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A Question about Librarians


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#1 pvhammer

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Posted 27 April 2010 - 04:43 PM

At the Council of Nikaea the Emperor disolved the Librarians. 'Henceforth, it is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius deparment. All its warriors and instructors must be returned to the battle companies and never again employ any psychic powers.'

So my question is, why do some chapters have Librarians? Isn't it against the Emperors will?

 

 



#2 Atheosis

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Posted 27 April 2010 - 10:04 PM

pvhammer said:

 

At the Council of Nikaea the Emperor disolved the Librarians. 'Henceforth, it is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius deparment. All its warriors and instructors must be returned to the battle companies and never again employ any psychic powers.'

So my question is, why do some chapters have Librarians? Isn't it against the Emperors will?

 

 

 

 

Hmm...not familiar with that quote.  Where's it from?

As far as I'm aware the Council of Nikaea is when the lines were drawn between innate psychic ability and sorcery.  Sorcery was banned, while psykers were to be regulated heavily.  I've never heard of any kind of ban against Librarians within the Legions.  In fact I recall specifically that there was a Librarian in Descent of Angels. 



#3 Urikanu

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 01:28 AM

The qoute is from the most recent of the Horus Heresy books, 'A Thousand Sons' by Graham McNeil. And it is correct. I just checked it.

I don't know what happened between that time, and the present, but I assume that at some point they simply realised they could not do without them since too many of the enemies of mankind employ psychich abilities.

that being said, the book -is- written from the Thousand Sons perspective, and they might have 'heard' it wrong. *shrugs* but that's how it was written



#4 Aajav-Khan

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 01:59 AM

    Through out the years all the previous canon sources have quoted the edict as "ban on sorcery" ( Index Astartes et al ), NOT Psykers in general. This was logical and consistent with the way the Imperial forces have worked post-Heresy. That is why there are Librarians running around ten thousand years after the Siege of Terra for crying out loud!

    But for some incomprehensible reason this novel now suddenly made a break from this established fact. I call BS. I see it as either a case of 1) poor editing, 2) lack of background checking, 3) "in-character variant view by Thousand Sons" or 4) intentional retcon. 1 and 2 are irritating possibilities but can be overlooked since mistakes can and do happen. 3 is palatable if we are given the "other side" of the story that corrects the error. 4 would be just plain stupid. It would mean that the most loyal of loyal, the Emperors own Astartes, have de facto defied His will ever since the Heresy. Yeah, that would really make sense.

    Just my 0.02€.



#5 nastybutler

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 02:33 AM

The part "Librarius deparment" could be interpreted many different ways.  When the ruling was made they may have had more marine librarians than there are now and they may have had assistants that were not sanctioned.  The term department can imply allot of things.  And it sounds like these departments could be huge and very greatly.



#6 Idaho

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 03:03 AM

 Hello, 

I just found this bit from False gods

"Though all the Legions had once had Librarius divisions that trained warriors to tap into the power of the warp, they had been disbanded after the Emperor's decree at the Council of Nikaea"

 

And from The Flight of Eisenstein

"I was there at nikaea when the Emperor himself censured the use of these warp-spawned powers for the good of the imperium! i will not allow such forces to run unchecked among my warriors!"

 

 

 

 



#7 SinisterCheshire

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 08:31 AM

It might simply boil down to something like what was done after the Heresy. Just like the Legions were eventually split into smaller Chapters, the Emperor may have simply broken apart the masses of Librarians down into small, highly skilled and controlled groups. 



#8 pyttman

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 08:06 PM

I'm not quite sure, but i remember that the great heresy was what changes the Imperial Policy about SM Psykers.

The Emperor wanted to disband the librariums, but it would be a waste to eliminate the librarians. So the SM Psyker reintegrate with their companies, when the Heresy broke up most of the orders become confused, (like the Emperor Cult and the Chaplains). It seems very likely that the Emperor's order soon become like a sugestion more than a order, (and i'm sure that Him couldn't replay about any misunderstood with his orders, could He?).

All is in the "Visions of Heresy" book of Black Library.



#9 UncleArkie

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 09:04 PM

I see this more of a situatoin where things went wrong like so many of the Emperors ideas for the utopian human society, remember things like the Imperial Truth, a ban on Emperor worship and so on, more likely the chapters realized in the  aftermath of the heresy was that in some cases the only way to fight fire was with fire.



#10 Tygre

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 10:21 PM

As I remember, reading about the Siege of Terra in a White Dwarf, that the Blood Angel Librarians were quite involved in the defence.  Maybe in the light of so many traitors turning to chaos the Emperor had to overturn or ammend his edict.  Especially after the turning of the Thousand Sons.



#11 N0-1_H3r3

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Posted 29 April 2010 - 07:03 AM

Aajav-Khan said:

    Through out the years all the previous canon sources have quoted the edict as "ban on sorcery" ( Index Astartes et al ), NOT Psykers in general. This was logical and consistent with the way the Imperial forces have worked post-Heresy. That is why there are Librarians running around ten thousand years after the Siege of Terra for crying out loud!

Of course the previous background (presenting the Heresy as a historical event that took place ten millennia ago) conforms to the setting as it exists 'now'... but history in the Imperium is revisionist, and the records of a mythic time of galaxy-wide warfare during the early days of the Imperium are not inherently going to be accurate, particularly if there are people adjusting, adding and removing information to suit the politics of the time.

The Imperium of the 41st Millennium is a twisted mockery of everything the Emperor ever intended for humanity... it it really any surprise that the 'historical facts' told by the men and women of that Imperium are only superficially similar to what actually happened.

Aajav-Khan said:

But for some incomprehensible reason this novel now suddenly made a break from this established fact. I call BS. I see it as either a case of 1) poor editing, 2) lack of background checking, 3) "in-character variant view by Thousand Sons" or 4) intentional retcon. 1 and 2 are irritating possibilities but can be overlooked since mistakes can and do happen. 3 is palatable if we are given the "other side" of the story that corrects the error. 4 would be just plain stupid. It would mean that the most loyal of loyal, the Emperors own Astartes, have de facto defied His will ever since the Heresy. Yeah, that would really make sense.  

The Heresy background for the last few years has deliberately included many elements that don't entirely gel with what many before had taken to be absolute truth; given that we don't know how this version of the story ends, except in the broadest terms (the Emperor confronts Horus on the Vengeful Spirit above Terra, Horus dies but the Emperor is mortally wounded in the process, etc), protesting that 'it doesn't fit with what we know' is a hollow argument, IMO... as we also don't know how the differences are reconciled. Given that the author of this particular novel has, in the past, also written earlier versions of Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd edition, 2nd Codex), Codex: Space Marines (4th edition) and the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook (4th edition), I think it's a reasonable assumption that he knows more than a little about the 40k background in general and the history of the Astartes in particular.


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#12 aethel

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Posted 29 April 2010 - 07:27 AM

N0-1_H3r3 said:

 as we also don't know how the differences are reconciled.

I thought they were pretty easily reconciled: people tend to get some details wrong 10,000 years later. :-)



#13 nastybutler

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Posted 30 April 2010 - 04:12 AM

aethel said:

N0-1_H3r3 said:

 

 as we also don't know how the differences are reconciled.

 

I thought they were pretty easily reconciled: people tend to get some details wrong 10,000 years later. :-)

Very true.



#14 Cynical Cat

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Posted 30 April 2010 - 06:40 AM

The quote is accurate, but one should take into account the circumstances.  The Council of Nikea was forced on the Emperor by various important factions and Leman Russ attempted to use it as a political weapon to smash Magnus while retaining Librarians in the Space Wolves.  The Emperor's decision to disband all the Librarians effectively turns the trap back upon those who set it.  A few important points regarding its aftermath:

1) There is immediate speculation of how many Legions will really go through with disbanding the Librarians.  Its an important commentary on how quickly the Librarians proved themselves to be invaluable and the limits of the Emperor's authority, particularly on an issue where his hand is deliberately forced by others.

2) We don't know if this edict is ever reversed.  Related to 2) is 3).

3) This is before the Heresy.  The Thousand Sons alone prove the value of Librarians when even badly outnumbered by Space Wolves, Custodes, and Sisters of Silence and their Primarch unwilling to take the field that combat psykers can inflict massive damage on the enemy.  And that's just the prefall Thousand Sons.  Horus's forces will certainly take advantage of the psykers and sorcerers in their ranks, not to speak of the demon hordes that will be unleashed.  The Sisters of Silence only succeeded in blunting the Thousand Sons psykers at heavy cost.  We know in the war to come that Librarians will be invaluable.  The edict is likely to be partially reversed.



#15 Dodskrigaren

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Posted 30 April 2010 - 02:04 PM

N0-1_H3r3 said:


 

Of course the previous background (presenting the Heresy as a historical event that took place ten millennia ago) conforms to the setting as it exists 'now'... but history in the Imperium is revisionist, and the records of a mythic time of galaxy-wide warfare during the early days of the Imperium are not inherently going to be accurate, particularly if there are people adjusting, adding and removing information to suit the politics of the time.

The Imperium of the 41st Millennium is a twisted mockery of everything the Emperor ever intended for humanity... it it really any surprise that the 'historical facts' told by the men and women of that Imperium are only superficially similar to what actually happened.

 

 

The Heresy background for the last few years has deliberately included many elements that don't entirely gel with what many before had taken to be absolute truth; given that we don't know how this version of the story ends, except in the broadest terms (the Emperor confronts Horus on the Vengeful Spirit above Terra, Horus dies but the Emperor is mortally wounded in the process, etc), protesting that 'it doesn't fit with what we know' is a hollow argument, IMO... as we also don't know how the differences are reconciled. Given that the author of this particular novel has, in the past, also written earlier versions of Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd edition, 2nd Codex), Codex: Space Marines (4th edition) and the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook (4th edition), I think it's a reasonable assumption that he knows more than a little about the 40k background in general and the history of the Astartes in particular.

 

There is all this, plus the fact that for years the Great Crusade and Heresy have been very flimsy on actual set facts.  The Heresy novels are pretty much defining the cannon of the Heresy.  When you consider that they don't happen in chronological order, and that we don't really have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, its easier to not get to caught up on certain things.

 

The Emperor could have reversed his edict, or loosened it up a little, or any number of other things.  The ban also was (to my knowledge) against sorcery, not psykers, although if you think about how slim the dividing line is, its not much of a stretch to see many folks just instituting it as a ban on psykers in general. Eh...who knows...I doubt its really an intentional ret-con, I think its one more piece of interesting fluff for the cannon, that shows a difference between what the Emperor envisioned for the Imperium, versus what it is (I'm quite positive the big I, however cool it is and how much I love it, would have made the cut into his version of the Imperium).






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