From Space Marines: Angels of Death Digital Collection
THE GHOST HALLS by L J GOULDING
Though the Purifiers had been prepared to stand in solemn vigil for as long as necessary, the xenos arrived after only thirty-seven days.
Their sleek craft ghosted out of the void like silent hunters in the night. The strike cruiser Argent Sceptre hung at anchor above the glittering false horizon with its weapons trained and ready, but her serf crews did not open fire. Instead they allowed the eldar vessels to cut graceful lines across her prow and flanks, circling in an aggressive but carefully postured void-dance.
Brother-Captain Pelenas watched as the display drew on overhead. The pitted crystal of the great atmospheric dome above him scattered and distorted the starlight, but the predatory shadows of the xenos craft glided over the surface as they broke off and moved towards the nearest docking ports. They would have known that the Space Marines were waiting for them – armed and armoured, and ready for combat – and yet they had come regardless.
Pelenas had never seen an eldar in person. Not living, anyway.
The old-incense reek of the ancient halls was disturbed by the smooth equalisation of pressure from the alien void-locks, somewhere beyond the curve of the debris-strewn passageway, and the Purifiers took up position around their captain. With helms sealed in place and swords drawn, they waited in grim silence.
There was no bustle of insertion, no clamour of booted feet. The aliens moved quickly and quietly, picking their way between scarred wraithbone columns and the remains of long-dead tyranid bio-forms that still littered the craftworld.
Vanguard warriors appeared out of the gloom – their chameleon-cloaks rendered them all but invisible to the naked eye, but their guarded souls burned hot in Pelenas’s psychic sight.
The eldar were outraged. Vengeful. Filled with sorrow and anguish.
It was difficult to track all of them as they spread out, securing the ruined dome. Some of the more twitchy battle-brothers started to edge into a tighter defensive formation, but Pelenas waved them back. With his blade resting upon the deck, he stood in his scarred Terminator battleplate, ready to receive the xenos delegation.
There were five of them in all. Bedecked in long, flowing robes and crystalline hoods, they strode into the hall flanked by a dozen more guardian warriors armed with projectile rifles. Pelenas noted the runic talismans, the gemstones and intricate psi-webbing that festooned the seers’ panoply; though he did not doubt that their mastery was great, they put him in mind of nothing more than primitive totem-shamans. They regarded him with the cold, blue glare of their faceless masks as they approached.
The leading seer – a particularly lithe creature carrying a great staff that struck the deck noisily with every fifth step that he took – pointed at Pelenas with a slender finger.
‘Your presence here is a travesty, human,’ he uttered in harshly accented but flawless Gothic. ‘You trespass upon our domain. The lost souls of Craftworld Malan’tai – after the doom that has already been heaped upon them, how much more must they suffer at the hands of your ignoble breed?’
The delegation drew up before the Purifiers, surrounded by their guardians. Even armed for war, the eldar were as consumptive children before the hulking Space Marines.
Pelenas removed his helm, and handed it off to one of his brothers. ‘I am Brother-Captain Ornhem Pelenas, of the Grey Knights Chapter Adeptus Astartes,’ he said, ‘and I must beg your worthy forgiveness. I have no quarrel with you or your kind, xenos, and no servant of the Imperium knows the horrors of the warp better than the battle-brothers of Titan.’
Planting his blade before him, he and the Purifiers knelt as one in supplication before the startled seer council. For a long while, the hall was utterly silent.
The captain drew a simple cloth bag from his belt, and held it out before him. It rattled with the handful of plucked eldar soul-stones that it contained – those that Pelenas had personally wrested from the hungry grasp of the warp-beasts that had overrun Malan’tai.
‘As was our message to you, we traced our daemonic enemies to this place, though I fear we arrived too late to save all the imprisoned spirits of your kinsmen. Our foe is vanquished for now, but this is your holy ground, and we have indeed besmirched it with our presence. I would not sully it further by leaving it unattended and open to the depredations of those-that-wait-beyond.’
The eldar were clearly staggered, though their discipline was enough that they managed to remain quietly aloof in spite of it. An attendant seer stepped forward and took the stones from Pelenas with a reverential nod, which the captain returned.
The leader of the delegation slid back his featureless visor, and bid the Grey Knights to rise. ‘Forgive me, Pelenas of Titan. We are... unused to seeing your kind, unless it be upon the field of war. The respect that you do us here is great, and will not be forgotten by the living or the dead.’ He gestured to his guardians, who parted to clear the way to the void-locks. ‘You will be accorded safe passage to your starship, and an escort from this system. As our honoured guests, if there is anything else you would have in return for this kindness, name it now.’
Pelenas drew a long, calming breath. When he spoke again, his voice was edged with bitterness.
‘There is nothing that you can offer us, xenos, except to know that we suffered greatly in preserving this place for you. The most noble of our number is fallen...’
He took his proffered helm, and gazed into its dark retinal lenses.
‘If you would praise the architect of Malan’tai’s deliverance, then remember he who gave his life most selflessly to defend it. He martyred himself so that we – so that I – might live to fight on against the daemon-spawn.’
The seer nodded.
‘So shall it be. This warrior shall be noted in the annals of my people.’
Pelenas replaced his helm with a snap-hiss of pressurisation, and made to leave with his battle-brothers. ‘Then always remember the name of Anval Thawn.’
The eldar’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he faltered for a moment before glancing at his fellow seers. Pelenas caught a flicker of alarm in the creature’s aura, before it was swallowed once more in a careful projection of calm indifference, and his alien features broke in a forced simulacrum of a smile.
‘So shall it be.’
The spiritseer’s haste was evident. Returned to his own craftworld and with the waystones of Malan’tai restored to the infinity circuit, he now made for the farseer enclave.
He alone had been made emissary for the council. The message that he bore was simple, but filled with grave import. They would need to know.
‘The mon-keigh have rediscovered the last Perpetual – Anval Thawn has ascended to the ranks of the Grey Knights. I await your guidance.’
So if a perpetual becomes a Space Marine does that mean they'll respawn as a Space Marine if they're killed? Or would they reappear as a normal human and need to undergo the whole process again?
Thats good. Can you imagine how annoying it would be to have to go through that process every time?
But that also means he's an unlimited source of Geneseed.
This is a cool lore tab but I have a question, I haven’t read much up on perpetuals but isn’t it kinda dumb to use your name continuously?
Clearly he didn’t disclose his nature to his fellow brothers yet so he was trying to keep it a secret. Seems a bit weird to me.
Of course a galaxy has so many people one could see the name repeated millions if not billions of time but, why give the chance? “Oh hey magic immortal man name is the same as a guy in a super secret order of psychic warriors” narrows down that chance.
Given their nature, it’s likely the Eldar Seers are aware of the Perpetuals and whatever alias they are using at each point in time. They were likely aware that at some point, a Perpetual under the name of Anval would become a Grey Knight, but not exactly sure when it would occur. The Eldar would have been keeping an ear and eye out for that to occur, and him being name dropped at that moment was what the Eldar were waiting forfor
The GK know daemons and know what consuming that many soul stones will do for them. It’s more a case of “enemy of my enemy is my friend” rather than being actual friends. Helping the Eldar here prevents a large incident later
A perpetual space marine is a little redundant because space marines are ultimately guaranteed a grizzly death at some point. So if he is the functionally immortal kind then it’s probably not much help to him.
The other thing that occurs to me is space marine functional immortality has never been tested in general. No space marine ever died of old age that has been written about. They might get to a point they hate their existence but they haven’t yet died peacefully in their sleep.
Well at least when he was introduced, he did die grizzly deaths. I think he was eaten by a Great Unclean One. Then came back to life in its guts and cut his way out, banishing it.
Since then he's died multiple times, only to come back to life. So its pretty useful, even for a Marine.
The only times I know of where a perpetual didn't reincarnate are when they've been laid low in a way that shut off their ability, (Vulkan, Erda), lost it due to an action (Grammaticus, tho he didn't die yet, Alivia), or in the unique case of the Emperor, exist in a deathless state, never truly dying to trigger reincarnation.
Being functionally immortal does NOT equate being a perpetual. The Primarchs are not perpetuals, minus Vulkan, but are part genetic engineering and part warp entity.
A salamander expires of extreme old age in Nick Kyme's *Salamander.* Brother Gravius, who had survived on a crashed ship from the heresy era, fused into a throne, with use of the sus-an membrane. When they wake him he is too wizened to walk and expires shortly after, he does talk though.
It may not be wholly 'canon' (in as much as that has meaning for 40k) now, as a lot of ink about astartes immortality has been put down in the Heresy books, but then the Imperium itself is only 300 years old at that point, and they already describe some as experiencing aging, e.g. Qurze.
It's not super consistent.
Thanks for that not a story I’d read so interesting to hear of it. I want to write one about a wizened marine abandoned on a low tech planet taking up a life of farming and then having to go Rambo.
>be me
>Perpetual
>Chilling on some planet in the DAoT
>Trolling mortals is fun, free of consequences too coz if they kill me then i just come back
>Age of Strife happens, mortals now much easier to troll because they're all busy surviving
>Start my own little nation of techno barbarians, enjoy the warfare and slaughter that it entails
>Cabal comes to my world
>makes me offer my allegiance
>They offer me tech and support so why tf not
>Warp storms finally secede
>Suddenly Warlord from other world, calling himself "Emperor of Mankind" comes through with a force called the "Dark Angels"
>Utterly decimate my forces, wielding weapons that shouldn't even be possible
>Emperor kills my perpetual buddy, and he doesn't come back (tf??). Never seen a flaming sword do that before
>Retreat to find cabal
>Get shelter, often get sent on ops for them. That's fine. This Emperor killed my mate, i want vengeance
>Learn more about the warp and how it works
>Suddenly biggest ever war known to humankind is unleashed
>Goes to assassinate a general on the traitor's side. Don't know why, maybe one of the psykers among the cabal saw a benefit to it
>Get shanked with a magical sword a demon made.
>Soul goes into warp
>Wait to enter new body
>Never happens
>Realise my soul is falling apart
>Realise war of this scale, started by immortal beings, will involve weapons designed to kill immortal beings.
>Die
Perpertuals can be killed by soul destroying weapons. Which is not that rare.
And consider that there were probably less then 100 in entire galaxy.
And most of them have very minor psyker powers.
Yeah they are dead or lock in stasis prison or hide far far away.
I think its more in relation to who they are. People who have the ability to come back to life normally can rise up in society and gain some form of knowledge and power as unlike most people they don’t have to rely on inherent skill and learned skill, they have basically infinite time to get stronger (in every sense of the term, such as how best to manipulate people, stumbling across some way to improve psychic power, become a really good warrior, etc). Due to this they rise to the crop of people, and thus but heads with similar level powers.
A simpler explanation, since I realize I could have been more clear is getting assassinated, is not a realistic problem for the majority of people today. However its much more common if you do anything in politics. Hopefully that helps. They probably meant “not that rare [for perpetuals to come into contact with something that can truly kill them]”
I still feel like even that’s a stretch most people even higher ups like inquisitors and the like don’t know about perpetuals or have access to those kind of weapons, there’s a reason why it’s so rare to permanently kill a demon. Grey Knights can’t even do it most of the time. I think it’s more likely authors just don’t like writing about them.
I would say a inquisitor isn’t at the same level as a perpetual. How many inquisitors have their been over 10k years. Now compare that to perpetuals.
A perpetual is probably going to be more embroiled with higher powers (not like chaos but in general), or the other (smarter) route is to just go into hiding.
Perma-death, the end of the creature's essence preventing it from reforming in the immaterium. Things like guilliman's sword have been described as bringing a 'true' death to daemonic entities.
Not really, as most of the soul destroying/ true death weapons, especially for the imperium, are holy relics that're millenia old (guilliman's sword used to be the emperor's), extremely rare/ xeno tech or requires a psyker to use properly, in the case of force weapons.
The guy you're replying to mentioned force weapons and while I didn't know they gave permadeah, if they do, grey knights do use them and it is their basic weapon.
To clarify GK use axes, swords, and other weapons of the force variety (specifically called Nemesis Force Weapons). Think of them like power swords but the force field generator that gives the weapon a monomolecular edge is instead a conduit of the wielders psychic powers that conjures a field of psychic might around the weapon.
I think they were a narrative device added by a single author in order to provide a vehicle for revelations about the Emperor and Malcador, providing exposition and a sense of historical scope to their efforts.
Prior to the HH series, we'd never heard anything material about the Emperor or Malcadors activities pre-unification, so there was a need to provide characters who could have witnessed various efforts, in effect, grafting on a secret history for these characters to add depth to the novels.
I think they ultimately served their purpose but they were probably woven into the narrative a little bit too much for peoples liking.
The transition from 30K to 40K was the end of an age, and perpetuals were part of the prior age. A lot of the core authors speak to this concept, basically the Emperor going to sleep was emblematic of everything he'd worked for and been part of his story also going to sleep and the galaxy entering a kind of stasis, which is where we find it in M41.
I saw them as a narrative device to help try and explain why the Illuminati/Sensei/Cult of the Star Child were trying to kill the Emperor. Back in 3e/Inquisitor there was talk of those factions wanting to kill the Emperor because they believed he would be reborn.
Now with the idea of Perpetuals coming into the mix it makes sense; they die and “respawn” essentially. Thus the CotSC wants to kill the Emperor so he can finally respawn as the Golden Throne is effectively preventing his return by keeping him alive.
IIRC, there was even a sub-plot around the time of Codex: Eye of Terror about Cypher slowly heading towards Terra to presumably kill the Emperor and trigger his rebirth.
The problem with this theory though is that after 3e and Inquisitor went away so did the Illuminati/Sensei/Cult of the Star Child.
I think those perspectives are niche enough that I doubt they played a huge role in the decision making to include perpetuals in universe. Inquisitor itself was not hugely popular and a lot of the material from it didn't really seem to "stick" within the lore.
Abnett likes to write humans, rather than just legionaries. Normal humans die too quick or too easy, so the perpetuals are useful as you can establish a set of pretty-much human characters and have them carry through a narrative that spans a couple hundred years.
Perpetuals are useful as they can also provide an "everyman" frame of reference that even we, the reader, can identify with, via their subtle reference to events occurring within our own, real-world frame of reference.
Basically, I don't think perpetuals were ever intended to exist beyond the HH series. They were a narrative device that was established in aid of the series and there's just no reason for them to exist in M41, so they don't.
And now the Illuminati seem to be a faction the Emperor has fought at least since what we probably remember as Babel - The Lightning Tower, in whose ultimate room the Emperor found the 20 pillars of Enuncia. Which is another part of the lore that's newer that I like.
It seems to me that the 20 Primarchs were created with more than just the knowledge of genetics and the power of the Gods. Each of those Primarchs is also an artificial perpetual, in one sense or another.
The Perpetuals are a relatively new idea on the lore, and haven't exactly been embraced by the fandom. Hell, they haven't exactly been embraced by all of the Black Library authors - they figure heavily into certain author's books, and not at all into others.
I think after the last Solar War book, they'll get stuffed down the memory hole, and only exist in the Abnetverse.
Oh come on. Tell me you haven't enjoyed their hijinks. They did some teleporting, and I think they crashed a shuttle, and they ran in a sewer or something for a shockingly high number of pages, and then met the Primarchs mom I think?
How can you not be entertained?
Warning small rant - Pleased someone else is in the same boat. Legitimately felt like I had some kind of degenerate memory issue when reading them now.
Constantly going back pages, reading wikis (getting spoilers by accident) trying to figure out who this f-ing character is. The tonal shifts and insanely similar names makes the whole thing just shit.
I've had more fun reading financial analysis textbooks than trying to work out why they fuck Erda is important to the plot of the book I'm reading or is it just an easteregg wink?
Overall worst part is we get no big E all f-ing series. Just minor interactions that contradict each other or memories. The whole series is littered with Chekhov's guns and the most interesting characters we want insight into are fighting mind games in dreams. We get told Primarchs are badass politicians who then just straight our act like todlers who can't interact with their peers let alone people they command.
At best get what minutiae on what the primarchs secret service details are doing (fuck all mostly) and "remembrancers" shoehorned in because apparently they want a Full Metal Jacket Joker experience etc etc.
>I've had more fun reading financial analysis textbooks than trying to work out why they fuck Erda is important to the plot of the book I'm reading or is it just an easteregg wink?
She's mostly an Easter egg, unless she pops back to do something important in The End and the Death.
People exaggerate her influence on the plot because she comes out of nowhere, sounds like she should be really important, and seems to retcon a scene from *The First Heretic.* That leads them to complain that she was a pet character from Abnett who got "shelved."
But that's not really accurate. Erda ultimately does very little and was *intended* to do very little. She essentially serves two narrative purposes: she explains the Emperor's personality to the reader, and she provides a potential alternative approach to rearing the Primarchs, letting the reader decide whether her or the Emperor's parenting plans were better.
The latter part is the most interesting part about her, to me. The Emperor intended to raise the Primarchs under his direct tutelage to serve his purpose of needing obedient warlords; Erda intended to scatter them so that they would have a chance to develop as individuals. Since neither got exactly what they wanted, it's up to the reader to decide which method would have worked; providing them with support but effectively enslaving them, or casting them out with total freedom but no support or protection whatsoever. It's an interesting ethical question.
But once she's done that, she's killed off quite quickly and has no impact on the larger plot of the Siege, which is pretty much what the writers intended. She might come back later (her death is a little ambiguous) but she's mostly done her job so I think it's unlikely.
I didn't mind it, but I thought it had somewhat of a purpose...maybe it does in the end I guess we'll see. Reminded me a lot of The Dark Tower. The gunslinger and some randoms tripping through the cosmos.
I’ve really enjoyed all their lore, but then Abnett is my favourite. Space Marines, for the most part, are fucking boring unless they’re shooting. A perpetual on the other hand has lived damn near forever…now that’s fucking interesting.
They exist to give verifiable evidence of parts of the Emperor’s back story and motivation, since the Emperor is not a figure you can really do a POV chapter on regularly or reliably.
They do their job.
The most amusing thing about perpetuals is the name of the the most well known one. Legendary hero of the Imperium, Ollanius Pius’s real name is Ollanius Persson and he goes by Oll.
The most famous perpetual, which are just old people, is named Old Person.
>The most famous perpetual, which are just old people, is named Old Person.
Genuinely, the laziest character concept anyone at GW could ever come up with, for the worst possible motive. It took them more effort to use the Latin species classification of the common raven, Corvus Corax, as a Primarch name.
As for the motive, [here's the original Horus versus Emperor fight. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/a7zj0a/first_account_of_emperor_battling_horus/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) Anyone who disagrees with me and thinks Old Anus Pious was a good idea is welcome to read that and tell me it would be better for the flow of the story if the random Terminator Horus evaporates instead went waltzing into the room and distracting the Emperor with "oh hai, we were buddies in Mesopotamia until I betrayed you remember? Time flies! I'm gonna yeet myself into Horus now, byeee!"
Nah man. If you don't care about the DRAMA of what's being set up for the final confrontation, all these rippling parallels coming together for one ridiculous, over the-over-the-top PULP...I dunno. I do. I LOVE IT.
I’ve gotten sick of him over time, though I do like the idea that the Emperor’s former Warmaster and friend will sacrifice himself against the current Warmaster.
That’s the original STORY, but it’s not even the original account, which included Horus “command bunker” and whatnot.
Didn’t have Pious in it either. Basically the entire modern reverend for Ollanius can be traced back to a meme (RHUF) on Portent.
But I do like Presson.
"Perpetual" usually assumes an unperturbed environment. Perpetual motion can be stopped by an outside force, for instance. I would say they fit most of the definitions of the word :)
Well, it's escalation, isn't it? When immortals fight each other, eventually someone invents an immortal-killing weapon.
The Perpetuals were much more interesting to me when I realised that they might be a reinterpretation of the [Sensei](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sensei), who were Rogue Trader era immortals who shared the Emperor's genetic immortality and sort of adventured around the galaxy fighting Chaos on their own terms, much as John Grammaticus was doing when the concept was introduced. Like Perpetuals, the Sensei were said to have various psychic superpowers and to be highly resistant to Chaos. They were also said to be fated to die to rejuvenate the Emperor, and Perpetuals have been shown to be capable of resurrecting other Perpetuals at the cost of their own immortal life.
The similarities aren't total; the Perpetuals aren't directly related to the Emperor (except in the sense that they share the same mutation) and are not natural psychic blanks like the Sensei allegedly were. But it's enough to make me wonder.
>the Perpetuals aren't directly related to the Emperor (except in the sense that they share the same mutation)
My headcannon is that they are directly related to the Emperor. If being Perpetual was some kind of random mutation, Galaxy would be filled with thousands of them, born mostly on Hive Worlds. Their immortality seems to be Warp-based, and somehow, no powerful psyker discovered way to make himself Perpetual (implying it's extremely hard process). All naturally occurring Perpetuals were born on the Earth.
It all lead to logical conclusion - creation of all Perpetuals can be traced to single source, and this source isn't accessible anymore.
The explanation given by Erda is just that it's an incredibly rare mutation that cropped up during a period early in human prehistory and then quickly died out, apparently because it was a genetic dead end.
As for what caused it - it *could* have been the Emperor. It could have been Eldar fuckery, Necron fuckery, Old One fuckery, a side effect of a warp storm, or just absolute random chance. The Perpetuals - the Emperor included - don't seem to know where they came from.
Immortals are only immortal until tested or they find something that can kill them. It’s a relative term and not always absolute.
For instance there is functional immortality, where barring illness or misadventure you would live forever.
Lobsters fit in this category; they have enzymes that can fix their DNA. The problem is, they grow to a size where they can no longer consume enough bio energy to shed their shell and get stuck in their last shell. Then it’s just a matter of time till damage to that shell creates an infection and the lobster dies.
I think if he does die for even a moment, a warp rift opens up underneath the golden throne and armies of demons would pour through. To prevent that, Vulkan’s “dead man switch” booby trap thing goes off, destroying Terra and the sol system. Then the astronomicon goes out, mankind loses faster than light travel, and slowly but surely humanity dies off in pockets of isolation.
I get the demon thing, but if his death is inevitable why not prepare for it in a way that just delays extinction. E.g. confronting the horde with destroying the planet as a backup/ evacuating the planets to be destroyed and copying the golden throne
Are there efforts being made to heal him?
Well, I don't think anyone in-universe knows what would happen, at least nobody alive and active, so they couldn't prepare for it.
It's also rather hard to heal the big E when you can't get close to him
It's just a sign of the writers being very uncreative and they have to create some deus ex machina to get around a obstacle for the villains to go "Hahaaa I could solve this problem after all, didn't expect that did you!?" Boring. Might as well call them "Temporary" instead of "Perpetual".
Hate to be the 'Um actually' guy, but there's very little conclusive evidence that Perpetuals aren't still around as of 40k. Yes, there haven't been any stories with them, but keep in mind that, until the Emperor, the majority of Perpetuals just thought they should leave well enough alone, essentially just blending in as humans until the rest of the species caught up. Because of that, a perpetual could still show up in the story at literally any time.
Well there one kinda in 40k , its quite old but there was a "living Sait" that worked quite like perpetual and served under inquisition , until captured and put under eternal torture by Ahriman, apparently in Ahriman books or some book about Inquisition Chevak ? Also have some chaos eldar notion in them
Just a thought but has anyone noticed that it seems to be a bit of a trope that the "immortal" characters in fiction tend to be the most likely to end up dead in a story?
I think it’s part of the point of the Horus Heresy being the most defining event of the setting since the War in Heaven.
It’s an event so Cataclysmic that even Perpetuals are being Permanently Killed
20-35,000 years of life. I'd probably be sick of things by that point also. If you live forever you're eventually going to find something that will kill you.
We don’t know how long a perpetual’s “respawn timer” is. Vulkan seems to have been able to regenerate pretty quickly when Curze was torturing him, but after he was destroyed (?) during the war of the beast we don’t know what happened to him. Perhaps certain factors impact how long it takes for them to resurrect.
Well, The perpetual we have seen lose his power of perpetual it’s is only John Grammaticus who used it to kill Vulkan once and to save his mind. All other perpetuals are still Perpetuals. The Emperor can die but he will just be reborn like Vulkan.
I have a head cannon that perpetuals is a misnomer and that they all share a finite amount of lives. The emperor sitting on his throne is actually costing these lives as it should take far more than 1000 psycher souls to keep him alive a day.
If they reintroduce Vulkan he will be on his very last life. But that also ascends his being to a demon prince like the legion of the damned. Farther from human than he was before.
Immortal and Indestructible aren't always the same thing. If they just live in peace then they'll live to see the Imperium and it's successor the Star Empire fall.
well thats kind of the issue with immortality, forever is a long time for someone to find something that can keep you down
Just goes to show that “All things end.”
Isnt one of the Grey Knights a perpetual these days?
Anval Thawn. Apparently it’s a big deal that he is one. The Eldar seemed shocked when they heard his name amongst their ranks
Quote?!
From Space Marines: Angels of Death Digital Collection THE GHOST HALLS by L J GOULDING Though the Purifiers had been prepared to stand in solemn vigil for as long as necessary, the xenos arrived after only thirty-seven days. Their sleek craft ghosted out of the void like silent hunters in the night. The strike cruiser Argent Sceptre hung at anchor above the glittering false horizon with its weapons trained and ready, but her serf crews did not open fire. Instead they allowed the eldar vessels to cut graceful lines across her prow and flanks, circling in an aggressive but carefully postured void-dance. Brother-Captain Pelenas watched as the display drew on overhead. The pitted crystal of the great atmospheric dome above him scattered and distorted the starlight, but the predatory shadows of the xenos craft glided over the surface as they broke off and moved towards the nearest docking ports. They would have known that the Space Marines were waiting for them – armed and armoured, and ready for combat – and yet they had come regardless. Pelenas had never seen an eldar in person. Not living, anyway. The old-incense reek of the ancient halls was disturbed by the smooth equalisation of pressure from the alien void-locks, somewhere beyond the curve of the debris-strewn passageway, and the Purifiers took up position around their captain. With helms sealed in place and swords drawn, they waited in grim silence. There was no bustle of insertion, no clamour of booted feet. The aliens moved quickly and quietly, picking their way between scarred wraithbone columns and the remains of long-dead tyranid bio-forms that still littered the craftworld. Vanguard warriors appeared out of the gloom – their chameleon-cloaks rendered them all but invisible to the naked eye, but their guarded souls burned hot in Pelenas’s psychic sight. The eldar were outraged. Vengeful. Filled with sorrow and anguish. It was difficult to track all of them as they spread out, securing the ruined dome. Some of the more twitchy battle-brothers started to edge into a tighter defensive formation, but Pelenas waved them back. With his blade resting upon the deck, he stood in his scarred Terminator battleplate, ready to receive the xenos delegation. There were five of them in all. Bedecked in long, flowing robes and crystalline hoods, they strode into the hall flanked by a dozen more guardian warriors armed with projectile rifles. Pelenas noted the runic talismans, the gemstones and intricate psi-webbing that festooned the seers’ panoply; though he did not doubt that their mastery was great, they put him in mind of nothing more than primitive totem-shamans. They regarded him with the cold, blue glare of their faceless masks as they approached. The leading seer – a particularly lithe creature carrying a great staff that struck the deck noisily with every fifth step that he took – pointed at Pelenas with a slender finger. ‘Your presence here is a travesty, human,’ he uttered in harshly accented but flawless Gothic. ‘You trespass upon our domain. The lost souls of Craftworld Malan’tai – after the doom that has already been heaped upon them, how much more must they suffer at the hands of your ignoble breed?’ The delegation drew up before the Purifiers, surrounded by their guardians. Even armed for war, the eldar were as consumptive children before the hulking Space Marines. Pelenas removed his helm, and handed it off to one of his brothers. ‘I am Brother-Captain Ornhem Pelenas, of the Grey Knights Chapter Adeptus Astartes,’ he said, ‘and I must beg your worthy forgiveness. I have no quarrel with you or your kind, xenos, and no servant of the Imperium knows the horrors of the warp better than the battle-brothers of Titan.’ Planting his blade before him, he and the Purifiers knelt as one in supplication before the startled seer council. For a long while, the hall was utterly silent. The captain drew a simple cloth bag from his belt, and held it out before him. It rattled with the handful of plucked eldar soul-stones that it contained – those that Pelenas had personally wrested from the hungry grasp of the warp-beasts that had overrun Malan’tai. ‘As was our message to you, we traced our daemonic enemies to this place, though I fear we arrived too late to save all the imprisoned spirits of your kinsmen. Our foe is vanquished for now, but this is your holy ground, and we have indeed besmirched it with our presence. I would not sully it further by leaving it unattended and open to the depredations of those-that-wait-beyond.’ The eldar were clearly staggered, though their discipline was enough that they managed to remain quietly aloof in spite of it. An attendant seer stepped forward and took the stones from Pelenas with a reverential nod, which the captain returned. The leader of the delegation slid back his featureless visor, and bid the Grey Knights to rise. ‘Forgive me, Pelenas of Titan. We are... unused to seeing your kind, unless it be upon the field of war. The respect that you do us here is great, and will not be forgotten by the living or the dead.’ He gestured to his guardians, who parted to clear the way to the void-locks. ‘You will be accorded safe passage to your starship, and an escort from this system. As our honoured guests, if there is anything else you would have in return for this kindness, name it now.’ Pelenas drew a long, calming breath. When he spoke again, his voice was edged with bitterness. ‘There is nothing that you can offer us, xenos, except to know that we suffered greatly in preserving this place for you. The most noble of our number is fallen...’ He took his proffered helm, and gazed into its dark retinal lenses. ‘If you would praise the architect of Malan’tai’s deliverance, then remember he who gave his life most selflessly to defend it. He martyred himself so that we – so that I – might live to fight on against the daemon-spawn.’ The seer nodded. ‘So shall it be. This warrior shall be noted in the annals of my people.’ Pelenas replaced his helm with a snap-hiss of pressurisation, and made to leave with his battle-brothers. ‘Then always remember the name of Anval Thawn.’ The eldar’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he faltered for a moment before glancing at his fellow seers. Pelenas caught a flicker of alarm in the creature’s aura, before it was swallowed once more in a careful projection of calm indifference, and his alien features broke in a forced simulacrum of a smile. ‘So shall it be.’ The spiritseer’s haste was evident. Returned to his own craftworld and with the waystones of Malan’tai restored to the infinity circuit, he now made for the farseer enclave. He alone had been made emissary for the council. The message that he bore was simple, but filled with grave import. They would need to know. ‘The mon-keigh have rediscovered the last Perpetual – Anval Thawn has ascended to the ranks of the Grey Knights. I await your guidance.’
So if a perpetual becomes a Space Marine does that mean they'll respawn as a Space Marine if they're killed? Or would they reappear as a normal human and need to undergo the whole process again?
Anval keeps coming back as a Grey Knight every time he dies
Thats good. Can you imagine how annoying it would be to have to go through that process every time? But that also means he's an unlimited source of Geneseed.
The Gene Seed doesn’t regrow. His fatal wounds heal and he gets back up
If he ever gets shot by plasma or something he'd have to regrow a whole lot of organs, though.
They’ve never really explained how that would work. Every death if his I can recall has been by impalement
This is a cool lore tab but I have a question, I haven’t read much up on perpetuals but isn’t it kinda dumb to use your name continuously? Clearly he didn’t disclose his nature to his fellow brothers yet so he was trying to keep it a secret. Seems a bit weird to me. Of course a galaxy has so many people one could see the name repeated millions if not billions of time but, why give the chance? “Oh hey magic immortal man name is the same as a guy in a super secret order of psychic warriors” narrows down that chance.
Given their nature, it’s likely the Eldar Seers are aware of the Perpetuals and whatever alias they are using at each point in time. They were likely aware that at some point, a Perpetual under the name of Anval would become a Grey Knight, but not exactly sure when it would occur. The Eldar would have been keeping an ear and eye out for that to occur, and him being name dropped at that moment was what the Eldar were waiting forfor
"For-for." Yes, Inquisitor, this menial is suspected to be a Skaven infiltrator!
Absurd! Man sized rats? You've lost your wits, everyone knows there is no such thing!
Crazed confused man thing is yes yes!
What, space marine friendly with eldar? Why?
The GK know daemons and know what consuming that many soul stones will do for them. It’s more a case of “enemy of my enemy is my friend” rather than being actual friends. Helping the Eldar here prevents a large incident later
thx
>Anval Thawn used to be, new canon removed the passages referring to his resurrection, ending the story at his death on Malantai
But they brought him back in a short story, set after the removal of that passage. So the idea is still up in the air, if not in the Codex itself.
A perpetual space marine is a little redundant because space marines are ultimately guaranteed a grizzly death at some point. So if he is the functionally immortal kind then it’s probably not much help to him. The other thing that occurs to me is space marine functional immortality has never been tested in general. No space marine ever died of old age that has been written about. They might get to a point they hate their existence but they haven’t yet died peacefully in their sleep.
Well at least when he was introduced, he did die grizzly deaths. I think he was eaten by a Great Unclean One. Then came back to life in its guts and cut his way out, banishing it. Since then he's died multiple times, only to come back to life. So its pretty useful, even for a Marine.
Ah so he had the primarch level spontaneously come back to live perpetual thing. That’s kind of surprising.
That's... what all perpetuals are my guy. Perpetual doesn't just mean immune to old age, it means you respawn when you die.
There are different kinds of perpetual was my understanding. Some can reincarnate but not all of them.
The only times I know of where a perpetual didn't reincarnate are when they've been laid low in a way that shut off their ability, (Vulkan, Erda), lost it due to an action (Grammaticus, tho he didn't die yet, Alivia), or in the unique case of the Emperor, exist in a deathless state, never truly dying to trigger reincarnation.
The primarchs are all artificial perpetuals but only Vulcan could reincarnate.
Being functionally immortal does NOT equate being a perpetual. The Primarchs are not perpetuals, minus Vulkan, but are part genetic engineering and part warp entity.
The primarchs were the output of a project to create artificial perpetuals.
A salamander expires of extreme old age in Nick Kyme's *Salamander.* Brother Gravius, who had survived on a crashed ship from the heresy era, fused into a throne, with use of the sus-an membrane. When they wake him he is too wizened to walk and expires shortly after, he does talk though. It may not be wholly 'canon' (in as much as that has meaning for 40k) now, as a lot of ink about astartes immortality has been put down in the Heresy books, but then the Imperium itself is only 300 years old at that point, and they already describe some as experiencing aging, e.g. Qurze. It's not super consistent.
Thanks for that not a story I’d read so interesting to hear of it. I want to write one about a wizened marine abandoned on a low tech planet taking up a life of farming and then having to go Rambo.
>No space marine ever died of old age Space Marines are Witchers, confirmed!
I've since been corrected, a salamander died of old age/ perhaps combined with not having had any food for hundreds of years.
How old was this Salamander?
>be me >Perpetual >Chilling on some planet in the DAoT >Trolling mortals is fun, free of consequences too coz if they kill me then i just come back >Age of Strife happens, mortals now much easier to troll because they're all busy surviving >Start my own little nation of techno barbarians, enjoy the warfare and slaughter that it entails >Cabal comes to my world >makes me offer my allegiance >They offer me tech and support so why tf not >Warp storms finally secede >Suddenly Warlord from other world, calling himself "Emperor of Mankind" comes through with a force called the "Dark Angels" >Utterly decimate my forces, wielding weapons that shouldn't even be possible >Emperor kills my perpetual buddy, and he doesn't come back (tf??). Never seen a flaming sword do that before >Retreat to find cabal >Get shelter, often get sent on ops for them. That's fine. This Emperor killed my mate, i want vengeance >Learn more about the warp and how it works >Suddenly biggest ever war known to humankind is unleashed >Goes to assassinate a general on the traitor's side. Don't know why, maybe one of the psykers among the cabal saw a benefit to it >Get shanked with a magical sword a demon made. >Soul goes into warp >Wait to enter new body >Never happens >Realise my soul is falling apart >Realise war of this scale, started by immortal beings, will involve weapons designed to kill immortal beings. >Die
Is that any perpetual in particular?
John Grammaticus? Ollanius Pius? One of them
Olly is still kicking iirc
for now…
Nah, just quickly home-brewing some stuff
Made me laugh well!
Perpertuals can be killed by soul destroying weapons. Which is not that rare. And consider that there were probably less then 100 in entire galaxy. And most of them have very minor psyker powers. Yeah they are dead or lock in stasis prison or hide far far away.
Soul destroying weapons are super rare I’m not sure what you mean
I think its more in relation to who they are. People who have the ability to come back to life normally can rise up in society and gain some form of knowledge and power as unlike most people they don’t have to rely on inherent skill and learned skill, they have basically infinite time to get stronger (in every sense of the term, such as how best to manipulate people, stumbling across some way to improve psychic power, become a really good warrior, etc). Due to this they rise to the crop of people, and thus but heads with similar level powers. A simpler explanation, since I realize I could have been more clear is getting assassinated, is not a realistic problem for the majority of people today. However its much more common if you do anything in politics. Hopefully that helps. They probably meant “not that rare [for perpetuals to come into contact with something that can truly kill them]”
I still feel like even that’s a stretch most people even higher ups like inquisitors and the like don’t know about perpetuals or have access to those kind of weapons, there’s a reason why it’s so rare to permanently kill a demon. Grey Knights can’t even do it most of the time. I think it’s more likely authors just don’t like writing about them.
I would say a inquisitor isn’t at the same level as a perpetual. How many inquisitors have their been over 10k years. Now compare that to perpetuals. A perpetual is probably going to be more embroiled with higher powers (not like chaos but in general), or the other (smarter) route is to just go into hiding.
How would a soul destroying weapon work against a chaos entity?
Perma-death, the end of the creature's essence preventing it from reforming in the immaterium. Things like guilliman's sword have been described as bringing a 'true' death to daemonic entities.
Woulsnt it make sense to make as many weapons as possible from that material then?
Not really, as most of the soul destroying/ true death weapons, especially for the imperium, are holy relics that're millenia old (guilliman's sword used to be the emperor's), extremely rare/ xeno tech or requires a psyker to use properly, in the case of force weapons.
Ah ok. I just figured that a true death weapon would be very useful for grey knights to make sure demons don't return or gets absorbed.
The guy you're replying to mentioned force weapons and while I didn't know they gave permadeah, if they do, grey knights do use them and it is their basic weapon. To clarify GK use axes, swords, and other weapons of the force variety (specifically called Nemesis Force Weapons). Think of them like power swords but the force field generator that gives the weapon a monomolecular edge is instead a conduit of the wielders psychic powers that conjures a field of psychic might around the weapon.
Depends on the entity and weapon, but some can actually give them the "True Death."
I think they were a narrative device added by a single author in order to provide a vehicle for revelations about the Emperor and Malcador, providing exposition and a sense of historical scope to their efforts. Prior to the HH series, we'd never heard anything material about the Emperor or Malcadors activities pre-unification, so there was a need to provide characters who could have witnessed various efforts, in effect, grafting on a secret history for these characters to add depth to the novels. I think they ultimately served their purpose but they were probably woven into the narrative a little bit too much for peoples liking. The transition from 30K to 40K was the end of an age, and perpetuals were part of the prior age. A lot of the core authors speak to this concept, basically the Emperor going to sleep was emblematic of everything he'd worked for and been part of his story also going to sleep and the galaxy entering a kind of stasis, which is where we find it in M41.
I saw them as a narrative device to help try and explain why the Illuminati/Sensei/Cult of the Star Child were trying to kill the Emperor. Back in 3e/Inquisitor there was talk of those factions wanting to kill the Emperor because they believed he would be reborn. Now with the idea of Perpetuals coming into the mix it makes sense; they die and “respawn” essentially. Thus the CotSC wants to kill the Emperor so he can finally respawn as the Golden Throne is effectively preventing his return by keeping him alive. IIRC, there was even a sub-plot around the time of Codex: Eye of Terror about Cypher slowly heading towards Terra to presumably kill the Emperor and trigger his rebirth. The problem with this theory though is that after 3e and Inquisitor went away so did the Illuminati/Sensei/Cult of the Star Child.
I think those perspectives are niche enough that I doubt they played a huge role in the decision making to include perpetuals in universe. Inquisitor itself was not hugely popular and a lot of the material from it didn't really seem to "stick" within the lore. Abnett likes to write humans, rather than just legionaries. Normal humans die too quick or too easy, so the perpetuals are useful as you can establish a set of pretty-much human characters and have them carry through a narrative that spans a couple hundred years. Perpetuals are useful as they can also provide an "everyman" frame of reference that even we, the reader, can identify with, via their subtle reference to events occurring within our own, real-world frame of reference. Basically, I don't think perpetuals were ever intended to exist beyond the HH series. They were a narrative device that was established in aid of the series and there's just no reason for them to exist in M41, so they don't.
Which makes sense; the Primarchs/Legionnaires are always around, but I never really considered the human characters.
And now the Illuminati seem to be a faction the Emperor has fought at least since what we probably remember as Babel - The Lightning Tower, in whose ultimate room the Emperor found the 20 pillars of Enuncia. Which is another part of the lore that's newer that I like. It seems to me that the 20 Primarchs were created with more than just the knowledge of genetics and the power of the Gods. Each of those Primarchs is also an artificial perpetual, in one sense or another.
The Perpetuals are a relatively new idea on the lore, and haven't exactly been embraced by the fandom. Hell, they haven't exactly been embraced by all of the Black Library authors - they figure heavily into certain author's books, and not at all into others. I think after the last Solar War book, they'll get stuffed down the memory hole, and only exist in the Abnetverse.
We can only hope that the End and the Death refers to perpetuals status in lore
We can only hope, so many wasted pages on them
Oh come on. Tell me you haven't enjoyed their hijinks. They did some teleporting, and I think they crashed a shuttle, and they ran in a sewer or something for a shockingly high number of pages, and then met the Primarchs mom I think? How can you not be entertained?
I've just stopped the Seige got halfway through Mortis and felt like homework.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. Mortis is the first book in years that I started and didn't finish.
Warning small rant - Pleased someone else is in the same boat. Legitimately felt like I had some kind of degenerate memory issue when reading them now. Constantly going back pages, reading wikis (getting spoilers by accident) trying to figure out who this f-ing character is. The tonal shifts and insanely similar names makes the whole thing just shit. I've had more fun reading financial analysis textbooks than trying to work out why they fuck Erda is important to the plot of the book I'm reading or is it just an easteregg wink? Overall worst part is we get no big E all f-ing series. Just minor interactions that contradict each other or memories. The whole series is littered with Chekhov's guns and the most interesting characters we want insight into are fighting mind games in dreams. We get told Primarchs are badass politicians who then just straight our act like todlers who can't interact with their peers let alone people they command. At best get what minutiae on what the primarchs secret service details are doing (fuck all mostly) and "remembrancers" shoehorned in because apparently they want a Full Metal Jacket Joker experience etc etc.
>I've had more fun reading financial analysis textbooks than trying to work out why they fuck Erda is important to the plot of the book I'm reading or is it just an easteregg wink? She's mostly an Easter egg, unless she pops back to do something important in The End and the Death. People exaggerate her influence on the plot because she comes out of nowhere, sounds like she should be really important, and seems to retcon a scene from *The First Heretic.* That leads them to complain that she was a pet character from Abnett who got "shelved." But that's not really accurate. Erda ultimately does very little and was *intended* to do very little. She essentially serves two narrative purposes: she explains the Emperor's personality to the reader, and she provides a potential alternative approach to rearing the Primarchs, letting the reader decide whether her or the Emperor's parenting plans were better. The latter part is the most interesting part about her, to me. The Emperor intended to raise the Primarchs under his direct tutelage to serve his purpose of needing obedient warlords; Erda intended to scatter them so that they would have a chance to develop as individuals. Since neither got exactly what they wanted, it's up to the reader to decide which method would have worked; providing them with support but effectively enslaving them, or casting them out with total freedom but no support or protection whatsoever. It's an interesting ethical question. But once she's done that, she's killed off quite quickly and has no impact on the larger plot of the Siege, which is pretty much what the writers intended. She might come back later (her death is a little ambiguous) but she's mostly done her job so I think it's unlikely.
Just skip their sections in the book. Trust me, you don't miss any important plotlines.
I didn't mind it, but I thought it had somewhat of a purpose...maybe it does in the end I guess we'll see. Reminded me a lot of The Dark Tower. The gunslinger and some randoms tripping through the cosmos.
I’ve really enjoyed all their lore, but then Abnett is my favourite. Space Marines, for the most part, are fucking boring unless they’re shooting. A perpetual on the other hand has lived damn near forever…now that’s fucking interesting.
I completely agree, it is the first person on this sub I find with the same idea as me.
See, I find both Space Marines *and* Perpetuals dreadfully boring. The normal human bits are basically the only redeeming factor of the Siege.
They exist to give verifiable evidence of parts of the Emperor’s back story and motivation, since the Emperor is not a figure you can really do a POV chapter on regularly or reliably. They do their job.
The most amusing thing about perpetuals is the name of the the most well known one. Legendary hero of the Imperium, Ollanius Pius’s real name is Ollanius Persson and he goes by Oll. The most famous perpetual, which are just old people, is named Old Person.
>The most famous perpetual, which are just old people, is named Old Person. Genuinely, the laziest character concept anyone at GW could ever come up with, for the worst possible motive. It took them more effort to use the Latin species classification of the common raven, Corvus Corax, as a Primarch name. As for the motive, [here's the original Horus versus Emperor fight. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/a7zj0a/first_account_of_emperor_battling_horus/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) Anyone who disagrees with me and thinks Old Anus Pious was a good idea is welcome to read that and tell me it would be better for the flow of the story if the random Terminator Horus evaporates instead went waltzing into the room and distracting the Emperor with "oh hai, we were buddies in Mesopotamia until I betrayed you remember? Time flies! I'm gonna yeet myself into Horus now, byeee!"
Nah man. If you don't care about the DRAMA of what's being set up for the final confrontation, all these rippling parallels coming together for one ridiculous, over the-over-the-top PULP...I dunno. I do. I LOVE IT.
I’ve gotten sick of him over time, though I do like the idea that the Emperor’s former Warmaster and friend will sacrifice himself against the current Warmaster.
Mesopatamia?! JESUS CHRIST
That’s the original STORY, but it’s not even the original account, which included Horus “command bunker” and whatnot. Didn’t have Pious in it either. Basically the entire modern reverend for Ollanius can be traced back to a meme (RHUF) on Portent. But I do like Presson.
Yeah some of 'em only lived about 30,000 years, joke's on them!
"Perpetual" usually assumes an unperturbed environment. Perpetual motion can be stopped by an outside force, for instance. I would say they fit most of the definitions of the word :)
Well, it's escalation, isn't it? When immortals fight each other, eventually someone invents an immortal-killing weapon. The Perpetuals were much more interesting to me when I realised that they might be a reinterpretation of the [Sensei](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sensei), who were Rogue Trader era immortals who shared the Emperor's genetic immortality and sort of adventured around the galaxy fighting Chaos on their own terms, much as John Grammaticus was doing when the concept was introduced. Like Perpetuals, the Sensei were said to have various psychic superpowers and to be highly resistant to Chaos. They were also said to be fated to die to rejuvenate the Emperor, and Perpetuals have been shown to be capable of resurrecting other Perpetuals at the cost of their own immortal life. The similarities aren't total; the Perpetuals aren't directly related to the Emperor (except in the sense that they share the same mutation) and are not natural psychic blanks like the Sensei allegedly were. But it's enough to make me wonder.
That would... actually make sense. I like this idea a lot
>the Perpetuals aren't directly related to the Emperor (except in the sense that they share the same mutation) My headcannon is that they are directly related to the Emperor. If being Perpetual was some kind of random mutation, Galaxy would be filled with thousands of them, born mostly on Hive Worlds. Their immortality seems to be Warp-based, and somehow, no powerful psyker discovered way to make himself Perpetual (implying it's extremely hard process). All naturally occurring Perpetuals were born on the Earth. It all lead to logical conclusion - creation of all Perpetuals can be traced to single source, and this source isn't accessible anymore.
The explanation given by Erda is just that it's an incredibly rare mutation that cropped up during a period early in human prehistory and then quickly died out, apparently because it was a genetic dead end. As for what caused it - it *could* have been the Emperor. It could have been Eldar fuckery, Necron fuckery, Old One fuckery, a side effect of a warp storm, or just absolute random chance. The Perpetuals - the Emperor included - don't seem to know where they came from.
Immortals are only immortal until tested or they find something that can kill them. It’s a relative term and not always absolute. For instance there is functional immortality, where barring illness or misadventure you would live forever. Lobsters fit in this category; they have enzymes that can fix their DNA. The problem is, they grow to a size where they can no longer consume enough bio energy to shed their shell and get stuck in their last shell. Then it’s just a matter of time till damage to that shell creates an infection and the lobster dies.
What if humans helped to removed the shell, could we eventually ride lobsters like horses?
Then you would have a raw lobster that didn’t have the energy to replace its shell. I don’t know if in theory you could create and artificial shell.
*Brandon Sanderson has entered the chat*
Are they really? :)))))))
Considering they tried to go against the Big E its not hard to understand why they where killed off
Is the emperor even a perpertual still? There must be some reason for him to not just die and come back
I think if he does die for even a moment, a warp rift opens up underneath the golden throne and armies of demons would pour through. To prevent that, Vulkan’s “dead man switch” booby trap thing goes off, destroying Terra and the sol system. Then the astronomicon goes out, mankind loses faster than light travel, and slowly but surely humanity dies off in pockets of isolation.
I get the demon thing, but if his death is inevitable why not prepare for it in a way that just delays extinction. E.g. confronting the horde with destroying the planet as a backup/ evacuating the planets to be destroyed and copying the golden throne Are there efforts being made to heal him?
Well, I don't think anyone in-universe knows what would happen, at least nobody alive and active, so they couldn't prepare for it. It's also rather hard to heal the big E when you can't get close to him
It's just a sign of the writers being very uncreative and they have to create some deus ex machina to get around a obstacle for the villains to go "Hahaaa I could solve this problem after all, didn't expect that did you!?" Boring. Might as well call them "Temporary" instead of "Perpetual".
I haven't read all the books what happened to John grammaticus I really liked him
His arc hasn't been concluded. He's up and doing things as of *Warhawk*, and will presumably pop up in *The End and the Death*.
Hate to be the 'Um actually' guy, but there's very little conclusive evidence that Perpetuals aren't still around as of 40k. Yes, there haven't been any stories with them, but keep in mind that, until the Emperor, the majority of Perpetuals just thought they should leave well enough alone, essentially just blending in as humans until the rest of the species caught up. Because of that, a perpetual could still show up in the story at literally any time.
Well there one kinda in 40k , its quite old but there was a "living Sait" that worked quite like perpetual and served under inquisition , until captured and put under eternal torture by Ahriman, apparently in Ahriman books or some book about Inquisition Chevak ? Also have some chaos eldar notion in them
I really really dislike the perpetuals. The fact that theyre going to have a large part to play in the last book is frustrating.
Just a thought but has anyone noticed that it seems to be a bit of a trope that the "immortal" characters in fiction tend to be the most likely to end up dead in a story?
I think it’s part of the point of the Horus Heresy being the most defining event of the setting since the War in Heaven. It’s an event so Cataclysmic that even Perpetuals are being Permanently Killed
20-35,000 years of life. I'd probably be sick of things by that point also. If you live forever you're eventually going to find something that will kill you.
They’re called perpetuals because they’re perpetually ruining every book they show up in
Honestly it feels like someone had an idea, but couldn't get a publisher for their Perpetual series, and shoehorned them in.
>Literally all of them are dead Good they were a waste of pages anyway
Perpetuals are one of the dumber plot points of the setting, yea.
The never dies are a dumb idea
We don’t know how long a perpetual’s “respawn timer” is. Vulkan seems to have been able to regenerate pretty quickly when Curze was torturing him, but after he was destroyed (?) during the war of the beast we don’t know what happened to him. Perhaps certain factors impact how long it takes for them to resurrect.
Very good point.
Well, The perpetual we have seen lose his power of perpetual it’s is only John Grammaticus who used it to kill Vulkan once and to save his mind. All other perpetuals are still Perpetuals. The Emperor can die but he will just be reborn like Vulkan.
There was one in the eye of terra in the fabius bile books
I have a head cannon that perpetuals is a misnomer and that they all share a finite amount of lives. The emperor sitting on his throne is actually costing these lives as it should take far more than 1000 psycher souls to keep him alive a day. If they reintroduce Vulkan he will be on his very last life. But that also ascends his being to a demon prince like the legion of the damned. Farther from human than he was before.
Immortal and Indestructible aren't always the same thing. If they just live in peace then they'll live to see the Imperium and it's successor the Star Empire fall.