The end of "Feat of Iron". What does it mean?

[Grubnar]

So I just finished reading the short story "Feat of Iron", by Nick Kyme, from "The Primarchs. At the end there is the following:

'There is hope,' he muttered. 'In the empire of the Battle-King, he who would install an heir. Even if the Gorgon falls and fails to heed our warning, there is another who will listen, one who was lost.'

I am not sure what to think. Can anyone tell me what it means? Or is this something new?

[Scalebug]

New...

It is going to spark a lot of "ohhh! One of the two lost Primarchs!" debate, though my guess it is just a deliberate teasing of the fanbase obviously jumping to that conclusion, and really just means something else...

Maybe the Eldar there were associated with the Cabal, and had originally planned to use the Iron Hands instead of the Alpha Legion, the story is set before "Legion" isn't it?

Lost then meaning not having dissapeared, but more lost as in lost his purpose, just being a bit lost, not gone... the Eldar, with their fairly soul-centric view of the world, would certainly call A&O "one"?

[trigger]

The battle king is reboute guilliman
The gorgon is ferrus mannus


The later died and the former rebuilt the impirium with the index asartas

To date stopping chaos from achieving it's goal ( maybe)


Its nothing to do with the lost and fallen

[Lord Zarkov]

No, the Battle King is surely the Emperor (he who would install an heir (i.e. Horus). An then in his Empire (i.e. the Imperium) "there is another who would listen" (to the Eldar), and this one "was lost".

So Alpharius seems quite likely IMO.

[Col. Tartleton]

Except that Battle King is specifically used as Roboute Guilleman's calling card and no would deny that at it's peak the Ultramar was an Empire within an Empire.

I'm going to go with...

CAPTAIN ORAR! BEARER OF THE SCEPTER OF GALAXIAN!

[Kiro]

I asked roughly the same thing in the BL thread on The Primarchs but it seems to have slipped under the radar.

I too am curious who 'the one who was lost' could be. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread!

[Eldred91]

Its tenuous but it could be Oll Peerson (sp?) from Know no Fear.

He is on Calth within Ultramar and therefore in the empire of the Battle-King and if you assume the Eldar are part of the Cabal then the "one who was lost" could refer to the fact that he is no longer a Cabal agent. The main difficulty with this theory is why he would be commensurate to a Primarch but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Inquisitor Engel]

He is on Calth within Ultramar and therefore in the empire of the Battle-King and if you assume the Eldar are part of the Cabal then the "one who was lost" could refer to the fact that he is no longer a Cabal agent. The main difficulty with this theory is why he would be commensurate to a Primarch but I thought I'd throw it out there.

The Eldar in "Feat of Iron" don't seem particularly in on the Cabal's plan, to be honest. Sure there are SOME Eldar in on it, but I think it's a stretch to say an entire race, even all the Seers, are in on it.

[Idaan]

Quite the opposite really. Slau Dha in "Legion" is explicitly mentioned to be a traitor to his race because he led the Cabal into the Black Library. Most Eldar would probably follow Eldrad Ulthran's prophecy rather than the Acuity, and thus try to help the Emperor, not Horus.

[Inquisitor Engel]

Quite the opposite really. Slau Dha in "Legion" is explicitly mentioned to be a traitor to his race because he led the Cabal into the Black Library. Most Eldar would probably follow Eldrad Ulthran's prophecy rather than the Acuity, and thus try to help the Emperor, not Horus.

Old OLD RT quote - "Make no mistake human, we do not fight for your Emperor. We fight against Horus."

[Kiro]

Quite the opposite really. Slau Dha in "Legion" is explicitly mentioned to be a traitor to his race because he led the Cabal into the Black Library. Most Eldar would probably follow Eldrad Ulthran's prophecy rather than the Acuity, and thus try to help the Emperor, not Horus.

Having just re-read it, I can't think of any passage that calls Slau Dha a traitor as much as saying no non-Eldar had ever been in there.

[ryng_sting]

Fulgrim? After all Eldrad does try to warn him.

[Kiro]

Fulgrim? After all Eldrad does try to warn him.

Probably the first go-to option, but the Eldar do say 'who was lost'

[All Cing Eye]

I thought it was referring to Lion'El Johnson. It seems like Chaos tried hard to corrupt him to Horus's cause, and he grew up on a chaos tainted planet, but he resisted. He could be the one who was lost.

[Brother Fenix]

Just finished this, and have been trying to parse it our myself.

"In the Empire of the Battle-King..." - You could definitely make the argument for the Battle-King being Guilleman, as he is the only primarch who is currently known for having an "empire" although many arguably might be considered a "Battle" King.

"he who would install an heir.." - Combined with the sentence above this actually got me thinking about Russ, although known among humanity as the "Wolf-King" he could be the battle king to the eldar. Getting back to the "install an heir" portion, I thought of Russ because of the story about Russ leaving and telling Bjorn to watch after the chapter. Guilleman though, also does make a lot of sense here as he essentially sets up the way Humanity will run in the Golden Throne era, running it himself for a time, and therefore installs an "heir." Although, I would think it would be pluaral "heirs" the regents of Terra.

"Even if the Gorgon fails there is one who will listen..." Not much to this, Gorgon = Mannus, and the one who will listen is...

"One who was lost..." Hearing this it makes me think of Garviel Loken, even though it kind of throws out the rest, unless you say Horus is the Battle-King. Loken is "lost" and Garro brings him back. He is definitely one who will listen having seen Horus's treachery first hand. Still gave me a second thought about Bjorn, as he is interned in a Dreadnaught (and could be considered "lost"), although that happens far after the Heresy, so...

Someone said Oll Presson above. That does make quite a bit of sense too. He was in the empire of Guilleman, he did leave his role as an agent of the Cabal (if you believe the Cabal and Eldar are aligned, which I don't believe they are) so he could be considered "lost." Don't quite see the "install an heir" part though.

Getting back to my comment though above about the Cabal. It seems obvious that the Eldar are trying to gather forces to defeat the plan of the Cabal, as they try to convert Fulgrim (Eldrad), get Mannus to save his own neck (Diviner) and then still want to contact this third person who seems to side with the Emperor. If they could see the future and wanted the outcome the Cabal wanted, you think they would try to get more forces on the side of Chaos, as we see what the outcome was.

So after all that, I guess I don't have much more than anyone else as far as idea's. It would seem to me though, the reference would almost need to be about a Primarch, or someone else VERY powerful, since it would take some serious power and influence to alter the course of the war at this point.

[Idaan]

Having just re-read it, I can't think of any passage that calls Slau Dha a traitor as much as saying no non-Eldar had ever been in there.

“John, listen to him,” said G’Latrro. “He let the Cabal into the Black Library, so they could
read this truth. He broke all the ancient edicts to make that happen. It is predetermined. The Cabal
has exhausted hundreds of other agents trying to recruit the Astartes.”

Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters

[Tymell]

No, the Battle King is surely the Emperor (he who would install an heir (i.e. Horus). An then in his Empire (i.e. the Imperium) "there is another who would listen" (to the Eldar), and this one "was lost".

So Alpharius seems quite likely IMO.

"In the Empire of the Battle-King..." - You could definitely make the argument for the Battle-King being Guilleman, as he is the only primarch who is currently known for having an "empire" although many arguably might be considered a "Battle" King.

Just to be clear on one point, the "Battle King" -is- Guilliman. That's not an interpretation, that's his actual title. It's mentioned in the Ultramarines Index Astartes several times and is mentioned as his somewhere in The Primarchs too (I can't remember precisely where, but I definitely saw it in there somewhere).

[Connor MacLeod]

Just so we can clear this up, two relevant quotes from The Primarchs

In his time as equerry, he had learned much from Ferrus Manus. Often the Gorgon stood in Guilliman’s shadow but he was just as adroit a tactician. Others claimed his only drawback was that his single-mindedness sometimes left him slightly myopic. Though he would never speak of it aloud, Santar believed Ferrus didn’t have the Battle King’s patience for endless scenario-making either.

"There is hope," he muttered. "In the empire of the Battle-King, he who would install an heir. Even if the Gorgon falls and fails to heed our warning, there is another who will listen, one who was lost."

Unless one reads more into a - than is deseved, its almost certain that Guilliman is the BAttle King (nevermind that Ultramar is the only 'Empire within an Empire' we actually know of, unless we're going to count the AdMech or something.)

The 'one who is lost' first occured to me to be Oll, since he's the only one we know of in Ultramar as of yet who would fit that description. It doesn't rule out other possibilities in the future, but as of yet we have noone else who would fit that description.

The only bit that I can't figure out is the 'heir' bit, unless that is playing into the Conspiracy Theories the Lion is engaging in in his story in that book about Guilliman's ulterior motives. Maybe there is more to it than that.

[Brother Fenix]

Just so we can clear this up, two relevant quotes from The Primarchs

The only bit that I can't figure out is the 'heir' bit, unless that is playing into the Conspiracy Theories the Lion is engaging in in his story in that book about Guilliman's ulterior motives. Maybe there is more to it than that.

MacLeod, thanks for included that quote, I didn't really notice that when reading, but the "prophesy" is at the end of the book, so it probably didn't seem important to me as I read over it earlier.

Having that cleared up, I would make the argument that it is a character not yet introduced. Since based upon the wording of the quote, it would appear that it is not Guilliman himself. Unless there is something in "Know No Fear" in which Oll says, "The Emperor should really have an heir," or says "Guilliman is they guy to take over if something happens the Emperor," you couldn't undeniably say it is him. Still looking good on the "lost" argument though. Battle of Calth, a lot of the Ultramarines go underground, and could be considered "lost." Just throwing it against the wall and seeing if anything sticks.