Spiral Marines

Spiral Marines
Battle Cry	"We live! Live free!"
Founding	"I've forgotten..." -Homer
Successors of	None
Successor Chapters	None
Chapter Master	Homer
Primarch	"I've forgotten who our Primarch was as well. Honestly, I could care less." -Homer
Homeworld	Omnibus
Strength	800
Specialty	Heavy ambushing with infantry-based assault.
Allegiance	Alternates based upon rules set in place by Homer, Nabokov, and Twain in the Vivlío Zotikón.
Colours	Brown and Grey

This page is a Work In Progress The Spiral Marines were a chapter of Space Marines who went rogue, in the hopes of experience life, freedom, and some good old deep space adventure! This all began when the Spiral Marine's Chapter Master, Homer, began to question the validity of the Codex Astrates. To Homer, the Codex wasn't a set of rules, rather, a set of restrictions. He saw it as laws put in place exclusively to inhibit the free will of the Space Marines, not only to make them soldiers meant to die, but to keep their allegiance on the Emperor's side, with no room for their own opinions or desires. Homer's ideas were further supported when he learned the context in which the Codex was written. After researching the intentions of Roboute Guilliman, he learned that the Codex was, more or less, just a means of making sure a second Horus Heresy didn't arise. These revelation lead Homer to his final conclusion of leaving the Imperium behind, in pursuit of a better life for himself and his chapter, as well as broadcasting the message of the, "Ateleíoto Pólemos".

History

The, "Megáli Exodos" (Great Exit)

According to his own memory, which has proven to be very faulty as time goes on, the first thing Homer did after finalizing his thoughts of leaving the Imperium in pursuit of leading his own life, was consult his two most trusted Captains. Those two were named Nabokov and Twain. Agreeing with what he had to say, Nabokov and Twain became the first two to directly follow Homer's ideas. With this, Homer finally had the inspiration he needed to move forward on his plan. The three of them knew that it wouldn't be the best idea to walk up in front of their superiors and say, "You're all a bunch of brown-nosed sucker", so, they instead opted to plan out an escape. The three Marines got to work on forging a grand escape from the Imperium, complete with a map of their escape rout, which included an expansive pattern for the Marines to follow so not to be caught by the Imperium. Of course, tracking was a very serious problem, and they knew they would need to find a way to conceal themselves from the Imperium on a more technical level. Navigation through The Warp seemed like a good option at first, but, to Nabokov, it was,"too obvious", and therefore was ruled out. From very early on, the three had agreed that they wouldn't act upon something if all of them weren't in on the idea. (This simple agreement put in place the earliest seeds of the first Kanónas written in the Vivlío Zotikón a few years after the Escape.) With a finalized idea of what they planned to do laid out, Homer, Nabokov, and Twain combined their efforts to rally as many of the Spiral Marines together to carry out their newly forged plan. After they had won all of the Marines they could trust over to their side, the plan, now dubbed, The "Megáli Exodos", was ready to be executed. It wasn't a quiet operation by any means, as a stealthy exit was once again deemed, "Too Obvious", by Nabokov. So, the three of them and their roughly five-hundred other troops made an escape via blowing out the walls of their quarters and using several Jump Packs to get away as fast as Super-Humanly possible. To the surprise of just about all of them, the Megáli Exodos ended up being a roaring success. At least, it was at first. The squad of five-hundred made it fairly far out into the ruins of Omnibus's many libraries. The libraries themselves provided plenty of usable cover, as Homer had hoped. However, they were about to take on their own Spiral Marine brothers, meaning that there would be no difference between the the renegade Marines and the loyal Marines. Luckily, this had also been planned out in the Megáli Exodos. Homer told his renegades to strip the squad marking and chapter symbol off their pauldrons, that way they would know who's friendly and who to Dakka. With everything in place, the Spiral Marines quickly positioned themselves for battle, assuming that the loyalists weren't far behind by now. At this point, as far as the Megáli Exodos goes, getting this far was more than unexpected.

The "Apóleia apó Diakósia" (Loss of Two-Hundred)

The Spiral Marines, several miles away from their Fortress-monastery, were encamped and ready to take on the remainder of their brethren, who would surely come chasing after them. They had positioned themselves inside the library ruins in a way that would surround their attackers the moment they came into the library. Eventually, the renegade Spiral Marines had been tracked down by the loyal Spiral Marines. The renegades all did as they intended, revealing themselves from their various hiding spots in the vast library to collectively gun down as many of the loyalists as they could. Surrounded, and eventually outnumbered, the loyalists had no chance of winning this incredibly brief encounter. When roughly tow hundred of the loyalists had been lost in less than a minute, the loyalists surrendered, prompting Homer to call off his attacking forces. Homer ordered that the remaining three-hundred marines be congregated in the largest room of the library. At was at this point that Homer gave a speech, which was described by Twain as, "Long, spontaneous, and vulgar. But, I'll be damned if it wasn't good". The remaining three-hundred Spiral Marines swore against the Emperor, and the Codex Astartes, fully converted by Homer's message. It was in this message that the term, "We Live! Live Free!" was coined by Homer, and effectively became the new battle cry of the Spiral Marines. The new renegades had their markings and symbols scraped off of their pauldrons, officialy initiating them as renegade Spirals. The two-hundred dead Spiral Marine's were later given a proper Spiral Marine burial, their blood being extracted to be used as writing ink for their Life's Work. (See Pre-Renegade)

The "Anavíosi" (Revival)

With their rebellion fully completed, the Spiral Marines found themselves in a state of repair. First of all, they had the very literal repair of their walls to get to. Truly, Homer said it best: "In hindsight, that wasn't a very smart way to leave... it was pretty badass though". However, before they actually returned to their monastery, one renegade spoke up, asking Homer, "Why would we go back? What are we going to do, return to our previous lives? We should get moving and make our own fortress, with our own goals in mind. We want to stick it to the Emperor, yeah? So, lets show the Imperium what we can really do." Homer took this Marine's words to heart, and accommodated him for his bravery. This Marine was identified as Joyce, who later became one of the strongest captains the Spiral Marine's ever knew. Taking Joyce's advice, The Spiral Marines took to making their own fortress out of the ruins of another library on Omnibus, this one being the largest, and conveniently least damaged of all the libraries on the planet. The Spirals quickly took to rebuilding this library into a garrison of their people, scavenging what they could from their previous fortress until it was nothing but a skeleton of a monastery, if that. In about half a year's time, The Spiral Marines had achieved their first goal, that of fully straying from the Emperor, to truly experience independence for the first time. During all of this, the three founders, Homer, Twain, and Nabokov, all spent time working on their own version of the Codex Astartes, heavily changed and tweaked to support what the trio thought was a far more just and reasonable set of rules and regulations, as well as protocols for the Chapter to follow. Along with the new fortress, dubbed, Fort Spóros, the Vivlío Zotikón was born.

Current Workings

After the success of both the Megáli Exodos and the Anavíosi, the Vivlío Zotikón was instated as the Spiral Marine's code of law, using the method of voting detailed in the Vivlío Zotikón itself. In accordance with the Zotikón, the way Spiral Marine armies and units operate is in a very nomadic form, as most units will only be deployed for scavenging missions to collecting resources, or to rendezvous with Xenos allies on any given planet. Of course, it's inevitable that these missions will occasionally escalate into combat. On this occurrence, Spiral Marines follow the simple strategies listed in the Vivlío Zotikón. Most of these strategies involve surrounding opponents to close in around them, along with a few strategies using the capabilities of land speeders to run-and-gun. (See Strategy) The Spiral Marine way of life is almost entirely based upon surviving, upholding internal peace, and experiencing a true life.

The Vivlío Zotikón

Origins

The Vivlío Zotikón was written during the Anavíosi, its contents being based on the mutually agreed upon rules that Homer, Nabokov, and Twain all had a hand in. Generally, the goal was to appeal to the Marines that entrusted them, and give each Spiral Marine his own opportunity to hold full control over his own life. This code of law was very flexible, and meant to be changed. Furthermore it promoted individual thinking, and encouraged each Marine to step forward and be his own leader, calling this process, "The Joyce Rule", after Captain Joyce for his courage to speak up after the Apóleia apó Diakósia. To give an example of how the basics of this rule worked, a Marine could have an idea to scavenge some resources from the remains of a battle site he believes would be fruitful. That Marine could then come to any of his superiors, present the potential mission, and have that mission work its way up to any of the three Chapter Masters, typically Homer. At this point, the mission will be put into a status called, "Sorós". In the Sorós stage the mission is announced and posted for all Spiral Marines to see. Any number of Marines can volunteer to participate in this mission if thy're interested in helping the cause of the Spiral Marines in exchange for some material accommodation, as well as a good journey. This form of mission handling has been in place since the inception of the Spiral Marines as rebels. Other such things, like Marine retirement, are some of the rare few things changed in the Vivlío Zotikón at the request of the Marines themselves.

Articles & Rules

Before anything further, let's make it clear that the Vivlío Zotikón is more like a set of guidelines than anything else. After all, the Vivlío Zotikón's whole purpose is to preserve freedom in the highest way, so, the Zotikón actively contradicts itself, within itself. This process was handled with very delicate care by Homer, Twain, and Nabokov during its inception. The three of them each had similar ideas, and these ideas were brought together into a refined set of articles, rules, and and statements, which are as follows, (Recorded with sources)

Dilóseis (Statements)

• I: The Emperor is dead, and the Chaos Gods are flowing him. Because of this, it is unreasonable to follow either party. "Alright, listen up! The Emperor is dead and the Gods of Chaos have two kind of followers, assholes and morons. Slaanesh is for loosers who have no self control, Nurgle is for wimps who can't take a punch, Khorne is for brain-damaged psychopaths, and Tzeentch is for people who think they're better than you." -Homer's speech after the Apóleia apó Diakósia
• II: The Codex Astartes directly opposes enrichment to the lives of Imperium soldiers everywhere. "How can we be expected to follow a code that tells us how to live, and how a life should be lived?"
• III: Any and all Space Marines who wish to adopt the policies and freedoms enabled by the Vivlío Zotikón shall be permitted to do so, with no immediate opposition.
• IV: "Heresy", is nothing but a label given to all opinions opposing those of the Imperium.
• V: No man shall be denied his right to the three freedoms: Freedom of tongue, freedom of thought, and freedom of being.

Planet Omnibus

Geography

Omnibus, a planet resting just a few light years outside of the Tau Empire, was a very strange place upon discovery. Most of the planet's surface was nothing but a grassland, with two small oceans on either end of the planet's axis. There was very little elevation on the planet, mostly being covered by dirt, which gradually became more and more infertile the further away from either ocean you went. Because of this, The Imperium figured that this would be a fantastic spot to set up a Fortress-Monastery for use by a Space Marine chapter. The Spiral Marines were that lucky chapter. Under the surface of Omnibus, the Imperium discovered that the planet was rich with marble, bronze, granite, and silver.

History of Omnibus

Upon arrival, one particular thing was the most baffling about Omnibus. At what seemed like random intervals on the planet, there would be gigantic, grand libraries made in the style of some old architecture, which wasn't readily identifiable by the Imerium. Within these libraries the Spiral Marines came to find several books which detailed ancient history, languages, and people. Most of these books were completely illegible, as they had been erode away after what has been assumed to be almost twenty thousand years. A small collection of these books did end up being useful, though. One particular library had stood the test of time, and within it held texts which held translations of the Greek language. The Spiral Marines kept these books for one purpose and one purpose only: naming their Marines. Later on down the line these books would eventually be used for mission names and other such things, and they especially came in handy after the Spiral Marines had rebelled. As far as previous life goes on Omnibus, almost nothing could be found. Who or what made these libraries is still a mystery.