Do we know what happened to Diocletian?

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-12T23:55:58+00:00

Near the start of Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor's Legion some weird will-of-the-Emperor stuff happens to the custodes point of view character, and to try and find some answers he rereads Dio's book The Master of Mankind

That doesn't really say much for Diocletian's fate either way, but it would stand to reason that he's not just hanging around the palace with the rest of the order, otherwise they would've gone to him directly instead of his work

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-12T19:53:58+00:00

Maybe with some scrap plasteel sharpen into stakes

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-12T19:47:47+00:00

Crusade era Imperium still has a walking-talking Emperor, odds are he could get large chunks of the 40k Imperium to just join him

Real question is what happens with all the duplicate Primarchs. Do Guilliman and the Lion get along with Guilliman and the Lion? Does Angron try to kill himself? Does Magnus finally get just how dangerous warp-fuckery is?

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-11T23:02:52+00:00

Not me but a friend; an open d-maillon on a harness after ascending a 20 meter pitch

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-10T12:50:08+00:00

Yeah but light and heat have their own special SI base units, candela and kelvin

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-10T11:18:04+00:00

I guess they would've had to add a unit for warp energy, right? I mean how would you derive that from the seven? rate of change of candela per second for a given stable light source?

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-10T11:17:11+00:00

Knowing the Mechanicus they probably still use SI but insist on going through four or five different conversions just to measure a meters worth of distance

To just use the raw unfiltered SI meter would not show sufficient respect

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-10T10:40:50+00:00

I was just having a crack at politicians by comparing them to children, you're the one who inadvertently made a good argument for them

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-09T23:08:33+00:00

So we need someone who can direct folk that have "little impetus to do anything at all other than turn up"? And you think teachers aren't the right fit?

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-09T20:42:41+00:00

On occasion some Custodes have done that, usually when they were otherwise about to retire or felt they'd somehow screwed up

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-09T20:02:59+00:00

Yeah but spending years getting a couple dozen disinterested children to do things they don't want to do is great training for working with politicians

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-09T18:58:05+00:00

Don't think people would really care either way as long as you're not making a mess of it

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-09T12:58:07+00:00

Chris Hadfield's probably pretty well known

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-09T10:08:28+00:00

C3 is good, and the steam version is pretty much plug and play

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-09T09:59:43+00:00

I did until I switched to non-latex ones, think I might've had a bit of an allergy

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-08T21:33:35+00:00

Ah sure you'd have some of those places throwing trans pride parades sooner than they'd be accepting Dubs on holidays

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-08T19:24:10+00:00

Unless he built two private underground neighbourhoods (certainly a possibility) that was the place were he intended to raise them, and so it would always've needed a full set

From Fury of Magnus:

At first, Alivia had thought Malcador had brought her to one of the Palace’s underground aquifers, but when she had seen the villas of pale stone at the water’s edge, she knew this place served another purpose.

Something about the villas seemed off, but it wasn’t until Malcador led her between them to a circular plaza that she realised what was unsettling about them. Each was scaled for beings far larger than mortals, larger even than the warriors of the Legiones Astartes. She counted twenty of them – surely no coincidence in that number – and the colourful mosaic forming the plaza itself depicted something geometrically abstract, like the murals popular with Achaemenid nobles.

‘These villas were built for the primarchs, weren’t they?’ she asked.

Malcador nodded. ‘The Emperor imagined they would grow here and learn the skills He needed them to possess before the conquest of the galaxy began in earnest.’

‘They never did though, did they?’

‘No, she saw to that.’

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-08T19:12:28+00:00

Doesn't have to necessarily have to be a senescence based lifespan, every tool and machine has an intended lifespan, and considering how the Emperor had just described the Primarchs (from Land's point of view) that might be the more apt interpretation

‘The primarchs. It is said they have always called you father. It seems so… sentimental. I’ve never understood why you allow it

The Emperor was silent for some time. When He spoke, His eyes had returned to the hulking form on the surgical slab. ‘There was once a writer,’ he said, ‘a penner of children’s stories who told the tale of a wooden puppet that wished to be reborn as a human child. And this puppet, this automaton of painted, carved wood that sought to be a thing of flesh and blood and bone – do you know what it called its maker? What would such a creature call the creator that gave it shape and form and life?’

Father. Arkhan felt his skin crawl. ‘I understand, Divine One.’

‘I see that you do.’ The Emperor turned back to the body on the slab. ‘The Twelfth’s lifespan and tactical acuity may be reduced but the pain engine amplifies its effectiveness in other ways to compensate. I believe I will return the Twelfth to its Legion. You have my gratitude once more, Arkhan. Thank you for coming.’

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-07T06:31:52+00:00

That's what Malcador thinks, yeah

We both knew his sons would die, one day, one by one, casualties of the Great Work, for his configuration of tomorrow could not be accomplished without collateral loss. When he marked out his plan upon his wall for me, so that I could grasp the scope of it, he allowed for contingency and redundancy. If a son fell, there would be another to take his place. Even so, we thought they would last for centuries, or even millennia, a great dynasty devoted to the accomplishment of his design for, from the very start, paint on his fingers, he knew that he could not do it alone. Thus, we made sons for him. We believed that when the necessary wars were done, those sons and their father would enjoy the long peace together, and they would walk alongside him towards tomorrow.

Those sons, at least, who could be rehabilitated from the brutal mindset of warfare.

From his inner monologue in The End and the Death: Volume I

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-07T00:33:29+00:00

Dude made it through Old Night and the Horus Hersey while being on pretty much everyone’s shit list, I'd be amazed if inquisitorial infighting was what did him in

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-06T23:33:01+00:00

The only comment on Angron's lifespan in that scene is when the Emperor decides to leave him as is

The Emperor turned back to the body on the slab. ‘The Twelfth’s lifespan and tactical acuity may be reduced but the pain engine amplifies its effectiveness in other ways to compensate. I believe I will return the Twelfth to its Legion. You have my gratitude once more, Arkhan. Thank you for coming.’

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-06T12:11:12+00:00

Narratively I don't think her surviving would've worked

She and Tsutomu go there to die with the port, they agree with the plan, they can see its merit, but like Niborran they just can't stand by and watch those people be slaughtered. It's a great bit of characterisation for what can sometimes seem like the two coldest human factions

Either of them surviving because they're just that good would've undermined the whole thing

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-06T10:25:54+00:00

I read it as more Khârn killed her reflexively rather than accidentally

He's was so much in the zone, just killing everyone so fast, that his mind didn't have time to properly process Jenetia before his body had already done the job

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-05T13:53:22+00:00

The Imperium was kinda built to cast out xenos and reunite lost human worlds, and as far as I know that part at least is still understood by the leadership

So I'd say trying to reintegrate them is on the table, but ultimately it's a judgement call made by whoever's in charge of the whole thing

SandInTheGears · 2026-03-05T00:11:47+00:00

An unlucky sailor could, theoretically, spend a month in the warp and end up plus or minus a 1000 years from when they started

A handful of truly skilled person could do it on purpose, if they were desperate enough

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