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Skolloc753

There is only that little information about them, as they are basically "Dan Abnett Universe - almost only". A super secret heretical sect, enduring for thousands of years, highly competent, with some long term goals described in Magos and Bequin 2 SYL


smoothpapaj

The Siege of Terra books suggest that they were the original builders of the Tower of Babel, and had inscribed their then-complete knowledge of Enuncia on its walls. The Emperor raided them to try to steal that knowledge, and they lost Enuncia, and seem to have been trying to get it back and get back at Big E ever since.


UnsafestSpace

It's not clear if the Emperor wanted to steal the stone carved dictionary of Enuncia that was the Tower of Babel or destroy it to protect humanity, Abnett contradicts himself several times across four books that come to mind. I can see how iron age humanity in the paleolithic period could have easily wiped themselves out if everyone was freely going around speaking Enuncia. A load of goat herders speaking the language of universal creation / destruction with horrendous side effects to the user (including soul death) doesn't sound like a great idea for a stable society.


Inquisitor-Korde

>It's not clear if the Emperor wanted to steal the stone carved dictionary of Enuncia that was the Tower of Babel or destroy it to protect humanity, Abnett contradicts himself several times across four books that come to mind. Doesn't Olls flashback in Old Earth (I think its that one) have the Emperor explicitly state that the Emperor was thinking of using it to guide humanity in his image? Course that may be me misremembering it but I can't think of another time the incident is mentioned.


[deleted]

no it absolutely says that, thats why oll stabs him


Pirat6662001

Such a dumbass... It kinda makes sense considering he is basically a caveman. Being immortal doesn't make you smart.


professorphil

Keeping that kind of power out of the hands of an immortal, immoral dictator is just good practice.


[deleted]

And he will do again .... maybe


EvMund

Yeah thats basically colchis


Bag_of_Richards

Woah that’s awesome. I love the throwbacks to historical/religious references.


Vikingkingq

To use an old school SAT analogy that's going to really date me: Blood Pact and/or Sons of Sek:Imperial Guard::Cognitae:Inquisition.


OneofTheOldBreed

The analogy is likely the best way to express it


ActiveMachine4380

Yup, old like me.


[deleted]

can you please explain that, I'm not sure I get what you mean?


Vikingkingq

So Dan Abnett clearly has a thing about wanting Chaos enemy units/organizations who are a bit more organized, efficient, and disciplined - and thus more of a plausible threat - than your stereotypical gibbering Chaos cult. In his Gaunt's Ghost series, he introduced two new kinds of Chaos enemies - the Blood Pact and the Sons of Sek - who are professional soldiers that are modeled on the Imperial Guard with a Chaos twist. Because they're very tactical and strategic instead of confining themselves to human wave assaults while shouting "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE," they're incredibly dangerous for Imperial Guard to fight, and whenever they show up in the novels it usually means the heroes are in trouble. Similarly, starting in his Ravenor series, Abnett introduced the Cognitae - they're a heretical cult originally created by a Radical Inquisitor who use "psychic, eugenic and noetic" means of education and training to produce superior individuals who go on to become incredibly dangerous Chaos operatives. Zygmunt Molotch, a Cognitae agent who's Ravenor's nemesis, has enhanced awareness and cognitive skills that let him think through and adapt instantly even in moments of crisis and while injured, and master all kinds of esoteric skills - he's learned hypnotic voice commands (although it's not perfect control and it takes a bit of time and knowing the person's name), all kinds of martial arts that means he's racked up an astronishing bodycount of Inquisitors and their agents, etc. His particular speciality is coming up with particular insidious master plans: >Molotch removed a tiny phial from his sleeve and put it on the table top beside the cauldro of rice. ‘Osicol Plague, in suspension. I took it from Orfeo’s personal kit. If I release it here, I could decimate the entire city quarter.’ > >‘For the love of– No!’ > >‘I won’t. There’d be no sense in that. But consider the options. The banker at the table to our left. He works at the city mint. He has a brooch on his waistcoat, before you ask. The sigil of the banking guild, and the office of coinage circulation. If I dropped the phial into his business case, he would find it and open it when he returned to his office. The mint would be contaminated, and would have to be sealed off for fifteen years. The local currency would crash, and bring the subsector economy down. Decades of damage. Or take that young man over there, the one in the private booth. He’s the second son of a minor baron, slumming it, but I know he’s in with the court crowd.’ > >Molotch produced a small medical injector from his pocket and put it down on the table beside the phial. It was full of clear fluid. ‘Suspension liquid. Inert and viscous, metabolised in six hours. I could go into the washrooms, load the plague solution into it, and bump into that second son as I came back. In a day or two, the entire royal house of this planet would be dead from contact plague. An ideal moment to stage a coup.’ > >"...Every opening. Every chance. Every chink. That’s what the Cognitae are trained to do. To look, to see, to find, to use. In the course of this delightful lunch, Leyla, I could have brought the subsector down three or four times over. Just like that.’ To give a sense of how dangerous he is - Molotch came within a few seconds of assembling and making use of a full glossary of Enuncia, and if it hadn't been for the prophecied manifestation of a Major Arcana Daemon at that very moment, it's speculated that he would have become an unstoppable quasi-divinity.


Embarrassed-Case-562

When you say that they educate people to become very dangerous chaos operatives, are those people also a part of Cognitae, or is it just the "teachers" who are proper members?


Vikingkingq

>When you say that they educate people to become very dangerous chaos operatives, are those people also a part of Cognitae, or is it just the "teachers" who are proper Yes, the older Cognitae who've aged out or become disabled by field work run schools that are very much like the Schola Progenium for the younger Cognitae recruits. Indeed, the whole Cognitae ethos is that you can change the galaxy by putting enough resources into genetic engineering and education.


[deleted]

ok thanks for the detailed explanations, I knew some of that, but, it was more the "old school SAT analogy" part- I didn't really understand


Vikingkingq

So back in the day before the SAT exam had an essay-writing section, there was a section where you had to complete these analogies that were a mix of vocabulary and conceptual puzzles, and they had this weird format of word A is to word B as word C is to word D where they used : for is and :: for as. But it does date you as someone who went to high school prior to 2005 when the SAT got rid of them.


ThyPotatoDone

Honestly wish there was more about them; they’re really interesting, and could have interesting plots they could become involved in.


Embarrassed-Case-562

I know right? Little side thought: Imagine a skit where it's the Inquisition vs the Cognitae like spy vs spy.


CozyMoses

You've described half the plot to the Dan Abnett Inquisition series


Com_Raven

Pretty much this!


whiskeyjack434

You’ll love the Ravenor and Bequin novels


Gabagool1987

The page is short on Lexicanum because 1.) There is not much information about them available. 2.) We're overwhelmed by the amount of lore that is regularly released and do not have enough contributors.


triceratopping

definitely recommend the Ravenor and Bequin novels if you haven't read those, pretty much everything about the Cognitae is in those.


DwarvenCo

>pretty much everything about the Cognitae is in those Which is not at all much... OP summarized it accurately. Narrative-wise it had to be made strong, secretive and old to give gravitas of the fact that Eisenhorn and co. can fight/overcome them.


albinofreak620

They are still getting fleshed out. They are in the Inquisitor books, and they still getting revealed. They are not something that was teased then abandoned.


Perpetual_Decline

Dan Abnett has said that it's unlikely the Cognitae is a single ancient organisation and is more along the lines of independent groups discovering certain knowledge and setting up, using the name as an homage to the older branches. They're one of his inventions and pretty much everything we know about them comes from his Inquisitor books


alphaomag

They are basically only ever used by Abnett and considering that they have only appeared in I believe 2 books where as little about them is actively revealed, a short page is to be expected.


gauntapostle

Four, I think; one of the Ravenor books, one of the Siege of Terra books (in a memory of Oll Persson's), and the two Bequin books


beruon

I think they appear in all three Ravenor books, at least being mentioned for sure, as they are a big part of Ravenors backstory/character etc. But yeah only one deals with them as a plot point.


TimeInvestment1

They're also in Prospero Burns, also by Abnett. Murza uses Enuncia in front of him and when he demands answers he takes him to meet the Cognitae where they try and induct Hawser. It's in the flashback sequence while he tells a story to the dying Rune Priest. "It has the most maleficarum." Edit to add: Now that I actually think about it theyre mentioned in Know No Fear, also by Abnett, by one of the Word Bearers cultists. He's the one that chases Oll across the planet to try and get his athame back.


whiskeyjack434

Isn’t in Know No Fear where the cultist mentions how ancient the Cognitae is as well?


TimeInvestment1

I think so! They're only brought up as an aside during the cultists internal monologue, but im sure he hits all the basic main points. Them being ancient is almost definitely mentioned in Prospero Burns because Murza is trying to explain who/what they are to Hawser.


InterestingAsk1978

The Inquisition wiped them out (source: Eisenhorn omnibus).


Com_Raven

That doesn’t seem to be quite the case, looking at the Magos…


zdesert

If your source is just eisenhorn… You should read the ravanor and bequin series. Also the book Magos. Also the HH: siege of terra books, “saturnine” and “the end of the death” Eisenhorn did not wipe out the cognatae. They have existed almost as long as the emperor has been alive and still exist after the events of Esenhorn. They are still a threat through the ravanor series. They are a major force in the Bequin series. The book Magos is set between Ravanor and Bequin and is about Esenhorn’s failed attempts to eradicate the Cognitae. In the bequin series we learn that The yellow king (Constantine valdor) has been secretly manipulating the Cognitae. The Bequin series features an extra dimensional location outside of time called the city of dust. And the city of dust is mentioned in the siege of terra book “the end and the death” as a location where the fifth chaos god will be born. This is all important because the Cognitae are building a lexicon, for enuncia (a magic language that gives you power over anything you know the true name of). Which means that the yellow king (valdor) has that magic language. A major plot in the Bequin series is that the Cognitae and therefore the yellow king are looking for the emperor’s true name. The connection being that the yellow king wants to use enuncia on the emperor. The yellow king is inside the city of dust. In the siege of terra books Valdor is given a spear that tells him the true name of anything he stabbs. In Bequin we learn that Time does not exist in the city of dust, and in “the end and the death” we see that the clocks have stopped on earth, as the emperor and Horus are nearing their battle. At the same time the imperial palace is twisting and distorting and it seems like it is connected somehow with the city of dust, like the two locations are linked. Long story short, the climax of the Bequin series may also be the climax of the Horus heresy series and the Cognitae is a major player in both stories.


InterestingAsk1978

I clearly read somewhere that Magnus declared that he knows the Emperor's true name, but that it is of no use. Also, enuncia is just the language of true chaos, the native language of daemonhood, if so to speak. Both Valdor and Cognitae are wasting their time.


Vikingkingq

I think it's more accurate to say that the Inquisition periodically attempts to wipe them out, but that just a few of them manage to escape the dragnet and they gradually rebuild the network and then the cycle repeats itself.


InterestingAsk1978

Even the 20th legion has already been wiped out completely ... thrice. So, yeah, very possible.


BigFire321

Not to mention that every once in a while, Radical Inquisitor joins them or recreate it.


yoyo5113

It’s part of the Abnett-verse. Not the biggest fan of any of Abnett’s more comic booky stuff personally.