I have written eighteen of these chronicles from memory and record. This one I write against them — because with the Twentieth, the record is the enemy.
The Primarch With Many Heads
Alpharius alone never publicly identified his homeworld. No definitive portrait of him exists; those that survive contradict one another, as if the man had many heads. His legionaries compounded the joke — eerily alike, all of them, and every one prepared to look you in the eye and say I am Alpharius. Some whisper the primarch was not even singular. I do not dignify whispers. Usually.
The Lie of the First Found
Now the secret, which I set down because an archive that keeps only comfortable truths is a propaganda mill. The records say Horus was the first son recovered, on Cthonia, three years into the Crusade. All the records say so — and all the records lie. Ask yourself, as one of the Twentieth once asked: would a father who had lost his greatest creations to the wiles of his enemies truly celebrate the first recovery so loudly? Or would he hide that son — the only one he was ever destined to simply find — where no power of the warp would think to look? Alpharius was found first. Kept secret, kept close, kept on Terra. The triumph at Cthonia was, among other things, camouflage.
The Twentieth Legion
His Alpha Legion crusaded the way he existed: obliquely. Misdirection, infiltration, victories that looked like accidents befalling the enemy. In scaled blue-green plate under the hydra, they were the Crusade’s whispered question mark — and precisely as loyal as they appeared, which is a sentence you may parse at your leisure.
Everything in this chronicle is true. That is exactly what one of his sons would write. I know. Hydra Dominatus, and good night.
Questions from the Archive
Where was Alpharius found?
Officially, his homeworld was never named — but the deeper record holds that Alpharius was recovered on Terra itself, the first primarch found, and kept entirely secret to protect him.
Was Horus really the first primarch found?
The official records say so — and the records lie. The celebrated recovery of Horus on Cthonia served, among other things, as camouflage for the son already found and hidden.
What legion did Alpharius command?
The Twentieth Legion, the Alpha Legion — masters of infiltration, misdirection and secrecy, whose legionaries all claim, to this day: ‘I am Alpharius.’