Malcador - perpetual?

[Shadowscream]

Two related questions...

Was Malcador a Perpetual? And if so wouldn’t his return be far more game changing for the Imperium than a 2nd Primarch? 

[Jings]

Even if he was a Perpetual, he was completely fried by the Golden Throne. There are some things you can't come back from. 

 

If he were to return? It would be more game-changing than a Primarch. Malcador seems to have been the true brains behind the Imperium, and the constitutional and political framework he built during his time as the Emperor's second-in-command is basically the only thing that kept the Imperium cohesive in the past ten millennia. While he wouldn't have the prestige that comes with being a creature like a Primarch, there are few who understood the complexity of the administration of the Imperium than the Sigillite. He'd get things done. 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Jings

[N1SB]

Great questions.

 

Malcador WAS a Perpetual.  There were many Perpetuals, of which the Emperor was one, and He was so powerful that His pronouns get a capital letter.  Not all can regenerate like Vulcan or be reborn like John Grammaticus can; they had different abilities (but we do not definitively know that Malcador did not have John Grammaticus's reincarnation ability).  The Primarchs, according to one who (claims to have) created them are "artificial equivalents of Perpetuals" designed to carry out the Emperor's will.

 

Malcador the Perpetual's return IMHO would be far more game changing than a Primarch, NOT because he was a Perpetual, but because he was Malcador.  As Brother Jings said above...Malcador got stuff done.  Moreover, he spent millennia alongside the Emperor, understands both His vision for the Imperium and Him as a person far better than any Primarch, it's the difference between His sons and His best friend since grade school.

 

But here's the other thing: if Malcador came back, I reckon virtually no one would know.  He was more than happy to operate covertly, just through some agents, probably radical Inquisitors.  Why?  Because someone like Malcador would be a prime candidate for assassination, and no one would try to assassinate someone they already thought dead.  He might be operating in secret on Titan right now for all we know (but I don't think he is and there's no evidence for that).

 

It's funny, death is such a perfect cover story, that even if Malcador wasn't really dead, he's the type of guy who certainly would like everyone to assume he was.

Edited February 6, 2021 by N1SB

[Joe]

Something something spoiler for Fury of Magnus regarding Malcador and his nature as a Perpetual.

 

Malcador died twice during the Siege of Terra. Once at the hands of Magnus, and then again when he "expired" on the Golden Throne.

 

His first death is notably interesting, as Alivia Sureka (another Perpetual) gave her life to bring him back - Magnus' assault had done that much damage to Malcador that his resurrection was in question. Malcador muses after the fact that his being feels "changed". It's entirely possible that despite Alivia's sacrifice, the damage was permanent, and he'd lost his ability to return from death like others of his kind.

 

With this in mind, it's pretty obviously set-up for Malcador to be "gone", never to return.

[INKS]

where the heck do all these perpetuals come from? there seems to be quite a few of them.

 

and yet many of them don't seem to come back to life. sometimes when they die they just die?

[Karhedron]

Perpetuals seems to have replaced the old Shaman from the original 40K. They appear to have been born spontaneously throughout human history. They are immortal under normal circumstances but are not completely indestructible. Each seems to have unique rules. Vulkan for example regenerates from damage. Alivia Sureka can "respawn" some distance from where she was killed. Perpetuals can be perma-killed by particularly powerful psychic attacks and artefacts such as Fulgarite.

[N1SB]

where the heck do all these perpetuals come from? there seems to be quite a few of them.

 

Brother, as I was flipping through Saturnine, I remember feeling as you did.  I write the following because I'm answering your question, where they come from, but also where they belong in the 30k/40k lore.  This latter part is what put me more at ease with them.

 

I felt the way you do about Perpetuals for about 10+ years when I first saw this John Grammaticus character.  In the middle of this war drama there's this guy who wasn't so much a transhuman but a plot device with plot armour so thick he simply reincarnates.  He wasn't Daemonic or anything, he was just a guy that doesn't die.  It was out of place, to the point I remember at the time I really wished they didn't include him, it actually made me take a break from the Horus Heresy novels that I was so excited for at the time (an aside - remember how big a deal that was, when we saw Warhammer novels in a regular bookstore that Normies went to, because the Hobby was still such a niche subculture at the time?  How the world has changed).

 

Then Saturnine came along and instead of writing him out, it added more Perpetuals in.  Instead of making it worse, for me personally it "fixed" the lore.  Here's how.  They had 1 Perpetual who is the self-declared genetics expert that helped the Emperor to create the Space Marines and the Primarchs explain it.

 

To paraphrase what this character said, you know humans.  You know Psykers?  They're variants of humans.  Now a personal note from me, they're not the only ones.  Navigators are like another variant.  So are the pilots of mighty Imperial Knight and Warlord Titans, whose physiology let them survive the strain of interfacing with them.  Those are part of the Fluff, I never questioned it, they're just cool things in 40k.

 

Perpetuals are simply another type of human variant, like Psykers (or Navigators or Knights).  Where do they come from?  They're just born that way, like Psykers can come from anywhere.  Perpetuals don't even know they are such until they notice everyone seems to die but them, just like a Psyker doesn't know he's a Psyker until he accidentally manifests his power or something.  Due to their nature of both being unkillable and having so much life experience as a result, they often end up being warlords, as did the Emperor Himself.

 

Now, as for the Emperor.  The Emperor had a grand plan to unify the galaxy into the Imperium and the Webway Project, etc., famously with the Primarchs and Space Marines.  However, the Emperor's Great Work went back way before the Space Marines.  Originally He sought out the other Perpetuals to help Him, because they were the Top Tier of humanity.  However, the Emperor Himself was God Tier, and eventually He lost patience with the other Perpetuals because He was so much smarter than them or they turned their backs on Him...all except Malcador.  On a personal note, perhaps that's where the legend of the Shamans came from, they were actually the other Perpetuals that had "joined" the Emperor, not actually in spirit as old lore suggests, but in person.  But only Malcador remained by His side by the Great Crusade.

 

It's only when the other Perpetuals abandoned the Emperor, He went with a back-up plan.  He wanted His own custom-made genetically-tailored Perpetuals, which he called Primarchs.  When the Warp took the Primarchs, the Emperor went with his back-up to his back-up, the Space Marine Legions.  It is absolutely not an accident that Primarchs and Marines exhibit traits of the Perpetuals, such as their incredible longevity and how they exhibit different powers.  They were like mass-produced synthetic Primarchs.

 

Thus, TL;DR - Perpetuals are merely a variants of humans, like Psykers are.  Rather than being out of place in 30k/40k, they are integral to it, as they are actually the templates from which the Emperor based Primarchs and Space Marines on.  Very connected, especially here on B&C which is the premiere Marine board.

Edited February 7, 2021 by N1SB

[GreenScorpion]

I think the permanent death of Malcador is mostly a way to reinforce his sacrifice, as if he just resurrected, then he wouldn't be the man who sacrificed everything to protect the Empire from the forces beyond. You are not truly a martyr if you just return from the dead.

[grailkeeper]

The likelihood of Malcador coming back is a 1:1 ratio with him getting a model.

 

That's about a zero.

[Closet Skeleton]

Perpetuals seems to have replaced the old Shaman from the original 40K. They appear to have been born spontaneously throughout human history. They are immortal under normal circumstances but are not completely indestructible. Each seems to have unique rules. Vulkan for example regenerates from damage. Alivia Sureka can "respawn" some distance from where she was killed. Perpetuals can be perma-killed by particularly powerful psychic attacks and artefacts such as Fulgarite.

They replace Sensei who were silly Highlander ripoffs, not Shamans. Shamans were before the rise of human civilisation.

 

Living Saints are also kind of Sensei replacements and in my opinion fit better into the fluff than Perpetuals.

[Rik Lightstar]

Surely Perpetuals by their very nature CAN be both the Shamans AND the Sensei?

 

Rik

[Karhedron]

Surely Perpetuals by their very nature CAN be both the Shamans AND the Sensei?

While this is true, they seem to fulfil a different role in the plot. Way back, the Shamen committed group suicide and merged their souls to form the Emperor. Now the Emperor is simply one among many Perpetuals, albeit the most powerful. Similarly the Sensei were the Emperor's children. It is not clear if any Perpetuals survive into 40K and they are not biologically related to the Emperor (as far as we know). The Primarchs have taken over the narrative role as the Emperor's sons.

[Rik Lightstar]

Sorry, short response last time was likely less clear than intended.

 

What I'm saying is all Shamen could be Perpetuals without all Perpetuals being Shamen.

 

So A group of Perpetuals sacrifice themselves to create The Emperor, others aren't involved in this plan for all sorts of possible reasons.

 

Not known to the Shamen

Don't agree with the plan

Shamen exclude them for their reasons

Born after the process

"Reborn" around that time

Geographically too far from the others to participate

 

And then the Sensei are potentially the contemporaries of The Emperor and the other Perpetuals he gathers to him over the course of millenia, they're more his metaphorical children than literal.

 

It's a change to the previous stuff, but only in the finer details.

 

Rik

[templargdt]

where the heck do all these perpetuals come from? there seems to be quite a few of them.

 

and yet many of them don't seem to come back to life. sometimes when they die they just die?

 

From the dawn of time they came, moving silently down through the centuries.  Living many secret lives...

 

Sometimes they get decapitated and that's it for them.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

It happens .