Editing Talons of Corvus (section)

==Origins==
The story of how the Chapter came into being was a turbulent one. At the beginning they were simply three companies of Raptors send out to fight against the secessionist forces of the desert planet of Sarrajev that declared independence from the Imperium of Man after the planetary governor and his ruling council made a hostile takeover of the Adeptus Mechanicus facilities that experimented with new technologies from existing STC, as well as creating new technology under the supervision of the local Magos ranked priests. Being sent with two full Imperial Guard Regiments to retake the planet 20 years later (M33.991), the Raptors that were part of the crusade did not know what they were up against.

The moment the Crusade made planetfall, the Imperials were welcomed by an assault of angry cybernetically enhanced soldiers and serious firepower. Not to mention that the Imperial Navy Fleet and Raptors Cruisers were brutalized from the planet's surface via powerful anti-space gun platforms. The Imperial Navy crewmen and remaining Raptors and their serfs managed to evacuate in time, while the ground forces were sustaining massive casualties due to both the sheer numbers and better equipment the enemy troops had. The Imperials thought they were done for until a sudden ally appeared and aided them fend off the attacking secessionist troops. Turned out that some of the Tech-Priests managed to escape the hostile takeover by the planetary council and, along with other Imperial loyalists, created an underground resistance group.

The Imperials suffered large casualties. Most of the two Imperial Guard Regiments were wasted and without their commanders. The Raptors too were not lucky at all as their Captains also fell in battle, but at least they suffered less in the case of the number of marines they had. The only senior member of the Chapter, and thus only senior officer left and by that extension leader of the Crusade by default, was an elderly Chaplain by the name of Kane. Kane took command of the survivors and joined the loyalist rebels, then looked for the surviving Imperial Navy and Raptors that managed to evacuate after the ships were shot down by planetary longfire.

The situation on Sarrajev was not pretty. Not only did the ruling council treated the lower classes nearly as slaves, but their decision to secede from the Imperium caused the ordinary citizens to be even more dissatisfied than they already were. Kane, being not only naturally talented in oratory skills but also an experienced fighter in the ways of the Raptors, knew that without the support of the people of Sarrajev, retaking the planet would be brutally difficult if not impossible. He needed to turn the repressed hate for the council to explode into a fire of rebellion, and with the help of the resistance group and the technology the Tech-Priests had, Kane and the surviving Crusade force could actually pull it off. Without having contact with the rest of the Chapter, and without any other form of support, Kane enacted his preparations.

Twenty years later (M34.011) the situation on the planet was actually changing for the worse as unrest was growing among the lower class citizens. The council itself was furious over the fact that they could not find neither the surviving Imperials nor the damnable rebels. For twenty years the Imperials were limiting themselves to raids and other subtle operations, that lately increased both in intensity and scale, on military facilities and storages. To add more oil into the fireplace, the Tech-Priests that were forced to create new cyborg troopers for them were liberated by the rebels 14 years ago. One day however, the worst has come for them.

One day, the vox casters in many of Sarrajev's cities blared into life. A person, calling himself the Shepherd, called out to the people to rebel against the oppressors and to retake the planet back for the Emperor. It was more than enough for the people to simply throw away their tools and abandon any activity they were doing at the moment and come out on the streets. When the council send its forces to deal with the unrests among the people, they met not just with the simple citizens, but with actual combat ready soldiers armed to the teeth. 

An uprising. Every city was aflame with the repressed rage of the people the ruling planetary council mistreated. Soldiers loyal to the ruling body tried to contain it all, but with no results to contain it. The council send out for reinforcements to the cities via air transport, but only one city received it for nearly all of them were shot down by a hailstorm of missiles out of nowhere. When the reinforcements arrived, they were met not with civilians and rebel soldiers anymore, but Skitarii and Space Marines in white and black with red. The reinforcements were routed and destroyed. Now the only place left was the governor's palace in the capital of Sarrajev...the place where the insurrectionists and the Space Marines marched off.

The palace was tightly defended, yet the rebel forces and marines had the advantage over the cyborg soldiers loyal to the separatists due to the fact of the weapons and cybernetics the Tech-Priests gave them along with their training and experience. When victory seemed to be assured, the governor showed his final trump card...A WARLORD TITAN, that was under the palace plaza, rose from its underground hangar and was powering up to wipe out the attacking forces. For a moment it looked like it was all over for the Imperials until one of their flyers dropped off something one the god machine that looked like a marine, yet had sleek cybernetics and massive lightning claws. The marine simply ripped a hole inside the awakening titan and crawled in. When the gargantuan walker finally activated, the inside of its head exploded, and the Warlord fell backwards on the palace crushing the governor and his council. And thus Sarrajev was liberated.

After gaining control, the Raptors made contact with the Imperium that the mission was accomplished. The rest of the Chapter was first to respond, yet when they managed to make contact with their lost brethren, they saw that they changed too radically over these twenty years. Especially when it came to the technology they sported, and the tactics they utilized. While the Raptors saw their brothers as someone completely different, the High Lords were actually impressed that despite being outnumbered and undersupplied, not to mention cut out from the rest of the Imperium, they decided to give the planet to the marines. Thus the Raptors who liberated the planet became the Talons of Corvus.