One of the things I'm currently working on is a box of Sister of Silence. I love the miniatures but I also want to have at least one with a "traditional" look. I think it would make her look similar to my Sisters of Battle and therefore help make both Sister forces look apart of the same army. While head swaps is among the easiest conversion to do, I won't be converting any Sisters of Silence anytime soon. I want 2 squads (one armed with swords, the other with bolters) to be model as is. Once I get a third box of Sisters is when I will start looking into the conversion. Also I don't have a lot of female head bits in my collection to use in conversions.
As I was crafting the story of how this future Sister conversion was going to fit into my army, a question came to my mind. Why would a Sister of Silence look so radically different from the others? I decided to go with her being the Silence Officer whom interacts with the rest of the army. That means she would be the one who would go to officer meetings, get issued orders for all of the Sisters of Silence in the field and in general the person to communicate to when concerning Silence affairs. This may not sound like a big deal but the job requires speaking and Sisters of Silence take a Vow of Silence when becoming members. With fantasy I would be more than happy to ignore setting fluff and make up my own fiction details in my stories. But 40k feels different. It is the setting a lot of fans call home and it is truly unlike anything I would have created on my own. Especially Sisters of Silence. Fortunately there is a really easy way to explain how this will fit into the setting. A jackass Inquisitor!
Inquisitors' authority in the Imperium is insane. They can practically order nearly anyone to do anything on penalty of death as long as they claim it is for the benefit of the Imperium. An Inquisitor can easily conscript a force of Sisters of Silence to serve under him/her as his personal army/bodyguards. It would even make a lot of sense if it was an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor currently hunting a powerful psyker. Sisters of Silence communicate with each other with sign language and to outsiders by acolytes. Acolytes are women training to be Silence of Silence but have not yet taken the Vow of Silence. If said Inquisitor felt it was beneath him/her to talk to an acolyte or wants to be able to talk with someone in the middle of a firefight when acolytes are probably not going to be around, he/she could give an Imperial Mandate to a Sisters of Silence to permanently break her Vow. And I have an Inquisitor that could fit that role already assembled. Just need to be primed and painted. And I also need to get a better camera.
With all that said, even though it makes perfect sense in the 40k lore, I'm not sure I want someone like that in my army. I suppose I could say the Inquisitor regrets issuing the mandate but that feels cheap and like poor storytelling to me. I think I would prefer to say that the Inquisitor was killed off and the Sisters of Silence were then later recruited into my current army. There is another scenario I could use that I just thought of. Starting off the same as before with an Inquisitor conscripting a force of Sisters of Silence, the difference being that the Inquisitor doesn't mind dealing with acolytes. In fact the Inquisitor grows fond of the working relationship they have with one of the acolytes to such a degree that they Imperial Mandate the Sisters of Silence order to accept the acolyte without her taking the Vow of Silence. Still a jackass thing to do and an abuse of power. However it doesn't setup a personality that makes me instantly hate the character. It will be awhile before I can bring this character to the tabletop. While I could use my new Inquisitor Greyfax model pictured above, this character for me deserves an unique model with my own personal conversions.
A little weird when you think about it that I've put this much thought into the backstory of two conversion projects I don't plan to do anytime soon. But that is how my mind works. At least now I can start looking for bits to fit into these projects. Also just because they don't currently have models doesn't mean I can't put them into stories. Thank you for reading my random musings on story and conversion.
