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Very heavy spoilers follow from Vulkan lives
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Sounds super lame

 Ravenous D wrote:
Sounds super lame

Perpetuals are the worst gak to come out of Black Library, with the exception of C.S. Goto.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Sounds super lame

It is. Primarchs are already ageless & nearly indestructible.

Interesting idea that the Golden Throne is stopping healing. Different idea.

Guess that explains Thawn.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Sounds super lame

Yeah, it wasn't IMO.

Vulkan Lives (finished it yesterday) was pretty great.

Leaves open the notion that, while perpetuate cant be killed by conventional means, they can in fact be killed.

I think it also introduces Eldrad. But I can't be sure.

Not all Primarchs are true immortals in the sense they cannot be killed. Ferrus Mannus/Sanguinious/ possibly papa smurf and Horus are indications that primarchs can in fact "die".

What makes Vulcan unique amongst the Primarchs is that he is truly unkillable ie. complete dismemberment will not stop him from healing.

There is also fluff indicating that some Primarchs are not immortal. I believe there is a passage in the space wolves codex where Leman Russ indicates that his "Lifes breath is almost spent..." What that means is up for interpretation however I think that he was saying that he was really old and was going to die soon.

Perpetuals suck.

So a near invincible war machine decked in more armor than most tanks can now heal like wolverine?

Well then...

Well, all Primarchs have healing factors. In The Mirror Crack'd, Fulgrim demonstrated a fairly powerful one, but not nearly as advanced as healing from being turned to ash.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Well, all Primarchs have healing factors. In The Mirror Crack'd, Fulgrim demonstrated a fairly powerful one, but not nearly as advanced as healing from being turned to ash.

Wolverine regenerated from being at the ground zero of a nuke from maybe a few cells if we're really pushing it.

One of the rumors that bounced around concerning the Emperor was that being stuck on the throne kept his spirit from going back into the warp, reforming as a human, and being reborn. Sure, there'd be 20ish years of hectic insanity as the new Emperor grew up, but things would instantly Grimlight when he came back.

This book seems to indicate that something similar may be happening, except his current body would be fine if they'd just unplug him for 2 minutes.

TLDR: Emperor is a windows computer. Turning if off then on again makes it all better.

DogofWar1 wrote:
One of the rumors that bounced around concerning the Emperor was that being stuck on the throne kept his spirit from going back into the warp, reforming as a human, and being reborn. Sure, there'd be 20ish years of hectic insanity as the new Emperor grew up, but things would instantly Grimlight when he came back.

This book seems to indicate that something similar may be happening, except his current body would be fine if they'd just unplug him for 2 minutes.

TLDR: Emperor is a windows computer. Turning if off then on again makes it all better.

I like that theory. Though can the IoM afford the downtime the emperor is dead? All navigation would be completely down and we'd be in a hell of a mess.

"Wait, why is the signal jammer of-" xD

Looks like it's time to start reading.

I'd really like the emperor to come back, but at the same time I'd prefer that he didn't. What effects would he have on the current IoM? He'd probably be furious as hell to see what has become of it.

 Kain wrote:

Wolverine regenerated from being at the ground zero of a nuke from maybe a few cells if we're really pushing it.

With magical assistance, yes.

Though Wolverine is generally portrayed as being capable of faster and more powerful healing than a Primarch, yeah.

Is it only true of Vulkan in regards to him being a perpetual? It would seem odd that the Emperor only created one of his generals that way when he had the capability to create all like that, unless he was well aware that there would be nine traitors or because of the way in which he created Vulkan, to be more human than his brothers.

When the discussion about the Emperor becoming a god comes up I have often thought that it was the Golden Throne that was preventing him from doing so, keeping his physical body alive a stopping the spirit from being released. Perhaps the Golden Throne has been modified to keep the Emperor from leaving the mortal plain, beyond its original design? The Emperor did after all request to be put in it, unless it was only a means to keep the breach sealed and to sustain him in his near death state. I recall that there was a piece of fluff where some Inquisitors were discussing what would happen if the Emperor were to die and they said that they would prevent that or something to that extent.

Chuck Norris with the healing powers of Wolverine and a God-like armour? He should slaughter some Sororitas and bath in their blood to be really on the safe side

Lol, BL keeps getting worse. First the utterly stupid idea of perpetuals ( once upon a time you had to drown the galaxy in blood to become truly immortal...) now at least one of the already suetastic primarchs
and the carrion god himself can't be killed. Let's wait a few years and they turn blonde/ become realy realy strong when they are sufficiently angry...

 cincydooley wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
Sounds super lame

Yeah, it wasn't IMO.

Vulkan Lives (finished it yesterday) was pretty great.

Leaves open the notion that, while perpetuate cant be killed by conventional means, they can in fact be killed.

I think it also introduces Eldrad. But I can't be sure.

.. Wasn't Eldrad already introduced in Fulgrim ..?

 reds8n wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
Sounds super lame

Yeah, it wasn't IMO.

Vulkan Lives (finished it yesterday) was pretty great.

Leaves open the notion that, while perpetuate cant be killed by conventional means, they can in fact be killed.

I think it also introduces Eldrad. But I can't be sure.

.. Wasn't Eldrad already introduced in Fulgrim ..?

Yup, way back then

Well snap. Needless to say, it's been a long ass while since I've read Fulgrim. Is Eldrad part of the Cabal then too?

All of you complaining about Vulkan being a perpetual need to read the book before you continue, honestly. There's a LOT of information in the new book regarding the perpetuals and it's all really well developed. Grammaticus is a really solid character and learning more about him and his motivations was really interesting.

Further, as I said before, Vulkan being a perpetual is pretty appropriate, as of all the Primachs, he's being painted as the one that really understands that he's there to protect the imperium of man, not lord over it. Additionally, the book leaves it pretty wide open that, again as I said before, while perpetuals can't be killed by conventional means, they can be killed.

I don't think he is of the Cabal, I think if he were it would be him who met with Alpharius and not Slau Da, I think his name was.

So what are the perpetuals, or what else can be learnt about them?

Are all the Primarchs perpetuals or is there an explanation as to why it's only Vulkan?

 Pilau Rice wrote:
I don't think he is of the Cabal, I think if he were it would be him who met with Alpharius and not Slau Da, I think his name was.

So what are the perpetuals, or what else can be learnt about them?

Are all the Primarchs perpetuals or is there an explanation as to why it's only Vulkan?

Okay, so there really was a lot in this book. Oll Perrson and John Grammaticus are very different types of perpetuals, apparently. Grammaticus makes a comment about being the "harbinger of destruction" for all of mankind, which was pretty profound. While they didn't say it specifically, I got the impression that he and Perrson may be like the ying & yang of human perpetuals. Additionally, it doesn't appear that Grammaticus was ALWAYS a perpetual, but was rather made one (I think that's how I read it).

Vulkan is the only Primarch that is a perpetual, and the Emperor is one as well. Grammaticus has actually spoken to the Emperor, which I thought was REALLY interesting. Additionally, I think there must be some elemental tie in with the perpetuals, as they make a HUGE deal in this book about Vulkan being "of the earth." I think Vulkan is the only Primarch that is a perpetual because he's the only Primarch that really has a personal interest in the preservation of humanity. I could be reading into that too far, but that's my understanding. One of Curze's primary forms of torture in the novel relies heavily on this sense of compassion.

In Legion we do have that brief encounter between Grammaticus and the Emperor but as far as I can remember, it was only once and very brief, a mere handshake and a few words.

I think we also get something along those lines in the meeting between Ol and Grammaticus in Fear to Tread, where he mentions that he isn't like Ol.

I think the Harbinger of Destruction would relate to his relationship with the Cabal and their plan against the Primordial Annihilator.

Is Mr Kyne setting up a possible way, if ever allowed to, get a Primarch back into a 40k setting?

The Emperor requested to be put on the Golden Throne, he wouldn't stop his own healing by being placed on there.... Unless, Duh Duh Duhhhhhhh, he didn't actually want to be put on the throne, it was all a ploy to prevent his healing as someone else wanted all the ruling powers.

I love a bit of baseless speculation at times. I wonder if I'll read this idea in a year or so on 40k wiki stated as actual fluff?

Great, more perpetuals? They already sucked everything interesting out of Ollanius Pius with that gak to make him another best bud with Emps, instead of the sacrifice of the unknown for a higher purpose.

Now Vulkan is immortal too?

Did they really name an immortal Old Person?

So how does Vulkan, a Primarch, get to be a Perpetual and none of his other brothers, who are also all Primarchs, are?

That simply makes no internal sense.

 Psienesis wrote:
So how does Vulkan, a Primarch, get to be a Perpetual and none of his other brothers, who are also all Primarchs, are?

That simply makes no internal sense.

Because Vulkan is better than you?