The Mutant Threat?

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**dusara217**

Hierophant wrote:
I agreed that he did break the edict - but only in response to being attacked by demons, as detailed in the HH anthology The Primarchs.

There's three things at play here;
1) Nikaea was a semi-democratic process, where the arguments and votes of Primarchs and marines had weight. If the loyalists votes were changed by circumstance, then it isn't really defiance.
2) The Emperor's prohibition of Librarians was mainly to conceal the true nature of the Warp from the Primarchs. At that point, only Magnus was aware. After being attacked by demons, that reasoning was no longer valid.
3) The Lion changed his mind only after a Librarian saved him from certain death. His reasoning was that by not using Librarians, he was risking his life, and his chapter's, and therefore putting the Imperium (and the Emperor) at risk, and if his oath to defend the Imperium was mutually exclusive to his oath to not use Librarians, then he would pick the latter of two evils and face the consequences later.

At no point was it something he chose to do lightly, and only did so as he believed it was something that would be in accordance with the Emperor's will.

I reiterate: read Fallen Angels or Descent of Angels, both have Librarians in them, despite the Edict of Nikaea, and these Librarians were well-known to the Lion.

**Psienesis**

There's a bunch of back-twisting and word-smithing going on to justify various applications or explanations of why Librarians exist after the Edict of Nikea. None of them are particularly satisfying, mainly because the sole purpose of the bit of fluff that was Nikea was to put the Thousand Sons between a rock and a hard place, and to make the Space Wolves look like dullards:

"They're not Librarians they're.... Rune Priests! Yeah! Oh, and they don't use the Warp, they're not psykers they're... druids! They... tap into the natural power of Fenris! Or something..."

"You know, everyone else calls that 'sorcery', right?"

"Shut up!"

It was a dashed off bit of fluff to set up the conflict with the Thousand Sons. Never before have they tried to explain when, how or why the Edict of Nikea was rescinded. Now, of course, they try to fill in all these details with the HH series... and, unfortunately, most of the fill-in work isn't particularly good.

**Captyn_Bob**

I think you are all forgetting, that 'mutant' also includes psykers.

Managing psykers is one of the biggest duties of the inquisition.
Uncontrolled psykers contributed to the age of strife, and the control of humanities psychic evolution may have been one of the big drivers for the great crusade in the first place.

So yes, I would say the Emperor ranked it as important.

**dusara217**

Captyn_Bob wrote:
I think you are all forgetting, that 'mutant' also includes psykers.

Managing psykers is one of the biggest duties of the inquisition.
Uncontrolled psykers contributed to the age of strife, and the control of humanities psychic evolution may have been one of the big drivers for the great crusade in the first place.

So yes, I would say the Emperor ranked it as important.

that's been mentioned. Also, if that were so, then the Emperor would have specified "Chaos, the Xenos, and those pesky Psykers we rely on to get anything done".

**Captyn_Bob**

but he also hated the squats

**dusara217**

Captyn_Bob wrote:
but he also hated the squats

squats don't exist anymore, remember? They've been replaced by midgets.

**nareik**

Squats do exist (homo sapiens rotundus), they're mentioned in the brb triple pack. In fact GW goes so far as to say there are 73 officially recognised strains of abhuman, notes 46 types are extinct/lost and then in a genius move lists squats as one of the surviving abhuman strains (alongside beastmen).

It's a genius move by GW, resetting the squat clock in a hidden away corner of the lore that very few people read in order to avoid having to publish any other material or rules on them!

**nareik**

Apologies for double post, but I had to come back after reading more 'The Enemy Within', specifically 'A Betrayal of Body'.

It states in all but a handful of chases, mutants are a danger to the Imperium.

'Once, mutations were associated with known causes - leaking reactors, or extreme environmental zones, such as high gravity mining worlds or planets seared by strange stars.

Some continue to attempt rational explanation for the rise in mutants, but it is not a rational age. Mutants are associated with the disfiguring effects of the Warp, and their unnatural features are generally considered physical proof of either open worship of the Dark Gods or membership in a secret cult (possible nod towards genestealer cults -Nareik).

A dark secret kept from prying eyes, mutation is a scourge upon Mankind a woeful reflection of the evolutionary process.'