Knights Inductor (Rewrite)

In older times, the 21st founding created a great number of flawed chapters. In one such attempt at creating a superior chapter that would fight against chaos, The Adeptus Mechanicus took a mixture of the gene seed of Imperial Fists, and Ultramarines to create the Codex_-_Knights Inductor. These marines were corrupted and twisted in spirit by a plague of unbelief, which left those formerly devoted to the Emperor questioning if gods even existed.

These newly created marines were sent on a single ship to the Halo Stars in the hopes that they would either have their faith returned or perish, and abandoned to history alongside most of the other Cursed Founding Chapters. Many years later they returned broken, but not defeated by warp storms into what is now known as the Aprior System. These are the tales of those with souls of steel, otherwise called the Reasonable Marines.

• Author's Note: This is the COMPLETE rewriting page for the Knights Inductor. There will be absolutely no copying of any of the old fluff what-so-ever for anything below this note. For the time being, let's pretend now that the "Return of the Reasonable Marines" story never existed, and all of it's fanfictions were never written. We now have only a Codex: Knights Inductor, that explains how the chapter works, and what they do on the tabletop. Below this note, shall be only the fluff of why they are here now, and why they are fighting whoever is the unlucky sod sitting 24" away from them across no-mans-land.Evilexecutive (talk) 20:12, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Anything resembling the old fluff will be Mercilessly removed. Anything that paints them as Mary Sues will be mercilessly removed. As writers, it is our job to fit the Codex: Knights Inductor into a grimdark world, filled with misery and war. And Remember, write in SUPPORT OF THE CODEX, not the other way around!Evilexecutive (talk) 20:12, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Chapter Generation

Basic Info

• - 21st Founding
• - Mixed founding from Ultramarines and Imperial Fists: This forms the basis of their Gene-stock, from which modifications were made as part of the 21st founding. While it is notable that as Successors of the Imperial Fists; they could claim their right to recruit from Terra, in practice this is completely impossible. A combination of their tech-heresy, and the position of Aprior being a full 50 Years Journey by the warp to Terra, means that they're pretty much on their own in the ass-end of the universe.
• - Loyal to the Emperor Himself, Best interests of Mankind: As usual for nearly all space marine legions. The Knights Inductor; like the Inquisition, answers only to the Emperor Himself. In practice however, the Inquisition is permitted to requisition squads, or in extreme cases entire companies of Knights Inductor for their purposes. In addition to this, like most Loyalist Space Marines, the Knights Inductor tend to serve the Best Interests of Mankind, usually by actively seeking out and destroying threats to humanity.
• - The Knights Inductor are unusually vocal in their belief that the Emperor was never a god, and their insistence on trying to convince the civilizations under their domain to "be reasonable" has led to more than one confrontation with the Adeptus Ministorum in the past and considerable suspicion from the Ordo Hereticus.

It is noteworthy that in all cases where the inquisition requests the use of Knights, Zakis Randi has given them every single request; no matter how absurd, without complaint. He knows of his chapter's status as hereteks, and does everything in his power to maintain decent ties with the Inquisition and Deathwatch. However, he does not realize exactly how close they are to being declared Excommunicate Traitoris.

• - System Based Chapter, all planets in Aprior are categorized as Tithe Astartes
• - Believes the Emperor to be a great role model: Space marines; unlike lowly guardsmen, are given great leeway in their beliefs in the Emperor. In the case of the Knights Inductor, they do not outright worship him, choosing instead to believe in the God Emperor as a role model, to which all Knights must strive for. However, they diverge from most Astartes by also trying to teach ordinary humans this ideology, even though it puts their souls at risk.
• - Questionable Loyalty(Outright Tech Heresy): While the Knights Inductor do serve the Emperor Himself, like nearly all loyalist chapters. They are openly known as Tech Heretics, and as such are often found warring with groups that disagree with them. It is questionable as to whether or not the Knights would be willing to put aside their tech heresy or their persistent unbelief for the good of the Imperium, and as such their loyalty is in question.
• - Knight Themed
• - Absolute hatred of Chaos
• - Semi-Codex Compliant: The Knights Inductor favor fire-teams of between 6 and 12 marines, whereby On very rare occasions, the Knights may deploy with fire-teams of 24 marines, but these occasions are few and far between. Such situations are usually battles where the knights are expecting extreme casualties otherwise. In such squads 5 marines carry standard bolters, and the 6th brings either a special weapon, or a heavy weapon. Outside of battles, the chapter remains organized into 10 companies of 100 marines each, as stated in the Codex Astartes.

6th Company, Silent Hands: The 6th Company of the Knights Inductor is entirely unique in it's purpose. Rather than maintain an organization of standard marines, this company is formed exclusively of specialized Sternguard Veterans called "The Silent Hands". These marines are led by Captain Xavion, and they specialize exclusively in strategic action; taking the lives of enemy commanders after long stealth deployments. This is also the only company besides the 10th that maintains Scout Marines within it's ranks.

• - Numbers(As of M40:989), 500 Marines. The Chapter lost a great many marines due to warp storms and travel, but have recovered somewhat over the years. When the Knights first emerged out of the Warp Storms in Aprior, they had a total of 1500 marines. Considerable losses to combat with the Black Templars, Eldar, and Necrons have further reduced their numbers to the current amount as of the latest date.

Flaws

• - Faithlessness: Due to being more vocal than most in their disbelief that the Emperor is a god, they are on very bad terms with the Ecclesiarchy, which is very close to declaring them heretics and kept from doing so only by the Knights Inductor's lack of influence beyond their own system. Should they ever try to become more active or allow their philosophy to spread beyond their own system, nothing will protect them from being destroyed either by the Inquisition, the Ecclesiarchy, or the more zealous chapters of Astartes.
• - Will often make great sacrifices of the chapter to protect civilians: This can often be seen as the Knights might abandon a significant strategic position, in order to move their forces in to protect a civilian center. Or refusing to use Orbital Bombardments whenever innocents are nearby, even if doing so would stop an attack on them immediately. They simply will not sacrifice their civilians for any reason.
• - Tech Heresy: As a direct result of their lack of contact with, and lack of ties with the Mechanicus, the Knights Inductor were forced to turn to innovation for solving some of their more critical problems. This unfortunately has been seen as outright Tech Heresy by the Mechanicus, and has permanently soiled any and all chance for the Knights to obtain the technology that was regained in their absence from realspace. Now the Mechanicus sees them as a direct threat to mankind. The Inquisition and its more radical elements tends to ignore the Knights for this; given their inherent usefulness to Deathwatch, but most of them cannot stand to fight alongside the knights for it as well.
• - No Grav-Weaponry: As a chapter that has been inactive for a great length of time, the Knights Inductor do not possess some of the more recently acquired STCs in widespread use. As of M40:989, the Knights have been unable to acquire the technology from the Mechanicus(Who are in turn quite weary of the Knights). For similar reasons, the Knights Inductor also do not posess Stormtalons, or Stormravens.
• - No Vanguard Veterans: Extended conflicts with the Black Templars over accusations of blasphemy has resulted in the Knights losing the life of every Vanguard Veteran in the chapter. When the time came for Zakas Randi to commission more Vanguard Veterans, he put down a decision that no more would be made, in favor of training their veterans more extensively in ranged and strategic warfare. For nearly 100 years, the Chapter's Vanguard has remained completely empty out of a need for more strategic purposes in their veterans.

Gene-Seed

Knight Inductor gene-seed includes specific "Null gene", engineered from the Pariah gene of Blanks. Though not as potent as true blanks, regular Knight Inductors have a high degree of resistance to warp-based threats, be it psychic powers or daemonic possession. Those of aspirants, who already possessed psychic signatures below Upsilon level (blunted) sometimes develop abilities, akin to those of true Blanks after the implantation of gene-seed, and while their so-called "Null aura" is by no means as potent as the one of dreaded Culexus assassins, these warriors, known as "Silencers" have higher level of control over their aura, capable of unleashing it at a long range and suppress it's demoralizing effect on allied troops.

This, however, come at a price. Organs, that were supposedly modified with "null gene" are completely incompatible with aspirants, showing even the most basic psychic abilities, and cause lethal rejection if implanted.

• Ossmundula, when implanted into an aspirant with Zetha or above psychic level, cause erratic growth of long and sharp needles from every bone in aspirant's body, eventually tearing his internal organs apart. Thankfully, such hight psychic potential is easily detectable even at young age, so cases of lethal rejections of this organ are scarce, yet from time to time it still happens, and those unfortunate victims are given Emperor's Mercy to avoid slow agonizing death.
• Larraman's Organ had rumored to be heavily mutated, causing unreasonable lethality level amongst aspirants upon implantation, and so it was decided to stop implanting this organ at all. To counter resulting weakness to blood-loss, all Knight Inductor armour except scout armour is outfitted with autosanvine units in place of combat stimm injectors. Lack of aggression without stimm injectors in turn lowered Knight Inductor effectiveness in close combat, shifting their tactical focus towards ranged combat to the point they abandoned the use of frag grenades in favor of more defensive blind grenades.
• Catalepsean Node, when implanted into an aspirant of Nu or above psychic level, cause violent rejection, which damages aspirant's brain, effectively destroying his conscience. As low levels of psychic potential is difficult to detect at a young age, approximately 5% of aspirants are lost at this stage, yet they're allowed to continue their service to the chapter as servitors. Additionally, Catalepsean Node mutation made it unable to ease hypo-indoctrination process, which means Knight Inductor scouts must undertake more intensive indoctrination in order for it to work, and grant them fabled space marine courage.
• Betcher's Gland is missing, probably due to Imperial Fist heritage, although, Knight Inductor do have Sus-An Membrane, Imperial Fists miss.
• Black Carapace, when implanted into an aspirant of Omicron or above psychic level, cause system-wide anafilactic shock, killing recipient in a matter of minutes. Such low levels of psychic potential above average human is literally impossible to detect, as it only manifests at adulthood, and yet only as a slightly more potent intuition, while the Black Carapace can only be applied to a recipient still in his teen age. Approximately 15% of aspirants are lost at this stage.

Unique Aspects

• Cult of Innovation
• Chapter Tactics

• The Unseen: Shooting from cover causes pinning, preferred enemy against fearless models.

Aprior System

The Aprior System is the current home for the Knights Inductor, and consists of a warm star orbited by 11 planets, two of which exist in it's habitable zone, while a third dwarf-planet orbits just outside of the habitable zone. The system contains exactly four Gravity Pauses: areas where warp travel to and from can be considered 'Marginally safe'(by the Imperiums terms). One travels in the direction of Craftworld Llyanden, one to the Halo Stars, and two more point directly towards the Galaxy Center.

Aprior exists within 80 Light Years of the Tau Empire, and roughly 700 Light Years from Craftworld Llyanden. By Warp Travel, this equates to a 2 month journey to the Tau Empire, and a 20 Month Journey to Llyanden. The Halo Stars on the Galaxy's edge are approximately 55 Light Years away, making Aprior a prime spot for Mechanicus Explorator Fleets, as well as Rogue Traders to stop and refuel on their journeys to uncharted space.

• Aprior Primus

The First of Aprior's habitable planets is a lush agricultural world, with most of it's citizens living in Rural Cities in a ring surrounding the planet's primary Space-port. This world produces only a tiny number of Knights Inductor candidates due to its status as a Agri-world. Those that are tithed usually come from the townships existing on the polar regions where life is harsh, and Orks are a common threat.

• Aprior Secundus

Aprior Secundus is a Hive World, by imperial standards. Most of the system's government exists here, where it is ruled by a Bipartisan Parliament, one side of which consists of humans, while the other contains seats for the Knights Inductor Council. The Knights maintain the absolute ability to administer laws and veto decisions for the human half of the parliament, but in practice this is done only on exceedingly rare occasions. In exchange for this arrangement and an expectation of non-interference on daily business, the Knights maintain the right to take any individuals they wish from the planet's population.

Most of the Lords of Aprior Secundus generally accept this arrangement, as it means they do not have to bother themselves with Tithing bodies, equipment, or food to the Imperium. So long as the Knights Inductor remain active, they need only submit to the infrequent demands of the Astartes.

Developed Technology

The Knights Inductor make use of a wide variety of unique technologies to assist them on the field of battle. However, each individual advancement is the result of much struggle and hardship. Massive amounts of time and resources have been spent in the development of each innovation, with many failures. Frequently, each piece was only developed after a suitably massive struggle that mandated the creation of a unique technology to fill some gap in the Knight's forces that was exploited by the foe.

• Astartes Anti Material Rifle/Array (AAMR/A) -The Astartes Anti Material Rifle is a weapon favoured by the Scouts and Sternguard Veterans within the Knights Inductor Ranks, as well as some leaders. It is a massive weapon, easily the size of a missile launcher and launching rounds not entirely dissimilar in calibre. It is capable of killing a marine from a considerable distance, designed to penetrate power armour and kill important, tough, targets in a single round.

Why It Was Developed -The project to construct a weapon heavy enough to kill traitor marines efficiently at long range while being light enough that multiple marines would take one in a squad was mandated post the battle of Axiom 2. The Knights, shortly after the disaster of the Warp Technology Workshop, were mopping up renegade Chaos cultists corrupted by the warp field when the cultists succeeded in summoning a Chaos Sorcerer Lord through an extended ritual. The marine then proceeded to open a portal to the Empyrean and flood the planet with more and more Chaos Marines. At the time, the Knights Inductor primarily relied upon the use of Plasma guns to deal with Marines. However, these weapons lacked the range to hit the sorcerer and heavier weapons could not acquire the precision needed to take him out over the horde of marines. The Chaos incursion rampaged over the planet, razing two cities to the ground right over the guard before a Desperate action by Xavion and the 6th Company led a stealth team into the Chaotic Ranks to eliminate the sorcerer. They succeeded at a 70% casualty rate. And for a marine, that means dead. Of the 12 veterans and Xavion that went in, 4 marines and Xavion came back out, the other 8 gene seeds lost forever to chaos.

History of Development -Post the battle, research commenced into the development of a weapon that could have eliminated the sorcerer from a distance before the incursion got out of hand and stopped the problem at its core. Two primary paths appeared to the researchers - to modify a sniper rifle to launch special rounds, or to develop a smaller kind of missile launcher with lower calibre rounds, much like the Eldar Dark Reaper missiles. Initially, the sniper path was frustrated while the missile path looked promising. By simply scaling down the missile launcher and shrinking a krak missile's warhead, the missile team quickly developed the type of missile that would be required for the job. The Sniper team had encountered a difficulty in scaling up the existing sniper rifle in that the barrel was being torn up by friction due to the size of the slug fired. Shortly after this, the Missile team also encountered problems as their base platform, the missile tube, lacked the capacity to direct the missiles to the degree of precision that the project demanded. They could get the missile on track within a roughly 2m radius of the target, but no better. Field Testing of the prototype missile launcher was a mistake, as the inaccuracy of the missile quickly proved to be a fatal flaw and the prototype launcher was captured by the very Orks who had been targeted for the test. The two teams had been at each others throats since the beginning of the project, each insisting that their method was the correct way. This stalemate continued for over 5 years, with each team too stubborn to admit their design was flawed. It took the direct intervention of Tech Maestro Gajet to knock their metal skulls together and get them to blend the design. By incorporating the small scale missile and loading features into an even larger sniper rifle of the same kind as the first team had originally envisioned, the AAMR was born, firing the small rocket, larger than a bolt shell but smaller than a krak missile, with sniper rifle accuracy. The AAMR took the field for the first time shortly after that, quickly finding favour with the Scouts and Sternguard veterans as an excellent way of dealing with targets normally too heavily armoured to be easily dispatched. The AAMA was a simple step in logic from there, by fitting a rotary gun array of the same system as the AAMR together, the rate of fire could be increased significantly, although at the cost of sniper accuracy.

• Null Weaponry

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• Refractive Shield Plating

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• Autosenses modifications

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• Plasma Weaponry -Knights Inductor Plasma weaponry is markedly different from that of the vast majority of the Imperium of mankind. It sacrifices a modicum of its killing power, reducing its role as a light vehicle destroyer but not weakening its role as a terminator killer, in order to incorporate advanced cooling systems and limiters to prevent the weapon from overheating and eliminating risk to the wielder. All Knights Inductor plasma weaponry is of this type; the Mark 40 Aprior Pattern, or just the Mk 40.

Why It Was Developed -The Knights Inductor, in their home on the Eastern Fringe were frequently visited by the Tau during their time trapped behind barriers of Warp Storm, as Tau Faster Than Light technology is not impeded by the Storms to nearly the degree of human technology. The Tau and the Knights maintained an unusual relationship, at times uneasy peace and standoff positions, very rarely a relationship of commercially advantageous trade and at times open battle. The Tau follow much of a similar principle as the Knights Inductor in preferring to fight with a minimum of casualties. During times of war, the Knights Inductor noticed that Tau Plasma Rifles never injured the wielders through overheating, while the legions of guardsmen were incapacitated or even killed killed off by their own weapons roughly once every nine volleys when swinging Mars pattern plasma guns. The Apriori Mechanicus, following their unique Cult of Innovation, sought to learn the secrets of non overheating plasma weapons and requested that the Knights Inductor bring them functioning pieces.

History of Development -The mission to obtain working Tau Plasma Rifles was harder than it initially appeared. In war, the Tau only mount true Plasma Rifles on their battlesuits, commonly the XV 8 Crisis Suit. They then use those weapons to hunt heavily armoured infantry and use the superior manoeuvrability of the suit to avoid retaliation and strike at weak points in battle lines. Initial attempts to use Land Speeders to match the Suit's manoeuvrability and damage but not entirely destroy the suits were met with failure, as the weapons mounted on the Speeder were too heavy to avoid damaging crucial components to the weapon's functions, although a few damaged components and wrecked copies were salvaged. Further attempts to capture entire suits from the battlefield undamaged were met with failure as well, as the incredibly mobile battlesuits could not be pinned down by infantry and bikers lacked the manpower to physically drag whole suits down and away. Eventually, the plan changed. Using Snipers wielding both regular sniper rifles and the new AAMR's, suits were destroyed from a distance, then a biker rush was performed to attempt to salvage the best components of the suits. Eventually, an entire Crisis Wing was brought back to be analysed as its own component pieces, with each suit in different states of disrepair and salvaged from a different battlefield. One was recovered with massive trauma to its central control array caused by an AAMR round, the resulting blast causing significant damage to delicate internal components on the desired weapons with half a Mounted Knight squadron sacrificed to drag the suit back in the middle of the battle. The second had most of its back blasted away by an off target Demolisher canon round, although the position of the guns behind the body of the suit meant they were in comparitively good condition. It was salvaged post battle. The last suit was recovered when the EMP blast from an orbital strike scrambled the suit's internals, cooking the pilot alive and soldering most of the wiring and cables together. It was hauled into a Land Raider by a Terminator team, at the cost of 3 of the precious Terminators at the hands of the other vengeful members of the wing. With three uniquely damaged specimens, the Tech priests studied long, trying to see where each gun was the same and where each one had been damaged. It took several decades of analysis, many misdrawn blueprints, several violent arguments and a series of misfire explosions to get a (mostly) functional Tau Plasma Rifle together. From that point, the Apriori took the cooling elements and combined them with the standard Mars Pattern Plasma weapons used by the Imperium, creating the Mk40 series.

• Bolt Ammunition

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• Guardian shield

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• Marauder Armour -Marauder Pattern Tactical Dreadnought Armour, or simply Marauder Armour, is a type of powered armour employed by the Knights Inductor as a heavy weapons platform, engaging in hard hitting support in all corners of the battlefield. It is extremely tough, capable of almost ignoring bolter shells and sometimes even resisting the effects of plasma weaponry. Designed around both traditional Terminator Armour, Tau Battlesuits and the mighty Dreadnought, Marauder Armour is modular, able to be outfitted with weapons systems to match the battlefield situation, typically mounting a heavy ranged weapon, melee weapon and light to medium anti infantry ranged weapon. However, it can be outfitted in almost any way, to match any conditions it is called upon to perform in. It is being phased in as a potential replacement to the increasingly impossible to manufacture Terminator armour and, due to its size, is being considered as a potential vehicle for occupants that would otherwise be placed in a Dreadnought's sarcophagus.

Why It Was Developed -For a very long period of time, the Knights Inductor have been running low on Terminator and Artificer armour, due to the difficulty to manufacture the necessary components for the armour. This has led to the Knights scaling back and scaling back Terminator operations in theatres that could have been resolved much earlier with a swift and decisive killing blow, at the cost of some Terminators. This has led to several theatres, most notoriously the same conflict that mandated the construction of the Astartes Anti Material Rifle, the Incursion on Axiom 2, being extended massively and resulting in significant loss of life and a far higher casualty count among Knights Inductor forces than would otherwise have been the case. A solution was needed, the Knights desperately required a heavier shock force to deliver killing punches to enemy positions without massive casualties or the loss of irreplaceable technology.

History of Development -The inspiration for the solution came at the same time as the solution for non-overheating plasma weapons emerged; the salvaged XV8 Crisis Wing. The Apriori Mechanicus noticed that the Tau had used Crisis Battlesuits in much the same way as the Knights now required and were inspired. They took into account the modular nature of the Crisis' weapons and equipment slots and the use of an internalised piloting suite to prolong the life of the pilot. At this point problems emerged. The only existing technology in the Knight's armoury that matched that kind of setup was the Dreadnought itself, which was much too large and difficult to manufacture to solve the issue that had emerged. Terminator armour itself was far too hard to modify to the size that was mandated by the use of an internalised, closed, piloting array. And the Crisis Suits themselves could not be copied either - not only would it be impossible to conceal, but the method used by the Tau to pilot the suits was a neural interface lethal to any non Tau, one that could not be replicated for humans, no matter how hard the Mechanicus tried, resulting in a number of dead Space marines as they tried to use prototype interfaces. In a move that mirrored the Centurion Warsuit's secrets by chance, technology that was beginning to circulate the wide Imperium, the solution to the problem was to use the Black Carapace. By linking the Black Carapace to a series of protruding sensor cables, the Black Carapace could synch its movements to that of the larger surrounding Warsuit. The resulting movements were slower than an average Space Marine by a not inconsiderable amount but was the breakthrough that enabled movement to be achieved. The Chassi was then developed by expanding regular powered armour to a size much greater than a regular marine, increasing armour thickness and adding weapons mounts similar to that on the Dreadnought and the Crisis Suit. This was only enabled due to the movement breakthrough - without this connection the idea of expanding power armour would never have worked. Field Testing of the prototypes yielded results both positive and negative. While the suits were certainly massively tough for infantry, and packed significant firepower, the lack of manoeuvrability presented problems with moving up the field, reducing the Suit's effectiveness as a close combat platform. The major problem, however, was aiming the weapons installed onto the suit's arms and chest, as the sluggish movement cut accuracy significantly. This was relegated by the addition of an auto target array and powered aiming sensors as well as a weak machine spirit, much like the ones found in a Dreadnought. This limited the movement of the Suit even further, but enabled their weapons to be used. Without solving the speed issue, the Marauder Warsuit was rushed into production and pressed into service and is found in the armouries of the Knights Inductor to this day.

• Trooper Armour

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• Shock Weapons

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• Valkyrie Repressor/Avenger

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• Grav Manipulation technology

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• Predator Avalon

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• Maxima Pattern Marauder Warsuit

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• Anti Air Marker

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