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Fabius Bile

2022-04-12T01:58:19Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:593F:8FBF:7CF7:3D8:

{{heresy}}
[[image:FabulousBile.jpg|thumb|right| Told you.]]
[[File:Fabulous Bile.jpg|thumb|Dabulous Bile]]
{{topquote|Unlike you, whelp, I once walked the same ground as your Idol. I breathed the same air as him. And I tell you this, without lie or artifice. He never wanted to become what you have made him! He did not wish to be your god-thing. He abhorred such ideals! The slavery of your crippled, blind Imperium would sicken him, if he had eyes to see it.|Fabius Bile, telling it like it is to Rafen of the Blood Angels, Black Tide}}
{{topquote|I was building another science, my science, wild science, robots and lasers and disembodied brains. A science that buzzed and glowed; it wanted to do things. It could get up and walk, fly, fight, sprout garish glowing creations in the remotest parts of the world, domes and towers and architectural fever dreams. And it was angry. It was mad science.|Dr. Impossible - Soon I Will Be Invincible}}

'''Fabius Bile''' (aka Fabulous Bill, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele Mengele] in SPESS, [[Team Fortress 2|TF2]] Medic, nicer Dr. House, or simply "[[TTS|Bob]]") is the mad scientist to end all mad scientists (since to the [[Haemonculi]] science comes second to pain). He's got a lab coat made of human skin, a pimpin' staff, and thousands of certificates proclaiming him the Sickest Fuck in the universe. And by Sickest we mean both most Depraved and most Radical. Yes, he is an insane psychopathic psychopath.

But he is also absolutely fabulous.

He has the ability to hook up with a squad and pump them full of his pimp cane juice, making them get on board the [[Rape]] Train and head right for the front cabin. His pimp cane also causes Instant Death, though it counts as a regular weapon so anything with decent armor's likely to survive against him (very bad given that counting the [[Chaos Space Marines|CSM]] codex, six of the armies out right now are [[MEQ]], with the [[Necrons]] also being close behind). Put him in with a squad of [[Berzerker]]s or [[Possessed Marine|Possessed]] who scored themselves power weapons and stuff them in a [[Land_Raider#Chaos_Land_Raider|Land Raider]]. It's time to rev the Fun Bus the fuck up and have yourselves a party (Vengaboys soundtrack optional).

(That said, he's still a pretty sick fuck.)

He shows up in the expansion for inquisitor martyr (SPOILERS), where he sounds like he had throat-cancer (Which considering, in all likelihood, he probably does). Oh, and he got a new model for [[Psychic Awakening]].

You know the absolute worst thing about him? He wants to evolve humanity so that humanity survives and overcomes the endless threats assailing it. Yes, this fucking sicko shit is on our side (or at least wants to keep his potential test subject population alive). It hurts my soul just to think about. Knowing this guy wants to help us survive and transcend human limits makes it very tempting to root for the Tyranids or something just to spite him. He wants to be responsible for saving humanity and he wants humanity to be perfected. Ironically like the Emperor wants.

==The Great Crusade==
Before joining the ill-fated [[Terra|Terran]] part of the [[Emperor's Children]], Fabius grew up in a wealthy family on Terra, apparently happily. One of his family's retainers was a man who created intricate toys of chimerical monstrosities which delighted a young Fabius. He also taught baby Fabi how to alter white mice into performing tricks and theatrical routines, which always went wrong when they reverted to the bestial instincts and tore each other apart. Little Fabius got frustrated with this but the whole thing served as a preface to his later work. Never let it be said that creepy fuckery didn't start young.

After being inducted into the legion, Fabius swiftly rose through the ranks and became the [[Apothecary|Chief Apothecary]]. Before [[Fulgrim]] was rediscovered, the legion was afflicted by a degenerative gene-seed flaw known as the Blight - a progressive form of [[cancer]] that caused random tumors in both bones and organs. Fabius was tasked with finding a cure, lest the flaw wipe out the Emperor's Children to a man. He gradually became more morose as his work only led to failure (as well as prompting his future experimental streak). All the Terran marines of the Legion were susceptible to the disease and Fabius [[Grimdark|was forced to euthanize a lot of his friends and comrades]], leading to him seeking solitude away from his battle-brothers. Matters were not helped by the last shipment of uncorrupted gene-seed randomly vanishing from the [[Luna]] gene-forges and the archived samples degenerating onsite - an incident Crusade command wrote off as a mystery for the ages but was actually both [[Trazyn]] and general warp dickery. We also now know that the [[Primaris Marines]] were created from uncorrupted Gene Seed of all the Legions, so it's possible [[Cawl]] got his sticky dendrites into the stores. Fabius, against all odds, rose to the challenge, albeit reluctantly.

It turns out that a cure was ''never'' actually found, and that reuniting with their [[primarch]] on [[Chemos]] only served to provide fresh material for "untainted" [[Space Marines]]. All those who suffered the flaw were put to death in an attempt to prevent any infection from reaching the healthy brethren... Except for Fabius himself who was in a position to falsify his medical records. His prognosis was that he only had about a year to live, but had developed a process of temporarily rejuvenating himself using elixirs distilled from enzymes and proteins drawn from [[Grimdark|dead Astartes]], and quite possibly including those who never even suffered the flaw either.

The Legion as a whole had an obsession with perfection as a general concept but Fabius' first forays into bodily experimentation came when the Legion assaulted Laeran, a world of [[Laer|reptilian creatures]] who were gene-engineered to perfectly carry out a specific task. Bewitched by the idea, Fabius eventually began to perform clandestine experiments on trying to improve the [[gene-seed]] even before the [[Horus Heresy]] started. It didn't take long for [[Fulgrim]] to find out, but he gave Fabius his blessing as long as it didn't bring [[Imperial]] censure upon the Legion. Of course, once the Heresy was underway, prudence and discretion were thrown to the wind and Fabius' enhancements became in high demand amongst the Emperor's Children.

During the opening movements of the [[Drop Site Massacre|Istvaan Massacre]] (taking place before the actual murder-party itself) Fabius ended up saving the life of [[Nathaniel Garro]], who would eventually go on to alert the [[Imperium]] to the Heresy. In retrospect that would probably make Fabius a dead man walking otherwise.

==The Heresy==
After turning full traitor, Fabulous Vile became the go-to guy for any kind of enhancement, to the extent that there were not many Emperor's Children in the legion who had not been under his knives in some form or other. He was part of the inner cabal of legion figureheads who attempted to exorcise Fulgrim and even found the time to fiddle around with mixing gene-seed together (something unheard of at the time), eventually leading to a certain fellow called [[Honsou]]. He toyed around with both the original anathame and the incomplete (and corrupted) Primarch genome data [[Omegon]] [[Blood Ravens|'acquired']] from the [[Raven Guard]]. It was during this time that he first started on his hobby of turning men, and women, and traitor Marines and [[troll|loyalist Marines]] and basically anything that had the misfortune of coming into contact with him into horrifying inhuman monsters, something he refined considerably over the following millennia.

A minor but notable turning point for Fabius was seeing Fulgrim's ascension to [[Daemon Prince]]. Unlike most of the Emperor's Children, Fabius was privately disturbed by it, thus planting the seeds for his eventual distrust of all things Chaotic.

When Fulgrim was being mopey over the death of his once-BFF [[Ferrus Manus]], it was Fabius that tried to clone the dead Primarch back to life so Fulgrim and him could be BFF again... Except even the clones of Ferrus refused to turn to Chaos and had to be killed by Fulgrim, to the latter's unending [[butthurt]] and [[rage]]. (He believed Fabius was producing flawed clones on purpose just to spite him, [[derp|yet kept on ordering him to create more!]]). It was from this episode that he received his surname from a daemon ascended Fulgrim, who accused him of being "full of bile". Somehow, Chaos Gods know why, the name stuck.

At some point in the Heresy, Fabius did [[Female Space Marines|something]] unprecedented outside of the most twisted fan-fiction. He created a [[Warhammer High|"daughter"]], from his own gene code, which he named Melusine. At the time, she was the pinnacle of his work on creating life but something in her making went horribly wrong and Fulgrim ordered her to be cast into the [[warp]] out of fear of what she might become. Let that sink in for a bit. Melusine then went on to wander the realm of [[Slaanesh]], where she became demonic in the process. She would occasionally give vague warnings to Fabius in the future, holding some loyalty to her "father".

==Post-Heresy==
While the Emperor's Children became wholehearted devotees of [[Slaanesh]], Fabius didn't turn into a hedonistic sense addict but rather rejected the [[Chaos Gods]] despite being aligned to the traitor cause, which he insisted on constantly arguing that there were no 'gods' even to the Chaos devoted. To Fabius, Chaos was but a tool; the means to an end. Still, at first, he stuck with his Legion. Because the Emperor's Children weren't much involved in the actual siege of Emperor's Palace itself, bar a disastrous wall attack which ended in [[Rogal Dorn]] [[Awesome|beating the ever-living shit out of both Fulgrim and some of his finest warriors]] [[Grimdark|(for the most part they were too busy butchering and presumably raping civilians)]], they were in a strong position during the "Legion Wars" that raged in the Eye of Terror after the Heresy and could supply Fabius with what he needed.

Despite their relative strength, the legion itself was divided between following Fulgrim, [[Eidolon]], and [[Lucius]] and soon earned the ire of all other Traitor Legions due to their nasty habit of raiding them for slaves. Nevertheless, the Emperor's Children had some successes, leading them to defeat the [[Sons of Horus]] and Fabius retrieving the Warmaster's body. Horus' body provided him with a wealth of information on top of what he'd gotten from Omegon and the body of Ferrus Manus, and he succeeded in creating a viable albeit diminished 'clone' of the Warmaster (Horus' soul being annihilated by Big.E prevented a complete resurrection). Emboldened, Fabius then attempted to create clones of all of the Primarchs and live up to his self-proclaimed title of 'Primogenitor'. He was well on his way to succeed, too, <s>if it weren’t for those rotten kids</s> but then [[Abaddon]] arrived to fuck his shit up. Horus' clone was killed by Abaddon and Fabius' labs utterly ruined even though he managed to escape.

After the Legion stronghold of Harmony [[Battle of Harmony|was destroyed]] by the nascent [[Black Legion]] and Fulgrim went AWOL (either doing [[drug]]s with his patron God/dess and/or having fun on his personal planet), Fabius was one of the few authority figures left capable of keeping things together. Many looked to the mad scientist to take command of what was left of the Emperor's Children Legion. Fabius, at that point completely estranged from them, refused. Command would only be a burden keeping him from his research. Eventually, the rest of the Emperor's Children drove Fabius out of the Legion, but by that point his skill in cloning meant that he had plenty of opportunities to gain new subjects for experimentation while providing clones for the remaining [[Chaos Space Marines]] to make recruits from. Fabius Bile became a free agent, obeying none but himself and his hunger for knowledge; staying alive and free by offering his services as an Apothecary.

==The Great Work==

After ditching the Emperor's Children after the party planet got smashed, Fabius commenced his "Great Work", his self styled New Men, a new human species that would be able to survive whatever xenos or Chaos based threat the galaxy could throw at them. Yes, you read that correctly. He's loyal to humanity and is simply willing to do literally anything to save humanity (or maybe to get the credit for saving humanity). Makes you almost want humanity to lose and die rather than owe him anything, eh? He set up [[The Consortium (Warhammer 40,000)|the Consortium]], a loose group / warband of Apothecaries and hangers on who helped advance his work considerably. This kept him busy for a few centuries, during which he began the process of transferring his consciousness / soul into fresh bodies. At this point, Fabius could only transfer into one body at a time and had to be in immediate proximity to the fresh body. The blight gradually kept getting worse, leading Fabius to try and delay its onset as much as possible so he could finish his work. Nevertheless, he succeeded in creating the first draft of the New Men, which he called Gland-hounds; pack orientated superhumans who were capable of taking down Astartes. He seeded the new species across many worlds, along with labs and caches of spare bodies in case he needed one.

A former pupil of Fabius', Oleander Koh, attempted to bring Fabius back into Legion politics once again, by cutting a deal with the [[Harlequins]] and prompting an attack on the [[craftworld]] of Lugganath. It was from this that Fabius developed a fascination with [[Eldar]] technology, the [[Webway]], [[Spirit stone|soul transference]], and [[wraithbone]], eventually gaining some mastery over them. He was informally reinstated back into the Emperor's Children after being strong-armed into it receiving a cache of pure gene-seed from the [[Great Crusade]] from Eidolon. This led him to an interesting encounter with [[Trazyn the Infinite]], who appeared to quite like the [[Assholetep|insufferable old coot]].

After trading an uncorrupted clone of Fulgrim for the gene-seed stash, Fabius's interest was piqued by the [[Dark Eldar]]. An amusing 'anecdote' about Bile, that just shows how fabulous he is, is that (like his old pal Lucius), he went on a sabbatical to the Webway, and deliberately got himself captured by the Dark Eldar. Instead of pissing himself in fear at the thought of whatever awaited them like every other prisoner, he just frowned with annoyance at the setback and kept on experimenting. On his fellow prisoners. With whatever he had on hand. This unusual behaviour made [[Haemonculus|another bunch of sick fucks]] raise an eyebrow in curiosity and they invited the 'mere mon-keigh' for a pleasant chat between academics. The Thirteen Scars noted that although Bile was but a novice at cutting and reshaping things painfully compared to the haemonculi, his knowledge of the Warp and other sciences allowed him to conclude a mutually beneficial pact with them. He concocted an elixir that allowed the haemonculi to [[grimdark|craft and keep alive a mobile tower made of the flesh and bones of their still-living victims]], giving them a base of operations that existed in constant agony and fed their shriveled souls. In exchange, they let Fabius go unharmed after giving him a few pointers for his own research (plus, in true Dark Eldar fashion, they realized they would cause much more suffering by letting Fabius go about his business). Yup. [[Wat|Bile managed to be enough of a sick fuck that even a bunch of the most twisted Dark Eldar nodded in appreciation.]]

However, despite being a friendly guest in [[Commoragh]] itself, the Thirteen Scars haemonculi quickly realised that Bile couldn't be allowed back into the Materium. Bile managed to escape by engineering a civil war between several aligned Kabals, leaving the Scars in a delicate position hoping that Bile wouldn't abuse (HA!) the knowledge he'd gained from them and praying that [[Asdrubael Vect|Vect]] didn't find out about their indulgent fuckup. Neither option was acceptable, and the Scars used the afflicted [[Kabal]]s (and the knowledge of a captured Oleander Koh) to surgically strike at Fabius's hidden facilities and former colleagues. By this point, Bile was nearing the conclusion of his great work, and although he'd managed to partly stave off the blight from killing him, time was beginning to run out.

His attempts to fight back against the Scars failed hugely, and the Consortium largely broke apart and went off to do its own thing. Desperate to ensure his work would survive the coming storm, Fabius made a journey to the Pleasure Planet and made a deal with Fulgrim, finally allowing the [[Chaos Gods]] to influence his life, however grudgingly. He made his final stand with the last of his allies, giving his finalised New Men from across the galaxy time to evacuate to the Omega Redoubt, a section of the webway he'd discovered and fortified to continue the existence of his new race.

The Thirteen Scars attacked in force, even bringing the colossal Tower of Flesh headquarters that Fabius had helped them create. Before the final battle, he sent [[Abaddon]] one of his followers and a huge stash of uncorrupted gene-seed as a "sorry about the whole cloning your dad thing" present. [[Dawww]].

Due to the double machinations of both Melusine and the Harlequins, Fabius ended up scoring a victory of sorts, although he subsequently appeared to die in the process, apparently for real. However, it turned out that his final innovation actually worked. Bile had managed to create a batch of resilient bodies with Wraithbone laced brains, that would be a mirror for his consciousness. In other words, ''he dramatically surpassed the Eldar's own Infinity Circuit.'' This removed the risk of the Blight, and allowed individual Fabius clones to operate at the same time, nominally orchestrated by the original (mentally) Fabius kept safe and hidden away. The individual Bile clones were largely left to their own devices and, combined with his Great Work being finished and the spiritual covenant made with Fulgrim and the Chaos Gods, started doing all the seriously hardcore space-Mengele shit that he would become famous for to the present day. What eventually happened to his New Men, his attempt to ensure human survival for the future, remains a mystery to this day. The best part for Fabius is that even if his clones end up turning independent, they still all have the same mind and goal, so it wouldn't matter.

On top of this, rebuilding his Consortium probably would be effortless for him. Especially since everyone involved with him knows refusing him would be a very bad idea. It is also highly unlikely that Fabius has decided his New Men are good enough. Or he's already set in motion a way for them to improve themselves. Perhaps they possess high intelligence and knowledge and are hopefully very well equipped, considering his loathing of stupidity and ignorance and that he intends for them to survive and spread under the Imperium's nose throughout the galaxy.

Oh yeah, and he might be a minor Chaos God now. When he was with the Haemonculi, they dissected him in an attempt to find the cause of the Blight, only to discover that it was incurable because it was actually a warp-based affliction. They speculated that because of how long he survived with it, the Blight itself was mutating into some kind of extradimensional being that will emerge out of his body like a butterfly leaving its chrysalis. In addition, a Word Bearers diabolist working for him notes that due to all the mutants he created worshipping him as the god Pater Mutatis, Fabius Bile is beginning to leave a mark in the Warp. And somehow, despite it being confirmed that he died for real at the Battle of Belial IV (with the kill-switches he implanted inside Saqarra going off), the "original Bile" as of the present day is now some kind of [[God-Emperor of Mankind|undead being spending most of his time in a life-support capsule]], implying that he somehow resurrected. The whole deal is kinda ambiguous.

==Present Day==
Bile has kept himself busy since leaving the Emperor's Children behind. Most of his time is spent on the world of Urum, where he set up a loose organisation called [[The Consortium (Warhammer 40,000)|the Consortium]], a research facility / playground / artist's commune for other Chaos Apothecaries to practice their art in relative peace (and also partly addressing why there aren't many Apothecaries in the Traitor Legions any more). Despite having only very little time to live during the Heresy, he's survived through the millennia by cloning and jumping bodies on a regular basis, although the flaw in his gene-seed will keep on being replicated and get progressively worse. He estimates that he'll only live for another few centuries, which he'll spend finding a cure and finishing his great work.

A major part of his "great work" is to create and perfect a new human race - the imaginatively named "New Men" - who would be superior to the Astartes and reclaim the galaxy from both chaos and xenos. The closest attempt he's made thus far are known as Glandhounds - men AND women who are far stronger and more intelligent than regular humans, violently xenophobic towards anything that's not Fabius or another Glandhound, have very strong pack instincts and use them to bring down much larger prey, like Traitor Astartes Fabius doesn't like. Unlike other examples of master-race creators in fiction, he seems entirely unconcerned about being the ruler of the new race or even being around himself when it comes about. It doesn't sound like a bad idea in itself but it goes without saying that old humanity - or anyone else for that matter - is not permitted to coexist with his new race. It's partly why he allows Nurgulite apothecaries to join his Consortium, as their work on viruses and plagues would allow him to clear out old humanity before letting his New Men move in, all inoculated naturally.

It's hinted that he may have had something to do with the [[Obliterators|Obliterator virus]] (aka the turn-your-body-into-a-living-cannon virus) and there are rumors that he had a hand in screwing up the [[21st Founding]] as well, although this hasn't been mentioned in canon past oblique references.

Bile isn't a fan of [[Chaos]], mainly for its role in destroying what little cohesion the Emperor's Children had post-Heresy. He also sees its corrupting influence as running counter to his great work. He's also critical of the [[Emperor]] (beyond the usual traitor reasons) for stifling the growth of humanity as a psychic race. Fabius is [[Communism|oddly egalitarian]] for a mad scientist, complaining that the Emperor was foolish to only let gene-seed work on men. Amusingly, he draws comparisons between himself and the Emperor as both are creators of new races who often insist on worshiping them as gods. Another thing about him is that due to his attitude towards the Chaos Gods and his focus on science, he is the only known Chaos Space Marine that has kept faithful to the tenets of the [[Imperial Truth]], even though he is no longer faithful to the Imperium or the [[Emperor]]. He believes that what men call "Chaos Gods" are truly just mindless cosmic forces that are ascribed personalities by those driven insane by the Warp, and that Daemons are entities that, although seeming to be intelligent, ultimately lack self-awareness. He will even argue to daemons themselves that the gods are not real.

The sheer irony that Fabius Bile of all people is trying to save humanity from Chaos and aliens and to push humanity forward into a new state of power that would ensure mankind's survival and dominance is just...holy shit. So, doesn't that make him secretly a good guy? Just in "the ends justify the means" taken up way past eleven. More like past nine thousand with some of the nauseating stuff he's done.

He has an odd place in the very loose and volatile hierarchy of the Traitor Legions, being both incredibly unpopular (he is wanted dead by the Dark Council of the [[Word Bearers]] and Fulgrim himself, isn't exactly on good terms with Abaddon after his Horus-cloning shenanigans and portions of almost every other Traitor Legion would appreciate [[rip and tear|voicing their viewpoint on his work ethics tactfully]]) and highly in demand for his skills (his knowledge of gene-seed has saved more than one Traitor Legion from going completely extinct on multiple occasions). In other words, he's the smug, insufferable old coot everyone hates, but the guy is just too damn useful and knowledgeable to be retired.

As with a lot of big characters from earlier editions, his portrayal in the fluff is pretty inconsistent, varying between cackling mad scientist, sadistic torturer for the giggles, stern extremist, goal-obsessed manipulator, and weirdly paternal visionary. One audio adaptation gives him a thetting lisp, which is bafflingly amusing when imagining a space marine, let alone one [[Anal Circumference|using sexual torture devices on a Primarch]]. Then again, he is jumping bodies a lot...

Since the introduction of the [[Primaris Marines]] he has become obsessed with getting his hands on them, so he can experiment and created his own "improved" versions of them as well as cloning [[Guilliman]].

In recent fluff it is notable that he successfully cloned and raised Fulgrim, acquired a cache of pure [[Gene-seed]] and had a nice, constructive exchange with [[Trazyn the Infinite]]. It seemed good ole Trollzyn wanted a genuine Primarch for his collection, and that Fabius could still be a perfectly reasonable man willing to barter despite the whole 'mad scientist' thing. It probably helped that Necrons can't be [[fleshcrafting|experimented upon]] any longer, though...

As of [[Psychic Awakening]], it seems Bile has earned the [[Rage|ire]] of the [[Death Guard]] by [[Blood Ravens|"borrowing"]] a sacred relic of theirs, getting chased around the [[Scourge Stars]] as a result. Abandoning his renegade allies to [[Nurgle]]'s forces, Bile took off with his prize to the [[Cadia|Cadian Gate]] with [[Typhus]] hot at his heels, his nefarious purposes a mystery for now.

At the Cadian Gate, Bile encounters the [[Brazen Drakes|Shriven]], a renegade chapter who were on the run from the [[Adeptus Custodes]]. Seeing this as an opportunity to get rid of his Death Guard problem (and for more experiments), he allies with them. He augments them to become stronger, but essentially turned them into [[drug]] addicts. Picking a few chosen Shriven, he alters them into something called a Terata (A fucked up mix of Khorne Berserkers and [[Flayed Ones]]). With these new experiments, he decides on picking fights with the Death Guard and Custodes and has a good time with it. Even managing to capture a single [[Custodes]] and several [[Sisters of Silence]]. All of it culminates in a three-way battle that even has the [[Officio Assassinorum]] involved. Bile escapes mid-battle, leaving everyone to deal with each other. Bile is on a tight schedule after all, and his work couldn't be delayed any further.

==Attack of the Clones==
[[image:FabiusBileNewModel.jpg|right|thumb|Look at that Strut!!]]
Bile has a hard-on for cloning technology, and has a track record for making copies of himself and others. The latest fluff reveals that he is patterning and copying his mind over to fresh bodies and has done so hundreds of times over the years. The direct implication of this is that the original Bile probably died a long time ago and that there could even be more than one Bile going around the Galaxy. It also explains why he keeps cloning himself into his own Blight ravaged body - he would be more than capable of making a far better body but then he wouldn't be certain that the new body wouldn't affect his mind and go off and do something different, contrary to his great work.

His first attempt was actually to clone [[Ferrus Manus]] since [[Fulgrim]] was feeling a bit guilty and wanted a do-over on turning his brother to Chaos, though Fulgrim would keep murdering the clones because they wouldn't take the hint and change sides. Predictably, Fulgrim blamed Fabius for this, claiming a "perfect" clone would have been willing to join the Traitors.

He later stole [[Horus]]' corpse and cloned it repeatedly, an act that pushed [[Abaddon]] out of his emo loser phase into becoming the scourge of the Imperium. Really though, Abaddon was just annoyed that Fabius has like four arms. He got round to attempting to clone every other primarch as well, but all but two turned out to be a failure. Both successful one's were, to no ones great surprise, of Fulgrim and was genuinely an absolutely perfect and uncorrupted replica of the original. Lucius killed one whilst it was still an infant and Fabius himself found one he'd made centuries before on Harmony. He originally considered using that one and a batch of pre heresy uncorrupted gene-seed to make a new legion to protect his New Men whilst they colonised the galaxy but when he discovered that clone Fulgrim wanted to use them as lesser, expendable soldiers for galactic conquest he offered up the clone to [[Trazyn the Infinite]]'s collection in disgust. Daddy issues aren't just an Abaddon only trait, it seems...

He's currently attempting to create a Clone of the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|EMPRAH]]. Using [[Sanguinius]]' blood. Let it never be said that Chaos is nothing if not ambitious. The [[Blood Angels]] managed to kill him and get the blood back, but he had already begun developing the clone at that point. And as it turns out, they didn't kill him due to the numerous clones of himself he has secreted throughout the galaxy. Mind you, it's not just a way for him to fuck with his enemies; he still hasn't figured out how to cure the Blight and needs to shunt his mind from one clone body to another to keep it from killing him. Also, keep in mind that if he does succeed in cloning the Emperor a new body (because we all know Big.E. would hijack that for himself), it probably would end absolutely horribly for Chaos. Especially considering how things went with the Ferrus Manus clones. (Although this might be entirely intentional on Bile's part, given his hatred of Chaos.)

After his "death" on Belial VII, he was able to keep at least a dozen clones going at the same time, allowing each one to largely do their own thing. The central consciousness is kept safe in a [[wraithbone]] vault on a hidden world.

However, this is also complicated by the fact the real Fabius was involved in War of the Spider where he played a 4D chess game against [[Troll|the Death Guard, The Talons of the Emperor, The Offico Assassinorum, and his own forces.]] He captured some sisters of silence and a single Custode for funny experiments.

One of his clones appears in '''Inquisitor - Prophecy''', the Expansion DLC of [[Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr]]. It is revealed that he played a part in the creation of the "Alpha Pariah" (an artificially created [[Blank|Pariah]] with the ability to permanently destroy [[Daemon]]s). He appears in an early mission with the intent of taking back the Alpha Pariah for his nefarious purposes. He is briefly fought before fleeing. He serves as the final boss of the DLC, where he briefly transforms into a [[Chaos Spawn|Cha....Unnameable beast]] before he is at last slain. Notably, his hated reputation amongst the Traitor Astartes is shown, as the [[Plague Marines]] he hired to defend him intend to kill him the first chance they get.

==Crunch==
[[File:99120102113 CSMFabiusBileLead.webp|thumb|His assistant prefers to be called Eye-Gore]]
On one hand, Bile has good stats and wargear: Feel No Pain through his Chirurgeon, Strength 5, a weapon that causes instant death (Rod of Torment), five attacks, and a particularly nasty poisoned weapon in the [[Xyclos Needler]]. On the other hand, his Rod of Torment does not ignore armor saves (unlike, say, the MURDER SWORD), his [[Xyclos Needler]] has really bad AP and sub-par range, and perhaps most damning of all, no Invulnerable save, unlike literally every other Chaos Character in the codex. So... Sucks, Right? Not quite. The reason Fabius Bile is taken, ironically, isn't for Bile himself; it's for his Enhanced Warriors trait, which gives a unit of Chaos Space Marines +1 Strength and Fearless. An enhanced [[Khorne|Khornate]] CSM unit (Mark + Icon) rolls out 4 S6 attacks per Marine on the charge while being scoring and Fearless. While he isn't stellar in a normal CSM army (he's not a fighter nor does he enhance more than one unit of CSM), he really shines as an allied HQ — if you want a reasonably cheap CC threat for your pansy blueberries, take him and a 10-strong unit of Khornate CSM with [[meltagun]]s that can threaten massed infantry with the number of attacks, massed tanks with meltaguns/carnage combo and monstrous creatures with that Instant Death stick. Know that a Disordered Charge (aka multi-charge) denies you your Rage, so plan accordingly.

Note that he can enhance one CSM unit in your entire ARMY, so take him in an Auxiliary Detachment for your Traitor Legion, and buff one of their Legion CSM units. 20 Infiltrating S5 Fearless [[Alpha Legion]] CSM anyone?

===8th Edition===

The news of improved Astartes was just the news he needed to pop back up. He has a 3-shot [[Needler#Needle Pistol|needle pistol]] that always wounds things that aren't vehicles on a 2+, as well as his Rod of Torment which is now S:+1 AP-1 D3 damage (except when attacking vehicles, which it only does 1 damage to.) Though he still lacks any kind of invuln, he now automatically regenerates d3 wounds at the start of each turn, giving him a bit of staying power. And as always, he can enhance a single infantry unit; roll a die and on a 1 one model dies. The survivors either gain +1 to Strength, Toughness, or Attacks. Keen-eyed [[Chaos Lord]]s will note that this can no longer be exclusively done to Chaos Marines. Yes, you can enhance a 20-man Berzerker or Possessed squad. Have fun!

He got a brand-new model to celebrate the release of [[Psychic Awakening]]: War of the Spider, a tale where he decides to walk to the blasted wreckage of [[Cadia]], pursued by the [[Death Guard]] for stealing one of their sacred artifacts. Though most of his rules are the same, he does now include a secondary model for a special hunchback assistant. When he rolls to augment his unit, the assistant can help influence the roll by +/- 1. This means you can always guarantee a +1 toughness to INFANTRY.

In addition to all of this, [[Psychic Awakening]] brought us a new chaos space marine sub-faction. This sub-faction was first known as Agents of Bile, but is actually called the Creations of Bile. In order to play this detachment, you must have Fabius as your Warlord. Taking Creations of Bile gives several massive perks. For one, all your army gets +1 to movement and STRENGTH. This means you can have [[Rape|20 man Strength 6 Berzerkers, S5 Possessed and S5 Chaos Marines.]] This also includes Terminators, Bikes, and the Elite Infantry choices for Chaos Space Marines like Plague Marines, Rubric Marines, Noise Marines, and Khornate Berzekers. This also means that Fabius Bile's faction has made [[Derp|Plague Marines and Noise Marines better than playing them with their God-Align Traitor Legions.]] Combine with decenet relics and stupidly powerful stratagems, in the end it was one of the strongest armies at the end of 8th edition. Their is a plan to keep them around so we will see how they are in 9th edition.

{{Chaos-Marines}}
[[Category: Emperor's Children]][[Category:Awesome]]

Fallen Angels

2022-04-10T23:17:59Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:593F:8FBF:7CF7:3D8: /* Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 */

{{Heresy}}
[[File:FallenHeader.jpg|center|600px|]]
{{Infobox Traitor Legion
|Name = The Fallen
|Heraldry = [[Image:Fallen angel.jpg|250px]]
|Battle Cry = Unknown
|Successors of = Dark Angels
|Successor Chapters = None
|Chapter Master = Originally Luther, now ''possibly'' [[Cypher]]
|Primarch = [[Lion El'Jonson]]
|Original Homeworld = [[Caliban]], [[Terra]]
|Current Homeworld = Various/none
|Champion = ''possibly'' either [[Cypher]] or Luther.
|Specialty = Evading/trolling the Unforgiven
|Strength = Potentially thousands ''(Luther had ~45,000 on Caliban during the Horus Heresy)''
|Allegiance = Various (see below)
|Colours = Pre-Heresy Dark Angel black}}
REQUESTING DATA ACCESS, security_clearance: '''INQUISITOR'''. Processing...

''Database error #0754339867'', access: DENIED

''Greetings Inquisitor Yzaguirre, the information which you are attempting to access is classified and may no longer exist. Your service record and citizen number have been logged and recorded, any further interest in this subject on your behalf may result in the unfortunate early termination of your career.''

REQUESTING DATA ACCESS, security_clearance: '''INNER_CIRCLE'''. Processing...

Adeptus Astartes DNA ''confirmed'', scanning... chapter: [[Disciples of Caliban]], rank: Company Master, access: GRANTED

''Welcome son of Lion El'Jonson, here is the latest intel on the movements of the Fallen ones. As always this information is'' FOR THE EYES OF THE UNFORGIVEN ONLY ''and takes precedence over all other duties, no matter how urgent. For the Emperor and the Lion!

Exloading datasquirt...

The '''Fallen Angels''' are renegade members of the [[Dark Angels]] Legion who turned on [[Lion El'Jonson]] during the [[Horus Heresy]]. They have a thousand contradictory stories and a thousand contradictory motivations, from full on Chaos worship to acting on Luthor's lies to political shenanigans. To those Dark Angels who know of their existence, they are simply known as "the Fallen".

==History of The Fallen==
[[Image:Casting a shadow.jpg|250px|left|]]
Okay, so after the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]] found [[Caliban]], Lion was made commander of the Dark Angels, and they began recruiting from Caliban's population, including taking on many of the Knights that served in the Order with Lion, amongst whom was his friend and mentor [[Luther]]. After some time had passed in the [[Great Crusade]], a cadre of 500 Astartes made up of a mixture of both Calibanite and Terran Dark Angels were relegated to garrison duty on Caliban while Lion went off and fought in the Crusade with the larger bulk of his legion. This apparently caused no small amount of discontent among the garrisoned Angels, many of whom were once high ranking [[Chapter Master]]s and [[Brother-Captain|Captains]] who were now under the command of Luther, who was not even a Space Marine. In addition, Luther and many others felt abandoned by their Primarch or they felt that the old Calibanite way of life was being eradicated by the takeover of the Imperium. For their part, the Terran Dark Angels saw the Calibanites clinging to old traditions and oaths, ''noting that, amongst other things, instead of swearing "For the Emperor", they would swear "For Caliban"'', and saw them as being insubordinate. [[Chaos]] was quick to take advantage of their resentment and convinced them to betray their [[Primarch]].

Over the course of the Horus Heresy, the garrisoned Dark Angels had no idea that the galaxy was at war around them; this was partly because events on Caliban, such as noble uprisings and daemonic cults, prevented them from looking outwards, but also because Luther had taken control of planetary communications and [[Cypher]] was doing his best to keep Luther either [[Skub|distracted OR prepared]] for something ''(the jury is still out on that one)'', so Luther wasn't paying enough attention until some [[Knights-Errant]] showed up to determine his loyalties, which accidentally let the cat out of the bag.

By mid-Heresy, Luther had enlarged the garrison up to a sizable force, all trained in the traditions of the old ''Order of Caliban'', managing to reduce training cycles for new Astartes from eight years down to an optimal 24 months ''(two years)'' and seemingly could produce around 5000 marines per cycle. As of the time Luther and Zahariel become aware of the Ouroboros, Luther cancels further deployment of these marines until further notice. When Belath comes to collect them whilst the [[Horus Heresy]] was in full swing, Luther has a force of around 45,000 warriors on Caliban ''(Belath came with enough transports for 30,000 men, then Astelan points out that it would leave less than half that number on Caliban)'' plus the six or more Fortress-Fleets that were scattered around the Imperium, of which ''at least'' one was loyal to Luther prior to his declaration of independence.

At some point after the Siege of [[Earth|Terra]] and the long aftermath referred to as the ''Scouring'', Lion El'Jonson returned to Caliban, and the Dark Angels garrison opened fire on his fleet. Heading to their fortress-monastery, Lion fought Luther in single combat whilst the Dark Angels continued their orbital bombardment. Unfortunately, Caliban was never really tectonically stable, and the force of the bombardment caused the planet to break apart... somehow. The only thing to survive was the fortress-monastery. By the time Lion's loyalists got in, Luther was [[Chaos Spawn|a gibbering wreck]] and Lion was nowhere to be seen. The garrisoned Dark Angels were apparently thrown through the [[Warp]] and scattered across the stars. Ever since, the Dark Angels have hunted for the Fallen Angels to restore their honor in the eyes of the Emperor.

However, things are a bit more complicated than that...

===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.

===What counts as Fallen?===
[[File:Fallen DAMarine.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The Unforgiven have no mercy for the fallen, regardless of their origins.]]
While the Unforgiven put all of their focus on hunting their wayward brethren, there is an important distinction between "true" Fallen and just another traitorous space marine. In '''Pandorax''', one of the major villains is a [[Chaos Space Marine|renegade]] [[Consecrators]] Space Marine, who refers to himself as Fallen and has even had contact with [[Cypher]].

Once he was caught, he refused to be broken and repent in the dungeons of the Rock and claimed that he would escape if they did not kill him. To which [[Azrael]] & [[Asmodai]] laughed in his face. (YES, '''ASMODAI''' ACTUALLY LAUGHED!) Then they told him that the "true Fallen" were led unknowingly by Luther into rebellion and can still be saved if they repent, while ''his'' descent into heresy was his own fault and he was not led astray, finding [[Chaos]] because of his own selfish desires whatever they may have been. So Dark Angels simply consider other more recent [[Chaos Space Marine|renegades]] as traitors [[grimdark|worthy of only death]].

So they decapitate him.

The latest codex supplement (9ed) for the Dark Angels reveals that some Fallen warbands have replenished their casualties and created new space marines to join their ranks. Apparently, some of those marines involved in recruitment on Caliban made it off planet and picked up where they left off. The present Dark Angels consider these "new" Fallen to be just as legitimate as those who were present on Caliban and will treat them the same as their older brothers.

==Ophidium Gulf Crusade incident==

The precise details of this incident are somewhat sketchy, not being helped by the fact that Games Workshop have released [[derp|several seemingly conflicting versions of the event]]. What they all agree upon however is that the [[Black Templar]] [[Imperial_Navy#Cruiser|Strike Cruiser]] ''Ophidium Gulf'' disappeared in mysterious circumstances shortly after making contact with a larger Dark Angel force and taking captive a Fallen Angel in a "joint" operation. Initially reluctant to comply with the Dark Angels' demand to hand over their prisoner, they realise that the Dark Angels aren't messing about when their ships start powering up their weapons and, greatly outmatched, are left with no choice but to relent. After handing over the prisoner they make a single astropathic communication on way to the system jump point but are never heard from again, the implication being that the Dark Angels ambushed them to prevent the secret of The Fallen from becoming public. Which is stupid of the Dark Angels. Everyone would assume that Cypher was the only renegade Dark Angel and would shrug off the threat delivered to the Black Templar ship as the Dark Angels protecting their honor by wanting to be the ones to deal with the traitor(?) to their <s>Legion</s> CHAPTER, FOR THE DARK ANGELS AND THEIR SUCCESSORS ARE DEVOUT FOLLOWERS OF GUILLIMAN'S CODEX! Instead, their actions blew the whole thing out of proportion.

There are several interesting notes we can take from this:

*This is the first (known) time that any chapter outside of the Unforgiven has had contact with the Fallen; the Black Templars immediately realized that the individual was an [[Space Marine|Astartes]] however they chose to take him prisoner rather than execute him as a heretic giving some credence to reports that not all Fallen are Chaos worshipers.

*In the story as told in White Dwarf 312, the Fallen taken prisoner is none other than Cypher, who remarks upon seeing the Templars "You are not the lapdogs of the Lion... how curious"; the Templars agree to meet the Dark Angels at a pre-arranged point for a prisoner transfer but are never heard from again afterwards and Cypher mysteriously and inexplicably vanishes from his cell, thus proving he is [[awesome]]! Other versions of the story have the prisoner as wearing ancient [[Power_armor#Mark_I:_Thunder_Armour|Mark 1 Power Armour]] and seemingly being rescued by other Fallen masquerading as Dark Angels before the real Dark Angels presumably turn up to destroy the ''Ophidium Gulf'' to stop the story leaking out.

*When the Unforgiven say that they're willing to do ''anything'' to keep their secret safe, they're not kidding; murdering brother Astartes is pretty fucked up by the moral compass of most loyalist Chapters, for the Dark Angels however it's not something which they will hesitate to do or agonize about later as long as they keep their secret safe and "honour" intact. In fact, it's probably not too big a stretch to say that no other loyalist Chapter is as close to being excommunicated from the Imperium as the First Legion and it may even have already been so were they not tolerated due to their strength and importance.

*The Black Templars have not forgotten about this incident, and have strong suspicions as to the eventual fate of their battle brothers; despite their apparent mutual affinity for entering battle dressed in robes, the Dark Angels (whom were already regarded with suspicion by the Templars' for their rampant secrecy) are now openly distrusted even more than the Templars distrust any Chapter who aren't sons of [[Rogal Dorn]], which is saying a lot as the Templars distrust pretty much everyone anyway. Seeing as how the Templars are well above Chapter strength, could probably count on support from the [[Space Wolves]] who are also above Codex strength (though how above both are is a matter of debate) and whose not-so-friendly rivalry ''(depending on which codex you read)'' with the sons of Lion El'Johnson has on occasion spilled into open conflict, we could make the supposition that if the combined Unforgiven (the Dark Angels and whichever successors they call in) weren't impressively powerful then the Templars and Space Vikings might have tired of waiting for the [[Inquisition]] to dig up the Dark Angels secrets and taken matters into their own hands. The Dark Angels sure do like making powerful enemies! They also requested that the Inquisition make a formal investigation, which has been indefinitely suspended after the Inquisitor in charge of the investigation "disappeared". Though, since they were trying to levy accusations of betrayal against 1) a Legion, 2) a Legion who is the ''master'' of '''every other Legions' specialties''' and 3) has no fluff saying they don't still use the Dark Age and Strife technology the Emperor gave them including things that fuck reality and '''''enslaved Men of Iron''''' it's safe to say that the Imperium may well have gotten rid of that Inquisitor just to avoid pissing off the Dark Angels. Oh, and the fact the Emperor gave the First Legion technologies specifically capable of and intended for ''killing everyone in the galaxy so humanity could expand across a clean slate'' in case the Great Crusade failed. '''Don't Fuck With Them.'''

*A recent event (as in its form the new Iyanden supplement) reveals Dark Angels only seem to care about the Imperium finding out their little secret, as a similar event happened when Iyanden was fighting a chaos mini-empire ruled by a Fallen. Only here the Dark Angels didn't hunt down and kill the Eldar (granted it may be due to their use of the Webway). Meaning they're more willing to trust and work with Xeno Scum than Imperial forces, except that the Inquisition are a rightfully feared threat to ANY space marine chapter. Of course, it's not like the Eldar are going to tell anyone in the Imperium (or be believed if they did) or would even understand the concept, or know about the Dark Angel paranoia. Of course seeing how the Eldar only turned him over because they've read their minds... (It's implied that the Eldar let them take the Fallen, because they knew he would suffer more at the hands of the Dark Angels. Grimdark.) The Eldar mind-reading may or may not have also seen the aforementioned Dark Age and Long Night technologies the First Legion has and decided not to give them a reason to erase Iyanden.

*Strangely however, the Ophidium Gulf Incident isn't mentioned in later editions nor has it been expanded upon since. In fact, it seems to have been retcon'd out. Between the Battle of Piscina IV (997.M41), the Third War for Armageddon (998.M41), and the events of ''Master of Sanctity''/''The Unforgiven'' (999.M41), the Dark Angels chapter wouldn't have any Battle Barges or Strike Cruiser Squadrons anywhere near the Ophidium Gulf during the supposed Incident (also 998.M41). Oh, and in ''Master of Sanctity'', Cypher - who I'll remind you, was the Fallen captive at Ophidium - just walks right up to the Dark Angels anyway ''to deliver a warning'', meaning he would have little reason to run away at Ophidium. So... ''who the fuck were the Dark Angels who attacked the Ophidium Gulf?'' It seems some dickery is afoot...

Ironically in the recent Fallen comic series, the Dark Angels strike force commander, Captain Seraphus, is insistent on his refusal to fire on the Grey Knights & Inquisitorial vessels, helmed by Justicar Leofric and Inquisitor Sabbathiel, in Calaphrax Cluster in M41 when the latter demand permission to board and investigate the Dark Angels for signs of heresy (whether his refusal to shoot is either out of knowledge that doing so is heretical suicide despite the Dark Angels battlebarge' superior size and firepower or due to the distaste of shooting fellow loyalists is up to debate). In the other hand, he was more than willing to dispatch a boarding party led by Veliath while they are distracted by a battle with Iron Warriors to board the Inquisitor's vessel and discern if she knew too much and if she must be "dealt with" appropriately. So, he probably just didn't want to attack fellow Astartes but didn't give a damn about killing everyone else if necessary.

==Grey Knights==
More than any other Chapter, the Dark Angels and the Unforgiven fear what would happen if the [[Grey Knights]] should become involved with a hunt for the Fallen Angels. Making Inquisitors or even fellow Space Marines "disappear" or "dying due to battle circumstances we couldn't have prevented" is one thing. Trying to do the same to Space Marines from a Chapter designed to fight and kill [[Daemon]]s? Near suicidal, even by 40k standards.

However, as revealed in the novel ''Pandorax'', it's irrelevant. When the [[Black Legion]] attempted to open an ancient warp portal the Grey Knights were sent to the planet Pythos in order to seal the breach and deal with the demonic incursion, Supreme Grand Master Draigo was unable to wait for reinforcements from among his own forces due to his Chapter being scattered around the Imperium in response to a myriad of daemonic threats, instead he opted to enact an old oath sworn to the Grey Knights by the Dark Angels.

[[Azrael]] had initially refused to honour the pact, considering it to be tantamount to blackmail. His mind was soon changed when Draigo revealed an interesting nugget of information gleaned from interrogating a Traitor Astartes prisoner who revealed that he knew about Traitor Space Marines the Dark Angels had captured and now kept up on [[the Rock]]. Draigo was well aware that the Dark Angels would go to great lengths to protect their secrets and although he was unaware of the reasons why they would have such a vested interest in those imprisoned beneath the Rock he could still make an informed guess as to the nature of those secrets.

It was not the possible knowledge of the Fallen that had motivated Azrael and his chapter, but rather the Grey Knight's knowledge of the methods employed by the Dark Angels to keep their secrets hidden, that ultimately ensured they honoured the ancient pact struck with the Grey Knights. And so the leader of the Dark Angels committed his entire Chapter to the Pandorax campaign, operational superiority the Grey Knight’s sole concession in exchange for cooperation. Though they were nominally allies, the relationship between the two Chapters had always been fractious, never spilling over into confrontation but coming near on more than one occasion. Being forced to operate so closely together would put that to the test once again, more so in light of the circumstances of their alliance.

Several times in the book, Draigo warns Azrael that the Dark Angels will not interfere in his operations, or he will go straight to the [[High Lords of Terra]] and tell the High Lords about what the Dark Angels are doing. Azrael considers the threat so real that he commits the ''entire'' Dark Angels chapter (over nine hundred Astartes and nearly one hundred Neophyte Scouts) to the threat. However, that being said, let's be real here: for all the weight the word of the Grey Knights and Draigo's in particular may carry, the chances of the High Lords taking any meaningful action against a First Founding chapter are miniscule, and the Dark Angels are the '''FIRST''' of the First Founding, which only increases the un-likelihood. Many would likely see such actions as defying the will of the Emperor himself, and they wouldn't be unjustified for believing so. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that Draigo is [[TTS|high on narcotics]].

So yes, the Grey Knights ''"should"'' already be aware of the touchy history of Caliban, but for all intents and purposes, they don't care or haven't actually figured out what it all means yet, and to be fair, for all the memes, the Dark Angels are able to keep secrets in a way that even the Alpha Legion could admire. Kaldor Draigo never actually claimed to know about the Fallen or about what happened on Caliban. In fact at the end of the Pandorax campaign, Draigo is seen screaming in Azrael's face demanding to know who these mysterious prisoners are and why the Dark Angels are so interested in them. Though to Azrael's credit, he ''actually'' doesn't have a clue why Draigo is so upset, since the Dark Angels didn't actually know about the particular Fallen Angel in question, who turned out to be an [[Zahariel#Not_Cypher.3F_If_then_Who.3F|original]] Grey Knight Founder and was kidnapped by [[Abaddon]] instead.

At the end of the day (or the Imperium, as fluff would have it) it's hilarious. In a [[grimdark]] laugh-or-you'll-cry sort of way. But also almost justified, as the Inquisition have ex-communicated [non-First Founding] chapters for less before.

==Who knows what?==
At the close of the 41st Millennium, the Changeling managed to worm its way on to the Rock and unleash some prisoners, nearly reaching Luther's own cell before being repelled by one of the [[Watchers in the Dark]], then was later banished by [[Azrael]], [[Ragnar Blackmane]], and [[Arvann Stern]]. Though the prisoners and their specific natures were not seen by the outsiders, parts of the dungeons were, though the Grey Knights knew about them anyway. The fact that several prisoners escaped no doubt set the Dark Angel's Hunt back several centuries at the very least, considering how rare it is to capture one of them.

With the current state of the Imperium, members of the Fallen have been publicly outed by appearing on Terra in the company of a freshly reborn [[Roboute Guilliman]] and would have been viewed ''(marching alongside the Grey Knights no less)'' by the teeming masses of humanity. Though what this means is mostly a matter for conjecture, since very few people ever get to see Space Marines in the flesh and not be destroyed by them; they might have just assumed they were [[Ravenwing|normal Dark Angels]] [[Consecrators|wearing]] [[Angels of Vengeance|black]]. In any case, without specific knowledge of the Fallen ''(or the Grey Knights for that matter)'' the space marines in the company of the first Primarch the Imperium has seen in about eight thousand years would probably have been relegated to a side-show or a curious talking point.

More significant is the fact that said Fallen Angels were arrested by the [[Adeptus Custodes]] on the orders of Guilliman at the arrival to the doors of the throne room, and were placed in a Custodian prison that no-one had ever escaped from, though [[Troll|Cypher escapes in the following sentence]]. These prisoners would undoubtedly have tales to tell, though over a hundred years later, '''nothing seems to have come of it''', and the Dark Angels were reinforced with [[Primaris Marines]] in the [[Ultima Founding]], new Chapters were raised using their Gene-Seed, and they were permitted to keep their [[Deathwing]] and [[Ravenwing]] formations after petitioning Guilliman himself. And then a [[Retcon]] dialed the clock 90 years back and its around 015.M42, so the prisoners have been out for around 16 years.

So the question becomes, who knows what?

So far we know:
*The [[High Lords of Terra]] have long believed that the Dark Angels were guilty of Legion-Building, but are unaware of the reasons (because there is rarely a massive enemy force requiring such an organization). Hence why they were reluctant to utilise their gene-seed in new Foundings despite their relative genetic purity.
*The [[Grey Knights]] knew the Dark Angels were taking prisoners back to the Rock, but were unaware of who they were, but agreed to keep this knowledge from the High Lords as a condition of Azrael accompanying the Grey Knights on the Pandorax campaign. However, the Grey Knights were seemingly unaware of any cooperation between the Unforgiven Chapters and found their close-knit way of speaking about each other odd.
*The [[Black Templars]] captured a prisoner and transferred him over to the Dark Angels at gunpoint. Those Black Templars were never seen again, though that incident may have been retconned.
*Thanks to the Fenris campaign and the four way parlay ''(Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Inquisition)'' taking place on the Rock, the [[Inquisition]] now has members embedded throughout the fleet of the Dark Angels. Even if they don't have access to the deeper levels, the cells or the libraries, it does mean that they can monitor fleet movements and activities from now on. Y'know, if the Dark Angels magically became stupid and careless and didn't spend ten thousand years mastering secrecy and counter-espionage.
**The Inquisition is also aware that a former Dark Angel: '''Vortigern''' was once a high-ranking member of the [[Black Legion]], though they might only suspect Vortigern was one of the Astartes who individually defected to Horus during the Heresy.
*The [[Adeptus Custodes]] have Guilliman's prisoners under lock-and-key. Although their track record for gauging loyalty is spotty at best ''(they did imprison the Crusader Host and not manage to sort out their loyalties all that quickly, though a Blood Angel and Iron Hand were set free)'' and tend to take a "you're all a threat" approach. Through the magic of Plot Armour Cypher and his fallen escaped the most secure prison in the Imperium, well apart from the even more secure prisons the Custodes have holding horrors of Old Night. They apparently gave up no information.
*Guilliman has had direct contact with [[Cypher]], knows that he carries the Lion's sword, and knows he desires to meet the Emperor face-to-face. Guilliman is also one of the few living beings with first hand knowledge of the Lion and the Dark Angels pre-, mid- and post-heresy, so will already have no reason to believe any Fallen claiming that "the Lion was a traitor". (Hell, one of the Horus Heresy books has Lion kneel and beg to Guilliman for help in granting the Emperor the highest chance of survival; as far as Guilliman is concerned, the Fallen are outright delusional). That being said he doesn't know they exist. He likely thinks of the Fallen he encountered as modern Black Shields or something similar and any anti-Imperium Fallen as [[Alpha Legion]] Psy-Ops to try to fuck with him and the Dark Angels.

It could be said that if they all sat down together, they could probably figure out what was going on. Though the different agencies of the Imperium don't tend to have a habit of sharing information, various individuals might have an idea of what's going on, but not the whole picture. Since the Dark Angels typically don't leave witnesses to their actions there isn't much hard evidence to be laid down at their feet other than some hearsay, rumour and a few wrecked planets where they purged some "heretics" ''wink wink''. This is probably not helped by the fact the [[Cypher]] managed to delete the Imperium's incriminating records on the chapter in mid M38, meaning the Imperium's ability to use hindsight has been massively curtailed. Even more so than usual.

Complicating things further still is the discovery that Luther himself has escaped his cell following an attack by the Fallen Angel turned Daemon Prince Marbas on the Rock. Azrael believes that he is planning to re-create his old Legion and has linked him to rumors of a massive gathering of Fallen somewhere in the Imperium Nihilus.

Painful irony is, as usual, quite common in 40k. In this case the fact a few (relative to a Legion) Astartes turned rogue would be so mundane and stupid a reason for the Dark Angels' behavior that the High Lords might not even believe it. They would not be able to comprehend why an entire ''Legion'' would devote itself to spending ''ten thousand years'' hunting drips and drops of their renegades showing up or why a Legion would even hide the fact it had renegades in the first place since all the Legions did. In other words, '''''they don't really have a reason for the secrecy.''''' As for dishonor, it doesn't matter if you cover it up, a dishonorable act is a dishonorable act. In fact, covering up ''adds to'' the dishonor.

To make things WORSE many Fallen Angels have joined the ranks of the Black Legion. Heck, one of them is a member of Abaddon's inner circle!

==New Rules==
In Gathering Storm: Rise of the Primarch there are new rules for the fallen, Cypher and new missions and tactical objectives for playing them against loyalists. This book also encourages combining mark IV Space Marines, Dark Angel upgrades and Dark Angel Veterans to convert Fallen.
[[File:Fallen Champions n1.png|thumb|right|Cypher and his Fallen Champions are ready for business.]]

Vigilus Ablaze includes a specialist detachment to allow Chaos Rhinos and Chaos Sorcerers to lose their option for a Mark of Chaos in exchange for getting FALLEN as their LEGION and IMPERIUM to boot. This is separate from using Cypher to stratagem in an Imperial Assassin into your Chaos force using recent White Dwarf rules.

In May 2021, White Dwarf released in that month's magazine the "Index Hereticus: The Fallen". Before its release, it was speculated by many that a couple of new rules and models would become available for the faction. Yet, when it finally came out, and people saw that the Index was actually a reprint of the Vigilus Ablaze's stuff with absolutely nothing new, they were [[Rage|not very pleased]] with it.
[[File:Fallen fighting Dark Angels.png|300px|thumb|right|One of the images within the Index. Fallen fight the Deathwing, with a Daemon Prince. <s>Which you're not allowed to bring.</s>]]

The Fallen Angels are special in that they have an ''upper limit''. As in, if you start a Fallen Angels army, you can actually finish it; there's a finish line, an end point above which you cannot go higher. As of the time of writing, the largest Fallen army you can build is:

Cypher, of course. Never not take Cypher in a Fallen list.
One Chaos Sorcerer with Jump Pack, Force Axe and Thunder Hammer. Granted, there's zero reason at all to take both the Axe and Hammer, but we're theorycrafting for largest possible here.
Three squads of Fallen with power fist and combi-melta on the Champion, four guys with Thunder Hammers, Boltguns and Bolt Pistols, one guy with a Lascannon and four more Boltgun guys. Thanks to Rule of Three, there's no way to take more than three Fallen squads, and no way to take less than three either because you have to fill a Vanguard Detachment because of your limited options.
Five Chaos Rhinos with Combi-Meltas and Havoc Launchers.

This nets you a total points cost of 1,341; pretty respectable, all in all. Generally, you'll want to not do a hammer or axe on the Sorcerer; Force Swords'll do you fine, and you'll probably want a good ranged weapon (like a combi-plasma for MEQ-slaying) instead. Your Sorcerer's your Mortal Wound source, not your beatstick, generally. The most expensive Fallen squads are actually a pretty decent loadout; the Lascannons give some good anti-tank punch, and the hammers and fist make it so they can punch tanks to death if they need to. You get a couple extra potshots with the combi-melta, and you get a few models of chaff per squad before you start taking real damage. That said, you can run a Fallen squad with five plasma guns and a combi-plasma. This is fun and fluffy - and let's face it, if you're running Fallen, you've already decided being competitive isn't what you're doing today. Author recommends you use a Mark IV plastic Tactical kit and one of the resin Plasma Gun official bit kits everyone forgets about for each squad. Take a fist on the Sergeant, run them up in a Rhino (which, for cohesion, I'd also recommend doing a Combi-Plasma on; there's no Rhino combi-plasma bit, so I'd recommend modelling it as just a guy out the top of the Rhino with a combi-plasma) pop them out, overcharge if you're suicidal and ruin some MEQ or vehicle's day. Use meltas or flamers to taste depending on what you're facing down. Since you can take up to five Rhinos, you can throw Cypher and (if you don't take a Jump Pack) the Sorcerer in one and have them tag along with the 30 angry Horus Heresy veterans with energy weapons.
[[File:I am Cypher.png|thumb|centre|"''Cypher ghosts through the shadows amidst his fellow Fallen.''" Riiiight.]]

==Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2==

{{Topquote| I don't understand. What.... <br> I don't understand, not any of it|[[Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II|Admiral Spire]], caught in the crossfire between the Dark Angels and The Fallen}}
{{Topquote| Treasure your ignorance, it may yet shield you|Master Osmadiel, The Fallen to Admiral Spire}}

The Imperium campaign sees Spire answering the request for aid by a ‘Dark Angel’ in Caliban space using old codes and colors. Spire fights alongside this ‘Dark Angel’ named Osmadiel, who’s grateful for the aid and unusually bro-tier for a ‘Dark Angel’. After another Dark Angel named Fleet Master Koraheal shows up and berates Spire for aiding Osmadiel, it becomes clear (to you the player, not Spire) that you’re aiding Fallen Angels. Koraheal orders you to destroy your former allies, while Osmadiel wants you to honor the deeds you both embarked upon and withdraw from battle. Naturally, Spire has no idea what the fuck is going on aside from two forces of Dark Angels suddenly being hostile to each other. Siding with Koraheal will elicit a sad reaction from Osmadiel, as you and the Fleet Master obliterate the Fallen. Koraheal prevents himself from revealing much information to a still confused Spire, who wishes to forget this entire episode. He does however agree with Spire’s desire for unity, and lends his entire fleet to aid Spire for the rest of the game. Siding with Osmadiel immediately ends the mission with an angry warning from Koraheal that you chose poorly. Osmadiel wants Spire to treasure his ignorance of this entire issue for his own protection, and praises Spire for having more wisdom than both he and Koraheal. He also comes back to aid Spire in the final mission with a single battle-barge. Narratively speaking this is irrelevant for the rest of the game and not even canon. Strategically speaking, Koraheal offers an immediate and much more substantial amount of aid than Osmadiel. Loyalty is its own reward indeed.

{{Fallen-Angels}}

[[Category:Dark Angels]]