40K Lore: Librarian Counterpoint – Heresy Is Rampant In The Adeptus Astartes
According to our records, the decision made at the controversial Council of Nikaea, the Emperor’s decision about Psykers has never been reversed, and nearly every chapter of the Adeptus Astartes is committing heresy.
Greetings Loremasters, and Loremaster-initiates. Today’s lecture on the Perils of filing false reports with the Adeptus Arbites has been postponed, for now–don’t get too comfortable Loremaster-initiate Jenkins, our thirty-six hour series will wait on you. For now though, one of the visiting Adeptus Iures from the Administratum has come forward with grave concerns about the makeup and disposition of Humanity’s Defenders. We turn now the Lexicanum to Iures-Adept 2nd-Class Milus, who has been reviewing Imperial Doctrine from the Pre-Heresy era.
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It seems that Iures-Adept 2nd-Class Milus is currently indisposed, awaiting Inquisitorial questioning on an unrelated matter. In lieu of his presentation, we are instead being permitted to air this recording from the Iures-Adept.
As it stands, the Imperium is committing grave heresy, violating the direct order of the Emperor himself! Presented here are the findings of the Council of Nikaea
The Council of Nikaea was a great convocation called by the Emperor of Mankind in 001.M31 to discuss the use of psychic powers in the Imperium, particularly within the Legiones Astartes. It took place in the waning years of the Great Crusade, and would be one of the last notable gatherings of historically important personages before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy.
It all begins with the rise of Psykers among the Astartes, in particular the Thousand Sons, whose powerful psychic abilities secured both victory and scorn throughout the Imperium.
In its youth, the Imperium was wary of the development of psychic potential among the population; the means to reasonably successfully monitor and control such mutant developments did not yet exist, and there was deep distrust and bias amongst the various factions that saw, or did not see, a benefit to allowing those with psychic powers to remain unchained…or even alive. Many individuals with psychic powers were put to use by the Imperium, the most important being the Navigators who made safe space-travel possible, but even these psykers were barely tolerated by some. Any grouping of psykers was bound to draw comment, and so it proved with the Thousand Sons Legiones Astartes.
The Thousand Sons drew regular criticism simply for existing throughout much of the early part of their career, seen as potentially dangerous due to the psychic talents of their Legionaries. Anti-psykers decried them as an example of the problem writ large, an imminent threat to the Imperium. Cries for their disbandment were loud; the discovery of their primarch, Magnus, quietened these calls for a time.
Magnus and two other primarchs – Sanguinius of the Blood Angels, and Jaghatai Khan of the White Scars – proposed that Librarius Departments should be formed in the Legions to harness the latent psychic powers that were beginning to manifest in the Astartes of some Legions. Initially, the Emperor sanctioned the experiments and then allowed the deliberate recruitment of psychic candidates into Legions that did not already posses such mutants; however, as he withdrew from the fighting of the crusade, many called for him to pass judgment on whether the experiment should continue.
Some attribute this to the Emperor’s foresight in realizing that the Great Crusades were stretching his mighty Legions across the stars too distantly to wield the strict control that psychic mutants and abominations require, whereas others believe that it is the proclamations of the Space Wolves’ primarch, Leman Russ, who decried the sorcery of Magnus as foul and bore witness to the transformations uncontrolled power could inflict upon its victims.
Russ, along with soon-to-be traitor Mortarion called for a council to disbar the use of Psychic powers throughout the Imperium. This council assembled on the world of Nikaea, a still-young world that required a special chamber, designed and built by Perturabo, for the Council. Created on Nikaea within a hollowed out stratovolcano, the Council met in a massive amphitheatre having been carved out of its heart.
The primary objective of the Council of Nikaea was to determine what to do about the Librarian Crisis that described the division between the Legions over the continued use of Librarians on the battlefield and for Magnus to face the charges of sorcery. Many interpreted the Council as in actuality the Trial of Magnus the Red; he was accused of sorcery and of corrupting the Space Marine Legions through the introduction of Librarians into them and their training by seconded warrior-scholars of the Thousand Sons.
Malcador the Sigilite, who presided over the Council, announced that those gathered had been summoned to freely debate the issue – causing some consternation in the crowd – and whether the use of Librarians was outright sorcery that caused a threat to human galactic domination, or if such claims were fearful, ignorant mewlings. He closed this opening address with an invite for anyone to make the first speech. The first to stand was a Rune Priest of the Space Wolves known as Othere Wyrdmake.
Others followed, including Mortarion and Magnus–and in the end, when the Librarians had had their say, the Emperor makes his proclamation, the Edict of Nikaea, decreeing that the Legiones Astartes, beyond the use of Navigators and Astropaths, would no longer employ psykers. They were to disband their Librarius departments, the Librarians re-deployed to the battle companies and the primarchs themselves were to refrain from using any psychic powers they possessed. This of course applied to Magnus, whose use of sorcery was declared not proven.
But in the ensuing time, has this happened? Do we not see more Librarians–even today, even among the Primaris Marines–being given equipment and training while their Chapters act in direct defiance of the Emperor’s Will?
These are serious charges indeed–but given that the Inquisitorial seal engraved on this datatape says not to play outside the halls of the Lexicanum, we’re certain that it’s already being dealt with, and the threat psykers present to humanity will surely be assuaged forthwith.
