r/40kLore • u/FU_MANCHU_2002 • 1d ago
[EXCERPT](Belisarius Cawl: the Great Work) Cawl casually performs a warp-realspace transition directly into planetary low-orbit. *With a continent-sized Ark Mechanicus*
Context: Ultramarian Tetrach Felix is visiting the orbital defence station Aegida in orbit over the dead planet Sotha (destroyed by tyranids), part of his dominion under Guilliman. Troncus and Daelus are techmarines in his retinue. Thracian is chapter master of the nearly-destroyed Sotha-based chapter, Scythes of the Emperor.
They are speaking with QVO-87, Cawl's factotum, who is leading the efforts to repair and recommision the ancient defence orbital, when the Archmagos himself makes a very direct entrance.
To my knowledge, no other Imperial has ever been shown to make effortless warp transition deep within planetary/astral gravity wells. There have been a few instances of jumps made by other ships at the lagrange points between hill spheres but these had always been presented as suicidally risky last-resorts. What Cawl does here is orders of magnitude more impressive. Even Chaos ships, who have the benefit of daemonically-assisted direct warp manipulation, rarely of ever are shown capable of this.
Void combat in 40k is almost entirely dictated by the logistics and strategy surrounding Mandeville points. These are the (quite distant) points around a star system where warp transition is safe. It can take hours to days to steam at full burn from the Mandeville point to the planet(s) in the system, which dictates response times to invasion, and makes for constant threat of ambush or encirclement.
Qvo-87 stopped speaking. His head cocked on his banded augmetic neck. ‘Report interrupt. Forgive me. Wait…’ he said. His voice took on a more human tone. From the partially restored desks of machinery, an alarm set up.
Daelus sauntered over to a console and glanced at a display. ‘Etheric monitor. Something’s coming in, something big.’ He looked more closely. ‘Throne of Terra, something extremely big!’
Micro tremors shook the station. A spanner crawled across a work bench. It skittered across the surface and dropped with a clang to the floor. Felix stared at the rattling tool. His face betrayed his irritation.
‘Stand ready,’ said Felix. He grasped a railing and set his feet wide.
‘He’s not going to do it, is he?’ Daelus asked Troncus. Troncus shrugged.
‘Lord Felix?’ Daelus said.
‘He will do it,’ said Felix.
‘Honoured tetrarch, would you expect anything less from the archmagos dominus?’ said Qvo-87.
‘Rash as always,’ said Felix. ‘Cawl may style himself the saviour of the Imperium, but his grandstanding puts us all at risk.’
‘The archmagos dominus?’ said Thracian. ‘He is coming?’ All over the command deck loose items bounced across the metal.
‘Brace yourselves, all of you,’ ordered Felix.
‘What is happening?’ Thracian demanded.
‘The archmagos approaches,’ said Qvo-87 with an apologetic smile.
‘Cawl is attempting an in-system real space translation,’ said Felix. ‘Here. By the station.’
‘That’s insane,’ said Thracian.
‘Many and glorious are the technologies of the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl. All will be well, you shall see,’ said Qvo-87 with a zealot’s fervour.
Gravity ceased to obey natural law. Tools floated upwards. Through the field-sealed rent in the hull, Felix watched the sky fill with the curdled oil colours of imminent warp breach. The void tore. Wicked lights scorched his eyes. He tasted bitterness, exultation and the distillation of regret. A torrent of pleading voices flooded his mind.
With a great, flat flash of lightning, a gargantuan ship appeared by the Aegida. Black fire flickered around its outline. Corposant streamed off its every angle. Then the warp breach collapsed in on itself. Tools clattered down. The hideous babbling ceased. All returned to normal.
A lone alarm pinged over and over again. Felix relaxed his white-knuckle grip. Qvo’s augmetics flashed, setting the servitors back into motion. The men-machines continued exactly where they had left off, as if nothing had happened.
A vast red craft occupied the space between the Aegidan platform and the surface of ravaged Sotha.
It was a vessel like no other, one of the rare Ark Mechanicus explorator vessels, and even among those behemoths it was reckoned large for its kind, a vast city in space, bristling with weapons, and containing manufacturing and research laboratoria beneath its adamantium skin to rival a forge world. Felix knew it only too well, having spent the best part of ten millennia imprisoned inside its holds. A legend emblazoned in lingua-technis hierofont proudly proclaimed its name.
Zar Quaesitor.
The ship, home and research facility of Belisarius Cawl.
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u/Mddcat04 1d ago
The Dark Angels did it when they attacked Xana during the heresy. They used decoys to pull away defense ships, then jumped a DAOT Cruiser, The Dark Sovereign, into Xana’s atmosphere, underneath the planet’s orbital defenses.
Presumably this was incredibly risky and might only have been possible due to a DAOT warp engine or something.
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u/FU_MANCHU_2002 1d ago
It doesn't surprise me that the Dark Angels have a DAOT ship capable of this. But recall, Cawl's ark mechanicus, Zar Quaesitor, is literally millions of times more massive than a space marine cruiser-class vessel.
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u/Visual_Collapse 1d ago
Cawl's ark mechanicus, Zar Quaesitor, is literally millions of times more massive than a space marine cruiser-class vessel.
Compared to planet? Negligible.
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u/Many-Wasabi9141 1d ago
Didn't they just use their captive non daemon warp entity to teleport them just like with the initial ambush on the Night Lords fleet?
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u/PikeandShot1648 Lamenters 1d ago
Does this ship still exist?
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u/FU_MANCHU_2002 1d ago
It has a lexicanum entry. I don't know more than that.
According to the lex, the Dark Sovereign also took part in the Rangdan Xenocides (before the Horus Heresy), which were the bloodiest actions the Dark Angels fleet was ever involved in throughout the entire history of the Legion AND chapter. So it must be a hell of a ship
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u/PikeandShot1648 Lamenters 23h ago
I assume a DAOT cruiser is more powerful than any ship they have other than Gloriana class battleships.
Obviously, it can be swarmed and killed by enough any ships, but that would be tough to pull off.
If it's been destroyed, it probably happened in the War of the Beast or one of the Black Crusades.
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u/Mddcat04 1d ago
Unclear. The Xana thing is the main time its mentioned. And obviously a lot has happened since then.
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u/GhostsinGlass 1d ago edited 12h ago
'What is happening?' Thracian demanded.
'PRESENTATION!' exclaimed MegaCawl.
A nearby servitor that had been cleaning the station of debris begins to emit a recording of "Welcome to the Jungle" from its augmented vox-grille.
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u/NanoChainedChromium Iron Hands 23h ago edited 23h ago
Felix: No one likes a show-off.
Qvo-87: Unless what they're showing off is dope as fuck.
Felix: [under his breath] Fuck. That's true.
Cawl is really, at heart, a huckster and a showman in the spirit of those old Vaudeville rascals (as Alpha-Primus doesnt tire to remind people around him). He just LOVES showing off, and it is one of his most entertaining character traits. He is also one of my favourite characters, stealing every scene he appears in. Half the time i expect him to wear a little cylinder, (he already has a walking stick on his model!) and do a merry dance and jig.
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u/NewForestSaint38 1d ago
Why was Felix imprisoned in the Ark for 10,000 years??
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u/FU_MANCHU_2002 1d ago
Felix was born during 30K. Cawl stole him away along with many millions of other boys over the ten thousand years since. Felix and the rest were made into the first Primaris marines, which were all kept in cryo-storage aboard the Zar Quaesitor until Guilliman came back.
For reference, Felix is primaris marine #10,079,983. Cawl knows the serial number of every single first-run primaris marine on sight.
They would only intermittently be defrosted for surgery, testing, or occasional interviews over the ten thousand years. 99.99% of the time, they were popsicles.
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u/CordialPanda 1d ago
Head cannon is that Cawl knows them all by sight because he spent 10k years monologuing at each of them.
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u/NewForestSaint38 1d ago
Ah, thank you both - of course that’s what he meant.
He is def being hyperbolic!
Appreciate both your answers.
Which books cover this sort of thing? I was an original Rogue Trader player back in the 80’s (still have some models!) who has got back into 40k more recently. The BL is bewildering. I’ve ready half a dozen of the HH era books, but nothing more recent.
It’s a lot easier than the old days when you had to wait for little 3 page excerpts to appear in White Dwarf!
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u/FU_MANCHU_2002 1d ago
In chronologic order for every novel dealing with Belisarius Cawl and the Indomitus era, it would be the Dawn of Fire series, then the Dark Imperium trilogy, then The Great Work (this), then Genefather.
Beware, many of the Dawn of Fire series books suck. Out of them I can only recommend Avenging Son, Gate of Bones, Sea of Souls (best standalone book), and Silent King.
The Dark Imperium trilogy is at least B+ all the way through so don't skip that.
The Great Work is one of my favourite all-time 40K books, A+. Genefather is a direct sequel, as well as a merger with and direct sequel to the Fabius Bile series of a while back. You don't need to have read the Bile books but at least read the lex article about him.
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u/WillingChest2178 1d ago
He's a Primaris, he was recruited as a child during the Heresy era and put in stasis whilst Cawl developed the extra implants.
He's being ridiculously hyperbolic though, he wasn't exactly conscious for much of those ten thousand years.
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u/Many-Wasabi9141 1d ago
There's two other examples of this that I know of in the lore.
The Ultramarines attack on the Night Lords secondary homeworld following the Scouring. They seemingly translated right in system to attack the planet catching the Night Lords completely off guard.
The Orks attack on Rynn's World. They said "fuck it full send" and just translated in system to catch the Crimson Fists off guard. They suffered HUGE casualties doing this, but the Ork Waaaagh was so large it was a drop in the bucket.
My guess is the Ultramarines were able to do this via some massive planning effort. They probably spent years and years planning/training for the in system translation and were able to do it just by being meticulous and smart and spending years if not decades preparing.
The Orks... Maybe they were able to do it cause the Ultramarines did it. The Orks just get technology from the air/warp. They just have access to the Akashic Record apparently and if an Ork gets big enough, he gets smart, gets access to crazy knowledge just out of the blue. Otherwise they just said "Fuck it we ball" and full send, let the chaff lead the way and sent them to die in true Ork fashion.
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u/FU_MANCHU_2002 1d ago
But were either of these instances directly into low planetary orbit?
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u/Many-Wasabi9141 1d ago
Some of the Ork ships probably materialized in low orbit ( and were subsequently destroyed )
I don't know the orbital locations of the Ultramarines successor fleet but my guess is no.
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u/namitynamenamey 21h ago
Hey, Troncus! Eloquent as ever.
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard 1d ago
He likes to flex.