The council of Nikaea: an examination of the hypocrisy and rightful concern of the Imperium They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, with ten thousand years of history the Imperium has certainly had its fair share of disasters, but the council of Nikaea or as those of us who saw the truth know it as the trial of Magnus is among the worst. You may ask why? After all there was no death no planetary bombardment; no it was the moment the Imperium threw away knowledge for the sake of ignorance. The first question that we must ask before embarking on the events from that damned volcanic hellhole is what is a Psyker. To some they are witches and warlocks, beings who use abilities normal humans cannot understand much less employ, to others they are protectors, shamans and saviors whose only duty is to defend mankind from the infinite horrors that the cosmos constantly spawns. As with all things the truth lies in the middle. Psykers are for the most part an evolutionary jump start for humanity, our next leap to whatever it is our species is destined to become, this is unfortunately a process of trial and error. Evolution is not without a sense of humor, after all just look at how far we have come in the last ten thousand years, from hunters and gatherers to a society ready to attempt the next expansion towards another world. The problem with evolution is that it forces another organism to either adapt to a new role or simply go extinct. In the case of Psykers you see an emerging new species that is on the verge of seeing baseline homo-sapiens as barely above Neanderthals, and given what we see in the Imperiums contact with the Eldar such a view makes sense. Humans instinctively know that psykers are a countdown to the eventual extinction of what was once humanity, to be replaced with something different, and this naturally causes a great deal of fear. By the same token one must consider that many psykers are more dangerous than a variety of xenos life-forms, untrained, unrestrained they are a potential catastrophe waiting to be unleashed. We have seen it often enough, arrogant psykers attempting to harness power that is beyond their ability only to release something vile into the material realm. All the while these fools thought they were in control never realizing until the end that they were simply tools for a monstrous force that see’s humanity as a plaything. The main problem as we can see is not that psykers have power, it is how they use it, and what type of cultural construct is reinforcing it. You might ask why would culture play such an important role in determining a psykers ultimate fate? For that I ask you to consider Fenris, a death-world, where the population struggles to survive against creatures that are the stuff of nightmares, and yet they are constantly protected by Shamans, beings who use the forces of nature to decimate their foes as well as chart safe routes for Fenrisians to survive. Naturally these psykers have become seen as saviors, yet by the same token they do not consider themselves to be psykers, and no it isn’t simply a matter of semantics. The nature of the Vlka Fenryka Rune Priests is that they truly see themselves as a part of nature, using the elements in harmony with the world, drawing their strength from their home-world. Naturally we know that this is not the case, but the problem is that after thousands of years of indoctrination and superstition naturally they would see themselves as being different from standard psykers, and would see all other forms of psionic ability as witchraft. From the frozen wastes of the All-winter world we now turn our attentions to Barbarus, home world of the Deathlord himself, a culture that was trampled by rogue psykers who embraced the corrupting essence of the Warp, exploiting the innocent people for thousands of years. Here we see a culture that learned to fear psionic abilities and rightfully so. Imagine seeing beings who could throw flame, or kill with a word, imagine the deep psychological conditioning that would take place, it was only right that Mortarion despise psykers he grew up with some of the most vile ones. The problem with this situation is that Mortarion extrapolated his view to the rest of the galaxy, he saw all unrestrained psykers as fundamentally evil. This in turn leads us to the reason Nikaea became a nightmare, this leads us to Magnus, the fool of Prospero the crimson king, lord of ash and nightmares. Prospero was a doomed world from the start, a planet soaking in the tides of the warp, having a population that was extremely gifted with psionic capabilities. They restrained themselves for centuries, until fate decided to spit in their face and produced a messiah that would eventually lead his world under the boots of the Vlka Fenryka. Magnus explored and dove deep into the “great ocean” he went further some say than the Emperor, he sought knowledge and gained power, but what he didn’t have was control. The fault in Magnus is that his pride destroyed him, it allowed him to be corrupted by forces that he thought were his to command, in the end it took the breaking of his back for him to become what he was always destined to be, a creature of the warp, a bastard spawn of Tzeentch, and yet if we go back to his trial we can pick up on some very important issues that could have prevented the entire situation. I will play devil’s advocate when dealing with both points, particularly when dealing with Mortarion. Many among you view the Death-lord with open disdain for his actions in the amphitheatre, the question is why? Mortarion was a poisonous cloud that spread his hatred into the audience, but he was not entirely wrong. Imagine the things he had witnessed growing up as a child, imagine the types of battles his legion had engaged against rogue psykers. He saw how dangerous the powers were, he saw the warp for what it was, a cancer that needed to be removed, but his method was borderline insane. The idea behind using only Astropaths and Navigators because they use their gifts for the betterment of mankind is certainly noble, but by the same token it is completely misguided, Navigators have some of the most potent skills as psykers and Astropaths if not bonded can become nightmares themselves. The idea that if something is regulated and controlled it can be understood is at the core of what Mortarion strived for, to remove the supposed taint of sorcerers from the legions. It was a noble goal even if slightly hypocritical given the nature of all the Primarchs. Magnus, on the other hand, simply did not know where to stop, he was the ultimate psyker next to his gene-father, and yet he went further than any man should, he saw himself as a savior of humanity someone who would break the shackles of ignorance that he believed bound the human race. He simply did not understand that by speaking as if he were a prophet he would have more people ready to places his crimson head on a chopping block. Our nature is always to fear the unknown, it is how we evolved, yet Magnus wanted to expose the unknown thinking that there was nothing to fear from exploring all the potential of the Human psyche. This is where the earth crumbled away from the feet of the crimson king, his belief was that humanity had outgrown the darkness and was ready to step into his perceived light. The problem with this is that said darkness had gone away, it merely took on a different form, if Magnus had made concessions and limited the use of his natural abilities then perhaps Nikaea would have ended differently. I believe the argument brought up by the twelve Librarians from the different legions was what should have won the day, these individuals who had little to no contact amongst each other, speaking on behalf of all their kind should have been enough to sway the Emperors choice, the fact that they did not may be indicative of something that we may not have considered, that Nikaea may have been the Emperors solution to a problem that he did not anticipate would occur. We must always remember one simple truth, the Emperor was never human to begin with, he never had the frailties that bind our species, he was the perfect example of what humanity could become. The problem is he also saw humanity as children that needed to be spoon fed knowledge and little bursts of power. More than anything I believe the Emperor feared what psykers could represent, utter destruction to the entirety of the human race. He had seen it once before with the Eldar, how their arrogance and debauchery gave birth to an amalgamated god within the warp, and in effect destroyed most of their species. He saw that humanity had none of the Eldars restraint or wisdom, he saw what would happen if humanity allowed its psychic gifts to manifest far earlier than he anticipated, his birth species would destroy the galaxy if they were not controlled. The main issue here is that he never bothered to explain any of this to his subjects or his sons; he simply ordered them to stop without considering that their desires would not always coincide with his own. In the end the decision that were reached have haunted mankind since the end of the Horus Heresy, instead of simply being an evolutionary progressions psykers are hunted like animals, many succumb to the dark forces which hunger for them, those fortunate enough to escape such a fate try to fight their own kind forever knowing that they are seen as monsters by the people they serve and defend. Let that be the legacy of Nikaea, where knowledge and progress were sacrificed and thrown into the pits of fear and ignorance. Knowledge was power, and we threw it back into the darkness never understanding what we had given up.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 23:56:42 +0000
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