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So, a while back i posted in this board about the abundance of the Alpha Legion tropes in the 40k Fluff. I mocked the idea the Omegon was one of the first leaders of the grey knights, mainly because had chalked it up to the wider attribution of all things unexplained to the convolution of Alpha legion.

However, I do think that, form a serious, non trope driven perspective that this could be plausible. here is my reasoning:

Note:Most, if not all of these assertions are ones that I have found on other theory threads here and in other sites, and almost all of this is conjecture, so please take this with the largest grains of salt

Consider the following evidence:

1. Alpha legion turned traitor despite being explicitly told by the cabal (read giant plot device with near omniscient foresight) that if they did, humanity would die but chaos would lose, but if the emperor won it would mean a slow decaying empire (the 40k we know and love). I think after this revelation the twins decided the best way to facilitate Horus’ failure was to undermine it from the inside. Knowing that they couldn’t trust anyone outside of each other (because that’s how they treated everything) they guided their legion to treason and Alpha legionnaires thought they were genuinely siding against the emperor, because Horus had been better to them than the Emperor had. They knew that If Chaos was the enemy, defeating the Heresy was just the middle game of a much larger chess match, and that the ultimate goal would be a lasting counter to the powers and forces of chaos. They also understood, because of the nature of chaos being told to them by the cabal, that there could be no actual victory, only a preservation of the status quo for humanity. And to this end they devise a twofold plan, as I befitting the Masters of the Hydra. The first prong is engineering the failure of the heresy in a very specific way that ensures the destruction and containment of chaos and traitor forces post heresy. The second is the creation iof a force that can battle the very essences of chaos (damoens) without fear of corruption.

2. The masters of the hydra are credited with being the architects of the Istvaan V massacre. Despite being a huge blow to the loyalist cause, this defeat was central to both cementing the traitors in to one faction, and exposing the heresy for everyone to see. It also affirmed their “loyalty”. I think it served another purpose. The decimation of the legions would force the emperor to make available the unadulterated genestock from the vaults on Terra, which they would need for their ultimate plan, the creation of a force able to combat chaos without being corrupted by it. The alpha legion infiltrated the loyalist raven guard at istivaan V and actually help Corax escape. This is to facilitate access to the genestock.

3. The alpha a legion steals this Genestock and never officially does anything with it. There isn’t a massive alpha legion force, or if there was, it wasn’t widely known as that was not their style. The numbers of the legion were never solidified, and their tactics never required a large number of marines, so much s the manipulation of forces. I think the Primarchs went on o use this unadulterated geneseed to create the original 1000 battle brothers on Titan when the 8 knights errant arrived. To continue to hide their deception, they deliver token samples to traitors, but they never bear fruit.

4. Malcador becomes aware of the plan after he begins to form the Knights Errant. At this point, there is a divergence for the twins. Omegon becomes Janus, and Alpharius continues to lead alpha legion as the traitor because the appearances need to be kept up. (Imagine this scene, The brothers and Malcador meet on some desolate world. The meeting is lit only by the lights of the small transport craft, and Malcador’s flaming staff. Omegon gives his brother his hydra helm, and dons the unadorned armor, the brothers silently embrace knowing they will never see each other again. Janus and Malcador board the shuttle and Alpharius retreats, sacrificing the closes bond they have ever had to save humanity.) Alpharius continues to be a traitor because in order for the plan to work, Horus must make it to terra and bring all the traitor forces with him. This is because if Horus were to be taken out, or if the traitor alliance were to unravel before that, the traitors would be scattered to the corners of the galalxy and a new warmaster would take up the mantle. (After the heresy the vast majority of traitor forces flee to the eye of terror as it is close-ish to the sol system). If the double agent status of Alpherius were discovered there would be no controls in place to manipulate the traitor forces. I think this explains why most alpha legion post heresy acted more like independent warlords than chaos devotees, and why most alpha legion forces post heresy didn’t retreat ot the eye of terror. Alpharius knows he can never return to the imperial fold and accepts that as the final price for the plan to subvert chaos.

The second part of the plan concerning the formation of the Grey knights is to prepare for post heresy Imperium. All along Malcador had been setting up the institutions of the Imperium, the administorum, the assassin clades and the other branches. The Emperor knew that any victory over the traitors would be pyrrhic at best and the Imperium would need these structures to survive. But they would also need a way for mankind to deal with the threat of daemons and the absolute corruption power they posses. By the point that the mission of the Knights errant is nearing completion, Horus is already en route to the Sol system, so an organized plan or research into the nature of the warp that could be applied whole sale wasn’t possible. The creation of the Grey knights was the only answer available. The battle brothers that have been in production In the last few years since istivaan using the primal geneseed are taken to titan ahead of the Knights Errant. Malcador seals the planet in the Warp before Horus enters the Sol system. The plan gives the Imperium an effective anti chaos weapon, and even to some degree mitigates the fall of the emperor, as far as effective methods to deal with chaos goes.
These events had to happen perfectly to occur, and the strongest argument would be that the plan is so unfeasible that it wouldn’t even be considerable. But I think in the face of the destruction of the Imperium by the heresy, they were willing to try anything, and this plan was the best to both combat the current threat and deal with the future.

Again this is just a theory and is largely comprised things I have read and picked up. As it is my own personal head cannon, I am just suggesting that it is a plausible series of events. I’m sure this will be eviscerated. Please feel free to disagree, but I would like comments and thought on the plausibility of it. Also alternate theories are welcome.

They exist because the Emperor ordered that they would exist, and did some time-dilation stuff to create geneseed for them directly from his own genetic material. This is a relatively new revelation regarding them as, previously, the source of their geneseed was a mystery. However, it is now known that they are, basically, Primarch 3.0, and it is the Emperor's genetic legacy that makes them 100% immune to Chaos.

This is also new to the GK as, previously, it was stated that none of them had ever willingly fallen to Chaos, but that had an unspoken "yet" implied to that status... now, we have them as not only unwilling to do so, but actually completely incapable of doing so.

 Psienesis wrote:
This is also new to the GK as, previously, it was stated that none of them had ever willingly fallen to Chaos, but that had an unspoken "yet" implied to that status... now, we have them as not only unwilling to do so, but actually completely incapable of doing so.

That's not quite true.
For example we have the Sanctum Sanctorum, where the Grey Knights keep their daemonic lore, and where the Senior Librarians keep knowledge that they believe has the potential to corrupt even some of the Grey Knights.
Then there's the Black Blade of Antwyr, which Crowe alone can bear. He must live his life in near solitude, because even amongst the Grey Knights, he is the only one who can stand its presence for long.
And then there's Brother Brutus (subtle isn't it?), who the Changling implanted with a seed of doubt.

Not to mention Alaric...

The GKs origin, which was always heavily hinted as being the Emperor directly, is now totally confirmed by the newest codex.

What is also clear is that the GK geneseed was probably intended for something else. The GKs might have been a force intended to help clear the webway and/or directly fight chaos manifestations in secret, or maybe even replace space marines in general. We aren't sure. But it was repurposed to the current purpose the GKs hold.

GKs are not necessarily incorruptible, but for 10,000 years there hasn't been one that has fallen yet which is pretty strong evidence they are. Do note that incorruptible =/= immune to chaos in all forms. They can still be killed, infected by nurgle's plagues, forcibly possessed(but that would be akin to a human willingly entering a room thats a nice toasty 1000 degrees centigrade), or any other number of horrible things. So they might as well be incorruptible, which means they would never ever willingly give themselves to chaos.

The point I'm trying to make is that it has been hinted at that omegon is Janus and that if that possibility is elaborated on that the alpha legion may have had a hand in thier creation... which would be the ultimate double agent action. Working alongside chaos in order to assist on its destruction and the creation of a force explicitly designed to fight it.

Well, the Omegus=Janus thing is total bull. Its way overactive imaginations.

If anything, Janus is Garro.

The only real clue at present to Janus' origin is in Mortarian's heart where he refers to Janus as a treasonous brother, the identity of whom would shake them to their core. Brother could refer to a fellow primarch, I.e. Omegon, or a brother death guard, I.e. Garro. Either are plausible at present.

Animus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
This is also new to the GK as, previously, it was stated that none of them had ever willingly fallen to Chaos, but that had an unspoken "yet" implied to that status... now, we have them as not only unwilling to do so, but actually completely incapable of doing so.

That's not quite true.
For example we have the Sanctum Sanctorum, where the Grey Knights keep their daemonic lore, and where the Senior Librarians keep knowledge that they believe has the potential to corrupt even some of the Grey Knights.
Then there's the Black Blade of Antwyr, which Crowe alone can bear. He must live his life in near solitude, because even amongst the Grey Knights, he is the only one who can stand its presence for long.
And then there's Brother Brutus (subtle isn't it?), who the Changling implanted with a seed of doubt.

The old fluff was quite explicit that Grey Knights were incorruptable. A lot of people don't realize how little Matt Ward had to do with the Grey Knight fluff being so uber and pure and more pure. The new codex mostly expands the measure they take to prevent corruption to include "just in case, we'll avoid spreading this chaos-y thing around even us Grey Knights, to be on the safe side".

I always thought they always were the genos taken directly from Empy himself. I actually put more stock into that the Ultramarines and their descendants are all secretly Alphas than they doing this. But even me consider this just a rumor at best.

2. The masters of the hydra are credited with being the architects of the Istvaan V massacre

I've seen this said before, but never where the claim has come from. Horus is perfectly capable of coming up with battle plans himself; he wasn't made Warmaster purely for political skill.

3. The alpha a legion steals this Genestock and never officially does anything with it. There isn’t a massive alpha legion force, or if there was, it wasn’t widely known as that was not their style. The numbers of the legion were never solidified, and their tactics never required a large number of marines, so much s the manipulation of forces.

Not true. Post Deliverance Lost, there have been several mentions in books such as Scars and Tempest about the Alpha Legion suddenly being flush with manpower, all worded along the lines of "no-one was ever sure how many there were, but holy crap there's a lot of you all of a sudden."

Malcador is definitely involved in creating the Grey Knights (see Shield of Lies) and the advanced geneseed from the Primarch Project that the Alpha Legion stole seems a likely plot device to do it with. Omegon as Janus as Grand Master is not impossible.

That said, I don't necessarily think it's co-operation; there's a very real possibility that the different parts of the Alpha Legion aren't working towards the same goal - the two fleets engaging the White Scars and the Space Wolves have very different effects, and when Omegon destroys the astropathic jammer in The Serpent Beneath , his team is attacking an alpha legion facility that only the alpha legion knows exists - if he and Alpharius were both on the same page, that mission wouldn't have been necessary.

Am I mistaken? The "Garro" audio drama series clearly lays out the origins of the Grey Knights.

If you haven't read(listened) to the audio drama series ensure you devour them in order. Be warned they get pricey. It would be awesome if Black Library combined all of the "Garro" series into a novel.

If you don't have the full background on Garro I'd suggest first reading "Flight of the Eisenstein". You may want to delve even further back for the full story if you're not read up on the origins of the HH. I believe "Galaxy in Flames" is where Garro starts playing a larger role in the storyline. At this point if you're a purist you may as well start with "Horus Rising" and go from there. You can skip Prospero Burns, Descent of Angels, The First Heretic, and A Thousand Sons if you want to stick with Horus and the lead up to Garro's entrance if you're only interested in Garro and the lead up to the origins of the Grey Knights.

Be forewarned First Heretic overlaps with the storyline as far as the lead up to Istvaan V near the end of the novel. Though it's kind of hard to not have full knowledge of the events on Istvaan III and Istvaan V and fully understand what's going on in the Garro series. The events surrounding Calth also come into play in the Garro series.... So if you're not read up to what happened at Calth, well that's a lot of reading if you want to strictly follow all of the events of the HH without spoiling the storyline. If you are read up to all of the main HH events post Calth then you're good to go for all of the Garro series.

I find the concept of Omegone being Janus very interesting. Doesn't it suck that we have to wait for the Black Library writer's to pen the canon for us....until then all is speculation.

 JamesY wrote:
The only real clue at present to Janus' origin is in Mortarian's heart where he refers to Janus as a treasonous brother, the identity of whom would shake them to their core. Brother could refer to a fellow primarch, I.e. Omegon, or a brother death guard, I.e. Garro. Either are plausible at present.

I don;t think Janus being Garro would shake the Imperium to the core, and as for Omegon I just don't see it. Alpharius seem the most loyal out of the two is it is any of them, but what of Loken. An ex-mornvil, trusted and listened to by Horus (as far as anyone not in the know are concerned) and a son of horus to boot. even an ex-son of Horus would be shocking to have in such a secret and vital role.

 Themanwiththeplan wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
The only real clue at present to Janus' origin is in Mortarian's heart where he refers to Janus as a treasonous brother, the identity of whom would shake them to their core. Brother could refer to a fellow primarch, I.e. Omegon, or a brother death guard, I.e. Garro. Either are plausible at present.

I don;t think Janus being Garro would shake the Imperium to the core, and as for Omegon I just don't see it. Alpharius seem the most loyal out of the two is it is any of them, but what of Loken. An ex-mornvil, trusted and listened to by Horus (as far as anyone not in the know are concerned) and a son of horus to boot. even an ex-son of Horus would be shocking to have in such a secret and vital role.

I think Omegon is the more loyal, especially given the events of the Serpent Beneath.

Also, "Shake the Imperium to the core" is retaliative, as the Grey knights are not known to the overwhelming majority of the galaxy, so their existence, let alone their lore is going to be known by no one but the top level officials, And if it came out that some one unexpected was part of their founding, it would just be covered up. So i don't think that statement is a good yardstick.

 GKTiberius wrote:

 Themanwiththeplan wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
The only real clue at present to Janus' origin is in Mortarian's heart where he refers to Janus as a treasonous brother, the identity of whom would shake them to their core. Brother could refer to a fellow primarch, I.e. Omegon, or a brother death guard, I.e. Garro. Either are plausible at present.

I don;t think Janus being Garro would shake the Imperium to the core, and as for Omegon I just don't see it. Alpharius seem the most loyal out of the two is it is any of them, but what of Loken. An ex-mornvil, trusted and listened to by Horus (as far as anyone not in the know are concerned) and a son of horus to boot. even an ex-son of Horus would be shocking to have in such a secret and vital role.

I think Omegon is the more loyal, especially given the events of the Serpent Beneath.

Also, "Shake the Imperium to the core" is retaliative, as the Grey knights are not known to the overwhelming majority of the galaxy, so their existence, let alone their lore is going to be known by no one but the top level officials, And if it came out that some one unexpected was part of their founding, it would just be covered up. So i don't think that statement is a good yardstick.

Then you have the Roman god Janus, the two-faced god. Who was the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Symbolism is heavy, but I'm definitely not sure.

That is really interesting (@chazsexington)---I like that possibility!!!

To become a Gray Knight you must become a part of the Alpha Legion, to witness Chaos from its own perch and turn against it of your own volition. Only then are you deemed pure enough.

not really lololol

I am enjoying the grey knight speculation. I find the information that has come out so far--with Garro, Loken and the work of Malcador to be really interesting. I hope we learn more soon. It would be really interesting if one of the Primarch's from the Alpha Legion was in fact Janus.

Here's D4 Chan/TG's synopsis.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Omegon

At the bottom you see the Janus thing mentioned.

That is an interesting possibility. Makes sense...it is almost to detailed not to be coincidence.

 GKTiberius wrote:

 Themanwiththeplan wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
The only real clue at present to Janus' origin is in Mortarian's heart where he refers to Janus as a treasonous brother, the identity of whom would shake them to their core. Brother could refer to a fellow primarch, I.e. Omegon, or a brother death guard, I.e. Garro. Either are plausible at present.

I don;t think Janus being Garro would shake the Imperium to the core, and as for Omegon I just don't see it. Alpharius seem the most loyal out of the two is it is any of them, but what of Loken. An ex-mornvil, trusted and listened to by Horus (as far as anyone not in the know are concerned) and a son of horus to boot. even an ex-son of Horus would be shocking to have in such a secret and vital role.

I think Omegon is the more loyal, especially given the events of the Serpent Beneath.

Also, "Shake the Imperium to the core" is retaliative, as the Grey knights are not known to the overwhelming majority of the galaxy, so their existence, let alone their lore is going to be known by no one but the top level officials, And if it came out that some one unexpected was part of their founding, it would just be covered up. So i don't think that statement is a good yardstick.

I didn't say shake the imperium to the core, mortarian says that knowing janus' origins would shake the grey knights to the core. We don't know anything yet really, alpha/omegon, either are possible. And we also don't know yet of who Garro has recruited becomes grey knights and who becomes inquisition, aside from Zahariel.

I don't think the time-line matches up close enough for either of the Alpha Legion Primarchs to be involved.

In the last Horus Heresy book (cannot think of the title at the moment and am not at the house to look it up) that dealt with the Alpha Legion, the Primarch's (Alpharius and Omegon) and their Legion--aside from being rather good at espionage--do seem to be up to something underhanded. Omegon especially. I have to agree with GKTiberius on that account. It could have something to do with the Grey Knights and then again--nothing at all.

"Something underhanded" could be "the Alpha Legion orders lunch". "Underhanded" is how they function. Alpharius and Omegon could be my closest personal friends and I still wouldn't buy an apple from either one of them.

@Psienesis--my point exactly.

This maybe a stupid question--but do the Adeptus Custodes have the Emperor's gene seed?

 lordseamus wrote:
This maybe a stupid question--but do the Adeptus Custodes have the Emperor's gene seed?

Yes they do. Can't wait for that range to be released.

That's what I thought---so...why didn't some of them become Grey Knights?

They are different, they don't share the same geneseed, even though they were made from the same source. The grey knights are supposed to be the best of the best, and custodians a step up again. The Gk take the fight to the daemons, whilst the custodians defend the emperor and sometimes oversee things for the council of terra. As the hh novels continue, it might transpire that custodians had some involvement in the Gk, we'll have to see.