THE GREY KNIGHTS [Part 1] - WARHAMMER 40,000 Lore / History

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] whispers are sometimes heard on Imperial worlds of Anna starties force rarely spoken of or seen but to those enemies of the Imperium who know their names forever they are feared if standard imperialist Arty's are on many worlds rarely seen if ever then the order of the grey knights are comparatively invisible barely a myth or a legend likely spoken of as silver angels and no more than that we've seen already some of the darkest entities that exist in the galaxy of the far future the humanity is able to wield such forces as the imperialist starties who stand as the last fragmented bastions of defense against the nightmarish terrors that seek to cleanse humanity from the galaxy few forces though have the pure and distilled ability as well as the tools required to face the ever more threatening horrors that the Imperium must nordda most Imperial forces carry these strengths of mind or the willpower to do so those who face the worst nightmares of mankind are known simply as the grey knights their order founded at the end of the heresy to stand as a bulwark against the entities of chaos and the horrors who threaten humanity even fewer individuals will qualify to join their honored ranks and those who seek in ramen to join these standards space mines the grey knights are a highly secretive order yet rightly feared by many as a force with unrivaled powers an unbreakable mental will unlike the regular space means if you could ever call them regular those brought into the honored ranks of the grey knights are implanted with a gene seat directly imbued with the power of the genome from the Emperor himself grey knights exist outside the standard chain of command comparative to the adapter societies who follow the subsequent commands of the adapters have been a stratum the high loads of terror and now the Lord Commander of the Imperium the grey knights are in fact not aligned with the regular military imperial forces but are instead a part of the Imperial Inquisition who unlike all other forces within the Imperium answer only to the Emperor himself and as such operate outside of the ordinary structure of the Imperium of man they are a component force of the Ordo malleus which is a subset of the inquisition the audio malleus is otherwise simply known in layman's terms as the demon hunters there are other similar subdivisions within the inquisition such as the audio heretics the witch hunters and the Ordos eNOS the fairly self-explanatory alien hunters the audio malleus inquisitors and the grey Knights entire focuses to destroy purge and cleanse any physically manifested demons or chaos entities who encroach on the physical material as well as to exterminate those individuals who show either a taint or desire to spread the message of chaos and disrupt the peaceful order of the Imperium the story of the grey knights and indeed the inquisition is more detailed and intricate than you may imagine its origins lie at the very core of the consequences displayed for all to see that resulted because of the Horus heresy the creation of the order of the grey knights centers around two of the strongest and my own personally favored figures in the Imperium though both not only instrumental in its survival but who had also show absolute unwavering loyalty to the Emperor Mao code or the sigil light and Nathaniel Garrow the story of this all begins during the early days of the Horus heresy where Horus looper calles now the war master of the Great Crusade would make his first devastating strikes against humanity and finally his true loyalties to be shown openly that he had turned away from the Emperor and the Imperium and sided with the gods of chaos in an attempt to destroy the Emperor and annihilate whatever remained of the shattered Imperium of man already by this time some of the pry marks close to Horus were already aware of the war masters switching loyalty and were making their own tentative explorations within their ranks to discover who they could rely upon who would support their cause when the time came the ultimate goal of course being that the higher ranking estar T's brothers would be those who the regular ranks would look to to see who they were going to take a lead from and who would have to resulting ly crush any loyalist remnant brothers in the legions any estar T's officers who were known to be unbreakable or two straight minded would certainly have to be dealt with before or after the fact this is when battle captain Nathaniel Guerra enters the scene now he was serving as a battle captain within the death guard Legion a Space Marine force who along with their prime more terian would turn traitor to the Imperium and subsequently become the foul and infamous plague Marines of Nergal Garrow they would stay as one of the very few in the death guard to remain the loyal to the Emperor he would in fact be one of the most staunch Lee loyalists starties of this whole devastating period in imperial history but why well in the days leading up to his pivotal role it's also helpful to understand the background of who Nathaniel Garrow was for he was recruited before his prime arc had even been discovered and unlike many Space Queens later as such he knew loyalty directly to the Emperor Garrow is one of the earliest members of the 14th Legion when it still been known not as the death guard but as the dusk Raiders at this time the Legion carried not the later well-known marble white and green trimmed Armour but instead had a dull grey and Crimson shoulder plate they were named for their tactics using devastating raids that would commence as soon as the light had faded many who faced them would surrender rather than face the coming onslaught as the Sun would set and the 14th were one of the early legions recruited from Terra itself during the final days of the unification Wars these Warriors were some of the strongest of their breed and served to cement the early lead Genesis starties and prevent any risk of fracturing toward the ultimate success of the Emperor's unification war more importantly though and this remains to my mind critical to garrow's role in the inquisition and the grey knights was that the Emperor did not subdue the warlord clans from which Guerra came as part of his unrelenting war across earth during this time in fact quite unusually the Emperor actually sought a peaceful resolution instead of crushing them under the weight of his Thunder warriors Goro came from a region known as old Albia previously European Albania and at this time the region held some of the most powerful and well experienced warriors on earth who even carried many battalions of proto dreadnaughts the Warriors of Albia would not submit to the Emperor and through many devastating battles they would remain defiant knowing he could probably win through sheer attrition the emperor saw this is unnecessary for both sides for while he sought the ultimate domination and unification of terror they still need not come at any cost instead he would call for a ceasefire would approach the ruling council of Albia and he said clad in no armor but cloth of white and crimson the Albia clan at this time tired of ruling warlords an endless war would listen to the emperor as he laid out his inclusive plans to unite and take humanity to the stars and more importantly a path beyond endless meaningless bloodshed to the great surprise of his generals and councillors the Albia council accepted the emperor's plan without any shots fired would become part of the emperor's great vision even more importantly the way he approached the situation would bring the powerful Albia warriors into the emperor's ranks not as being physically and mentally subdued through a war of attrition but as those injected with passion and loyalty for the cause this would make the Albia rank some of the most zealous and loyal supporters to the emperor revering him above all others more importantly Albia would gift its most powerful sons to the emperor who would in turn become the first of a new breed now known as the space mines these early space Queens would quickly gain reputations among their existing forebears as relentless disciplined and experts in survival and endurance they would systematically destroy any target assigned to them and throw waves of armoured super soldiers against their foes as time passed their originally gray and plain armor would begin to show ranks and embellishments that have been part of old Albia shoulder plates especially would be painted deep crimson the color of the blood of their enemies while the ranks of the dusk Raiders were known for being unrelenting and highly destructive breaking enemy's discipline throwing them into panic and leaving many veterans fleeing the field in terror as the waves of grain crimson would smash against their defenses the early 14th Legion following the Emperor's example were also well known for respecting agreements and deals struck between themselves and opponents early surrenders which became more and more common would always be upheld by the dusk Raiders but as equally as they would hold to these agreements those who would break we'll go outside the time of these terms would be shown an unrelenting and savage level of brutality against them the dusk Raiders would continue in their sole loyalty to the Emperor for as long as 80 years until the time came for them to be reunified with their designated primark this would be far from the joyous event that many had hoped for but indeed a much bleaker shadow that fell upon the dusk Raiders they would be dissolved and broken down recreated by Mort Aryan as the death guard their prior honours and loyalties scarcely remained for one thing up until this time the dusk Raiders had been nearly entirely Terran born from old Albia yet after their recreation as the death guard their forces under Mort Aryans leadership would originate from his home world of barbarous and any could see the divisions and fractures of loyalty that this was potentially going to cause these divisions would finally break out into the open at the inception of the heresy whereby Mort Aryan would judge at least one-third of his Legion as loyalists to the Emperor notably most of these being original dusk Raiders and here is when we would see some of the first horrific acts of treachery in the events of the east vant 3 massacre the governor and forces of the istván system had risen in rebellion to the Imperium during the crusade and as such many loyalist Marines were deployed to subdue and rein in these rebel forces the war master Horus would lead the campaign to secure the region and legions participating would be the sons of Horus the emperor's children the world eaters and of course the death guard Mort Aryan would deploy a large contingent to the planet of his font three notably those he had deemed loyal to the Emperor Horus would unleash a hellish bombardment of virus bombs to the planet and any authorities unable to find shelter would be exterminated along with the civilians across the planet itself this onslaught led to the estimations of as many as 8 billion deaths and the remaining gases of the decaying and dissolved remains of organic matter across the planet were now filling the atmosphere these would be ignited causing a fire storm that raged across the entire planet melting and bringing down many hive cities that remained an anchor on of the world eaters in a thoughtless rage would deploy to the surface to then slaughter the remaining loyalists in a battle of the last months whilst this was all going on the battle captain Nathaniel Garrow of the aforementioned dusk Raiders and subsequent death God stood aboard his worn-out assigned frigate the eisenstein in the confusion of the east van three Massacre Garrow who was one of the first to see the truth of the ensuing heresy and immediately took flight to escape any retaliation from the heavily armed traitors surrounding the planet the insuring flight to escape the traitors was not without significant difficulty and all of the loyal death guard Astarte who remained aboard the eisenstein under the command of Garrow swore to deliver the critical information of this betrayal to terror no matter the cost or the challenges thrown against them after an extremely difficult journey eventually guerra was able to make contact with and finally bring the truth to the Loyalists imperial fists delivering his message directly to the Primarch local dawn dawn though upon hearing this declaration from Garrow reacted in a blinding rage and nearly executing guerra on the spot of having voiced such unthinkable and unbelievable accusations to the hallowed champion of the emperor or a sleeper count yet dawn would be convinced and upon finally realizing the truth knew his only course of action was to return to terror and bring this critical matter to the Emperor himself Garrow though is one of the most zealous and loyal believers of the Emperor that sworn and believed to his core that it had been his quest and his responsibility to bring this to the Emperor to voice it himself personally it was a crushing blow that he would not be allowed to do this and instead along with the remaining loyalists be imprisoned on Luna as they had now been subsequently deemed an unknown quantity and this demonstrates the absolute fracturing of trust in the Imperial forces that has now begun in earnest where before they could never have imagined such treachery to be possible now no one could be trusted from rogue or dawn Garrow and his retinue least of all for having had direct contact with not only traitors and heretics but also the unmentionable an unknown horrors of the war during their journey it would be left to the Emperor himself to determine if they were in fact loyal and trustworthy to the Imperium will simply further pawns in the games of the chaos gods guerra they were still not past his harrowing trials of this time and he'd now be faced with the battle never seen before where one of his Marines who had been injured by nargis corruption whilst on board their flight through the warp on the Eisenstein now would be possessed and reformed as a true abomination the demon of Nergal will the Lord of the Flies Garrow be forced to fight this foul entity after it wrought devastation to the Luna fortress and eventually defeated outside on the surface of Luna itself banishing it back into the immaterial now there was very much more to the story of nathaniel garrett this time but the key elements for us in this instance other he was extremely zealous in his loyalty to the Emperor and that he remained loyal to the Imperium despite the majority of his space marine Legion being either slaughtered or turned traitor and also that he was instrumental in preventing far worse devastation to the Imperium during the initial stages of the revelations that many of the Emperor's ur star T's had indeed turned against him and were now already beginning to wage a devastating civil war all of this is important because of where the story of the grey knights now turns but this early juncture the Horus heresy was now openly underway however to put things in perspective it's worth remembering that this civil war at Cheney lasted for a period of roughly nine years before we begin to look at the gray knights in earnest we also need to understand the founding and formation of the organization they are part of this is of course Imperial Inquisition and this is where we return to Nathaniel Garrow now Garrow and others including the sister of silence and Oblivion Knight am and Eric Kendall would be approached by mauka door the siege light who you remember is the first Lord of terror and the Emperor's Regent whilst away from terror itself mauka door was a cycler with extreme powers possibly second only to the Emperor himself and had been instrumental in protecting humanity by taking position upon the golden throne whilst the Emperor battled the war master Horus in the final hours of the Horus heresy ultimately Malka door would be destroyed by the sheer power of the throne and dissolved to dust but he remains one of mankind's greatest heroes in the Imperium of man so at the early outbreak of the heresy Malka door would approach these individuals and propose to them that he was considering creating a new organization within the Imperium one requiring above all else individuals who carried a strongly inquisitive nature a Mandara would have her face and skin scarred to bear the sigil of the regent of terror using a composition of liquid metallic scarring it should also be applied to Nathaniel Garros power Armour having all of his death guard markings removed entirely his armor was now a pure gray silver and carried only the markings of the sigil light the mark which for thousands of years would carry terrifying weight and power throughout the Imperium and to its enemies an infamous designation of a stylized letter I with three horizontal lines sitting centrally within it this was the future marking of the Imperial Inquisition it was prior to all the events of Nathaniel Garrard that the Emperor himself foresaw the need to order mauka door to locate individuals who had form an organization who those within would display unquestioned loyalty a strength of mind and courage that was absolutely unbreakable a tall order to be sure and furthermore this organization would answer to no one by the Emperor himself its sole objective would be to protect the purity of the Imperium and prevent its corruption by the witch's traitors mutants and Zino's Malka doors quest would lead him to search the galaxy for those who were become responsible for ensuring the safe future of humanity the heresy had already demonstrated that the Astarte of the emperor were far from incorruptible as the emperor had once hoped them to be and so the establishing of a body to oversee all and whose entry requirements were beyond extreme had become an absolute necessity gara having been marked out as one of the first if not the very first members of the inquisition would be tasked by mauka door with locating seven other starties whose loyalty was absolutely without question their legion being traitor or loyalist was irrelevant to mauka door only their loyalty to the Emperor and to the Imperium in both a physical and a spiritual sense mattered these individuals are the founding core of the grey knights one of the first to start ease that Guerra would seek out was an ultramarine by the name of tireless Rubio a powerful psychic but under a decree by the Emperor space mines have been outlawed from using psychic powers this oath to the Emperor especially among the ultramarines was sacrosanct and so when Gary located Rubio fighting a fierce battle he refused to leave his brother ultramarines as enniaa starties would do but Gary believing Rubio to be one of the Marines he knew suitable for his quest from mauka door decided to remain and assist the ultramarines in fighting their battle however the intense engagement they were fighting against the traitorous word bearers quickly deteriorated and Rubio realizing they had few options remaining decided their only chance of survival was to unleash a devastatingly powerful psychic attack in direct violation of the Emperor's decree subsequently after the battle despite having saved many of his brother ultramarines Rubio was now held in disgrace by them and upon seeing their turned backs he realized he had little choice other than to take an oath of moments to Garrow and dedicate himself totally to following the orders of the city light the next morning to join the retinue would be a curious choice and a start his captain may Savarin previously of the world eaters Legion which had now turned traitor to the Imperium similarly to Garrow and many studies across the legions at this time Ron had disconnected himself from his betraying brothers and swore vengeance upon them yet unlikely clear-headed strength of character seen in tieless Rubio Varon was like many others among the world eaters quick to anger and longing for blood and combat so initially seeming a strange and even unfitting choice for this new order yet through a situation of deception and corruption involving a flotilla of refugee ships and multiple supposed loyalist Marines from legions including the Empress children and white scars Varon would demonstrate through a series of fierce close quarter engagements that he not only held extreme loyalty to the Emperor but that he could also control his internal rage and showed great restraint in abiding garrow's wisdom later on Terra while reporting back to mauka door Tolleson van would enter upon Garrow wearing their now plain gray armor with the distinctive I insignia of this sigil ight Varon exclaimed that he wished to become part of this new Brotherhood and Gera accepted and the expressed conditions that varied constrain his desire for fire and retribution the time for these things would be later and there are media to more critical mission was to remain in the shadows to fulfill their mission for the imperial regent in the days for vengeance and physical fury would come soon enough now not all of the original founding members sought by guerra and Malka door were known but the final nona starties recruited was none other than gavial Loken the Loken is actually a fairly established figure in this early breakout period of heresy as he once was a member of the now infamous more navall within the legion of the sons of Horus formerly the luna wolves now this was the closest advisory circle of officers who had counseled their Primarch and now war master horus this group all held a strong bond beyond that of usual a starties brothers as an extension of the informal warrior lodge that they'd become familiar with after the conquest of davin regardless of its origins though the more navall was tasked with advising horus in many roles including tactics diplomacy even ethical choices Horus was a master of diplomacy and compromise before his corruption by cows and the involvement of the moor neva was partly a charade and partly genuinely useful it certainly enabled Horus to retain and legitimize his decisions by portraying the appearance of making balanced and even-handed choices when in actuality he would often use others as a smokescreen to middie give additional weight to decisions he had already made in advance in his own mind but Garvey on Loken after the horrors of the east von Massacre finds himself there abandoned by his brothers as with the other loyalists he would be subjected to the harrowing ly traumatic virus bombing of the planet which would horrific Lee slaughter billions the starties and civilian alike however not all the starties on the planet were biologically dissolved out of existence many survived in bunkers and as fate would have it one of those survivors was Garvey ol oaken now completely mentally broken by the severity of his brother's betrayal and simultaneously the appalling atrocities he had witnessed compounded by now his isolation on his farm three locum was now devoid of his own identity his mind no doubt suffering some kind of automatic defense system that's known to occur when a person suffers an especially traumatic event sometimes a person's mind will essentially erase its own memories as a means of psychological self-defense Loken now believing himself to be a guardian of the underworld given the sheer volume of horror and death all around him titled himself Cerberus believing he was now the only remaining loyalist marine in the galaxy and the one thing he knew for certain was his duty and his loyalty to the Emperor and the Imperium believing that as death had rejected him he would do his duty in guard for all time the biologically annihilated ruins of East vant 3 but that was until marcador the city lights chosen warriors would arrive of course nathaniel Garrow had returned with the singular task of attempting to locate Loken who they believed to be alive somewhere still on the planet more importantly believed him to be a strong candidate for the city lights quest if he was still alive that is Garrow Rubio and varan would discover after combat with Cerberus and disturbed creatures who deceptively initially appeared human but were in fact Nergal demon hosts that the one they sought was in fact the deranged and psychotic Cerberus after a final battle between Gera and the self-titled Cerberus Gera would eventually be able to reach through the fog of trauma that clouded Logan's mind and reach the few remaining shreds of purity and honour that was the Astarte previously known as gavial loken but now he was about as far from being a glorious super humanist artis a pinnacle of human development he was not far from being described as more like a wretched mentally barren animal but as with all encounters during this time the sense of skepticism and suspicion was powerful was Loken truly what they were hoping he would be or was even perhaps something far worse more sinister a deceitful agent left by Horus to spring some shrewd trap upon those loyal to the Imperium the retinue would return to the somnus Citadel on Luna where what would follow was the first of many interrogations that could be perhaps quite appropriately classified as an inquisition Loken would be pushed to the very knife edge of death multiple times as he's mentally and physically tested beyond the limits of even and estar teased and even then there were those who did not believe his loyalty was not just a facade and that he harbored some latent evils to unleash at an appropriate time in place the trials of Garvey on Loken cut to the core of the problem with the heresy and traitors to the Imperium the issue being that even having sustained horrific interrogations and survived to see the other side it could still not be said with any certainty that locum was indeed truly loyal it was different for the others like Garrow and Rubio and Varon who had through their actions displayed their loyalty yet even then to be pedantic where do you draw that line in the sand Horace himself had shown that any number of loyal and heroic acts didn't amount to any absolute sense of amove herbal oil tea to the Emperor all of this was pushing towards the sense that in order to ascertain the best possible chance of purity and loyalty you had to be extreme in the extreme in the end it all comes down to a simple matter of instinctual trust and for many members of the Imperium during the time trust was a commodity that would be increasingly difficult to come by with lokan being the last of the starties warriors Guerra had set to recruit he had ultimately completed his quest for the sigil I'd mauka door would bring the twelve robed Biggers who now represented the finest the most stalwart members of the Imperium before the Emperor himself eight of these would be a star teased and another four were human Lords of the Imperium some of the earth star T's came from there now traitor legions and others from remaining loyalist legions these facts would ultimately be irrelevant as the only key factor to their being in this place at this time was their total devout loyalty to the Emperor and the Imperium of man the emperor was pleased the mauka door could mark up another success for himself in service as the Emperor's Regent having now been rehabilitated locum would embark on a quest set out for himself alongside another of Malka doors Knights errant to ascertain the loyalty of the Dark Angels Legion and their prime alkali Annelle Johnson the events that followed would be appropriately full of shadow and deception but ultimately end in abject failure and this entire episode compounded Logan's already badly damaged sense of self and further undermined his perspective the core reason for his existence Loken had been forged by the Emperor as a pure weapon of war but now he found himself playing the games of intelligence gathering and subterfuge at the behest of marcador the sugilite discarded and severed from his brother marines that had stood forever with him as his mental state continued to deteriorate he found himself caring little for these other so-called knights-errant working for the city light on the abject failure of his mission in his subsequent return this would lead Loken to become increasingly isolated within an abandoned garden by a dame on luna it's created a surreal juxtaposition of one of the emperor of man's finest warriors never having known anything in his life that could be described as peace he he was in the most peaceful of surroundings tending to an abandoned garden devoid of grounded stable thought lost amid the liquid flows of his delusions barely knowing which were genuine and which were half imagined ghost memories spliced together with trauma and shattered emotions during one of these lucid periods Slocum would find himself again speaking with his dead battle brother tarik target and the internalized conversations like him would have with target and along with realizing he had in his garden of rehabilitations recreated the water garden where he and the mournful first swore a sacred oath to serve the emperor above all prime oxen to ultimately uphold the imperial truth this was the mental Keystone that loken had needed for all this time these fragments of memory filled that mental Keystone position to secure the route open across a bridge that would allow lokan to access and unlock all of his involuntarily suppressed and previously locked memories he could recall all of the prior horrors and misdeeds of Horus the questionable decisions the rash the suspect and the outright unnecessary the interacts Davin and the Eurasian technocracy incidents and certainly not to mention the abhorrent atrocity that was the istván three massacre hello can now feeling a renewed sense of purpose and loyalty while still also realizing he was perhaps not what could be described as a stable individual he would return to terror to launch with the sigil light in the space walls prymaat Lehmann Rus are certainly daring if not also somewhat foolish plan to infiltrate Horace's flagship the vengeful spirit after initially some success things would quickly unravel still Loken had in one final stand stood before his father Primark horace and shamelessly was invited to turn traitor to the Emperor and the Imperium the Loken would remain defiant to the last and his final fight with Horace would allow several of his boarding party of Malka doors Knights to escape now while the story of Loken has little impact on the creation of either the inquisition or the grey knights what it does illustrate is the complexity of mental avenues pathways and fragments that must be navigated by those working within some of the greatest areas of the Imperium while the grey Knights are known as such primarily because of their Armour being devoid of the usual chapter colors and markings you can also read beyond the simple aesthetic description and consider that the work being done by the most loyal of warriors and their Inquisition counterparts is of a very gray nature the story of gavial oaken aptly illustrates this when you consider that after all was said and done even Loken himself could not know if he was truly loyal to the emperor until the situation was presented squarely to him by Horace standing there on the wall masters flagship and these events were Illustrated a crucible of loyalty the ax star teased the Emperor's greatest creations had been proven to be just as fallible as regular humans when it came to the dark forces of the war Calvillo lakin dough was one who stood as a new force to hold back the tide of corruption temptation and to resist those who hunger to endlessly feast upon the souls of mortals these newer starties would as lokan demonstrated to the gods of chaos have immense an incorruptible willpower superhuman figures who would stand like unbreakable rocks where other men would be consumed by the tides and storms of the warp that would lash and overwhelmed them those of this new breed of warrior would stand firm a force that could not be broken or kneel a soldier who would scream fury into the void and care not what was given back in return a symbol of the Imperium that would choose obliteration and suffer the indignant despair of corruption the minions of chaos now had truly something to fear for how can a force that's very existence resolves around corruption defeat the incorruptible the important creations and traitors of the warp would now face a new breed of warrior one whose time of stealth and subtlety was fast drawing to a close and who instead would now exert the true wrath of the Emperor's spirit mauka door and Nathaniel Garrow had forged them from the finest warriors in the Imperium of man and they would be the first of many they would be the grey knights [Music] in the despair and darkness that was the Horus heresy the gray nights were a new hope as would often be the case going forward those are starties that formed the founding of the gray knights nearly all possessed supernatural skills as psychos now while this had been outlawed by the Emperor it was now realized as a necessary evil in order to combat the SCHIP pervasive and unstoppable forces of chaos under the Emperor's instructions this new and highly secretive force would head to Titan the largest orbiting moon of Saturn Mao could or would accompany his new force and assist in the development of their order which would be heavily intertwined with what would become the Ordo malleus in the Inquisition these are starties carrying the already highly advanced genetic adaptations of the space marines married with unbreakable mental strength strong psychic powers and some of the most advanced walker available at the time the early grey knights were beyond what would be described as an elite fighting force they were the zenith of what every Astarte is aspired to be or had aspired to be before things had gone so catastrophically awry the story of the Inquisition diverges at this point as the for human Lords chosen by Malka door would set out to lay the framework of what would later become the much-feared inquisition mauka door they would lead the ATIS starties to the secretly created fortress monastery on titan and what they found was a heavily pre-prepared base of operations for a brand new order of Space Marines vaults of weapons and war gear freshly lobotomized slave servitors most importantly hundreds of thousands of fresh recruits waiting to undergo some of the most severe Space Marine trials ever devised to see if they would make the cut to become one of the few to claim the honor of becoming a Space Marine in a brand new an elite force of a starties this human stock material had already faced far-reaching tests to even reach this stage as Malka door servants had searched millions of Imperial worlds for these raw recruits crawling around inside their mind scraping their synapses raw for any signs of chaotic corruption a process that would leave some insane and others broken blackened shells foaming at the mouth from having their minds scratched apart and ultimately collapsing into helpless vegetative States too likely then be processed as biomatter cycling for those with the mental strength to endure and survive they now found themselves ready to begin all over again and face trials that would test the resolve of even a hardened Durst artis additionally all of these new recruits already had psychic potential and if successful would then be able to forge and develop their abilities in a controlled way to lead them to the path of becoming a new breed of a starties who wielded not any powerful war gear and the mental strength to resist the most powerful of corrupters but also the ability to unleash psychic powers the likes of which had rarely been seen before in the ranks of the impairment man still while Malka doe was instrumental in the initial establishment of the green-eyed order and had assisted the previous eight battle brothers in how they should organize and trial the initial elements of this new chapter he was urgently record to terror the heresy war was becoming ever more severe and events around tear itself were coming finally to a head mauka door would carry out to further tasks in selecting the Grand Master for the grey knights from the ATIS starties to some surprise not choosing nathaniel Garrow but a marine known as yamas he would become the first supreme Grand Master of the grey knights Malka door would then use his even now astonishingly powerful psychic abilities as a human to throw up a reality bubble around titan itself sending it into the warp where would await the inevitable conclusion to the heresy war Malka door would then return to terror unknowingly for the last time who was Yanis though well like many of the knights-errant he was plucked from the ranks of traitors formally reveal Aveda a sergeant of a thousand suns space marine legion the oracle had experimented with and developed psychic powers these seemed the primary reason as to why marketer would choose Yanis knowing that these powers would be so critical Yanis there was no ordinary thousand suns marine he had used his immense psychic power to lead the whites cars back to terror during that heresy period but was also critically suffering from an ailment that played all thousand suns known as the flesh change now early in the crusades whilst the thousands sons to their joy developed psychic powers many would then begin to be struck down with a horrific and degenerative process of mutation and they couldn't know this at the time but this was the corruption of the war infusing their bodies this was known as the flesh change Aveda upon reaching terror was suffering greatly from this flesh change and his body was mutating now beyond control Malka door was present at this time and pledged to try and heal a vida he would attempt to bind a shard of the thousand sons prymaat magnus the red to Aveda an attempt to create a shadow primark in a psychic host who could sit then and guard the gate on the golden throne as the emperor had intended magnus to do originally instead the Malka doors plan would not work and the psychic fire of the Primarch shard would entirely consume our vida and out of the fire would step in a star teased with no trace of the flesh change but neither a shadow Primarch or reveal Aveda the Marine asked to be known as the anus later Yanis this primer confused a star teased born out of a psychic firestorm would now become the supreme grand master of the grey knights order even as the war raged on in material space the order of the grey knights would begin to develop their organization structure and their qualifying recruitment stages which are unfortunately for those wishing to take part considerably more severe in their testing while this can seem excessive it is in fact ultimately necessary if the grey knights can accept nothing less than the most hardened and unbreakable individuals in both physical and mental respects in these early days the Council of the eight Marines would begin to develop the training systems for those recruits awaiting trials to join the new order but in later establishing periods recruits are located by so called chapter gatherers these are usually somewhat retired veteran grey knights who perhaps due to extended service or a severely impeding injury are not best suited to carry out combat missions but they're infallible judgment is still without question and this is arguably the most important weapon for a member of the green as with most of starties chapter recruitment can come from basically anywhere but with the grain ice this can even mean another chapters homework as well as feral planets Penal worlds even the much feared black ships and as with the Inquisition there are few of any barriers that constrain their decisions or their demands of those are lucky enough to have been discovered after having likely already faced some sort of life-or-death pre-testing trial on their home planet that we brought back to titan itself and the gray Knights fortress monastery for these individuals this will either be a fairly unlikely spectacular new beginning or the far more like the beginning of the end for they will either succeed or die this and nothing else as with what we might qualify as ordinary Space Marine trials if they can be called as much the recruits are put under immense physical and psychological testing and this can be any number of trials device to push them up to and well beyond the limits of what an ordinary humans should be able to withstand unlike ordinary Astarte trials the grey knights often begin their trials for many recruits by instead of being taken straight to the fortress for the usual testing of physical trauma laceration pain induction and mentally scarring tests that will leave summer crying shivering gibbering wreck broken beyond help or leave others gritting their teeth through to the end refusing to submit or break but grey knights recruits face a far simpler challenge they're dropped down to the planet's surface to begin their testing and these recruits will face a simpler but much more harrowing ly bleak test the first test of simply even reaching the starting line alive there are some exceptions of course recruits who might show very special promise in their psychic abilities and any number of other factors can be taken just straight to the fortress proper but this is the rare minority most new recruits will be instead dropped with little regard into the frozen wastes of Titan with no suitable clothing for the soul destroying tasks ahead and while Titan itself have been terraformed years ago the planet is still a barren inhospitable wasteland the recruits are simply left with no option than to face the absolutely unbearable conditions of Titan and march across the plains of the planet to reach the fortress Monastery of the grey knights recruits at this stage will be simply designated a number to track their progress all other information is irrelevant and should they fall they'll either be buried in an unmarked grave along with hundreds or even thousands of other failed potentials or perhaps simply just not buried or recovered at all this is far more likely this is the disconnected and emotionless reality that litters the landscape of Titan as thousands of recruits continually trial for acceptance into this arguably most severe of a starties assessment trials as with most tests devised by the knights whilst this is a physical test it's actually much more about the mental ability of the recruit can these recruits overcome their physical agony and the miserable reality of having to endure this marathon journey before their real tests even begin many will simply collapse and die on the route all those depending on their background may become completely mentally broken and just turn away from reaching the gates of the fortress monastery and their reward will equally be death but this is of concern to no one cowards and those who lack the discipline to follow through on their trials deserve nothing or less those who managed to reach the gates of the monastery had given the briefest respite and also now fitted with a psychic inhibitor collar before being immediately sent back out to repeat the journey they just took the inhibitor collar will now continually monitor their recruits undeveloped psychic powers and should he had any time to lose control of his psychic abilities the collar were quite obviously explode after completing this second trial the recruit is then sent out again this time perhaps with some slim supplies to walk far beyond through endlessly dangerous environments from crushed wrecks roaming bands of insane and damaged servitors to eventually reach the Xanadu region on Titan this caustic environment creates a haze and miasma of chemicals that will induce nightmarish visions and again tests of the croup beyond the mental strength of any ordinary man as if that wasn't bad enough these visions are where the real test lies the psychic inhibitor collar is for many the much more literal threat because now as the delusions and surreal lucid visions begin to consume the recruits created by the chemical clouds and caustic pause they find themselves in for many is it simply too much to experience and control for them reality and rivals and simultaneously so does their control over their psychic abilities thousands of headless skeletons laying strewn around the chemical crystal pools of this area or a testament to this grotesque fact for the minimal amount of recruits will return from this marathon trial they'll be given a brief period to recover before facing of course more trials unlike many space brain recruitment tests the grain I assessments go on and on and on they're often much more about pushing a recruit to the limits of a mental breaking point than they are about the physical yet physical testing helps in breaking the mind and ensuring they are immune from physical stresses the tests utilized by the grey knights are often designed to that end often objectively pointless physically excruciating and always designed to push a recruit beyond the mental limits they have so far achieved to this point so many the largest test is simply not knowing at what point these unbearable trials will end these tests will continue until the assessing grey Knight determines that a recruit has done enough to warrant initiation to the chapter so that now they're true training can begin those who qualify will obviously be extreme in the few which is entirely the point numbers spoken of or anything like one in a million individuals and those who succeed will be rare examples of the very strongest cells and sinews humanity can produce the harsh nature of the testing simply confirms this because of this extreme exclusivity however the grey Knights are not as plentiful in numbers as say an Astarte Space Marine chapter but what the grain ice lack for in weight of numbers they'll make up for 100 times over with their weapon skill physical and psychic powers and above all else a completely unbreakable will unsurprisingly then after reaching this point is where the real trials begin and as where the standard of starties advanced bio engineering and surgery used to develop and conditioned aspirants what will be required of them in the months and years to come Green Knights will also have silver hexagram ik purity Ward's embedded under their skin and throughout their entire body this is to enable them to be essentially untouchable by demonic entities to be able to stand naked again the power and raging storms of the warm gray night aspirants will also need to pass the 666 rituals of debtor station these ritual trials are said to be nightmarish enough to mentally break even a veteran estar tease but at this stage comes arguably the most severe test of a recruit all recruits reaching this stage will then have their minds scrubbed and memories of their previous lives up to this point wiped but the reason for this is to even more assure these secured loyalty to the Emperor and simultaneously prevent potential horrors of the war using a knight's own memories fears connections desires against them additionally they will have their names erased and they will be given new names past this point for the same reason to disconnect them from their previous lives family connections because names can actually hold power over demons and as such grey Knight names are carefully chosen to carry significant resonance within the warp their names will be arcane Lee crafted by the chapters scholars to work as a binary opposite to a specific known demon of the warp as you begin to learn more about what it is to be a gray Knight you see that they're not simply hacking and slashing demon hunting warriors battling the forces that seek to destroy the Imperium to be a gray knight is to be purged of all that you are and were and to become a literal living weapon of the Emperor understanding this gives more strength to their Scripture and they're saying that a lot designed simply to sound terrifying but are a very real interpretation of what it means to be a member of the order of the grey knights this is why they will often refer to themselves as the vengeance weapon and the blade of the Emperor they see themselves as quite literal extensions of the Emperor himself not individual glory seeking warriors simple pure implements of his will to demons in the war even hearing their opposing gray Knights names spoken aloud causes them intentional terrible pain for standard space moon aspirants they'll start out as Scout Marines and they don't initially wear full suits of power armor that honor comes later for them but this is not the case for those in the ray night's a successful gray night aspirant for the chapter because of the severity of the trials but also the nature of their battles means that they are immediately issued a full power armor suit and pushed into full service as a marine of the gray night chapter Elite is really not a term that can quantify the scale of achievement that is secured by becoming a gray night space moon becoming one of those one-in-a-million individuals but it would be fair to consider why anybody would put themselves in that position in the first place and the answer to that is really very simple most applicants for the grey knights probably know very little of what awaits them they will however be carefully selected by the veteran grey knights who visit their homeworld and for those who are chosen by what to those humans must appear to be demigod like figures they never dreamed they'd see with their own eyes the idea of refusing selection would be unthinkable as fears of tarnishing themselves and their families with severe dishonor and shame would be rife unbeknownst to them of course their families would likely be mind wiped after the whole process anyway but those rare few who show the strength courage and above all indomitable human spirit to survive and proceed to the next stages of testing will hold with them the most powerful weapon any grey knight would choose to have an absolute an unbreakable faith in the emperor of man and the Imperium and that to begin with is surely enough [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Luetin09

Views: 2,201,595

Keywords: Warhammer 40K, Chaos, Gods, Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Nurgle, Imperium, Humanity, Mankind, Eldar, Doom, Fall, Space Marines, Heretic, Sisters of Battle, Heresy, Traitor, Legion, Horus, The Emperor of Man, Lore, Beginners Guide, History, Guide, 40K, Warhammer 40000, Warp, Immaterium, Rift, War, Slaughter, Horror, Nightmare, Tabletop, Grey Knights, Inquisition, Ordo Malleus, Garro, Daemon

Id: 8jdPZR63sx8

Length: 52min 39sec (3159 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 07 2018