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I was just assembling my new Kairos Fateweaver mini when it suddenly struck me how similar he is to the Imperial Aquila, the very symbol of the Imperium.

The aquila has one head facing the future with an eye, and one blinded head facing the past. This is apparently to show that the Imperium looks forever forward, and the past should not be dwelt upon on how it could have gone differently. Also one head is said to represents Mars, one Terra and the various other bits represent different branches of the Imperium.

But..

I wonder if Kairos could have influenced the very creation of the Imperium? After unity on Terra the thunderbolt symbol was abandoned, and the symbol of the fledgling empire became the aquila. The aquila: a two headed bird, with one head that can see the future and a blinded head looking towards the past is just too close a comparison with Kairos for comfort!

During the HH the aquila was slightly different. The head representing the past was only veiled, suggesting that the meaning of past events was being deliberately hidden but the veil could be removed. After the HH the aquila was changed so the head was forever blind, with no eye, suggesting that things had gone too far and it was now too late to learn from the events that had happened.

Kairos is the most prized and powerful servant of Tzeentch himself, could it be that he pulled off the 'big one' and through his long term scheming actually helped form the Imperium, thus bringing radical change to most of the galaxy, with a long-term view to the HH unraveling what had come before and ultimately forcing even more god-pleasing change? Obviously the big E eventually prevailing over Horus and the Imperium stagnating wasn't in the plan (or was it?).

I think it's entirely plausible that Tzeentch wanted to build the Imperium, just to bring it down in flames at a later time, and good old Kairos got the job done. As he has a sense of humor he may also have messed around a bit and managed to get a stylized caricature of himself plastered over every bit of equipment venerated by his very enemies!

I always assumed the double headed aquila represented the unity between Terra and Mars that basically founded the Imperium.

I always thought the Aquila was supposed to be a reference to the Imperium's stubborn refusal to learn from the past. Figures looking forward and back are pretty old in terms of mythology (Janus is the earliest one I personally know of), and I think the trope shows up fairly often in sci fi too. It's an interesting idea though!

Familiar as in Empires using double headed eagles for some time....so Mr Emperor gets a different bird than mere Kings.

I always thought it was just a cool symbol

But didn't the Emperor first devise the Aquila during the Unification wars?

Oh cool. This is probably unintentional, but its still awesome.

Out of fluff, probably a coincidence.

In fluff, a really cool theory XD

I vaguely remember that the eyeless head was a reference to the Adeptus Astropathicus... Maybe that got retconned for more grimdark...

The Aquilla represents both the union of the Imperium and the Ad Mech.

One head looks forward to the future, but it is blind. The other looks back to the past with an all seeing eye.

The right claw represents the Adeptus Astartes, the left represents the Administratum.

I always thought it was stolen from Ancient Rome.

DoW

DogOfWar wrote:I always thought it was stolen from Ancient Rome.

DoW

Me too. But.... OH GOD!!! I've been playing as chaos puppets this entire time and i never knew!!!! LOL

I love this idea, could tzeentch have had fateweaver do this to build the imperium because they were the ones that would give the warp so much power after the fall of the eldar. The warp was in trouble because not enough emotions where being created but introduce man, and suddenly emotions are coming from every direction. This makes sense with the fact that Fateweaver seems to be controlling everything that is going on in 41st millenium with plans set in motion 1000s of years ago.

Ah-ha.. memory had not entirely left me.

Oh Rogue Trader, why do you still have more inventiveness than a lot of the later more "stable" stuff