| abstract | - The Minotaurs Chapter has been used often in the past to prosecute Traitors, iconoclasts and Renegades from within the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes by the High Lords of Terra, and as a result, Moloc has long been an expert in the systematic destruction of other Space Marine forces that have strayed from the path of righteousness. He views such targets as both worthy of the Emperor's wrath and the ultimate test of the Minotaurs' skills in battle. This was the fundamental reason why the Minotaurs joined the Loyalist effort in the Badab War. Perhaps the most noticeable of their efforts during that conflict was the savage engagement of 908.M41 in which they devastated the Lamenters Chapter in a bloody battle that lasted seventeen standard hours and was fought in the most brutal ship-to-ship fighting imaginable and upon the surface of Optera V. The Minotaurs suffered heavy casualties but overpowered their enemy by virtue of their own brutality and sheer weight of numbers, forcing the Lamenters' surrender. This notably savage battle has become a legend amongst the annals of the Space Marines. Asterion Moloc would also serve as the commander-in-chief of the Space Marine forces deployed against the Necrons of the Maynarkh Dynasty during the Battle of Amarah Prime in the Orphean War, though the Chapter Master of the Minotaurs had grown to become a dark legend among the Adeptus Astartes long before the horrors of that conflict erupted. Regarded as brutal, ruthless and indefatigable by his peers within the ranks of the Space Marines, he was also marked by his actions in a score of warzones across the 41st Millennium as a byword for slaughter and destruction carried out in the name of the Emperor of Mankind. This legend was further shadowed by rumours of paranoia and brutality seldom evidence by those who remain in the service of the Golden Throne. As such, by the time of the Orphean War, Asterion Moloc had, to many within the Imperial military hierarchy, come to symbolise and personify the Minotaurs Chapter itself. Their complex reputation both as defenders of the Imperium against the alien and the degenerate served as a counterpoint to darker fame as feared executioners of internal dissenters and wayward Space Marines, and had already assured them a place in Imperial myth before the epic conflict at the world of Amarah had taken place. Of the true character and history of Asterion Moloc the man little is known to outside observers, even to those in the ranks of the Inquisition and Militaris, save at the higher-most levels, and as with much of his Chapter such tales that abide are shrouded in mystery, rumour and contradiction. What can be said for certain is that he is a powerful combatant and is known to have personally slain several Renegade Chapter Masters of the Adeptus Astartes, alongside the ranks of Ork Warbosses, xenos corsair princes and Chaos Champions of the Dark Gods who have all fallen before him. In the void battle which raged in the Amarah System against the Necron Maynarkh Dynasty during the Orphean War, the Terminator Squad of Sergeant Ixthalion sacrificed their lives fighting their way to the main control vault of the massive Necron Tomb Ship Dead Hand. This sacrifice allowed Asterion Moloc to perform a precision teleport strike with his Honour Guard and personally lead the desperate assault on the command vault of the Necron Tomb Ship. Moloc confonted, struck down and severely damaged the Necron Overlord present there, believed by the savants of the Ordo Xenos to be none other than Kutlakh, the war leader of the Maynarkh Dynasty. But Moloc himself was cast badly wounded into the void and later recovered by the remaining voidships of his Chapter fleet. In this last incident, Moloc was reported initially to have been lost and remained so for some time, which corresponds to at least six other incidents known to wider Imperial record over the last five standard centuries where the Chapter Master of the Minotaurs is thought to have been killed only to later reappear. This, coupled with the Minotaurs Chapter's insularity and the very high level of cybernetic rebuild their master is known to have undergone, has led to the rather extreme supposition by some observers that Asterion Moloc has not been one Space Marine, but many down the centuries, each inheriting not only a name and panopoly as some have suggested but also, and somewhat blasphemously, an engramatically-enforced personality and recorded memories taken from many different lifetimes. Others dismiss this as a slanderous accusation of the use of forbidden technology designed to smear a Chapter whose actions and use have already garnered them many enemies both in the Imperium's political and martial spheres.
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