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luwupercal · 1 year

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re: Primarch Auras

there are an infinite number of attempts at this post in my drafts rn because i'm too busy to write a dang jpeg so here's my best attempt at bullet-pointing it

i've posted basically all of these thoughts to some extent in disarray over the years on this blog but i recently got tagged on a question about primarch aura effects by @/betterandbetterme, so i decided to make a post about it, so "ah yes, primarch auras" is not an XKCD 2501 - Average Familiarity moment

and then it took me a week+ because life things came up (good life things! timed creative projects and a new ttrpg campaign in a new system) to make the post. whoops

anyway, here's what we know and how I interpret it:

Primarchs have an "aura effect" that causes people to consider them great and glorious and superior and holy and extremely impressive.

This, I argue, is not a natural effect of them being so Large or anything, but in fact I think it is a subconscious psychic effect.

This is in line with previous thoughts shared onto this blog, like the daemons in giftwrap interpretation (link) (and I will quote at some point the specific bit in Reflection Crack'd that I take as canonical acknowledgement of this gdi) (but tl;dr there's probably a reason it's so easy to turn Primarchs into daemons, right?)

A reason why I think they're unnatural depends heavily on the Emperor, who has a similar, if stronger, aura, that is in fact part of his illusory Situation that blanks can see through (Lexicanum link)

(which would make these a sort of metaphysical extension of Lorgar looking like the Emperor. is this cute? you decide)

Another reason is just how dramatic their effect is - here's Vulkan sedating just, like, a random woman who doesn't know what he is. for context in the novel, it hasn't been revealed yet but Vulkan and his men have just killed that woman's protectors and she's freaking out about that (through a language barrier). there's equal examples interspersed throughout the novels

I don't think most primarchs are conscious that they have this effect/power at all because it fully acts subconsciously - compare how Mortarion sublimates his psychic potential out of dislike for psykers, if you wanna. there's precedent

a lot of Primarchs with pretty strong aura effects also show / showed either psychic powers or the potential for them - I would nominate Sanguinius and Lorgar as examples of this

(you can probably argue for Magnus having realized what's going on and controlling it directly, given how powerful he is and how extremely Supernatural he presents, but this would be an entire Point you'd be making about Magnus's personality and powerset and it's been a minute since i've read stuff with him in it, so i won't make it myself)

compare that, for example, with (psychic-wise) extremely mundane normies 30k!Guilliman or Ferrus, who people still basically worshiped at the feet of but that people found easier to point out were somehow less Glorious-Looking, so to speak, than some of their more shiny siblings - 40k!Guilliman has the advantage of the Imperium worshiping him as nearly a living god, so people are more predisposed to look up to him as holy

speaking of which, people can become, like. resistant? to this response by a variety of reasons - see: Tarasha Euten being Guilliman's mom, Sulymanya being an atheist, people who saw the uglier side of Fulgrim in Palatine Phoenix, or Riordan, the medicae who gave such few fucks that after 3 days straight helping patients not die of radiation poisoning he fell asleep standing up in front of Ferrus Manus, for example (also this moment and this moment)

(note all of these examples being mortals, roflmao)

(though when talking abt this a while ago @/horuslupercal brought up how Abaddon used to get into shouting matches with Horus, so, shrug emoji)

Primarily the way to become immunized is to see the Primarchs as people - the aura effect situation going on can't make you only feel positive about a person, it just twists the feelings you already have in the Primarch's advantage, sorta, and then the pedestals the Primarchs carry themselves on, and the supernatural deeds they're able to carry out, do the rest of the work

another thing brought up by @/horuslupercal is Angron's aura not really working, quote him "and I would wager it's ESP bc the nails mesh so poorly with the warp and psykers"

tl;dr: ???????????

primarchs are so fucking full of warp yum

#analysis #the real lesson of this post is that XKCD 2501's alt text made me snort while composing it

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