Konstantyn Ibirien

This page details people, events, and organisations from the /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the /tg/ Heresy Timeline and Galaxy pages for more information on the Alternate Universe.

Konstantyn Ibirien of Rosskar was a famed commander of the Rosskan Strelky. He saw service in the last years of the Great Crusade, and survived both the Heresy and Great Scouring. Even when his Primarch and adoptive father Alexandri did not. Known to several Space Marine Legions and Imperial Army formations during his formative years traveling the emerging Imperium, Konstantyn would later bring great pride to the damaged Rosskan people by orchestrating several of the few successful Human vs. Astartes battles. His love was not for Rosskar, but instead Ciban. In his old age he was granted citizenship of Ciban and retired to its surface.

Appearance

Konstantyn is not remarkable by any stretch of the imagination upon first sight. He stands at an average five feet, eight inches, with a plain, forgettable face. His hair is blond, cut short, with icy blue eyes. As the years dragged on however, an eerie sense of age not in the face but his eyes took hold of the man. A side effect of his constant rejuvenant treatments, keeping him eternally youthful. His gaze became painted by decades of bloody warfare, his words affected by years of experience. To those of his officer corps or administrator cadre, he was remarked as speaking as a man with little to live for. On Rosskar, some named him one of the Undead, raised up by Alexandri with the help of witches to lead his armies.

Early Life

Konstantyn was born 17 years after the arrival of the Emperor, in the year 872.M30. At the age of six his parents were murdered in a suicide car bombing by democratic insurgents on Rosskar. For the next seven years he never leave the side of his Great Uncle Alexandri. The Regent of Rosskar intended to groom the lad for command from the start of his guardianship. Konstantyn would become an Astartes, replacing the current Legionary Commander Sergei upon finishing Alexandri's elaborate training program laid before him. During the opening stages of puberty however, the Apothecaries of the Silver Cataphracts learned that Konstantyn was incompatible with the gene-seed and would not survive implantation.

Rather abruptly, Konstantyn was removed from Alexandri. He came into the service as a functionary of Geveska Trilyen, the current Supreme Commander of Rosskar. His role as one of the countless aides attached to the Commander taught the teenager of all the minutiae involved in keeping the Strelky operational. He was able to observe the transformation of the Auxilia into a true fighting force. As he grew into adulthood, Alexandri oddly stepped in. A constant supply of rejuvenants were fed to Konstantyn, to keep him youthful and spry. Most of the treatments only stall the aging process, but for the son of House Ibirien it kept him at the age of twenty well into his advanced centuries.

At age thirty-five, Alexandri ordered his former ward Konstantyn to several key locations across the emerging Imperium. His first journey was to Ciban, greeted right away at arrival by the Auxilia of the Winged Victory Legion. Here the journeying Konstantyn spoke at length with Force Commander Rani Stolarz, who introduced him to the Speaker of the Assembly Lamya Samson along with numerous chairmen and women of the governmental subcommittees. His experiences on the planet drove the future commander to achieve a level of excellence he thought impossible of him before. But a dangerous seed of discontent towards Alexandri began to grow within him, as he learned of the great composer Francoise Appaz. He had crafted a piece very unflattering towards the local Primarch decades before discovery by the Emperor, yet he and all his children were never punished.

The freedoms of Ciban amazed him to that extent, that he would not rest till his home Rosskar could be as true and liberated.

He traveled next to Tisenjoch which was the home of the Mastodontii, fostering a bond with many commanders of the Legion that were shattered during the Lenard Depths Campaign. His next visit was to Terra, meeting with dozens of Legates who commanded vast amounts of troops in the Solar Auxilia. He observed the growing heart of the mighty Imperium he would one day fight to maintain. He attempted to arrange a meeting with Malcador, but was rebuked harshly in a private correspondence sent from the Imperial Palace. He went next to Sepulchra, faced with several complications on his attempts to actually meet a Primarch for the first time. Several of the Entombed welcomed him to take part in there chilling rituals. After months of waiting going from one procession to the next, he was allowed to speak to the legendary Golgothos. He never once spoke of what went on in the conversation; but several people note that again just like with Ciban, Konstantyn was not the same after his trip there.

Though he would meet more Primarchs in his later travels, such as Arelex Orannis and the Emperor's Champion himself Kleisthenes, Konstantyn's personal conversations amounted to little. What was important was experience gained from witnessing and learning of the countless and varied military forces at work in the Great Crusade. Few travel across the stars as he had, seeking out knowledge hungrily. He had seen the Aeroguard execute flawless for aerial drills, the well timed assaults of the Crusaders, the unending resolve of the Stone Men. It taught him of the Imperial Army and Astartes Legions in equal measure.

In the closing years of the Great Crusade, and the beginning of the Hektor Heresy, this knowledge would come to serve Konstantyn well.

Service in the Strelky

After completing his long spent traveling, Konstantyn thought he'd receive a full commission to command troops. But old man Trilyen had other plans. Ensign Ibirien came to his office in the 224th Strelky Regiment. His section was dedicated reconnaissance, putting him close to the battle but still far away to ensure his relative safety. It was during this time Konstantyn learned the ins and outs of the Strelky, their beating heart and growing culture. An odd mix of the millions of influences from the worlds picked up from, mixing in with the Rosskan forced down their throughts. This would only be the start of the soon to be vibrant Scouring Strelky culture.

Konstantyn served as an Ensign for three years until becoming a Junior Lieutenant. His rise was rapid, aided by his keen intellect, decades of experience over his peers, and total disregard for his own safety. On one occasion against the Xenos-Human Hybrids of the Hive World Gelmni he suffered a chitineous projectile wound to the leg, but continued to lead the assault for eleven hours before receiving care.

Supreme Commander Ibirien

After assuming command of the Strelky, Konstantyn's first act was to assemble a highly skilled cadre of scribes to assist in the administration of the Strelky. After having the assistance he needed, the entire warmachine was yet again rebuilt. Some regiments were deprived of mechanical support, and others had a greater allotment of vehicles overnight. Regimental types of such as artillery, armored, mechanized infantry, light infantry, etc. were made. Konstantyn believed if the Auxilia was to truly support the Legion, they needed an element of specialization unseen in the wider Imperial Army.

His next step was to improve the understanding of the Rosskan dialect of Low Gothic across the many billions at his disposal. Communication would be key to the necessary combination of regiments on campaign, after suffering too many causalities to be combat effective. All outdated equipment was handed over as well, including looted weaponry. Standardization from now on would be the hidden strength of the Strelky. At first, the actions put into place lowered morale and a period of unease arose in the ranks. The Silver Cataphracts equally felt unsure of the new commander's abilities after several failures in the field due to his specialized regiments.

But as the decades rolled on, officers learned how to handle themselves with their new roles. Soldiers began to show greater skill working in a single field. The specialized regiments, when working together, were far greater than their singular parts. Rather than attempt to resemble other Imperial Army forces which had to act independent of one another due to logistical and cultural reasons, the inter-dependency brought hidden strength. Because of this, Alexandri allotted a great more amount of Rhino APCs and Gaudin tanks to the Strelky to help boost mobility and combat effectiveness. Plasma and melta weaponry found its way into the hands of at least one specialist per squad. During warp travel, Strelky regiments would be trained by their Cataphracts brethren in the ways of war.

But upon the Exile of the Winged Victory, Konstantyn put the entire future of the Strelky at stake when he spoke out against Alexandri. He called him a coward for not bringing up a defense for his brother, who had only ever served the Imperium faithfully. Ciban and Rosskar were sister-worlds of the Imperial Truth, and the Silver Cataphrcats and Void Angels the sentinels of the Segmentum Pacificus. But it was not just his love of Ciban that drove Konstantyn, for he also mentioned that with the Mastodontii in the Ultima Segmentum, their own region of space was bereft of strength. And that how long would it be until the War Council next turned its eye to him for what transpired in the Lenard Depths? But it did not matter. Alexandri punished the impudent commander by limiting supply and forcing vast amounts of the Strelky to remain on garrison duty, the exact opposite of what Konstantyn desired for the fighting force that had been built up so long to be respected alongside the Legion.

This act would inadvertently lead to the salvation of Rosskar, and the rebirth of the Strelky once more.