Alfarion' Severence; The birth of The Alfa Legion, the bastard sons of the Hydra.
Most members of the Alfa Legion - and those outside of it - knew nothing about the Chapter's origins, or the truth behind the very first of the Alfa Legion's Chapter Master Alfarion - save for the Inquisitors of the Ordo Alfus, and the Chapter Masters of past and present of the Alfa Legion. But even for those high-ranking individuals, the tale is shrouded in secrecy - as is the nature of those that sport the symbol of the Hydra.
The true tale - if any of it ever remained - has fallen into obscurity long ago. Even the greatest of scholars would be hard pressed to gather all the pieces and put them into place - and few outside the Inquisition has managed this. Of course, they usually do not have the time to get the word out before their home was ransacked by the sudden arrival of black-garbed Stormtroopers, bearing the sigil of the Inquisition, the person kidnapped, their works destroyed or deleted - all traces erased, before the scholar vanishes along with their captors, never to be seen again by anyone else.
Those that were lucky - or unlucky enough - to elude the Inquisition would subsequently live an uncertain life afterwards, scared to death and paranoid before usually passing away shortly after by one too many heart attacks from frequent jump scares.
The true tale - if any of it ever remained - has fallen into obscurity long ago. Even the greatest of scholars would be hard pressed to gather all the pieces and put them into place - and few outside the Inquisition has managed this. Of course, they usually do not have the time to get the word out before their home was ransacked by the sudden arrival of black-garbed Stormtroopers, bearing the sigil of the Inquisition, the person kidnapped, their works destroyed or deleted - all traces erased, before the scholar vanishes along with their captors, never to be seen again by anyone else.
Those that were lucky - or unlucky enough - to elude the Inquisition would subsequently live an uncertain life afterwards, scared to death and paranoid before usually passing away shortly after by one too many heart attacks from frequent jump scares.
The Horus Heresy
Records say that before Alfarion was Chapter Master (or indeed, before Alfarion was even named that at all), he was known as Rion Sano, Lord Commander of the Alpha Legion's VII Harrow - The 7th Chapter, commanding no less than 3 full-strength Battallions. He did not reap much glory during the Great Crusade - but it was said that he maintained something as close to partially cordial bonds as an Astartes of the XX Legion could have with other Astartes from other Legions, such as the Space Wolves, the Thousand Sons and the Salamanders. It is something of course, that the Alpha Legion looks down upon - increasingly, as the Great Crusade progressed and the Space Marine Legion continued to be all the more secretive. Despite his Terran origins, Rion was still loyal to his Primarch(s?), and thus participated in the Dropsite Massacre - at the front lines, despite his obvious misgivings at having to kill his former friends among the Salamanders present during that tragic day.
What happened after was a matter of speculation. Some say that immediately after the Dropsite Massacre, Rion was given a new assignment by his superior, Omegon - to sabotage supposedly loyalist operations at a mining world, and to leave no survivors - all astartes and other loyalists there are to die. He was also told that said loyalists were in fact Alpha Legionnaires who did not agree with the vision of the Primarch, and thus must be swiftly annihilated before any intel was leaked to the Emperor's forces. Rion did as instructed and annihilated the cell. Too late however, did he realize that he was being duped - The Alpha Legionnaires were not renegade! They still held their loyalty to the Primarch, even in their dying moments.
Rion naturally disliked being used in such a way - especially against his own gene-kin, so the first chance he got, he went up to Omegon and questioned him - a little harshly. But there, he made another blunder. He thought he was interrogating Omegon - but he was in fact interrogating Alpharius by mistake, and somehow pissed him off to high heaven. After a sudden and severe skirmish, Rion took his forces and fled the Alpha Legion.
Others - often a lot more suspicious of the Alfa Legion - theorized that Rion could have been deliberately ordered to pull away from the Alpha Legion, perhaps by Alpharius - so that they can infiltrate the loyalists more easily - and thus provide further intel. An obvious but clever ruse, if it where true.
Either way, after Rion severed ties to the Alpha Legion, he took what forces he had remaining at the time - and formed a small army akin to a warband, and took the fight to the Alpha Legion or at least did so while other Loyalists where watching and bearing witness. Many of the former Legionnaires recoloured their armour - to grey, as a reminder of The Alpha Legion's origins as an anonymous Astartes Legion before the rediscovery of their Primarch - while others went as far as to repaint parts of their armour black, or even colour themselves fully, in guilt. The warband never really gave itself a name - just the 7th. Always the 7th.
What happened after was a matter of speculation. Some say that immediately after the Dropsite Massacre, Rion was given a new assignment by his superior, Omegon - to sabotage supposedly loyalist operations at a mining world, and to leave no survivors - all astartes and other loyalists there are to die. He was also told that said loyalists were in fact Alpha Legionnaires who did not agree with the vision of the Primarch, and thus must be swiftly annihilated before any intel was leaked to the Emperor's forces. Rion did as instructed and annihilated the cell. Too late however, did he realize that he was being duped - The Alpha Legionnaires were not renegade! They still held their loyalty to the Primarch, even in their dying moments.
Rion naturally disliked being used in such a way - especially against his own gene-kin, so the first chance he got, he went up to Omegon and questioned him - a little harshly. But there, he made another blunder. He thought he was interrogating Omegon - but he was in fact interrogating Alpharius by mistake, and somehow pissed him off to high heaven. After a sudden and severe skirmish, Rion took his forces and fled the Alpha Legion.
Others - often a lot more suspicious of the Alfa Legion - theorized that Rion could have been deliberately ordered to pull away from the Alpha Legion, perhaps by Alpharius - so that they can infiltrate the loyalists more easily - and thus provide further intel. An obvious but clever ruse, if it where true.
Either way, after Rion severed ties to the Alpha Legion, he took what forces he had remaining at the time - and formed a small army akin to a warband, and took the fight to the Alpha Legion or at least did so while other Loyalists where watching and bearing witness. Many of the former Legionnaires recoloured their armour - to grey, as a reminder of The Alpha Legion's origins as an anonymous Astartes Legion before the rediscovery of their Primarch - while others went as far as to repaint parts of their armour black, or even colour themselves fully, in guilt. The warband never really gave itself a name - just the 7th. Always the 7th.
The aftermath and founding
They never had a noticeable impact on the Horus Heresy - or at least, not noticeable by any major means. But the time would come when the Battle of Terra would happen, and the Emperor slew his wayward traitor son, Horus. The Warband arrived at Terra to help the loyalists (or so they claimed). But they arrived two weeks late, due to Warp Travel shenanigans. To repent for their wayward Primarch, the Bastards - now reorganised into a small chapter with no name. As the Scouring progressed, the Chapter ended up unintentionally picking the nickname "The 20th Bastards", an obvious jab to their 'parent' Legion.
The Chapter kept with their roots initially - covert operations, and sabotage, misdirection and so on. But during the Scouring, they were paired up with a Great Company from the Space Wolves in a very long campaign against the Death Guard making a fighting retreat in a sector. As time passed, the Bastards slowly but surely changed their tactics, combining the strategic fluidity of their former Legion's strategy with the more practical approach of the Space Wolves - and ending up becoming very familiar with them in the process, to the point that cordial bonds were formed between Astartes of both forces.
Eventually, near the end of the Scouring the bastards were pulled back from the front lines, and faced judgement before the Lord Commander of the Imperium at the time, Roboute Guilliman. He would have almost certainly placed a harsh sentence on the loyalist Alpha Legion survivors, had not Leman Russ - perhaps suprisingly - intervened in the judgement.
Eventually, a compromise was reached - The survivors will form a new Chapter, as part of Guilliman's reformation of the Astartes Legions and the 2nd Founding, but they will be watched with relentless scrutiny by others. An entire small organisation was set up personally by Guilliman to keep an eye on the new fledgling chapter - said organisation would eventually become part of the Ordos of the Inquisition, dubbing itself the Ordo Alfus.
The Chapter had a long time to figure out their identity - and their colour scheme. They obviously kept the grey as something to tie them to the past, the black trimming perhaps pointing out their secret shame, and the blue shoulder inlet - well, the blue is debatable. It could be seen as a way to tie them back to the Alpha Legion. An alternative would be that the members chose to honour their friends and comrades among the Space Wolves. A third perspective would say that the blue signified their newfound stability and confidence, and their willingness to persue their Loyalty in the eyes of the Emperor with newfound clarity and purpose, even if the Imperium they fight for was suspicious of them at the time.
The name is also debatable - those skeptical of the Alfa Legion often point this out as them obviously tying themselves to the traitors, secretly serving them under a very obvious but clever name. Others, including those within the Chapter say that the name is merely coincidental and/or that the name is an intentional bastardization of the traitor's own name, essentially insulting them in the face as an act of defiance. The latter is perhaps even more evident considering the tradition that Rion would start - adding "Alfa" to his name, Alfarion may have intentionally done it all to either parody or spit in the face of the Legion that betrayed him.
The Chapter's beginnings was never put onto record - at least publicly. Over time, as the Chapter gained new recruits, and the veterans die in battle, the tale not usually told to the newbies by word of mouth - the truth became blurred, then eventually faded out completely or got twisted into fables told in Chapel-barracks or whispered in corridors. Only a few knew the core of the truth, even if it is a bit blurred now from the ravages of time.
The Chapter kept with their roots initially - covert operations, and sabotage, misdirection and so on. But during the Scouring, they were paired up with a Great Company from the Space Wolves in a very long campaign against the Death Guard making a fighting retreat in a sector. As time passed, the Bastards slowly but surely changed their tactics, combining the strategic fluidity of their former Legion's strategy with the more practical approach of the Space Wolves - and ending up becoming very familiar with them in the process, to the point that cordial bonds were formed between Astartes of both forces.
Eventually, near the end of the Scouring the bastards were pulled back from the front lines, and faced judgement before the Lord Commander of the Imperium at the time, Roboute Guilliman. He would have almost certainly placed a harsh sentence on the loyalist Alpha Legion survivors, had not Leman Russ - perhaps suprisingly - intervened in the judgement.
Eventually, a compromise was reached - The survivors will form a new Chapter, as part of Guilliman's reformation of the Astartes Legions and the 2nd Founding, but they will be watched with relentless scrutiny by others. An entire small organisation was set up personally by Guilliman to keep an eye on the new fledgling chapter - said organisation would eventually become part of the Ordos of the Inquisition, dubbing itself the Ordo Alfus.
The Chapter had a long time to figure out their identity - and their colour scheme. They obviously kept the grey as something to tie them to the past, the black trimming perhaps pointing out their secret shame, and the blue shoulder inlet - well, the blue is debatable. It could be seen as a way to tie them back to the Alpha Legion. An alternative would be that the members chose to honour their friends and comrades among the Space Wolves. A third perspective would say that the blue signified their newfound stability and confidence, and their willingness to persue their Loyalty in the eyes of the Emperor with newfound clarity and purpose, even if the Imperium they fight for was suspicious of them at the time.
The name is also debatable - those skeptical of the Alfa Legion often point this out as them obviously tying themselves to the traitors, secretly serving them under a very obvious but clever name. Others, including those within the Chapter say that the name is merely coincidental and/or that the name is an intentional bastardization of the traitor's own name, essentially insulting them in the face as an act of defiance. The latter is perhaps even more evident considering the tradition that Rion would start - adding "Alfa" to his name, Alfarion may have intentionally done it all to either parody or spit in the face of the Legion that betrayed him.
The Chapter's beginnings was never put onto record - at least publicly. Over time, as the Chapter gained new recruits, and the veterans die in battle, the tale not usually told to the newbies by word of mouth - the truth became blurred, then eventually faded out completely or got twisted into fables told in Chapel-barracks or whispered in corridors. Only a few knew the core of the truth, even if it is a bit blurred now from the ravages of time.