Why are there Librarians? [Minor 1K Sons Spoilers]

[Nabterayl]

Without having read the book, I'd go with A followed by D. The distinction among sorcery, witchcraft, and psychic powers is one of worldview, so I wouldn't be surprised if McNeil felt like it was anachronistic for Nikaea to use a term like "sorcery" - and of course the Legions couldn't use "witchcraft" by definition.

In a post-Heresy world, though, it makes sense to distinguish between sorcerous and non-sorcerous psychic powers, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if Guilliman wrote with that distinction in mind.

As for "slave" psykers ... Mel's right that slave psykers are a stupid idea, but where are you getting that in the first place, Fellend? The codex certainly doesn't say anything about slaves. All it says is that the Black Templars profess zero tolerance of mutants, including psykers, and thus do not fight alongside them - but that the chapter's various keeps and fleets stay in touch with each other somehow and navigate the Warp somehow, so presumably they must use astropaths and Navigators just like everybody else. The codex goes on to speculate that perhaps the Black Templars use only astropaths and Navigators that view their powers as a curse, and repent of their abilities. That wouldn't be so weird; plenty of Imperial psykers view their powers as a curse.

[Madness]

To Madness-- a great number of books in the Black Library explore the necessity of 'civilian psykers;' all seem to indicate that there are familial bloodlines that breed more potent and able psykers, and as such the chance for them losing control to the warp is far less. It's also been indicated in some of the newer novels (Black Tide) that the Navigator council holds some significant power in the Imperium.

Still, you either use psykers or you don't, if you end up deciding to use them, you'd be better off with ones that are trained with your same values instead of complete strangers.

[Nabterayl]

Well, look at it from a Black Templar's standpoint, Madness. A psyker poses the following threats on a battlefield:

1. Spiritual threat - his very being is tainted with the essence of hell.
2. Practical threat - while daemons could theoretically possess anybody on any battlefield, a psyker actively using his powers is far more likely than anybody else to be possessed.
3. Moral threat - A Black Templar's sense of honor is tied to his ability to triumph in battle with courage and steel.

Those being the case, I don't think it's stupid for the Templars not to want librarians on the battlefield, which is what the current codex states is the core of their objection. If you don't have librarians on the battlefield, it makes sense to me that you wouldn't have librarians at all - the idea of a space marine with a desk job is ridiculous, as well as wasteful. So if you don't want to field librarians in battle, isn't the logical conclusion to have no psychic space marines and instead outsource the necessary psychic functions to those organizations within the Imperium that specialize in providing them?

[Melissia]

It's not wasteful. A Space Marine Librarian would have the tempered discipline of the Astartes, the mental training, and this combined with their enhanced biology would give them a longer lifespan to gain control over their powers. Even if they never go into battle, Librarians-- while not necessarilly more powerful than civilian psykers-- would still be quite useful, reliable, and efficient, and furthermore would be less likely to betray the Black Templars.

A single rogue psyker subtly plotting against the chapter could doom it in its entirity by themselves. Loyalty is very important.

[Madness]

Not really, librarians are there for a plethora of reasons, and having to outsource all that work is a huge security leak, they can run better background check on 16 year old candidates than they can do on a guy who was trained from people they don't even know.

Not to mention how effective force weapons are against daemons.

[Nabterayl]

It's not wasteful. A Space Marine Librarian would have the tempered discipline of the Astartes, the mental training, and this combined with their enhanced biology would give them a longer lifespan to gain control over their powers. Even if they never go into battle, Librarians-- while not necessarilly more powerful than civilian psykers-- would still be quite useful, reliable, and efficient, and furthermore would be less likely to betray the Black Templars.

A single rogue psyker subtly plotting against the chapter could doom it in its entirity by themselves. Loyalty is very important.

Loyalty is not traditionally an issue with either the Navis Nobilite or the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. How many times in the fluff have we seen astropaths killing themselves just to send a high-priority message? If either the NN or the AAT had material loyalty issues, the Imperium would have much bigger problems than the crippling of a single space marine chapter.

As for wasteful ... I guess that's putting it too strongly. But to be honest I'm not so sure that you can create a non-combatant space marine librarian. You could give them the physiology, but a space marine's psyche is a fragile thing. It takes a lot to take a human mind and turn it to a lifetime of war fighting for a society that the soldier has no stake in for decades (let alone centuries) on end with essentially no R&R without that mind just snapping. Esprit de corps is a big part of what holds a space marine together mentally. Take a person who is physiologically a space marine and tell him that he isn't trusted to drop with his brothers, ever, and I don't think that person would be a space marine mentally for very long.

[Melissia]

Loyalty is not traditionally an issue with either the Navis Nobilite or the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. How many times in the fluff have we seen astropaths killing themselves just to send a high-priority message? If either the NN or the AAT had material loyalty issues, the Imperium would have much bigger problems than the crippling of a single space marine chapter.

And how many times do you hear of psykers turning to chaos and betraying the Imperium and it's Emperor? Quite damn frequently. The Navis Nobilites have their own problems, and they DO have fallen houses which are dangerous and hated families. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica DOES have traitors in its midst, by the way, even if it has a good loyalty record.

As for wasteful ... I guess that's putting it too strongly. But to be honest I'm not so sure that you can create a non-combatant space marine librarian. You could give them the physiology, but a space marine's psyche is a fragile thing. It takes a lot to take a human mind and turn it to a lifetime of war fighting for a society that the soldier has no stake in. Space marines are mostly held together, mentally, by esprit de corps. Take a person who is physiologically a space marine and tell him that he isn't trusted to drop with his brothers, ever, and I don't think that person would be a space marine mentally for very long.

As opposed to someone working for an organization that hates them completely and utterly to the point of slavery? That would mean betrayal inevitably. Even the Sisters of Battle don't hate sanctioned psykers-- after all, these psykers have seen the light of the Emperor in person, and so are blessed as long as they remain loyal to He Upon His Golden Throne.

People do not react well to these kinds of situations. Powerful people have far less beneficial reactions. Psykers are very powerful people.

[Madness]

Nab: yeah, and probably all the marine chapters use NN and AAT supplied psykers for travel and transmission most of the time, but once you decided that it's acceptable to put your life in the hands of a with for what it concerns communication and movement aren't you pretty much screwed already?

I mean what makes you say "I might let a witch send me to the derive or send false messages around, but there's NO way I'm going to let a man every 1000 or so of my soldiers provide the much needed skills we could really use."

[Nabterayl]

And how many times do you hear of psykers turning to chaos and betraying the Imperium and it's Emperor? Quite damn frequently. The Navis Nobilites have their own problems, and they DO have fallen houses which are dangerous and hated families. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica DOES have traitors in its midst, by the way, even if it has a good loyalty record.

The Navis Nobilite isn't really fungible for space marines; they're the reason space marine ships are so fast. Give that up and you've given up your chapter's rapid reaction capabilities. As for the AAT, yes, psykers go rogue, but so do librarians. There are what, maybe a few thousand librarians in the Imperium? The AAT's got to have hundreds of millions of members - probably billions. And yet the planets of the Imperium still talk to each other, and its fleets and armies still make war. On the whole, yes, I trust the AAT more than I trust the collected libraria of the Adeptus Astartes.

As opposed to someone working for an organization that hates them completely and utterly to the point of slavery? That would mean betrayal inevitably. Even the Sisters of Battle don't hate sanctioned psykers-- after all, these psykers have seen the light of the Emperor in person, and so are blessed as long as they remain loyal to He Upon His Golden Throne.

Wait wait wait ... go back to slavery. Source that.

I mean what makes you say "I might let a witch send me to the derive or send false messages around, but there's NO way I'm going to let a man every 1000 or so of my soldiers provide the much needed skills we could really use."

Well, other than using psychic powers on the battlefield, librarians don't provide any skills that civilian psykers can't provide also. Are you going to tell the Black Templars that they need psychic powers on the battlefield to win? I'm not. Even among chapters that do field librarians, most space marine strike forces won't include a librarian, and they seem to get by just fine.

[Melissia]

Even if there is no actual slavery, they can still hate psykers that much. And I don't have a source. I just am going off what people are saying in this thread.


To clarify what I said about Sisters, the Sisters hate the witch. The difference between witch and psyker are, of course, social, but even Imperial Psykers tend to hate witches. The Sisterhood (And all other schola progenium trained individuals) know the difference, legally and socially, between a witch and a sanctionite, and while they will of course be vigilant in watching the latter, they honor them as servants of the Emperor-- but the former receives no such mercy.