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Ollanius Pius + John Grammaticus


Perrin

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Contains too many spoilers for Know No Fear to tag them all so I'm going to continue on without them, DONT read on if you havent read Know No Fear, although it isnt really that big a plot point and does deal with other parts of the HH and 40k universe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm most of the way through KNF now, and have read the part where Ollanius Persson talks about the yellowed paper in his notebook and says/implies that he is at least 44,000 years old and has reincarnated numerous times. John Grammaticus, although it doesnt mention how old he is, does say he reincarnates as well, all though this was a power given to him by the Cabal.

Firstly, obviously Ollanius Persson is Ollanius Pius, as it says so in the book, but also I think that he is a shaman from ancient Earth. Lexicanum says that the Shaman were ancient psykers with great experience of the Warp, and that they had already gained the ability to reincarnate upon death. It also says that thousands of the shaman committed suicide to join their souls together and create the Emperor, so it doesnt say "all" of them (grasping at straws there i know). So this would have happened around 8000BC or just before, long after the War in Heaven.

Also, I think that the "shaman" are the remnants of the Old Ones, or at least descendants of them. The Old Ones are known to be extrememly patient and have a "slow-blooded wisdom", which matches the Emperor and a being that has lived for over 44,000 years pretty well I should say.

Other things that point to this is that human life was started on Earth by the Old Ones, and this extract:

 

Its explained that the C'tan still hold an unabiding hatred of the Old Ones despite their civilisation being no more and actively seek out any degenerate descendants that may possibly exist on backwater worlds. Codex: Necron even suggests that a Lizardmen Army can be used as a placeholder for the Old Ones descendants.1-p61

 

Fits pretty well, Old One descendants hiding out on backwater worlds (Earth).

 

 

Just wanted to throw this out there really, see what everyone else thinks of it :D

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A shaman would be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay older than 44,000.....unless you mean to say that's just how long his current life has lasted. A shaman would be around 230,000 years old, if you count from their births around the time of of the dawn of the human race under the African skies, rather than counting a single incarnation.
According to Legion John Grammaticus lived a normal lifespan during the Unification Wars were he met the Emperor and the Emperor said that psykers like themselves should basically hang out and join forces. He was then killed in a followin battle where the Cabal revived him and turned him into an operative. Which kind of kills the Illuminati/Sensei/Emperor's-Kids-Born-By-Woman-Or-Whatever theory since I think the Emperor would be able to peg one of his own kids. I also think KNF know refers to them as the Perpetuals.
I still think it would be interesting if John and Ollanius were in fact biological children of the Emperor. He may not recognize Grammaticus, the Big E has been around for pretty much all of human history, I'm sure he would have plenty of children he does not know about. He may be a living saint now but I'm sure he had to grow into the role and I wouldn't doubt that there were points in time where he had fun with his limitless powers.
Yeah I know that, thats why I wrote John Grammaticus was given his power by the Cabal.

 

@TEC, At least 44,000 year olds, and a descendant of the Old Ones, as pyskers didnt start emerging on earth until the 18th Millenium.

The shamans were psykers from the dawn of mankind. It's the new generation of psykers that didn't crop up until the 18th millennium or whenever.

 

As for the Old Ones, it's more likely that mankind is simply another experiment of theirs. Perhaps not their creations from the ground up, but rather modified to fit the Old Ones' blueprints, hence the biological similarities between humans and the other major species of the galaxy.

Yup, the Old Ones created mankind:

Among their creations also included early Mankind who were tree beasts that were part of their ecosystem but otherwise had no greater role defined for them by the Old Ones.1-p9

 

Don't really see how human evolution can create powerful pyskers with great knowledge of the warp, then do nothing for 60 million years, then start creating pyskers again. The only explanation for the shamans i can see is that they were created by the Old Ones as a seperate species from mankind, like a human.2, or that they are descendants of Old Ones.

 

Another thing, they call themselves the Perpetuals, which is a synonym of everlasting, constant, eternal etc, fitting in with the shamans reincarnation and the apparent immortality/long-lived Old Ones.

Yeah I know that, thats why I wrote John Grammaticus was given his power by the Cabal.

Oh I thought you said that we didn't know how old he was and I was just pointing out that he was somewhere around a couple hindred years old. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Yup, the Old Ones created mankind:
Among their creations also included early Mankind who were tree beasts that were part of their ecosystem but otherwise had no greater role defined for them by the Old Ones.1-p9

 

Don't really see how human evolution can create powerful pyskers with great knowledge of the warp, then do nothing for 60 million years, then start creating pyskers again. The only explanation for the shamans i can see is that they were created by the Old Ones as a seperate species from mankind, like a human.2, or that they are descendants of Old Ones.

 

Another thing, they call themselves the Perpetuals, which is a synonym of everlasting, constant, eternal etc, fitting in with the shamans reincarnation and the apparent immortality/long-lived Old Ones.

Mankind is part of an evolutionary chain far older than the modern mankind that the Shamans were part of. It appears that around the time that Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved into their modern form under the African skies, from whatever ancestor species came before us, there was almost simultaneously some sort of event that caused the sudden emergence of a set number of extremely advanced human mutants. Psykers vastly more intelligent than the rest of their kind, and capable of reincarnating upon death.

Psykers were always part of the human DNA soup, and while the Shamans somehow found themselves at a stage of human evolution that let them use psionic powers, natural human psykers wouldn't begin to evolve for many thousands of years.

 

So the real question is, what triggered the Shamans suddenly becoming so advanced? Perhaps the Old Ones.

The Old Ones aren't mammals. They're giant frogs.

http://i736.photobucket.com/albums/xx1/froudrocks/My%20Painted%20Models/JensPaintedModels004.jpg

 

The Old Ones in 40k are what they called "Slaan" in Fantasy.

The Slaan in 40k are what they call "Lizardmen" in Fantasy.

The names all just get shifted one notch, but basically they're the same race. The basic idea being that the reason the Old Ones/Slaan are the most powerful mages in Fantasy is that they're actually using technology so hyper-advanced that it's indistinguishable from magic to everyone else.

GW no longer officially recognizes the connection between Fantasy and 40k, but that's how it was all more or less set up to be understood back in the day.

 

The general theory being that when the Old Ones "disappeared" from the galaxy, what they actually did was isolate themselves away in a perpetual Warpstorm on a backwater planet where they continue their experiments in small scale (thereby creating the elves, orcs, humans 2.0, ogres, etc etc etc) in a never ending effort to figure out how to beat the Necrons or maybe fix the Warp, or whatever their agenda ended up being.... and all of what they created has become the Warhammer Fantasy world.

Can someone supply us with information on the sources of much of this Shaman information. I thought it was removed from the universe by GW and they haven't since replaced it?

 

Otherwise I'm not buying it until the Heresy series or a later Codex or something explains the connection between the Perpetuals and the Emperor.

@Billuriye:

No it's not.

The Shaman stuff has never been removed or replaced, and it was alluded to early in the Horus Heresy series.

 

The source is Realms Of Chaos: Lost And The Damned pg 174.

 

There's no mention of how the Shamans became different from the other humans.

 

 

Emperor, you are incorrect. The Slann are not Old One's, they are Old One's first servants.

That's true in the context of Warhammer Fantasy, but in 40k the Old Ones are what Fantasy calls "Slaan", and the Slaan are what Fantasy calls "Lizardmen".

Presumably, this is to remove the term "Lizardmen" from 40k where it doesn't fit in.

Can someone supply us with information on the sources of much of this Shaman information. I thought it was removed from the universe by GW and they haven't since replaced it?

 

Realms of Chaos and Ian Watson's Draco books trump a GW suit claiming they are no longer "canon".

@Billuriye:

No it's not.

The Shaman stuff has never been removed or replaced, and it was alluded to early in the Horus Heresy series.

 

Nothing stating that Emperor is the gestalt of Shamans souls like the old fluff. Emperor's origins remained shrouded.

Yup, like others have already said, Realm of Chaos, so old information really and most of what i wrote is an educated guess on my part.

 

@TEC, The level of technology that the Old Ones possessed would I think have made it easy for them to breed with humans, or to splice their own DNA with human DNA in order to create a new tool for fighting chaos. I may be wrong but i havent seen any fluff that suggests the shaman suddenly leaped forward into more advanced shaman, so it is entirely possible that the shaman themselves are either Old One descendants through genetic engineering or creations of the Old Ones using human DNA, much like the Emperor created the thunderwarriors.

Hold on a moment! So the source for the Emperor being the gesult creation of a bunch of Shaman is straight from the same period of time we had Eldar-Human half breeds and Leman Russ and Guilliman being Imperial Guard Commanders who were elevated to Space Marines and lord knows what other silliness?

 

Hmm, then in that case I might remain a little sceptical about this revelation and wait and see what GW and BL produce for us ;) :D

Hold on a moment! So the source for the Emperor being the gesult creation of a bunch of Shaman is straight from the same period of time we had Eldar-Human half breeds and Leman Russ and Guilliman being Imperial Guard Commanders who were elevated to Space Marines and lord knows what other silliness?

 

Hmm, then in that case I might remain a little sceptical about this revelation and wait and see what GW and BL produce for us ^_^ :rolleyes:

Except the way they've alluded to The Emperor's past in the Horus Heresy books, thus far, does nothing to cast doubt over the Realms of Chaos books. Moreover, GW has outright stated fairly recently that they hold the Realms Of Chaos books to be the ultimate authority on things Warp related and constantly look to them for inspiration and guidance when developing and expanding stuff. Codex:Daemons Of Chaos in particular was developed straight from the Realms Of Chaos books.

EC - I do think you're wrong about Slann = Old Ones. They were the first servants of the Old Ones. If we're relying on somehow mashing up Realms of Chaos and Ian Watson's novels with both versions of Codex: Necrons and the HH series, it's worth noting that a Slann appeared in Watson's "Space Marine" in 40K, categorically after the Old Ones were subsequently established as being gone.

 

The Slann were the first race the Old Ones created and were supplanted in the Old Ones plans by the Eldar.

 

I think the "Pius" and Grammaticus are actually shamans who didn't join the Emperor project is as good a theory as any. Pius narrative seemed to suggest he sometimes, over the course of his long life, lost his memory of who he was. It's possible Grammaticus had done so during his "first life" during the Unification Wars. Makes as much sense as anything else (ie not much) and I personally like it more than them being the Emperor's children.

I'm going to wait until I read it in a newly published source before I start assuming old material on the Shamans is applicable to the Perpetuals and treat everything as a mystery since there is plenty of scope for change.

 

The Perpetuals are certainly concerned about the potential death of the Emperor, and we know there are more than two, with several mentioned being in Ultramar.

 

What their connection to him is unclear. I don't think the Perpetuals created him, since it forgets a key interaction the Emperor had with John Grammaticus, who was shocked to see his destiny and didn't appear to recognise him or vice-versa.

 

Seems a little strange if he was created by them, indirectly or by his "organisation".

 

Can't wait to find out.

3rd Edition Codex:Necrons says to use the Fantasy Lizardmen armybook to represent the Old Ones' descendants and servants.

The descendants would have to be the Slaan and the servants the Lizardmen.

The Slaan in 40k are the smaller amphibian/reptilian people (AKA Lizardmen in Fantasy)

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y93/Asurael/SpaceSlaan.jpg

*shrug*

I still don't read "descendants and servants" as making the Slann the Old Ones. They're a descendent race, just like the Eldar, Orks and humanity. But I think we're just down to different readings of very fragmentary hints, so happy to agree to disagree. :)
  • 2 weeks later...

I was always under the impression that the Old Ones are the same in both universes (just like Chaos) and that the Slaan are the most powerful and loyal servants. Of course GW has tried to distance Fantasy from 40k but they linked to many important ideas when they made both of them to truly ever separate them. As for the Old Ones still being around in the WFB world, thats incorrect as they are described as leaving suddenly in their "spaceships." yes it does say that, in current fluff. I imagine they suddenly had to deal with the threat of the Necrons. The Fantasy world was very important to their plans but no one knows why now and all of the most important Slaan who knew were killed during the first war against Chaos.

 

So even though the two universes are linked I don't think it will ever be explained. The two most probable explanations (if there even are any) is that the WFB world is within the Eye of Terror, a demon world (or almost anyway), or a parallel universe. The second theory is the least messy of the two since it lets them both exist without affecting each other. The Old Ones were most likely so powerful and advanced that I wouldn't put it past them to be able to travel between universes and Chaos exists at all places at all times, so yeah.

 

As far as the big E goes, I think the Shaman theory still holds and they have dropped enough tiny hints in the heresy series that I think they are going to at least stick to a variant of it.

  • 2 weeks later...

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