Icon of the Alpha Legion
The Unbalanced Scales is a collection of handwritten notes, coded dispatches and picter images, all charting the Alpha Legion's course throughout the Horus Heresy. It is a cypher that lays bare the secrets of the Alpha Legion. In all probability, everything found in its pages is a lie.
The Unbalanced Scales is not a result of Imperial intelligence operations or the research of Imperial savants, but is of a rather more mysterious pedigree. It came into the possession of the Terran Archives in the years following the Traitor remnants' retreat from Terra in the final years of the Horus Heresy.
No catalogue entry or scribe-adept records the exact date of its inclusion in the Archives, and only a single note regarding its arrival has been discovered. That note read simply: "In the service of Truth." Despite this troublesome origin, the servants of Malcador the Sigillite, who retained much influence in the wake of their master's great sacrifice at the Siege of Terra, assured the adepts of the Archives of its veracity.
The Unbalanced Scales lists troop deployments, battle honours, personnel files and much more. With it, the full involvement of the Alpha Legion in the Chondax Campaign and hundreds of other battles can finally be fully documented -- if its contents are to be trusted.
However, considering the utter lack of other sources regarding the secretive XX Legion, there has been little other choice. All information taken by the Imperium from the Unbalanced Scales was verified as much as was possible through Imperial sources, though some details remained impossible to fully confirm and a number of key discrepancies remained.
Yet when dealing with the XX Legion, a force whose most feared weapon was that of lies and misinformation, there will never be a final and absolute truth regarding their activities during this critical period of Mankind's history.
Sources[]
- The Horus Heresy Book Eight - Malevolence (Forge World Series) by Neil Wylie and Anuj Malhotra, pg. 76