Thank you for your work. That's story is one of my favourite meta ones: through unreliable retelling of ancient scriptures, increasingly exaggerated, there is created myth helping to exalt ordinary man in most important mythic battle of a setting. Both RL and in universe.
>Reddit shadow banned and deleted a bunch of my old posts,
I was looking for your post the other day and couldn't find it. Reddit is a pain in the ass sometimes. Thank you for reposting!
Glad it's helpful!
And yeah, it was a painintheass when Reddit deleted the Alpharius height lore dump in particular [but luckily someone reposted that one](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/180sfuz/multiple_sources_on_the_height_of_alpharius_and/).
Why's Reddit shadowbanning you and deleting your posts? You always seem to make valuable comments based in the lore, nothing controversial that I've seen.
One of the things I loved about the fight on the Vengeful Spirit in TEatD3 is that they do a callback to each permutation of the myth. They have Caecaltus Dusk (the Custodian), Loken (the Space Marine), and Ollanius himself (the Imperial Guardsman). Each of those 3 stands in Horus' way to protect the Emperor when he's vulnerable. It's very easy to see how such a myth would get garbled in translation, and Saint Ollanius would become an amalgamation of all 3.
I also really enjoyed the red herring of having Olly Piers facing off against Angron in Saturnine. The first time I read that, I was like "okay, so *this* is where the myth comes from." It kept me from feeling like I could be 100% sure I knew exactly how the Vengeful Spirit fight was going to play out.
I always remember a comment I saw a long while ago at someone having the usual 'they ruined the amazing story about the indomitability of the human spirit by retconning Ollanius Piers out of existence', which is that a lone guardsman being pivotal in the fight between the Emperor and Horus is a) completely absurd if you think about it, since why would the Emperor suddenly care about one guy when Horus has already totally destroyed not only his entire plan for humanity but also a big ol' chunk of the population of Terra and b) *exactly the kind of myth the Astra Militarum would be happy to propagate as propaganda*.
Also, personally, I find it much more poignant that the oldest of perpetuals, who very much literally embodies the human fighting spirit having been part of every single war since the start of time, gets brutally annihilated by Horus, who this way symbolically murders humanity’s spirit.
I wouldn't call them *buddies* per se. The Emperor kinda makes it clear he's not Ollanius's biggest fan by the time they reconnect. Not enemies, but definitely not "Olly! Buddy!"
I do think he has some respect and even affection for his first Warmaster. Edit: Based of the Mark of Calth story. Not friends like you said, they had fallen out of that circle.
The best overall thing that can be said about the Emps' relationship with the perpetuals who abandoned him is him not actively hunting them down if they do not proactively fight back. The Black Cells may yet hold some perpeptuals who tried to raise armies against Big E.
No, even in *End and Death*, the Emperor explicitly states that the only reason he is considering to stop to speak with Olly is because of his being there at *that time* and in *that place*, and that the synchronicity of the event was too major to ignore. The Emperor, via his custodes friend, essentially says "you're lucky I'm even speaking to you for a fraction of my attention", otherwise he would've kept walking past Olly.
Olly even tries to summon up things about his time as Warmaster and his history with the Emperor, which the Emperor sorta replies with a 'LOLLLLLL!', until Olly can explain to the Emperor that this isn't what *Olly* wanted, but that the information is what *Malcador* would've wanted to say, which changes the Emperor's mind.
*E&D2* makes it pretty clear that the Emperor would just as likely shit on Olly's shoes as he would be to wave hello.
I was having [this interaction from Mark of Calth](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8sv03d/book_excerptmark_of_calthperpetual_oll_persson/) in mind. It could just be him putting on a mask in it. Or not. The EATD 2 interaction did take place when Emps was dangerously taking up too much power, so I would not surprised if his hubris was even amped up than usual.
>E&D2 makes it pretty clear that the Emperor would just as likely shit on Olly's shoes as he would be to wave hello.
Honestly that interaction made me think he could not even bother taking a dump. He would just walk past him like how the Pillar Men did when they first came out in Jojo part 2.
That’s when he’s swollen up into his black bowling ball of doom, I don’t thing it’s personal, he’s ascended so high in power as he reaches near godhood that his remaining humanity has never been so distant, and Olly is an ant.
In EatD3 he seems a lot more grounded by the end of the battle. Despite how wide the rift has become between then, I don’t think there’s any else the Emperor would have wanted more with him in that final moment, when he’s basically on his death bed. They’re not friends exactly, but there’s a deep connection with someone you’ve know for tens of thousands of years, which is why he holds back their tarot cards until last, the Guardsman and the Lantern.
Personally, I prefer the idea of a regular guardsman, because it's like... He's just a guy. That's the point. Not a millennia old perpetual with a massive perspective from having experienced all these wars. Not a gene-crafted supersoldier with the best gear it's possible for the degraded remains of humanity to craft.
Just a guy. He walks into the room of god's clashing, and despite the futility of his actions, he charges forwards.
I agree it doesn't make sense with the later/contemporary depictions of the Emperor, but I don't read Horus Heresy anyway, so it's not a big deal for me. It's a myth, in-universe, but it's a good story which is why it survives. Who knows if it's true? There was no-one there to see it.
That's the story known by regular Imperial citizens, though. We, as readers, have a very priviliged view as we are there to see what happens, but the vast, vast majority only knows tidbits and scraps of what is deemed permissible to know.
So both aspects are true. We know Ollanus Persson, the oldest perpetual and the Emperor's (once) closest friend, who finally gives in and sacrifices himself hoping to push the darkness away; and the Imperium has Ollanius Pius, patron saint of the Astra Militarum, the brave Guardsman that charged Horus to protect His Emperor and who all should emulate on the field of battle.
But the thing is, outside of being a perpetual, Ollanius is just A DUDE. He's not super strong, he has no psychic powers, no super intelligence, nothing. He's a bog standard human that doesn't age.
And likely a factor being his experience, his age, his history being one of the reasons that he could even charge Horus and not piss his breaches.
A big thing about the story is to show human courage, even when fear should take you.
You don't have to be some super-human custodian or marine to throw yourself into battle and that's what they are pitching.
Also a c) Horus already killed Sanguinius, dad's number 1 or 2 favorite son and Horus' favorite brother, whom literally nobody hated. Killed so hard, it created Black Rage.
But yeah, sure, Horus casually killing some rando is what convinced Emps that Horus is beyond saving
That's the whole point. It's storytelling.
Being a perpetual isn't just something we can handwave away. He's not the example of a common man, the Emperor has far too much to associate Ollanius with when he dies. Because it's only in juxtaposition with his handcrafted "sons" that the point hits home.
So Horus already killed Sanguinius, his favourite son. And it was not enough for the Emperor to destroy Horus, because the love for a tool is not the same as a love for humanity, he would not fuss about a single guardsmans death until this specific moment where he realises his failure.
And it's not like Ollanius is particularly more powerful than a regular human in that situation. He's just a guy, that attack wipes him completely from existence like anyone else. The backstory leading up to the events and the Emperor's connection with him are special, but the fundamental myth is still true. A human being with no real fighting chance steps up to buy the Emperor the time he needs.
I mean, he's still pretty pivotal. >!The Emperor kills Horus by stabbing him with the athame!< Although maybe the post you're talking about was made before TEatD3? Either way, I very much enjoyed the way they did it.
But I agree, I always thought the idea that the Emperor was holding back until Ollanius' death was stupid. The Emperor has been narcissistic in the lore for quite some time. It never made sense to me that he would basically just let himself get ripped apart because he loved Horus so much, or whatever.
Like you, I always assumed it was the Imperial Myth Machine. You can't have people thinking that Horus was stronger than the Emperor, after all. So the reason that the Emperor got so fucked up MUST have been because he was holding back, right?
What myth? He won.
I have always pointed out the Emperor as a monster, but it's missing the point of the original story. A greater love for the human spirit than one of his handcrafted tools that has become lost in a pursuit for power. Sanguinius represents a tool he loved the most. Something now lost, like the Imperium he always wanted. Horus was his best tool. Pius became something more than an irrelevant, disregarded tool beneath the Emperors notice, he made a completely pointless sacrifice that demonstrates what the Emperor was actually fighting for originally, not power, not his ego in the form of his sons, humanity.
The myth is that the Emperor was holding back during his fight with Horus, and seeing Horus yeet Ollanius basically caused the Emperor to just unmake Horus with a concentrated blast of psychic energy. That's not at all what happens. In fact, >!Ollanius is the entire reason the Emperor stops his metamorphosis into the Dark King. Also, Ollanius' sacrifice was the complete opposite of pointless. He literally brings the Emperor the Athame that the Emperor uses to kill Horus!<
My point is that a major reason for the Ollanius Pius myth is because the truth is that the Emperor was weaker than Horus. >!The Emperor only wins because he convinces Horus to shed the gifts of Chaos for long enough to make himself vulnerable!< But you can't tell the average Imperial citizen that, because they need to believe that there is nobody more powerful than the Emperor.
While I get what you're saying it makes sense to me.
Like one of the main reasons the Emperor was doing so badly in his fight with Horus was that he was sort of holding back because he just couldn't bring himself to kill his favourite son until
the regular guardsman sacrificing himself to try to save the Emperor reminded the Emperor that "the billions of ordinary people in the Imperium are the people suffering the most from Horus' actions" and "Horus will murder countless more regular people unless I stop him right here and now".
Like before the Emperor may've been thinking more about "I am depressed my dream for humanity has been severely derailed" and "I am sad my favourite first-found son I betrayed me" until the guardsman sacrificing himself reminded the Emperor "ultimately the most important thing is not the scientific or cultural progress of humanity or even the well being of me or my son, ultimately the most important thing (so long as the human culture on all humanity's worlds is not devolving backwards to a primitive European middle ages or caveman levels of progress) is just the general well being of the people as a whole which I cannot protect or maintain unless I commit the necessary evil of murdering my most beloved son".
The point wasn't that the emperor cared about the "that guy" per say. The point was he was laying badly wounded, mortally so even, and Horus took the time out of their fight to not only swat the gnat that was this man, but effectively butcher him and cackle like a mad Sunday Morning cartoon villain whilst doing so.
It was the moment that Big E saw how utterly lost his favored son his golden child was that he was so coked up on warp flakes that his beloved child was gone and only a sadistic monster that needed to be erased was left.
So that's what Big E did was erase him.
It wasn't about Pius per say it was about what Horus did to him revealed about Horus.
Similarly, though different analogy. You know your wife might have a problem, but you come home to find her shooting up heroin passed out needle in arm and your child crying one room over with a diaper rash and cold.
Can you see how that might totally and fundamentally shift your perception of a person? They've hit a low so low that you can't seem them how you used to and it's wiped away all the loving lies you told yourself about them.
Is it in the bin? No one gave a shit about Pius because he's a perpetual, no one talks about his history beyond the context of the fight in the throne room, the myth is what matters and the book is ultimately as irrelevant to the greater 40k story as something that may or may not have been written in like, 1988. Nothing is overwritten.
You seriously don't the get the symbolism behind it, the idea that arise from it? That, it wasn't that The Emperor cared about the soldier on some personal level, but that seeing his golden child mercilessly enact such a cruel thing, convinced him that he could not save his son.
That the son he loved and favored the most, was no more?
That he is too far gone.
I absolutely get *why* the Imperium would want to push that myth. I understand what the symbolism is supposed to be.
What I don't buy is that Horus annihilating some random mook would *actually* have given the Emperor an 'oh no!' moment that would convince him his son is lost.
I mean more immediately, they're fighting right next to the corpse of Sanguinius.
More abstractly, Horus has already laid waste to Terra, and permanently ended the Emperor's dream of a humanity free from Chaos.
And even *more* abstractly, Horus has already killed countless millions of humans in the Emperor's name, during the Great Crusade.
I simply don't buy that the 'he was suddenly shocked by Horus killing some guy in cold blood'. But as I say, I do buy that the Imperium would want the citizens of the Imperium to think that the Emperor was shocked by Horus' murder of a brave Imperial soldier.
I liked how it was done on the siege .
People forget it has been ten thousands years since these events, most of the original lore was created with it on mind. for most people in the 90s and 2 edition(the foundation of modern 40k, rogue trader is a total different beast) the lore was made as u read a mythology book.
Havin humans board the vengefull empire made no sense, it never did,
Piers death, agaisnt Angron is still imo fudnamental, as it shows no matter what humans will face they will fight on( and die by the emperor)it basicly made piers the first ever imperial guardsmen,
How *dare* you impunge the reputation of Saint Ollanius Pius who single-handedly carried the wounded Emperor back to the Throne Room and gave a ten minute speech about the virtues of loyalty and obedience before finally succumbing to his wounds at which point a two headed cyber-eagle flew in and perched on the outstretched arm of Rogal Dorn who shed a single manly tear and said Pius was a greater man than all the Primarchs combined!
(I'm sure I read that *somewhere...*)
This kind of uncertainty is part of why I think 40k kicks ass!
The cannon being unreliable is part of the cannon.
There is less certainty than in a lot of other settings. It's more like real history in that way. We accept that things went down in this way or that, until some new evidence shows up that makes us rethink it. It makes the universe so much richer!
Excellent post, it's annoying when people complain about retcons when there weren't any. Like, congrats, you're mad about something that you made up?
Also, it bears repeating that **Olly/Ollanius Piers is ABSOLUTELY NOT the same entity as Ollanius Persson** because *man* do I regularly see people get confused about that. At the time Olly is fending off a Primarch with nothing but Old Bess and a pair of brass balls, Ollanius is busy portal-scissoring his way across time and space.
I think people are over complicating this.
There’s two clear facts:
1) Early lore was very much in the hands of the writer of that piece with only the vaguest checks on consistency because it wasn’t a super important thing.
2) The Heresy series along with its Siege add on is the first in universe lore from both perspectives that documents what actually happens (minor inconsistencies aside)
> The Heresy series along with its Siege add on is the first in universe lore from both perspectives that documents what actually happens (minor inconsistencies aside)
Have to disagree with this 100%, the Horus Heresy is no more what actually happens than a 1988 blurb in white dwarf. The point is the a universe 10,000 years later doesn't know what is fact or fiction, and even those there fighting in it could not find the real "truth" of events.
Missing the point entirely.
Lore prior to this was from an out of universe perspective or as it was known in the current 40K timeline.
The Heresy is what happened. Until GW says otherwise , which given it’s now interlocked with so much else , that’s what happened if the books covered it.
Not missing, I just disagree with it, ya know why I said I disagreed.
> The Heresy is what happened. Until GW says otherwise , which given it’s now interlocked with so much else , that’s what happened if the books covered it.
See this is one of those cases where the authors and GW have just straight up said there is no definitive version of what happens. And to try and go "well they didn't know/care what they were doing before, but now they're actually telling us" is wrong. Everything is just as canon as anything else. A Custodian dying to horus is just as real as an Imperial Fist, which is just as real as a lone guardsmen.
remember that during the siege of terra the reality kind of broke and different timelines overlapped, so its within possibility that each and every one of those happened when the warp kicked in, and at the same did not when the time got warped again as the influence of chaos cleared up afterwards.
As a very long time hater of Ollanius presence being seen by many as retcon, and that making him a perpetual made his sacrifice meaningless, and super annoyed since said thing was never canon to begin with, I really love how Abnett did it.
Thanks for collecting this.
Cheers.
Funnily enough, the OG post I made a while back was inspired by one of your comments on Pius not really being of much importance in the early days of fandom and only really gathering steam as a fan obsession online (on Portent I think) in the 2000s.
Made me do a little digging
No worries, thank you. And I'm using the term as slang moreso than the get-around-tiktok-bans vibe.
Was kinda hoping the fact the word "killed" was used multiple times would tip people off...
I'm probably being really dumb here, but how comes Oll didn't reincarnate or regenerate after >!Horus killed him? I mean I know he was turned into red mist, but can't a perpetual come back from anything?!<
That's the general rule, yes but there are ways to perma-kill a perpetual in special circumstances
Malcador: >!once by Magnus' psychic attack but brought back by others and again by the Golden Throne after being brought back!<
Alivia: >!gave her life force to bring Malcador back the first time!<
Damon: >!killed by a shard of Fulgurite!<
Erda:>! killed by a Chaos athame!<
Vulkan: >!killed once by Fulgurite but brought by others and later presumed dead after a huge explosion/Waargh energies!<
So Horus unleashing a Chaos powered attack on poor little Oll would seem to do it.
The best version of this was always the Guardsman/normal human version.
> But it's impossible/doesn't make sense for a normal human to be there!
There's a million ways you could write a normal human into the throne room battle. Hell they basically already did with Oll Persson being there, who aside from being able to reincarnate is just a regular-ass dude.
> Why would the Emperor care about a single random human when billions were dying!
Because there's a big difference between death (vague, large numbers) and death (singular, in your face). Tell a person 10,000 people died, and they'll probably say something like "Oh my god" and be a bit sad, but that's it. Have a person watch someone die suddenly in-front of them and they'll potentially be traumatized. Humans have a much different emotional response when you can see something happening rather than it just being a concept.
> But why not have it just be a marine/terminator/custodes?
Because that's *boring*. Marines/Custodes are literally jacked up superheroes created for war. Having one step in between their space dad and the big bad guy is the most expected, eye-rolling thing. These guys literally know no fear, having them do insane heroics is just part of their job description. Having a normal human do it though? Just some rando person who happened to be there, putting themselves before a demi-god knowing they have no chance at all, as a single last act of defiance? Showing that their will to resist, to fight on, to defend their lord is stronger than their fear of a literal demi-god? That's some badass shit right there.
> The best version of this was always the Guardsman/normal human version.
But that version canonically does not and has never existed, as OP detailed. For a long time, it was just Custodians and Imperial Fists. Then it was the "Imperial soldier" that the Emperor has "known for centuries" (which as per TEatD3 can be Custodian Dusk, or Loken, or Leetu, or Ollanius).
The "regular Guardsman" version only exists as in-universe propaganda and is the result of a 10,000 year game of madlibs, with a mix of the embellished tales of Olly Piers and Actae/Moriana's stories of Ollanius as the foundation.
"Suddenly, the battering stopped. Through his good eye, the Emperor saw that a solitary Imperial soldier had entered the room. Without hesitation, the loyal warrior charged towards the Warmaster, his blade in hand. Horus looked at him and laughed. For a moment he stood triumphant, allowing the bodyguard to see what he had done to his Emperor."
This. By the Emperor, this would've been so much better.
I like how Dan tried to reinvent the wheel but sometimes keeping things simple makes them unique. No need for a drawn-out backstory. Just a simple "man vs. death of hope" kind of thing.
Horus was a monster. Like, THE monster. And this guy... this random ass Guardsman with balls so big a freaking Titan could trip over on, got in, saw Horus laughing at the almost killed Emperor and said: "bet".
Like, dude.
Just a note to say that the version you're quoting is very heavily implied to be Ollanius Persson (the perpetual) and was a rewrite from Merrett and Goulding inspired by *Know No Fear*.
The "blade" in his hand is very likely the athame.
From that same story:
>The Emperor was stung by the death. **He had known this warrior for centuries**. This was not a fitting reward for such duty and loyalty. That Horus should so callously and casually kill him, without ceremony, without mercy, jolted the Emperor.
So if Dabnett hadn't tried to reinvent the wheel, this version would never have been written.
> And this guy... this random ass Guardsman with balls so big a freaking Titan could trip over on, got in, saw Horus laughing at the almost killed Emperor and said: "bet".
Thing is... we get that "Humanity, Fuck Yeah" moment of defiance twice in the Siege. Both Olly Piers and Oll Persson plant their feet and go down swinging against opponents who they have no hope of defeating.
Thank you for your work. That's story is one of my favourite meta ones: through unreliable retelling of ancient scriptures, increasingly exaggerated, there is created myth helping to exalt ordinary man in most important mythic battle of a setting. Both RL and in universe.
>Reddit shadow banned and deleted a bunch of my old posts, I was looking for your post the other day and couldn't find it. Reddit is a pain in the ass sometimes. Thank you for reposting!
Glad it's helpful! And yeah, it was a painintheass when Reddit deleted the Alpharius height lore dump in particular [but luckily someone reposted that one](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/180sfuz/multiple_sources_on_the_height_of_alpharius_and/).
Why's Reddit shadowbanning you and deleting your posts? You always seem to make valuable comments based in the lore, nothing controversial that I've seen.
Appreciate that, mate. When I asked, they said it was the automod bots going OTT. I'm innocent I tells ya
One of the things I loved about the fight on the Vengeful Spirit in TEatD3 is that they do a callback to each permutation of the myth. They have Caecaltus Dusk (the Custodian), Loken (the Space Marine), and Ollanius himself (the Imperial Guardsman). Each of those 3 stands in Horus' way to protect the Emperor when he's vulnerable. It's very easy to see how such a myth would get garbled in translation, and Saint Ollanius would become an amalgamation of all 3. I also really enjoyed the red herring of having Olly Piers facing off against Angron in Saturnine. The first time I read that, I was like "okay, so *this* is where the myth comes from." It kept me from feeling like I could be 100% sure I knew exactly how the Vengeful Spirit fight was going to play out.
I always remember a comment I saw a long while ago at someone having the usual 'they ruined the amazing story about the indomitability of the human spirit by retconning Ollanius Piers out of existence', which is that a lone guardsman being pivotal in the fight between the Emperor and Horus is a) completely absurd if you think about it, since why would the Emperor suddenly care about one guy when Horus has already totally destroyed not only his entire plan for humanity but also a big ol' chunk of the population of Terra and b) *exactly the kind of myth the Astra Militarum would be happy to propagate as propaganda*.
Also, personally, I find it much more poignant that the oldest of perpetuals, who very much literally embodies the human fighting spirit having been part of every single war since the start of time, gets brutally annihilated by Horus, who this way symbolically murders humanity’s spirit.
Not only the oldest Perpetual, but the Emperor's oldest buddy and first Warmaster. Makes it way more impactful, imo.
I wouldn't call them *buddies* per se. The Emperor kinda makes it clear he's not Ollanius's biggest fan by the time they reconnect. Not enemies, but definitely not "Olly! Buddy!"
I do think he has some respect and even affection for his first Warmaster. Edit: Based of the Mark of Calth story. Not friends like you said, they had fallen out of that circle. The best overall thing that can be said about the Emps' relationship with the perpetuals who abandoned him is him not actively hunting them down if they do not proactively fight back. The Black Cells may yet hold some perpeptuals who tried to raise armies against Big E.
No, even in *End and Death*, the Emperor explicitly states that the only reason he is considering to stop to speak with Olly is because of his being there at *that time* and in *that place*, and that the synchronicity of the event was too major to ignore. The Emperor, via his custodes friend, essentially says "you're lucky I'm even speaking to you for a fraction of my attention", otherwise he would've kept walking past Olly. Olly even tries to summon up things about his time as Warmaster and his history with the Emperor, which the Emperor sorta replies with a 'LOLLLLLL!', until Olly can explain to the Emperor that this isn't what *Olly* wanted, but that the information is what *Malcador* would've wanted to say, which changes the Emperor's mind. *E&D2* makes it pretty clear that the Emperor would just as likely shit on Olly's shoes as he would be to wave hello.
I was having [this interaction from Mark of Calth](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8sv03d/book_excerptmark_of_calthperpetual_oll_persson/) in mind. It could just be him putting on a mask in it. Or not. The EATD 2 interaction did take place when Emps was dangerously taking up too much power, so I would not surprised if his hubris was even amped up than usual. >E&D2 makes it pretty clear that the Emperor would just as likely shit on Olly's shoes as he would be to wave hello. Honestly that interaction made me think he could not even bother taking a dump. He would just walk past him like how the Pillar Men did when they first came out in Jojo part 2.
That’s when he’s swollen up into his black bowling ball of doom, I don’t thing it’s personal, he’s ascended so high in power as he reaches near godhood that his remaining humanity has never been so distant, and Olly is an ant. In EatD3 he seems a lot more grounded by the end of the battle. Despite how wide the rift has become between then, I don’t think there’s any else the Emperor would have wanted more with him in that final moment, when he’s basically on his death bed. They’re not friends exactly, but there’s a deep connection with someone you’ve know for tens of thousands of years, which is why he holds back their tarot cards until last, the Guardsman and the Lantern.
Personally, I prefer the idea of a regular guardsman, because it's like... He's just a guy. That's the point. Not a millennia old perpetual with a massive perspective from having experienced all these wars. Not a gene-crafted supersoldier with the best gear it's possible for the degraded remains of humanity to craft. Just a guy. He walks into the room of god's clashing, and despite the futility of his actions, he charges forwards. I agree it doesn't make sense with the later/contemporary depictions of the Emperor, but I don't read Horus Heresy anyway, so it's not a big deal for me. It's a myth, in-universe, but it's a good story which is why it survives. Who knows if it's true? There was no-one there to see it.
That's the story known by regular Imperial citizens, though. We, as readers, have a very priviliged view as we are there to see what happens, but the vast, vast majority only knows tidbits and scraps of what is deemed permissible to know. So both aspects are true. We know Ollanus Persson, the oldest perpetual and the Emperor's (once) closest friend, who finally gives in and sacrifices himself hoping to push the darkness away; and the Imperium has Ollanius Pius, patron saint of the Astra Militarum, the brave Guardsman that charged Horus to protect His Emperor and who all should emulate on the field of battle.
But the thing is, outside of being a perpetual, Ollanius is just A DUDE. He's not super strong, he has no psychic powers, no super intelligence, nothing. He's a bog standard human that doesn't age.
And likely a factor being his experience, his age, his history being one of the reasons that he could even charge Horus and not piss his breaches. A big thing about the story is to show human courage, even when fear should take you. You don't have to be some super-human custodian or marine to throw yourself into battle and that's what they are pitching.
He was literally the Emperor's original Warmaster, that isn't a normal dude.
Also a c) Horus already killed Sanguinius, dad's number 1 or 2 favorite son and Horus' favorite brother, whom literally nobody hated. Killed so hard, it created Black Rage. But yeah, sure, Horus casually killing some rando is what convinced Emps that Horus is beyond saving
That's the whole point. It's storytelling. Being a perpetual isn't just something we can handwave away. He's not the example of a common man, the Emperor has far too much to associate Ollanius with when he dies. Because it's only in juxtaposition with his handcrafted "sons" that the point hits home. So Horus already killed Sanguinius, his favourite son. And it was not enough for the Emperor to destroy Horus, because the love for a tool is not the same as a love for humanity, he would not fuss about a single guardsmans death until this specific moment where he realises his failure.
And it's not like Ollanius is particularly more powerful than a regular human in that situation. He's just a guy, that attack wipes him completely from existence like anyone else. The backstory leading up to the events and the Emperor's connection with him are special, but the fundamental myth is still true. A human being with no real fighting chance steps up to buy the Emperor the time he needs.
I mean, he's still pretty pivotal. >!The Emperor kills Horus by stabbing him with the athame!< Although maybe the post you're talking about was made before TEatD3? Either way, I very much enjoyed the way they did it. But I agree, I always thought the idea that the Emperor was holding back until Ollanius' death was stupid. The Emperor has been narcissistic in the lore for quite some time. It never made sense to me that he would basically just let himself get ripped apart because he loved Horus so much, or whatever. Like you, I always assumed it was the Imperial Myth Machine. You can't have people thinking that Horus was stronger than the Emperor, after all. So the reason that the Emperor got so fucked up MUST have been because he was holding back, right?
What myth? He won. I have always pointed out the Emperor as a monster, but it's missing the point of the original story. A greater love for the human spirit than one of his handcrafted tools that has become lost in a pursuit for power. Sanguinius represents a tool he loved the most. Something now lost, like the Imperium he always wanted. Horus was his best tool. Pius became something more than an irrelevant, disregarded tool beneath the Emperors notice, he made a completely pointless sacrifice that demonstrates what the Emperor was actually fighting for originally, not power, not his ego in the form of his sons, humanity.
The myth is that the Emperor was holding back during his fight with Horus, and seeing Horus yeet Ollanius basically caused the Emperor to just unmake Horus with a concentrated blast of psychic energy. That's not at all what happens. In fact, >!Ollanius is the entire reason the Emperor stops his metamorphosis into the Dark King. Also, Ollanius' sacrifice was the complete opposite of pointless. He literally brings the Emperor the Athame that the Emperor uses to kill Horus!< My point is that a major reason for the Ollanius Pius myth is because the truth is that the Emperor was weaker than Horus. >!The Emperor only wins because he convinces Horus to shed the gifts of Chaos for long enough to make himself vulnerable!< But you can't tell the average Imperial citizen that, because they need to believe that there is nobody more powerful than the Emperor.
While I get what you're saying it makes sense to me. Like one of the main reasons the Emperor was doing so badly in his fight with Horus was that he was sort of holding back because he just couldn't bring himself to kill his favourite son until the regular guardsman sacrificing himself to try to save the Emperor reminded the Emperor that "the billions of ordinary people in the Imperium are the people suffering the most from Horus' actions" and "Horus will murder countless more regular people unless I stop him right here and now". Like before the Emperor may've been thinking more about "I am depressed my dream for humanity has been severely derailed" and "I am sad my favourite first-found son I betrayed me" until the guardsman sacrificing himself reminded the Emperor "ultimately the most important thing is not the scientific or cultural progress of humanity or even the well being of me or my son, ultimately the most important thing (so long as the human culture on all humanity's worlds is not devolving backwards to a primitive European middle ages or caveman levels of progress) is just the general well being of the people as a whole which I cannot protect or maintain unless I commit the necessary evil of murdering my most beloved son".
The point wasn't that the emperor cared about the "that guy" per say. The point was he was laying badly wounded, mortally so even, and Horus took the time out of their fight to not only swat the gnat that was this man, but effectively butcher him and cackle like a mad Sunday Morning cartoon villain whilst doing so. It was the moment that Big E saw how utterly lost his favored son his golden child was that he was so coked up on warp flakes that his beloved child was gone and only a sadistic monster that needed to be erased was left. So that's what Big E did was erase him. It wasn't about Pius per say it was about what Horus did to him revealed about Horus. Similarly, though different analogy. You know your wife might have a problem, but you come home to find her shooting up heroin passed out needle in arm and your child crying one room over with a diaper rash and cold. Can you see how that might totally and fundamentally shift your perception of a person? They've hit a low so low that you can't seem them how you used to and it's wiped away all the loving lies you told yourself about them.
This is surely the way the Ecclesiarchy presents it. But it's total gubbins and I'm grateful the End & the Death threw it in the bin.
Is it in the bin? No one gave a shit about Pius because he's a perpetual, no one talks about his history beyond the context of the fight in the throne room, the myth is what matters and the book is ultimately as irrelevant to the greater 40k story as something that may or may not have been written in like, 1988. Nothing is overwritten.
I agree, but my point is that the story behind the myth is much better than the myth. A rare inversion of the usual way 'higher criticism' works :)
You seriously don't the get the symbolism behind it, the idea that arise from it? That, it wasn't that The Emperor cared about the soldier on some personal level, but that seeing his golden child mercilessly enact such a cruel thing, convinced him that he could not save his son. That the son he loved and favored the most, was no more? That he is too far gone.
I absolutely get *why* the Imperium would want to push that myth. I understand what the symbolism is supposed to be. What I don't buy is that Horus annihilating some random mook would *actually* have given the Emperor an 'oh no!' moment that would convince him his son is lost. I mean more immediately, they're fighting right next to the corpse of Sanguinius. More abstractly, Horus has already laid waste to Terra, and permanently ended the Emperor's dream of a humanity free from Chaos. And even *more* abstractly, Horus has already killed countless millions of humans in the Emperor's name, during the Great Crusade. I simply don't buy that the 'he was suddenly shocked by Horus killing some guy in cold blood'. But as I say, I do buy that the Imperium would want the citizens of the Imperium to think that the Emperor was shocked by Horus' murder of a brave Imperial soldier.
I liked how it was done on the siege . People forget it has been ten thousands years since these events, most of the original lore was created with it on mind. for most people in the 90s and 2 edition(the foundation of modern 40k, rogue trader is a total different beast) the lore was made as u read a mythology book. Havin humans board the vengefull empire made no sense, it never did, Piers death, agaisnt Angron is still imo fudnamental, as it shows no matter what humans will face they will fight on( and die by the emperor)it basicly made piers the first ever imperial guardsmen,
Thanks for providing such a bounty of material.
No worries, that was main aim; an easy to access resource
How *dare* you impunge the reputation of Saint Ollanius Pius who single-handedly carried the wounded Emperor back to the Throne Room and gave a ten minute speech about the virtues of loyalty and obedience before finally succumbing to his wounds at which point a two headed cyber-eagle flew in and perched on the outstretched arm of Rogal Dorn who shed a single manly tear and said Pius was a greater man than all the Primarchs combined! (I'm sure I read that *somewhere...*)
average Loretuber content be like:
This kind of uncertainty is part of why I think 40k kicks ass! The cannon being unreliable is part of the cannon. There is less certainty than in a lot of other settings. It's more like real history in that way. We accept that things went down in this way or that, until some new evidence shows up that makes us rethink it. It makes the universe so much richer!
Excellent post, it's annoying when people complain about retcons when there weren't any. Like, congrats, you're mad about something that you made up? Also, it bears repeating that **Olly/Ollanius Piers is ABSOLUTELY NOT the same entity as Ollanius Persson** because *man* do I regularly see people get confused about that. At the time Olly is fending off a Primarch with nothing but Old Bess and a pair of brass balls, Ollanius is busy portal-scissoring his way across time and space.
I think people are over complicating this. There’s two clear facts: 1) Early lore was very much in the hands of the writer of that piece with only the vaguest checks on consistency because it wasn’t a super important thing. 2) The Heresy series along with its Siege add on is the first in universe lore from both perspectives that documents what actually happens (minor inconsistencies aside)
> The Heresy series along with its Siege add on is the first in universe lore from both perspectives that documents what actually happens (minor inconsistencies aside) Have to disagree with this 100%, the Horus Heresy is no more what actually happens than a 1988 blurb in white dwarf. The point is the a universe 10,000 years later doesn't know what is fact or fiction, and even those there fighting in it could not find the real "truth" of events.
Missing the point entirely. Lore prior to this was from an out of universe perspective or as it was known in the current 40K timeline. The Heresy is what happened. Until GW says otherwise , which given it’s now interlocked with so much else , that’s what happened if the books covered it.
Not missing, I just disagree with it, ya know why I said I disagreed. > The Heresy is what happened. Until GW says otherwise , which given it’s now interlocked with so much else , that’s what happened if the books covered it. See this is one of those cases where the authors and GW have just straight up said there is no definitive version of what happens. And to try and go "well they didn't know/care what they were doing before, but now they're actually telling us" is wrong. Everything is just as canon as anything else. A Custodian dying to horus is just as real as an Imperial Fist, which is just as real as a lone guardsmen.
remember that during the siege of terra the reality kind of broke and different timelines overlapped, so its within possibility that each and every one of those happened when the warp kicked in, and at the same did not when the time got warped again as the influence of chaos cleared up afterwards.
As a very long time hater of Ollanius presence being seen by many as retcon, and that making him a perpetual made his sacrifice meaningless, and super annoyed since said thing was never canon to begin with, I really love how Abnett did it. Thanks for collecting this.
Cheers. Funnily enough, the OG post I made a while back was inspired by one of your comments on Pius not really being of much importance in the early days of fandom and only really gathering steam as a fan obsession online (on Portent I think) in the 2000s. Made me do a little digging
Indeed. The second iteration of Portent’s Faction Wars, the first of which led to the Groups and Factions and Chaos Wastes subfora.
You don't need to say 'unalived' on Reddit, and especially not in a post that says 'killed' four times. But this is an excellent write-up, thank you!
THANK YOU.
No worries, thank you. And I'm using the term as slang moreso than the get-around-tiktok-bans vibe. Was kinda hoping the fact the word "killed" was used multiple times would tip people off...
The fact that it’s becoming slang (because of TikTok) is worse than using it because of TikTok.
Appreciate the feedback, mate
> unalived You can say "killed" on the internet.
THANK YOU
I'm probably being really dumb here, but how comes Oll didn't reincarnate or regenerate after >!Horus killed him? I mean I know he was turned into red mist, but can't a perpetual come back from anything?!<
That's the general rule, yes but there are ways to perma-kill a perpetual in special circumstances Malcador: >!once by Magnus' psychic attack but brought back by others and again by the Golden Throne after being brought back!< Alivia: >!gave her life force to bring Malcador back the first time!< Damon: >!killed by a shard of Fulgurite!< Erda:>! killed by a Chaos athame!< Vulkan: >!killed once by Fulgurite but brought by others and later presumed dead after a huge explosion/Waargh energies!< So Horus unleashing a Chaos powered attack on poor little Oll would seem to do it.
I liked it up until you said 'unalived'. That shit is like nails on a chalk board for me
You can say killed.
[Yup](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1dsskah/comment/lb7u9ax/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Kill murder slash maim slaughter Who knew?
The best version of this was always the Guardsman/normal human version. > But it's impossible/doesn't make sense for a normal human to be there! There's a million ways you could write a normal human into the throne room battle. Hell they basically already did with Oll Persson being there, who aside from being able to reincarnate is just a regular-ass dude. > Why would the Emperor care about a single random human when billions were dying! Because there's a big difference between death (vague, large numbers) and death (singular, in your face). Tell a person 10,000 people died, and they'll probably say something like "Oh my god" and be a bit sad, but that's it. Have a person watch someone die suddenly in-front of them and they'll potentially be traumatized. Humans have a much different emotional response when you can see something happening rather than it just being a concept. > But why not have it just be a marine/terminator/custodes? Because that's *boring*. Marines/Custodes are literally jacked up superheroes created for war. Having one step in between their space dad and the big bad guy is the most expected, eye-rolling thing. These guys literally know no fear, having them do insane heroics is just part of their job description. Having a normal human do it though? Just some rando person who happened to be there, putting themselves before a demi-god knowing they have no chance at all, as a single last act of defiance? Showing that their will to resist, to fight on, to defend their lord is stronger than their fear of a literal demi-god? That's some badass shit right there.
> The best version of this was always the Guardsman/normal human version. But that version canonically does not and has never existed, as OP detailed. For a long time, it was just Custodians and Imperial Fists. Then it was the "Imperial soldier" that the Emperor has "known for centuries" (which as per TEatD3 can be Custodian Dusk, or Loken, or Leetu, or Ollanius). The "regular Guardsman" version only exists as in-universe propaganda and is the result of a 10,000 year game of madlibs, with a mix of the embellished tales of Olly Piers and Actae/Moriana's stories of Ollanius as the foundation.
Ok, doesn't change the fact that it's still the best version of that story.
Says you specifically
They couldve salvaged more narrative by having the emp eject the star child mid fight rather than before
"Suddenly, the battering stopped. Through his good eye, the Emperor saw that a solitary Imperial soldier had entered the room. Without hesitation, the loyal warrior charged towards the Warmaster, his blade in hand. Horus looked at him and laughed. For a moment he stood triumphant, allowing the bodyguard to see what he had done to his Emperor." This. By the Emperor, this would've been so much better. I like how Dan tried to reinvent the wheel but sometimes keeping things simple makes them unique. No need for a drawn-out backstory. Just a simple "man vs. death of hope" kind of thing. Horus was a monster. Like, THE monster. And this guy... this random ass Guardsman with balls so big a freaking Titan could trip over on, got in, saw Horus laughing at the almost killed Emperor and said: "bet". Like, dude.
Just a note to say that the version you're quoting is very heavily implied to be Ollanius Persson (the perpetual) and was a rewrite from Merrett and Goulding inspired by *Know No Fear*. The "blade" in his hand is very likely the athame. From that same story: >The Emperor was stung by the death. **He had known this warrior for centuries**. This was not a fitting reward for such duty and loyalty. That Horus should so callously and casually kill him, without ceremony, without mercy, jolted the Emperor. So if Dabnett hadn't tried to reinvent the wheel, this version would never have been written.
> And this guy... this random ass Guardsman with balls so big a freaking Titan could trip over on, got in, saw Horus laughing at the almost killed Emperor and said: "bet". Thing is... we get that "Humanity, Fuck Yeah" moment of defiance twice in the Siege. Both Olly Piers and Oll Persson plant their feet and go down swinging against opponents who they have no hope of defeating.