Editing Ferrus Manus (section)

==Ferrus Lives?==
There is speculation ''(in-universe and out)'' that Ferrus Manus somehow lives, and is hidden away on Mars by the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]], though mentioning this to the Iron Hands gets them impressively angry, to the point that they might demonstrate how they think otherwise by using the speaker's own head. The marines who survived the Dropsite Massacre were in no doubt of his death, having seen the visual evidence from multiple angles, but apparently the Iron Hands found the files too depressing and set about wiping their hard drive with a bolter. Despite (or perhaps because) of this, one of the Iron Hands' Clans still maintains vigil near the place where he crashed, convinced that one day he'll return. Nobody has the heart to tell them that this hope is soooo horribly misplaced, so they're left alone.

That being said, the [[Horus Heresy]] book series has been sowing multiple seeds for a while that there might be a kernel of truth to the rumour...

'''Firstly,''' [[Fulgrim]] regretted not being able to convince Ferrus Manus into joining the side of the traitors, and so had [[Fabius Bile]] attempt to clone his brother with all of his memories intact so that Fulgrim might try again at turning Ferrus to [[Chaos]]. This [[FAIL|did not work]] as the cloned Ferrus would become hostile at the suggestion of turning traitor and would have to be killed by daemon-Fulgrim.

That didn't stop Fulgrim from trying again and again, believing that Fabius' cloning methods resulted in "imperfect" clones and so ordered him to try harder and create more, though fortunately, each one would get angry at the attempt to turn him away from the Emperor and end up getting beaten to death by his now-ascended brother. Guess even Daemon Primarchs can stay [[butthurt]] for millennia on end.

Another thing to note is that the Ferrus Manus clones ''did not'' have the metallic arms of the original, which is obvious since the original was not "born" with them either and only acquired them later in life. This fact was hidden from the clones by making them wear gauntlets, which the clones found confusing (the original Ferrus never needed gauntlets for protection since the metal skin was protective enough) but ended up rolling with, since their lives tended to be measured in hours.

'''Secondly,''' the Iron Hands did manage to salvage one of the broken hands of Ferrus Manus from the battlefield of Isstvan V. The Iron Fathers of the Legion built a cult around it like it was some sort of relic and used it as the starting point for them constructing a mechanical golem creature that would act as a facsimile for the Gorgon that would issue orders by gesturing with its hand like some sort of paralytic invalid. Other than the hand, this new creature was unrecognisable as the Primarch that the arm had come from; [[Vulkan]] considered it an insult to the Emperor and his brother's memory and promptly destroyed it with his hammer.

It is strongly hinted that the Mechanicum may have had something to do with the personality cult of the Gorgon-Golem as the Iron Fathers of the Legion seemed to come back "changed" after receiving their mechanical upgrades from the tech adepts during the Horus Heresy. This hints that the Mechanicum might have been trying to subvert the Xth Legion to their own causes even while galactic civil war was going on around them. Even though Vulkan destroyed the creature, whatever influence the Mechanicum had on the legion likely remained, as the Iron Fathers abandoned their Terran-born warleader '''Shadrak Meduson''' not long afterwards and went their own way.

What happened to the ''other'' metallic arm remains a mystery but a number of interested parties somehow cut shavings off them (finger bones) to use in the edges of ritual blades.

'''Thirdly,''' the head of Ferrus Manus was later returned to the Iron Hands just prior to the [[Second Founding]] as part of a pact between the fractious Shattered Legion and Guilliman and Dorn to ensure their compliance with the [[Codex Astartes]]. How the two Primarchs got their brother's head when it was in the possession of [[Horus]] is yet unknown, though it's possible Dorn recovered it during the assault on the ''Vengeful Spirit'' at the climax of the [[Siege of Terra]].

'''Fourthly,''' in "Master of Mankind," the Emperor summoned an army of [[Legion of the Damned|black fiery space marines]] and flame-wreathed Custodes to hold back the tide of daemons and chaos forces from breeching the Webway and swarming Terra. Buying time for the Custodes and other Imperials to withdraw and seal the Webway entrance, they were conspicuously led by a giant with silver arms and a hammer (hell, the giant is even referred to as "The tenth son of a dying empire, so briefly reborn in his father's immolating wrath"!).

Sufficed to say there is enough evidence of Ferrus Manus's physical remains surviving in various states of cloned reanimation or ghoulish undeath that it is definitely feasible for outside observers to get the wrong end of the stick and believe that he survived much longer than he actually did. The [[Original character, do not steal|original]] Ferrus Manus was hacked to pieces by traitor marines after being decapitated, with many taking away parts as trophies and Fulgrim likely taking 'some part to remember him by'. Whether GW will ever be desperate enough to bring him back (as a clone, damned legionary, or dreadnought) we have no way of knowing - although given his relatively low popularity, this is unlikely for a while.

However as unlikely as it may seem to be the case, in The Board is Set short story, as Malcador re-enacted the execution of Ferrus Manus (represented by the "Iron General" piece) under the hand of Fulgrim (represented by the "Perfection" piece) and beheading the piece representing Ferrus in process, the Emperor's reaction was picking up the remains of "Iron General" and put them back into the wooden box he used to store all of the game pieces and remarked: "Clumsy, perhaps I will fix that later when I have some time", implying that he's capable of bringing back Ferrus Manus somehow and showing interest in doing just that.