"Fire sputters...The shame of our deaths and our heresies is done. They are behind us, like wretched phantoms. This is a new age, a strong age, an age of Imperium. Despite our losses, despite the fallen sons, despite the eternal silence of the Emperor, now watching over us in spirit instead of in person, we will endure. There will be no more war on such a perilous scale. There will be an end to wanton destruction. Yes, foes will come and enemies will arise. Our security will be threatened, but we will be ready, our mighty fists raised. There will be no great war to challenge us now. We will not be brought to the brink like that again..."
- — Oriax Dantalion, First Chapter Master of the Fists Exemplar Chapter
Oriax Dantalion was the first Chapter Master of the Fists Exemplar, a Second Founding Successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists Legion.
History[]
Oriax Dantalion was once a Captain in the Imperial Fists Legion, a veteran of both the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, who took part in several notable campaigns, including the Siege of Terra.
Following the defeat of the Traitor Legions and subsequent wars of the Great Scouring, it was decreed that the military forces and overall structure of the Imperium would undergo a drastic reorganisation.
With the adoption of the newly transcribed Codex Astartes, the Legiones Astartes were to be broken down into smaller existing formations, known as "Chapters," following the disastrous and costly galactic civil war of the Heresy.
Never again would one individual wield the power of an entire Space Marine Legion. Several of the First Founding Legions resisted this pogrom, however, and did not wish to have their Legions torn asunder.
Primarch Rogal Dorn was one of these dissenting voices, who believed that he could ill-afford to have his Legion broken apart. Many of the more progressive Imperial Fists Legionaries agreed with the views of Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines who had devised and penned the Codex, that it was necessary for the Legiones Astartes to be broken apart.
It was Captain Oriax Dantalion who wisely counseled Rogal Dorn on the need to accept such drastic measures. He was one of the few Astartes within the Imperial Fists who agreed that the Legions should be broken down into Chapters. Dantalion's opposing viewpoint put him at odds with Dorn, who resisted any such notions.
Unperturbed, Dantalion spoke at great length with his Primarch over the necessity of Guilliman's decree. However, Dorn was not persuaded by his officer's arguments. The Primarch was disappointed that one of his own sons would even propose such an idea and became openly hostile to Dantalion for his views.
But eventually, fearing the outbreak of another Imperial civil war, Rogal Dorn relented, and saw the wisdom of Guilliman's proposal. Thus, when the Second Founding began, Dorn remembered the early wisdom displayed by Dantalion.
He rewarded the bold officer for his foresight by choosing him to become the first Chapter Master of the newly-created Fists Exemplar Chapter.
This Chapter was initially composed of the more progressive Imperial Fists Astartes who had shared Dantalion's points of view. Dorn deemed the new Chapter Master and those that followed him as exemplars of a new order, and so the Primarch named this new Chapter the Fists Exemplar.
To aid the new Chapter Dorn gifted the Fists Exemplar with the mighty Star Fort Alcazar Astra, which had served the VII Legion well in the Volgotha Deeps during the dark days of the Horus Heresy.
The Fists Exemplar were assigned to stand sentinel over the storm-wracked region of Wilderness Space afflicted by the rapidly appearing and disappearing Rubicante Flux, a Warp Storm that plagued the Abra Sector near the borders of the Segmentum Solar and uncomfortably close to ancient Terra.
The Rubicante Flux was sporadic in its eruptions, visiting occasional Space Hulks, mutant incursions and Renegade Space Marine hosts on the surrounding star systems. The new fleet-based Chapter towed the Star Fort during their patrols of the sector for many standard years until disaster struck.
When the intermittent Warp Storm suddenly erupted once more, the Fists Exemplar were caught by surprise as they attempted to tow their Star Fort to a new location. Alcazar Astra was caught within the gravitational flux of a nearby star, which threatened to pull the Star Fort into its fiery embrace.
Chapter Master Dantalion and his officers valiantly guided the massive, mobile Star Fort towards the nearby world of Eidolica, where they were forced to beach it upon the planet's surface. Grounded, the fort was forever without hope of feeling again the cold kiss of the void on its armour plating.
Three of its four ancient engine-columns had been destroyed in the impact. The secrets of those Plasma Drives' construction had been lost to the weaponsmiths and Techmarines of the Chapter, and so the beached Star Fort had become a planetary fortress-monastery.
Tragically, Chapter Master Dantalion was killed in the crash. With the Star Fort eternally grounded, the Fists Exemplar adopted Eidolica as their Chapter Homeworld.
First Captain Alameda was chosen as Dantalion's successor and assumed the role as the new Chapter Master of the Fists Exemplar.
The Chapter adapted well to the inhospitable world and continued to serve the Imperium well for a standard millennia, until the coming of the Ork Warlord known as The Beast.
Sources[]
- Predator, Prey (Novel) by Rob Sanders, Chs. 5, 19