The DARK Reality Of Dreadnoughts | Warhammer 40k Lore

this video is brought to you by Squarespace so when people think of 40K they normally think of the Space Marines but I would argue the Dreadnought is probably more iconic they are a boxy armored clad engine of death piloted by a critically injured Space Marine forced to endure forevermore and serve the Emperor or the chaos Gods indefinitely now some may see this as the greatest honor a Space Marine can achieve to be a hero of such inconceivable worth that their death is simply not an option that they all will be allowed to continue to fight side by side with their chapter forever While others particularly those in the chaos Legions see this as a curse the Eternal rest that they were owed was stolen from them and their corpse was prodded back onto the battlefield once more they are walking engines of death protected by Massive thick plates of ceramite and adamantium and bristling with enormous amounts of heavy weapons for all intents and purposes they are a walking tank a machine designed to bring death and destruction to all those that stand in their chapters way they are part War engine and part life support system you can kind of think of them like an iron lung with machine gun hands and a missile launcher so let's take a deeper dive into one of the coolest units in all of 40K let's talk about the dreadnoughts so what even is a Dreadnought and why are they cool so for context we should talk about the Space Marines first you see a Space Marine is incredibly powerful they've transcended humanity and become something much more their genetic augmentations and centuries of training have honed them into the perfect weapons and although there are Tales of their immortality being viewed by the citizens of the Imperium as nothing short of angels this is far from the truth we know now that Space Marines do age just incredibly slowly and their normal lives could potentially span past ten thousand years that being said it's incredibly rare for a Space Marine to age naturally even past a thousand years and most will die in battle somewhere between their second and 4th Century of service the injuries that could lay low one of the emperor's Creations must be absolutely catastrophic as they have multiple genetic implants that allow them to survive mortal wounds that would kill a normal Man 10 times over when a Space Marine is injured to this point where not even the best work of their chapters apothecaries are enough to save them he may be given a choice they can accept the emperor's mercy and an apothecary will give them a quick death or they can continue to fight if he should choose to accept it then he will be entombed in the iron sarcophagus and bound to a Dreadnought in this way the Marine will continue to serve the emperor for many Millennia more and from my understanding the Space Marine is always given this choice because what they're signing up for is pretty ghoulish but I can't deny the possibility that there may exist some loyalist dreadnoughts who were not given the option to consciously make this decision themselves the Gory remains of the Space Marine will be placed inside of a metal sarcophagus and hooked up to a wide array of life support systems the coffin itself will be filled with amniotic fluid to help support and keep him alive the coffins will then be housed within a chapter's fortress Monastery and the Space Marines will be put into a form of suspended animation that helps extend their lifespan when the coffin is plugged into a Dreadnought the Space Marine is able to control it as if it was his own body the armored hole of the machine basically becomes a new layer of skin and its weapon systems be become an extension of the space Marine's wrath as long as the Marine still has most of his brain function the dreadnoughts life support systems can keep him alive almost indefinitely which is particularly impressive considering that most of these marines are little more than a handful of organs and a brain now needless to say if the Marine was ever to try to leave the coffin he would surely die the Space Marine will remain inside of his sarcophagus for the remainder of his life now the Dreadnought serves as a walking tank they're able to be equipped with a wide array of devastating weapons and built out to fill just about any Battlefield role whether this be through sheer Battlefield dominance with the use of a lot of heavy long-range Firepower or his living battering rams capable of tearing apart enemy vehicles with their fists now for the loyalist Space Marines of the Imperium being chosen to be entombed inside of a Dreadnought is an enormous honor as the dreadnoughts are seen as revered ancients Warriors of incredible worth overflowing with wisdom and the keepers of their chapters history but for a good majority of chaos Space Marines this is akin to being tortured for all time I will point out that this isn't always the case there are definitely some examples of chaos dreadnoughts who command a considerable amount of respect from their brothers but these examples are few and far between and there's a lot more crazy insane chaos dreadnoughts out there that are basically just wishing for death every single day now there are various examples throughout the lore of Space Marine dreadnoughts being able to walk around and participate in day-to-day life whether this take the form of attending to their own duties that have been entrusted to them or acting as a bearer of wisdom and guidance to their younger brothers so it's not like the dreadnoughts are only woken up when they need to be deployed onto the battlefield however there are novels that seem to indicate that Space Marines will become Dreadnought Pilots are always kept in suspended animation when not being used as a Dreadnought or sometimes like with the forces of chaos forced to stay awake in the darkness of their coffins for hundreds of years their mental degradation and descent into Insanity being the goal rather than an unfortunate consequence I'll fully admit that I haven't read every single 40K novel and I learned something new about this universe literally every day but in making this video I was kind of puzzled by this contradiction as it seemed to pop up pretty frequently and I'm going to be doing a little bit of reading between the lines here and drawing some parallels from different texts I've read now it seems to me there can be a lot of variables that play into how long they can stay awake and how quickly their minds begin to deteriorate it seems to be dependent on their chapter available resources for the dreadnoughts and the extent of the Space Marines injuries that all play a major role in how often they're allowed to stretch their legs so to speak the most important factor is the Marine himself as the most iron-willed individuals seem to be able to go without rest far longer than even the lore suggests as possible I would also dare to assume that dreadnoughts taking a more active role in the inner workings of their Legion was probably a lot more common during the days of the great Crusade when supplies and resources were a lot more abundant not that it doesn't still happen in the 41st Millennium just that like with the dreadnoughts themselves it seems to have become a much more rarer occurrence the text is often intentionally vague in this Department which on one hand can be frustrating when trying to make a video on 40K lore but on the other I've personally always enjoyed the kind of unreliable narratorness of 40K books one thing that does seem to be a common pattern is the longer a Dreadnought remains active the longer the entombed Space Marine will need to rest when they finally do go back into suspended animation now all that being said you'll then read a story like the ancient awakes by Graham McNeil part of the sons of the emperor Anthology were the ancient Rylan ore who by the way is one of the most badass characters in all of 40K and he definitely deserves his own video is revealed to have survived the events of istfan and laid trapped underground for 10 000 years waiting to get his revenge on his former Primark fulgrim and even after being awake for ten thousand years he seems to be pretty Lucid whereas in the Lords of Silence book there is a death guard Dreadnought named Nom who due to an unspecified malfunction has been completely unable to sleep and has been awake for around 9000 years and this has driven him absolutely insane he can barely talk and only desires to eat people and speaking of books there's actually a really interesting scene in the very beginning of the word bearers novel The Dark Apostle where one of the main characters is seeking wisdom from one of his legion's dreadnoughts he has been researching and reciting the book of lorgar and is having a mini crisis the Dreadnought instills wisdom in him and tells him to continue on his path the character claims that most of the word Bearer dreadnoughts have gone insane however this one known as the warmonger has managed to keep his mind mostly intact there's a moment shortly after this where the Dreadnought asks him if they will be fighting alongside their Primark soon the Space Marine realizes that the warmonger's Lucidity is beginning to slip his grasp on time starting to escape him he doesn't really have the heart to tell him what the current solar year is and everything that's transpired since the Horus heresy the Dreadnought pushes more and asks him how the war Master Horus lupercal is faring against the false Emperor and if his plans are starting to bear fruit the word Bearer Marine looks away and tells him that the false Emperor still sits on his throne but not to worry his days are numbered he's not directly lying to the Dreadnought but kind of skating around the truth and as the reader it's kind of like watching somebody talk to a trusted loved one with dementia now here's the thing about dreadnoughts being trapped inside of a metal coffin for thousands of years is actually not as fun as it sounds and slowly but surely the isolation will eventually Drive the Marine to Madness something as simple as never again being able to feel the wind against your skin or the kick of a Bolter in your hands is incredibly alien to the astartes as they're individuals who are Living Weapons engineered only for war it's their sacred duty to serve the emperor so if through entombment they are able to continue to do this then most Marines who are given the choice will accept the honor for what it is not so much with chaos Space Marines again being forced inside of a metal sarcophagus is often used as a punishment for failure a particularly cruel warlord will lock away a marine that would have the audacity to ignore his orders plot some form of treachery against him or worst of all fail him hell the hellbirds of the Thousand sons are not even members of the Thousand Sons themselves they're Space Marines from other Legions that have been tricked into seeking them out promising that through completing many of their rituals the individual will gain the secrets to sorcery more powerful than they can possibly imagine what the Thousand Sons don't tell them is that these trials are actually preparing their minds bodies and souls for imprisonment within a hell brute now to be the pilot of a Dreadnought means eternal life so long as you're not killed in combat but it's like a half-life you're not really alive you can never again experience all of the things that we take for granted on a daily basis you're for lack of better words a brain and some meat inside of a machine and it's through the dreadnoughts interfaces that you'll be able to experience everything but you'll never again see anything with your own eyes hear anything with your own ears you'll never be able to touch something again it's hard to imagine what this is even like to have all of your senses turned off forever and rely exclusively on the assistance of a machine to even exist that after thousands of years of such an existence the individual will start to develop a form of insanity some way more so than others but despite them losing their grasp on reality a space Marine's duty is eternal and only in death does duty end so now that we know a little bit about what a Dreadnought is let's talk about some types of dreadnoughts but before we dive into that I want to take a minute to talk about this video's sponsor so we all know how important it is to have your own website and Squarespace makes it easy to make your own and have it look super professional whether you're fresh out of college and need a gallery for all of your schoolwork an artist looking for your own platform to display all of your creative works or you're a small business owner who's looking to expand into the digital Marketplace whatever you're trying to do Squarespace makes it easy and gives you a site with a crisp clean design they have hundreds of different 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because they were better than contemptor dreadnoughts because this certainly wasn't the case the contemptors were just incredibly difficult to produce and used a lot of really advanced technology that the mechanicum doesn't really have access to anymore whether it has been lost or the components are prohibitively expensive and time consuming to produce one such major difference is the Caster faram utilizes many of the same components and modules of various cybernetic robots they also use a thermic combustion reactor that is of the same make of the ones used in the land Raiders and rhinos since the components that make up a castrofarium Dreadnought are used in a wide variety of machines their Builders are thus a lot more familiar with them which makes our production a lot easier in terms of raw power contemptor dreadnoughts are definitely stronger but at a certain point it made more sense to build a handful of castor farams rather than to produce a single contemptor with the exception of the new primaris redemptor dreadnoughts the Castor faram is the only Dreadnought that I'm aware of that is still technically able to be produced according to the Imperial Armory Vol 2. however it's important to note that in the last several thousand years very few of them have been made it's likely seen as not really worth the effort as it potentially takes an enormous amount of time and resources to build one now the Caster Farms are incredibly versatile and can be outfitted in many different loadouts allowing it to become uniquely specialized in fulfilling certain Battlefield roles so let's take a look at a couple of them so first up is the assault dreadnoughts and these things sacrifice their range Firepower in exchange for close combat weapons now dreadnoughts are rare enough as it is but a Castro Farm assault Dreadnought is far rarer and it's less because they're a sacred relic of incredible power like a contemptor or anything like that it's more for their practicality as removing a dreadnought's ranged weapons isn't always seen as the best tactical decision they will need a lot of support as the Dreadnought has no way of Defending itself from long-range attacks having to rely solely on its armor and the support of its battle brothers to protect it most of the time when they are used they are deployed via droppot to attack Behind Enemy Lines and act as a heavy armored shock troop these are more commonly used by chapters that specialize or favor melee tactics regardless of how practical they are suddenly having to deal with an enraged Dreadnought swinging around dual power fists that can rip tanks in half is definitely a horrifying thought now the Hellfire variant of castrofarium Dreadnought is the exact opposite of the assault Dreadnought in that it sacrifices its close combat weapon arm and exchanges it with a missile launcher doubling up on its range Firepower the missile launcher used by the Hellfire is similar in construction to that of its Space Marine Brothers it is of course larger and is able to fire missiles with far more dangerous payloads not to mention the Dreadnought can carry a lot more ammunition than their foot slogging heavy weapons teams the other major benefit of having a missile launcher on a Dreadnought is that it can still move at full speed while laying down a barrage missile fire whereas infantry have to remain stationary to use such heavy weapons the combination of a missile launcher along with either twinlinked Auto cannons last cannons or heavy bolters makes the Hellfire Dreadnought a frightening weapons platform Now The Siege Dreadnought is actually pretty interesting and although close range in nature like the assault Dreadnought it serves a much more specific role you see The Siege Dreadnought is equipped with either an inferno Cannon or a flame storm Cannon as well as what is known as an assault drill these things are like living battering rams designed for hitting fortified positions incredibly hard their drill is able to tear apart the rock Creed of fortifications incredibly easily creating an entry point for their allies while its flamers burn away any resistance it may encounter igniting entire bunkers in a blazing infernal that melts away enemy infantry now the Ironclad Dreadnought is a bit of a hybrid of the previous three dreadnoughts it has been optimized for close combat much like The Siege and assault dreadnoughts but it's also equipped with storm bolters heavy flamers or even melta guns in addition the Ironclad dreadnought are often outfitted with hunter killer missile launchers or the Ironclad assault launcher which is basically just a huge grenade thrower the Ironclad may not have the range superiority of the Hellfire nor the crushing brutality of The Siege or assault Dreadnought but it's altogether more applicable in more situations and is commonly used throughout many different chapters and before moving on to the Contemporary dreadnoughts I think we should talk about the venerable dreadnoughts so a venerable Dreadnought is exactly what it sounds like it's a Dreadnought that is beyond ancient housing an incredibly prestigious Warrior these individuals are often thousands of years old and have seen countless battles the amount of sheer Battlefield experience each of the venerable dreadnoughts has makes them an unbelievably skilled Warrior they are the keepers of a chapter's history and accumulated wisdom and are often held in incredibly high regard by their battle brothers here's the thing about venerable dreadnoughts though because of their impossible age they are often less effective in battle than their younger counterparts their Dreadnought chassis have been subjected to an enormous amount of punishment over the Millennia and at this point a lot of them are starting to fall apart in order to keep their ancients functioning the Space Marine chapter will often have to cannibalize parts from other destroyed dreadnoughts and do the absolute best repair job that they can with their limited knowledge and resources additionally as a Dreadnought pilot gets older their minds start to deteriorate and as I mentioned before it's not uncommon for them to start to go insane and at some point the Dreadnought pilot May refuse or be unable to wake up in this sense it's not impractical to say that the ancient venerable dreadnoughts can sometimes put a great strain on their chapter Space Marines don't really care about this though they take honoring your elders very seriously the venerable dreadnoughts are Priceless repositories of History wisdom and combat experience they are potentially the most disciplined and knowledgeable Warriors within the ranks of the Space Marines surpassed only by the primarks although if I'm being honest I wouldn't be surprised if some of these guys could actually surpass some of their demigod fathers at least in a couple of chapters okay let's talk about the contemptor dreadnoughts now these things are considered to be one of the rarest variant of Dreadnought by the time of the 41st millennium but this wasn't always the case as there was actually a point where they were far more common than even the castrofarum as the construction of the contemptors actually began first but the Horus heresy took a massive toll on the numbers of War engines within the Imperium and the contemptor dreadnought's numbers were reduced to only a tiny fraction making each one of them that remains intact an Irreplaceable Relic unlike that of the castrofarum the knowledge needed to produce contemptor dreadnoughts almost certainly has been lost and if evidence arises of an intact contemptor within a chapter's vicinity then a group will be sent out to recover it as each contemptor is seen as a piece of incredibly valuable archeotech now these things have existed since the time of the unification Wars on Terra a period of time that saw the birth of the Imperium and the emperor unite all of the feuding tribes of the planet under a single banner they were instrumental in the Crusades of the early Space Marine Legions and would become a powerful symbol of strength during the period of the great Crusade they were faster and more durable and all-around more powerful than the standard dreadnoughts used today and even integrated lot of pretty interesting technology such as automatic field generators and their powerful gravitic field comboed with its dense armor plating made the contemptor dreadnoughts incredibly durable and fun fact the technology used in these field generators would actually later be incorporated into the storm Shields that are often used by space brain Terminators like other dreadnoughts they are remarkably flexible in their weapon systems most commonly being equipped with a twin linked heavy Bolter on one arm and a Dreadnought close combat weapon with a built-in storm Bolter on the other however there are contemptors that have wielded twin-linked heavy flamers Auto cannons plasma cannons and all manner of other heavy Weaponry my personal favorite being a weapon known as a conversion Beamer which is a piece of archaeotech from the Dark Age of technology that fires out a beam of concentrated antimatter making it incredibly devastating against vehicles and heavy armor dreadnoughts are rare enough to begin with but the contemptors are far rarer they stand in contrast to the armor and weapons used by the Imperium today as a glorious memory of how much has been lost and what the Imperium of man still fighting for so let's talk about a primary Dreadnought known as the redemptor now the redempted Dreadnought is an odd one as it's actually a new form of Dreadnought that is made to house specifically primaris Marines they're actually pretty similar to the dreads of the firstborn with a few key differences the first is that although dreadnoughts are normally seen as being slow and clunky the hyper-dense reactors used in the redemptor dreadnoughts construction allow it to quickly accelerate and these things Rampage across the battlefield crushing and beating aside any that get in their way there is so much force behind the charge of a redemptor Dreadnought that if it makes contact with a tank if it doesn't send it flying it will at least knock it over now redemptor dreadnots are often equipped with one of two weapons either a heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon or a macro plasma incinerator the first being a rotary based weapon with an extremely high rate of fire that ends up tearing apart hordes of infantry in seconds whereas the second and I'm quoting its exact description here quote harnesses the heat of captive Suns to melt away enemy tanks into bubbling sludge equipped on their other arm is a massive Dreadnought power fist that is piston driven and is able to rip apart enemy Vehicles like they're made of wet paper now all that being said the redemptor Dreadnought does have a massive drawback you see its machine spirit is incredibly powerful and the Dreadnought takes a massive toll on its pilot whereas other dreadnoughts Pilots will go insane after an enormous amount of time the redemptor has this process basically sped up its Pilots often unable to cope with the sheer amount of strain the machine puts on their body and mind and inevitably most Pilots end up being burned out within a few centuries of use so being entombed in a redemptor is another shot at life and service to the emperor but it comes with a time limit as the machine will inevitably kill them once more and I'm just going to inject my own personal thoughts here real quick I have nothing to back this up so just bear with me I think the lore on this is going to change you see the redemptor dreadnoughts just kind of came out of nowhere as belisarius call created the primaris Marines and a lot of these new inventions are directly related to him when the primaris Marines were first introduced to the setting it was said that if a first-born marine was to quote unquote try to cross the Rubicon and become primaris there was a survival rate of around one in a hundred obviously all important named characters had plot armor to back them up so they all miraculously survived this transition but in the background a whole lot of Space Marines were killed in the transition process now recent lore from the dark Imperium Trilogy says that belisarius call has perfected the transition and now practically no Marines die when they try to become primaris I personally think the redemptor Dreadnought is going to follow a similar path it's really new and hasn't really gone through an appropriate trial period and inevitably The Kinks will get worked out and I don't think their pilots are going to be burning out completely forever I don't know what kind of form this new lore will take but there does seem to be a precedent set up with Primera stuff following a similar trajectory and to be fair maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part because I recently started playing Black Templars and I really hate the idea that my primaris dreadnoughts have a new pilot every time I put them on the field now let's move into some of the big boy dreadnoughts and let's start with the Leviathan you see the Leviathan Dreadnought is one of the largest and most powerful variants of dreadnoughts ever produced and it was actually created in secret on Terra near the end of the great Crusade there were only a handful of these things made meaning they're possibly one of the rarest versions of dreadnoughts that exist even more so than the contemptors because the Leviathan Dreadnought utilizes an oversized reactor the excess energy it generates allows the Dreadnought to utilize much more powerful weaponry and defensive systems they use similar energy Shields to their smaller contempor cousins but the excessive levels of power generated by the reactor make the shields able to withstand much larger levels of punishment before failing all of the weapon systems and vehicles the Imperium use come with their limitations you can't just put everything on a single vehicle if you want more armor whatever is utilizing it is going to be slower and less mobile if you want more shielding this is going to pull more energy from a reactor that could be used to power more powerful weapons the Leviathan seems to break this rule as its reactor generates an insane amount of energy so they can basically have all of the things this like everything else in the universe comes at a cost as much like the redemptor Dreadnought this puts an enormous amount of strain on the pilot after only a handful of engagements the Space Marine pilot to be entombed within a leviathan will inevitably die or their mind will degrade to a point of insanity incredibly quickly so if a chapter even has access to one it will only be used in the most dire of circumstances leviathans are known for being hyper aggressive and particularly brutal in their Slaughter for some Legions like that of the world leaders this might not be a problem but for the Imperium chapters it's an incredibly difficult choice to make to choose to subject one of your honored battle brothers to such a fate and finally let's talk about the telemon now the telemon Dreadnought is a massive golden Dreadnought utilized exclusively by the custodians to put it in very simplified terms it's like an artisanal Dreadnought every single nut and bolt used in its construction is Master crafted by some of Tara's most skilled artisans much like the Leviathan Dreadnought there weren't really a lot of these in use even at the height of the great Crusade and this was for a few reasons the most important was that they were unbelievably expensive to make and the resources that would be used in their creation had to be of the highest quality to live up to the custodian standards it is said that every single one of the telemon has at least one plate in it that was crafted and designed by the emperor's own hands now every single custodian is basically a living legend but by their standards most of their warriors were not good enough to be placed in a Taliban only the absolute best of the best a hero amongst Heroes would have the honor of living on inside of a telemon it would literally stand empty not being utilized until such a candidate was found when one was found however they would be placed in charge of one of the most powerful dreadnoughts ever created and would be quickly made apparent why these things were so expensive to produce every single piece was handcrafted to Perfection and utilized some truly esoteric and frightening Firepower such as the arachnus storm cannon that was like a laser-based Gatling Cannon or the accelerator cauldron a bolt style weapon that fired infantry decimating heliothermic bolt shells a gun normally reserved for being mounted on the caladius grav tank and now that we've made it this far I have a bit of a confession to make a dedicated Dreadnought video was on my list of videos to make but I hadn't intended on making it right now however I recently listened to an audio drama known as The Glorious tomb and again we're being honest here Wes is sharing his feelings it's the first piece of 40K literature that has ever brought tears to my eyes now don't get me wrong I choked up during wilinor's Last Stand during angron's speech and betrayal or even when Abaddon killed sigism in the black Legion novel you see the story follows a black Templar Dreadnought as he accompanies his battle brothers in a war against the green skin Menace so the setup is much like any other 40K story some good old-fashioned Bolter porn but interestingly enough it's told from the perspective of the Dreadnought this isn't a story about some random battle in the 41st Millennium it's not about the black Templars or the Orcs this is a story about what it's like for a Dreadnought to die before the battle begins the dreadnoughts Pilot's first thoughts are that he can tell when his Slumber has finally been broken as he can once again feel his eternal pain it's not as intense as the day he died but it's always with him always nagging at him constantly reminding him of what he has become but praise be to that pain as it reminds him that he lives and that he is soon to be able to serve the emperor once more his name is brother adelard and the Dreadnought he has been entombed in is known as Invictus potence now it's really interesting that he separates himself from his machine and considers them two separate entities even though most people outside of the Dreadnought would probably consider them one in the same the Dreadnought begins to power up and he can hear the tech Marines outside of his tomb chanting the Litany of Awakening all of his information systems come online and the Machine stands he says it's a sensation that's difficult to describe tribe he feels the movements of Invictus potents as if they were his own that by all accounts he and the Dreadnought are one but there is a vagueness a separation like his entire body is numb yet he understands that the machine's footsteps are his own he speaks he says it's jarring to him he says he will never get used to it as those around him understand it as his voice but it's not it's not the voice of a man it's the voice of a machine he's constantly showing us that there's a huge disconnect between him and the Dreadnought that he and Invictus potents are two separate entities when he explains everything that is happening he uses the dreadnought's name Invictus poten stands up Invictus potence is coming online and the tech priest is inspecting and initiating certain programs within Invictus potence he never uses the words me mine or even so much as a we however there is actually a moment where he's being inspected by an apothecary and the Apothecary leans in and asks how are you feeling brother attilard he uses his real name he's talking to the man not the machine and needless to say this catches him off guard adelard appreciates the gesture as he knows the Apothecary is trying to comfort him but he shrugs it off and there's a moment where he thinks he recognizes this Apothecary as one of his old friends he asks him what his orders are and uses his friend's name the Apothecary looks completely shocked and then saddened saying that that individual was actually his master and he had inherited his armor that he unfortunately had died 73 years ago this is a moment that is again just kind of shrugged off by adelard but it demonstrates a part of the reality of being a Dreadnought that one of the most painful realities of life in a sarcophagus is its oppressive loneliness a space Marine's life is certainly not easy and you have to see your brothers die all of the time but you're there with them you're on the same Battlefield and you have a network of support this isn't given to the Dreadnought Pilots every time they go to sleep they they do so knowing that the next time they wake up more of their friends will be gone the Apothecary informs him of an orc Invasion on the surface of the nearby world of Armageddon and that he and his brothers will be sent in to fight them after all of the preparations have been made he is put back to sleep once again and when he awakens once more the black Templars are preparing for orbital drop he was brought to his drop pod and his systems are not completely online yet but he is awake floating in the darkness he can feel his Mass shifting inside of the sarcophagus letting him know that the Descent has begun he can feel the sense of constant acceleration as he descends to the battlefield below it has been 89 years since the last time adelard was awake and now that he's woken up he says he is impatient to join the fight that he has slept for too long with an enormous crash his drop pod finally lands and as he strides forth onto the battlefield he says [Music] what follows is an awesome battle between the black Templars and the Orcs where in Victor potens unleashes its full Fury tearing apart hundreds of Orcs with the wrath of his Rotator cannons and the crushing strength of his dreadnought's power fists and I definitely recommend you check it out but we're going to fast forward ahead a little bit the Space Marines and the dreadnoughts managed to break into a fortress where they're met with over 900 more Orcs bellowing and screaming their War chants and Defiance of The Intruders wouldn't work far larger and more dangerous than the others strides forth and lets loose a loud challenge in Victor poten's answers this threat with one of his own his autocannon screaming back a roar of defiance until he says quote unquote that Canon speaks until it is run out of words warning lights begin flaring throughout his vision no ammo overheating dropping fuel it's then that several of the Orcs come charging out of the Swarm armed with makeshift explosives and Blasting charges their sights are locked on one of his brother dreadnoughts and in Victor potens ends up throwing himself in between the two of them in order to save his brother this has the unfortunate consequence of having the Orcs swarm all over him instead they swarm him covering him with explosives and hammering him with strange rocket hammers there is a string of explosions all over his body and he collapses and what follows after this is potentially the saddest thing that I've ever experienced in anything related to 40K the screens in front of his eyes are flooded with long paragraphs of warning scripts the internal machine blares at him to stand down and wait for Aid that the damage was so catastrophic he can't even move the warning message in his ears tells him Fortune is the ultimate Fortress adelard ignores all of this he doesn't need to read the text he knows that he is dying there's another explosion on his back and his system shuts down all of the warning displays disappear and he is left alone in the dark he loses connection with the Dreadnought entirely the fluid of his sarcophagus is slowly leaking out onto the ground and he is left completely helpless alone in the dark with his pain he knows that his brothers will inevitably be successful and no matter if there are 10 million Orcs between them and the Dreadnought Invictus potents would be recovered and it would fight again continuing to serve the Imperium for another 10 000 years adelard however would not be recovered he can hear the sounds of battle all around him he knows the fighting is still happening and he suddenly realizes that this is the first time he has actually heard anything with his own ears and over five centuries he smiles or at least he thinks he does he's not even really sure if he has a mouth to smile with without the life-supporting systems of the Dreadnought and his sarcophagus's fluid slowly draining he knows he doesn't have much time left he takes these moments to reflect on morality he wonders what will happen next and he finds it kind of ridiculous that he expects anything at all but at the moment of his death he is faced with the unknown he thinks maybe that is what all humans deal with that we're always expecting something else to happen day by day hour by hour there's always something else coming and it's weird to think of an end of nothingness adelard realizes that what he's experiencing right now is what all humans must experience at some point and as a Space Marine he had most of his Humanity stripped away from him so long ago but in these final moments he once again feels a kinship with his own species he has faith that Humanity Will Survive that they will go on to prosper in this terrible Universe their efforts will not have been in vain but he also realizes that he's not going to be around to see this but it doesn't matter his faith endures in these final moments alone in the darkness completely helpless and just waiting for death if it wasn't for his faith he would have nothing nothing except for the pain he questions what is going to happen to him when he dies will the emperor be there in his spiritual form waiting for him will he be there to guide his soul to watch over him in whatever comes next or will it all just simply end he sees no Golden Light there's no sense of impending doom no terrifying sensation but in the Darkness there's also nothing to comfort him it's at this moment that the last of his life-sustaining fluids leaks out of the sarcophagus and the cold air touches his skin for the first time in hundreds of years he only has the sensation to go on as he can't see anything but he realizes just how little of him is actually left Panic sets in he gasps for air but he realizes he doesn't have any lungs his genetic implants are failing they're beginning to break down and are struggling to keep him alive his life flashes before his eyes his childhood the moment he became a black Templar the day he was elevated to the rank of Sword brother and the day he woke up inside of a Dreadnought he has felt no emotion since he was entombed but in these moments they all come back to him Pride Zeal righteousness he feels everything and through tear filled eyes he says that he is unbelievably grateful to experience those things once more he reflects on the hundreds of battles he has been involved in the thousands of enemies he has slain and he attempts to take comfort in this that his efforts were not in vain that he made a difference but then adelard has a vision of an old memory from long ago before he was entombed before he was even a black Templar it's a memory from when he was just a boy and his father was pushing him on a swing the scene changes and it's a beautiful Autumn evening his father keeps pushing him higher and higher he is afraid he is afraid that every time he stops to think for just a moment that he couldn't possibly go any higher his father pushes him again he squeals like only a young boy can and his father is warmly laughing at him poking at him asking him why he's afraid I thought you were a warrior the thing is though adelard is not afraid he's experiencing overwhelming Joy this is one of his happiest memories and he realizes four years after this moment he wouldn't have a father he wouldn't have a family but that's not today today he is just a boy on a swing with his Dad he shouts out to him saying that he's not afraid that he is a warrior but his father can't hear him he realizes that his dad isn't real that he is just a memory I had a large stops to think for a moment about what his life would have been like if he had stayed here if he had never gone to the black Templars and he feels a bit of guilt over this thought and he proclaims to the emperor forgive me this one final sin the sun begins to set there is a dark shadow creeping in around the scene drawing ever closer but his father doesn't seem to notice it he just keeps smiling and laughing and enjoying the time he is spending with his son the vision Fades and he realizes that this is it that the final curtain of his life is drawing over him he panics and he chokes back tears he fears what is to come he reminds himself of his faith of his belief in the emperor and that he is coming home to him he desperately grasps at that faith and holds it tight as the darkness Creeps in and he begins to fade away and in his absolute final moments adelard realizes something the pain is finally gone [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: WesHammer

Views: 926,584

Keywords: warhammer, warhammer lore, warhammer 40k, 40k lore, dreadnoughts, 40k dreadnought, contemptor, redemptor dreadnought, primaris space marines, adeptus mechanicus, horus heresy, black templars, black templars lore, space marines, space marine lore, warhammer story, games workshop, chaos gate, warhammer 40k chaos gate, dark tide, primarchs, lore, deep dive, grim dark, imperium of man, emperor of mankind, warhammer tanks, warhammer weapons, adeptus astartes, astartes, weshammer

Id: xeo4hmhRMEQ

Length: 38min 23sec (2303 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 25 2022