Editing Children of Armok (section)

==Group 13==
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++ Topic: Group 13. ++

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Group 13 is a secret sub-group inside the Children of Armok.
Only Uriel, his command staff, advisors, the Insidiators, and Chapter Masters know of their existence.
All of Group 13's marines are selected personally by Insidiators, the Group 13 commander, or Uriel himself. 
They use different armour colours, and even have to learn and adopt different mannerisms to the Children, so that no-one could link the two. 
Most notably, they bear no legion emblem, their pauldron painted jet black.

The recruits for Group 13 are spirited away in the middle of operations, usually in a situation that makes it look as though they were killed, where they are written up as 'dead/missing'. 
Their identities are officially killed off, and they have any identifying marks removed, from fingerprints to tattoos, even old wounds are grafted up and new ones made to make them impossible to identify, then they undergo facial reconstruction surgery.
Once they are completely unrecognisable, they begin their official training into Group 13, which brings them up to incredibly high levels of skill and fitness, and fostering self-reliance and initiative.

This gave rise to their own nickname, used among those who served in the Group 13 only: 'the Unlucky Bastards'
They assume this nickname due to the fact joining the Group requires you to "die", lose all your friends, your battle honours, and all of your possessions; you lose your identity. Then you have the dirtiest, most suicidal missions the Children, maybe even any marine, has to go on. Thus casualties are comparatively high in Group 13, the kick being that no-one ever knows they existed or died - like they were never even born.

This harsh, unforgiving take on the reality is tempered by the Children of Armoks nascent humour.
Thus the nickname 'Unlucky Bastards' is also used as a dark joke, with enemies treated as being 'Unlucky Bastards' too for having to face the elite Group 13.
Common in-unit jokes are along the lines of "The enemy have us surrounded - now we can't miss them now, the unlucky bastards!", and "Which way to the front lines? Just turn left when you get shelled, then drive down that road until you get blown up", and other jokes stemming from a casual attitudes towards dying caused by the high likelihood that they actually will die. 


Any Group 13 marine questioned on who he is, will likely just reply with "I am an Unlucky Bastard", and nothing more.

Once training is complete, they are assigned to a section, whatever their previous rank was, they start in Group 13 as a marine/squad member. 

In Group 13, there is very little room for advancement - those that survive long enough to become leaders, are by that point hardened and skilled enough that death in battle is unlikely, the only real room for advancement that offers consistent opportunity, is as an Insidiator. 

Insidiators are all former Group 13 members, given almost unlimited jurisdiction and direct oversight by Uriel, and of course the Group 13 commander, whom they still operate under. 
Other than pursuing Legion specific aims, the Insidiators also prepare intelligence and ground work for the Group 13 troops, calling in the allocated sections when the designated target is identified and investigated.
Then Group 13 hit hard, fast, and with the element of complete and utter surprise.

Group 13's purpose is black flag operations (attacks on friendly targets), assassinations, and long-term infiltration missions, as well as undertaking kidnap/capture missions, and guarding and smuggling intelligence and items deemed critical to Uriel or the Children's needs and aims.
Sometimes Group 13 conducts operations against the Children themselves, but usually they are involved in attacks on Imperials - these attacks designed to turn opinion, galvanise support, or manipulate troop movements to better aid the Children, and Uriels plans.

During the Heresy, Group 13 was responsible for cleansing the relatively few loyalists in the Childrens ranks deemed to be a problem.
Only Arkady Balotin and a handful of his marines escaped, being pursued all the way to Terra by a small force of Group 13 manhunter squads, where Balotin's pursuers, who he presumed to be a traitor legion unit from the colours of their armour, were forced to withdraw, leaving Balotin the lone survivor. 
A significant number of loyalists still remain in the ranks of the XIIIth Legion, being manipulated and kept in the dark to be used as distractions for investigators, keeping any investigation away from the corrupt marines, and leaving the impression that the Children are loyal and unspoiled by the influence of Chaos. 

Group 13 remains loyal to Uriel, operating on both sides of the legion (the ''"loyalist"'' side, and those in the traitor ranks)
But they mostly operate on the Imperial side, it being where the black operations Group is most needed.

'''Meta-notes:'''

Group 13 are a secret, and small 13th Chapter. 
They are mainly used for counter-intelligence roles; where the Imperium is looking into the legion and its activities, Group 13 are actively preventing anything damaging from getting out. 
They also are used for black flag operations, and assassinations that cannot be linked back to the legion. 

They are kept secret by making extensive use of disguising their legion heraldry, thinking nothing of painting their armour in another legions colours.

After the Heresy, they remain in their role, but undertaking many more counter-intelligence operations.
Since the Codex Astartes, the Children of Armok having been split down into chapters, Group 13 operate outside the Imperium's knowledge, hiding themselves using the colours of many of the XIIIth Legions successors, so that they may travel the Imperium without drawing attention to themselves. 
They operate in smaller numbers than they did previous to the Heresy, sometimes travelling in just small squads under the disguise of a Rogue Trader or more riskily, an Inquisitor, using controlled Astropaths to send ridiculously complex coded messages, that are only decipherable with the codex used to create the code in the first place.

When they fail in a mission, and their bodies are recovered, it is assumed that they are traitor marines attempting to infiltrate the Imperium, but due to their lack of recognisable identity, they are never linked with the Children directly.