hh4节译:太阳军的起源与形成

Of the myriad regiments and battalions of the Imperials Auxilia, more commonly referred to as the 'Imperial Army', the Solar Auxilia are among the most elite, disciplined and well-equipped fighting forces, widely considered by many second only to the superhuman Legiones Astartes in their unitary effectiveness in battle. While some observers may point to singular units and individual regiments whose skill, power and reputation may arguably exceed that of the Solar Auxilia, such as the legendary Lucifer Blacks or the gene-wrought Marnean Armsmen, what marks the Solar Auxilia apart is they are not simply a single regiment raised from a particular culture or displaced from a warlike Compliant world to serve the Imperium, but a pattern; a culture of warfare and an order of battle which had successfully been replicated on hundreds of worlds. As a result, the Solar Auxilia Cohorts and regiments have formed the backbone of the Imperium's military forces since the dawning of the Great Crusade. While the Space Marines of the Legiones Astartes have been both the standard bearers of the Great Crusade, and without doubt its principal and unstoppable strength, the Solar Auxilia have often been its indispensable pathfinders and its most reliable foot soldiers. And, as the Imperium expanded to encompass thousands of worlds, its first line of protection against those who would destroy it from without or disturb its peace from within.

在帝国辅助军——更常见的叫法是“帝国军”的无数团和营中，太阳辅助军是最为精锐、最为坚定以及装备最好的战斗部队。人们都普遍认为太阳军的单兵战斗效率仅次于超人的阿斯塔特军团战士。某些观察家或许会指出：（某些）独特的单位或者单独的辅助军团，比如传奇般的路西法黑卫或基因（技术）制造的马内恩武士按理来说在技艺、力量和名声上可能超越了他们，但令太阳军脱颖而出的是：他们并非仅仅是在某种特定文化中成长起来，或者被某个好战的归顺世界驱逐出来为帝国服役的单独某个辅助军团，而是一种部队类型；他们的战争文化和战斗序列可以在数百个世界上进行成功复制。于是，自从大远征初期开始，太阳军兵团和团就已经形成了帝国军事力量的基石。阿斯塔特军团中的星际战士们是大远征的旗手，他们也无疑是大远征最重要且不可阻挡的力量；太阳军则通常是大远征不可或缺的寻路者与最可靠的步兵。随着人类帝国拓张到数千个世界，太阳军成为了帝国的第一道保护防线——他们抵御那些会从外部摧毁帝国的敌人，也镇压那些从内部扰乱帝国和平的宵小。

The Origins of the Solar Auxilia

太阳军的起源

As their name might suggest, the origins of the Solar Auxilia lie in the Sol System and on Terra in the earliest days of the Great Crusade. No doubt from the very beginning, the Emperor realised that while his Legiones Astartes would be his foremost agency of war and conquest, the sheer scope of the undertaking of the Great Crusade —no less than the liberation of the entire galaxy— would require far more manpower, spread over a wider area, than even hundreds of thousands of Space Marines could hope to achieve, simply because they could not be everywhere at once, nor would they be best served by undertaking roles ably filled by ordinary humanity. From this reality the Excertus Imperialis was born; billions of second line and support troops, functionaries, labourers, void crew, logisticians, almoners, adepts and staff officers, and the countless quantities of weapons, equipment and war machines, void conveyances and warships they needed; all to make the Great Crusade a reality. Within this vast body of men and women under arms, organised and formulated by the Emperor's own transhuman intelligence, were many highly specialised divisions, each created to serve a singular purpose, each a vital cog in the vast Imperial war machine. The Solar Auxilia was one such purpose-created division.

就像他们的名称所说明的那样，太阳军是在大远征最早期起源于太阳系和泰拉。帝皇无疑在最开始便意识到：虽然阿斯塔特军团会成为他进行战争和征服的最重要力量，但进行规模极其庞大的大远征——这场战争的规模不亚于解放整个银河系，他就需要数量远为庞大的人力。这些兵力要分散到更为广阔的区域中，其面积超过了哪怕数十万星际战士有望实现（控制）的区域——因为星际战士们无法立刻赶到任何地点，让他们执行普通人类就能干练承担的任务也并非是这些超人战士最好的服役方式。帝国民兵就是诞生自这一事实，他们需要数十亿的二线和支援部队、办事员、劳工、虚空海员、后勤人员、赈济员、（技术）专家和文职官员，以及无数的武器、装备和战争机械、虚空运输舰和战舰，这一切令大远征变为了事实。在这支由帝皇（依靠）自己的超人智慧所组织和制定的男女武装人员所组成的庞大队伍中，有许多高度专业化的部门，每个部队都是为了服务单独某个目标而创立的，也都是庞大的帝国战争机器中一颗至关重要的齿轮。太阳军就是这样一个为（特定）目标而创立的部门。

The parameters of this creation were exact; the raising of a large body of frontline soldiers whose principal theatre of war would be the void and hostile environments of all kinds, both to support the Legiones Astartes in battle, and by deployment free them for concentrated frontline operations. Where the Space Marines were to be foremost the hammer of the Great Crusade, the Solar Auxilia were to be its pathfinders and its watchmen. They were to garrison the great warships and frontier outposts; they were to serve alongside the Rogue Traders and in the Expeditionary fleets both as aggressors and as explorers, and as such they would need to be disciplined, trained and well equipped considerably beyond the level of the average militia solider. Once Compliance over an area of space had been achieved, and the battlefronts of the Great Crusade had moved on, it was also to be the Solar Auxilia, with their own fleets and assigned warships, that would guard those worlds and star systems that were now part of the growing Imperium from marauders from without and rebellion from within. While a Solar Auxilia taskforce would not, indeed could not, match the power and force of the Legiones Astartes, these compact fleet-based armies of colonial control were more than capable of dealing with most 'petty wars' and local conflicts that might occur on their own. Where a threat proved stronger than a Solar Auxilia taskforce could match alone, they were conditioned and equipped to stalwartly hold the line no matter the odds, until aid could be summoned and the Emperor's Angels of Death unleashed transgressors .

太阳军创建的决定因素是具体的：为了集结起一大群将虚空和所有种类敌对环境作为首要战场的前线（凡人）士兵们，目的即是为了在战斗中支援阿斯塔特军团，也是为了通过部署将他们投放到前线集中作战行动当中。星际战士军团是大远征最重要的重锤，太阳军则是大远征的寻路者和守望者。这些凡人部队驻守在庞大的战舰和前线哨站中；他们随同行商浪人进行服务，并在远征探索舰队中担任进攻者和探索者。因此，太阳军需要一种训练有素且装备精良、素质明显超过一般民兵水平的凡人士兵。当太空中某片区域归顺于帝国，大远征的战斗前线已经发生移动时，也是太阳军和他们自己的舰队，以及被指派的（海军）战舰们负责保卫这些成为不断壮大中人类帝国组成部分的世界们，他们既要保护这些世界不受外部掠夺者的侵袭，也要镇压内部的叛乱。在武力和能力上，一支太阳军特遣队不会——事实上也无法和阿斯塔特军团相匹敌，这些负责控制殖民地的紧凑舰基军队充其量能够应付大多数“小规模战争”和可能发生在其自身防区的当地冲突。当威胁被证明已经严重到超出了单独一支太阳军特遣队的匹敌能力时，无论战局多么艰难，他们都习惯于坚定地守住阵地，而且他们也为此进行了装备，直到（人们）召唤到增援，以及帝皇的死亡天使们前来进攻这些有罪者们。

The Saturnyne Ordo

土星军

In laying out the strategic formulation and pattern of organisation for the Solar Auxilia, the Emperor, in his wisdom, appears to have drawn on two principal sources: the great military forces of the Unification Wars of Terra and the Satumyne Ordo. Warfare had been the general condition on Terra and in its star system for thousands of years, and the home world of humanity had seen many great empires rise and fall, and with them great armies and warrior cultures form and meet their destruction. From this crucible of battle, the Emperor drew much that would inform the structure and tactics of all of his armies, and the Solar Auxilia would be no different in this, but it was the highly militarised tech-enclaves of Saturn, whose expertise in void warfare was of peerless temper, that would most greatly inform the nature of the Solar Auxilia.

在制定太阳军的战略规划和组织形式时，帝皇凭借自己的指挥，似乎从两个主要来源中提取了内容：泰拉统一战争时期的庞大军事力量和土星军。数千年来，战争一直是泰拉及其所在恒星系的常态，人类的故园世界已经见证了诸多伟大的帝国兴起与衰落，伟大的军队和战士文化也随之形成和迎来毁灭。从这些严酷的战斗中，皇帝汲取了许多将会启发他所有军队的结构和战术的信息，太阳军在这方面也别无二致，但正是土星的高度军事化科技飞地——那个在虚空战方面拥有无与伦比专长的文明将会对太阳军的性质产生极大的启发。

The Polities of Saturn had formed during the Age of Strife; they were a disperate league of independent domains and kingdoms formed from scores of asteroid-enclaves, orbital arcologies and lunar colonies around the gas giant which gave them their name. Over time they had established a common technologically advanced culture, and although inter-state conflict, competition and vendetta was rife among them, spurred on by survival, they quickly banded together in the face of outside threat, be it the baleful influence of Mars, or the horrific privations of xenos and mutant raiders come to plunder the wealth and resources they had so long strived for. Their military, combining by far the most powerful fleet in the Sol System prior to Unification and elite armed forces known as the Satumyne Ordo, had honed the weapons and tactics of void warfare for centuries and until the coming of the Legiones Astartes, in such techniques they were unsurpassed. Many have argued that it was only after the Polities of Saturn joined voluntarily with the Imperium that the Great Crusade truly began, their fleets, shipyards and void expertise fundamental to the speed and scale of the early years of Imperial expansion. The Solar Auxilia were also born in this moment, and the first ten regiments raised, known collectively as the 'Saturnyne Rams', were no more or less the Void Hoplites of the Saturnyne Order, reorganised and expanded —their arms and armament all but unchanged— and sent out with the first deployments of the as then only numbered Space Marine Legions to conquer the stars.

土星政权组建于纷争纪元；它是由自治领地所组成的绝望联盟，是数十个小行星飞地、轨道生态城们和围绕这颗令其得名的气体巨星旋转的卫星殖民地们组建的王国。随着时间流逝，土星政权建立起了共同的技术先进文化，尽管领地间的冲突、竞争和仇杀在土星联盟中很普遍，但在生死存亡的刺激下，他们迅速团结起来面对外部威胁——这些威胁是来自火星的恶毒影响，或者异形和变种人强盗们掠夺他们垂涎已久的财富与资源而造成的可怕贫困。土星政权的军事力量由（整个恒星系被）统一之前太阳系中最强大的舰队与一支被称为“土星军”的精锐武装力量组合而成。在阿斯塔特军团到来之前，土星军的武器和战术已经被磨练了数个世纪，他们在这方面的技术无人能及。很多人声称：只有在土星政权主动加入人类帝国之后，大远征才真正开始。他们的舰队、船坞和虚空（作战）专业技能是人类帝国早年高速大规模扩张的基础。太阳辅助军也就诞生于这一时刻，帝国建立起的最初十个太阳辅助军团被统称为“土星重锤”，他们全都是来自土星军的虚空重步兵，（只是）被进行了重组和规模扩大——他们的武器装备几乎没有变化。这批太阳军被送出土星，和当时只有编号（而没有名称）的第一批星际战士军团去征服群星。

Soon, more regimental raisings were to follow, with Terra and Luna both providing many newly raised regiments in the same pattern as those of Saturn to meet the strategic demand. These regiments were deployed with the same proven types of weaponry and equipment taken from the Saturnyne prototypes and rendered to the Mechanicum for approval, modification and mass production, including the highly effective and robust Saturnyne void armour, which would serve to single out the Solar Auxilia's particular appearance throughout the Great Crusade. This wargear was supplemented with additional variant weapons and equipment designed with hazardous environment and void use by an unaugmented human in mind; these became known as 'Solar' pattern, a designation provided by the Mechanicum in keeping with the 'Solar' Auxilia forces for which they were intended.

不久之后，帝国组建了更多的太阳军团——泰拉和月球都提供了许多与土星军模式相同的新组建辅助军团来满足战略需要。这些辅助军团配备了与土星的部队原型相同的被证明有效的武器装备，而且这些武器装备也被提供给机械神教来进行批准、改进和大规模生产，其中就包括高效且耐用的土星虚空甲——在整个大远征过程中，这套装甲令太阳军们单独拥有了一种独特的外表。太阳军的武备里还额外补充了改型的武器和装备——这些武器装备的设计旨在让未接受过强化改造的凡人在危险环境和虚空中使用。这些战争装备被称为“太阳”型，这个名称由机械神教提供，与将会使用它们的“太阳”辅助军部队相适应。

Liberation and Conquest

解放和征服

As the Great Crusade progressed, the effectiveness of the Solar Auxilia as a distinct military concept and coherent fighting force was proved time and again, and the strategic demands of the ever expanding Expeditionary fleets and the galactic territory they conquered demanded that Solar Auxilia regiments be raised in increasing numbers. The Terran system alone could not meet this growing demand and so the Solar Auxilia pattern was used as an imprint elsewhere, and soon regiments and larger cohort formations were being raised across the Imperium, often set up around corps of experienced junior officers and non-commissioned ranks from existing regiments. These raisings were most common in star systems with an established tradition of void-capable military and privateer forces, and in many cases served to absorb such a culture more readily into the Imperium, particularly if armed struggle had been needed to subdue it into Compliance.

随着大远征的发展，太阳军部队作为一个独特的军事概念和连贯战斗力量的有效性被一次又一次地证明，不断扩张中的远征探索舰队的战略需要以及他们在银河系中征服的领土也要求帝国以不断增加的速度组建太阳军团。泰拉星系自身无法再满足不断增加的需要，所以太阳辅助军的模式被作为一种部队版本应用到了其他地区。不久之后，全帝国各处都组建起了太阳军团和规模更大的兵团，这些部队通常是由成群经验丰富的下级军官和现役团中未授军衔的部队组成。在那些有保持虚空作战能力的军事力量和私掠海军部队的既定传统的星系中，这种部队组建是最为常见的；在许多情况下，使这种文化更容易融入帝国，特别是在需要通过武装斗争使其归顺的情况下。

Such Solar Auxilia Cohorts were normally then sent far from their origin stars, thus severing ties with their home worlds and reducing any potential for later rebellion there. This was not however a unique practice, and with the introduction of mental and physical aptitude tests to a wider intake of recruits, Solar Auxilia regiments were also raised successfully from feral and feudal worlds without an overall high technological sophistication or void-operable tradition, often alongside more conventional regimental raisings. The most successful of these cohorts combined the savagery and elan often found on such warlike worlds with the discipline and firepower the Solar Auxilia was rightly famed for, forming a truly deadly combination. Famous incidences of this include both the Chthonian Headhunters which were to accompany the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet of Warmaster Horus, and the Carak'tal Scarborn who entered into legend as the only non-Legiones Astartes force to survive the Khrave onslaught at Perdition's Gate.

这些太阳军兵团通常会被派往远离其源头母星的地方，这样就切断了他们与母星的联系，减少了他们以后在那里发动叛乱的可能性。但这并非是一种独一无二的做法，随着（来源）范围更加广泛的新兵接受了精神和生理资质测试，帝国在那些全面科技复杂度并不高和没有虚空行动传统的荒蛮与封建世界上也成功召集起了太阳军团。这些兵团中最成功的那些，是将好战世界中常见的野蛮和锐气，与太阳辅助军著名的纪律和火力相结合，形成了一种真正致命的组合。此类太阳军兵团中的著名部队包括：克苏尼亚猎头者兵团，他们配合战帅荷鲁斯的第63远征探索舰队作战；还有卡拉克’塔尔疤痕之子兵团，他们是毁灭之门战役中唯一一支从克拉夫人进攻中幸存下来的非阿斯塔特部队。

The Tradition of Service

服役传统

By the second century of the Great Crusade, Solar Auxilia pattern forces formed perhaps 20%-25% of the overall human strength of the Imperialis Auxilia's void faring first line armies, with numbers ranging into the tens of millions. By the time of the Horus Heresy, in terms of deployment this force was split, with about two thirds of the Solar Auxilia Cohorts stationed permanently within the Imperium's boundaries divided into taskforce and garrison commands, and the other third separated out into various Expeditionary fleets, Rogue Trader detachments and deep-range pathfinder ships on the ever-expanding and increasingly remote frontier. As they were particularly suited and organised so that they had few ties to home and could easily operate as detached commands, it became common for many smaller-scale Expeditionary fleets which did not feature any substantial Legiones Astartes presence to be led by a core of Solar Auxilia under the particular authority of a Lord Marshal appointed by the Imperial War Council. The temporal power and authority of these Lords Marshal (and the most senior among them, the Lords Militant Imperialis) was formidable in its own right, and from them and the ranks of their subordinate staff and warship captains it was common for future colony Imperial Commanders to be drawn, and Rogue Traders also warranted. With the potential prize of absolute power under the Aquila over whole worlds as a draw, it is then unsurprising that commissions of rank within Solar Auxilia Cohorts destined for the frontier became a thing sought after by ambitious officers, petty nobles and the scions of great houses of Terra alike. Some such commissions were earned and others acquired by more direct, means, but fate and the limitless dangers of battle and alien worlds unnumbered served in most cases to weed out those whose ambition outweighed their aptitude swiftly enough. Regardless of this, it is the salutary truth that the pursuit of plunder as well as the quest for personal wealth and power were motivations that often served the Great Crusade just as well as duty and the desire for glory and belief in the unification of humanity. For those of the lower ranks, the lure of service ultimately may have been more prosaic, but no less valuable; fine living standards, pay and the respect of the Imperium for their life's blood with, if they desired it, upon retirement after serving a minimum tour of thirty years’ service, full citizenship and commensurate land, money and position in a newly founded or newly Compliant colony world. For the many that choose to serve several tours and for whom the Solar Auxilia became a consuming way of life, the eventual reward was greater, and they were furnished with basic anti-agthaics and medicae treatments to extend their lifespans and military usefulness accordingly.

等大远征进行到第二个世纪时，在帝国辅助军虚空一线部队的全体兵力中，太阳军类型部队的占比大约为20%-25%，人数拓展到了数千万。等到荷鲁斯叛乱时期，太阳军在部署上被一分为二：大约三分之二的太阳辅助军兵团永久性驻扎在帝国边境以内，他们被拆分分为特遣部队和卫戍指挥部；另外三分之一被分散到了各种各样的远征探索舰队、行商浪人分遣队和远程寻路者舰船上，他们身处帝国不断扩张且日益偏远的边境。由于太阳军极为适合作战，组织性极强，以至于他们和自己的故乡几乎没有联系，而且他们也能作为独立指挥部轻松运作，所以帝国中出现了一种常见现象：许多（队伍中）不存在重要的阿斯塔特军团部队的远征探索舰队是由一群太阳军进行领导，而以特定授权领导这些太阳军的是一位由帝国战争议会指派的领主元帅。这些领主元帅们（他们中级别最高的是帝国军务领主们）手握的临时权力和（被给予的）权威身份是很强大的，帝国从他们及其下属官员以及战舰舰长中挑选未来的殖民地帝国指挥官是一种常见现象，行商浪人们也会得到此类授权。人类帝国中掌握着绝对权力的人将整个世界作为太阳军军官们的潜在赏赐，所以不出意料得，前往位于边境的太阳辅助军兵团任职的委任状成为雄心勃勃的军官、小贵族和泰拉大家族的子嗣争相追求追求的事物。在这些委任状当中，有些是被委任者（依靠实力）赢得的，其他的则是通过更直接的手段获得的，但是在大多数情况中，命运以及存在于战斗中和无数外星世界上的无止境的危险会迅速淘汰掉那些野心超过其能力的人们。但尽管如此，这个过程中仍有一个有益的事实：对掠夺的追求、对个人财富和权力的渴求，就像对荣誉的渴望、责任心和对人类统一的信仰一样，都经常会成为一个为大远征服役的动机。对于那些级别较低的人来说，服役的最终诱惑可能更加平淡无奇，但同样有价值：优越的生活标准、酬金和帝国对他们牺牲的敬意；如果愿意的话，他们可以在服役至少三十年后退休，在一个新建立或新归顺的殖民地世界上得到完整的公民身份和与之相称的土地、金钱和地位。而对于许多选择数度出征的人，以及那些将在太阳军中服役作为一种令人着迷的生活方式的人而言，最终奖赏则更为丰厚：他们会被提供基本的抗衰老手术和药物治疗，以延长他们的寿命和相应的军事效能。

At its core, the Solar Auxilia became and remained a hardened body of professional soldiery, equipped and trained to the highest standards of the Imperium's human forces, and a keystone of the Great Crusade's tremendous progress.

在其本质上，太阳辅助军成为且仍然是一个由专业士兵组成的坚定群体，他们的训练和装备达到了帝国凡人部队中的最高标准，他们是大远征取得巨大进步的基石。