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Fishing around for ideas for a space marine chapter, homebrew or cannon and I got to reading a bit on renegades and their ilk. While I've read mention of space marines turning renegade and becoming mercenaries or brigands, every actual example I come across is either "rugged anti hero fighting chaos and imperium alike" or "brief stop as a renegade on their way to becoming proper chaos bad guys"

Are there any examples of pirate companies / chapters going pirate for the simple, clean love of piracy and profit? Does an honest days work of wenching and pillaging have to end in becoming a gibbering plaything of the chaos gods?

Expanding on that question, are there canonical examples of non-chaos, non-xenos pirates of any scale or organization?

If I remember correctly, some piece of fluff states that as soon as a Space Marine frees himself of the creed to protect humanity, he inevitably falls to chaos because of their "godlike" nature when compared to normal humans.

Not in several rules editions.

Back in RT, there were Human pirate scum army lists as well as ork and eldar pirates.

The only marine "pirates" were things like the astral claws.

In the eyes of the high lords. if you aren't for them you are ag'in 'em. If you are against them, you are the enemy.

Its a them or us dichotomy. There is no middle ground. There can be no middle ground in a universe where there is only war.

Otherwise it would be a universe where it's mostly war and as a game catchphrase, that's about as good as "the almost invincible".

From what i believe from reading, the doctrines that the space marines practice and the loyalty to the imperium and the emperor, keeps them resisting the temptation of chaos and the power that they can get from the gods. I just cant see with their oaths broken and ties cut off from the imperium that they could resist chaos. I mean piracy is still a huge crime, it would require killing imperial servants and possibly fellow marines, and basically fething up the imperium

"Its a them or us dichotomy. There is no middle ground. There can be no middle ground in a universe where there is only war."

I wasn't trying to play "we have left the imperium but we are recognized as a neutral party."

"I mean piracy is still a huge crime, it would require killing imperial servants and possibly fellow marines, and basically fething up the imperium"

Again, totally fine with "we are looting and pillaging and maybe scum." It's the weird notion that there appears to be little to no examples of secular, good, old-fashioned piracy for love of pillage, plunder, and calling no man king that I find bizarre. There's a difference between the otherwise reasonable man who makes the decision to kidnap you for ransome and the unsettling guy who kidnaps you to be sacrificed on a blood altar to ruinous powers.

They probably exist. I thought the Red Corsairs were like that. But if you have a Marine warband of sufficient strength to do major piratical actions, would it not be a natural progression for them to either go fully mental and turn to chaos, or try to found an empire somewhere?

 Flinty wrote:
They probably exist. I thought the Red Corsairs were like that. But if you have a Marine warband of sufficient strength to do major piratical actions, would it not be a natural progression for them to either go fully mental and turn to chaos, or try to found an empire somewhere?

I know rogue traders are frequently described to be as much pirate as merchant. Old versions of the fluff seem to support the notion of pirates and mercenaries in the vein as hive gangers and similar scum.


So that's the question. Is it that how every story goes? You either bask in the Emperor's warm and cuddly light or inevitably fall into gibbering madness? Is it just in the nature of the genre that any criminal who pursues crime long enough would eventually make some poor decision and find themselves in a fell pact with the whispering dark?

Is there something inherent to the setting that essentially lays out that you either have pious faith in the Emperor and IoM, or left without it you get targeted by and picked off by Chaos? Or is secular evil (or at the very least, extroardinarily flexible morality) possible in this setting without just being a stepping stone for the big four?

More complex still - if we assume that the former is true, is it possible for one to maintain one's faith while still operating outside of the law of the Imperium? Think in the nature of the devoutly catholic culture of Italian and Irish organized crime. They manage to get past it even with that "thou shalt not kill" thing going on, which the Imperial Faith clearly has no problem with.

Or do we assume that even the lowliest human hive ganger will eventually fall to chaos if he doesn't mend his violent ways (or, failing that, have that violence put to use by an Inquisitor)?

There's plenty of piracy...Just not by Astartes. Accumulating more money and riches isn't generally a big thing for them, except for maybe wargear for chapters that have strained relationships with the mechanicus. For those that do value "treasure" type things, they are typically artisans who pride themselves on creating those "treasures".

Pirating just isn't the Astartes way generally.

Flinty wrote:They probably exist. I thought the Red Corsairs were like that. But if you have a Marine warband of sufficient strength to do major piratical actions, would it not be a natural progression for them to either go fully mental and turn to chaos, or try to found an empire somewhere?

This. It's less of a matter of "any criminal pursueing crime long enough" turning to Chaos, it's a matter of surviving pressure. Space Marines are not a bunch of smalltime criminals who may actually get ignored by the authorities because local enforcers are incapable of stamping out crime in the hive. Renegade Space Marines are considered an affront to the Imperium itself, and armed response will be directed against their Chapter holdings. When your ships get pursued by the Imperial Navy, Sororitas Purge Squads deepstrike your headquarters, and the Imperial Guard wages a campaign of genocide upon your homeworld's population, then you're left with few other options than to run. And running means getting cut off from supplies that used to be tithed from the world your Chapter was granted as a fief. Over time, this in turn invariably results in shortages of equipment, ammunition, consumables, spare parts and recruits, so this Chapter of Renegades will turn to raiding Imperial worlds for supplies, reaffirming their perception as a threat to security. The destruction of their homeworld will likely also generate some pretty negative feelings amongst the Marines, as will continued clashes with Imperial forces that scale up their efforts to hunt down the rogue Astartes in response to the increasing number of raids.

And then, some day, those dark whispers suddenly don't seem all that bad anymore. Why not give in and accept this gift you can use against the Imperium you've grown to hate? You've got no other friends than whatever Chaos daemon started to visit your dreams.

Note that "natural progression" still means that there can (and probably will) be a stage where a bunch of renegade Marines find themselves between the definition of Loyalist and Chaos, though.

For further information, perhaps this backup of the Index Astartes article on Renegade Space Marines from White Dwarf #303 might prove inspiring.

 Lynata wrote:

Flinty wrote:They probably exist. I thought the Red Corsairs were like that. But if you have a Marine warband of sufficient strength to do major piratical actions, would it not be a natural progression for them to either go fully mental and turn to chaos, or try to found an empire somewhere?

This. It's less of a matter of "any criminal pursueing crime long enough" turning to Chaos, it's a matter of surviving pressure. Space Marines are not a bunch of smalltime criminals who may actually get ignored by the authorities because local enforcers are incapable of stamping out crime in the hive. Renegade Space Marines are considered an affront to the Imperium itself, and armed response will be directed against their Chapter holdings. When your ships get pursued by the Imperial Navy, Sororitas Purge Squads deepstrike your headquarters, and the Imperial Guard wages a campaign of genocide upon your homeworld's population, then you're left with few other options than to run. And running means getting cut off from supplies that used to be tithed from the world your Chapter was granted as a fief. Over time, this in turn invariably results in shortages of equipment, ammunition, consumables, spare parts and recruits, so this Chapter of Renegades will turn to raiding Imperial worlds for supplies, reaffirming their perception as a threat to security. The destruction of their homeworld will likely also generate some pretty negative feelings amongst the Marines, as will continued clashes with Imperial forces that scale up their efforts to hunt down the rogue Astartes in response to the increasing number of raids.

And then, some day, those dark whispers suddenly don't seem all that bad anymore. Why not give in and accept this gift you can use against the Imperium you've grown to hate? You've got no other friends than whatever Chaos daemon started to visit your dreams.

Note that "natural progression" still means that there can (and probably will) be a stage where a bunch of renegade Marines find themselves between the definition of Loyalist and Chaos, though.

For further information, perhaps this backup of the Index Astartes article on Renegade Space Marines from White Dwarf #303 might prove inspiring.

Very good article. Thanks for the find! Now I'm mulling over the idea of running them with the CSM dex instead.

And also:

http://usakei.deviantart.com/art/Space-Marine-Pirate-124402211

Clearly, I need to find a 28mm scale parrot.

Marines Malevolent - have a read of the Bitter Salvage short story.