told to them by Luther and that the Lion's ABSOLUTE LOYALTY remains intact. Whatever the truth is, only the Emperor knows, and he isn't talking. Mostly because [[Horus]] ripped out his tongue and his vocal cords have faded to dust, but that's beside the point. The book ''Fallen Angels'' did note that El'Jonson supplied [[Perturabo]] with extra siege weaponry before the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V in exchange for the Iron Lord supporting him as the new Warmaster when Horus was slain. He didn't realize that the [[Iron Warriors]] were traitors until it was too late. Similarly, one confrontation between the Lion and [[Konrad Curze]] ended with the latter correctly predicting that the Lion's attempts at pursuing him and the [[Night Lords]] would be used against him as evidence of his disloyalty. Which, in usual Grimdark fashion, makes sense only to the most retarded of trolls. Since most people reading this know that fighting against a traitor legion (while sending most of his legion to fight other traitor legions) is not going to be seen as disloyalty. What is he supposed to do? ''Not'' fight the traitors? On top of that, while everyone else was being rapidly pushed back by the traitor legions, Lion was rapidly ''retaking'' traitor-conquered territory. From an outside perspective, Horus's rush to Terra could be viewed as him [[Awesome|running away from the Lion]].

However, the rantings of the captured Fallen Angels when they accuse the Lion, the Imperium or each other of misdeeds has to be taken with copious amounts of salt: 
# They cannot be represented as a picture of the whole truth, especially in that there were Loyalist-Fallen & Traitor-Fallen fighting EACH OTHER on Caliban before the Lion showed up, so they do not represent the views of a unified group.
# Many Fallen are simply liars who will say anything to protect their own skins. '''Astelan''' in particular is now ''confirmed'' to be a liar and that he is as culpable a traitor as any other (just not a capital T Traitor; he's disgusted by Chaos) despite his protests in 40k that he was actually a loyal subject of the Emperor ''(if not the Lion)''.

There are even reports that some members of the Fallen may be [[Alpha Legion|Closet Loyalists]] attempting to subvert Chaos from within by drawing the Dark Angels' attention to where it is needed most only to disappear once the Dark Angels arrive leaving them free to battle the true threat to the Imperium, [[just as planned]]. Although, [[Derp|this does come at the cost of fluffing ''against'' the Unforgiven's habit of ignoring everything or abandoning wars just to hunt down even a single Fallen]]. But leaving the Fallen to focus on the real threat ''does'' fit with the Lion's knightly everything. He was secretive, not disloyal or prone to putting his honor above his duty nor shying away from punishment. That same behavior would make sense for his sons (and does show in a way with Azrael and the Unforgiven standing down when Guilliman shows up, ready to accept extermination without even trying to defend themselves).

Amongst the known Fallen Angels the most famous is [[Cypher]] whom [[Games Workshop]] just gave a dataslate full of AWESOME AND WIN. Check this shit out, the only guy with a BS of 10! He's more of a sniper than a sniper!

It is also highly possible that the Death Watch commander Israfil (the only Black Shield commander in the history of Death Watch named in lore) was in fact the Fallen ex-Chief Librarian Israfael (the one who recognized [[Zahariel]] was a psyker); this suspicion is fed not only by their similar names, but also by the strange death of Israfil during a xenocidal campaign which also involved Dark Angels forces and the inability to recover his body.

Some other Fallen decided to make the most of their shit sandwich and pledged themselves to Chaos. Among these were an Astartes named Vortigern and his Lost Lions warband, who joined the Black Legion when it was in its infancy. Vortigern became part of its ruling council, the Ezekarion, and it's partly down to him that they're still intact. When the First Battle of Cadia saw the Black Legion caught between the Black Templars and a surprise attack by a heap of Nine Legions ships, Vortigern was the first to get a decent number of Black Legion vessels to safety.

In summary: There are the guys who followed Lion directly (loyalist), the guys who wanted to do that but were imprisoned on the Rock (loyalist), Luther's non-Chaos Calibanite Separatists (lowercase t traitor), Astelan's group (itself further divided to those who backed up Luther out of convenience and those imprisoned with the Lion followers) (members loyalist, leaders lowercase t traitor), Zahariel's unwitting Ouroboros puppets (capital T Chaos Traitor), Cypher (who knows) and survivors of Luther's group who joined Chaos to make the best of what they had (capital T Chaos Traitor). In the 42nd millenium, Zahariel and Astelan's groups are extinct and any remaining seperatists are either helping mankind, if not the Imperium (or at least the Imperial Government), undercover or have joined Chaos fully. Luther also woke up and is said to be gathering them for an unknown purpose. Everyone else are modern Dark Angels and successors in the Unforgiven, some Dark Angels sucessors who are not in the Unforgiven due to diplomatic fractures but are loyalists, Dark Angels and sucessors who have fallen after Luther's treachery and are thus ordinary heretics and finally Cypher again.