Warhammer 40K: What is The Emperor Hiding On Saturn? – PRIME

Let’s talk about the planet Saturn, and what the Emperor may have perpetrated there.

Saturn is a mysterious world in the Sol system. Its history is shrouded and cloaked in secrecy. Today let’s consider if there is more to this world than meets the eye.

A Double Meaning?

The other week we took a look at the so-called Saturnine nature of the Emperor. This was mostly based on a conversion between John Grammaticus and Erda.

So on the surface this is just a conversation about the Emperor and His nature, and that does appear to be the case for most of it. However there is a sentence towards the end that stands out to be as being a little strange: “Saturn is a black, stone prison, caging all truth inside its chain of rings…”. This part stands out as it doesn’t really seem to be referring to the Emperor, as calling it a prison doesn’t really make sense. Nor does this seem to still be talking about lead, as lead isn’t normally described as black, but rather it’s silvery or grey. Nor is it stone, it’s a metal. So what could this be describing if its not talking about the Emperor or Lead?

Well what if this part of Erda’s speech isn’t metheporhical at all? Could she just be talking about the actual planet Saturn, and perhaps it’s function. Could Saturn the planet actually be a prison, trapping, something, knowledge inside it? Erda does after all refer to Saturn’s rings, which seems to imply that she is talking about the planet. But here again calling it a “black, stone prison” doesn’t make a lot of sense either, since Saturn is a gas giant and normally looks yellowish. Unless of course this is John mishearing, or misunderstanding, maybe she said something totally different. 

It is possible the Erda was saying “Saturn is a Blackstone prison”. In this case she would not be referring to stone of a particular color, but instead to the material known as Blackstone or Noctilith. Since this material has strange properties being able to either nullify or amplify the warp it seems like it’s quite possible some sort of prison for “the truth” if that is warp related would be made out of it.

Saturn Is Steeped In The Warp

Saturn’s history has some seeming connections to the warp. Pre-Unifications it was home powerful void fleets, commanded by the Saturnyne Ordo, who willingly joined the new Imperium. It was also ravaged by strange and cruel Xenos overlords (which given this was during the time of the Imperial Truth could have been demonic). Eventually, Maclador took over control of the planet and barred entry to its rings. In present 40K, it is controlled by the Grey Knights and the Inquisition, it is now a highly guarded world, along with its moons and in fact does house many prisons for both mortal and demonic foes.

However, there isn’t a good explanation as to why Saturn was chosen for this or why Titan was used. Nor should Erda have known back in M30 that Saturn’s moons would turn into prisons holding the “truth”. So either she was speaking of the future, that Saturn would turn into a prison, or there is a deeper secret that was already imprisoned in Saturn, maybe using Blackstone, which is why it was picked. Maybe a god, or a Blackstone Fortress does lie trapped there.

We may never know – but the Emperor does.

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.