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View Full Version : Why are there Librarians? [Minor 1K Sons Spoilers]



Kuhlbert
03-07-2010, 09:01 AM
So just finished "A Thousand Sons"...

And it begs the questions - in the modern Chapters, why are there Librarians?

I went back and re-read Index Astartes III - and in that book, the Meeting at Nikaea resulted in Sorcery being banned. But in A Thousand Sons, this is ret-conned on page 355 - there are to be no Legion Librarius' and Psychic powers are banned from the Legions.

This is a bit stronger that IAIII.

So, _if_ this is true - how is it that today most of the chapters _do_ have Librarians, and some of them are using powers as strong as what 1K Sons used.

So for discussion:

a) McNeill over stepped himsefl in the book, and it is only Sorcery/Magic outlawed, psykers are still okay...
b) The Emperor himself later lightened the restrictions, in order to fight the Chaos Legions
c) The Psychic-using chapters ignored the edicts like the 1K Sons (just not as much), and over time, it worked itself back into the norm (since the Emperor isn't around to punish)
d) Someone else (Gullieman?) later reestablished the Librarians post Golden-throne.
e) Some of the chapters (Space Wolves) were a bit ignorant, and didn't think their powers (Rune-Priests) were Psychic powers, and thus didn't think the rule applied to them...and eventually it spread to other chapters...

Setting aside a. (because its no fun to discuss)... what do people think? If the novel "A Thousand Sons" is the proper canon... why would there be Librarians in the chapters today?

Just curious what people think.

Madness
03-07-2010, 09:37 AM
Because they are just too damn useful, and sanctioned psykers are a-ok, as opposed to people who dabble into heretical stuff when not intructed to.

Gotthammer
03-07-2010, 10:24 AM
I'd go with A followed by B.

Melissia
03-07-2010, 10:56 AM
Without a Librarian, modern chapters couldn't do jack on their own. They'd have to rely on civilians to send or recieve messages, for example.

Marines are given Librarians in order to ensure that they are independent. The actual fluff ramifications of this are irrelevant :P

Madness
03-07-2010, 11:08 AM
Which is also why I find the Black Templars kind of ridiculous.

Fellend
03-07-2010, 12:09 PM
The black templars have civilian sanctioned psykers. What's so ridiciulous with that? I'd say having a bunch of slave psykers to send and recieve messages seems more efficiant than letting your precious librarian do it. Not to mention that all librarians can't even send or recieve messages as that is a special talent not all are gifted with.

Not having read thousands sons yet I can't say for sure but wasn't it the sorcery part that was forbidden general psykery was okay? It seems kinda wrong for the emperor to ban psykers as he is one himself, several primarchs were psykers (if not all) and his friends were psykers.

Melissia
03-07-2010, 12:17 PM
Having slave psykers means that they will often see rebellion, lies, falsehood, traitors, etc. You can't lobotomize psykers and still have them keep their psychic ability like you can other slaves. And a traitorous psyker is far dangerous than other kinds of traitors.


Basically, the Black Templars are kinda stupid if they use slave psykers like you say. Okay, they aren't kinda stupid. They're REALLY stupid.

Madness
03-07-2010, 01:31 PM
I get that Librarians aren't dedicated astropaths, I get that Librarians aren't dedicated Navigators, what I don't get it is why a civilian guy performing the same exact tasks should be more trustable than a friggin' brainwashed marine.

"Suffer not the witch to live, unless he's not one of your brethren, even better if he's not even in the military and he's a civilian"

What's next? Bonus points if he is totally a fanboy of Ahriman?

wittdooley
03-07-2010, 01:45 PM
First, I sincerely doubt that McNeill 'overstepped' here. Let's not kid ourselves and think that the new canon introduced into these books isn't carefully planned and measured.

Second, I'm gonna throw it out there that we don't yet know the Emperor's true intention for his ruling. Remembering that he is the most powerful psychic being in the universe, and knowing that the Imperium would be unable to function without psykers, I'm sure something has simply yet to happen that will lead to the re-establishment of the Librarius. Remember, presently in the HH timeline, no one is supposed to revere the Emperor as a god either.

To Madness-- a great number of books in the Black Library explore the necessity of 'civilian psykers;' all seem to indicate that there are familial bloodlines that breed more potent and able psykers, and as such the chance for them losing control to the warp is far less. It's also been indicated in some of the newer novels (Black Tide) that the Navigator council holds some significant power in the Imperium.

Melissia
03-07-2010, 01:45 PM
For my part, my biggest objection is simply "the enslaved will rebel and betray their masters". And Psykers are quite capable of doing extreme damage if they decide to betray and rebel. Especially the subtle ones.

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 01:45 PM
Without having read the book, I'd go with A followed by D. The distinction among sorcery, witchcraft, and psychic powers is one of worldview, so I wouldn't be surprised if McNeil felt like it was anachronistic for Nikaea to use a term like "sorcery" - and of course the Legions couldn't use "witchcraft" by definition.

In a post-Heresy world, though, it makes sense to distinguish between sorcerous and non-sorcerous psychic powers, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if Guilliman wrote with that distinction in mind.

As for "slave" psykers ... Mel's right that slave psykers are a stupid idea, but where are you getting that in the first place, Fellend? The codex certainly doesn't say anything about slaves. All it says is that the Black Templars profess zero tolerance of mutants, including psykers, and thus do not fight alongside them - but that the chapter's various keeps and fleets stay in touch with each other somehow and navigate the Warp somehow, so presumably they must use astropaths and Navigators just like everybody else. The codex goes on to speculate that perhaps the Black Templars use only astropaths and Navigators that view their powers as a curse, and repent of their abilities. That wouldn't be so weird; plenty of Imperial psykers view their powers as a curse.

Madness
03-07-2010, 01:54 PM
To Madness-- a great number of books in the Black Library explore the necessity of 'civilian psykers;' all seem to indicate that there are familial bloodlines that breed more potent and able psykers, and as such the chance for them losing control to the warp is far less. It's also been indicated in some of the newer novels (Black Tide) that the Navigator council holds some significant power in the Imperium.Still, you either use psykers or you don't, if you end up deciding to use them, you'd be better off with ones that are trained with your same values instead of complete strangers.

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 02:03 PM
Well, look at it from a Black Templar's standpoint, Madness. A psyker poses the following threats on a battlefield:
Spiritual threat - his very being is tainted with the essence of hell.
Practical threat - while daemons could theoretically possess anybody on any battlefield, a psyker actively using his powers is far more likely than anybody else to be possessed.
Moral threat - A Black Templar's sense of honor is tied to his ability to triumph in battle with courage and steel.
Those being the case, I don't think it's stupid for the Templars not to want librarians on the battlefield, which is what the current codex states is the core of their objection. If you don't have librarians on the battlefield, it makes sense to me that you wouldn't have librarians at all - the idea of a space marine with a desk job is ridiculous, as well as wasteful. So if you don't want to field librarians in battle, isn't the logical conclusion to have no psychic space marines and instead outsource the necessary psychic functions to those organizations within the Imperium that specialize in providing them?

Melissia
03-07-2010, 02:06 PM
It's not wasteful. A Space Marine Librarian would have the tempered discipline of the Astartes, the mental training, and this combined with their enhanced biology would give them a longer lifespan to gain control over their powers. Even if they never go into battle, Librarians-- while not necessarilly more powerful than civilian psykers-- would still be quite useful, reliable, and efficient, and furthermore would be less likely to betray the Black Templars.

A single rogue psyker subtly plotting against the chapter could doom it in its entirity by themselves. Loyalty is very important.

Madness
03-07-2010, 02:10 PM
Not really, librarians are there for a plethora of reasons, and having to outsource all that work is a huge security leak, they can run better background check on 16 year old candidates than they can do on a guy who was trained from people they don't even know.

Not to mention how effective force weapons are against daemons.

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 02:13 PM
It's not wasteful. A Space Marine Librarian would have the tempered discipline of the Astartes, the mental training, and this combined with their enhanced biology would give them a longer lifespan to gain control over their powers. Even if they never go into battle, Librarians-- while not necessarilly more powerful than civilian psykers-- would still be quite useful, reliable, and efficient, and furthermore would be less likely to betray the Black Templars.

A single rogue psyker subtly plotting against the chapter could doom it in its entirity by themselves. Loyalty is very important.
Loyalty is not traditionally an issue with either the Navis Nobilite or the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. How many times in the fluff have we seen astropaths killing themselves just to send a high-priority message? If either the NN or the AAT had material loyalty issues, the Imperium would have much bigger problems than the crippling of a single space marine chapter.

As for wasteful ... I guess that's putting it too strongly. But to be honest I'm not so sure that you can create a non-combatant space marine librarian. You could give them the physiology, but a space marine's psyche is a fragile thing. It takes a lot to take a human mind and turn it to a lifetime of war fighting for a society that the soldier has no stake in for decades (let alone centuries) on end with essentially no R&R without that mind just snapping. Esprit de corps is a big part of what holds a space marine together mentally. Take a person who is physiologically a space marine and tell him that he isn't trusted to drop with his brothers, ever, and I don't think that person would be a space marine mentally for very long.

Melissia
03-07-2010, 02:18 PM
Loyalty is not traditionally an issue with either the Navis Nobilite or the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. How many times in the fluff have we seen astropaths killing themselves just to send a high-priority message? If either the NN or the AAT had material loyalty issues, the Imperium would have much bigger problems than the crippling of a single space marine chapter.And how many times do you hear of psykers turning to chaos and betraying the Imperium and it's Emperor? Quite damn frequently. The Navis Nobilites have their own problems, and they DO have fallen houses which are dangerous and hated families. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica DOES have traitors in its midst, by the way, even if it has a good loyalty record.


As for wasteful ... I guess that's putting it too strongly. But to be honest I'm not so sure that you can create a non-combatant space marine librarian. You could give them the physiology, but a space marine's psyche is a fragile thing. It takes a lot to take a human mind and turn it to a lifetime of war fighting for a society that the soldier has no stake in. Space marines are mostly held together, mentally, by esprit de corps. Take a person who is physiologically a space marine and tell him that he isn't trusted to drop with his brothers, ever, and I don't think that person would be a space marine mentally for very long.As opposed to someone working for an organization that hates them completely and utterly to the point of slavery? That would mean betrayal inevitably. Even the Sisters of Battle don't hate sanctioned psykers-- after all, these psykers have seen the light of the Emperor in person, and so are blessed as long as they remain loyal to He Upon His Golden Throne.

People do not react well to these kinds of situations. Powerful people have far less beneficial reactions. Psykers are very powerful people.

Madness
03-07-2010, 02:20 PM
Nab: yeah, and probably all the marine chapters use NN and AAT supplied psykers for travel and transmission most of the time, but once you decided that it's acceptable to put your life in the hands of a with for what it concerns communication and movement aren't you pretty much screwed already?

I mean what makes you say "I might let a witch send me to the derive or send false messages around, but there's NO way I'm going to let a man every 1000 or so of my soldiers provide the much needed skills we could really use."

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 02:24 PM
And how many times do you hear of psykers turning to chaos and betraying the Imperium and it's Emperor? Quite damn frequently. The Navis Nobilites have their own problems, and they DO have fallen houses which are dangerous and hated families. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica DOES have traitors in its midst, by the way, even if it has a good loyalty record.
The Navis Nobilite isn't really fungible for space marines; they're the reason space marine ships are so fast. Give that up and you've given up your chapter's rapid reaction capabilities. As for the AAT, yes, psykers go rogue, but so do librarians. There are what, maybe a few thousand librarians in the Imperium? The AAT's got to have hundreds of millions of members - probably billions. And yet the planets of the Imperium still talk to each other, and its fleets and armies still make war. On the whole, yes, I trust the AAT more than I trust the collected libraria of the Adeptus Astartes.


As opposed to someone working for an organization that hates them completely and utterly to the point of slavery? That would mean betrayal inevitably. Even the Sisters of Battle don't hate sanctioned psykers-- after all, these psykers have seen the light of the Emperor in person, and so are blessed as long as they remain loyal to He Upon His Golden Throne.
Wait wait wait ... go back to slavery. Source that.


I mean what makes you say "I might let a witch send me to the derive or send false messages around, but there's NO way I'm going to let a man every 1000 or so of my soldiers provide the much needed skills we could really use."
Well, other than using psychic powers on the battlefield, librarians don't provide any skills that civilian psykers can't provide also. Are you going to tell the Black Templars that they need psychic powers on the battlefield to win? I'm not. Even among chapters that do field librarians, most space marine strike forces won't include a librarian, and they seem to get by just fine.

Melissia
03-07-2010, 02:27 PM
Even if there is no actual slavery, they can still hate psykers that much. And I don't have a source. I just am going off what people are saying in this thread.


To clarify what I said about Sisters, the Sisters hate the witch. The difference between witch and psyker are, of course, social, but even Imperial Psykers tend to hate witches. The Sisterhood (And all other schola progenium trained individuals) know the difference, legally and socially, between a witch and a sanctionite, and while they will of course be vigilant in watching the latter, they honor them as servants of the Emperor-- but the former receives no such mercy.

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 02:34 PM
Even if there is no actual slavery, they can still hate psykers that much. And I don't have a source. I just am going off what people are saying in this thread.
Eh, I throw down the same challenge to what people say in this thread. Source it.

Templar Navigators I can kind of see even in a Black Templar environment - I get the impression that Navigators are fully aware of how indispensable they are, and kind of don't give a rat's *** what anybody thinks of them. If a Navigator House provides service to the Templars, I'm sure it's either (i) for that House's own damn good reasons, and/or (ii) because even Black Templars know enough not to piss off the people that make their fleets go.

As for other psykers, such as astropaths, I think there's two plausible options here. The first is the same as for Navigators - that while Black Templars may not like them, they know better than to piss off the people that let keep the chapter together. Even sanctioned psykers in other branches of service are used to being around people who don't like them, and they seem to find ways to cope. The second is that the Black Templars draw exclusively from psykers who themselves view their powers as unholy abominations, and choose service with the Templars as a form of penance for their very existence. We know there are plenty of psykers who hate what they are, and choosing the discipline of service with the Templars strikes me as a very Imperial mindset.

Melissia
03-07-2010, 02:36 PM
At the same time, emotionally unstable psykers have an unsettling tendency to turn to chaos. One whom vies themselves as cursed, hated beings could very well turn to worshipping Nurgle for instance. Or they could just snap and turn to one of the others-- out of rage, turn to Khorne, out of hope turn to Tzeentch, and simply out of a desire to enjoy their life before it's violently ended, turn to Slaanesh.

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 02:40 PM
At the same time, emotionally unstable psykers have an unsettling tendency to turn to chaos. One whom vies themselves as cursed, hated beings could very well turn to worshipping Nurgle for instance. Or they could just snap and turn to one of the others-- out of rage, turn to Khorne, out of hope turn to Tzeentch, and simply out of a desire to enjoy their life before it's violently ended, turn to Slaanesh.
True, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that psykers with the Black Templars have a higher "failure rate" than many other places in the Imperium. But there's still going to be a nigh-inexhaustible supply of self-hating psykers to take their place, and I imagine the Black Templars would find the failure rate of their civilian psykers just one more reason to "abhor the witch."

EDIT: Just to be clear, my contention is not that Black Templars "make sense." I think they're a good deal sillier than even a normal space marine chapter, which is saying something. My contention is that, within the internal logic of the universe, they are not facially doomed to failure as a fighting organization.

Melissia
03-07-2010, 02:46 PM
If psykers keep turning to chaos at a higher rate then it greatly increases the chance of them failing. Especially since the chapter is larger and thus needs more psykers to begin with.

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 02:47 PM
If psykers keep turning to chaos at a higher rate then it greatly increases the chance of them failing. Especially since the chapter is larger and thus needs more psykers to begin with.
Sure it does. But "greatly increases the chance of them failing" is not the same as "there is no way, within the logic of 40K, that this chapter even still exists as a fighting organization."

EDIT: Against the increased failure rate self-hatred would bring, I suppose we should balance the possibility that Black Templars use even those astropaths that they have as little as possible. After all, the Black Templars are among the last chapters I would turn to if I was asking for help, so who do they talk to? Themselves? How often do even the various crusades need to talk outside of the crusade? It strikes me that it's possible - though this is mere speculation - that the Black Templars don't actually do a whole lot of FTL communication. And I think it's a pretty safe bet that they don't use their astropaths for seeing the future.

Kuhlbert
03-07-2010, 02:51 PM
Wow. Guess I set off a land mine here :)

At the risk of fueling this fire, I'll say that I have no problem with marine chapters using the Navigators and Astropaths - why wouldn't you use the experts? Flying a ship in the warp needs the navigator gene, and being an astropath requires you being soul bound to the emperor. Do these guys go rogue? Yup. But so do marine chapters :)

But we've drifted off my initial topic for discussion, and decided to bash the BTs (sad, really - they're my favorite chapter). Again I'll ask my question - perhaps better worded:

If the Emperor outlawed Pyskers and ordered the Chapters to disband their Librarius' at the meeting on Nikaea - why are there Librarians in use in the modern chapters?

And for those who haven't read the book - a distinction _is_ made between sorcery and psychics - and the Emperor's edict in the book _specifically_ bans all psychic powers and disbands the Librarius (page 355).

So - for the purpose of discussion - if the book is the new canon - are all the modern chapters traitors? (lol - yes, I don't really mean that... but you get the point).

Interestingly - since there is a lot of BT bashing going on - IF the book is correct, the BTs seem to be following the Emperor's edicts quite fine, and it might put a different POV on their rabid-ness...

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 02:56 PM
Ooh, very interesting, Kuhlbert. Let me come at it from this angle ...

I have a very hard time seeing libraria as entirely extra-codex. Even the Ultramarines break codex organization with some regularity, but I have a really hard time imagining the Ultramarines maintaining an entire branch of the chapter that the codex is just silent on, or worse, forbids. So I'm going to use that conjecture to assume that the codex does speak of libraria.

That being the case, perhaps this was part of the organizational wrangling that went on following the Heresy? I'm reminded of Corax's argument for increasing the chapters' naval capabilities, his argument being that if the legions had had better fleets, the Raven Guard wouldn't have gotten so completely mauled at Istvaan V. Perhaps other primarchs felt similarly about librarians - that Chaos sorceries wouldn't have been so effective if the legions had had better psychic capabilities?

Melissia
03-07-2010, 02:56 PM
Given that it's Black Library fiction, I'd say there isn't really a "new canon" insomuch as it is a new perspective on old canon. If it were a codex or rulebook, I'd put it as "new canon".

wittdooley
03-07-2010, 03:10 PM
Given that it's Black Library fiction, I'd say there isn't really a "new canon" insomuch as it is a new perspective on old canon. If it were a codex or rulebook, I'd put it as "new canon".

I don't know... shouldn't we kind of consider the Black Library HH Books in particular the new canonical works? I mean, they're far and away more substantial than Index Astartes ever was...

Regardless, I don't think we can accurately comment on this until we see the reaction of the Emperor to the aftermath of Prospero. We all know the Emperor knows and sees a lot of future events (or possible ones) due to his abilities as a psyker. Perhaps there was an ulterior motive to the verdict at the council of Nikaea. Most likely the Emperor realized what Magnus had done to save his chapter in the first place, and was attempting to thus save Magnus and the Thousand Sons from a fate he knew was inevitable if they continued to use their powers. I think this is more likely.

What irks me the most is that Magnus DID have to make a very hard decision when saving his chapter because the Emperor was unable/unwilling to fix the change problem in the first place.

Madness
03-07-2010, 03:19 PM
Personally I'm not concerned about any marine chapter using navigators or astropaths, I just don't understand how can they pretend to be intolerant of every kind of psyker (hey, wasn't the emperor a psyker too?) while doing so.

If you are tolerant for psykers in the amount required to use astropaths or navigators, then you should really have no problem using librarians YOU get to train, screen and monitor 24/7.

wittdooley
03-07-2010, 03:22 PM
Personally I'm not concerned about any marine chapter using navigators or astropaths, I just don't understand how can they pretend to be intolerant of every kind of psyker (hey, wasn't the emperor a psyker too?) while doing so.

If you are tolerant for psykers in the amount required to use astropaths or navigators, then you should really have no problem using librarians YOU get to train, screen and monitor 24/7.

I dunno. Maybe you should talk to some military personnel, but I'd wager that they worry less about the guy steering the boat getting them to the hot zone, and worry much more about the guy sitting right next to them fighting the bad guy with them.

Nabterayl
03-07-2010, 03:24 PM
I dunno. Maybe you should talk to some military personnel, but I'd wager that they worry less about the guy steering the boat getting them to the hot zone, and worry much more about the guy sitting right next to them fighting the bad guy with them.
This.

Kuhlbert
03-07-2010, 03:24 PM
Good point Nabterayl, except for one thing...

The Emperor didn't forbid Naval Fleets :)

I just find it interesting to consider - the Emperor has been on the throne for a _long_ time - how far have the chapters diverged from what he intended.

If he somehow woke up, stood up, and looked around, would he be "Wow, swell job folks." or more like "What the HELL are you people doing?"

If we assume that the book is correct, and the Librarius was disbanded... I see only 2 possibilities personally.

1) Later in the war, perhaps in the aftermath of Prospero or Istvaan, the Emperor rescinds his edict. "Ooops, my bad, perhaps we need some psykers of our own..."

2) After he's put in the chair, some period of time later (and it doesn't have to be immediately later - it could be thousands of years later), someone goes "Hey, these psyker powers are really useful - we should use them too.". If it was a gradual thing, then maybe its just the slow deviation after time... more interestingly would be if it was early enough that people like the surviving Primarchs and chapters went along with it - it's a bit ballsy to say "I know the Emperor said we shouldn't do this, but golly, the traitor legions had them, so they must be wicked awesome! The Emperor is napping, he won't mind..."

(and yes, I have a flippant writing style. My apologies if it offends...)

Madness
03-07-2010, 03:26 PM
The boat is not traversing an alternative dimension in which time and space are severely distorted and the simplest error might mean being lost forever. We're not talking of a little ferry on the mississipi, we're talking warp travel. It's not a nice thing to joke about, ask any snotling who went into a shokk-attack-gun.

Also, it doesn't take a psyker to be corrupted by chaos, you can do it just as fine without.

@Kuhlbert: considering how rare are librarian-less chapters, I'd say that the Emperor chilled out a little bit, and realized that it was better to have them, I doubt there are SO MANY defiant chapters. Specially Ultrasmurfs.

Kuhlbert
03-07-2010, 03:30 PM
And to those who are making the argument (Madness/Melissa) that it is illogical/stupid/tactically-unsound to not have librarians, and that it doesn't make sense -- that's not the point. I _agree_ with you. I would certainly fall into the camp that psychic powers can be used for good or ill...

The point is in this book (which may not be canon, but lets assume it is) - the Emperor _forbade_ the use of Librarians and/or psychic powers to the Legions. He didn't forbid the Navigator families, he didn't forbid the astropaths. It was specifically:

"Henceforth it is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius department. All its warriors and instructors must be returned to the battle companies and never again employ any psychic powers."

So its not that the powers are good/bad smart/stupid useful/pointless... its the fact that the guy in charge specifically forbade them.

Thus, unless something changed, modern chapters are disobeying the Emperor. Maybe for a good reason, it can be argued, but it's still disobeying :)

Madness
03-07-2010, 03:37 PM
That is my point Kuhlbert, I doubt that a fanboy such as Guilliman would have placed a Librarius in the Codex Astartes if the Emperor didn't retire his decree before being enthroned, it's too much of a stretch.

wittdooley
03-07-2010, 04:37 PM
That is my point Kuhlbert, I doubt that a fanboy such as Guilliman would have placed a Librarius in the Codex Astartes if the Emperor didn't retire his decree before being enthroned, it's too much of a stretch.

Agreed here, but I still maintain that he disbanded the Librarius solely with Magnus and the Thousand Sons in mind, knowing that their power would eventually lead to the flesh changed that always plagued their PARTICULAR chapter.

Just_Me
03-07-2010, 09:29 PM
If he somehow woke up, stood up, and looked around, would he be "Wow, swell job folks." or more like "What the HELL are you people doing?"

Very much the latter.


(and yes, I have a flippant writing style. My apologies if it offends...)

No offense taken, don't worry about it.

Going back to the original point; this is a problem that I have tried to reconcile. The best explanation I could come up with was that the Edict of Nikea made a distinction between Psykers and Sorcery, and only forbid the latter, while placing restrictions on the former (such as the formation of the Chaplains, who DID exist even in the secular Imperium). As there IS evidently a distinction between the "normal" activity of psykers and sorcery, this explanation would seem to fit well. It would explain why we still see a few Librarians among the Legions during the Great Crusade (the Dark Angels for example maintained Librarians even in the last years of the Crusade), but at the same time why the rather unique practices of the Thousand Sons would elicit different reactions.

Unfortunately if, as you say, "A Thousand Sons" states very specifically that the Edict of Nikea applied to BOTH sorcery and psykers (and I will have to take your work for that, as I have not had the chance to read it yet), then there are some big problems with this. As I see it, the question here is an "Occam's Razor" style issue; what is the "simplest" answer (i.e. the answer that requires the fewest rewrites to the lore of 40k as we understand it). Therefore, I'm inclined to believe that the information in "A Thousand Sons" is, if not in error, then at least "misreported" to us as readers, and that different restrictions were placed on psykers vs sorcery in the Legions.

Anyway, just my thoughts on the issue...

harrybuttwhisker
03-08-2010, 03:50 AM
Its because the emperor never meant to uphold the edict from the council of nicae. He issued it under pressure from the jealous deathguard and spacewolf primarchs, both of whom are jealous of there power. The deathguard as they lack the librarian gene and the spacewolves because they are weaker than the thousands sons and have had there noses rubbed in it. The emperor uses the edict to order magnus to remain on prospero, hence he doesnt deploy the 1k sons after nicae. This is because magnus is being groomed to sit upon the golden throne.

Magnus learns of his fate when he breaks into the imperial palace and flees thinking he has angered the emperor by damaging the throne rather than wait for the emperors forgiveness and explanation.

Through lies it is horus (under the influence of the dark powers) and titus valdor (unknown reason for now) that send leman russ even though the emperor has given no such command.

Leman russ seizes his chance to vent his jealousy against the 1k sons. It is only then you learn of there hypocrisy of maintaining a librarium as well as hiding there own flesh curse from everyone including the emperor in the form of the wulfen. Also we can assume from ahriman that the wolves of fenris are in fact warp beasts similar to the tutileries they themselves make use of.

So long story short a loyalist legion is destroyed due to horus's lies making use of leman russes jealousy and pride. Space wolves have become a traitor legion in effect and that is why they work so hard to hunt down the remaining renegades so no one outside the legion will learn of there treachery or own flesh curse. The flight of magnus to the eye means the golden thron and associated webway does no come into full use so mankind cannot escape the predations of the warp.

So there you have it, the space wolves are all a bunch of daemon worshipping herectics that cursed mankind to a slow death rather than a glorious new age.

Thats my two pence anyway lol

wittdooley
03-08-2010, 05:55 AM
Leman russ seizes his chance to vent his jealousy against the 1k sons. It is only then you learn of there hypocrisy of maintaining a librarium as well as hiding there own flesh curse from everyone including the emperor in the form of the wulfen. Also we can assume from ahriman that the wolves of fenris are in fact warp beasts similar to the tutileries they themselves make use of.



Oh... i Like that. Certainly makes sense of the whole, "there are no wolves on Fenris" dealy, eh?

Cryl
03-08-2010, 06:16 AM
I agree with the wolves being a bunch of thuggish traitors but I just never liked the wolves anyway and McNeills writing in The Thousand Sons isn't exactly designed to make you like them!

I wonder if the reason that Space Marine Chapters have librarians is a wording loophole a bit like the church being allowed women under arms not men... The big E specifically said no legion shall have libbys which is subtly different to no libbys being allowed at all. Maybe Gulliman et al saw the need to play the details to allow the chapters to have some psychic warriors after all?

Melissia
03-08-2010, 11:29 AM
The Space Wolves are "weaker" only because this book is written to glorify the Thousand Sons.

harrybuttwhisker
03-08-2010, 11:50 AM
It gives numbers to back that up, in the last battle where the thousand sons are not using there psychic powers, so straight marine on marine action (s******) both sides lose 1500 marines even though the space wolves outnumber the thousand sons and have a primarch fighting on there side as magnus has yet to join the battle.

Melissia
03-08-2010, 11:53 AM
It gives numbers, which are fudged and biased and possibly even made up, just to make the Thousand Sons look good.

The Space Wolves are the antagonists in this book, and therefor the Space Wolves are going to be made to look bad no matter the actual canon truth.

Valkerie
03-08-2010, 12:13 PM
A couple of points on this subject.

First, if I'm reading this correctly, it says that no LEGION can have librarians. The modern orders can say, "Hey! We're CHAPTERS, not Legions." Much like the Church not being allowed to have "Men under arms." A technicallity, sure, but this way they can use Librarians and still not violate the letter of the Edict.

Second. I see no problem with modern Chapters believing "All psykers are evil because they use the powers of the Warp.", while also believing, "Our psykers are good, because they use the powers of the Warp for the Emperor." Humans have a well known ability to hold two totally contradictory beliefs, and to believe equally in both of them at the same time.

Gotthammer
03-08-2010, 12:14 PM
I'd say the numbers are reasonable - the 1kSons are fighting on the defensive on home turf, they have the PDF backing them, and the psychicly powered Warlod Titan they kept around for just such and occasion. They also fought smart, targeting the Wolve's psychic defences to be able to freely use thier most powerful weaponry unhindered (which ended up being their undoing anyway).
This is the first detailed look at the fall of Prospero, so there were no numbers or details of any sort to go on or be accurate to, so it is creating the canon of the numbers of dead as it goes.


One thing different from the codexes is that events in the BL books (particularly the HH series) are always portrayed as 'the facts'. Where a codex might say "the Wolves flung themselves at Prospero, and hundreds of Marines died in but a few scant hours of combat", when the book says "the PDF were slaughtered in minutes" I take it to be an accurate account of the Wolves' ferocity.

This is of course apart from occasions where you have unreliable narrators (like the older Dark Angels story, or the various visions and recollections in the HH series). But where it says one of the 1kSons can control a Titan, I take that as a litteral statement of 'historical' record.
It should also be noted most of the crazy powerful 1kSons psykers ended up dying due to their own power levels being uncontrollable, so it didn't make them look that great.

Melissia
03-08-2010, 12:21 PM
I point towards the differing accounts of the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists in the Iron Cage battle. Depending on who is telling it, one side or the other is far more skilled and capable. I view this book in the same light.

wittdooley
03-08-2010, 01:51 PM
I point towards the differing accounts of the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists in the Iron Cage battle. Depending on who is telling it, one side or the other is far more skilled and capable. I view this book in the same light.

Right. Right now we have the Thousand Sons' 'truth.' When we get Prospero Burns, we'll have the Space Wolves' "truth." Combining the two will bring us closer to an "actual truth."

Madness
03-08-2010, 02:26 PM
Which will probably end with "Lion El'Jonson did it" as usual. :(

Just_Me
03-08-2010, 02:33 PM
Which will probably end with "Lion El'Jonson did it" as usual. :(

Everyone knows it's always the Lion's fault... :p

gcsmith
03-08-2010, 02:44 PM
As a Black Templarite, (hoping for uber dex to match BA, with nice models to boot). I blieve that BT dont accept astropaths, just tolerate them because they are essential. Also what scares you more gone rougue, A 7 foot super human with psykc hood and power/termi armour, with the vast amount of training of the astartes or a puny civilian whose body u can easily crush.

Madness
03-08-2010, 02:52 PM
Option C, being lost forever in the warp after having crushed the only puny civilian who was able to navigate your ship.

gcsmith
03-08-2010, 02:55 PM
i meant once they had gone rogue :p

Madness
03-08-2010, 03:00 PM
You would still be stranded. The thing is that a SM chapter can't do without psykers, and psykers carry a crucial role in most operations, so while I understand the potential for disaster, the same potential is possible for non psyker marines.

A Sanctioned Psyker can't be treated as "a witch". It can be distrusted (and most chapters DO distrust and keep a close eye to their librarians), but it can't be renounced. Not unless you're a complete idiot who trusts his life daily in the hands of the random civilian psyker and then makes a fuss when it's time to raise psykers he can actually grow to trust.

Melissia
03-08-2010, 03:39 PM
Without psykers, there is no interstellar communication, nor no interstellar travel.

Just_Me
03-08-2010, 06:56 PM
You would still be stranded.


Without psykers, there is ... no interstellar travel.

This is not strictly true, though it is a common misconception. Interstellar travel IS possible without navigators, but it is limited in both range and speed. Only navigators can "steer" a ship through the warp, without them you can only travel in a straight line, you also cannot tell where you are and have to simple jump, wait for what you estimate to be the right amount of time, and then hope that you aren't too far off the mark when you drop out. For these reasons you cannot safely travel quickly or farther than a few lightyears at a time without a navigator. Obviously this wouldn't free Astartes from their need for navigators, but it is an important point nonetheless.

If we insist on getting off topic with Templar bashing, then I submit that the cornerstone of the issue for Templars is tied to their pride as Astartes. They have an intense dislike for psykers (as is actually true of many imperial citizens), but are willing to grudgingly accept their necessity in certain roles. What they cannot abide is the idea of elevating a psyker to Astartes, for a zealous chapter like the Templars their identity as Astartes brings them closer to the Emperor thereby and ennobles them. Likewise they would be unwilling to accept orders from a psyker (one of several reasons they don't get along with the Inquisition all that well). While they might be able to stomach the necessity of psykers in certain positions, they cannot stand to see them elevated above their "place." The fundamental contradiction that the Emperor is the most potent psyker in history is negated be the simple paradox of his BEING the Emperor, therefore anything he does (or is) must, by default, be good.

Kuhlbert
03-08-2010, 07:04 PM
I would also submit the following _possibility_:

The Emperor forbade psykers (per 1K Sons) or sorcery (per established canon). If the BT are among the most ardent followers, wouldn't they be at the forefront to following the rule to the letter? Or even exceeding the letter in their zealousness?

_If_ the Emperor disbanded the Librarius', even if temporarily, I would think that the BT's would jump all over that. And _if_ he disbanded them...and i was someone else (Gullieman? The High Lords?) that later reinstated them - I would expect the BTs to say "No way! That's not what the boss man said!"

I realize there are a lot of ifs there - but it is a possibility.

Melissia
03-08-2010, 07:54 PM
Trying to travel the warp without a navigator is like trying to sail through a typhoon blindfolded with real sea monsters trying to kill you.

In a canoe.

You can probably make it short distances sure.

Nabterayl
03-08-2010, 08:03 PM
Nah, not in a canoe. More like an aircraft carrier. Gellar Fields work fine with or without a Navigator. Blindfolded in a typhoon with sea monsters trying to kill you though, sure.

Madness
03-09-2010, 01:06 AM
This is not strictly true, though it is a common misconception.What I was implying was that if I were a corrupt Navigator,*I'd drop you in the middle of a warpstorm on purpose and wish you good luck to getting out of it without my help.

Kuhlbert, the BT were Imperial Fists back then by the way.

All in all, yes, a chapter like Black Templars might exist, but it's so deep in contradictions that they come out like complete fools.

harrybuttwhisker
03-09-2010, 03:46 AM
Never mind the slight insinuation that the imperial fists are in fact one of the successors and the black templars are the original imperial fist legion on a penitent crusade for failing the emperor. In several places they have hinted at the black templars being much larger than chapter strength.

Madness
03-09-2010, 04:42 AM
That's not how successor chapters work.

Comes second foundation, all legions are split into several parts, only one gets to keep the name. Imperial Fists are the original legion, Black Templars are a second foundation. The size doesn't count.

harrybuttwhisker
03-09-2010, 05:27 AM
Thats how its supposed to work but if you wanted to remain legion strength what better way to hide it than have a 'successor chapter' that is permanantley on the move and never all in the same place at one time so no one can assess the full size of your forces. No nosying from the inquisition or other chapters.

gcsmith
03-09-2010, 06:46 AM
What contradictions, the fluff says they deplore the witch and not the psyker. Which allows them to use Navigators as they are blessed by the emperor and thus not witches. The fact that the emperor got rid of the libraium sures the fact they are not hipocites. Add that they are knights, who hate ranged weaponry other than what can be useful up close. (tanks etc) this is why they do not have devistators. Tho if that is the case they really need some cheap way to get up close, A ******* cheaper rhino.

Madness
03-09-2010, 07:38 AM
How are Navigators more blessed than Librarians?

Librarians possess gene seeds who is derivated by the original sample which was engineered from the Emperor's own flesh.

Can I understand abhorring psykers? Yes.

Can I understand deeming Navigators acceptable while not accepting Librarians? No, not unless you're a complete fool.

Also, the IF legion was split into 3 (possibly more) chapters, with the most extremists being put in the Black Templars, while DORN himself stayed with the chapter in yellow.
Personally I think that wherever a primarch is matters more than anything.

Gotthammer
03-09-2010, 07:57 AM
Navigators aren't psykers - their ability, while interacting with the warp, is not a psychic one but a genetic trait engineered (or an anomoly enhanced) during the Dark Age of Technology. Warp travel existed before the Navigators, but it was slower, shorter and less accurate.
Furthermore Navigators never develop psychic powers.

Kuhlbert
03-09-2010, 08:02 AM
Unless you are a conspiracy theorist, and think that Dorn did that _on purpose_.

I always found it interesting that Dorn was one of the largest opponents of the whole break-up-the-legions idea... until he wasn't. Why?

1) He truly had a change of heart.
2) He realized that his opposition was gonna lead to a civil war, and thus grudgingly went along
3) He was always behind the breakup - he played devil's advocate so that when he switched POVs, he "took the wind out of their sails" in their arguments. (Potential Conspiracy #1).
4) He never was pro-codex, but saw where the wind was blowing - so he specifically created the BTs to "keep the faith". (Potential Conspiracy #2).

I agree that in some fluff/text the Templars are portrayed as a bit... off. I've never thought of them that way, nor do I play them that way. To me, they are supposed to be the ones closest to the original ideals of the Emperor... the followers of his way, not Gullieman's. So bringing it back around to the original topic - I consider it a possibility that the BTs don't have psykers because the Emperor told them not to at Nikaea. The Emperor didn't say don't use astropaths or navigators, so... there you go.

If you start from the premise (and I'm not saying it's correct) that the Emperor is always right (which would be the BT view), then any logic around the value of having psykers and/or the seemingly illogical POV of using astropaths/navigators gets thrown out. The Emperor is always right - thus we do it this way.

If you tone down some of the sheer BT craziness that has been in print, and take that stance: a group of Knights following their Liege Lord's instructions to the letter - I think the BTs become less of a bunch of crazies and more noble and interesting...

Just MHO...

Madness
03-09-2010, 08:28 AM
The warp eye DOES grant psychic abilities.


Furthermore Navigators never develop psychic powers.Navigators never develop FURTHER psychic powers.

Dorn was pounded until he condeded.

Black Templars are considered by all the in-game sources to be kinda cuckoo, you can decide to ignore that, but that's fanon territory, not to mention that Guilliman was the Emperor's fave (ok, maybe second favourite until Horus didn't decide he liked to have tentacles).

Atropaths and Navigators ARE psykers, and the Emperor decided only after Magnus the Red was caught stealing from Malcador's purse to buy "Heretical Sorcery Weekly" to ban Librarians, and probably reverted that decision since everybody has them. PLUS, the EMPEROR himself was a friggin' psykers, most Primarchs also had powers, either latent or manifest...

Cryl
03-09-2010, 08:44 AM
Guilliman was a logistician rather than an out and out warrior like some of the primarchs. My guess is that he saw the necessity for some of these things and rather than totally agreeing with them he put in place what was needed to preserve the Imperium. It both preserved and killed the whole concept though, preserved since it endures but killed the real vision of what the Emperor wanted as it's hardly a glowing illustration of an enlightened society certainly not Iain M Banks Culture!

Librarians were most likely something that Guilliman and those primarchs who agreed directly with him saw as necessary to preserve the Imperium. We'll hopefully find out in a future HH novel how the Codex Astartes was put together ignoring or superceding the Emperors decree at Nikaea

Madness
03-09-2010, 09:15 AM
Again, supposing that the Emperor didn't issue a later decree before being enthroned.

Cryl
03-09-2010, 09:40 AM
Very true. Hopefully there will be more reveals in later novels

Madness
03-09-2010, 09:41 AM
Black Library, and in general GW, need a continuity guy like the comic book publishers have.

Melissia
03-09-2010, 10:24 AM
Furthermore Navigators never develop psychic powers.
The Rogue Trader roleplaying system says otherwise. They have a special branch of powers which are TYPICALLY related to navigation, but can have other uses.

Also? Navigators can kill entire groups of people with nothing more than a mere glance. And that's something even the weakest of navigators can do, so long as their third eye has been awakened.

Gotthammer
03-09-2010, 11:08 AM
The Rogue Trader roleplaying system says otherwise. They have a special branch of powers which are TYPICALLY related to navigation, but can have other uses.

Also? Navigators can kill entire groups of people with nothing more than a mere glance. And that's something even the weakest of navigators can do, so long as their third eye has been awakened.

Ah, well there's another reason to get the FF books. The no powers line is from the other Rogue Trader.
It amuses me how navigators now have a literal third eye, as it was originally a metaphorical one.
I believe it first appeared as a literal on in the Inquisition War series and seemed more like a misunderstanding of the source material (much like how the original cover art for The Colour of Magic shows Twoflower with a literal two pairs of eyes, rather than glasses).

Melissia
03-09-2010, 11:18 AM
It's not just that book. Other fluff books have it as well-- for example, Ciaphas Cain mentions that they can kill you with a glance in one of his books, though that particular navigator did not have a third eye literally as far as I know (at least it was not described-- it may have been hidden under her silk bandanna, which all navigators wear).

Gotthammer
03-09-2010, 11:46 AM
Yes, but Inq War was the first, and there have been more contemporary references to Navigators without extra eyes, though I can't remember where (might have been Titanicus or Mechanicum, but I'm half guessing that).

Madness
03-09-2010, 01:17 PM
FFG's stuff can be misleading for canonicity, but it's stated elsewhere that Navigators' warp eye is a manifestation of their psyker powers. It is also said that they can only dabble in Navigators' stuff. But they are still "witches".

wittdooley
03-09-2010, 01:48 PM
Black Library, and in general GW, need a continuity guy like the comic book publishers have.

Oh God, please no. If that happened, we'd end up with another Marvel Mess...

"whats that... Peter Parker's last 20 years just didn't happen? Oh, okay...."

Madness
03-09-2010, 02:41 PM
What are you talking about. Continuity streamlining is a bless.

wittdooley
03-09-2010, 09:08 PM
What are you talking about. Continuity streamlining is a bless.

Do you actually read comics? Marvel is such a mess right now with so many things.

And I'm sorry, the Spider-Man "reboot/forget all this happened" was, and still is, a terrible idea.

Gotthammer
03-09-2010, 10:20 PM
Or the Clone Saga, the recent Skrull fiasco, the multitude of Crisies and resets thereof from DC (stupid Superboy punching time).

I'll keep the open ended and often vague/conradictory background. If we didn't have this this discussion would simply be "so, GW changed it to no psykers at all, I wonder how that will pan out?"
I like the method that lets us fill in the gaps and lets those answers be as legitimate as anyone else's, even if it is unintentional on GW's part some of the time.

Madness
03-10-2010, 01:54 AM
Dude, as messy as it might look now, it's not silver age DC, THAT is a mess and that mess was due to lack of a continuity guy.

rbryce
03-10-2010, 02:15 AM
makes me glad that these days i only read DC vertigo, and classic alien/predator/AvP stuff. oh, and battle pope, cos everyone loves a pope trained by bruce lee, drinkin more scotch than groundskeeper willy, who takes out daemons with an over-sized .44. plus the big JC and santa for sidekicks. mostly dc vertigo though, marvels for the kids lol

Cryl
03-10-2010, 02:27 AM
makes me glad that these days i only read DC vertigo, and classic alien/predator/AvP stuff. oh, and battle pope, cos everyone loves a pope trained by bruce lee, drinkin more scotch than groundskeeper willy, who takes out daemons with an over-sized .44. plus the big JC and santa for sidekicks. mostly dc vertigo though, marvels for the kids lol

DC really lost it for me when they did the whole Superman red / Superman blue crap back in the mid ninties... seriously killing Superman was kinda cool, changing him into some weird electrical split personality thing was most definately not cool.

Maybe there are librarians because of Crisis on Infinite Earths?

http://www.kaitaia.com/funny/pictures/ThreadHijack/thread_direction.gif

rbryce
03-10-2010, 02:36 AM
lol cryl, thats why its Vertigo, the only time you see the big s-man is in about 1 cell, in the sandman, and thats only to say that all heros are elements of the dreaming made manifest, and would you like em back for the key to hell. on topic, i think librarians just managed to slip the net, or it was some major politicking on the part of russ vs. T sons

eldargal
03-10-2010, 04:59 AM
Librarians exist because even amongst the Emperor's Finest only a handful understand the Dewey system.

Madness
03-10-2010, 05:18 AM
*Snickers*

Which begs the question, do heretical tomes come with an ISBN?

Gotthammer
03-10-2010, 08:01 AM
It's only hard because they're all numbered 666.



Maybe there are librarians because of Crisis on Infinite Earths?[/IMG]

It's one of the missing Primarchs trapped in the warp trying to punch his way out...

Bigred
03-10-2010, 11:11 AM
Lets get this puppy back on track shall we...

To summarise the known duties of a chapter's Librarium so far:

High quality interstellar communications, making astropaths unneccesary.
Psychic battlefield communitcations that cannot be easily thwarted by technical means, improving synchronized and complex battle plans.
Analysis, collation and storing of the chapter's battlefield performance and history.
Psychic screening of initiates to weed out the tainted or unworthy.
Psychic advisors who can aid the chapter master greatly in dealing with other parties during interactions and negotiations.

Finally, if needed, they manifest very handy battlefield powers.

Librarians: they do more before 8:00 AM than most marines do all day!

Madness
03-10-2010, 11:22 AM
They also have actual archivist duties, most librarians are actual scholars. But really nice summary.

Cryl
03-11-2010, 02:10 AM
Lets get this puppy back on track shall we...

To summarise the known duties of a chapter's Librarium so far:

High quality interstellar communications, making astropaths unneccesary.
Psychic battlefield communitcations that cannot be easily thwarted by technical means, improving synchronized and complex battle plans.
Analysis, collation and storing of the chapter's battlefield performance and history.
Psychic screening of initiates to weed out the tainted or unworthy.
Psychic advisors who can aid the chapter master greatly in dealing with other parties during interactions and negotiations.

Finally, if needed, they manifest very handy battlefield powers.

Librarians: they do more before 8:00 AM than most marines do all day!

That's all true and fair but I think the original question was why are they even allowed to be present in the Astartes when the Emperor himself decreed that no Legion should maintain a Librarius department. So far we've got the options that the Emperor changed his mind sometime before he placed himself on the Golden Throne and allowed Librarians to continue to serve. That Gulliman and the other authors of the codex: Astartes decided that legion vs. chapter was a lovely wording loophole and put them in place or that they just plain ignored the Emperor.

Personally I think that the former is the most likely as I can't see the loyalist primarchs responsible for the codex ignoring the emperors literal commands and I've not convinced that a Primarch would play word games in the same way as the church did with the "no men under arms" given that the command came direct from the big E.

That said, was Guilliman at Nikaea? I don't think he was, in which case he could legitimately claim never to have heard the dictat and so ignore it when writing the codex possibly?

Just_Me
03-11-2010, 05:06 PM
All of this talk of changes after the fact and rewrites in the absence of the Emperor ignore the simple fact that we know with certainty that at least SOME chapters maintained Librarians from the beginning of the Great Crusade all the way through to the beginning of the Heresy. So any solution has to take this into account. Unfortunately, if we are to take the decree as reported in A Thousand Sons at face value (still have not read it yet btw), then this it is in direct contradiction to what we KNOW to have happened. I am still inclined to believe that the information in A Thousand Sons is in error; either the full subtleties of the decree at Nikea are not yet understood and they allowed for the continuation of Librarians in some capacity, or the esteemed Graham McNiell simply made a mistake (it CAN happen). Alternatively, as has been pointed out, A Thousand Sons is told from the point of view of the Thousand Sons, and they might have viewed, in addition to outlawing sorcery, the restrictions placed on chapter psykers as making them all but defunct. After all, in Battle for the Abyss the other marines were quite aware that the Thousand Sons legionary was a psyker, and didn't really seem to care all that much, until he demonstrated sorcerous techniques.

Melissia
03-12-2010, 12:08 PM
I don't necessarily think the Emperor opposed all psykers, however, seeing as he used those with the navigator gene if I'm not mistaken. Similarly, I think he likely used some form of astropaths, as well, as I'm certain he didn't want to relay every single message from across the entire Imperium himself even if he could. The decree forbidding psykers was likely an attempt to prevent chaos' corruption from taking place, rather than actual opposition to them.


Also, because I don't really take this subject seriously, allow me to insert a strange insight into this subject which has not yet been presented. There are librarians in the Space Marines because you touch yourself at night. *has been watching too much "Ask That Guy (http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/ask-thatguy/)"...*

Just_Me
03-13-2010, 10:24 AM
He most certainly did use both navigators and astropaths throughout the Great Crusade, that much is quite clear. And what's more, nobody seemed to think it was even the least bit odd. Heck, the second most powerful man in the Imperial government at the time was an enormously powerful regular human psyker. These, along with other facts, suggest that a blanket ban on psykers at Nikea just doesn't make sense, either we as readers don't correctly understand what the Emperor's decree at Nikea actually specified, or A Thousand Sons is just plain in error and the decree at Nikea was only against sorcery (as it was originally presented).

Unfortunately, in the absence of new information I think we may have taken this just about as far as it can go.

Melissia
03-13-2010, 10:46 AM
My guess is that the Thousand Sons are douchebags and remember things in an incredibly biased way, and therefor the ban was probably on sorcery and its corrupting nature. Not on psychic powers in general.

Gotthammer
03-13-2010, 01:26 PM
But if you're saying the narrative structure of the books are flawed with biased perception (towards the 1kSons in this case) it's pointless reading them at all.

I mean how do we know Horus turned to Chaos at all? The books are just written to make him look like the bad guy, maybe none of this ever happened and it's just written that way to make the Emperor look good.

Maybe it was really Loken who introduced the lodges into the Legions, and the books don't show it because he went mad with guilt and created a delusional alternate reality where he was the good guy.

Extremely exaggerated examples but they illustrates my point.


The foreword and afterword are written 'by' Ahriman, so can contain author bias. Codexes include 'historical accounts', so are biased. A first person novel (such as the Dark Angels one from some time ago by Gav Thorpe) is inherintly biased, and that's usually the point. But a third person novel relies on the narrative being concrete fact, escpecially when it's something like:


'Hear now the words of my ruling,' said the Emperor, (...) Henceforth it is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius department.'

pgs 354-355

I highly doubt if we see the proceedings from Russ or Wyrdmake's perspective the text will change to:
'Actually guys, Librarains are totally ok,' said the Emperor, 'I just don't want you guys making deals with warp entities or actively drawing power from the warp. So Magnus, knock it off and get back to work, ok?' - this isn't Rashomon we're dealing with here.



I still think it is either an oversight by McNiell in regards to the old stuff, or it's deliberate and iit will be worked around in a later book, probably during the Lunar Campaign or thereabouts when the traitors become more and more corrupted.

Melissia
03-13-2010, 04:37 PM
It's a book called Thousand Sons which is about Thousand Sons trying to make people buy more Thouand Sons. It's biased towards Thousand Sons, and until we get the counterpoint book (in Prospero Burns) I take anything in it with a grain of salt. Once we get that, we can look at the two in comparison and try and guess a true unbiased history.

rkiviman
03-17-2010, 01:24 AM
There weren't that many legions that were using Librarians, because not all of them trusted Psykers. The primary one's listed in Thousand Son's were (besides them) , Ultra-Marines, Space Wolves, Blood Angels ( I don't recall the rest). It's already been said that probably the reason they were banned and ordered back into the ranks was the fear of Chaos corrupting the Legions. Magnus and gang had already been seduced and were already leaning to serve entities in the warp. The only thing that makes sense is that when the Heresy went down the value of the Librarians once again may have rose because Chaos forces were now out of the bag and storming across the galaxy!? Just speculation on my part. Probably more of the story will come out with the release of the continuing Heresy saga.