 It is the burden of some to be forgotten. The march of history is both long and merciless, making colossae of those who do not deserve it and footnotes of others equally spurned. Cast into the pits of the past. There exist in the hazy memory of our race heroes who sacrifice and actions, despite in some cases being of supreme consequence are lost to the collective historical conscience. Often this is due to the historical fascination with one aspect or other of the event they were part in, yet not remembered for, such is, as far as one can discern, the case with the subjects of this chronicle. Not often is it that one can be party to events of absolutely seismic importance, especially those around which the fulcrum of human history revolves. Yet despite this, there is room for great heroism and mighty deeds. You simply have to throw yourself at the mercy of history and hope that some dusty historical in some far off time possesses the eye for your tale. Know then, that this is a record of the God engines of the Prosperine, the Iron Vigil. The Ligio Zestobiax. Exact details pertaining to the founding of the Ligio Zestobiax are functionally lost to us, saved from what we can infer from the records of the lost Forge fame of Chow Arcad. The tale of this particular planet, which shall be detailed in full in a later record, points to an origin in the distant dark age of technology, although even the exact millennium of the Forge's founding is debated amongst both historians and the adepts of the Adeptus Mechanicus. As was common amongst expeditions from Red Mars at the time, the expedition arc was accompanied by Titan-class war engines. And given the age of those Zestobiax engines extant at the reunification of Chow Arcad and the Imperium, it can be surmised that the Ligio was formally founded after initial colonisation occurred. The only Titan to survive since the Ligio's inception is the warlord-class Munus Aeternum, which lays at rest under the personal fain of Chow Arcad's supreme domini. While its origins are lost, the Ligio's early history remains scrupulously documented, owing to a tradition of record keeping founded by the moderati of the Ligio. From its inception, Zestobiax was a purely defensive force. Chow Arcad lies in an isolated and desolate region of wild space far from Terra, and, as the age of strife caught human worlds off from each other, the Forge was pitted against all the horrors its stellar volume could throw at it. By the nature of the main Forge's surface, material could not be exposed to its atmosphere for long, before undergoing incredibly debilitating corrosion, meaning the Ligio's primary garrison was based on one of the planet's many moons, Chow Arcad 3, with more engines sub-garrisoned on the various worlds in the system that served as the Forge's resource collection colonies. At first foreseen to be a temporary solution in trying times where military assets were few, this situation became permanent, as the horrific warp tempests plaguing the galaxy showed no signs of abating. The Iron Vigil, as the Ligio became colloquially known, would name those individual subdivisions as unique vigils in their own right, with battle records matching the honors won therein, as belonging to the Vigil in question rather than the Ligio as a whole. For example, the 14th Battle of Istiam, the Forge colony of the main planet, is accorded as a high honor for the Istiam Vigil, where a force totalling no more than two manapals held off the predations of a half-dozen Eildari nomadic fleets in a massively destructive siege. Customarily, the Ligio is under the rule of the Grand Marshal, although functionally, this role holds little actual power beyond the ceremonial, as there is little but ceremonial duties for the Marshal to actually do. The nature of the individual vigils mean that they could operate effectively independently for centuries at a time, with little contact between what counted as the main body of the Ligio. This led to the development of idiosyncrasies and customs unique to each vigil, while on a practical level also invested a high degree of authority into the commanding role of Princeps Warden of each vigil. Whereas, in other military forces, this could lead to internal strife and discord, with personalities within such a powerful force as the Titan Ligio seemingly inevitably coming into conflict, the isolated nature of the Shao Arkad system forced the vigils, not that much forcing was necessary, into a brotherhood whose cooperation was necessary for their survival against those that assaulted their homeworld from without. While some disagreements would be simply inevitable during gatherings of Princeps Wardens, the nature of the mission of the Iron Vigil as a whole made such gatherings rare during the Age of Strife. Even after rediscovery, the tradition of individual initiative within the Ligio Zestobiacs saw them fighting in the Great Crusade in far smaller, mannipal subdivisions than any Ligio, save perhaps the Ligio Fiorians, while the main body of the Ligio remained in Shao Arkad nearspace to protect the still isolated forge world. This was further impacted by Shao Arkad's lack of shipbuilding, limiting the Ligio's transportation capacity to no more than a dozen engines at any one time. Thus the vigils maintained their duties, much in the same way they had for millennia, barely changed at all by reunification with greater humanity, that is, except for the establishment of the Prospero Vigil. The relationship with Prospero and the 15th Legion Thousand Sons was the closest Shao Arkad had with any other planet or indeed human organization in general. Their long isolation had made them wary of outsiders, even those of the Mechanicum itself, and their physical isolation in wildspace led them being marked tacitly as a backwater in the minds of Red Mars. That being said, a liberation at the hands of the Thousand Sons, as well as the cultural affinity for knowledge, study, experimentation and research they shared with the Legion, led to the founding of a sub-forge on the Legion's Homeworld of Prospero, in order that the new Arkadian Mechanicum could continue to supply their liberators with arms and ammunition and avail themselves of the studies made possible at the libraries of Tizca. Befitting a Legion Homeworld, and in thanks for the resources the 15th Legion made available to them, the Ligio Zestobiaks station 12 of their newest forged engines in this sub-forge. With many of the latter years of the 30th millennium, spent both consecrating this new vigil and integrating it with the defenses of both the Legion itself and the Imperial Army's Prospero-inspired Guard. By the time of the burning of Prospero, the Divisio Militaris recorded the Ligio Zestobiaks as a tertious-grade Titan Legion, in possession of less than 100 engines and none of these above Warlord-class. The additional isolation in the Chao Arkad volume and the essential lack of presence in the Crusade further enhanced their status as a footnote amongst the Caligia Titanica, but one that held to its duties with an admirably resolute dedication. Their almost exclusively defensive role led the Ligio to shun Warhound Titans, in favor of constituting the vast majority of its strength from Warlord and Reaver classes, seeing smaller scout Titans as of little worth tactically and a waste of the limited resources they had which were better spent on the creation of heavier marks. The Ligio almost uniquely would be served by their parents' forges acceptance of oft-prescribed technologies, including Saikana shunned by the wider Mechanicom. Chao Arkad's physical and metaphorical isolation from the Mechanicom and their close association with the Thousand Suns led to the Forge's experimentation on the engines themselves, both before and after rediscovery, such that by the outbreak of the Heresy, the Titans of the Ligio Zestobiaks were outfitted with psycho-reactive cores and mind-impulse units designed to channel both the machine spirit of the engine itself and the embedded memories of its former crews so that the princeps and moderati of the living could learn and utilize the battle experience of the dead. This meant that, despite their small numbers, the engines of Zestobiaks would often perform with the level of tactical skill and coordination far above Ligios of their equivalent experience, achieving strategic results that bellied their status as a tertiary grade Ligio. There is no better example of this than the chapter of their history marked as either their blackest or most noble, depending on one's point of view. The Prospero vigil found itself right in the middle of the burning of that planet, as the censure host of the sixth legion space wolves, the Ligio Costodes and the Silent Sisterhood, fell upon the Thousand Suns to bring them to account for the crimes of their Primarch Magnus the Red. While a full account of this momentous event is currently being compiled, the role the Ligio Zestobiaks were to play was small yet incredibly significant in its own way. The Chao Arkad sub-forge, deemed traitorous by association with the 15th Legion, came under attack during the battle by the Titans of the Ligio Mortis, supported by Knights of House Malonex. As any student of history well-known, both Mortis and Malonex were later to declare for the warmaster Horace Luperkel. But at this point in history both wore the false masks of loyalty to the Emperor and the Imperium. The Mortis' execution-manipals were led by senior-princepts Maldris Drain and composed of veterans of Horace's own sixty-third expeditionary fleet. Additionally, the Ligio itself was one of the original three Titan legions founded upon Mars, with a victory tally longer than perhaps any other Ligio in the Imperium. Despite this, and despite expecting, with perhaps decent merit, an easy victory, the Death's heads were virtually annihilated by the numerically and experientially inferior Zestobiac's vigil. Princepts Drain had vastly underestimated their operational capabilities to his own end, with his warlord Titan being decapitated by sustained pinpoint fire from Zestobiac's reaver, sleepless watcher. The defeat of the Ligio Mortis and House Malonex was only spared from being a total and utter route by the commander of the Ligio Custodes, Constantine Valdor, who, upon seeing the devastation wrought upon his own Allied Titans, unleashed the terrifying might of the Emperor's own Titan Legion, the Ordo Sinister. These Psi Titans made short work of the Prospero Vigil, annihilating Zestobiacs from the surface of the world and, in many ways, the pages of history. Speculation on what carried the day, albeit briefly, for the Ligio Zestobiacs is the subject of some debate amongst those few of us concerned with their existence. Certainly, their Black Iron Psycana technology granted them some measure of advantage, but as is ever the case, simply having tactical knowledge is useless. One must have both the capability and the will to wield it. One is inclined, however much it may shock one's superiors, to honour the fallen of the Ligio. They fought against the wretched serpents of the Warmaster's ilk, cloaked in deception, though they were, and turned not their guns upon the true servants of the Emperor of mankind. That being said, their existence and resistance still earned them a harsh rebuke, as did both their association with their parent forge and their use of herotechnical technology. The rebuke, however, did not fall, as the fires of the Horus heresy rapidly engulfed the galaxy and Mars' attentions were elsewhere occupied. The majority of the Ligio Zestobiacs numbering at that point upwards of 50 engines, did as their masters did for the remainder of the heresy, maintaining their isolation and aiding no side, traitor or loyalist, officially. With Chao Arkad humbled during the great scouring in the heresy's aftermath, the Ligio Zestobiacs remains officially pardoned, yet unwilling to fight abroad across the galaxy. The Iron Vigil instead maintains its watch over wild space and all those who would threaten its forge, a backwater footnote in history of the Titan legions, but nevertheless an almost peerlessly honorable one. Until next time, Ave Imperator Gloria in Excelsis Terra If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com forward slash oculus imperia, and if you're looking to keep in touch with the channel, get regular updates, you can follow me on twitter, at buttstuffkaiju, or check us out on discord, a link will be in the description and on the channel page.