Gold, the most grimdark of colours for armour: an alternate take on 30k Custodes

[N1SB]

I thought about whether or not to post this, because it was just an off-hand comment at our local Warhammer Store, but it's so weird I had to share.

 

Disclaimer - so we like to draw from history to feed The Hobby, but NOT to impose an interpretation upon it.  I humbly share the following in that spirit.  Moreover, very shortly after posting this, I read just now that Queen Elizabeth II has passed away, as such I've removed a few remarks out of respect.

 

So you know what it's like in a Warhammer Store or FLGS.  You got the regulars, then you have people who just pass by, look at our models like "oh, that looks interesting...wait, you have to build and paint these yourself?"  Our Warhammer Store Manager happened to have placed his Work-In-Progress Custodes placed on some terrain on the forward-most table of the shop, the real "storefront".  A passerby entered, clearly a well-read person, because he glanced at it and dropped the line, "滿城盡帶黃金甲."

 

By the way, this was in Hong Kong, so dropping a line of Chinese poetry is not that out of place, like Klingons quoting Shakespeare.  It's the final line from a poem a little over a millennia ago, near the end of the Tang dynasty, I'll quote it and give you my own translation.  Please do NOT think of this as artsy-fartsy literature.  Consider this a game, like...a riddle:

 

待到秋來九月八
I await the fall, 8th of September
我花開後百花殺
My petals bloom, then hundreds dismembered
沖天香陣透長安
Chang’an’s skies are filled with their aroma
滿城盡帶黃金甲
The city enclosed by golden armour

 

"What am I?" you can add to the end of this, to make it a riddle.  The answer and explanation, which I'll put in spoiler tags below:

 

Spoiler

It's the chrysanthemum flower.

 

What's significant about it?  It's gold, good in tea and, for this topic...one of the few things that blossom in the autumn.

 

You know how every culture ties multiple meanings to fauna and flora?  One of the (many) associations in Chinese culture specifically (it's different for the Japanese and even Koreans) is that it is the flower of rebellion, an usurper.  Why?  Because it blooms in the fall...everything else has to die before it can grow, just as if you want to forge an empire from the ashes of the old one.

 

It's a well-known interpretation to the point there's a Zhang Yimou/Chow Yun Fat/Li Gong film titled after that last line, horribly translated as Curse of the Golden Flower:

 

 

The poet was Huang Chao, who after writing that would soon rebel and claim the Imperial throne...just the Chinese one, not the Warhammer one...for a whole 15 minutes or so.  Quite an achievement, considering he had just failed his official examination to be a government official for the 3rd time, and decided if he can't join, he'll beat them.  In the poem, he was envisioning a rebel army, marching through Chang'an, which you may know as Xi'an, the original capital of China, covered in the aforementioned petals...thus wearing golden armour.

 

And this brings us to the Custodes, as well as why I post it here in the Age of Darkness rather than in their 40k sub-forum.  In 40k, the Custodes were the golden guardians of the already established God-Emperor, beloved by all.  In 30k, they were still the praetorian guard, but at the time, the Master of Mankind was an Emperor in name only, having yet to have an Imperium.  In one of the recent Siege of Terra novels, iirc another Perpetual who knew him before he became a Him mentioned it was pretty presumptuous taking the name before making the empire.

 

The Imperium was still a Work-In-Progress, and the golden armour the Custodes wore had a practical purpose beyond a 2+ save.  I think Malcador described it as a dress-to-impress strategy.  It wasn't style without substance, its style was its substance, to demonstrate the incredible wealth and power they had and worlds joining them may share in.  And if they were ignorant enough to reject the Imperial Truth, they would be brought into Imperial Compliance, would find their city enclosed by golden armour.

 

It made sense for them to wear gold because it matched the Emperor's own armour.  It highlights how He, Beloved By All, was often closer to His praetorians than He was to most of His Primarchs, his own sons, to the point that some demigods would get these pangs of jealousy.  The Custodes were His truest confidants, to the point He'd assign them missions he wouldn't trust to the Legions, like in Master of Mankind he groomed one to host the daemon Drach'nyen and just run into the Warp.

 

"I was there, the day Horus slew the Emperor" was the opening line of the entire Horus Heresy series.  Of course, it was not THE Emperor, just AN emperor, the local leader of some planet being brought under Imperial Compliance.  But there's a very practical question of what it takes to kill an emperor, like...does he have children, who'd be his obvious heirs?  They're the next in the line of succession, so they'd be emperors next.  You'd have to deal with them, too, then you'd have to double-check if they had offspring.

 

Important Edit - you don't have to kill the Younglings, you can recruit them or castrate them, but you got to end the lines, leading to...

 

During the Unification Wars on Terra, it didn't come to that.  The Emperor usually conscripted any rival's children into his then fledgling Space Marine Legions.  Any number of Terran Legionnaires' backstory was, "The Emperor killed my father, a ruler of Albia/Europa/etc., then made me a Space Marine."  However, have you noticed that practice really ended around there, with a few notable exceptions like Mortarion and Abaddon, who wanted to kill their own fathers anyway.

 

So to whom would trust for the Emperor to resolve such family matters?  Most Marines probably had too much martial pride for such a task, and in fact, those of Terran origin would have been halted by memories of their own youth.  The Emperor would entrust His closest confidants, the ones He'd assign missions He wouldn't ask of His sons, knowing that for His petals to bloom, that hundreds had to be dismembered, ones he could trust to contain the worst of inner demons and just run with it.

 

From the start, I said this was an alternate take that I don't want to impose on anyone.  But I do have this vision of a suit of golden armour bearing over a crib now.  And this is why, when that random Warhammer customer dropped a line from a 1,000+ year poem, I realised gold is the most grimdark of colours for armour.

Edited December 2, 2022 by N1SB

[Sothalor]

There's actually precedent for this in the opening chapters of Master of Mankind - only it's not necessarily as "neat" as just killing all remnants of a dynastic line. They can and do take children to make them Custodians.

Neither did the practice of converting the sons of conquered enemies into Astartes end on Terra. That was the fate of countless worlds throughout the Great Crusade.

Historically, that's how conquering, totalizing ideologies tend to express themselves - by claiming the children of their foes/subjects/dissidents.

[N1SB]

You're right and I've edited my post.  It's less killing, more claiming.  In addition, just changed some wording respecting the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

[Xenith]

Yea, I mean it's historical I think for a victor to claim as a ward the children of the defeated to encourage peace - I can think of no real world examples, but we have Ned Stark and Theon Greyjoy after the Iron rebellion, Odin and Loki after the defeat of Laufi in the MCU. 

Converting to Custodes or Marines might be practical from a martial PoV, but maybe not from a ruling PoV, as those toppled leaders might see their children as essentially dead anyway - chemically sterile marines, and hypno indoctrinated others, basically they'll never continue the line. Are there any examples of former barbarian kings of terra's children being part of the Imperial Court?

[The Scorpion]

12 hours ago, Xenith said:

Yea, I mean it's historical I think for a victor to claim as a ward the children of the defeated to encourage peace - I can think of no real world examples, but we have Ned Stark and Theon Greyjoy after the Iron rebellion, Odin and Loki after the defeat of Laufi in the MCU. 

Converting to Custodes or Marines might be practical from a martial PoV, but maybe not from a ruling PoV, as those toppled leaders might see their children as essentially dead anyway - chemically sterile marines, and hypno indoctrinated others, basically they'll never continue the line. Are there any examples of former barbarian kings of terra's children being part of the Imperial Court?

That's because the Emperor had no interest on allowing dynastic idiosyncraties. His rule was absolute and he expected complete assimilation

Noble houses and rulers are merely tolerated, not truly bargained with. The imperium needs no hostages because it does not negotiate any significant liberties, exept in very exeptional cases like the Mechanicum.

 

[N1SB]

This thread has been great because Brother Sothalar rightly pointed out a gap in my compare & contrast, then Brothers Xenith and Scorpion filled it with something I hadn't considered in Imperial Chinese history (you'll see why I forgot)...and it makes things even more grimdark than even I thought.

 

It comes down to: whatever the means, the end was to end other ruling family's lines (to solidify yours).  You don't have to kill heirs IF...

 

On 9/9/2022 at 6:45 PM, Xenith said:

Converting to Custodes or Marines might be practical from a martial PoV, but maybe not from a ruling PoV, as those toppled leaders might see their children as essentially dead anyway - chemically sterile marines, and hypno indoctrinated others, basically they'll never continue the line. Are there any examples of former barbarian kings of terra's children being part of the Imperial Court?

 

...within Imperial Chinese history, castration was an actual alternative to execution for threatening the ruling establishment at the time.

 

It absolutely happens.  Some Imperial official rolls up to your village and he be like, "You gotta die."  You're like, "Why!?"  Then he go, "Your 30th cousin was some ambitious courtier who walked by a conspirator's meeting when their door was open...so we consider his loyalty compromised."  So you're like, "Well, I wasn't in that meeting, I didn't even know I had a cousin that far removed!"  Then the official gets off his high horse, "Listen, I'm just doing my job, but the Emperor decreed your family line has gotta go, and I feel for ya, so let me give you 2 options."  Those options are:

 

• You choose to be executed or commit suicide
• You choose to be castrated (in the Medieval way)

 

(There IS always a 3rd option, you use your secret martial arts to flee into the woods, which leads to all those martial arts movies...seriously.)

 

Generally, people prefer the 1st option, death, rather than the latter, becoming a eunuch.  This was what I forgot...because no one remembers the families that got wiped out from history, that was the whole point.  The only guy that came to mind is a famous historian (in terms of significance, he's like the Chinese Herodotus) who chose castration in order to finish his famous historical records (later dynasties spared them from book burnings because, well, it's like he gave up his manhood to keep on writing, so c'mon).

 

(An exception that proves the rule - Kublai Khan spared the son of the Song dynasty when he completed his takeover of all China.  He mercifully let this guy live without being castrated, but he had to be a Buddhist monk...so he was celibate anyway; the means don't matter, the end is an end to a family line.  Then Kublai later changed his mind and forced him to commit suicide like a decade later.  It's a little bit like that scene in Godfather II with the guy that was about to be state's witness against Michael Corleone.)

 

Brother Xeniths' point brings us back to 30k: any examples of former barbarian king's children being part of the Imperial court?

 

Yes: the entirety of the Terran IIIrd Legion, a.k.a. the Emperor's CHILDREN (as well as quite a few other Terran Marines).

 

However, there might be a East Meets West element in terms of Imperialism.  Not saying which is better because all Imperialism's bad.

 

Western Imperialism is symbiotic.  Since Roman times, a consul/emperor/king often fosters other nobles' sons.  Julius Caesar with Augustus, Claudius I with Nero, etc.  And just as one of many examples, this sort of thing was systematised in the English history, iirc it was one of the Henry's that had a King's Ward governmental department.  In Colonial times, there would be things like the maharaja system, where it was the British Empire, but local Indian princes.

 

(Interestingly, the Japanese did this, too, during the Sengoku Jidai pre-Shogun age.  It was a case of parallel evolution, which is kinda interesting.)

 

Chinese Imperialism is, at best, cannibalistic.  They'll either tear you apart or just eat you.  The best you can get is your favourite daughter becomes a concubine to your conqueror and she'll bear an heir, then the Hand That Rocks the Cradle is the Hand That Rules the World, and your grandson will usurp his father, but no one will even remember you existed.  They'll try to snip those loose ends.

 

(Edit - I'm wrong even here.  There were absolutely vassal states.  Argh, Chinese history is simple but not easy, because broadly speaking it always is generally about consolidating power, then kinda collapsing under its own weight and starting over again, usually triggered by a flood or drought...but covering a span of 4,000 years is pretty complicated.  I'm oversimplifying.)

 

But what is 30k Imperialism?  Not imposing one view or the other, because 30k Imperialism really seems like a combination of both!  The Emperor, Beloved By All, WILL raise the conquered sons, as Legionnaires, but he also has effectively ended their dynastic lines, because they're chemically sterile Space Marines (I don't know about the fertility of Custodes...not really sure I want to think about it).

 

What a fascinating turn.  Btw, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, may the moon be golden and round where you are.

Edited December 2, 2022 by N1SB