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The Disciplinary Officer Corps, informally known as the Field Police, are a specialist political officer corps of the Legiones Astartes who serve as enforcers of a Legion Reclusiarch's will. As members of the Discipline Corps of the Imperialis Militant they are empowered to use any means necessary to ensure the loyalty and moral purity of their fellow legionaries, including overriding or even executing a commanding officer if necessary, and so are regarded with a mixture of revulsion and admiration by the rank-and-file battle-brothers of a Space Marine Legion.

History
The origins of the Disciplinary Corps harkens back to the earliest years of the burgeoning Imperium, during the Wars of Unification on Terra. During these early years, certain proto-Legions had begun to display worrisome traits such as feral ferocity and aggression, such as the IVth Legion, XIth Legion and XVth Legions, which would become their hallmark, but exhibited little of the control and discipline they would later possess. As the Unification Wars were brought to a successful conclusion, the burgeoning Imperium launched their Great Crusade into the stars to begin the conquest and reunification of the disparate worlds of Mankind into one unified stellar empire of Humanity. But as the decades of conquest and constant war ground on, soon accusations and stories of unneeded collateral damage and casualties among human civilian populations where some of the Space Marine Legions fought, became more and more widespread. As a consequence, certain elect veteran Legionaries were chosen by Imperial high command as an informal ad-hoc 'Disciplinary Corps' formation to help maintain order within the ranks, both during and away from battle, as well as to curb any attempts to disregard or circumvent orders.

Extant records indicate that during several campaigns against those who refused to bow to the rightful rule of the Emperor, often a Space Marine Legion would be dispatched in response. What would begin as a surgical strike against renegade forces and pre-designated objectives would rapidly degenerate into a killing spree of epic proportions as rebel forces counter-attacked. Some Legionaries would exhibit a lack of discipline and a total disregard for following their higher echelon's orders and begin to slaughter all they encountered, to the extant that the newly conquered region and preservation of any vital industrial capacity would be put at risk. It would only be through the brutal efforts of the Discipline Corps that any of the civilian population would survive their brutal onslaught, though this survival would be bought at the high cost of a number of summary executions.

Those chosen to make up this Discipline Corps were made up of warriors that embodied the rule of a Legion's high command, ensuring their orders were obeyed without question and that the resolve of the warriors under their charge would not falter in the heat of battle or lose control, for to do so, was to fail in the eyes of the Emperor of Mankind - a crime for which pain and ultimately death were judged to be fit rewards. The fanatical dedication of these Disciplinary troops to the service of the Emperor overrode any feelings of compassion, mercy or humanity when carrying out the summary executions of those found wanting.

Galaxy Torn Asunder
By mid-M30th Millennium, the stability of the gene-seed began to diminish through over-use and the increasing need for ever greater numbers of Space Marines in the field. This was a matter that only worsened as the Great Crusade pushed ever wider afield into the galaxy. Imperial forces could no longer be concentrated as easily as before, and attrition was taking its toll as years of near-constant battle became decades. With the outbreak of the First Ruin in 009.M31, the Imperium was plunged into civil war and the galaxy was torn asunder in a wave of bloodshed unlike anything ever beheld in human history. The simple truth was that more Space Marines were needed and they needed to be created faster than ever before.

Utilising accelerated gene-culturing techniques, several Legions came to be characterised as being battle-hardened, and particularly bloody-handed and unforgiving. During this conflict, several Space Marine Legions seceded from the Imperium and joined the Insurrectionist cause. Though greatly disturbing, this was not unexpected, as the Terran Council were well aware of some of the troubling traits that had begun to manifest within some of these Legions, particularly a tendency to display a high degree of independence and ferocity, preferring death over subservience to an authority from outside their Legion of any kind. Others were prone to physical or mental collapse in the heat of battle.

As the carnage of the various Five Ruins dragged on, both sides suffered horrendous casualties during the bloody conflict. It is now believed by Imperial scholars that the constant grinding warfare, coupled with having witnessed firsthand, atrocity and unthinkable carnage at the behest of distant and uncaring masters, caused many separate squads, whole Cohorts and sometimes, even entire Legions, to secede from the Imperium. These warriors were often hardened veterans who had survived against all odds and trusted only in the man next to them in the line of battle. For brothers they would fight and die and strive to see another dawn, but for great cause or Primarch, and the lies and whispers of lords and potentates alike, they had nothing but scorn. Accelerated gene-culturing techniques, coupled with accelerated psycho-indoctrination that was often utilised during that time, were often to blame for these deficiencies and breakdown in discipline.

Birth of the Discipline Corps
To ensure discipline was maintained within the rank and file of the Space Marine Legions, many within the newly instituted Chaplain Corps advocated the use of a political officer class to help a Legion's Chaplains enforce discipline and oversee the morale of their fellow battle-brothers, instilling within them the values and beliefs of their Legion and promote the veneration or in rare cases the actual worship of the Emperor of Mankind. With the blessing of the Ecclesiarchy and the final approval of the Terran Council in 935.M30, the Discipline Corps of the Imperialis Militant were created to ensure control and discipline and to improve morale of the rank-and-file Legionaries of a Space Marine Legion and to ensure proper compliance of regulations were adhered to at all times.

Disciplinary Officer Duties
Disciplinary Officers are hand-picked by the Legion's Reclusiarch. These are usually battle-hardened veterans who adhere strongly to the tenets of loyalty and discipline and often display an abiding faith in the Emperor of Mankind. These individuals are considered Chaplains-in-training, are are accorded the proper respect by the rank-and-file legionaries. In battle, the Chaplains will be at the forefront of a Legion's battlelines, while Disciplinary Retributor Squads typically operate as independent five to ten-man squads.

These Disciplinary Officers serve to maintain order within the Legion's ranks, both during and away from battle, as well as curb any attempts to disregard or circumvent orders. They often interact and support attached Imperialis Auxilia units by organising stragglers, re-grouping broken units, and ensuring discipline is maintained at all times. Displaying the power of life and death, a power they are infamously quick to exercise in its extreme, they are known for carrying out summary punishments for any merely human forces who they feel lacks militancy or discipline. It is a power they are infamously quick to exercise in its extreme, a summary punishment for any merely human forces who they feel lack military or discipline alongside them.

Disciplinary Officers are also charged with providing overwatch of a particular unit or squad that has transgressed, but are considered redeemable, in the eyes of the Emperor. While Disciplinary Officers are authorised to help direct a Space Marine squad that has lost their sergeant during a battle, many of their fellow legionaries often hold them in contempt, seeing them as over-glorified 'nursemaids', but will nevertheless comply with their position of authority. Disciplinary Officers are also charged with assisting in the apprehension and return of those individuals or squads of recalcitrant legionaries who attempt to desert, help support the Imperial military courts of justice, and assist in collecting and transporting prisoners of war.

Disciplinary Officers Colours
Disciplinary Officers primarily wear black coloured power armour. They also wear a red coloured helmet with a distinctive alternating yellow and black vertical stripe.

Disciplinary Officer Badge
Disciplinary Corps Officers are marked by the distinctive emblem of their oft-maligned Order, wearing the twin flame-blade insignia of the ' Sanghauta ' which is prominently displayed upon their abdominal belt buckle, right shoulder pauldron and on back banners. This icon is presumably of ancient Terran origin, and is also utilised by the Discipline Masters and the Provost Corp of the Imperialis Militant. This symbol carries with it a very definite meaning; it displays clearly the power of life and death every Disciplinary Officer of a Legion has over lesser troops under their command.

Unit Composition

 * 4-9 Obsequiari
 * 1 Legio Consul-Obsequiari

Unit Type

 * Obsequiari: Infantry

Wargear

 * Power Armour
 * Bolter
 * Bolt Pistol
 * Combat Blade
 * Aether-Shock Maul
 * Frag & Krak Grenades

Optional Wargear
Any Obsequiari may exchange their aether-shock maul for a power fist. Any warrior in the squad may exchange their bolter for one of the following:


 * Plasma Pistol
 * Grenade Harness
 * Melta Bombs

The Consul-Obsequiari may exchange their power maul for one of the following weapons:
 * Power Weapon
 * Volkite Caliver
 * Power Fist
 * Thunder Hammer

Dedicated Transport
An Obsequiari squad may take a Phobos Rhino armoured personnel carrier of Land Raider Phobos or Proteus as a dedicated transport.

Order of Rediscovery of the Primarchs
The following is a definitive list of the order in which the Primaarchs were rediscovered by the Emperor of Mankind during the Great Crusade.

Note: Please bear in mind that there is a differen in time between when a primarch was found by the Emperor, and when the primarch took command of his Legion.

Thunder Warriors
The Thunder Warriors, also sometimes referred to in ancient records as the ' Thunder Legion ' and the ' Thunder Regiments ', and known in High Gothic as the Legio Cataegis, were the original 20 regiments or legions of proto-Astartes (the precursor to the modern era Adeptus Astartes). These transhuman specimens were genetically-engineered, superhuman warriors created by the designs of the Emperor of Mankind through alchemical augmentation, somatic gene-sculpting and muscle-grafting techniques. Their purpose - the help unite the birthworld of Humanity beneath the sole rule of the Emperor during the Unification Wars on Terra in the late 29th and 30th Millenniums.

The Thunder Warriors were the first gene-enhanced warriors created by the Emperor, though they were created from adult male specimens rather than adolescents. The Thunder Warriors' legions were commanded by genetically-identical Cataegis warriors of particular skill, intellect and mental stability, who each held the rank of "Primarch." Each legion was particularly focused on a particular tactical or strategic specialty similar to the later, more perfected pattern seen among the Legiones Astartes.

Wrought as living weapons, these proto-Astartes were physically, larger, stronger, more savage, more resilient and more potent in combat than the later Astartes, though they were not as long-lived and suffered from often dangerous mental instability and early metabolic collapse when their bodies began to reject their augmentations.

Imperial chronicles hold that the last of the legendary Thunder Warriors died heroically during the Battle of Mount Ararat - the final battle of the Wars of Unification in the latter years of the 30th Millennium when Terra was finally reuinified beneath the single rule of the Emperor and His newly forged government that would later become the Imperium of Man.

However, the truth of the matter is far different as the Thunder Warriors' ultimate fate was bound up in the terrible price that the Emperor proved willing to pay in order to secure a better future for Mankind.

Age of Strife
During the turbulent era known as the Age of Strife (or "Old Night"), the planets of the Sol System, including Terra, as well as other neaby star systems were effectively cut off from interstellar travel due to the massive Warp Storms that swept the galaxy as the Immaterium was roiled by the millennia-long gestation of the Chaos God Slaanesh and the turbulence that marked the decay of the Aeldari Empire before The Fall.

Unification Wars
Through the Emperor's genius of the genetic sciences, he wrought His Thunder Warriors to be faster, stronger and more powerful than any of the feral barbarian gene-sept warriors that claimed fealty over Humanity's birthrock, soldiers to drag their world back from the anarchy into which it had fallen. Those had been golden days, when the eagle and lightning banner had marched before unstoppable armies of Thunder Warriors. Battles had lasted weeks on end, with body counts in the millions and duels of titanic warlords that sundered mountains and split continents.

By the era of the Great Crusade, those victories were dismissed as lurid hyperbole, and historians had refused to believe that such clashes of arms could possibly have been fought. Why their worthless hides were not flogged for their dull-witted blindness was beyond rational, but for those who had lived and fought during these legendary conflicts, in their heart of hearts they knew that the dreary new age could not sustain such legends without scoffing at the sturm und drang of those heady, bloody days.

Battle of Mount Ararat
"Alas, for them, the warriors of caged thunder and with whom lightning smote, they have burned the brightest in glory, but burned brief."

- Remembrancer Dolvar

(Took plate in the Kingdom of Urartu)

(I & X Legion were involved, fought alongside the Legio Custodes.)

Legacy
"You should know better than to take what history says literally. Such tales as are told of us come from the mouth of the last man standing, and it would not do for the Emperor to have to share His victory with others. Where is the glory when you conquer a world with an unstoppable army at your back? To begin a legend, you must win that war singlehandedly, and there must be no one left alive to contradict your version of events."

- Attr. Arak Taranis, 'The Lightning Bearer'

Genetic Flaws
"Tell me of these 'Space Marines'. What are they like?" -"They are not our equal, but they are warriors fit to bear the eagle." "And so they should be," said Babu Dhakal. "They stand on our shoulders to achieve greatness. Without us, they would not exist."

- Conversation between surviving Thunder Warriors, Babu Dhakal (aka Arik Taranis) and Ghota Dhakal

"Our bodies were designed to win a world, not conquer a galaxy like yours."

- Arak Taranis to the Astartes of the Outcast Dead