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

[Nabterayl]

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.

Eh, I throw down the same challenge to what people say in this thread. Source it.

Templar Navigators I can kind of see even in a Black Templar environment - I get the impression that Navigators are fully aware of how indispensable they are, and kind of don't give a rat's *** what anybody thinks of them. If a Navigator House provides service to the Templars, I'm sure it's either (i) for that House's own damn good reasons, and/or (ii) because even Black Templars know enough not to piss off the people that make their fleets go.

As for other psykers, such as astropaths, I think there's two plausible options here. The first is the same as for Navigators - that while Black Templars may not like them, they know better than to piss off the people that let keep the chapter together. Even sanctioned psykers in other branches of service are used to being around people who don't like them, and they seem to find ways to cope. The second is that the Black Templars draw exclusively from psykers who themselves view their powers as unholy abominations, and choose service with the Templars as a form of penance for their very existence. We know there are plenty of psykers who hate what they are, and choosing the discipline of service with the Templars strikes me as a very Imperial mindset.

[Melissia]

At the same time, emotionally unstable psykers have an unsettling tendency to turn to chaos. One whom vies themselves as cursed, hated beings could very well turn to worshipping Nurgle for instance. Or they could just snap and turn to one of the others-- out of rage, turn to Khorne, out of hope turn to Tzeentch, and simply out of a desire to enjoy their life before it's violently ended, turn to Slaanesh.

[Nabterayl]

At the same time, emotionally unstable psykers have an unsettling tendency to turn to chaos. One whom vies themselves as cursed, hated beings could very well turn to worshipping Nurgle for instance. Or they could just snap and turn to one of the others-- out of rage, turn to Khorne, out of hope turn to Tzeentch, and simply out of a desire to enjoy their life before it's violently ended, turn to Slaanesh.

True, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that psykers with the Black Templars have a higher "failure rate" than many other places in the Imperium. But there's still going to be a nigh-inexhaustible supply of self-hating psykers to take their place, and I imagine the Black Templars would find the failure rate of their civilian psykers just one more reason to "abhor the witch."

EDIT: Just to be clear, my contention is not that Black Templars "make sense." I think they're a good deal sillier than even a normal space marine chapter, which is saying something. My contention is that, within the internal logic of the universe, they are not facially doomed to failure as a fighting organization.

[Melissia]

If psykers keep turning to chaos at a higher rate then it greatly increases the chance of them failing. Especially since the chapter is larger and thus needs more psykers to begin with.

[Nabterayl]

If psykers keep turning to chaos at a higher rate then it greatly increases the chance of them failing. Especially since the chapter is larger and thus needs more psykers to begin with.

Sure it does. But "greatly increases the chance of them failing" is not the same as "there is no way, within the logic of 40K, that this chapter even still exists as a fighting organization."

EDIT: Against the increased failure rate self-hatred would bring, I suppose we should balance the possibility that Black Templars use even those astropaths that they have as little as possible. After all, the Black Templars are among the last chapters I would turn to if I was asking for help, so who do they talk to? Themselves? How often do even the various crusades need to talk outside of the crusade? It strikes me that it's possible - though this is mere speculation - that the Black Templars don't actually do a whole lot of FTL communication. And I think it's a pretty safe bet that they don't use their astropaths for seeing the future.

[Kuhlbert]

Wow. Guess I set off a land mine here

At the risk of fueling this fire, I'll say that I have no problem with marine chapters using the Navigators and Astropaths - why wouldn't you use the experts? Flying a ship in the warp needs the navigator gene, and being an astropath requires you being soul bound to the emperor. Do these guys go rogue? Yup. But so do marine chapters

But we've drifted off my initial topic for discussion, and decided to bash the BTs (sad, really - they're my favorite chapter). Again I'll ask my question - perhaps better worded:

If the Emperor outlawed Pyskers and ordered the Chapters to disband their Librarius' at the meeting on Nikaea - why are there Librarians in use in the modern chapters?

And for those who haven't read the book - a distinction _is_ made between sorcery and psychics - and the Emperor's edict in the book _specifically_ bans all psychic powers and disbands the Librarius (page 355).

So - for the purpose of discussion - if the book is the new canon - are all the modern chapters traitors? (lol - yes, I don't really mean that... but you get the point).

Interestingly - since there is a lot of BT bashing going on - IF the book is correct, the BTs seem to be following the Emperor's edicts quite fine, and it might put a different POV on their rabid-ness...

[Nabterayl]

Ooh, very interesting, Kuhlbert. Let me come at it from this angle ...

I have a very hard time seeing libraria as entirely extra-codex. Even the Ultramarines break codex organization with some regularity, but I have a really hard time imagining the Ultramarines maintaining an entire branch of the chapter that the codex is just silent on, or worse, forbids. So I'm going to use that conjecture to assume that the codex does speak of libraria.

That being the case, perhaps this was part of the organizational wrangling that went on following the Heresy? I'm reminded of Corax's argument for increasing the chapters' naval capabilities, his argument being that if the legions had had better fleets, the Raven Guard wouldn't have gotten so completely mauled at Istvaan V. Perhaps other primarchs felt similarly about librarians - that Chaos sorceries wouldn't have been so effective if the legions had had better psychic capabilities?

[Melissia]

Given that it's Black Library fiction, I'd say there isn't really a "new canon" insomuch as it is a new perspective on old canon. If it were a codex or rulebook, I'd put it as "new canon".

[wittdooley]

Given that it's Black Library fiction, I'd say there isn't really a "new canon" insomuch as it is a new perspective on old canon. If it were a codex or rulebook, I'd put it as "new canon".

I don't know... shouldn't we kind of consider the Black Library HH Books in particular the new canonical works? I mean, they're far and away more substantial than Index Astartes ever was...

Regardless, I don't think we can accurately comment on this until we see the reaction of the Emperor to the aftermath of Prospero. We all know the Emperor knows and sees a lot of future events (or possible ones) due to his abilities as a psyker. Perhaps there was an ulterior motive to the verdict at the council of Nikaea. Most likely the Emperor realized what Magnus had done to save his chapter in the first place, and was attempting to thus save Magnus and the Thousand Sons from a fate he knew was inevitable if they continued to use their powers. I think this is more likely.

What irks me the most is that Magnus DID have to make a very hard decision when saving his chapter because the Emperor was unable/unwilling to fix the change problem in the first place.

[Madness]

Personally I'm not concerned about any marine chapter using navigators or astropaths, I just don't understand how can they pretend to be intolerant of every kind of psyker (hey, wasn't the emperor a psyker too?) while doing so.

If you are tolerant for psykers in the amount required to use astropaths or navigators, then you should really have no problem using librarians YOU get to train, screen and monitor 24/7.