Editing Alpha Legion (section)

===The Documented "Truth"===
Apparently, the naming of the Alpha Legion refers to the fact that it actually has no name. In Horus Heresy III: Extermination it goes to great lengths to explain the early history of the Alpha Legion and how it contrasts to other more well-known Legions. It seems that the Primarch either kept the name to be deliberately ironic, deeply meaningful in the sense that "Alpha" can also mean "Supreme" or the early title of "Alpha" just stuck.

All Legions after the [[Dark Angels|First]] were put through a series of tests and trials by the [[Emperor]] before general release into the Great Crusade, quite literally (and un-ironically) an '''"Alpha Test"''' where the Legion would only consist of 1,000-2,000 Astartes to see how they would perform their intended function, which was pre-determined by the Emperor before their creation.

The XXth Legion (XX = double cross. Look up Twenty Committee for speculations) was never publicly released or announced by the Imperium; though the initial tests proved positive, it never progressed past this initial stage and remained an '''''"Alpha"'' Legion''', leading some to question whether the XXth Legion were actually intended for a much darker purpose and were intentionally kept concealed by the Emperor.

For the first 40 years of the Great Crusade, the few warriors of the XXth were a "Ghost Legion" who would act in obscure warzones isolated from the other Legions, sometimes act under the heraldry of a different legion or no legion at all. They performed dubious tasks such as assassination, kidnapping, artifact retrieval, escort missions, and other clandestine support roles. It may not be coincidental that these tasks were assigned to the Legion whose number could be represented as a ''double cross'', which also figures prominently in their iconography. These roles would later be taken by the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodians]], [[Officio Assassinorum]] and [[Sisters of Silence|Sororitas Inconcessus]], causing the XXth to fall into myth and stagnation. Only the discovery of the Primarch [[Alpharius]] (which still might not even be his true name) allowed the Ghost Legion to resurface nearly 160 years later and become a true Legion in its own right, seemingly springing up from nowhere with a full (and rapidly expanding) force of 10,000 Astartes and a battle-ready fleet. If the information in [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''Legion'' is accurate, the Alpha Legion was aware of [[Chaos]] some years before [[Horus]] had even heard the term, though not fully appreciative of its dangers.