Subject: Weeeeellllllll...
Author:
Posted on: 2021-12-10 03:49:54 UTC
The Cabal's plan rests heavily on a genocide of humans upon whose emotions the Chaos gods feed and thrive, which isn't a great plan for humans however you slice it. This would not in fact work, at least in part because the Chaos gods feed on all emotions, not just those of humanity; if you can't get an eight-course banquet with attendant wine list, a bowl of plain white rice is better than nothing. What you have there is a plan that feeds all of them in various ways. The Emperor's plan wouldn't have worked either: he tried to outlaw religion, when the Chaos gods didn't need religion - they needed people to believe in things, which is not quite the same thing.
The thing that would have stopped the Chaos gods was cutting off humanity's dependence upon the Warp, which was what the Emperor was working on in his lab when Magnus teleported into it and accidentally blew it all up. Magnus did, in fact, do something wrong; he just had no way of knowing that he had, and was (imo) used as a catspaw to kerplode Neoth's sanctum of Webway tech, probably by Tzeentch. Now, hyperdrive? Hyperdrive is a similar threat. No contact with the Warp means a dimming of power far beyond what the Chaos gods foresaw, even though psykers maintain a tiny connection to it through their powers. That's something they'd try incredibly hard to prevent the Imperium getting their hands on... though they wouldn't actually have to try that hard. It threatens the very foundation of the Imperium. The Astropath Houses would decry it as forbidden. The Mechanicus would decry it as the work of perfidious xenos hereteks. Guilliman would see it for what it was, but he'd need to actually know about it first, and that, I think, is where the Chaos gods would strike. Mortal puppets prevent the Imperial Regent from ever finding out what hyperdrive is beyond "some terrifyingly effective warp drive of foul xenos invention". This is a job for Alpharius! And also Alpharius, and Alpharius, and probably also Alpharius.
I will also say that touching the spirits of dead Primarchs through the Force and possibly resurrecting them is... probably not a great idea for anyone. I mean, first of all you'd have to find them. Now, the thought of a Knightguide-piloting Rapid Insertion Fire Team (yeah i worked hard to make that anagram RIFT) breaking into the Rock and resurrecting the Lion is just plain awesome and would make for an unbelievably tense story, in a similar manner to Rogue One's war-story approach where anyone could die at any moment. But then what happens after that? The Lion is resurrected by the T'au and a human witch in some piece of heretical techno-arcana. What happens then? What does the Lion, the architect of countless Imperial xenocides, whose greatest failure came as a result of getting tied up killing humans who had allied with xenos, do with that information? And furthermore, what do the Angels?
I can imagine it now. The last remaining Knightguides and their Jedi crashing through the warded doors deep into the Rock. They're fighting now, every trick of T'au technology and Force mastery needed to descend deeper into the Rock's stasis-dungeons. One by one they fall, battlesuit systems overloaded. Only the greatest pilots remain, guarding and guiding the Jedi to their destiny. The tides of the Immaterium have pulled in dark tricksters from the ranks of the Fallen - making it a three-way battle through the catacombs of sundered Caliban. Cypher catches up to the T'au force and tries to block their path with blade alone, for he knows these xenos don't like the taste of cold steel. He of course has not reckoned for the presence of Jedi training and an adaptation of T'au fusion blasters into a battlesuit-scale proto-sabre. Still, he fights. His mind is focused on duelling the battlesuits to a standstill in a great hollow chamber. He doesn't notice the Jedi's battlesuit slip away into the recesses of the chamber until the wall parts and a rush of psychic energy sends him to his knees. This wall of presence cripples the Fallen Angel long enough for him to be run through by one T'au sabre thrust, mortally wounding him. With the threat down, the last surviving T'au take up defensive positions to protect their Force-sensitive bondmate, dimly aware of some kind of pressure in their heads. But they feel the Force as it manifests. The Jedi loses herself in it, her body suffusing with cosmic energies, and she says to the sleeping giant: "Awake". And awake he does, and awake he is, and he has been saved. And now, from the shadows, appear the Watchers In The Dark, with raiment and armour. And now, with his last strength, Cypher returns the broken Lion Blade to its master.
"This I have foreseen", says the Lion. "This I have known would come. For this day would I wait to return." The Jedi slumps forward, her battlesuit systems redlining in an effort to keep her alive. "I am the First, and I have known that xenos would save me. The Watchers told me of this as I slept. They would send a knight and her guides when the time was right to wake me." A T'au XV-97-0 overloads its nova reactor to block a fusillade of bolter shells and searing plasma. "And now, my sons, my Angels, I return to you and command you. Cease your fire. The Lion wakes."
And Azrael, Supreme Grand Master of the Unforgiven, looks on. He sees this vision of the Primarch, resplendent in his ancient plate, bidding his Dark Angels... do what? The Primaris Angelus Mortis, the bane of xenos and their collaborators throughout the Great Crusade, the noblest and truest to the Emperor's will of all his mighty gene-sons, bids them abandon their paramount duty? Madness. Or worse. Does the First Son forget the creed of the Imperium, or has it been driven from his waking mind? Suffer not the alien, so the Emperor said. Suffer not the witch, so the Emperor said. And the Emperor also said...
"Suffer not the traitor," says Azreal, and opens fire upon the Lion.
The Lion bows his head, for he was forewarned of this, but what he does not know is the depths of honour in a Jedi. Acting on pure, force-guided instinct, and aided by the burning star in the engine of her battlesuit, the Jedi powers forward with battlesuit-sized lightsabre - a true lightsabre, with a giant crystal once mined in the darkness of Ilum - and deflects the onslaught of fire back into the ranks of the Dark Angels. The battle rages on, the Imperium's most ancient order of warriors against the youngest race in the stars. The Re'b'el pilots know what they must do. And so, they buy time for their Jedi to work. She guides the Lion to a corner, away from the battle, giving ground to take it later, patient, Kau'yon, Jedi. She equips him with a miniaturised, unbelievably low-rated, hyperspace motivator, connecting it to an incredibly advanced computing engine that fits upon his armour like a jump-pack would on an Assault Marine. The Lion likens it to a Ravenwing warrior's equipment, and she smiles, and it's sad. The T'au are giving it all they've got, but a RIFT squad is few in number by design. The Jedi and the Lion look upon the last remaining battlesuit as its pilot sells her life dearer and dearer, and the two hold hands as their motivators charge, and just as the last Knightguide is overrun, they disappear, teleporting to the cloaked Kor'vattra ship above the Rock. It fires its hyperdrive and it too disappears, and Lion El'Jonson watches the smear of stars in realspace and real time, and he knows now what that vision was and what it means.
The Lion has returned, on the side of right. Against him is his brother, who is on the side of right just the same. Both are convinced of the justness of their cause; both, in time, shall be convinced of the other's madness. Who shall triumph? It is beyond my knowledge. Finding out seems like a great read though.
