This, aside from the numerous occult and arcane associations and significance that certain sources choose to derive from this fact, ties into another, more prosaic, potential association dating back to the hidden work of the Emperor's own gene-labs. Rumour and supposition even surrounded the designation 'Alpha', which by some records is connected with the XX proto-Legion from a very early period. What remains instead are a few sparse but suggestive fragments, anomalous records of unknown Legiones Astartes units carrying out targeted strikes, abductions and assassinations, both on Terra and beyond, and reports of Space Marine units answering to no known masters or Legion allegiance passing through war zones on high priority missions and under the writ of unassailable clearance codes which broached no question. Of the early decades of the XX Legion on Terra and during the re-conquest of the Sol System almost nothing can be said with any accuracy whatsoever, and even the cluster of myths and rumours that would later grow to surround the Legion's activities is absent.

This first mystery would breed others, and questions would continue to go unanswered not simply about the XXth Legion's methods and nature, but about the use to which it was put in its earliest days. In the case of the Alpha Legion, it would instead worsen over time. These Legions were kept veiled and distant from the beginning, breeding distrust between them that, save in the case of the XVIII Legion - who would later become the widely renowned Salamanders Legion - would never disappear. What plan of the Emperor's lay behind this action cannot now be known, and even at the dawning of the Imperial Age, this was one of many secrets the Emperor kept both from the Imperial Court and many of His own advisors, and the Primarchs themselves. The XX along with the XVIII ( Salamanders) and VI ( Space Wolves) proto-Legions, were formed and established largely in separation from the rest of the Legiones Astartes and were generally thought created to very specific ends and purposes. The last known of the gene-seed strains used in the creation of the Legiones Astartes at the end of the Unification Wars, factors relating to the XX Legion were kept beyond the usual secrecy and security that the Emperor chose to surround the Space Marine project with. The pall of mystery surrounding the XX Legion can be traced back to their creation. It was a weapon neither first the Emperor nor later the Warmaster could control. The Alpha Legion became a twisting serpentine force of formless shadows, as dangerous and deadly as the multi-headed monster of ancient myth that in latter days became its modus operandi and its icon.

This malediction and the increasing addiction for the evincing of its own preternatural use for subterfuge and destruction, only worsened after the ascension of Horus to the rank of Warmaster. It is believed by many Imperial scholars that the secrecy surrounding this 'outsider' Legion and its designed purposes would later serve to conceal the dark transformation at its heart which was long in its gestation. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that it was the Emperor's will.

This secrecy was colluded - as is evident - by the highest circles of power. Long before the vile treachery of Rogal Dorn came into being, the XX Legion, its formation, use and purpose was shrouded with mystery and deliberate concealment from the rest of the Imperium. This is the case even to a record such as this, compiled with the highest of authorities and most extensive reach possible given the wreckage of the age of war which we have so recently survived. Any attempted study of the XX division of the gene-seed of the Legiones Astartes, a force that would eventually become known as the Alpha Legion among a myriad of other names, is therefore fraught with difficulty and contradiction, and uncovering 'truth' when applied to such a study is a vain hope. Of all the mighty forces the Imperium commanded during the Great Crusade, there were none so wound about with falsehood, supposition and paradox than they.

Sisters of silence 1d4chan