Before I go into my “In-Fiction” rant I will put a simple out. The Ultramarine taking an action with the intent to kill his fellow battle-brother, even one who lets his hate guide his every motion without reason, could just be chalked up to the fact that there is the 'crazy aura' going on in the glade, tagged along with the tainted Vespid mineral crystals. (Swamp gas catching the light of Venus) Its an easy out, no one loose their character, though some heavy insanity points are laid out on the ultramarine who will be quarantined and 'treated' for this tainted mind of xeno's sorcery. (Which in the real world is you telling him why it was wrong for him to attack a fellow battle brother with a missile, and the proper use of fellowship and orders... I assume the Ultramarine was the squad leader.)

Now, the long winded answer.

The Black Templar was in the right to do as he did, as would any member of his chapter, unless given 'specific orders' to stay his hand. Though, after all thise he may pray for the addled and alien tainted mind of his brothers who's wills were not as pure as he to hold temporary madness in defending the plague spawn of the foul xeno's.

If he had been off the leash in making his choice to burn the alien larva, and the other space marines wished to stay his hand, all they simply needed was to intervene with words and simple physical imposition. (Example: “Hold.” The space wolf stepped forward to press down his brothers readied arm to stay its killing flame. “What honour is there brother in killing mere whelps, surely you hold yourself higher they such glory-less slaughter.” The Ultramarine came behind in support of his brother wolf. “Aye, Astarties do not stain their hands with such blood. That barbarous work is left for the broken shells of mortal men and the cold guns of the navy.”)

This might not have convinced the Black Templar to stay his hand, but it would open a nice moment for roleplay, and if needed, an opposed command/intimidation roll to see who backs down. It should have never come to blows and that's what all the players need to remember.

Though what's done is done and its up to the players what happens next.

If the game ended there and the next game is the conclusion, it would be up to the squad leader, or if he was involved, the next in the chain of command who is impartial, to solve this issue. Unless their watch captain already knows what happened they can solve this internally, blaming the madness or whatever else that can be made up to justify not simply reporting this back up the chain of command where the heavy hammer can fall. Resolving his within the kill-team should have them loose all their cohesion, save the MOS on the mediators fellowship roll. Insanity and ingame rivalry should also be present, and also become a roleplaying plot for a shameful secret the team carries with them.

If its to late for that, or one of the Kill-team acts on his own to tell of what has transpired there will be a full investigation into the ultramarine, the space wolf, the Black Templar, and the kill team as a whole to see where the weakness lays and all will be punished, though not equally. The squad leader would be punished with some kind of penance for allowing such a break down of discipline to transpire, brothers that stood by while this happen would also serve penance for their lack of initiative to intervene in disaster.

The whole point is if this gets past the Kill-team heads will roll. Anything that comes from up on high will come down with great force and weight and will be done swift and without mercy or fanfare. The Deathwatch will keep the inquisition out of the loop and handle the matter itself to avoid shame and scandal, but if the holy ordos is apart of the loop it will be drawn out and the tools of confession will be sharpened and all in the Kill-team will pay for the incident, no matter how innocent they appear. “Innocence proves nothing” and they all failed.

Then comes the meat of the issue, the main three offenders. Apply three penalties if the incident goes public. Permanent loss of Cohesion while working together unless they can find forgiveness with each other. A loss in Renown due to their actions that transpired to such a sad end. As well as wheather the character is now filled with hate or guilt and what he is going to do about such emotion.

Don't worry about the severity the penalization on the kill-team affects their performance in mission, like its been said, this is a big deal for space marines and they should never want to do it again. Their a puppy that's been trained to go outside and has crapped all over the carpet... get the pepper out and rub their nose in it.

For the record, in the current Blood Angels Codex, it implies that Commander Dante is not entirely averse to allying with aliens, multiple times. The fact that Dante, possibly one of the three most respected Chapter Masters in the Imperium (I assume Marneus Calgar and Logan Grimnar are the other two.), is willing to ally with aliens shows that it may be acceptable for certain groups to do so.

Also note that when the likes of Calgar, lord of Ultramar, have ceded overall command to Dante in the past, shows that, at least in certain Space Marine chapters (such as the Blood Angels, Ultramarines, Salamanders and Space Wolves), a noble, virtuous character is seen as an admirable trait.

Of course, the Black Templar was right.

I should note, I meant to say "Its mankinds manifest destiny to rule the stars." Im getting to old to remember anymore.

That being said, alliances with xenos races is still, in almost every case, a way of doing what is best for the imperium at that time. Enemy of my enemy kind of thing. I have a strong belief that if the imperium could muster up enough muscle 'after' the reason for the alliance is over, they will purge the alien from their presence.

But more on topic to the original post, I understand that the game views corruption as a sort of warp taint, its just my belief that if you are being true to the role-playing aspect of the astartes, no matter the chapter, you would never shoot at your brother with the intention to kill. That corruption can be removed with penance etc., and as a role-playing arc could make the OPs game very interesting. As long as all the players are willing to look back at the previous session with an open mind.

It has been my experience that most gaming groups have been gaming together so long that they know what the other players will do in most circumstances. Very few actually try and push the role-playing aspect. Its more of a here is the problem, here are your stats, now roll and see if you can fix it with some light RP mixed in. True RP is hard to do, TK-4117 had some excellent examples in his post and I would personally love to do a few Deathwatch games with him.

Hopefully no ones feathers were to ruffled after the session and maybe now that all the players have a greater understanding to the fluff and back history maybe starting over would be best. /shrug Thats for the OP to decide.

Either way, its a game, have fun with it. Just make sure your fun isn't at someone else's expense.

bluntpencil2001 said:

Of course, the Black Templar was right.

This does seem to be quite a contentious issue, and can be dealt with in many ways. The regardless of the intentions of the protagonists of the incident, they all could have acted differently.

The BT should have heard out the UM and the SW.
The UM should not have put a Krak in the BT's face.

I would get them to talk it out, maybe a good opportunity for some roleplay back base.

Yeah the Black Templar was right, smoke the Xeno for the "Greater Good".

Lucrosium Malice said:

Well Lucrosium, If you live in Edmonton Alberta Canada your more the welcome to join in my group, we play alternate Saturdays and I'm always looking for players. North end of the city, I live on the base.

I know we have gone off a bit but back onto the borther attacking brother, I know people have said give Insanity but i don't think thats the right thing to do.

I know corruption has no big part in this but i would say somewhere from 50-80 Corruption ponits I know this is big but if your battle brother trys to kill you, he had to spend a fate ponit to stay alive so that was a kill shot, will you trust him again would you want to work with him again. He could of fired a warning shot or even used a small gun. To try and kill a battle brother is the biggest step to Chaos i could think of

Mattman375 said:

Thematically I kind of agree with you, but the description of the two traits in the book calls out 'betrayal' as something that would give a battle brother insanity (seeing that fear never will).

The next thing I would consider is that Insanity give you the primarch's curse and potential battle trauma, things that have a clear in-game effect on your mind. the description of corruption means that you show no tangible effects (other than RP'd effects, maybe the apothecary thinks your genes are getting f'd up, maybe the commanders watch you more closely) until you hit 100, at which point you vanish from the game. And accurate RP portrayal doesn't seem to be this group's focus (no offense intended).

The last thing I'd mention is I personally shy away from using Chaos as the direct cause or effect of 'doing bad things.' To me it takes the grey area out of the game's morality. Now if the Ultra's sense of self-preservation is stronger than that of honor he could run, fleeing the punishment he knows he's about to get, which means he could be a perfect target for Chaos influence, but to just corrupt him to 80 of a possible 100 seems off. Maybe a handful of point, marking him for further corruption, but to blanket say he's chaos tainted without exposure to the warp or chaos things seems off to me.

Lets put this in real world perspective for a minute:

Squad is a mix of persons from different units, but they are still fighting for the same Imperium. One of them lets his wrath get a hang of his actions and starts to kill children. Depending on the time, place and culture this maybe acceptable, frowned upon or strict no-no. In this case its probably something between acceptable or frowned upon. One guy tries to stop him with physical force (grappling), other guy tries to stop him by killing him (goddamn KRAK MISSILE).

Okay, so Black Templar is guilty, at most, of acting like a **** undisciplined cowboy and disobeying orders to stop shooting.

Space Wolf is guilty of nothing.

Ultramarine is guilty of doing his very best to kill a squadmate with very real and very deadly weapon.

Seriously. I do not know a single military organization on this planet, present or historical, that would not kick the ultramarine out of the team and likely put him in front of firing squad or in the jail. Neither do I know a single military organization on this planet where the former squadmates of the ultramarine would ever trust him enough to serve with him or even let his keep a weapon.

As this is a fictional 40K universe and marines are not exactly humans I'd say slap everyone with an insanity point or two. Yes, those watching by didn't cause it, but they witnessed it. You get insanity points for such. Give the Black Templar some minor in-game sanction for disobeying direct orders to cease fire. Send the Ultramarine back to his chapter for reprogramming or recycling as he is definitely broken. Insert a new character for the Ultramarine player.

Polaria said:

<raises eyebrow>

"Children, brother? You call these abominations children?! This sounds more like genestealer-hybrid puppy love than what we have been taught. I don't see any children here, I see critters that await extermination. Worlds upon worlds of such foul xenos have been obliterated before without so much giving them a 'fair chance'. Do you think we should have spared that xeno scum their righteous fate also? I don't know about you but the Imperium of Man shall and will not suffer those xenos to live ... Children..."

Ahem, back to normal.

Polaria said:

...unless you think the player was acting out of inexperience and you want to give him a second chance with the char.

Alex

ak-73 said:

This is true. The original description of the event didn't really address the experience and knowledge of the world of the players, so can't say nothing on it. If I was GMing and had something like this come up, I would ask the player if he is sure he really wants to shoot his team mate with krak grenades. After all, GM has the responsibility of acting as characters "eyes, ears, nose and memory". The player might not know shooting a team-mate is court-martial offence, but the Ultramarine would surely know it.

Polaria said:

I would even go so far as to explicitly advise against it, mention possible consequences, hold a short sermon about the sancticity of the brotherhood of Astartes, etc. As such I'd act as the player's traning wheel.

Until he had learned the ropes and from that point on - if he falls... it might hurt.

Alex

ak-73 said:

+1

The only rational explanation I have as to what happened in the OP's description is inexperience.

hmmm, their was no order given to "cease fire" the Squad commander was a bit out of it fighting imaginary EC. The other Ultramarine didn't do anything to stop his battle-brother from shooting a missle at a fellow squad member. The Black Templar was being a Black Templar. They have the least known instances of allying with Xenos and even though the Tau get allied with the allied forces they command in the Kroot and Vespid is whats at stake.

Remember this planet is the frontline for the Tau front. They are using Kroot and Vespid mostly because they survive better on the planet surface. NO Xenos on that planet is friendly and Vespid have been on there long enough to start a hatchery to create more soldiers for the fight. Yea, the black templar was correct in cleansing the area of the Vespid.

The Ultramarine would have been shot as soon as he pulled the trigger. He endagered the mission and the squad by deliberetly firing on another member of the Deathwatch. This would also have consequences on the other Ultramarine in that it would also put him as suspect for not stopping his fellow chapter mate.

The Space Wolf didn't do anything wrong. He objected and tried a very harmless way of dealing with it. It didn't work. Nothing ventured, nothing gained for him.

TK-4117 said:

That'd be a bit of a drive for me coming from Kansas. Thanks for the offer though.