Cyrus Jonahn and the Rust Spiders
By author StrenousActivity
The Ninth Primarch: Cyrus Jonahn
Name:
Cyrus Jonahn, named by his home system as the Redeeming Son on Tuile, the Brother By The Hearth on Frostedge and the Iron Saviour on Kahurangi Nui. And in circles around the Imperium, he is known as the Spendthrift, the Brown Vulture, and the Salvage Prince.
Appearance:
Cyrus is a man of plain features, smooth, tan skin, long frizzy hair, and a warm, kindly face, all features that make him look almost boyish in comparison to his siblings. He stands at a height comparable to an Astartes, and can match any normal human at eye level simply by bending a knee. In peacetime, he wears simple clothes, a rust red tunic and pants. In his mind, sophisticated fashion is not worth the time needed to put it all together.
In war, his armour is a heavy set of Terminator armour, painted in a solid dark red and brown colour scheme. From a distance, its design is uniform, though when one looks closer they can see the mishmash of parts and machinery it truly is, taken from scores of battlefields and from innumerable different sources. The Wasteless Cuirass is a marvel of a modular engineering and also stands as a prime example of what one can get away with if one is a son of the Emperor, regardless of the misgivings of some within the Mechanicum.
Cyrus uses three distinct items in battle.
His main weapon is a bolter he has named Spitter, though its look has diverged so far from the standard pattern that it could very well be a different type of weapon entirely. Like all things in the Legion, a great deal of Spitter's parts and components were taken from a wide variety of sources. Some of its features clash or even hamper the gun's performance, but as long as it works, Cyrus does not mind.
His sidearm is a Power Sword, a roaring, crackling pillar of near tech-heresy that only barely manages to stay within the standards of the Mechanicum. Some claim that its power source is derived from xenotech, though, of course, no one from the Legion steps forward to confirm or deny it, lest they draw in more suspicion.
The Wasteless Cuirass is a marvel. It was originally a set of artificer armour gifted to Cyrus when he first arrived on Terra. It has now become an entity of its own. Layer upon layer of tech has been welded, bolted, wired, and soldered to the original chassis, transforming it into one of the most versatile pieces of armour in the Imperium, though some complaints have been levied over how the parts for some of its upgrades were acquired.
Talents and Personality:
"Come all you who are broken. Come all you that have sinned. Come all you that seek reprieve from the screaming tendrils of your guilt. I cannot fix you, but I can raise you higher."
—Cyrus Jonahn.
Cyrus is a kind, loving soul, as is shown by the names given to him by the three worlds under his aegis. He is always willing to aid others, to protect, and to bring rebirth where there was destruction.
The Primarch has an inclination to fix things. He seeks problems in need of solutions and endeavours to solve them, but does not obsess over it. He knows the dangers of fixing something that was never broken.
He sees no lost causes in people. He sees them as they are, who they used to be, and what they could become. Mankind is a font of limitless good to Cyrus and he seeks to bring that out of all he meets.
Cyrus believes strongly in the concept of redemption, that even the greatest evil in the heart of a man may yet be countered by greater deeds.
He digs deep into the core of a thing, examines its flaws, studies the past, and uses that as the basis for how he works towards achieving the goals he has set for the person, machine, or even planet he has chosen.
Cyrus does not consider himself the ultimate judge of whether someone has achieved redemption. Deeds, personality, and beliefs are the only way to ever truly know.
The Ninth Primarch is a personable fellow, easy to approach, easier to speak to, and in his presence his lineage as a demigod among humans is very easy to forget.
He stays as far away from politics as he can, only engaging in it to further the ends of bringing planets to Compliance.
Cyrus does not know what to feel when it comes to his Primarch siblings. He does not relate to the lofty ambitions some of them hold, or how some others bask in the glory of war. He knows full well what they all were made for. He does not need to be reminded of it or be goaded into enjoying it.
Cyrus is a skilled mechanic, a special breed, capable of taking parts from two very different machines then putting them together as if they were always compatible.
He combines this with an incredibly resourceful eye. He can comb a battlefield for the components he needs and more often than not find them.
Such a talent lends itself to surprisingly good diplomacy, allowing him to smooth over elements that would have otherwise come to blows. He accomplishes this not through honeyed words or impressive rhetoric, but simple, straightforward dialogue that highlights what does work, and it has succeeded more than it has failed.
Homeworld:
The Ninth Primarch does not truly have any one homeworld, flitting between the three planets in the Cornucopia system under his and his Legion's aegis: Tuile, Frostedge, and Kahurangi Nui.
—Tuile:
Tuile is the world of Cyrus's youth, where he was first discovered then raised by mortal men.
It is a planet covered in layers upon layers of rust. Once it was a burgeoning centre for mechanics and engineering, machinery of all types developed in the many laboratories and manufactora that dotted its surface.
Then, when the Iron War came and the Terran Federation shattered, it was hit the hardest. Billions died under the hailstorm of esoteric weaponry fielded by the Abominable Intelligences that mankind raised to such heights in the midst of its hubris.
In Tuile's darkest day, a new device was created. The few who still lived disappeared into cryogenic stasis chambers underneath the planet right as the last brave souls above activated their final cry of defiance.
In a bastard fusion of Golden Age technology and psychic power, time accelerated beyond what was thought possible, turning the automatons into so much rust and dust, a poster child for mankind's progress reduced to a dark red shadow.
Some of the humans that emerged without protection found themselves torn to shreds by howling winds that carried tiny metal shards. Even in death, the Men of Iron still greeted their former masters with malevolence.
A good deal of the survivors were menial workers, with some higher-ranking members and scientists smattered in between.
While attempts were made to return to polite society, Tuile eventually devolved into the age-old human tendency of warlords and conquest. It retained only enough of the past to create interconnected habdomes to escape the biting rust storms and work the remaining damaged STCs in order to build vehicles, weapons, and other miscellaneous machinery.
Those who fled the bloodshed were the ones who had not rejected the dream of the Golden Age in favour of petty strife, forming enclaves of peaceful knowledge in places the warmongering tribals would not think to enter.
There is no native wildlife on Tuile. Nothing can survive outside the habitat networks, though there do exist domesticated animals, their biologies modified to perfectly suit the needs of the habdome dwellers.
—Frostedge:
Cyrus became a man underneath the eternal twilight of this ice world.
Once, it was green, the effects of its distance from the system's star were lessened using complex weather control systems that maintained a stable climate suitable for agriculture, the designs similar to the ones used on Sheol IX, the homeworld of the Tenth Primarch, though modified somewhat to be used on the ground.
Its past is unremarkable, a simple farming world that propped up its sister planets then fell alongside them when the galaxy shattered under the combined collapses of the Aeldari Empire and Terran Federation.
The humans of Frostedge are now a mixed bag of nomadic hunters, skulking through the freezing snowstorms to hunt the only beasts with meat on their bones, while cabals of shaman guard and maintain the last weather stations that still work, desperate to hold together the agrarian tribes that rely on them to keep the harvests full.
—Kahurangi Nui:
Cyrus's time here was cut short by visitors beyond the stars.
It was originally a Paradise World of sorts, a vast ocean dotted by fleets of self-sufficient resort cities where the rich and powerful in the system gathered, decked out in their full opulence to mingle and bask in the tropical sun, the massive vessels only stopping near warehouse stations to load and unload raw material for their upkeep.
Comparatively tiny ships followed behind, fishermen using heavily armoured diving suits and high-power harpoons to hunt for the meat rich sea beasts that swam in the depths, or miners using drill-tipped submersibles to strip the ocean floor of valuable resources.
Such a status quo was erased in one fell swoop when Man of Iron bodyguards and servants suddenly turned on their masters. The cities descended into anarchy and urban warfare, the human security forces fighting street by street, house by decadent house, against robots driven to omnicide by whatever flight of mania had plunged their once loyal minds into, locked in a war of attrition that the humans only barely won.
None of the cities sank, thanks to the brave efforts of the maintenance crews, who, even under withering gunfire, managed to receive supplies and war materiel deliveries for the tired security squadrons, long stretched to their limits.
And though none sank, millions of poor souls were still lost to the water, drowned, then swallowed or torn to shreds by the native predators, who had now acquired a taste for human flesh.
The ocean had never been more dangerous. Maddened automata did battle with the miners and fishermen under the shadow of titanic leviathans on the hunt for ships that strayed from the fleets.
The water churned with the snapping jaws of hungry fish, just waiting for someone to fall in with no protection, and in the cities, people fell into despair and infighting, the various fleets scattering across the vast ocean.
Psychic potential:
Cyrus is capable of only minor feats of psychic power. His main power is an aura of calm that he projects around himself. He can read the surface thoughts of whoever he is speaking with and use that to his advantage, but his mind reading can be thwarted very easily.
He can also induce feelings of guilt or remorse, showing visions of the consequences wrought by a person's failings.
Cyrus has had little need to use it, and considers it a weapon that he has no intention of wielding regularly.
Background:
—The Redeeming Son:
Taken from the journal of Elijah Jonahn.
The day I found Cyrus is one that is burned into my memory. My men came to me in hysterics over an attack on one of our domes, warning of an object that fell from the sky in a ballistic arc.
Along with my best men, we stormed the breach, but found no enemy, only a little boy trembling in his boots, hiding in a capsule made of metal none of us had ever seen before.
I was not the man whose words you are reading. Tuile was a harsh mistress, and I sought to be harsher so that my people could live.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and roared into his face, and his little sobs ended. Then we took him to the medbay with full haste. That much exposure to the Rust would kill him in due time.
When he came to, he was a striking young fellow. A glance could tell you he was special. We were all drawn to him. I know I was; it's why I took him as my own.
He was a special lad, always sought new things to learn. Cyrus filtered through broken machines brought in by our salvage teams, picking out little curios he thought would be useful, and they often were.
Cyrus grew, and in a few months he was the tallest man in our hab network, and easily the most talented.
Those days were peaceful, in fact we had peace in nearly all my years as their chief, but peace never lasted on Tuile.
Raids came from the north, a nomadic bandit tribe named the Searching Hounds, they besieged us for such a long time that our weapons crumbled from overuse, and our armour and enviro-suits fell apart at the seams.
As you can guess, Cyrus was the one who saved us. During the lulls between the violence, my boy would work himself to the bone repairing our equipment. He picked the battlefield clean of whatever components he'd find and our armoury would be restocked within hours.
The fighting was gruelling, even when it was alongside the beast of a man Cyrus turned out to be. It would be months, maybe a year, before we finally repelled the last of them.
War was singing in my blood. I chomped at the bit to wipe them out but I wasn't vengeful enough to push both my men and my son to fight a war we were not ready to wage.
Then envoys began to arrive from other tribes. They'd heard of our victory over the Hounds and swore loyalty to our side.
We killed our way across the desert, a fresh gouge in Tuile's skin. Refurbished war machines spilled out of our manufactora, weapons given new life. It was a slaughter, and in a few short years no Hounds were left when we were done.
Cyrus was satisfied, but I wanted to charge onward. Our strength was bloated beyond the manpower what we first thought we needed and I reasoned: what better way to put it to use than to truly unite Tuile?
My son was hesitant, but he followed my lead.
I didn't anticipate it. I knew death would be a constant, but I didn't know how much.
Hundreds, thousands, hundred thousand more, we broke our backs against army after army, so much so that the rust sand grew slick from the blood spilled in those dark days.
It was gruelling, and brutal, but finally, Cyrus climbed atop the battletank of one of the last chieftain and sheared his head off his shoulders.
By all accounts, Tuile was ours.
But Cyrus was uneasy. I ruled with an iron fist and the people, I must admit, chafed under my authority.
So he left, and he took a great deal of our finest mechanists and artisans with him, vanishing in a great convoy over the horizon.
I resented Cyrus for that. I considered it a betrayal, and his name was a curse in the sphere of my empire for many years.
Then one day, he returned. From where, I still do not know, but my son returned.
I sent armies after the group he took with him. Each one returned defeated, their numbers bled dry. One command consistent with all of them, Cyrus wanted me to abdicate.
Like hell I would, I thought to myself, another blunder added to my mountain of mistakes.
I led my greatest force to the valley where he had built his fortress, and I failed, miserably.
They brought me to him in chains. I looked at him, hunched over a workbench, tinkering with another of his little trinkets.
When his men called for him, Cyrus turned to face me.
A great shame washed over me, the weight of all I had done bore on me with great force so heavy, I could barely stand to look at my son.
It was then that he spoke.
"Get up, Father. No man of pride bows to his son. Don't debase yourself for my glory."
And at that moment, it all washed away, and all I felt was a deep pit of regret and foolishness.
When Cyrus returned, Tuile changed before my very eyes, our technological state was advancing considerably since I took power, but Cyrus enlightened us to just how little we had, him and the myriad of scientists and wise men who followed him back to our empire.
Great machines that laid long dead in the rust sand were brought back online. Environ controllers began orbiting the sky, rain returning for the first time, then a bacterium was bred for the sole purpose of consuming rust, a grand project undertaken to search for the last scraps of soil left on Tuile, in service to a dream that life could grow again outside the hab domes that saved us then constrained us for millennia.
And when all of that was complete, the first space-faring vessels ventured into the void above, and Cyrus joined them.
—The Brother-By-The-Hearth:
The following is a transcript taken from an interview done by Remembrancer Bayern BStyg and Rust Spider Captain Edward Altorin.
BStyg: Thank you for your time, Captain, I imagine it was not easy clearing your schedule for this.
EdAlt: And I imagine it was not easy getting a hold of me.
BStyg: That it was, Master Astartes.
EdAlt: Don't call me master. At this moment, I am simply a soldier being interviewed.
BStyg: As you wish.
BStyg: You were one of the Rust Spiders' first recruits from Frostedge, yes?
EdAlt: Only barely.
BStyg: How so?
EdAlt: I was just under the minimum recruitment age for the Legion and needed special permission to undergo implantation. Otherwise I would simply be a demi-Astartes.
BStyg: I see. Then how was Frostedge before Lord Cyrus?
EdAlt: To be frank, it was brutal. Ice and snow took up the majority of the planet, men braved the forests and hunted lumbering beasts for food, and save for a few communities near the weather stations, no one farmed.
EdAlt: I was a boy hiding in my sister's arms when massive packs of layered wolves attacked our village. Apparently the herds of blightplowers—one of the few reasonable food sources for any of us—were growing sparse. It drove the wolves into desperate fits of hunger.
BStyg: And I take it your sister was forced to flee with you in hand?
EdAlt: She was. Dalya ran, never looking back, until we disappeared into a deep cave system, wandering in total darkness. For how long? She has never told me.
EdAlt: She did tell me what waited for us at the end: a light that overwhelmed her before her eyes adjusted, then a man, taller than any she'd ever seen, hunched over a great fire, the skins and furs of animals stretched out on wooden frames while a blightplower roasted over the hearth.
EdAlt: She told me the first thing he noticed was his smile, warm as the fire that burned in the center of the cave, and eyes as kind as any older brother when they see a sibling return home.
BStyg: The Brother By The Hearth…
EdAlt: Exactly. Cyrus told us he'd crashed here by accident, then he fed us, and followed us back out. The village was decimated and the survivors terrified, but he gathered them all and brought a large vehicle from the cave he lived in. It was a treasure trove of food, supplies, and warmth some of us had only ever dreamed of.
EdAlt: He was following coordinates to a weather station. I was not aware or interested enough at the time but he spoke at length of weather control projects on his homeworld, and he sought to replicate them on Frostedge using the parts from his ship.
BStyg: Wouldn't that have left him stranded?
EdAlt: It would, but never let it be said that my gene-father was not one to sacrifice.
EdAlt: When we arrived, the station was failing. Cold wind smothered the meagre farmlands that surrounded it. The shaman-engineers who maintained it were desperate, and they begged for any technical expertise they could get.
BStyg: And the only one was Lord Cyrus.
EdAlt: Indeed. He replicated this work on every station that was starting to fall into disrepair, fighting beasts and the sheer cold all the while, and in doing so he even revived the dead ones. I remember the first time I saw grass quite fondly.
BStyg: Then he left?
EdAlt: He left.
BStyg: That was quite straightforward. One would think there'd be more struggle involved.
EdAlt: Not all glory comes in struggle, my friend.
—The Iron Saviour:
Cyrus neared the planet's surface and was immediately set upon by anti-air guns fired by spooked cityship defenders who saw his ship on their auspices.
Deftly avoiding the flak, he landed on a nondescript island, filled with piles of scrap and rusted machinery. It almost felt like home if it were not for all the water around him.
Cyrus could work with this, and he did. Building a raft out of the busted metal, he pushed out into the sea.
He sailed for many months, living off of sea creatures that ventured to the surface, thinking he was an easy meal, and sea water desalinated with filters originally made to recycle water from a Tuilean's sweat.
During this time he decided to collect rusting hulks floating aimlessly, taking apart whatever vitals were left intact, giving his raft an impressive set of upgrades.
He arrived at the edge of the first cityship, greeted by confused and worried guards who saw through the ramshackle aesthetics of his boat and recognised how dangerous it was.
They let Cyrus through with no issue, letting him traverse the city mostly unmolested.
He became well known as a mysterious philanthropist, appearing uninvited to vital industries whose equipment was in need of upkeep, always leaving them, and the trained staff, better off than when he arrived. He also worked on other projects for their benefit.
The people who came to know him and what he did, loved him, and he soon gained a small following of Nuites who sought to emulate his lifestyle of charity and uplift.
One of these was a man just as unknown as Cyrus was, tan skin and long black hair under a cloak that looked like flowing shadow.
Cyrus's great and anonymous works raised the quality of life in the city significantly, and when he saw that there was little left to fix, he took his followers back to his own barge and ventured out in search of the others.
The next cityship was in a state of unrest, the super engine that powered the ship's navigation broke down in carnivore-infested water, and food supplies were running out. Resident gatherer vessels refused to catch fish on account of the risk involved.
It was only when Cyrus and his followers arrived that their fortunes began to change. He offered to take on the fishermen's tasks if the city handed over some of their weaponry.
The cloaked man frowned, but continued watching.
With nothing much left to lose, the city leaders sent Cyrus a container filled with guns, more than enough to do what needed to be done.
Using this newfound firepower, Cyrus gathered some of his men and brought them to open water. And with audial beacons designed to lure deep sea animals, he drew in innumerable schools of fish to the surface of the water which the fishermen pulled in by the ton. Then came fat carnivores, swollen with time, smaller fry, and the unfortunates who fell overboard. Those were shot quickly.
With that crisis solved, Cyrus ventured into the depths of the engine room to see if he could jumpstart it and get them out, not knowing that someone followed him inside.
Cyrus had to admit it: for the first time in many years, he was stumped. This core was nigh esoteric in nature. The wheels in his mind were already turning, and he would figure it out eventually, but at that very moment, he genuinely did not know how to fix this.
"Trouble, Lord Cyrus?" a voice came from behind.
Cyrus turned to face the newcomer, and was met with a man draped in an odd cloak. His impeccable eyesight seemed to fail him when he gazed upon the material, feeling the same sensation that one does when they see something from the corner of their eye.
"Yes," he nodded, "but do not fear, I will find a way."
"I fear nothing, Lord Cyrus," the stranger said. "Do you require any aid?"
Cyrus smiled mirthlessly then shook his head.
"Not to appear prideful, my friend, but I doubt there is any aid you or any of the others could provide."
The stranger shed his cloak, and suddenly, Cyrus was bathed in an ocean of golden light. The sheer power and presence brought to bear made him tremble.
"Are you sure?" the golden figure asked, each word said so calmly, yet the strength behind them was enough to drive Cyrus to his knees.
"I…" he croaked, "…I do not know."
"Then let me make it simple. Let me help you, my son, and I will show you how you can help me."
The Emperor of Mankind revealed himself to his son that day, and the entirety of the Imperial Explorator Fleet he brought with him jumped in from a nearby system.
He told Cyrus of his true nature: that of a gene-crafted general made to lead a Legion of transhuman warriors, his blood running through their veins.
The Primarch took the revelation in stride, accepting his new destiny, knowing that the broken and disparate peoples that made up mankind would need to stand united, a lesson he had learnt firsthand three times over.
And so the Emperor brought his wayward son back to Terra, where he would reunite with his Legion and learn under the tutelage of both his elder siblings and the Emperor's most trusted advisors.
It was here that he was given the Wasteless Cuirass, though at the time it was simply a set of plain artificer armour.
It was also here that he came to learn of the dreadful state his Legion was in, how closely the straits they were in forced them to copy his own speciality. Instead of going back to his father and demanding better, Cyrus decided to refine the way his Legion salvaged, to make it their own art, their greatest strength.
The IX Legion: the Rust Spiders
Name:
The Rust Spiders were known as the Bloodied Fists before the return of their Primarch. Also known to some as the Scrapeaters, the Carrion Marines, Impy Lootas, and "Those stubborn fools who haven't thought about demanding the new equipment they deserve."
Insignia and Appearance:
Their insignia is a spider's web entangled with cogs and skulls.
There is no true uniform design for a Rust Spider's armour. The most a Space Marine from the IX Legion can hope for is that the paint job is close enough. To that end, the most common colours are brownish red, rust brown, and golden brown, all with a white trim.
The old insignias and paint of the old Legion the armour parts were taken from are either hastily or painstakingly scraped off depending on the urgency of its removal.
Outside of battle, the Rust Spiders wear whatever is on hand, robes, cloaks, tunics. Cyrus does not care for dress codes, only clothes.
Gene-seed Status:
While the IX Legion's gene-seed does not contain a high amount of mutations, it has a high rejection rate, resulting in the Rust Spiders becoming one of the smaller Legions.
One deviation that stands out is the high potency of their Betcher's Gland. Its already strong corrosive and acidic properties have increased significantly. Their control over their salivary glands are also more fine-tuned, allowing a Rust Spider to use his acidic spit more creatively and effectively, a boon when weapons are short on hand.
Legionary Assets:
As it stands, the Legion's Astartes force is one of the smallest, fluctuating between 90,000 to 120,000 during certain points of the Legion's history. As it stands, it currently holds 100,000 Space Marines.
It has access to the three planets brought into the fold upon their Primarch's return: Tuile, Frostedge, and Kahurangi Nui.
The Rust Spiders, like all of the Legions, command a Gloriana-class battleship. They have christened her the Striding Scorpion. Her armour has been heavily reinforced for prolonged combat, fitted with high power weapons batteries made to tear ships apart at close range. The Striding Scorpion also makes heavy use of Cyrus's Hook, a huge electromagnet built into the heart of the ship that can focus or spread out its power when needed, allowing it to disembowel enemy vessels by wrenching vital sections from the inside or to pull in debris and unfortunate smaller craft. Its wide cone setting makes the Striding Scorpion good at collecting scrap from the aftermath of void battles.
While the Rust Spiders may not have an abundance of certain equipment, they have a little bit of everything, pieces of war machines and equipment plucked off the battlefield that they then repaired to serve their own purposes.
Weapons and armour have become very individualised, varying immensely amongst chapters and even squads in how they have modified, repaired, and upgraded existing wargear in unique ways. This can lead—and has led—to many intra-Legionary difficulties operating pieces of heavily modified wargear, which is why this practice is regulated in regards to vehicles.
A vehicle unique to the IX Legion is the Boaz-pattern Blightplower. Named after a beast of burden native to Frostedge, the Blightplower gathers scrap and broken war machines from the battlefield using dozer scoops and electromagnets, collecting them in a large storage container that holds a built-in smelter for easy conversion into raw metal.
The Blightplower can also exchange its smelter for a more troop-friendly design, but this is not its natural role.
Legion Organisation:
Much of the original Imperial formations and command structures were left untouched when Cyrus rejoined the Legion, so there is no need to re-enumerate them here.
The Rust Spiders are a tightly knit unit, though individual chapters are encouraged to do what they must to maintain as much cohesion as possible with individual Space Marines. The logic behind it is that more cohesion between battle-brothers leads to less insubordination or command collapsing in combat, meaning that less equipment is lost.
Expertise and Combat Doctrine:
"Hunker down, you old fool! The Mastodon's slag. It'll take hours to fix the Void Shields and engine under this much fire!"
"Hours? Ha, think minutes. Cover me!"
"Who do you think you are?"
"I am a Spider. Think, cousin, I have seen bombardments this bad and damage even worse and it's never taken me hours."
The Rust Spiders' ranks hold some of the finest soldiers the Legiones Astartes have ever seen. Evidence of their skill shines through in just how old they are, with whole chapters made up of centuries-old Space Marines.
In fact, a good majority of the commanders still remember their days reuniting the disparate tribes of Terra, fighting alongside the Emperor, Ozymandias, and the Thunder Warriors, the first Thunder Warriors.
The sheer amount of experience the IX Legion ranks hold is what they owe to their versatility. The battlefields these veterans have spilled blood on are too numerous to mention, and the perspective is eye opening.
Theoretically, they could fill a wide variety of roles, but in the end the IX Legion have stuck to a slow, squad combat doctrine.
They base all plans for future engagements on past experience using a massive database that has compiled all of their past battles, complete with holo-recreations of these battles.
Tactical decisions, both failure and success, are written down in obsessive detail and placed under intensive study. The circumstances in which these moves re made are taken into account and stated as such in each record.
One of their main tactics is a slow assault with auxilia support, pushing hard into enemy territory until they have wholly embedded themselves in favourable terrain or well-preserved fortifications.
From this forward base they lead small assaults while beating back counter offensives that move into its general vicinity, quickly collecting the molten slag and broken machinery left behind after each engagement to use either as parts or as they are, refurbished by the IX Legion to serve their own goal.
This method means that the Rust Spiders could hold a defensive position indefinitely so long as there is a fresh supply of scrap to recycle.
The IX Legion hold some of the Imperium's best field mechanics, both mortal and Astartes, capable of bringing the most damaged vehicles back to fighting shape in the bloodiest of battlefields. The Rust Spiders are of such renown that their skills are respected and envied throughout the Imperium.
They also have the odd quirk of turning common objects they find into weapons, a skill some detractors compare to the Orks, but the Rust Spiders take such a lowly insult in stride.
Legion Weaknesses:
As most of the Legion's weapons and armour has become more and more personalised, an accessibility problem has arisen, with Astartes of different chapters and even squads finding it hard to use some of their brothers' wargear.
The Legion's habit of quick fixing and getting their equipment into fighting shape means their vehicles and weapons always have a higher than zero chance to fail, oftentimes spectacularly.
Disputes have arisen at times over the Rust Spiders' willingness to claim salvage from allied forces without permission, enough so that they could very well be accused of outright stealing equipment that would otherwise be easy to repair.
One infamous example of the Rust Spiders stepping out of line happened after a joint mission alongside the Conquerors. Their Primarch, Hernan de Leon, had planned to parade the former rulers of a newly subjugated empire through all the battlefields these tyrants lost, intending to show the utter destruction the two Legions had wrought, only to be met with empty land and cratered fields. After de Leon's demand for an explanation, Lord Jonahn admitted that he ordered his sons to salvage the battlefield, having not known Lord de Leon's plan to humiliate their broken enemies.
Beliefs and Practices:
Before the arrival of Cyrus, the IX were known to be withdrawn, serious, and consummate professionals, arriving at the campaign site, completing their task, and disappearing into the void to follow their next orders.
This attitude changed somewhat when their Primarch returned. His own shining personality became a uniting beacon for the Legion to follow suit, and they became much more concerned for the welfare of the average human, staying longer after Compliances to make sure they did not leave a world too broken to serve the Imperium, and generally being more outgoing, both with their cousin Legions and the lower ranking soldiers.
They believe in the Imperial Truth but don't bother to persecute or stamp out religion. Cyrus and by extension the Legion, believes that it breeds too much resentment, and that the best way to make people believe otherwise is to educate them. To that end he enlisted funding from his sister Irene and her vast coffers in order to build an institution known as Schola Redemptors on each world he brings into the Imperium.
The mutant means nothing to them if they are not a threat, and the same treatment is given to xenos.
Recruitment and Discipline:
The Legion recruits from nearly everywhere: worlds freshly brought under Compliance, the three planets under their direct control, promising young individuals found in the midst of a campaign… there is no source beneath the Rust Spiders' watchful and unjudging eyes.
Discipline can vary from chapter to chapter, though it is not too major an issue. Everyone involved with the Rust Spiders knows the problems they already have, and they all agree that it is better not to exacerbate anything.
Characters of Interest:
Chapter Master Matthyeau Jophro—The first recruit taken from Cyrus's homeworld of Tuile, Matthyeau rose through the ranks very quickly. He represented the Legion's stubbornness and iron will when he fought off a xenos incursion on his own with a ramshackle bolt pistol while wearing thin carapace armour.
First Captain Lorretz Vane—Lorretz served as Legion Master for a long time before Cyrus was rediscovered. He relinquished command voluntarily and would have become a standard Space Marine, but was given the rank of First Captain by Cyrus to keep him as second-in-command. This veteran of a thousand battles now serves as the Primarch's mentor as he leads the Rust Spiders to greater glories.
Second Captain Kanno Anahueve—A shining star of the Legion, Kanno is a native of Kahurangi Nui, and exemplifies some of the best traits of the Legion: ingenuity, kindness, an iron will, and a willingness to be diplomatic for as long as he can, all paired with a fierce taste for combat and wicked skill with his Power Spear.
Sixth Captain Edward Altorin—The first recruit from Frostedge, and the first non-Terran to be inducted into the Legion's higher chain of command and inner circle. Calm and collected, he made a name for himself by leading the defence of an entire system against a band of Dark Eldar pirates.
Chief Apothecary Job Rezus—A Space Marine who represents both the kinder side of the Legion and the depths it is willing to go to achieve victory, he became a legend during the Siege of Fort Waning when a xenos pulse weapon rendered the entire mortal garrison brain-dead.
Forced to take command, the young Rezus, with the aid of a squad of his fellow Apothecaries and some more mechanically skilled Space Marines, converted the drooling corpses into combat servitors and launched a counter offensive that ultimately brought the entire planet back into Imperial control. All of the servitors survived.
He considers that day his greatest shame and has delved deep into a study of neuroscience in the hopes of returning the men-turned-machines back to a sane state.
Battle-cry:
Unknown.
Legionary History:
"You know why some auxilia used to call us the Bloodied Fists, milord?
It's 'cause we'd have nothing left but our fists by the time they show up to clean up after us.
"
—anonymous Rust Spider.
The story of the IX Legion is of one plagued by horrible logistical failures. Even during the speech given by the Emperor immediately before the first Expeditionary Fleets began the Great Crusade, it was noted by some that the IX Legion were missing sections of their armour. Some even lacked helmets, a foreboding sign if there ever was one.
These became more apparent as their early campaigns dragged on. Transport starships carrying vital war materiel meant for the Legion started meeting oddity after tragic fate after oddity, running foul of a myriad of xenos fleets, disappearing into the Warp, getting caught by Eldar Corsairs, ambushed by Orks, and a supply fleet was once pursued by a Craftworld for decades until the group was forced to blind jump back into Imperial space.
There have been instances where supplies arrived decades or even centuries after they were first requested, and by then the battle was long lost.
Astartes of the IX Legion on a myriad of battlefields were being forced into desperate circumstances, forced to choose between fighting with substandard weapons and armour, or none at all, and enough were forced to choose the latter yet somehow won despite their handicap that the names Bloodied Fists, or the Imperial Fists became common monikers for the IX.
Such severe breakdowns in the supply chain baffled commanders as it seemed the problem only affected the IX Legion. As such, the Emperor suspected foul play in the realm of the Warp, though he had no way to prove it just yet.
With a cadre of handpicked psykers the Emperor searched the Great Ocean of the Warp for signs that the IX's supply chains were being tampered with, scrying for some time until he finally traced the strands of Warp influence tied to the IX back to an Eldar Craftworld, the same one that was reported to have tried destroying a IX Legion supply fleet.
Annoyed that any of this was even necessary, the Emperor sent a strike force of Custodes to raid the Craftworld and bring back its Farseers, a victory they paid for with considerable losses.
After months of intense and brutal interrogation the Farseers of Craftworld Reing Ul-thah finally admitted to using their future sight to impede the IX Legion, saying that leaving them as they were would make them far too dangerous to the Aeldari species. After learning of this, the Emperor promptly had them all executed.
While the main cause of their woes was gone, the IX still struggled. Their gene-seed was of middling compatibility with their recruits, attrition rates were high, and logistical issues continued to haunt them.
It was not until the return of Cyrus mid-way into the Great Crusade that their fortunes began to change.
Cyrus was incredibly young in comparison to his Legion, which was mostly made up of old veterans and hardened youngbloods. Both were not too keen on having their Legion Master replaced with a wide-eyed boy-general.
Cyrus was not anxious to prove himself worthy of their respect, but worked to gain it regardless, and like a ball rolling to the top of a mountain, his efforts slowly built potential for great momentum.
Under Cyrus's command, victories became more frequent, battles grander. Glories that some of them had always craved were heaped on them by the score. A fire in their hearts burned as Cyrus grew to become the ideological and military leader they had always needed.
Their sluggish, but respectable Compliance rate ballooned after Cyrus took command. Their image was rehabilitated amongst the wider Imperium and became that of wizened but determined soldiers who won wars through an iron will and shrewd ingenuity.
Notable battles:
—A Sky Full Of Drunken Masters:
The Rust Spiders once came across a pod of giant tentacled creatures floating through space deep within the galactic south. They zoomed across the void in uncoordinated and confusing patterns before one sighted the Striding Scorpion and they all descended upon her with a vengeance.
—WAAAAGH! Gitzchompa:
A war that showed just how similar the Rust Spiders could be to Orks at times, this WAAAAGH! took place on a system of planets that all stormed constantly, and its surface was filled with archaeotech.
Both sides were bogged down by knee-deep mud, competing ferociously for the valuable technology that littered these planets, fighting in a tug of war that only seemed to make the Orks stronger until Cyrus decided enough was enough and challenged Warboss Gitzchompa to single combat, screaming he would give the Greenskin the "krumping of a lifetime!" And so he did, scattering the Orks and somewhat mending the strained relations the Legion had with the Mechanicum.