“Do you know why He made us?’ He drew back the scythe. ‘Do you think it was for affection? I think, once I’ve crippled you, and you lie blind and useless in an iron cage, begging to die, I might tell you, and then your fine words here will burn in your mouth.’”
–Plague War
“‘Then tell me, Roboute, if our father were so good, look me in the eye and tell me that He loved us all as any father should love his sons.’
Guilliman stared at him, his jaw clenched in anger.”
–Plague War
Okay, our dad was just an awful person and never loved another person as an individual and only used our love for him to make us easier to manipulate–canon has been very anviliciously clear on this point. Can we just move on from our daddy issues and talk about who we are as adults?
“‘It is you who is the slave!’ hissed Mortarion. ‘The slave of our uncaring father, who made us to do His bidding! You who trod the path He laid out for you without question, sure that the lies He told were the truth, too stupid and trusting to question them for yourself. You never saw what He did to me. The first time I met Him He stole from me my life’s struggle. It was nothing to Him, a bump in His smooth road to godhood. He took what I had worked and suffered for and He did not care! He called Himself the Emperor! What kind of being has the presumption to claim such a title? Who takes and takes the affections of His sons and gives so little in return? He would not even deign to tell us His name! You swallowed it all, poison milk from our machine mother, machines He created, things like we are. I tried His way. I should never have compromised my own principles. But I did. I was a champion of common people. I abandoned them for a galactic despot. Now I serve the people again.’
Mortarion glared at Guilliman with milky eyes, defying him to challenge his pronouncements.
‘If I am a puppet of an uncaring master, then what are you?’ said Guilliman. ‘A being who wallows in warp power while crying hatred for the witch? A plaything for corruption and disease? You blustered long and hard against psychic power, and claimed total fearlessness and indomitability none could match, yet when faced with death, the ultimate challenge, you failed.’
Mortarion flinched and rose up in the air, his insect wings beating quickly.
‘You do not know what you speak of! You do not know what it was like! I was shown the depths of suffering of a kind you could never understand, and as death beckoned I was given the power to withstand it.’
‘I know no suffering?’ Guilliman laughed bleakly. ‘I saw my brothers, many of whom I loved, all of whom I respected, turn their backs upon our creator and plunge the galaxy into war. I saw humanity reach for one golden moment of peace, brush it with its fingers, and then I saw you and the others spit upon it and tear it away. I died at the hands of my kin. I awoke to a galaxy so far from the glorious enlightenment of the Emperor it resembles the Catheric hell. You turned your back on all you claimed to stand for, cravenly, without a second thought. Where was my brother who could weather any storm, whose body shrugged off poison, who would never, ever give in? What happened to him? The Mortarion of old would never have allowed this. He would have died with honour. You must have seen, as your warriors were transformed into these hulking monsters, what awaited you should you say yes to salvation. You who called yourself the strongest of us, the redoubtable, the master of any pain or sorrow! How hollow those words seem to me now. I at least know what I am. I look at myself, and though I perceive many failures I know with unshakeable certainty that I perform the duty I was created for. That I fight for the preservation of mankind.’”
–Plague War
“The brother-on-brother battles of the Heresy had once seemed the height of madness to Guilliman. That was before he had fought directly against the powers who had manipulated his brothers, poisoned their hearts and brought mankind close to apocalypse. To fight daemons was to fight nightmares. They were the fever-sick imaginings of the mad and perverted, the lonely and the afraid. Every whim, every dark desire, every wayward thought was a seed that grew in the churning of the warp. Legions of daemons trod the soils of Terra during the siege. For a long time, Guilliman questioned why his father had kept the secrets of the warp to Himself. He had fought daemons so many times that their impossibility became normalised. But it was only after his awakening and his exposure to the Cicatrix Maledictum that he truly understood what the Emperor had been trying to do, that these things were not his father’s true enemies, but rather their source was. Revealing the truth of daemonkind would have strengthened them enormously, for men would never have been able to put them from their thoughts.
The Emperor had been trying to save mankind from the horror of its own mind.
The universe hung on the brink of destruction. The balance tipped so far in the favour of evil that Guilliman could not see a way to alter the weights. Off the field of battle, fate’s caprice weighed on him heavily.
At times like this, it did not matter. Guilliman let free all his pretensions to order and to progress. He unleashed his skills of destruction. Fighting for mortal man was what he had been made for, freeing the Emperor to wage a higher war.
Roboute Guilliman was a living weapon.”
–Plague War
‘All Space Marines were strange to a baseline human, and most were emotionally stunted, with little interest in conversing with other men.’
–Plague War
Someone said it
“‘Roboute,’ said Yassilli suddenly. He glanced sidelong at her use of his given name.
The liberty had been taken only once before, and recently, and though he had not rebuked her for speaking this way it took him by surprise, she could tell.
‘What?’ she said, mischief lifting the corners of her mouth. ‘It is your name, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ he agreed, his voice no less stentorian. ‘Although I’d half come to believe my name is “my lord” or “the Imperial Regent” or “blessed primarch”. A term I find particularly irksome.’
‘Do you find my use of your first name impertinent?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said wryly. A little of the demigod’s tone slipped from his voice, a little warmth took its place.
Yassilli was hardly abashed. ‘Then I apologise, my lord Guilliman.’
Guilliman stopped his walking and looked down at the woman. ‘I said it was impertinent, I did not say I disapproved, Yassilli.’ His voice softened further, becoming yet more human, and his heroic expression did not change exactly, but he somehow became more relatable. ‘I find your familiarity refreshing. It is good to be reminded that I am a person as well as a primarch. And I do have a sense of humour, despite what you might have heard.’
…
‘You really have no fear of me, do you?’ he asked. ‘I find that amazing, as well as saddening. Everyone is frightened of me now.’
She flashed her brilliant smile at him. ‘I suppose I should be frightened of you, but no, I’m not. There’s plenty to be afraid of in this galaxy. Why be afraid of the one who is trying to save us?’
He loomed over her, his eyebrows drawn together, two disapproving thunderheads shadowing his eyes. ‘I am Roboute Guilliman, primarch, gene-engineered son of the Emperor of Mankind. I am the Avenging Son, the Victorious, the Blade of Unity, the Master of Ultramar. I am the Imperial Regent. Empires tremble before me. I was made one hundred centuries before your birth, millennia before your House rose to prominence. I have fought daemons and defied beings that call themselves gods. Species have died at my hand. Now, tell me again, do you not fear me?’
She stared up at him. Her smile was a little less cocky, but she was still wearing it, proud as a badge. ‘When you put it like that, maybe I do a little bit.’
Guilliman returned her smile tenfold. Some faces are transformed by smiles; Guilliman’s was not one of those faces. Warm though his expression was, he retained the look of an image carved from marble to grace a cenotaph.
‘More impudence,’ he said, though his tone was kind. He resumed his walking. ‘You may call me Roboute, if you wish. I miss such signs of common feeling.’
‘I thank you, Robu,’ she said.
‘Now you overstep the limit,’ he said.
‘I am sorry, my lord.’
‘Somehow, I doubt your sincerity,’ he said, still smiling.”
–Plague War
Plague War is trying to sell me on the idea that the Imperial standard of living has decreased since Guilliman’s day and that’s terrible. By all means, Guilliman’s personal life has gone downhill fast, but when you try to extrapolate that it kinda relies on your audience having never read a Heresy-era book ever. Most Heresy-era books agree: war was widespread in this galaxy-wide war of conquest, most people lived in extreme poverty and worked in some sort of manual labour, places like hive worlds and feral worlds were basically indistinguishable from their future selves, it was an oppressive police state, people did not understand a lot of the tech they were using, people were happy to burn you at the stake for having the wrong religious beliefs (though what those beliefs were have shifted).
Heresy-era authors still want to get that traditional Warhammer feel of everything is terrible and dystopian all the time and ham-fisted foreshadowing of how everything’s about to go to hell completely, which in turn undercuts assertions like this. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
While I feel like that should be a thing I also feel like they’d have sensors to warn about impending collapses.
I actually asked IP about this! Short answer – the sensors (augurs, whatever) in their armour detect unstable or weak surfaces and alert them. That’s why you don’t see Terminators plunging through those rusted out gantries aboard space hulks.
Time to bust those augurs with a rough pod landing and have some “can I stand there or can I not” fun. Because hot damn, that’s an easy source of tension completely overlooked. Amma do the thing.
See, the beauty of fanfiction is that you can do that (and definitely should, because it’s hilarious).
*I*, on the other hand, got a talking to by a very stern editor. ‘No Josh, you only get six funny things and you used the last one up on that awkward conversation about the weather between a construction worker and an Imperial Fist.’ Feh.
It wouldn’t surprise me, honestly. Competition between certain chambers and stormhosts is probably high, and the Gladitorum is the safest place to work that stuff out.
I’m always here for big super-human folks beating the shit outta each other to ensure they work better together in the future.
Different Warrior Chambers already have different color helmet crests, right? They’re basically required to have corresponding paintball fights too.
Me: ‘So…Cadoc Kel, trapped behind enemy lines, with a baby strapped to him. Like Shogun Assassin, only with Stormcasts.’
My editor: ‘Why not Gardus instead?’
Me: ‘It’s funnier if it’s Cadoc.’
My editor: ‘Josh…’
Me: ‘Trust me.’
My editor: ‘Jooooosssshhhh…’
Me: ‘Also the baby is a witch.’
My editor: [sighs for five minutes]
Tell your editor I have given you my blessing on this story, and they aren’t needed for the next stage of writing and development. What you have is GOLD, Josh!
because by fate even the gods are cast down 