A purely hypothetical situation:

Lets assume an Inquisitor connected to Deathwatch has managed to capture a Fallen Dark Angel. The Inquisitor, of course, does not know that he has one of the Fallen, or even that such things as Fallen, exist but thinks he has a "normal" Chaos Marine in his custody. So he outfits a ship, throws the Fallen into a cell onboard and sends the prisoner to his fellow Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor (as its more of OHs job, than OXs to deal with these guys). Just to be on the sure side he requests a Kill Team from Deathwatch to "escort" the traitor safely into Ordo Hereticus hands. The Kill Team is briefed, the ships sets sail and enters warp... but Forsaken have been already alerted behind the scenes by Dark Angel inside Deathwatch.

Now the question is: How far, in your opinion, would the Angels be willing to go to prevent the Fallen from reaching the Ordo Hereticus? What options do they have to prevent it?

This is a good question and one that would probably cause some heated debated among the Forsaken. If they’ve got some kind of favors they can call in with some Inquisitors I think they would send for them and try to get their hands on the Fallen without it coming to blood with either the Deathwatch or any of the Ordos.

If that is impossible I would think that they would try and stop the ship with an overwhelming force, and simply demand that the Fallen is handed over. Perhaps they’ll also demand a few other potential captives as well to mask which one they are specifically wanting, under the pretension that these heretics have harmed the Forsaken in some way that their honor demands that they execute the punishment themselves. If the captain doesn’t allow the Forsaken to steal away with the Fallen they can at least perhaps kill him to prevent him from spilling his guts to someone else.

If this really goes downhill and the ship refuses to help them I could see the Forsaken taking several actions.

1. Board the ship and get the Fallen and they leave while causing a minimum of casualties on fellow Imperials.

2. Blow the ship to hell and let the Fallen die with the rest, although it’s a very risky move.

3. Shoot the ship until it’s to damage to move anywhere or make communications with anyone, and then threaten to destroy the ship if they do not give up the Fallen. If they do give up the Fallen the Forsaken can send a distress call to allow other Imperial vessels to help the ship, while the Forsaken themselves leaves the area.

That’s my initial thoughts on the matter.

Gurkhal said:

I'm thinking that, in 10,000 years, this situation MUST have popped up at least once. I can imagine that, with so much practice, as it were, that the Dark Angels would probably be able to pull this off pretty well. Otherwise, I could also imagine similar reasoning being used to place a squad on board the ship under the pretense of guarding the prisoner, and then orchestrate some sort of sabotage during which the prisoner 'escapes'.

Spoilers incoming, if you havent read the Angels of Darkness novel but plan to, then don't read.

In the novel though the Dark Angels under command of Interrogator-chaplain Boreas stationed at Piscina V gets a hint of a small group of the fallen operating out of a meteor belt in their system. They go hunting for the fallen but it's soon aparent that they are led on a wild goose chase and that their Chapter-Keep on Piscina V is the real objective of the Fallen. When they return they find that every serf and potential initiate in the keep has been killed, and Apothecary Nestor reveals that the keep also housed part of the chapters geene seed storage, and that the fallen have made off with it.
The keep also houses some sort of viral failsafe, built after the orks last waaagh! on Piscina V, that would, if activated, kill off all living things on the continent, wich the fallen rigged to activate when the Dark Angels returned.
The only "inducted" members at Piscina V at the time is Boreas and Nestor, with the rest of the squad being inducted by Boreas during their week or so long hunt for the fallen.
Nestor (the apothecary) is all for opening the doors, and thereby dooming the whole continent and planetary capitol, just for a shot at the fallen and the stole geene seed, but Boreas, after his interrogation of the fallen Astelan, is more of a humanitarian (if you could call a space marine that) and decides that the marines send a distress signal to the rock, and then commit suicide, instead of dooming the world by opening the keep up and going after the fallen.
Though I think Boreas is the odd man out when it comes to the unforgiven (It's not just the Dark Angels chapter hunting the fallen after all) and their view on whats acceptable in their hunt, it does present some interesting questions.
Would the commander in charge of the unforgiven be willing to openly challange the big =I= for the prize?
One other thing from the AoD novel, Boreas openly fires a torpedo salvo at an imperial warship when they find the persumed vessel the fallen are traveling with.

And now my boss is in the building so I gotta finish this post after work.

A few options came to my mind:

#1 Dark Angels pull the strings, call in a favor from some other Inquisitor to get an assassin sent onboard to kill the Fallen before the ship reaches destination.

#2 Dark Angels get the ship sabotaged and/or get it damaged by an attacker that can't be indentified. Then their own (Dark Angel) Strike Cruiser "happens" to be on site, helps to evacuate and rescue the ships crew, prisoners and kill team. During the rescue the Fallen "vanishes".

There is president, although it's Black Templars rather than the Inquisition.

The Crusade of the Ophidium Gulf.

Castellan Raimer leads the survivors of his crusade against a heretic calling itself

'The Voice of the Emperor'. Encountering a large Dark Angels fleet. Fighting side

by side until after they capture the Voice. The DAs power up weapons and force

a handover. Then before the Templar ships can make it to warp they vanish. A brief

emergency communication about the weirdness of the DAs behaviour being all that

let anyone know they survived.

More here:

wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Crusade_of_the_Ophidium_Gulf

and here:

warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Ophidium_Gulf_Crusade

I Believe that they would Stop the Ship, kill all NON ASTARTES Personel onboard, and take him. they would answer no questions from the kill team, and be easily provoked into a fight(non lethal if possible.) they would destroy any and all records of the fallen onboard. Rumors are meaningless. Let the killteam say anything they want. Once the Angels have their man they can give any story they want. a better question is what would the fallen do or say to stop them from taking him. If he started talking to the kill team........

Its moot anyway because everyone knows that the Fallen are the ACTUAL Dark angels, and the "Sin" the current Angels are trying to make up for is the fact that THEY are the ones who turned from the emperors light, and attacked their brothers. The only reason they are trying to catch the "fallen" is because they dont want them to tell anyone the truth. just sayin.

Are there any DA's in the group? If so i think he would do anything to get the Fallen to other DA's but without anyone knowing (making him escape but traceable somehow)

If not i would say that they will do pretty much anything to get their hands on the Fallen, i know they have no qualms about firing on Imperial Guard ships, dont know about Astartes, but i guess it could always be covered up as a Chaos raiding party

The problem is that the whole Dark Angel's secret than nobody but the Inner Circle knpows about is a fairly clunky conceit.

The only reasobale way of approaching this is as Captain Ventris said earlier. This situation MUST have come up before, and the Dark Angels MUST have a variety of subterfuges to deal with it. If they openely threatened/attacked everyone who ever came across one of the Forsaken, there would be no Secret and the Dark Angels would have been excommunicated by now.

Colonelchuck said:

I think not.

Colonelchuck said:

Yeah anyways, I can't remember what I was going to type after my boss caught me surfing FFG on worktime, but anyho.
Disobeying the big =I= is not unheard of in the hunt for the fallen, and even making sure curious individuals disapear is suprisingly common.
If the fallen talks to the kill-team on board, I doubt they would be around long ebough to tell.
The first Legion will obviously go to great lengths to make sure the secret stays secret. Fun fact by the way, the Dark Angels are still operating as a legion, where all the descendant chapters still answer to the supreme grand master.

Bassemandrh said:

I assume you mean would there be any Dark Angels with Ravenwing or Deathwing background? Most of Dark Angels know absolutely nothing about Fallen and the Dirty Secrets of Angels...

Two scenarios I can think up:

1. The DA's whip up a false distress beacon to distract the ship. While the occupants are dealing with the distress call the ship is boarded and the prisoner taken.

2. Ships get lost in the warp, that's a fact of life. Board the ship with extreme prejudice, take the prisoner, and make the ship disappear.

I assume you mean would there be any Dark Angels with Ravenwing or Deathwing background? Most of Dark Angels know absolutely nothing about Fallen and the Dirty Secrets of Angels...

Well the Dark Angel himself don't really need to know that the prisoner is a Fallen. I think that perhaps the Dark Angels can send him some coded or otherwise hidden communication and just tell him that they really need to get hold of that prisoner and he's going to help them.

I'm not so sure that they would take a captured fallen to Hereticus. I think it a bit more likely they would take him to Malleus. Hereticus is use to dealing with internal chaos threats such as cults. A Chaos Marine is far beyond that.

Also I'm not sure they would even recognize a fallen. As far as I know there is no real indication that they are mutated as chaos tainted usually are. Also they are likely still wearing their Dark Angel colors. An Inquisitor that captures one may be likely to contact the Dark Angels and let them know he has found one of their brothers or if there is an indication of taint may well turn them over to the Dark Angels for them to deal with internally. Especially since the Dark Angels would then owe that Inquisitor a favor and being owed a favor by an entire chapter is something that would certainly come in handy in the future.

In the event that the Inquisitor does decide to keep the Fallen and the Dark Angels found out. They would do all they could to recover the fallen and elminate any who knew of their secret. The history of the fallen is kept from the majority of their own brothers, they would have no problem eliminating anyone else that knew of their shame. As the Astartes are independent and outside the control of the Lords on Terra, they wouldn't have an issue killing an entire crew to keep their secret. Remember the Astartes and the Inquisition can use Exterminatus on an entire planet full of innocents to stop an enemy. So why would they hesitate in killing a few hundred or thousand on a ship?

Again there is no one size fits all answer. I always like to have a wide range of what can happen; it all depends on the temper and character of the people involved, ranging from fraternicide to refusing to slay one's own brothers and siding with the fallen. (There you have a great idea for a blackshield hunted by the Dark Angels).

Alex

Malleus deals with daemons, daemon infestations, possessions and such.

A rogue marine in green armor with no obvious chaos symbols or mutations is, in my opinion, more down the Hereticus alley. In any case whether the Fallen is going to Hereticus, Malleus or High Lords of Terra is besides the point and scope of the mission. He is going somewhere to spill his guts to someone and Dark Angels won't have any of that.

A note: the Fallen don't wear green armor. They're still in the Heresy-era Dark Angels colors: black.

Gaire said:

Good point. Remind me to tell it to Cypher, too

Cypher is a bit ambiguous, actually. Some art shows him in black, some in Dark Angels green. So *shrug*.

Gaire said:

His name does basically mean 'mystery,' of course.

But traditionally he's been drawn with black armor.

Okay, after some thought I've come up with an actual scenario idea. Unlike the title it will not feature Dark Angels but another chapter which has secrets and history in literally "wiping out" their secrets. The basic outline will be as follows:

Deathwatch has captured what seems like a renegade marine. Unable to determine more about him they give him over to the Watch Fortress local Inquisitor representative who is, naturally Ordo Xenos.

The Ordo Xenos Inquisitor determines this renegade is actually from Minotaurs chapter and decides to send him over to Ordo Hereticus for further investigation and testing. For security reasons Inquisitor requests a Deathwatch Kill Team for escort.

Word on renegade gets out and other Inquisitors (the same guys who have kept the information on the origins of Minotaur chapter and their geneseed suppressed) decide to take the matter into their own hands. They contact Minotaur chapter and send a task force to sort out the renegade.

The task forces plan is this: They contact the ship carrying the Kill Team and the prisoner and not-so-politely ask for the prisoner since he is one of theirs. The Minotaurs will try their best to provoke a fight since they are quite sure they can win and with Inquisitor backing aren't afraid to go for it. If the Kill Team does not surrender into fight and does not give up the prisoner the Minotaurs will offer to "escort" the Kill Teams ship. They won't take no for answer so the Minotaur cruiser will be shadowing the Kill Teams ship. As a secondary 'plan' the Minotaurs will sabotage the Kill Teams ship and, when it starts to break up, come to 'rescue' them... What they are really doing is using the 'accident and the rescue attempt' as a cover to ****** away the prisoner and make everyone resisting them vanish.