Let’s tell a cold joke: In the 40K era, who was the only person in the entire empire who didn’t think the God-Emperor was a god? It was the Emperor.
Coincidentally, the same thing happened to this Gray Knight army founded in the 31st millennium.
Among the people in the entire empire who have the right to know about the existence of this force, who would think that the Gray Knights are not Gray Knights? Coincidentally, they are not, it is also them.
The old man Emperor knows his own family affairs, and becoming a god is just a choice for him, but this choice is not in line with his vision.
But the Gray Knights have to suffer by themselves. There is no "like it or not" option for the facts before them.
They are really not the Gray Knights. In other words, they are not the Gray Knights they originally thought.
Can a war group without the original body be called a war group? Can a war group without a complete transformation process be called a war group? Some people may say:
"Without the Primarch, wouldn't it be the same if there was a source of gene seeds?"
"There is no complete transformation process. Isn't it the same as becoming an Astartes step by step and then accepting the Emperor's genetic transformation?"
Is it really the same? Is there really no difference? Others don’t know, but the Gray Knights know it clearly.
What is the significance of the Primarch? What is the significance of his existence to a war group or a legion, or even to the entire empire?
A wise leader? Or an invincible commander? Neither, or to be more precise, these are not their original and most essential meanings.
In the past history of the empire, people gave the Primarchs too much legendary color, and these external glitz obscured the eyes of Imperial scholars from exploring the true meaning of the Primarchs.
Let us put aside these overly personal colors, political factors and dispensable military significance:
What is the meaning of a Primarch? The answer is actually very simple. He is a stabilizer, nothing more.
An individual life created by diluting the Emperor's own genes which cannot be tolerated by mortals.
And this life stood out from the mortals through its own individual evolution, and established a stable node in the distant evolutionary journey between mortals and the emperor.
And through this node, he can maintain a lower limit, a stable lower limit for mass-produced extraordinary warriors.
Even if this lower limit is a product that is weaker than the Primarch, it is still enough to be accepted by the empire.
This is the "gene seed". And when the first batch of gene seeds cultivated from the original body were sent to the culture base on Mars after heavy protection, they began to replicate and spread in batches.
In the eyes of the Emperor, the Primarch's mission had actually been largely completed.
The remaining so-called leaders and commanders are just icing on the cake. Or to put it more harshly, they are just using waste.
Wouldn't a legion without the Primarch be able to fight during the Great Crusade?
Or is it that before the return of the Primarch, the legions who had followed the Emperor himself across the galaxy did not have their own commanders? Or was it a mature war system?
The answer is of course no.
Even the combat system of the Dark Angels, as the founding legion, had matured long before the return of Lion King Ryan.
The so-called "Six Wings" integrated by the Primarch of the Angels after his return are nothing more than a different name for the "Heavenly Army" system that the Legions had already evolved and perfected before his return.
But please do not ignore the significance of the Primarchs. A complete transformation that can be achieved through one-time surgery may seem natural in the eyes of the descendants of the Legion.
But in the eyes of the Gray Knights, this has become an elusive luxury. What the Gray Knights lack is this node.
Don’t the Gray Knights want to expand? Or can the Codex Astartes, which is not looked down upon by any of the founding chapters, be able to bind these mysterious war groups that are directly connected to the Emperor along with the Custodes?
What's more, the source of this "Holy Scripture" comes from an unknown founder of the Second Empire?
Come on Terra! The wind in the Himalayas in the Royal Palace area is warmer than this joke!
Look at the Imperial Guards who are also brothers. In the eight thousand years since 31K, they have suffered heavy losses in the Webway War and have already quietly restored the huge scale they were known as the "Ten Thousand Soldiers" at their peak. Hidden behind this terrifying appearance is an even more terrifying fact: the Forbidden Forces sends out an unknown number of guard troops every year, and there are more veterans than the number of legions serving in the galaxy, all over the galaxy.
However, the number of imperial troops on duty in the palace area has never decreased.
Are retired Imperial Guards not Imperial Guards? Well, there are too many cold jokes today.
At best, they decided to take off their golden armor, put on their black robes, and start running around the galaxy for the empire after confirming that they were no longer making progress.
Does it look familiar? Yes, I did the same thing before I played the game and left Novice Village.
Under such an operating model, the true size of the Imperial Army may only be known to the Emperor himself.
What a little secret, the Second Empire, compared with this big secret that everyone knows but no one dares to ask, the first two are nothing.
The Gray Knights knew this very well and were so jealous that their eyes were red, but it was useless.
The Emperor once had the opportunity to solve this problem for them, but considering that the Emperor was already in danger when he established this army;
Prime Minister Malcador had a chance to solve this problem, but he himself was still ahead of the emperor;
Dora Caul on Mars, ugh! It’s Belissa Caul, the Great Mechanical Sage, and he also has a chance to solve this problem.
But unfortunately, from the time he accepted Guilliman's support and started the Primaris Space Marine project in 32K, for the past 8,000 years, he knew nothing about the existence of the Gray Knights.
Therefore, the Gray Knights can only place their hope in their own recruiting range throughout the galaxy and those cooperative war groups under the influence of the Inquisition.
It is hoped that with the massive supply of military samples, enough excellent samples can be screened out, and through several generations of optimization, even hundreds of generations of optimization.
There must always be a sample that can successfully cross the dividing line between gods and humans, right?
But no, before Calvin, in eight long millennia, among hundreds of millions of samples, not a single Gray Knight could achieve the hidden condition in the final test.
Therefore, no one can really stand up and provide a stable node for the continuation of the entire legion like other primarchs, standing between humans and gods.
What about even one? Just one, just one.
Then after being baptized by the blood of the emperor, this person who has gained a jump in life level can also use his own seeds to save the entire battle group the last step of the selection process.
Just this step, how many outstanding seeds have died in the past 8,000 years!
So the entire Gray Knights can only repeat the process of raising Gu, investing so many excellent seeds every year, but harvesting very little.
It was against this background that from the initial hope, to luck, to despair, the Gray Knights gradually stopped mentioning this topic.
The seniors died one after another, and their souls returned to the throne. The battle group has never been fully staffed in 8,000 years, and it has never been able to have enough manpower for rotation and rest.
The Gray Knights, who live on the verge of structural collapse every day, put this matter that everyone knew on the shelf and avoided talking about it.
Today, in the 39th millennium, only when the great mentors take over their posts from their predecessors will seniors bring up this topic.
Aidan's expectations for Calvin were very high, but no matter how high they were, they were not extravagant hopes. Subconsciously, he had no idea that this problem could be solved during his lifetime.
But now, everything has changed with Calvin's words.
Calvin's words made him see a beautiful dream, and this dream was only separated from reality by a trial of membership.
"We have a real Gray Knight!"
***The author has something to say***
I'm so short!!! Why am I so short!!! But I updated twice! Hahaha!