Breaking of The Emperor's decrees

[Blindhamster]

no... because as of 'scars' we've seen a storm seer use psychic powers... thus, edict broken.

[Kol Saresk]

Again, where have the Legions dissolved the Edict? Both Sevatar and Typhon have used their powers of their own volition and we know Sevatar got his butt chewed out while Typhon made the very obvious statement that he had to keep his powers secret. The actions of one Astartes does not determine the stance of his Legion. Otherwise the Death Guard and Sons of Horus would be loyal and the Ultramarines would have been preparing to fight other Astartes before Calth.

 

The Raven Guard was ordered by Corax to use his powers but after that, we see no evidence of a reinstatement of the Librarius. Not to mention the Custodes supervision. Along with we don't know how the Blood Angels dealt with the lone surviving psyker. That's why I put them in "Toeing the Line".

 

Also, the Stormseers weren't just spiritual advisors. They were in charge of the politics of Chogoris and the recruitment of new White Scars. From what I have heard by everyone who has read Scars, they ceased and desisted anything involving psychic powers. Which is radically different from the Rune Priests whose only role involved the use of psychic powers while the entire Legion lied about that role to other Legions. So it isn't tow-may-tow-tuh-ma-tow. And that's why they wound up in "Toeing the Line". The office of Stormseer still existed, but as far as we can tell, the Stormseers stopped using their powers an instead only focused on their other duties.

 

 

no... because as of 'scars' we've seen a storm seer use psychic powers... thus, edict broken.

So they have used their powers?

[depthcharge12]

When did the Ultramarines reinstate their Librarius? I haven't read Unremembered Empire yet, but in Know No Fear, Roboute responds to mass daemon attacks with "We must get the Edict of Nikea repealed", not "Librarians! Start being all Librariany or I start punching heads off."

 

 

Well he does look up to said guy...

 

 

Maybe punching heads off would screw up his logistics though. Or he just can't unless they monologue.

[Augustus]

In Unremembered Empire he reinstates them.

[Conn Eremon]

In Unremembered Empire they have already been reinstated.

[Durfast Spiritwolf]

The Scars and Wolves differ on the psychic powers bit. Both have non-Librarian specific roles, but while the White Scars restricted themselves to such in light of the Edict, the Wolves did no such thing.

So no, it doesn't follow that if the Wolves broke it than the Scars did as well.

Correct, the Edict banned sorcery. Anyone have a non-Thousand Son source that describes Rune Priests as sorcerers?

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

The Scars and Wolves differ on the psychic powers bit. Both have non-Librarian specific roles, but while the White Scars restricted themselves to such in light of the Edict, the Wolves did no such thing.

So no, it doesn't follow that if the Wolves broke it than the Scars did as well.

Correct, the Edict banned sorcery. Anyone have a non-Thousand Son source that describes Rune Priests as sorcerers?

The Edict banned psychic powers. And Prospero burns and Fear to Tread are "non-A Thousand Sons" novels that say the Rune Priests continued to use psychic powers.

[Durfast Spiritwolf]

 

 

 

The Scars and Wolves differ on the psychic powers bit. Both have non-Librarian specific roles, but while the White Scars restricted themselves to such in light of the Edict, the Wolves did no such thing.

So no, it doesn't follow that if the Wolves broke it than the Scars did as well.

Correct, the Edict banned sorcery. Anyone have a non-Thousand Son source that describes Rune Priests as sorcerers?

The Edict banned psychic powers. And Prospero burns and Fear to Tread are "non-A Thousand Sons" novels that say the Rune Priests continued to use psychic powers.

The version I've seen clearly states that only members of the Librarius department are not to use psychic powers.

 

"I see now I have allowed my sons to delve too profoundly into matters I should never have permitted them to know even existed. Let it be known that no one shall suffer censure, for this conclave is to serve Unity, not discord. But no more shall the threat of sorcery be allowed to taint the warriors of the Astartes. Henceforth, it is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius department. All its warriors and instructors must be returned to the battle companies and never again employ any psychic powers.

Woe betide he who ignores my warning or breaks faith with me. He shall be my enemy, and I will visit such destruction upon him and all his followers that, until the end of all things, he shall rue the day he turned from my light."

 

One can only employ the Golden Rule to avoid an absurd or obnoxious result, and it is employed very narrowly. The wording of the decree is not ambiguous nor unclear. It is aimed at countering the threat of sorcery and the closure of the Librarius experiment is the way this is to be achieved.

 

The missing rule for interpreting UK law is the Mischief Rule. This allows a judge to consider the intent of a law, i.e. what was the problem and what was the remedy applied in an attempt to solve that problem. So it is quite helpful in this case.

 

As already mentioned, a prime witness during the council against the Thousand Sons slipping into using sorcery was Ohthere Wyrdmake, a Rune Priest, Russ was being kept hidden by the Sisters of Silence along with three Great Companies in case he was required. Moreover, the wording of the decree is explicit. So given that their role was to counter Malificarum, i.e. they were not sorcerers, but counter sorcerers, they were arguably part of the solution rather than the problem. Thus the exclusion of Rune Priests is clear under the Literal Rule, it is not absurd, as required by the Golden Rule, and it arguably fits a logical intent, so failing to qualify under the Mischief Rule, i.e. it is possible to indicate doubt that it does not match the Emperor's intent for the decree.

[Wade Garrett]

No, the Sisters of Silence's role is to counter sorcerers.

 

Rune Priests use the same powers as everyone else and are no more resistant to corruption or having their souls eaten by daemons than anyone else.

 

Right, Othere Wyrdmake and Eada Haelfwulf?

[Blindhamster]

haha, I said just a single page back that someone would make the suggestion that the rule only applied to members of the librarius departments ;)

 

I would suggest that your interpretation of the Emperors Will is incorrect Spiritwolf, the reason for this is that the sentence you're reading has a full stop and not a comma, they are two statements rather than one joined one.

 

thus:

"Henceforth, it is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius department. All its warriors and instructors must be returned to the battle companies and never again employ any psychic powers."

 

would mean that

a) Legions that maintained Librarius departments would need to cease maintaining said librarius departments.

b) No members of the legion would be allowed to employ psychic powers.

 

note that it is specifically psychic powers, not sorcery, which the only space marine practitioners of were the Thousand Sons.

 

That being said, the rule is ambiguous enough that I can see how it could be argued in either direction, which was why I said someone would argue the point on the previous page.

 

Another thing is, are there any legions that are 100% confirmed to have never at any point had a librarius or other institution for their psychers?? I know many of them had their librarius shut down a long time even before Nikea, but most seem to have had something alone the lines at some point.

[Don the Oiler]

So... since the Thousand Sons psychers were more or less free-roaming among the entire Legion, there was no dedicated Librarius department and so technically they adhered to the edict?

Man, the Emperor should have written an FAQ to Nikea.

[Kol Saresk]

The closest would be the Death Guard, but even they used to have one. Mortarion just closed it down as soon as he was able to. Which was enough time for Typhon to be recruited into Librarius but still be "unknown" enough that no one else knew he had been in it.

[Brother Arcturus]

Emperor's children i believe. They thought the mutation made psykers 'imperfect'

[Kol Saresk]

But that would only be after Fulgrim took command, much like Mortarion.

[Wade Garrett]

I think I'm starting to grasp why real laws are written the way they are.

 

Which includes giant walls of text that read something like this:

 

The term "Astartes Warrior" in the following Edict refers to any member of an Astartes Legion, Scout, Apocethary, Techmarine, or Primarch, also human beings who have been elevated to near Astartes status, Custodians, and Thunder Warriors.

 

The term psychic power refers to blah blah blah blah....

[Conn Eremon]

Ironically still leaves them open to interpretation.

 

Like that the Emperor says that the Librarius 'will' be closed and that it is 'his will that' they be returned to their duties. Not 'shall,' though he does use it around those phrases.

 

So he is just voicing an opinion and talking about an undetermined future, not actually giving an order.

 

Though he does say that any who don't choose to go along with his opinion 'shall' be his enemy, so there is that. So he pretty much said 'Wouldn't it be nice if you all stopped being psykers? I think it would be nice if you weren't all psykers. I think maybe you should think so too. Thinking it's okay could lead to bad things. Very bad things. Wouldn't you agree?'

[Kol Saresk]

I think I'm starting to grasp why real laws are written the way they are.

 

Which includes giant walls of text that read something like this:

 

The term "Astartes Warrior" in the following Edict refers to any member of an Astartes Legion, Scout, Apocethary, Techmarine, or Primarch, also human beings who have been elevated to near Astartes status, Custodians, and Thunder Warriors.

 

The term psychic power refers to blah blah blah blah....

Welcome to Rule Lawyering.

[Durfast Spiritwolf]

haha, I said just a single page back that someone would make the suggestion that the rule only applied to members of the librarius departments ;)

I would suggest that your interpretation of the Emperors Will is incorrect Spiritwolf, the reason for this is that the sentence you're reading has a full stop and not a comma, they are two statements rather than one joined one.

thus:

"Henceforth, it is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius department. All its warriors and instructors must be returned to the battle companies and never again employ any psychic powers."

would mean that

a) Legions that maintained Librarius departments would need to cease maintaining said librarius departments.

b) No members of the legion would be allowed to employ psychic powers.

Accept that 'it' can refer to either the subject or object of a preceding sentence. Defining pronoun president can be tricky. However, grammatically, the pronoun should refer to whichever came last. So in this case the genitive form of 'it' is related to the Librarius Department, and not the Legion. Here is a simple example, 'Bob made a cup of tea. It was hot.' To bring in the genitive, 'Bob's has bought a new car. It's wheels are round'.

[Perrin]

Funnily enough this exact same debate is going on over at Warseer

Is this turning into an argument over grammar?

All evidence points to the Rune Priests not being banned, or at least there is enough doubt there for them to get away with it as long as they don't flaunt it.

The literal wording of the Edict bans Librarians, so not Rune Priests.

The spirit/meaning behind the Edict was to ban harmful sorcery and to stop the Legions being corrupted by the knowledge Magnus had learnt in his many warp adventures. The Rune Priests had nothing to do with Magnus or his Librarius Project, so they are free of that taint.

There is a reason the Nikaea conclave is also known as the Trial of Magnus the Red. Magnus had delved too deep and awaken a Balro... and had risked corruption, the Emperor didn't want this spreading through his teachings to the other Legions. Seeing the various Librarian departments as similar to the Warrior Lodges kind of works, the Lodges spread Lorgar's corruption, the Librarius would have spread Magnus's corruption, at least in the Emperor's eyes.

[Kol Saresk]

Except we don't know the wording of the Edict, just what the Emperor said. We don't know if that is the actual law in its entirety or what.

 

We also know that the Space Wolves made dang sure they wanted to hide their Rune Priests from the Blood Angels not because of flaunting, but because they knew the Blood Angels would believe the Wolves were supposed to hve been boun by the Edict as well.

 

We also know that the Wolves believed themselves exempt not because they didn't have a Librarius, but because they believed their powers came from somewhere other than the warp.

 

So its one thing to argue "they never had a Librarius", but it becomes a different situation when the Legion in question goes "no, we're exempt for a different reason." And its a reason that everyone else knows, including the Wolves as admitted in Prospero Burns, is nonexistent.

[Conn Eremon]

It is their ignorance of what they rail against. Though they have a very healthy fear and hatred for sorcery and the Warp, their knowledge of it is so incomplete that they are unaware how much of it they themselves use, and are so shaped by the beliefs system of Fenris that it affects their outlook on everything.

 

They are aware of its seeming hypocrisy but unaware that it is a true hypocrisy.

[Kais Klip]

The Edict officialy banned the use of legionary psykers within each legion, whether they were called Librarians, Rune Priests or Stormseers. Some legions complied, and some didn't, in this case its as absolute as that.

 

The Space Wolves didn't comply, citing naming shenanigans, the White Scars didn't comply either, citing lack of caring of someone's authority when they are on the other side of the galaxy.

 

It was a big edict in theory, but in reality ended up only really being enforced when someone needed dirt on someone else to deploy his packs/Custodians/chaplains.

[Conn Eremon]

White Scars technically did comply in spirit. They retained their Stormseers, but they were solely used in their non-psyker capacity. Like recruitment drives and home world management.

[Kais Klip]

My bad, thought we were taking post-Istvaan into account.

[Conn Eremon]

Has that changed post-Isstvan? I haven't read Scars yet.