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There was a salamander in the first Tome of Fire book who was six thousand years old, but he spent most of that in a su-san coma and died of old age ten minutes after waking up.

Hmm, wonder if that's the first canonical depiction of a Space Marine dying of old age

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
the Cypher dataslate has some intresting implications if you read carefully between the lines. I particularly refer to the passage that says

Patchy records do seem to indicate that a few of
Luther’s charges – both veterans and new recruits alike – rejected his newer
teachings, remaining true to the Legion, Lion El’Jonson, and their Emperor. These
individuals who did not join the betrayal are not named, but seem to have begun
the fighting before the Dark Angels fleet appeared in orbit. To show their rejection
of Luther, some of the loyalists seem to have repainted their armour. This, perhaps,
gives a hint as to the real reason why the Legion switched from black to green
colours in the aftermath of the Fall of Caliban.

this is an intresting statement because Cypher wears green power armor.

are perhaps some of the fallen not as fallen as we might think? it's an intresting question

Except that traditionally Cypher wore black armour. It has only been recently been changed to green.

Maybe so, but on the other hand depictions of him wearing green armor are current and are in the dataslate that line is mentioned so you gotta wonder about that.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Except that traditionally Cypher wore black armour. It has only been recently been changed to green.

Cypher has worn green since the third edition Chaos Codex.

Animus wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Except that traditionally Cypher wore black armour. It has only been recently been changed to green.

Cypher has worn green since the third edition Chaos Codex.

And if I recall, that was his first appearance. He certainly didn't show up in the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex with all the other Chaos guys.

I like the idea that neither are trustworthy. Like most of the 40k universe. I classify the entire 40k universe as a good example of the unreliable narrator. That said. I take the entire lion and luther thing with a grain of salt.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
That isn't confirmed canon, it is pure speculation if mentioned in the fluff. Fact is, most marines die before they get to the point they could die of old age or become inactive.

The Blood Angels and Dante are not an example of this as his age is evidently tied to the fluff that they're vampire-ish.... So it's fitting for him to be uber old.

I have also read many passages stating a marine lives 700 to 800 years old.

More than willing to be proved wrong on this though.

Afraid it is now, a 10k year old dark Angel turns up in Pandorax no stasis, no warp, just chilling for 10k years, that makes marines bloody long lived if not immortal.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
There was a salamander in the first Tome of Fire book who was six thousand years old, but he spent most of that in a su-san coma and died of old age ten minutes after waking up.

Thought it was more of a case of atrophy that caused him to die rather than age.

We are talking about these guys that have made entire inquisition ship and spacecrafts vanish, so the truth about their heresy era story will never be told..?

Wow, I'm loving all these speculations.

I have to put my voice to the people that say Cypher is the last to hold the original principles of the DA true cause of the comment on the green power armor, the sword fluff and the mysterious voyage to the golden throne he seems to be on as well as his apparent fallen angel followers.

That would be so beast

I hope that BL write a trilogy on this that's called "the fallen angels omnibus" or something with stories all abut Cypher and how he sees things. Stories like "the promise" or "mistaken motives" or something to prove his innocence, ya know. Man my mind is killing me at the thought of that. Go Cypher

Ps: Why does Cypher sometimes looks young and sometimes older

Functionally immortal. As in "immortal" enough to achieve their function. Which is to make war until killed in battle.

Seems to me like age is of no concern to them as their life spans can be cut short through other means.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cursed Founding wrote:
Ps: Why does Cypher sometimes looks young and sometimes older

He must travel through the Warp to achieve his goals and would more than likely be affected by its crazy time dialation effects.

Malik_Raynor wrote:
Azreal...being the Grandmaster is the only Dark Angel alive that knows of Luther and the Lion being where they are today...

Just pointing out that Azrael (or anyone in all the galaxy) does not know the Lion is in the rock. He knows about Luthor but not the Lion.

Also, Cypher is supposed to be wearing green armor, the idea being he was (supposedly) a part of the loyalist faction on Caliban during the Fall.

Edit: spelling

On this one I believe Cypher, being distinct from The Unforgiven and Luther's Fallen. The question of who fell, Lion or Luther, was definitively answered in the HH books. I can't recall which book exactly, but it's the one that sees Luther sent home after almost allowing the Lion to be assassinated. The Lion takes a company of brothers to a forge world seemingly at random, there they discover the Archmagos has turned Chaos and barely managed to secure massive siege weaponry before it can be taken off the planet to assist the rebellion.

The closing paragraph of that book is the Lion and Peturbo (pre-Chaos) meeting one another, the Lion offers the siege weapons to Peturbo for his support in making the Lion the Emperor's Warmaster once Horus's rebellion has been crushed. The Lion recalled that Horus had the siege engines built to fight a xenos enemy, but by the time they were completed the xenos had been eliminated. The Lion knew Horus would be unable to assault Terra without these weapons and moved to immediately secure them once news of the rebellion reached the Angels. Being the Lion he didn't openly broadcast his plans, simply leaving the current fight to handle his business. Obviously he chose the wrong brother to trust and the siege engines were delivered to Horus only slightly behind schedule and the delay caused by redirecting his army lead to speculation that he was waiting to see who won.

Cypher, or more properly The Lord Cypher, appears to be the last Lord Cypher of the Order that was appointed by the Lion himself. The final Lord Cypher was the only survivor of the Order of the Wolf and likely had knowledge of the corrupting powers of Chaos, even if they were not given that name yet. That Cypher is a title and not a name is something that only a few DA Libby's understand according to the dataslate. The Lord Cypher's purpose is to test the Order and ensure that the rules and strictures are adhered to, one can easily see how Cypher's journey across the Imperium serves this purpose even to this day.

In Ravenwing we get reports that Cypher is seen alongside Fallen, but there is conflict between them. The Fallen do their best to destroy the DA recruiting world, while Cypher is only there to secure the hidden geneseed on that planet. It is not inconceivable that the Lions Sable were not destroyed, rather than were brought into the fold to serve as Cypher's agents, but he required more geneseed to keep the numbers up.

squidhills wrote:

Animus wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Except that traditionally Cypher wore black armour. It has only been recently been changed to green.

Cypher has worn green since the third edition Chaos Codex.

And if I recall, that was his first appearance. He certainly didn't show up in the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex with all the other Chaos guys.

That was the first a MODEL appeared. He does in fact have rules in the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex.

Supposedly, they were asked back then why the studio model was painted green when fluff wise it should be black and they responded that the painter on knew he was a former Dark Angel, so he painted him to match the studio DA scheme.

andystache wrote:
On this one I believe Cypher, being distinct from The Unforgiven and Luther's Fallen. The question of who fell, Lion or Luther, was definitively answered in the HH books. I can't recall which book exactly, but it's the one that sees Luther sent home after almost allowing the Lion to be assassinated. The Lion takes a company of brothers to a forge world seemingly at random, there they discover the Archmagos has turned Chaos and barely managed to secure massive siege weaponry before it can be taken off the planet to assist the rebellion.

The closing paragraph of that book is the Lion and Peturbo (pre-Chaos) meeting one another, the Lion offers the siege weapons to Peturbo for his support in making the Lion the Emperor's Warmaster once Horus's rebellion has been crushed. The Lion recalled that Horus had the siege engines built to fight a xenos enemy, but by the time they were completed the xenos had been eliminated. The Lion knew Horus would be unable to assault Terra without these weapons and moved to immediately secure them once news of the rebellion reached the Angels. Being the Lion he didn't openly broadcast his plans, simply leaving the current fight to handle his business. Obviously he chose the wrong brother to trust and the siege engines were delivered to Horus only slightly behind schedule and the delay caused by redirecting his army lead to speculation that he was waiting to see who won.

Cypher, or more properly The Lord Cypher, appears to be the last Lord Cypher of the Order that was appointed by the Lion himself. The final Lord Cypher was the only survivor of the Order of the Wolf and likely had knowledge of the corrupting powers of Chaos, even if they were not given that name yet. That Cypher is a title and not a name is something that only a few DA Libby's understand according to the dataslate. The Lord Cypher's purpose is to test the Order and ensure that the rules and strictures are adhered to, one can easily see how Cypher's journey across the Imperium serves this purpose even to this day.

In Ravenwing we get reports that Cypher is seen alongside Fallen, but there is conflict between them. The Fallen do their best to destroy the DA recruiting world, while Cypher is only there to secure the hidden geneseed on that planet. It is not inconceivable that the Lions Sable were not destroyed, rather than were brought into the fold to serve as Cypher's agents, but he required more geneseed to keep the numbers up.

I second the points noted in this post. There can be no doubt as to the fact that it was Luther who fell to Chaos (although i think it happened in a round-about way). Even before that final confrontation though it seems that the Lion starts to fall prey to ambition as stated above with Perturabo and again when he steals (if thats what you want to call it) a xenos/warp sentience (might have been a machine??) which had the power to affect warp travel later on. Thats how he managed to get the drop on the Night Lords twice which pretty much annihilated them as a fully functioning legion. Honestly I think the big secret is that the DA's were in the wrong on both sides and are just trying to cover it up so the Imperium as a whole doesn't turn on them. Ultimately its all very grey and mysterious and is one of my favorite 'fluffy' bits of 40k lore.