Warhammer 40K: Belisarius’ Twisted Clone – The Cawl Inferior
The Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl has a clone…of sorts. Meet the Adeptus Mechanicus madness that is the Cawl Inferior.
The Cawl Inferior is a communication device used by Ultramarine primarch Roboute Guilliman to communicate with Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Cawl developed the Cawl Inferior, a device to emulate himself, deep with the Macragge’s Honour. The Cawl Inferior was made to communicate with the Primarch Roboute Guilliman in the Archmagos’s stead, as well as to serve as a backup in case Cawl himself were to die. To facilitate this, the Cawl Inferior contains the sum total of it’s creator’s knowledge. While stated to only communicate using pre-programmed responses, the Primarch suspects that the Cawl Inferior is actually a fully sentient Abominable Intelligence.
Belisarius’ Twisted Clone – Cawl Inferior
Located deep within the Macragge’s Honour, the entrance to the Cawl Inferior starts in the personal quarters of Roboute Guilliman. In a hidden space within the quarters there is a gene-locked elevator with built-in weapons primed to kill anyone, besides Guilliman, who attempts to access it. A simple retinal scan allows him in into the elevator, but once inside, the security protocols are more extensive. Arcane devices on armatures extend from the walls to test Guilliman’s body, mental state, and spiritual aura. Once confirmed, the arms withdraw into their recesses one by one. The elevator will then descend two hundred decks.
When the elevator arrives the rear doors open onto a chamber lit by an artificial red light so dim that a normal man would be effectively blind. This chamber is hot and loud with the chatter of hidden machinery. On the far side of the chamber there are a set of three complex, interleaving doors made of metre-thick bonded hexsteel, protected by another set of security tests. These doors open into a second and much larger circular space, lit with the same dim red lighting. The inner chamber’s spherical exterior walls are similarly armoured to the doors.
This inner chamber is twenty metres across and the air smells like ozone, sanctified oil, curdled milk, and old blood. There is a grilled floor suspended over a pit full of humming machines, dividing the chamber in two. The chamber still has the same red light which comes through the floor grille. There is a small door that leads to the quarters of Astropath Prime Guidus Losenti which is directly across the room from the main gate. This door is also composed of three massively thick doors that open in sequence. The chamber is absent the gothic decorations normal of the 41st millennium, except the Machina Opus emblem on a rondel set into the domed ceiling. At eye level, closed panels line the walls between the two doors, ten on the left and ten on the right.
Behind each panel are the Cawl Inferior’s central components: twenty severed human heads in illuminated armour glass tanks, bathed in clear yellow nutrient fluids. The heads are too individual to have been vat-born slaves and there is no sign of the penal coding tattoos worn by servitors made from criminals. The neck of each is capped by metal. Small bundles of tidy cables and pipes are linked to these plates, curl downwards under the heads, then up into the machines above them. The majority of the device’s psychic circuitry workings are hidden behind the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room.
The Capabilities of the Cawl Inferior
The Cawl Inferior is primarily programmed to emulate the voice and mannerisms of its creator: Belisarus Cawl. It functions via transmitting and receiving hexadecimal codes that activate and/or modify pre-programmed responses to its operator. These codes are immune to decryption as they are incomplete. Cawl programmed in multiple likely scenarios that he mathematically extrapolated. The linked brains and the logic engines in the greater portion of the chamber contain all eventualities relevant to the tasks undertaken by Roboute Guilliman and the Archmagos. Among these pre-programmed responses are status reports and updates to Archmagos Cawl’s various projects.
The machine emulates its creator well enough that Guilliman often forgets that it is not the Archmagos himself. It even strongly asserts that it is not. Yet Cawl Inferior’s responses are so well performed, even seemingly emotional at times, that the primarch doubts it is as simple a device as it claims to be. Guilliman suspects that the Cawl Inferior is actually a full Abominable Intelligence and wonders if the device is capable of lying to him to conceal its (and its creator’s) intentions. Guilliman once stated his intention to meet with Archmagos Cawl himself and the Cawl Inferior claimed that such a meeting may not be possible. It claimed it did not know its creator’s current location and shut itself down.
Operations of the Inferior
All interactions with the Cawl Inferior are performed via voice commands. Activation of the Cawl Inferior requires both the presence of Roboute Guilliman,and Guidus Losenti. The process begins when Losenti commands the initiation sequence. The device requests the identity of the users, first Losenti then Guilliman. After both have stated their identities, the device performs a gene scan on both, via a band of green light that passes over them. Once gene scan is confirmed, the device requests a code from Losenti, and projects a sound dampener over Guilliman to prevent him from hearing Losenti’s code. If Guilliman attempts to read the Astropath’s lips, the device temporarily blinds him with a las-strobe. Once Losenti has stated his code, the sound dampener is lifted from Guilliman and he states his own code (which is a sequence of nonsensical words that change depending on the date). Once the machine confirms the codes the main series activation sequence begins.
The panels in the walls retract to reveal the twenty servitor heads. Thin lines in the metal walls, begin to glow with golden energies, circuitry engraved into the tanks’ glass glimmer similarly, and the faces of the heads start to twitch. As the activation process continues the psychic energies in the room become more intense to the point that cause pain those who are sensitive to them. Losenti leaves to avoid this energy and to provide Guilliman with privacy.
Energy runs more freely around the channels engraved into the walls extending its web outwards from the heads until the whole room is a traced with a golden glow. As the energy network expands it hits upon hidden sigils in the fabric of the room: warding runes in the secret techno-arcana tongue of Magos Psykana and others of xenos origin start to glow as well. The twitches of the servitor heads intensify into a frenzy of silent screams as the fluid in the tanks bubble rapidly. Eventually the process completes and the machine calms.
The Cawl Inferior greets Guilliman with a preprogrammed greeting. Interaction with the Cawl Inferior from this point resembles that of a normal conversation. The servitor heads silently word everything said by the machine.
A Duplicate?
Cawl also has an identical “Cawl Inferior” aboard his own flagship. Why would Belisarius Cawl require a duplicate Cawl Inferior if he’s on board? What’s the true purpose of the Cawl Inferior? Those are secrets only Cawl knows…
Learn more about Belisarius Cawl and his Inferior Plans at the Lexicanum!
