Belisarius Cawl's Identity?

[Antaonix]

from the Admech 8th edition codex. 

 

 

'Despite his own memories being stolen - twice has Cawl suffered mind wiping - he remanis a tech-savant, a genius at the forefront of whatever field to which he turns his mind.'

 

'So vast is the information stockpile that Cawl no longer remembers how he obtained huge portions of it. For instance, much of Cawl''s biocraft was learned by assisting the greatest geneticist that Mankind has ever known, the Emperor, in the development of the black carapace membrane implanted into Space Marines. At that time, Cawl's body was still largely flesh. While the eyes that then beheld the Emperor have been replaced, the techniques Cawl absorbed during his understudy remains.'

 

now i'm suspecting who he is....

Edited September 23, 2017 by Antaonix

[Kastor Krieg]

> assisting the greatest geneticist that Mankind has ever known, the Emperor, in the development of the black carapace membrane implanted into Space Marines. At that time, Cawl's body was still largely flesh

 

Mother:cussin' Arkhan Land is who he is.

[Petitioner's City]

I hope not. That would be silly small-world syndrome. And there has been no evidence to date Land was involved in activities that would - surely - pre-date the alliance with Mars?

[Battybattybats]

I hope not. That would be silly small-world syndrome. And there has been no evidence to date Land was involved in activities that would - surely - pre-date the alliance with Mars?

Hmm it's a bit of small-world i could handle. But that's a good point about the alliance timing.. though when did the Big-E swap from Thunder Warriors to Astartes? (I'm still catching up with a lot of heresy novels), was that before or after he visited Mars (officially,

medieval lizard-wrangling

not being counted)?

[OnboardG1]

Given that Mars had sent exploratory expeditions to Earth prior to unification it's possible that Land/Cawl was on one of those expeditions and worked with Big E as part of some trade. It would be nice to see some more elaboration on that from the Lore somewhere.

[Kastor Krieg]

Oh sweet Emperor... I just realized. What if that's not Land. Just look at Cawl, at the way his hands curl up just like a small primate's. At the occulus he still has.

 

That's not Land, that's Sapien, Land's psyber monkey familiar!

[ http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Arkhan_Land

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Familiar ]

 

[Magos_Adephus]

I find it far more plausible he was part of the "team of savants and gene-wrights" the Emperor recruited/captured after the Unification Wars to help create the Primarchs. It'd make sense that the young and bright Cawl was inducted into the Mechanicus after they learned he helped create the Astartes and Primarchs.

 

Does that mean that Girlyman and Cawl going around the galaxy fighting Chaos is actually just a father-son hunting trip?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I find it far more plausible he was part of the "team of savants and gene-wrights" the Emperor recruited/captured after the Unification Wars to help create the Primarchs. It'd make sense that the young and bright Cawl was inducted into the Mechanicus after they learned he helped create the Astartes and Primarchs.

The only problem with this theory, is the inevitable question, "How can Cawl's organic brain endure for 10,000+ years?!"

 

Then I thought of an answer: The Primarchs' creation is an endeavor unprecedented in its scope, requiring the design and development of organs that natural evolution cannot plot a path towards. It makes sense for the Emperor to conduct human experimentation, implanting some of the artificially evolved organs He intended the Primarchs to have.

 

Cawl is likely one of the "Guinea pigs" with Primarch organs implanted in his body- that's why he was able to reverse-engineer some of them, when he created the Primaris Marines.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Bjorn Firewalker

[Interrogator Stobz]

Cawl could have been one of those immortal chaps like the emprah and others mentioned in HH stories. I forget their actual name and I'm not sure their purpose is/was divulged in the HH series. Edited September 23, 2017 by Interrogator Stobz

[Kastor Krieg]

Cawl could have been one of those immortal chaps like the emprah and others mentioned in HH stories. I forget their actual name and I'm not sure their purpose is/was divulged in the HH series.

You mean perpetuals? Like Olannius Pius and Vulkan?

[OnboardG1]

 

Cawl could have been one of those immortal chaps like the emprah and others mentioned in HH stories. I forget their actual name and I'm not sure their purpose is/was divulged in the HH series.

You mean perpetuals? Like Olannius Pius and Vulkan?

 

 

Might be a bit difficult to tell given how little of Cawl is actually left as flesh. He's pretty close to a brain in a jar.

[Battybattybats]

The mechanicus has long been described as having dread means of life extension for the highest levels of power with a degree of madness side effect. The Mechanicus lore from Battlefleet Gothic mentioned that.

[MajorNese]

> assisting the greatest geneticist that Mankind has ever known, the Emperor, in the development of the black carapace membrane implanted into Space Marines. At that time, Cawl's body was still largely flesh

 

Mother:cussin' Arkhan Land is who he is.

Arkham Land can't be Cawl in that case. In "Master of Mankind", Arkham mentions his first involvement with the Emperor himself, when being asked if big E's assessment of Angron's implants are correct. Development of the Black Carapace was part of the Astartes program, which predates the re-emergence of Angron considerably.

[Prot]

The quote reminds me of a small piece from Master of Mankind I believe... damn I can't remember but there s a scene where the Emperor asks the opinion of a Mechanicum tech priest type was asked for opinion on reversing the procedure performed on Angron. It made me believe there are many of these. Situations.

[Robbienw]

Would be interesting though if Cawl had originally been one of the emperors personal cadre of scientists as this new fluff may indicate and would later join the mechanicus for some reason. Would explain why he is an innovator and makes new stuff unlike most tech priests. Edited September 25, 2017 by Robbienw

[OnboardG1]

 

> assisting the greatest geneticist that Mankind has ever known, the Emperor, in the development of the black carapace membrane implanted into Space Marines. At that time, Cawl's body was still largely flesh

 

Mother:cussin' Arkhan Land is who he is.

Arkham Land can't be Cawl in that case. In "Master of Mankind", Arkham mentions his first involvement with the Emperor himself, when being asked if big E's assessment of Angron's implants are correct. Development of the Black Carapace was part of the Astartes program, which predates the re-emergence of Angron considerably.

 

 

Ah I've not read MoM so I didn't know that. In that case the ancient scientist theory makes a lot of sense. If Guilliman knows who he actually is (and he probably does) then it adds more reasons why he might want to not make him Fabricator General. Crazy, 12000 year old biotech scientist who is missing half his memories and probably has some pretty heretical lore from that era buried somewhere? Nope, can't see were this could go wrong.

[Xisor]

I was actually really pleased with the run-down given to Carl in the codex. He's still absurdly over-done, but they do a lot of work in pulling back the overarching nature of him. For example: the expansion of the odd title he has as being a sort of Mechanics 'living saint' (or perhaps 'living embodiment of knowledge' [very dwarfen: living ancestor!]).

 

He's a marvel, but also a dangerous maverick that's so far outside of the norm that you get a lot of difficulty around the matter. The explicit mention of involvement in the gene-experiments fits the bill properly, as does the idea that he's difficult to keep... focused on a specific task. 40k's first overtly ADHD hero?

 

In any event, I'm pleased that it also makes it fairly incompatible for him to be Arkhan Land. It'd be a bit too small-world for me, but even then the idea that he's 10k old is difficult for me to parse. That sense of longevity and continuity itself within the Imperium makes for 'small world' in the temporal sense. (I'm sure Laurie G & ADB have talked about not wanting everything to link back to the Heresy, it seems to be a related idea.)

 

---

 

On the huge upside, the Codex even takes pains to emphasise that the continuity issue is totally there. Front and centre, we're explicitly dealing with Trigger's Broom where Carl of 40k isn't Carl from 30k. Mind-wipes, constant upgrades, even vague backups and things... Fabulous Billy has more soulful continuity than the very patchy history and personal integrity of Carl.

 

And, personally, I'm ecstatic with that. It evokes and involves a huge amount of plausible detail and granularity to the 'big idea' of Carl, without undoing that big idea. Whoever worked on the Codex background there deserves a big thumbs up! (And if they ever reveal themselves to me [so to speak], I'd buy them a pint too.)

 

Massively redeems the idea from The Gathering Storm. It wasn't a bad idea as such - just easy to take many issues with - but this puts a great deal of flesh on the bones.

 

Lovely.

[Vel'Cona]

I'm mostly just annoyed that he's Mars-only, gameplay wise.  I think GW would have been better off to add an Ability/Special Rule/etc. to explain him "fitting" into any Forge World Dogma or the like.  It could be backed up in-universe with only a moderate amount of explanation, especially given Cawl's influence.

[Xisor]

I'm mostly just annoyed that he's Mars-only, gameplay wise.  I think GW would have been better off to add an Ability/Special Rule/etc. to explain him "fitting" into any Forge World Dogma or the like.  It could be backed up in-universe with only a moderate amount of explanation, especially given Cawl's influence.

The worst of it is: his entry explicitly says that's what he does. His data slate says Mars, but I quote:

 

"Although Mars is his home world, other forge worlds often place troops beneath Cawl's command, asking only that he shares any knowledge accumulated."

 

It's back to front, in my eyes. If they'd had 'Lord of Mars' apply to any friendly Adeptus Mechanics rather than Mars, they'd be sorted. (I'd also have that named 'Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah' rather than 'Lord of Mars' - mainly because I think a large degree of Martians probably resent and/or loathe the so-called 'man'.)

 

I mean, in terms of documented evidence of being a dodgy character, Cawl is literally known by the Lord Commander Guilliman to be in deeply personal cahoots with Xenos, but somehow it's Stygies VIII that's got the bad reputation...

 

I digress.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I mean, in terms of documented evidence of being a dodgy character, Cawl is literally known by the Lord Commander Guilliman to be in deeply personal cahoots with Xenos, but somehow it's Stygies VIII that's got the bad reputation...I digress.

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." Mars is close enough for Guilliman to closely monitor just what the hell is Cawl doing. Stygies VIII... is not close enough.

[Prot]

I think a lot of what's been said here is largely true of Cawl. He's a lot of different things to the Imperium. I think it's safe to say Guilliman has an eye on him.

 

He kind of reminds me of a radical inquisitor. Always willing to go that extra, perhaps dangerous and morally borderline step to achieve the desirable result.

[Withershadow]

The Emperor had a lot of assistants for his gene-tech project.  He also sent a few experts along with Corax to Deliverance. 

 

Also, whoever he was, that is no longer who he is.  The nature of having multiple brains, and being active for tens of thousands of years, means he is essentially a completely different person than who he was when the Primaris project began.

[OnboardG1]

The Emperor had a lot of assistants for his gene-tech project.  He also sent a few experts along with Corax to Deliverance. 

 

Also, whoever he was, that is no longer who he is.  The nature of having multiple brains, and being active for tens of thousands of years, means he is essentially a completely different person than who he was when the Primaris project began.

 

If a BL writer was so inclined there's a lot of interesting stuff about the nature of personhood to be explored in a novel from Cawl's PoV. Heck he's an unreliable narrator to himself.

[Withershadow]

Actually I was just kidding, Cawl is clearly Alpharius.  Can't wait until he becomes Fabricator-General, and we can launch the final stage of our victory over the Corpse Emperor! :P

[Vel'Cona]

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