Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

BTW Zaharieal was made cypher by luther on caliban, but no one knows if he is still alive.

So far Zaharieal is the best candidate for the cypher we know and love.

Cypher? Who's Cypher. No one exists by that name. Nothing to see here.

^^MY sentiments exactly...

 Backspacehacker wrote:
BTW Zaharieal was made cypher by luther on caliban, but no one knows if he is still alive.

So far Zaharieal is the best candidate for the cypher we know and love.

Ah, yeah, you're correct. It's in the new book, Angels of Caliban. But it makes very little sense that Epimetheus is Zahariel, who almost certainly was.

Concerning the reading order of the Dark Angels books, here's a link by Thorpe himself:

http://gavthorpe.co.uk/a-readers-guide/

Purging of Kadillus – Ravenwing – Angels of Darkness – Battle Brothers – Master of Sanctity – All Must End – Accept No Failure – The Unforgiven

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
BTW Zaharieal was made cypher by luther on caliban, but no one knows if he is still alive.

So far Zaharieal is the best candidate for the cypher we know and love.

Ah, yeah, you're correct. It's in the new book, Angels of Caliban. But it makes very little sense that Epimetheus is Zahariel, who almost certainly was.

It would make the most sense though, our current Cypher being Zaharieal would explain much of Cyphers abilities, dead shot accuracy, able to just vanish and slip away. Given Zaharieals power to slow down time and even pass through objects in the material world, would work really well.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
BTW Zaharieal was made cypher by luther on caliban, but no one knows if he is still alive.

So far Zaharieal is the best candidate for the cypher we know and love.

Ah, yeah, you're correct. It's in the new book, Angels of Caliban. But it makes very little sense that Epimetheus is Zahariel, who almost certainly was.

It would make the most sense though, our current Cypher being Zaharieal would explain much of Cyphers abilities, dead shot accuracy, able to just vanish and slip away. Given Zaharieals power to slow down time and even pass through objects in the material world, would work really well.

I suspect by time the dark angels storyline is done we'll know a LOT more about Cypher as well. Initally I assumed they where gonna avoid spilling too much about Cypher, keep his identity secret etc, but Angels of Caliban throws a whole new way of looking at the Dark Angel stories in the HH novels. I'd orginally assumed Zarahiel was a "important but not really heard of character" so we could sort of get a "new comers eye view of the whole affair" but now, I realize that the dark angel HH stories are in MANY ways "the Orgins of Cypher"

What happens in Angels of Caliban to flip everyone's perspective? Spoilers please.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What happens in Angels of Caliban to flip everyone's perspective? Spoilers please.

Hmm, this might be a bit unrelated but, what is the dark angels current position towards the concept of having a cypher? I'm not up to date on their lore, but it seems to me that they have broken with that tradition...or have they? They seem to treat 40k cypher as a traitor, yet at the same time they appear to at least consider the possibility that he is still a boon to the imperium. Are they actually still considering him as the active cypher in some dark corner of their minds and that's why they never elected a new cypher?

 Roknar wrote:
Hmm, this might be a bit unrelated but, what is the dark angels current position towards the concept of having a cypher? I'm not up to date on their lore, but it seems to me that they have broken with that tradition...or have they? They seem to treat 40k cypher as a traitor, yet at the same time they appear to at least consider the possibility that he is still a boon to the imperium. Are they actually still considering him as the active cypher in some dark corner of their minds and that's why they never elected a new cypher?

Angels of Caliban indirectly suggests this. the Loyalist Dark Angels largely dropped most of the tradtions and the like associated with The Order, and in fact Luthar was embracing them all the harder (he really saw it as a "Calibanite vs corrupting outsiders" conflict) so most likely the position is simply gone. along with most of the old traditions of the order.

He's the avatar of the DA legion : full of mysteries and duplicities.

 djones520 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
When is the 30K Cypher killed? Last word I've read on 30K Cypher is that it's Zaharial, who took the position after offing the Knight of Lupus Cypher.

As for the OP, it's been hypothesized that Cypher knows the truth, about the Emperor being an Eternal, and that unplugging him from the Golden Throne would allow him to reboot. This happening would revitalize the Imperium, as the Emperor would be back, but it would also destroy the Imperium, because it is nothing at all like what the Emp's wanted it to be (not to mention destroy Terra as a massive warp rift would tear open from when Magnus accidentally shattered the Webway portal the Emp's was working on).

Problem with that is that wouldn't big E KNOW he's eternal and ergo would come back? If so why did he WANT himself be plugged in the golden throne...Either way plugging him out goes against orders of the Big E so either Big E is selfish and pulling the plug is bad for him or he's not selfish and it's bad for the humans.

As I pointed out, the Golden Throne is keeping the shattered webway intact. Once the Throne goes down, a tear in the warp all of a sudden will appear on Terra. It's clear that the Emperor is not a flawless man. I'm imagining that in the aftermath of the fight with Horus, more then just his body was shattered. Malcador was dying, could only hold the gate together for moments longer, so with the Emp's not exactly in the right place, he made the decision to have himself interred on the throne, to keep Terra intact.

Or with Horus defeated, Emps saw a view of the future in which humanity, or perhaps the Eldar, found a way to fix the warp rift under terra, allowing Emps to die and regenerate without creating another eye of terror where terra used to be .

However in his weakened state his perception of time was impaired and what he thought would perhaps take hundreds of years to happen is now over 10k years and counting.

 BobNT wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
When is the 30K Cypher killed? Last word I've read on 30K Cypher is that it's Zaharial, who took the position after offing the Knight of Lupus Cypher.

As for the OP, it's been hypothesized that Cypher knows the truth, about the Emperor being an Eternal, and that unplugging him from the Golden Throne would allow him to reboot. This happening would revitalize the Imperium, as the Emperor would be back, but it would also destroy the Imperium, because it is nothing at all like what the Emp's wanted it to be (not to mention destroy Terra as a massive warp rift would tear open from when Magnus accidentally shattered the Webway portal the Emp's was working on).

Problem with that is that wouldn't big E KNOW he's eternal and ergo would come back? If so why did he WANT himself be plugged in the golden throne...Either way plugging him out goes against orders of the Big E so either Big E is selfish and pulling the plug is bad for him or he's not selfish and it's bad for the humans.

As I pointed out, the Golden Throne is keeping the shattered webway intact. Once the Throne goes down, a tear in the warp all of a sudden will appear on Terra. It's clear that the Emperor is not a flawless man. I'm imagining that in the aftermath of the fight with Horus, more then just his body was shattered. Malcador was dying, could only hold the gate together for moments longer, so with the Emp's not exactly in the right place, he made the decision to have himself interred on the throne, to keep Terra intact.

Or with Horus defeated, Emps saw a view of the future in which humanity, or perhaps the Eldar, found a way to fix the warp rift under terra, allowing Emps to die and regenerate without creating another eye of terror where terra used to be .

However in his weakened state his perception of time was impaired and what he thought would perhaps take hundreds of years to happen is now over 10k years and counting.

Or better yet, what im betting will happen, is ol big red, Magnes, will learn the full truth of the Heresy and go double agent, and go back to the loyalist side, offering himself to power the golden throne so that the emperor can get up off the throne and do gak.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 BobNT wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
When is the 30K Cypher killed? Last word I've read on 30K Cypher is that it's Zaharial, who took the position after offing the Knight of Lupus Cypher.

As for the OP, it's been hypothesized that Cypher knows the truth, about the Emperor being an Eternal, and that unplugging him from the Golden Throne would allow him to reboot. This happening would revitalize the Imperium, as the Emperor would be back, but it would also destroy the Imperium, because it is nothing at all like what the Emp's wanted it to be (not to mention destroy Terra as a massive warp rift would tear open from when Magnus accidentally shattered the Webway portal the Emp's was working on).

Problem with that is that wouldn't big E KNOW he's eternal and ergo would come back? If so why did he WANT himself be plugged in the golden throne...Either way plugging him out goes against orders of the Big E so either Big E is selfish and pulling the plug is bad for him or he's not selfish and it's bad for the humans.

As I pointed out, the Golden Throne is keeping the shattered webway intact. Once the Throne goes down, a tear in the warp all of a sudden will appear on Terra. It's clear that the Emperor is not a flawless man. I'm imagining that in the aftermath of the fight with Horus, more then just his body was shattered. Malcador was dying, could only hold the gate together for moments longer, so with the Emp's not exactly in the right place, he made the decision to have himself interred on the throne, to keep Terra intact.

Or with Horus defeated, Emps saw a view of the future in which humanity, or perhaps the Eldar, found a way to fix the warp rift under terra, allowing Emps to die and regenerate without creating another eye of terror where terra used to be .

However in his weakened state his perception of time was impaired and what he thought would perhaps take hundreds of years to happen is now over 10k years and counting.

Or better yet, what im betting will happen, is ol big red, Magnes, will learn the full truth of the Heresy and go double agent, and go back to the loyalist side, offering himself to power the golden throne so that the emperor can get up off the throne and do gak.

ohh yeah I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the high lords when that goes down.

"Hi I know I'm a legendary traitor and a deamon prince but I can save the IoM if you let me sit on the golden throne"
".. do you take us for idiots?"
"No no Its for real really!"

*Grey Knights teleport in and kill Magnus*

BrianDavion wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 BobNT wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
When is the 30K Cypher killed? Last word I've read on 30K Cypher is that it's Zaharial, who took the position after offing the Knight of Lupus Cypher.

As for the OP, it's been hypothesized that Cypher knows the truth, about the Emperor being an Eternal, and that unplugging him from the Golden Throne would allow him to reboot. This happening would revitalize the Imperium, as the Emperor would be back, but it would also destroy the Imperium, because it is nothing at all like what the Emp's wanted it to be (not to mention destroy Terra as a massive warp rift would tear open from when Magnus accidentally shattered the Webway portal the Emp's was working on).

Problem with that is that wouldn't big E KNOW he's eternal and ergo would come back? If so why did he WANT himself be plugged in the golden throne...Either way plugging him out goes against orders of the Big E so either Big E is selfish and pulling the plug is bad for him or he's not selfish and it's bad for the humans.

As I pointed out, the Golden Throne is keeping the shattered webway intact. Once the Throne goes down, a tear in the warp all of a sudden will appear on Terra. It's clear that the Emperor is not a flawless man. I'm imagining that in the aftermath of the fight with Horus, more then just his body was shattered. Malcador was dying, could only hold the gate together for moments longer, so with the Emp's not exactly in the right place, he made the decision to have himself interred on the throne, to keep Terra intact.

Or with Horus defeated, Emps saw a view of the future in which humanity, or perhaps the Eldar, found a way to fix the warp rift under terra, allowing Emps to die and regenerate without creating another eye of terror where terra used to be .

However in his weakened state his perception of time was impaired and what he thought would perhaps take hundreds of years to happen is now over 10k years and counting.

Or better yet, what im betting will happen, is ol big red, Magnes, will learn the full truth of the Heresy and go double agent, and go back to the loyalist side, offering himself to power the golden throne so that the emperor can get up off the throne and do gak.

ohh yeah I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the high lords when that goes down.

"Hi I know I'm a legendary traitor and a deamon prince but I can save the IoM if you let me sit on the golden throne"
".. do you take us for idiots?"
"No no Its for real really!"

*Grey Knights teleport in and kill Magnus*

We have seen stranger things happen.

in my opinion Cypher is the awakened form of the Lion, I feel the Lion was shattered into 2 forms, his sleeping form and his awakened form, his awakened form is up to something, what it is is unknown but he may be trying to awaken the truth of the Dark Angels and probably feels that if the Dark Angels are to survive and grow the truth must come out. Cypher could be the very essence of the Lion's wild side, before he was found. a side that the watchers who may have very well guarded him had to separate for the good of the Lion and his plans, while his one side must heal then when the time comes both sides will unite and the Lion will be reborn. but until that time the awaken Lion half must find his long lost brothers of the Dark Angels and either remove those beyond saving while changing those who can be saved.

Based on what I've read about him from the codexes and the wiki, it seems like he can time travel and has prescience. He's keen to some very deep knowledge, but basically he's just a plot device that will be used at an awkward moment.

In the meantime, he's a bogeyman for the dark angels that actually ends up helping them most of the time, but he can't be found or they'd mindworm him to death.

In terms of big E choosing to sit on the throne, he was sacrificing his mobility to save the imperium from the new eye opening under Terra. It probably wasn't in his plan or he didn't foresee (or maybe he did and foresaw it as the lesser of the two evils) that the imperium would regress so much. He probedly relied on RG regenerating the imperium after the Heresy which he started, but ended up being mirked.

It would be interesting to know how the Ecclesiarchy would have played out if RG was still around, or any of the other Primarch's for that matter to lead the imperium, would they have managed to regress it as much as they did (along with the mechanicus being idiots also).

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

Spoiler:

Isn't he Zachariel?

Currently he is the most likely candidate

BrianDavion wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 BobNT wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
When is the 30K Cypher killed? Last word I've read on 30K Cypher is that it's Zaharial, who took the position after offing the Knight of Lupus Cypher.

As for the OP, it's been hypothesized that Cypher knows the truth, about the Emperor being an Eternal, and that unplugging him from the Golden Throne would allow him to reboot. This happening would revitalize the Imperium, as the Emperor would be back, but it would also destroy the Imperium, because it is nothing at all like what the Emp's wanted it to be (not to mention destroy Terra as a massive warp rift would tear open from when Magnus accidentally shattered the Webway portal the Emp's was working on).

Problem with that is that wouldn't big E KNOW he's eternal and ergo would come back? If so why did he WANT himself be plugged in the golden throne...Either way plugging him out goes against orders of the Big E so either Big E is selfish and pulling the plug is bad for him or he's not selfish and it's bad for the humans.

As I pointed out, the Golden Throne is keeping the shattered webway intact. Once the Throne goes down, a tear in the warp all of a sudden will appear on Terra. It's clear that the Emperor is not a flawless man. I'm imagining that in the aftermath of the fight with Horus, more then just his body was shattered. Malcador was dying, could only hold the gate together for moments longer, so with the Emp's not exactly in the right place, he made the decision to have himself interred on the throne, to keep Terra intact.

Or with Horus defeated, Emps saw a view of the future in which humanity, or perhaps the Eldar, found a way to fix the warp rift under terra, allowing Emps to die and regenerate without creating another eye of terror where terra used to be .

However in his weakened state his perception of time was impaired and what he thought would perhaps take hundreds of years to happen is now over 10k years and counting.

Or better yet, what im betting will happen, is ol big red, Magnes, will learn the full truth of the Heresy and go double agent, and go back to the loyalist side, offering himself to power the golden throne so that the emperor can get up off the throne and do gak.

ohh yeah I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the high lords when that goes down.

"Hi I know I'm a legendary traitor and a deamon prince but I can save the IoM if you let me sit on the golden throne"
".. do you take us for idiots?"
"No no Its for real really!"

*Grey Knights teleport in and kill Magnus*

I imagine Grey Knights and Magnus, but a little differently! Draigo and Magnus meet in the warp, after battling to deadlock Magnus manages to convince Draigo of his cunning plan and promises to break Draigo's curse if Draigo will escort Magnus to the Sol System and testify to the High Lords of Terra.

Some things in Cypher's biography may or may not be remembered.

Originally, his stated goal was toppling the Imperium (and it was noted that the Imperium and the Emperor were not the same thing) and he was apparently on course to Terra to interact in some way with the Emperor. It was implied to kill him. However, at this time, omniscient view of the setting told us killing the Emperor would cause his rebirth, as he would no longer be fettered by the Golden Throne. Whether or not Cypher knew that is unknown.

Another factoid likely lost to the ages is the physical capabilities of the Lion Sword. It was an amazing artifact in that it's primary ability was that anything slain with it had their warp presence also completely obliterated. For example, a daemon killed in the materium with it, was dead, permanently; it was not merely banished for awhile.

So the initial series of questions surrounding the character of Cypher were:
Why is he going to the Emperor?
Is it to kill him and why?
Did he know killing the Emperor in most ways would lead to his immediate reincarnation?
Did he know the sword he carried could actually erase the Emperor from existence?

How much any of this applies to today's 40k is unknown. But considering Gav Thorpe is nominally in charge of the Dark Angels story line, and he's the only author that remembers how the setting actually works (since he wrote a lot of initially), I'd say the answer is "some of it".

TL;DR version? Truth.