# Perpetuals (Spoilers)



## Deadeye776 (May 26, 2011)

So in case you haven't read Vulkan's book he takes a lot of punishment. Like I'm saying ridiculous Terminator punishment. Pretty much can't die. Okay. He's the son of the Emperor. That's the genetic trait he has. So what the fuck happened on the Vengeful Spirit? If what we've read stays true, compared to what Curze did to Vulkan, the Emperor has pretty much flesh wounds. That's it. The whole story of the Perpetuals (as I've been preaching consistency) makes the battle between Horus and the Emperor seem ridiculous. Why? A broken back, skinned left side of his face, and getting your left arm ripped off would be something a normal astartes would probably walk away from. You're telling me the Lord of the fucking Perpetuals couldn't handle it? They've put Calgar back together with NO LIMBS!!!! They have dreadnaughts. So what's gonna be the explanation for the Emperor? Now that they've changed his story line to this Perpetual crap, the final battle seems ridiculous. Curze literally tore Vulkan apart and stuck him in the exhaust of a SHIP. To be honest, Vulkan's torture makes the final battle with Horus almost seem like a joke in terms of damage. Thoughts?


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

I speculate that the reason is related to the webway crisis. Malcador was nearly dead when the Emperor was returned to Terra. He could not allow himself to die too, as the containment would fail and daemons would flood terra moments later, while was busy being dead and waiting for the respawn timer.


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## Emperorguard500 (May 5, 2010)

perpetuals is just the stupidest "lore device" ever implanted in 40k history

but from what i understand......perpetuals act differently.....some never get killed, some have to get killed, to be reborn


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## Znoz (Feb 9, 2013)

Emperorguard500 said:


> perpetuals is just the stupidest "lore device" ever implanted in 40k history


100% agree.
I think some day they say that Emperor=Jesus. Hallelujah!

Before i read about perpetuals i thought that wh40k is one of the best sci-fi universes... now i have doubts.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

Initially, the introduction of the perpetuals (in _Legion_ up to and including _Know No Fear_) was interesting and full of potential. 

Kyme ruined it with _Vulkan Lives_ and Abnett didn't do much to salvage it in _The Unremembered Empire_. As it stands, the introduction of Vulkan as a perpetual is, well, ridiculous. 

@deadeye: Horus did a lot more to the Emperor than inflict wounds that a regular Space Marine could have endured. The account in _Collected Visions_ is one of the most comprehensive we have and explains it in more detail. 

Also, each perpetual's ability to revive or reincarnate seems to be different.


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## Chompy Bits (Jun 13, 2010)

I'm also leaning towards the idea that he chose not to let himself die and resurrect, because dropping his vigil over Terra for a mere moment (now that Malcador also quite literally bit the dust) would have resulted in the entire planet being consumed by chaos and overrun by demons. Because losing Terra would pretty much have resulted in the end of the Imperium as we know it. The Emperor would essentially have resurrected back into the middle of a concentrated version of Old Night.

Overall though, I agree that the Perpetuals plot has gotten really ridiculous. Had great potential to start with, but got ruined with the whole Vulkan saga.


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## Lost&Damned (Mar 25, 2012)

I really hope no one else gets these miraculous fluff powers.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

Chompy Bits said:


> I'm also leaning towards the idea that he chose not to let himself die and resurrect, because dropping his vigil over Terra for a mere moment (now that Malcador also quite literally bit the dust) would have resulted in the entire planet being consumed by chaos and overrun by demons. Because losing Terra would pretty much have resulted in the end of the Imperium as we know it. The Emperor would essentially have resurrected back into the middle of a concentrated version of Old Night.


I think the plot tool has to have more to it... otherwise the Emperor's dying instructions would have been to use the next 500 years to relocate everything on Terra to another planet, unplug him from the Golden Throne so he could resurrect, and commit Exterminatus on what remained of Old Terra. Problems solved! Unless Exterminatus wouldn't have closed the warp rift itself, in which case they're fu$#ed.


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## Veteran Sergeant (May 17, 2012)

I'll just echo the "Black Library has made a lot of awful choices with the Horus Heresy series" sentiment.

There's not really much more to it than that. Everything about the Perpetuals is awful and poorly thought out. Making Vulkan a perpetual only exacerbated an already stupid idea. 

But the perpetuals were a Dan Abnett baby. And Dan Abnett's ideas are either pretty good, or really, really bad. There's not a ton of middle ground, lol.


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## emporershand89 (Jun 11, 2010)

Deadeye776 said:


> You're telling me the Lord of the fucking Perpetuals couldn't handle it? They've put Calgar back together with NO LIMBS!!!! They have dreadnaughts. So what's gonna be the explanation for the Emperor? Now that they've changed his story line to this Perpetual crap, the final battle seems ridiculous. Curze literally tore Vulkan apart and stuck him in the exhaust of a SHIP. To be honest, Vulkan's torture makes the final battle with Horus almost seem like a joke in terms of damage. Thoughts?


First off "Lord of the Perpetuals;" great stuff and gave me a good laugh. Secondly it does completely fuck up the story IMHO. After reading the book my thoughts were the same with the exception of Horus's weapon. Could it have been tainted, or poisoned; is that what did the Emporer in? IDK as I have bounced around the series and don't undertsand it in it's entirety.

On a final note your comment on the Dreadnought brings up a very good point. If they can put back together Adeptus Astartes warriors who have been virtually torn apart (Space Wolves anyone?) and keep them alive in a Dreadnought why is the Emporer not doing this? Seriously he could walk amongst men again, he could start the Crusade, he could truely be the God of Mankind!!

Alas, the writers never listen anyway. Just my thoughts.


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## Lost&Damned (Mar 25, 2012)

Im going on a hunch here, but they could easily apply the fact Horus and the 4 gods used psychic means primarily,which means purely physical solutions (physiological healing/dreadnought) wont work


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> Initially, the introduction of the perpetuals (in _Legion_ up to and including _Know No Fear_) was interesting and full of potential.
> 
> Kyme ruined it with _Vulkan Lives_ and Abnett didn't do much to salvage it in _The Unremembered Empire_. As it stands, the introduction of Vulkan as a perpetual is, well, ridiculous.
> 
> ...


I'm curious how exactly did they ruin it?

If they die they regenerate simple as that. They don't know they are perpetual till they get killed.

There's plenty of interesting things happening with them. That guy sent to help John is a good example.

John feels remorse about having to betray humanity but the other guy doesn't.

Vulkan is a another example while he's immortal his mind isn't, put through enough he'll go insane. With no indication he would recover without help.


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## doofyoofy (Mar 8, 2011)

I have not yet read Vulkan Lives, though it is on my list.

1. i dont think they ruined anything, as somone pointed out malcador was dying on the golden throne and the Big E had to go and help.

2. the reason the old fluff still fits with the new fluff: is the illuminati and the whole if the Emporer dies does he become a New God of Good or does he come back. ( if he does come back it might not be in time to save Terra and it would also mean the Astronimicon would b out, which I forget when the fluff says, but at one point in the Age of Apostasy didnt it blink out for a couple of seconds or something and cause massive civil wars in the Segmentums and untold countless ships lost in Warp?


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

They do not all have the ability to come back to life. I think Grammaticus says it in one of the books. Some are immortal and will live forever if not killed, but can die with a bullet in the brain as easily as the next man. Others appear to come back of their own accord, while others seem to need the help of the Cabal to come back. Maybe the Emperor was immortal without being eternal. 

At the start I thought it was a great device, especially tying back to the old Ollianus Pious fluff and how it gives an insight into the Emperor (Pious thought that the Emperor was a dick. That's nearly worth it alone.), but they are popping up everywhere now. That's kinda taking the novelty off it. Like who was the one that appeared on the WB ship in Betrayer? That was just nonsense.


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Khorne's Fist said:


> They do not all have the ability to come back to life. I think Grammaticus says it in one of the books. Some are immortal and will live forever if not killed, but can die with a bullet in the brain as easily as the next man. Others appear to come back of their own accord, while others seem to need the help of the Cabal to come back. Maybe the Emperor was immortal without being eternal.
> 
> At the start I thought it was a great device, especially tying back to the old Ollianus Pious fluff and how it gives an insight into the Emperor (Pious thought that the Emperor was a dick. That's nearly worth it alone.), but they are popping up everywhere now. That's kinda taking the novelty off it. Like who was the one that appeared on the WB ship in Betrayer? That was just nonsense.


That one from the WB ship is the one helping John Grammaticus in Unremembered Empire, and there was a hint that he had been recruited by the Eldar from Old Terra during WW2, Iwo Jima if i recall correctly.


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## acaoshes (Nov 20, 2013)

Has the fluff ever mentioned the origins of perpetuals. I always assumed they were aberrations that randomly emerge from humanity.

Alivia Sureka (a perpetual), in the short story Wolf Hunt faces a crisis which includes the following sentence.

"For all the cunning wrought into her kind's making..."

This suggests that perpetuals were manufactured?


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

John Grammaticus was a manufactured Perpetual by his own words, by the Cabal.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

emporershand89 said:


> On a final note your comment on the Dreadnought brings up a very good point. If they can put back together Adeptus Astartes warriors who have been virtually torn apart (Space Wolves anyone?) and keep them alive in a Dreadnought why is the Emporer not doing this? Seriously he could walk amongst men again, he could start the Crusade, he could truely be the God of Mankind!!


Based on the description of the Golden Throne in the Mechanicus book tested by Magos Koriel Zeth, I think the Golden Throne actually serves to boost the power available to the user. While the Big E was amazing in his own right, the Golden Throne might be the thing allowing him to do what he's doing.

Oh, sorry for the resurrection.


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## Mob (Nov 14, 2010)

I agree on the disparity in abilities being a devaluer of them as a concept. I like the mystery and some of the implications, but some of the writing of their returns has taken the 'wow factor' of it too far into ehhhhhh moments.

I like that it's implied that Ollanius can live forever unless he's killed; he seems in genuine fear for his life at points. I like that he's 'old-age' proof but can simply be killed by a bullet to the head or whatever.
I also like that Grammaticus seems to need the Cabal and some time and effort to activate his resurrection ability. He seems to stay in the same body and return to life when his magic button is pressed. Only now he's burnt out the circuit and pressing that button won't do anything anymore.

Those two abilities seem clear - immortality unless killed, resurrection that needs a specific set of circumstances. Strengths and weaknesses.

Where it loses it for me is Matt Damon and the Guardian woman. 

Matt Damon gets melted to ash and slurry, then reappears hardly anytime later completely whole. Did he regenerate from a pile of gloop? Really?! Come on. So then what? The Cabal can magic him into existence? In no time at all anywhere they like? pls no. He continues the Culture agent thing and has back-ups that can be sent in after him? Ehhhh.
It's all too magic-y and removes weaknesses if the guy can come back from being 14 molecules short of being atomised twenty minutes later. It's not made clear that he needs the Cabal, unlike John.

Guardian woman gets eviscerated then - correct me if I'm wrong - appears on a ship that left before she died, right? Totally whole. So, does she have an athame/teleport device? Those get around. Or can she, like Matt Damon, somehow choose to pop back into existence/take over someone else, Lucius style? But without the Cabal? HAX.

Vulkan was okay at first - he regens in the same body, super-Wolverine style, and it appears to have debilitating effects. Either that or even his Primarch mind has just broke from repeated torture, travelling through the warp unshielded and burning up in an atmosphere and surviving a meteor-like re-entry. 
But he starts coming back from death in minutes. Totally cheap. And it was utter melodrama to kill him like 3 or 4 times in that one extended fight scene just because he could be killed with no ramifications.

However I don't have a problem with the Emperor 'dying' like he did as a) we haven't seen the series version of it yet and b) I think there's plenty wiggle room (as already mentioned above) to get away with it.


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## Mellow_ (Aug 5, 2012)

Maybe if The Emperor were to let himself die and resurrect then all the power he stole from the Chaos Gods would have been stripped from him. Something he could not allow to happen. 

Maybe this was a condition of him keeping the power. "You may only have it whilst you live, resurrect and you will lose it"

This would make the reason why he chose the Throne over regeneration more clear.


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## Battman (Nov 2, 2012)

Just a quick comment, i personally like the idea of the perpetuals , they are quite interesting particularly John Grammaticus, who is one of the perpetuals used by the cabal for their actions (good or evil depending on perspective).

The fact that vulkan is a perpetual seems like some form of squeazed in retcon, but it takes the already near unkillable primarchs to a further level or insanity.


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## Mellow_ (Aug 5, 2012)

The bad thing about Vulkan being a perpetual is that Primarchs are already meant to be fairly bullet resistant anyway. I remember the Phoenican being shot in the head with a sniper rifle and managing to come away from it alive. So for Vulkan who essentially gets his head destroyed every 5 minutes it seems to make him seem nothing except weak and very much hurtable, despite the instant resurrection he seems able to achieve.


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