White Lantern
A really overpowered Mary Sue self insert
- Location
- Sector 2184
If we are a powerful enough psyker the. We can make physic works that way but at that point we could just kill our them
Between Man and Monster (WH40k X Hellsing Ultimate)
- Thread starter LinkOnScepter
- Start date
- What if? Crossover
- Location
- the Netherworld Dood
We can replicate sunlight and "Holy" easy enough but it's not Hamon.
We can replicate the effects not the cause
White Lantern
A really overpowered Mary Sue self insert
- Location
- Sector 2184
Yea I get that but if Hammons what I think then we could technically do it but it wouldn't be power efficient at all
LinkOnScepter
The One who Strangles Concepts to death
- Location
- Interwebs
Adoption it is.
GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
You do know that the idea the Emperor was keeping the knowledge of daemons a secret is just bad fanon right? The Emperor's stance isn't that there was no such thing as the supernatural, but that all seemingly unexplainable "supernatural" things could be explained as either xenos bullshit that people didn't understand or straight up warp bullshit. That's always been the Emperor's stance and it was the same stance he held the Imperium to.
I prepared them all, this pantheon of proud godlings that insist they are my heirs. I warned them of the warp's perils. Coupled with this, they knew of those dangers themselves. The Imperium has relied on Navigators to sail the stars and astropaths to communicate between worlds since the empire's very first breath. The Imperium itself is only possible because of those enduring souls. No void sailor or psychically touched soul can help but know of the warp's insidious predation. Ships have always been lost during their unstable journeys. Astropaths have always suffered for their powers. Navigators have always seen horrors swimming through those strange tides. I commanded the cessation of Legion Librarius divisions as a warning against the unrestrained use of psychic power. One of our most precious technologies, the Geller field, exists to shield vessels from the warp's corrosive touch. These are not secrets, Ra, nor mystical lore known only to a select few. Even possession by warp-wrought beings is not unknown. The Sixteenth witnessed it with his own eyes long before he convinced his kindred to walk a traitor's path with him. That which we call the warp is a universe alongside our own, seething with limitless, alien hostility. The primarchs have always known this. What difference would it have made had I labelled the warp's entities "daemons" or "dark gods"?'
"He's even speaking of spirits you know. Cinderman, the arch-prophet of secular truths, speaking of spirits. I put him right, naturally. He mentioned spirits were a concern of yours."
"[Cinderman] convinced me it was a plague at first. But I saw a spirit. A demon, take hold of Xavier Jubal and remake his flesh into the form of a monster. I saw a demon take hold of Jubal's soul and turn him against his own kind!"
"No, you didn't," Horus said.
"Sir?"
Horus smiled, "Allow me to illuminate you. I'll tell you what you saw Garviel. It is a secret thing, known to a very few, though the Emperor -- Beloved of All -- knows more than any of us. A secret Garviel, more than any other secret we are keeping today.
Can you keep it? I'll share it, for it will soothe your mind. But I need you to keep it solemly."
"I will" Loken said.
The Warmaster took another sip. "It was the warp, Garviel."
"The ... Warp?"
"Of course it was. We know the power of the Warp, and the chaos it contains. We've seen it change men. We've seen the wretched things that infest its dark dimensions. I know you have. On Eridas. On Cyrinx. On the bloody coast of Tassalon. There are entities in the warp that we might easily mistake for demons."
"Sir," Loken began,"I have been trained in the study of the warp. I am well prepared to face its horrors. I have fought the foul things that pour forth from the gates of the Empyrean. And, yes the warp can seep into a man and transmute him. I have seen this happen. But only in psykers. It is the risk they take. Not in Astartes."
"Do you understand the full mechanism of the warp, Garviel?" Horus asked. He raised the glass to the nearest light, to examine the color of the wine.
"No sir. I don't pretend to."
"Neither do I, my son. Neither does the Emperor -- Beloved by all -- not entirely. It pains me to admit that, but it is the truth, and we deal in truths above all else. The warp is a vital tool to us. A means of communications and transport. Without it there would be no Imperium of Man. For there would be no quick bridges between the stars. We use it, and we harness it. But we have no absolute control over it. It is a wild thing that tolerates our presence but brooks no mastery. There is power in the warp, fundamental power. Not good. Nor evil. But elemental, and anathema to us. It is a tool we use at our own risk."
The Warmaster finished his glass and set it down. "Spirits. Demons. Those words imply a greater power. A fiendish intellect and a purpose. An evil Archetype with cosmic schemes and strategems. They imply a god or gods at work behind the scenes. They imply the very supernatural state that we have taken great pains through the light of science to shake off. They imply sorcery and a palpable evil."
He looked across at Loken, "Spirits, demons, the supernatural, sorcery. These are words we have allowed to fall out of use for we dislike the connotations. But they are just words. What you saw today. Call it a spirit. Call it a demon. The words serve well enough. Using them does not deny the clinical truth of the universe as man understands it. There can be demons in a secular cosmos, Gavriel, just so long as we understand the use of the word."
"Meaning the warp."
"Meaning the warp. Why coin new terms for its horrors when we have a bounty of old words that might suit us just as well. We use the words alien and Xenos to describe the inhuman filth we encounter in some locales. The creatures of the warp are just aliens, too. But they are not lifeforms as we understand the term. They are not organic. They are extradimensional. And they influence our reality in ways that seem sorcerous to us -- Supernatural if you will. So, let's use all those lost words for them: Demons, Spirits, Possessors, Changelings. All we need to remember is that there are no Gods out there in the darkness. No great demons and ministers of evil. There is no fundamental, immutable evil in the cosmos. It is too large and sterile for such melodrama. There are simply inhuman things that oppose us. Things we were created to battle and destroy. Orks. Guycan. Toshepta. Chilacid. Eldar. Jokearo. And the creatures of the warp, who are stranger than all for they exhibit powers that are bizzare to us because of the otherness of their nature."
Loken rose to his feet. He looked around the lamp-lit room and heard the moaning of the mountain wind outside. 'I have seen psykers taken by the warp, sir,' he said. 'I have seen them change and bloat in corruption, but I have never seen a sound man taken. I have never seen an Astartes so abused.
"It happens," Horus replied. He grinned, "does that shock you? I'm sorry. We keep it quiet. The warp can get into anything, if it so pleases. Today was a particular triumph for its ways. These mountains are not haunted as the myths report, but the warp is close to the surface here. That fact alone has given rise to the myths. Men have always found techniques to control the warp, and the folks here have done precisely that." 'They let the warp loose upon you today, and brave Jubal paid the price.'
'Why him?'
'Why not him? He was angry at you for overlooking him, and his anger made him vulnerable. The tendrils of the warp are always eager to exploit such chinks in the mind. I imagine the insurgents hoped that scores of your men would fall under the power they had let loose, but Tenth Company had more resolve than that. Samus was just a voice from the Chaotic realm that briefly anchored itself to Jubal's flesh. You dealt with it well. It could have been far worse.'
'You're sure of this, sir?' Horus grinned again. The sight of that grin filled Loken with sudden warmth.
'Ing Mae Sing, Mistress of Astropaths, informed me of a rapid warp spike in this region just after you disembarked. The data is solid and substantive. The locals used their limited knowledge of the warp, which they probably understood as magic, to unleash the horror of the Empyrean upon you as a weapon.'
'Why have we been told so little about the warp, sir?' Loken asked. He looked directly into Horus's wide-set eyes as he asked the question.
'Because so little is known,' the Warmaster replied. 'Do you know why I am Warmaster, my son?'
'Because you are the most worthy, sir?'
Horus laughed and, pouring another glass of wine, shook his head. 'I am Warmaster, Garviel, because the Emperor is busy. He has not retired to Terra because he is weary of the crusade. He has gone there because he has more important work to do.'
'More important than the crusade?' Loken asked.
Horus nodded. 'So he said to me. After Ullanor, he believed the time had come when he could leave the crusading work in the hands of the primarchs so that he might be freed to undertake a still higher calling.'
'Which is?' Loken waited for an answer, expecting some transcendent truth.
What the Warmaster said was, 'I don't know. He didn't tell me. He hasn't told anyone.' Horus paused. For what seemed like an age, the wind banged against the longhouse shutters. 'Not even me,' Horus whispered.
Loken sensed a terrible hurt in his commander, a wounded pride that he, even he, had not been worthy enough to know this secret. In a second, the Warmaster was smiling at Loken again, his dark mood forgotten.
'He didn't want to burden me,' he said briskly, 'but I'm not a fool. I can speculate. As I said, the Imperium would not exist but for the warp. We are obliged to use it, but we know perilously little about it. I believe that I am Warmaster because the Emperor is occupied in unlocking its secrets. He has committed his great mind to the ultimate mastery of the warp, for the good of mankind. He has realised that without final and full understanding of the Immaterium, we will founder and fall, no matter how many worlds we conquer.'
"[Cinderman] convinced me it was a plague at first. But I saw a spirit. A demon, take hold of Xavier Jubal and remake his flesh into the form of a monster. I saw a demon take hold of Jubal's soul and turn him against his own kind!"
"No, you didn't," Horus said.
"Sir?"
Horus smiled, "Allow me to illuminate you. I'll tell you what you saw Garviel. It is a secret thing, known to a very few, though the Emperor -- Beloved of All -- knows more than any of us. A secret Garviel, more than any other secret we are keeping today.
Can you keep it? I'll share it, for it will soothe your mind. But I need you to keep it solemly."
"I will" Loken said.
The Warmaster took another sip. "It was the warp, Garviel."
"The ... Warp?"
"Of course it was. We know the power of the Warp, and the chaos it contains. We've seen it change men. We've seen the wretched things that infest its dark dimensions. I know you have. On Eridas. On Cyrinx. On the bloody coast of Tassalon. There are entities in the warp that we might easily mistake for demons."
"Sir," Loken began,"I have been trained in the study of the warp. I am well prepared to face its horrors. I have fought the foul things that pour forth from the gates of the Empyrean. And, yes the warp can seep into a man and transmute him. I have seen this happen. But only in psykers. It is the risk they take. Not in Astartes."
"Do you understand the full mechanism of the warp, Garviel?" Horus asked. He raised the glass to the nearest light, to examine the color of the wine.
"No sir. I don't pretend to."
"Neither do I, my son. Neither does the Emperor -- Beloved by all -- not entirely. It pains me to admit that, but it is the truth, and we deal in truths above all else. The warp is a vital tool to us. A means of communications and transport. Without it there would be no Imperium of Man. For there would be no quick bridges between the stars. We use it, and we harness it. But we have no absolute control over it. It is a wild thing that tolerates our presence but brooks no mastery. There is power in the warp, fundamental power. Not good. Nor evil. But elemental, and anathema to us. It is a tool we use at our own risk."
The Warmaster finished his glass and set it down. "Spirits. Demons. Those words imply a greater power. A fiendish intellect and a purpose. An evil Archetype with cosmic schemes and strategems. They imply a god or gods at work behind the scenes. They imply the very supernatural state that we have taken great pains through the light of science to shake off. They imply sorcery and a palpable evil."
He looked across at Loken, "Spirits, demons, the supernatural, sorcery. These are words we have allowed to fall out of use for we dislike the connotations. But they are just words. What you saw today. Call it a spirit. Call it a demon. The words serve well enough. Using them does not deny the clinical truth of the universe as man understands it. There can be demons in a secular cosmos, Gavriel, just so long as we understand the use of the word."
"Meaning the warp."
"Meaning the warp. Why coin new terms for its horrors when we have a bounty of old words that might suit us just as well. We use the words alien and Xenos to describe the inhuman filth we encounter in some locales. The creatures of the warp are just aliens, too. But they are not lifeforms as we understand the term. They are not organic. They are extradimensional. And they influence our reality in ways that seem sorcerous to us -- Supernatural if you will. So, let's use all those lost words for them: Demons, Spirits, Possessors, Changelings. All we need to remember is that there are no Gods out there in the darkness. No great demons and ministers of evil. There is no fundamental, immutable evil in the cosmos. It is too large and sterile for such melodrama. There are simply inhuman things that oppose us. Things we were created to battle and destroy. Orks. Guycan. Toshepta. Chilacid. Eldar. Jokearo. And the creatures of the warp, who are stranger than all for they exhibit powers that are bizzare to us because of the otherness of their nature."
Loken rose to his feet. He looked around the lamp-lit room and heard the moaning of the mountain wind outside. 'I have seen psykers taken by the warp, sir,' he said. 'I have seen them change and bloat in corruption, but I have never seen a sound man taken. I have never seen an Astartes so abused.
"It happens," Horus replied. He grinned, "does that shock you? I'm sorry. We keep it quiet. The warp can get into anything, if it so pleases. Today was a particular triumph for its ways. These mountains are not haunted as the myths report, but the warp is close to the surface here. That fact alone has given rise to the myths. Men have always found techniques to control the warp, and the folks here have done precisely that." 'They let the warp loose upon you today, and brave Jubal paid the price.'
'Why him?'
'Why not him? He was angry at you for overlooking him, and his anger made him vulnerable. The tendrils of the warp are always eager to exploit such chinks in the mind. I imagine the insurgents hoped that scores of your men would fall under the power they had let loose, but Tenth Company had more resolve than that. Samus was just a voice from the Chaotic realm that briefly anchored itself to Jubal's flesh. You dealt with it well. It could have been far worse.'
'You're sure of this, sir?' Horus grinned again. The sight of that grin filled Loken with sudden warmth.
'Ing Mae Sing, Mistress of Astropaths, informed me of a rapid warp spike in this region just after you disembarked. The data is solid and substantive. The locals used their limited knowledge of the warp, which they probably understood as magic, to unleash the horror of the Empyrean upon you as a weapon.'
'Why have we been told so little about the warp, sir?' Loken asked. He looked directly into Horus's wide-set eyes as he asked the question.
'Because so little is known,' the Warmaster replied. 'Do you know why I am Warmaster, my son?'
'Because you are the most worthy, sir?'
Horus laughed and, pouring another glass of wine, shook his head. 'I am Warmaster, Garviel, because the Emperor is busy. He has not retired to Terra because he is weary of the crusade. He has gone there because he has more important work to do.'
'More important than the crusade?' Loken asked.
Horus nodded. 'So he said to me. After Ullanor, he believed the time had come when he could leave the crusading work in the hands of the primarchs so that he might be freed to undertake a still higher calling.'
'Which is?' Loken waited for an answer, expecting some transcendent truth.
What the Warmaster said was, 'I don't know. He didn't tell me. He hasn't told anyone.' Horus paused. For what seemed like an age, the wind banged against the longhouse shutters. 'Not even me,' Horus whispered.
Loken sensed a terrible hurt in his commander, a wounded pride that he, even he, had not been worthy enough to know this secret. In a second, the Warmaster was smiling at Loken again, his dark mood forgotten.
'He didn't want to burden me,' he said briskly, 'but I'm not a fool. I can speculate. As I said, the Imperium would not exist but for the warp. We are obliged to use it, but we know perilously little about it. I believe that I am Warmaster because the Emperor is occupied in unlocking its secrets. He has committed his great mind to the ultimate mastery of the warp, for the good of mankind. He has realised that without final and full understanding of the Immaterium, we will founder and fall, no matter how many worlds we conquer.'
Everyone knew that the Warp was full of gribblies and that the native inhabitants could fuck with reality(hell the Thousand Sons would openly summon daemons to use as pokemon during a battle). That was common knowledge. Granted more extensive knowledge was restricted to a need to know basis, because said knowledge could either cause huge moral problems or lead to people making bargains* with daemons, but that's no different then how things work in 40k or even Hellsing(where the Church and various governments cover up the existence of vampires and werewolves and god knows what else). The Emperor isn't going to have any real issues with a Primarch raised by a group like Hellsing(especially since Hellsing wants it's operatives to think rather then just be brainwashed religious zealots like the Vatican and Iscariot), though he would have concerns about the use of creatures like Alucard and Seras(even if it would be less then that of full blown warp entities since the those two still retain mostly human mindsets).
*
"My lord, I will always obey, but the spell to break into the alien lattice-way calls for bargains to be struck with the most terrible creatures of the Great Ocean, beings whose names translate as… daemons."
"There is little beyond your knowledge, Ahriman, but there are yet things you cannot know. You of all men should know that 'daemon' is a meaningless word conjured by fools who knew not what they beheld. Long ago, I encountered powers in the Great Ocean I thought to be sunken, conceptual landmasses, but over time I came to know them as vast intelligences, beings of such enormous power that they dwarf even the brightest stars of our own world. Such beings can be bargained with."
"What could such powerful beings possibly want?" asked Ahriman. "And can you ever really be sure that you have the best of such a bargain?"
"I can," Magnus assured him. "I have bargained with them before. This will be no different. If we could have saved the gateway into the lattice on Aghoru, this spell would be unnecessary. I could simply have stepped into it and emerged on Terra."
"Assuming a gateway exists on Terra," cautioned Ahriman.
"Of course a gateway exists on Terra. Why else would my father have retreated there to pursue his researches?"
Ahriman nodded, though Magnus saw he was far from convinced.
"There can be no other way, my son," said Magnus. "We talked about this before."
"I remember, but it frightens me that we must wield powers forbidden to us to warn the Emperor. Why should he trust any warning sent by such means?"
"There is little beyond your knowledge, Ahriman, but there are yet things you cannot know. You of all men should know that 'daemon' is a meaningless word conjured by fools who knew not what they beheld. Long ago, I encountered powers in the Great Ocean I thought to be sunken, conceptual landmasses, but over time I came to know them as vast intelligences, beings of such enormous power that they dwarf even the brightest stars of our own world. Such beings can be bargained with."
"What could such powerful beings possibly want?" asked Ahriman. "And can you ever really be sure that you have the best of such a bargain?"
"I can," Magnus assured him. "I have bargained with them before. This will be no different. If we could have saved the gateway into the lattice on Aghoru, this spell would be unnecessary. I could simply have stepped into it and emerged on Terra."
"Assuming a gateway exists on Terra," cautioned Ahriman.
"Of course a gateway exists on Terra. Why else would my father have retreated there to pursue his researches?"
Ahriman nodded, though Magnus saw he was far from convinced.
"There can be no other way, my son," said Magnus. "We talked about this before."
"I remember, but it frightens me that we must wield powers forbidden to us to warn the Emperor. Why should he trust any warning sent by such means?"
Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
I applaud your point but Dislike the fact that you apparently respect the Work of Daddy Issues Ward and his MoM enough to qoute it
GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
You mean besides the fact that it's the Emperor himself calling that particular piece of fanon moronic and implausible?
- Location
- the Netherworld Dood
He still kept the existence of the 4 and they're outright hostileity a secret. Horrus knew there was gribblies in the warp. Not that they were a hostile faction nor how to deal with them beyond "shoot and Stab till it stops moving" nor the danger of corruption. Fulgrim for example had no idea picking up a sword would mind screw him into madness.
Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
No its just that MoM Sucks and spits on the face of every bit of established Lore on Big as basically space King Arthur. Its probably a decent Standalone but when it comes to the established Lore it is just heavy handed club of Daddy Issues manifesting in the bashing of a dude who Loved Both Humanity as a whole and Individual people at the same time while hating what he knew was neccesary rather than being an utterly douchey chess master who loves nothing and no-one
- Location
- the Netherworld Dood
Exactly.
You can't have a fall from grace if you were never there to begin with
Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
The REAL emperor is Amazing. Daddy Issues Ward is taking IRL issues onto a well intentioned yet flawed Man, Most fans I ve heard talking about it ABSOLUTELY Loathe that Piece of shit Charecter Assasination Ward carried out
Edit if I understand right your saying that by Making the Emperor a monster from the get go rather than after 10k+years of astral torture and souls splitting. it completely undermined EVERYTHING that made the Heresy such a massive tragedy
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LinkOnScepter
The One who Strangles Concepts to death
- Location
- Interwebs
Might as well do this before things get worse.
At a family party. Using phone to type.
Expect update by wednesday.
Also for the record, won't be using anything from Gathering Storm. Once we reach that point, going into AU.
At a family party. Using phone to type.
Expect update by wednesday.
Also for the record, won't be using anything from Gathering Storm. Once we reach that point, going into AU.
Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
Is MoM going to be thrown into a fire*he asked hopefully*
But I DO like the Primaris its the Part by Daddy Issues Ward projecting via Big E that can die in a fire
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LinkOnScepter
The One who Strangles Concepts to death
- Location
- Interwebs
Basically anything that was introduced in the 8th Edition is just about out.
Now this does not mean I will get rid of everything. I will either use my own spin on things, or leave the decision to a vote if you guys can have an actual effect on it.
Also, as a bit of an excuse/reason for the late update, it is mainly cause I am afraid I might get some characterization wrong.
Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
so we could make Primaris on our own but it would just be time intensive as hell
Nix's Warden
Welcome to Hades
- Location
- United States
I hope not because Primaris Marines suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
How Do they suck
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Nix's Warden
Welcome to Hades
- Location
- United States
Because their the latest and biggest layer to Matt Ward and his Ultrasue's shit cake.
Ave Anathema
Ave Imperator
- Location
- Jacksonville Illinois
but EVERY Legion and its descendants get Primaris Not JUST the Ultramary sues
GhostKing 666
Bringing Nightmares to life evey minute
"He's even speaking of spirits you know. Cinderman, the arch-prophet of secular truths, speaking of spirits. I put him right, naturally. He mentioned spirits were a concern of yours."
"[Cinderman] convinced me it was a plague at first. But I saw a spirit. A demon, take hold of Xavier Jubal and remake his flesh into the form of a monster. I saw a demon take hold of Jubal's soul and turn him against his own kind!"
"No, you didn't," Horus said.
"Sir?"
Horus smiled, "Allow me to illuminate you. I'll tell you what you saw Garviel. It is a secret thing, known to a very few, though the Emperor -- Beloved of All -- knows more than any of us. A secret Garviel, more than any other secret we are keeping today.
Can you keep it? I'll share it, for it will soothe your mind. But I need you to keep it solemly."
"I will" Loken said.
The Warmaster took another sip. "It was the warp, Garviel."
"The ... Warp?"
"Of course it was. We know the power of the Warp, and the chaos it contains. We've seen it change men. We've seen the wretched things that infest its dark dimensions. I know you have. On Eridas. On Cyrinx. On the bloody coast of Tassalon. There are entities in the warp that we might easily mistake for demons."
"Sir," Loken began,"I have been trained in the study of the warp. I am well prepared to face its horrors. I have fought the foul things that pour forth from the gates of the Empyrean. And, yes the warp can seep into a man and transmute him. I have seen this happen. But only in psykers. It is the risk they take. Not in Astartes."
"Do you understand the full mechanism of the warp, Garviel?" Horus asked. He raised the glass to the nearest light, to examine the color of the wine.
"No sir. I don't pretend to."
"Neither do I, my son. Neither does the Emperor -- Beloved by all -- not entirely. It pains me to admit that, but it is the truth, and we deal in truths above all else. The warp is a vital tool to us. A means of communications and transport. Without it there would be no Imperium of Man. For there would be no quick bridges between the stars. We use it, and we harness it. But we have no absolute control over it. It is a wild thing that tolerates our presence but brooks no mastery. There is power in the warp, fundamental power. Not good. Nor evil. But elemental, and anathema to us. It is a tool we use at our own risk."
The Warmaster finished his glass and set it down. "Spirits. Demons. Those words imply a greater power. A fiendish intellect and a purpose. An evil Archetype with cosmic schemes and strategems. They imply a god or gods at work behind the scenes. They imply the very supernatural state that we have taken great pains through the light of science to shake off. They imply sorcery and a palpable evil."
He looked across at Loken, "Spirits, demons, the supernatural, sorcery. These are words we have allowed to fall out of use for we dislike the connotations. But they are just words. What you saw today. Call it a spirit. Call it a demon. The words serve well enough. Using them does not deny the clinical truth of the universe as man understands it. There can be demons in a secular cosmos, Gavriel, just so long as we understand the use of the word."
"Meaning the warp."
"Meaning the warp. Why coin new terms for its horrors when we have a bounty of old words that might suit us just as well. We use the words alien and Xenos to describe the inhuman filth we encounter in some locales. The creatures of the warp are just aliens, too. But they are not lifeforms as we understand the term. They are not organic. They are extradimensional. And they influence our reality in ways that seem sorcerous to us -- Supernatural if you will. So, let's use all those lost words for them: Demons, Spirits, Possessors, Changelings. All we need to remember is that there are no Gods out there in the darkness. No great demons and ministers of evil. There is no fundamental, immutable evil in the cosmos. It is too large and sterile for such melodrama. There are simply inhuman things that oppose us. Things we were created to battle and destroy. Orks. Guycan. Toshepta. Chilacid. Eldar. Jokearo. And the creatures of the warp, who are stranger than all for they exhibit powers that are bizzare to us because of the otherness of their nature."
Loken rose to his feet. He looked around the lamp-lit room and heard the moaning of the mountain wind outside. 'I have seen psykers taken by the warp, sir,' he said. 'I have seen them change and bloat in corruption, but I have never seen a sound man taken. I have never seen an Astartes so abused.
"It happens," Horus replied. He grinned, "does that shock you? I'm sorry. We keep it quiet. The warp can get into anything, if it so pleases. Today was a particular triumph for its ways. These mountains are not haunted as the myths report, but the warp is close to the surface here. That fact alone has given rise to the myths. Men have always found techniques to control the warp, and the folks here have done precisely that." 'They let the warp loose upon you today, and brave Jubal paid the price.'
'Why him?'
'Why not him? He was angry at you for overlooking him, and his anger made him vulnerable. The tendrils of the warp are always eager to exploit such chinks in the mind. I imagine the insurgents hoped that scores of your men would fall under the power they had let loose, but Tenth Company had more resolve than that. Samus was just a voice from the Chaotic realm that briefly anchored itself to Jubal's flesh. You dealt with it well. It could have been far worse.'
'You're sure of this, sir?' Horus grinned again. The sight of that grin filled Loken with sudden warmth.
'Ing Mae Sing, Mistress of Astropaths, informed me of a rapid warp spike in this region just after you disembarked. The data is solid and substantive. The locals used their limited knowledge of the warp, which they probably understood as magic, to unleash the horror of the Empyrean upon you as a weapon.'
'Why have we been told so little about the warp, sir?' Loken asked. He looked directly into Horus's wide-set eyes as he asked the question.
'Because so little is known,' the Warmaster replied. 'Do you know why I am Warmaster, my son?'
'Because you are the most worthy, sir?'
Horus laughed and, pouring another glass of wine, shook his head. 'I am Warmaster, Garviel, because the Emperor is busy. He has not retired to Terra because he is weary of the crusade. He has gone there because he has more important work to do.'
'More important than the crusade?' Loken asked.
Horus nodded. 'So he said to me. After Ullanor, he believed the time had come when he could leave the crusading work in the hands of the primarchs so that he might be freed to undertake a still higher calling.'
'Which is?' Loken waited for an answer, expecting some transcendent truth.
What the Warmaster said was, 'I don't know. He didn't tell me. He hasn't told anyone.' Horus paused. For what seemed like an age, the wind banged against the longhouse shutters. 'Not even me,' Horus whispered.
Loken sensed a terrible hurt in his commander, a wounded pride that he, even he, had not been worthy enough to know this secret. In a second, the Warmaster was smiling at Loken again, his dark mood forgotten.
'He didn't want to burden me,' he said briskly, 'but I'm not a fool. I can speculate. As I said, the Imperium would not exist but for the warp. We are obliged to use it, but we know perilously little about it. I believe that I am Warmaster because the Emperor is occupied in unlocking its secrets. He has committed his great mind to the ultimate mastery of the warp, for the good of mankind. He has realised that without final and full understanding of the Immaterium, we will founder and fall, no matter how many worlds we conquer.'
"[Cinderman] convinced me it was a plague at first. But I saw a spirit. A demon, take hold of Xavier Jubal and remake his flesh into the form of a monster. I saw a demon take hold of Jubal's soul and turn him against his own kind!"
"No, you didn't," Horus said.
"Sir?"
Horus smiled, "Allow me to illuminate you. I'll tell you what you saw Garviel. It is a secret thing, known to a very few, though the Emperor -- Beloved of All -- knows more than any of us. A secret Garviel, more than any other secret we are keeping today.
Can you keep it? I'll share it, for it will soothe your mind. But I need you to keep it solemly."
"I will" Loken said.
The Warmaster took another sip. "It was the warp, Garviel."
"The ... Warp?"
"Of course it was. We know the power of the Warp, and the chaos it contains. We've seen it change men. We've seen the wretched things that infest its dark dimensions. I know you have. On Eridas. On Cyrinx. On the bloody coast of Tassalon. There are entities in the warp that we might easily mistake for demons."
"Sir," Loken began,"I have been trained in the study of the warp. I am well prepared to face its horrors. I have fought the foul things that pour forth from the gates of the Empyrean. And, yes the warp can seep into a man and transmute him. I have seen this happen. But only in psykers. It is the risk they take. Not in Astartes."
"Do you understand the full mechanism of the warp, Garviel?" Horus asked. He raised the glass to the nearest light, to examine the color of the wine.
"No sir. I don't pretend to."
"Neither do I, my son. Neither does the Emperor -- Beloved by all -- not entirely. It pains me to admit that, but it is the truth, and we deal in truths above all else. The warp is a vital tool to us. A means of communications and transport. Without it there would be no Imperium of Man. For there would be no quick bridges between the stars. We use it, and we harness it. But we have no absolute control over it. It is a wild thing that tolerates our presence but brooks no mastery. There is power in the warp, fundamental power. Not good. Nor evil. But elemental, and anathema to us. It is a tool we use at our own risk."
The Warmaster finished his glass and set it down. "Spirits. Demons. Those words imply a greater power. A fiendish intellect and a purpose. An evil Archetype with cosmic schemes and strategems. They imply a god or gods at work behind the scenes. They imply the very supernatural state that we have taken great pains through the light of science to shake off. They imply sorcery and a palpable evil."
He looked across at Loken, "Spirits, demons, the supernatural, sorcery. These are words we have allowed to fall out of use for we dislike the connotations. But they are just words. What you saw today. Call it a spirit. Call it a demon. The words serve well enough. Using them does not deny the clinical truth of the universe as man understands it. There can be demons in a secular cosmos, Gavriel, just so long as we understand the use of the word."
"Meaning the warp."
"Meaning the warp. Why coin new terms for its horrors when we have a bounty of old words that might suit us just as well. We use the words alien and Xenos to describe the inhuman filth we encounter in some locales. The creatures of the warp are just aliens, too. But they are not lifeforms as we understand the term. They are not organic. They are extradimensional. And they influence our reality in ways that seem sorcerous to us -- Supernatural if you will. So, let's use all those lost words for them: Demons, Spirits, Possessors, Changelings. All we need to remember is that there are no Gods out there in the darkness. No great demons and ministers of evil. There is no fundamental, immutable evil in the cosmos. It is too large and sterile for such melodrama. There are simply inhuman things that oppose us. Things we were created to battle and destroy. Orks. Guycan. Toshepta. Chilacid. Eldar. Jokearo. And the creatures of the warp, who are stranger than all for they exhibit powers that are bizzare to us because of the otherness of their nature."
Loken rose to his feet. He looked around the lamp-lit room and heard the moaning of the mountain wind outside. 'I have seen psykers taken by the warp, sir,' he said. 'I have seen them change and bloat in corruption, but I have never seen a sound man taken. I have never seen an Astartes so abused.
"It happens," Horus replied. He grinned, "does that shock you? I'm sorry. We keep it quiet. The warp can get into anything, if it so pleases. Today was a particular triumph for its ways. These mountains are not haunted as the myths report, but the warp is close to the surface here. That fact alone has given rise to the myths. Men have always found techniques to control the warp, and the folks here have done precisely that." 'They let the warp loose upon you today, and brave Jubal paid the price.'
'Why him?'
'Why not him? He was angry at you for overlooking him, and his anger made him vulnerable. The tendrils of the warp are always eager to exploit such chinks in the mind. I imagine the insurgents hoped that scores of your men would fall under the power they had let loose, but Tenth Company had more resolve than that. Samus was just a voice from the Chaotic realm that briefly anchored itself to Jubal's flesh. You dealt with it well. It could have been far worse.'
'You're sure of this, sir?' Horus grinned again. The sight of that grin filled Loken with sudden warmth.
'Ing Mae Sing, Mistress of Astropaths, informed me of a rapid warp spike in this region just after you disembarked. The data is solid and substantive. The locals used their limited knowledge of the warp, which they probably understood as magic, to unleash the horror of the Empyrean upon you as a weapon.'
'Why have we been told so little about the warp, sir?' Loken asked. He looked directly into Horus's wide-set eyes as he asked the question.
'Because so little is known,' the Warmaster replied. 'Do you know why I am Warmaster, my son?'
'Because you are the most worthy, sir?'
Horus laughed and, pouring another glass of wine, shook his head. 'I am Warmaster, Garviel, because the Emperor is busy. He has not retired to Terra because he is weary of the crusade. He has gone there because he has more important work to do.'
'More important than the crusade?' Loken asked.
Horus nodded. 'So he said to me. After Ullanor, he believed the time had come when he could leave the crusading work in the hands of the primarchs so that he might be freed to undertake a still higher calling.'
'Which is?' Loken waited for an answer, expecting some transcendent truth.
What the Warmaster said was, 'I don't know. He didn't tell me. He hasn't told anyone.' Horus paused. For what seemed like an age, the wind banged against the longhouse shutters. 'Not even me,' Horus whispered.
Loken sensed a terrible hurt in his commander, a wounded pride that he, even he, had not been worthy enough to know this secret. In a second, the Warmaster was smiling at Loken again, his dark mood forgotten.
'He didn't want to burden me,' he said briskly, 'but I'm not a fool. I can speculate. As I said, the Imperium would not exist but for the warp. We are obliged to use it, but we know perilously little about it. I believe that I am Warmaster because the Emperor is occupied in unlocking its secrets. He has committed his great mind to the ultimate mastery of the warp, for the good of mankind. He has realised that without final and full understanding of the Immaterium, we will founder and fall, no matter how many worlds we conquer.'
The reason Fulgrim didn't know picking up that sword was dangerous wasn't because he didn't know that warp artifacts are dangerous but because he didn't know it was a warp artifact in the first place. Other then worshipping Slannesh, nothing about the Laer indicated that they made use of warp artifacts(or warp anything at all considering that the Laer only inhabited their home system and probably didn't even have warp drives yet). Hell it might even have been the only true warp artifact on the planet at the time, so as far as Fulgrim knew, it was just a very good sword made via eldritch xenos technology and he had no indication that it was anything more dangerous.
As for not telling Horus about the Big Four, between Magnus's blatantly reckless actions having soured the Emperor on the idea on telling the Primarchs anything more then what they needed to know, there's also the fact that they didn't really need to know. Horus, like Fulgrim, didn't fall to Chaos via his own inclinations, he fell because Erebus arranged for him to get brainwashed into serving Chaos, and knowing about the Big Four would have done nothing at all to change that. In fact, of all the traitor Primarchs, the only one whose fall might have been prevented had he known about the Big Four(as well as the Emperor's stance on them being just ultra powerful "warp xenos" rather then using terms like daemons and gods) would have been Lorgar(an argument could be made that Magnus might not have fallen at all had he never known that the Chaos Gods existed and tried to bargain with Tzeentch). But that really depends on whether Lorgar would ever have been willing to stop being a brainwashed choir boy.
None of that at all addresses how that quote is in anyway wrong or inaccurate. From my perspective, your the one projecting your hate of everything to do with Matt Ward into this thread(I mean the book wasn't even written by Ward, it was written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden). Frankly, the book exists, it's considered canon by GW, get over it.
- Location
- Nowhere
Quoting Horus Herpdesy should be considered cheating, it's a series in which every author tries to one-up each other with every new entry, with increasingly ridiculous "reveals", such as resurrecting a minor, regular human character from the older editions that stopped Horus at the cost of his life... And then make him a super-immortal, missing the point IMO.
That and blackwashing characters by exaggerating their faults or creating new ones.
That and blackwashing characters by exaggerating their faults or creating new ones.
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- United States
We can all agree that the Warhammer timeline is fucked beyond repair, but how about we just think that all of this is just fucked up writings by a drunken remembrance who's hallucinating on acid.
I like to think that 'Personal Canon' applies here, the timeline is yours to mix and twirl. That's the best part, you can create armies and other things with just the right stuff.
Or not, this is just me rambling while recovering from a hangover.
I like to think that 'Personal Canon' applies here, the timeline is yours to mix and twirl. That's the best part, you can create armies and other things with just the right stuff.
Or not, this is just me rambling while recovering from a hangover.