Cadian Transplants

Here's a little tidbit of information that I've gotten from an Astra Militarum short story, titled Transplants. Basically, "pure-blooded" Cadians call the adopted recruits in their regiments - basically, soldiers and Imperial Guardsmen recruited from other worlds - "Transplants." It doesn't matter what world you're from. Corporal Darya Nevic was born in Cocleratun and joined the Coclerati Janissary before being recruited into the Cadian 217th. She was chosen for her sniper skills (just like the men and women of Tanith!), and has an exemplary record.

The Cadians recruit the best of the best from other regiments, but that doesn't stop the so-called trueborn Cadians from discriminating against the outsiders and calling them Transplants. They are angry over the fall of Cadia, and with each new intake of recruits from other worlds, they feel the identity of Cadia lessen and dilute. But they have no choice, because of attrition and all that. New Cadians are being born in fleets because you have mixed Cadian regiments, and...you know, men and women do what men and women do. They reproduce. But that doesn't seem enough to maintain a growing Cadian population, so they take the cream of the crop from other worlds. Even so, the Transplants will always be Transplants. Some, like First Sergeant Ilya, has come to terms with it, but others, such as Meric, have not. Oh, well.

Anyway, I thought this would be a nice tidbit of information for all you guardsmen out there. So keep on fighting! Cadia Stands!

By the way - spoilers for Garro: Knight of Grey. I first read about Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro in Flight of the Eisenstein like 14 years ago. Maybe 13. I can't remember, but it has been a long time, and I was introduced to the Death Guard for the first time. I really like Garro, and hated Typhon and Mortarion because they were so...sickening, whereas Garro was honorable. I'll admit, Space Marines don't really interest me much, so I didn't really follow Garro and his adventures as a Knight Errant all that much. I thought he was an interesting character, but I like Graham McNeill's Mechanicum and A Thousand Sons a lot more. I found the tragedy of the Thousand Sons more compelling, and Ahzek Ahriman was just so...cool. So I preferred the Thousand Sons. Plus, Magnus was a better Primarch than that traitor, Mortarion. Funnily enough, Magnus turned traitor eventually, but...he's still better than Mortarion if you ask me.

Again, spoilers, so don't read beyond here if you don't want me to spoil it. During the Siege of Terra, after being freed by Malcador, Nathaniel Garro runs around to help Imperial Army regiments and bastions that need help, reinforcing them and trying his best to either repel the enemy or allow Loyalists to escape. Eventually, he gets news from Helig Gallor, a fellow Death Guard (or should I say, former Death Guard) that Euphrati Keeler has been spotted preaching to Imperial Army units, stirring up their faith and allowing them to throw back the enemy with minimal forces. Basically, she's causing miracles.

Right now, Keeler is at one of these bastions - unfortunately, I can't remember the name or the unit - but she rallies the Imperial Army company to throw back a horde of mutants and cultists serving as auxiliaries to the Death Guard, and despite being outnumbered like over three to one or more, the Imperial Army wins and repels them. The commander refuses to leave because she has been ordered by Rogal Dorn to hold that bastion no matter the cost. Garro and Gallor arrive just in time to help them finish off the stragglers that had already been routed by the Imperial Army soldiers, and they try to convince both Keeler and the commander to leave the bastion. The commander insists that she has to obey Dorn's orders, and Keeler also explains that she is doing her duty and what she can to help the Imperial Army soldiers.

She and Garro discusses some matters on faith, with Keeler revealing that she is close to breaking down. Garro reassures her, reminding her that she was the one who helped him find his way, and now he's doing the same for her. Meanwhile, Gallor says they need reinforcements to hold the bastion, and the commander laughs and tells him that they (the Imperial Army unit she commands) are the reinforcements. There will be no one else coming, and they are on their own.

There are some intervals where Garro (?) has a flashback of himself going to Barbarus for the first time to witness how the citizens react to the newly transformed Astartes legionaries of the XIVth Legion. Typhon being one of them, and they discuss, with the first captain telling Garro that he probably needs to see Barbarus - the planet where Mortarion grew up on - for himself. He then promotes Lieutenant Garro to the rank of captain of the Seventh company.

Mortarion decides not to bother with the fodder anymore, instead committing his main force to attack the bastion after receiving a report from a fleeing cultist that the Imperial Army unit in that area had rebuffed their attempts to take it, despite statistically having the numbers to overwhelm them several times over. He basically devours the poor guy's brain and sees the dude's memories of Garro and the Saint, and he's tempted by the prospect of turning Garro and sacrificing Keeler to the Garden of Nurgle. He has seen the significance of ritual after receiving the grandfather's mark, so he doesn't just level the place with Titans from Legio Mortis even though he can. No, the Chaos gods demand spectacle, and Nurgle isn't satisfied with simple victory - he wants sacrifice. Tribute. Ritual. This will be the undoing of Chaos, I suppose. Anyway, he commits another wave, which the Imperial Army units, now reinforced by Garro and Gallor, throw back.

Unfortunately, a Helbrute shows up. Not a Contemptor Dreadnought that's corrupted, but a literal Helbrute from the 41st Millennium, with tentacles for arms, a mutated plasma cannon and all that. Yeah, apparently the Death Guard has early access to Plague Marines and Helbrutes, though you can only technically use those models in 9th edition, and not in Horus Heresy (unless your opponent is fine with it). Anyway, the Helbrute basically vaporizes the poor commander with a plasma cannon, and Garro and Gallor rappel down to fight it. But it has a 2+ armor save that all the Kraken bolter rounds bounce off, so Gallor - despite Garro's orders - cuts his line, jumps on top of the Helbrute, rams a bunch of krak grenades into its mouth after taking a searing blast from its malfunctioning plasma cannon that overheated and backfired when Garro shot the cables, and then blows it up. Oh, Gallor also field promotes the commander's young aide to be the new commander before he rappels down, and orders him to rally his surviving forces to shoot the fodder. Why the Death Guard only sent mutants and one Helbrute, I have no idea, but...plot.

Garro saves Gallor after he was blown off, catching him Mission Impossible style, and then brings him back to the bastion where his transhuman physiology kicks in and heals. His armor, on the other hand, has been damaged beyond repair, so he can't really do much from that point on. At that moment, shortly after Gallor wakes up, the bombardment from Death Guard artillery stops - apparently, Mortarion was annoyed that the single Helbrute he sent got wrecked and he retaliated with artillery while Gallor was unconscious - and Garro senses Mortarion coming.

He wishes to get Keeler out of there, and persuades her to evacuate with the rest of the Imperial Army soldiers on a shuttle. He requests Gallor to escort them, knowing that he can't do much while still hurt and without his power armor, and he leaves by himself to buy the time Gallor needs to evacuate Keeler and the Imperial Army soldiers. Being the badass that he is, he rushes down to confront Mortarion and the Death Guard...all by himself.

By now, Mortarion and his Death Guard have gathered, jumping off the barge to surround the front of the bastion. He has Typhus, the Grave Wardens and a bunch of Plague Marines all pointing their weapons at Garro, but instead of shooting him, he decides to duel Garro one-on-one. Just because. Or maybe he wants to turn Garro. Or there's some ritual significance to sacrificing Garro for the glory of Nurgle. I dunno. Garro's reaction to him is what you would expect. "What have you become?" And when Mortarion says something about saving the legion and cheating death, he sadly shakes his head and asks, "at what cost?"

There's also another flashback where Mortarion attempts to sound out Garro's loyalty before the attack on Isstvan. He offers Garro some cup filled with toxins, a Death Guard thing where they show off their resilience to poison and laugh at death, and Garro accepts it. However, he realizes that Garro's loyalty is to the Emperor as a Terran-born, and he will never turn. So he grudgingly orders Grulgor to kill Garro, after Typhon's urging.

Back to the present, Mortarion attempts to offer Garro the same cup, but this one has more Chaos magick in it so Garro knows he'll turn if he drinks it. He pours the stuff away, which corrodes the ground, and denounces Mortarion as a traitor. Mortarion laughs and retorts that Garro was the one who broke his oaths. After some back and forth arguing, and Typhus shouting from the sidelines that Garro should die (the Plague Marines too), they duel.

As you would expect, Mortarion wins one-sidedly. Garro, even with plot armor, is no match for Mortarion, and a single blow is enough to shatter his body and lay him low. I mean, Garro has first blood, managing to scratch Mortarion's armor, which annoys his gene-father, who promptly loses his patience and smacks him. That single strike is what almost destroys Garro. There was a shootout in between, where Mortarion fires Lantern, and Garro shoots his master-crafted bolter, but then the Daemon Primarch slices off the barrel of his bolter. But instead of shooting Garro, he throws Lantern to one of the Grave Wardens and decides to settle this the old-fashioned way. He is toying with Garro, and wants to prolong his death and suffering, not wanting to grant him a quick death.

However, Garro feels Keeler watching him, almost like he's basking in sunlight. Even so, he is eventually beaten down and defeated. Mortarion, being a typical villain, decides not to kill him immediately and instead tries to possess Garro's body with the Lord of Flies. All the flies buzz over and swarm Garro, the Daemon trying to turn Garro into its host. Mortarion can feel Keeler watching them and laughs, saying that Garro has failed, and he will capture the Saint and feed her to Nurgle.

The story doesn't end here, though. After Mortarion breaks his body, Garro somehow revives and fights again, being filled with faith and the Emperor's light. The flies that swarmed his body get incinerated, and the Lord of Flies withdraw with a shrill screech, the Emperor's protection being anathema to them. Mortarion is nearly taken by surprise, and for a moment, Garro matches him, trading blow for blow. But his opponent is a Primarch, after all, and eventually, he smashes Garro's sword, Libertas, and stabs the poor former Knight Errant in the chest, obliterating his primary heart and all but killing him.

But Garro has one last act of defiance. Despite being impaled in the chest, he grabs Silence and pulls himself up through the scythe, accelerating his death but allowing him to stab the broken remnants of Libertas into Mortarion's neck. That hurt like hell, and Mortarion shrieks in pain and fury. Even though his wound heals almost immediately, leaving just a scar, his pride has been stung. Garro, on the other hand, has defied him, refusing to be turned, and now he dies. In the meantime, he sees the shuttle flies off to the distance, jinking and evading the anti-air las and flak from the angry Death Guard. Gallor has convinced Keeler to stop watching the battle and come with him to the shuttle, which he pilots and escapes from the battlefield. Mortarion has failed to capture the Saint, and Garro can finally rest in Silence.

Yeah, Garro is dead. NOOOO!!!! Then again, the Horus Heresy is a tragedy. What do you expect? Lots of people were always going to die. It...happens. This is the end of Garro's story, and we'll never see him again. We get this cool ending where Garro sees the Emperor after he dies, accepting the God-Emperor's hand and walking into the light to fight by His side for eternity or something. Perhaps Garro will reincarnate someday, maybe he'll be by the God-Emperor's side forever. Who knows? Only James Swallow does. Anyway, that's...about it. Maybe Chapter Master Valrak will talk about this in his channel, but I doubt it. I watch his videos, but I don't think he'll ever read my blog. Which is fine, because nobody reads my blog anyway.

A fun Ciaphas Cain story that's more in the line of Warhammer Crime. Apparently, Commissar Fossick has been murdered in his sleep, and Ciaphas has to find out the culprit. They thought Fossick died of natural causes at first, but Dr. Wells (I think?) performs an autospy at Ciaphas's suggestion and found broken bones on the ribcage, revealing that it was murder.

Eventually, they find out the murderer is a Tech-priest Enginseer. Apparently, her brother was sentenced to execution by Fossick, and so she schemed to adjust the gravity controls to kill the dude, suffocating him. She thought Ciaphas would sign off the unsigned documents to push through the execution, not knowing that our favorite Commissar dumped the punishment documents in the bin because he has no intention of signing off on Fossick's punishments. The guy was, to be blunt, a prick, who executed people for wearing their cap wrong (okay, Ciaphas is exaggerating), and the morale of his regiment hadn't just hit rock bottom - it was subterranean. Anyway, she was afraid Ciaphas would sign off on it and tries to murder him, but Jurgen manages to rescue Ciaphas before he can suffocate under the...uh, weight of the Tech-priest Enginseer's crime (I think her name is Palvarian?). Her brother, Roland, is off line facing the firing squad, and Ciaphas decides not to pursue it because the Adeptus Mechanicus is outside the jurisdiction of the Commissariat. So after she resolves the misunderstanding and is relieved that her brother wouldn't be executed, she promises not to hurt anyone, and...is let off the hook. Obviously, the Colonel of the regiment isn't happy about that and kicks her out of the regiment, and Ciaphas and Wells suggest that she find a new job on a starship. All's well that ends well.