Roboute Guilliman
 | This article or section involves Matthew Ward, Spiritual Liege, who is universally-reviled on /tg/. Because this article or section covers Ward's copious amounts of derp and rage, fans of the 40K series are advised that if they proceed onward, they will see fluff and crunch violation of a level rarely seen. |
Roboute Guilliman (A.K.A.: Rowboat Girlyman, Rawbutt Jellyman, Robot Gulliver, Robot Gorillaman, Reboot Gigabyte, Robert Gullible, Big BobbyG, or High Lord Douchebag and Ward's Ever Chosen Robart "Is said to be slowly healing bullshit" Gilmanz) is the Primarch of the Ultramarines in Warhammer 40,000. Thanks to the rabid fanboying of Matt Ward, most of /tg/ hates him, which is sad, because he's actually one of the nicest and most with-it Primarchs, even if he did cling to tradition so much that it made him look like a total jerkwad; this included an inability to deal with "unconventional" tactics, which accidentally sent a few Primarchs to Chaos.
Life
Unlike most worlds that the other Primarchs landed on Macragge was a pretty perfect and nice place to live on. However it was a Greco-Roman theme so someone like Magnus or even Sanguinius would have been thrown off a cliff for being defected, plus Guilliman was found by a politician while they were on a hunting trip.
Konor was one of the co-rulers of Macragge and took the young boy. Konor was a pretty cool dude, he advocated helping the common man and reforms that would make the world a meritocracy. These were a major influence on Roboute and stayed with him throughout his life. It also says something that Konor's seneschal, Tarasha Euten, was effectively Guilliman's surrogate mother, making him the only primarch to have a conventional family, a fact that twisted Konrad Curze's nipples no end (which goes double when she tells him to go fuck himself).
One day while Roboute was coming back after fighting the Macragge's version of the Gauls, Roboute came to find his home in chaos. Konor was the victim of some Roman politics. The other co-ruler, Gallan, was pissed off at all these reforms and so just sent his army to rape, pillage and burn. Seeing his once peaceful home burning, neighbors looting and killing each other; left the second major impact on Roboute and the most likely source of why he was always so anal about keeping things in order.
After gutting Gallan and restoring order, Roboute work to make his father's dream a reality. This was the third major impact on his life: though he claimed that Gallan's death was justice, Guilliman came to realize that it was in fact vengeance, and worked to master his emotional self-control.
By the time the Emperor reached Macragge, Roboute was ruling for five years and turned the world into a place were you had to earn your place not just be born, like what his father wanted.
Great Crusade
Generally Roboute was a classic "Jerk with a heart of gold" he was an total asshole for people he didn't think earned their place, and a great number of people he saw as chaotic and unorthodox (although secretly he had great respect for Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan) but was humble and nice to normal people treating them like equals and very much big on the need to raise the living standards of the Imperium. As a result, many of his brother Primarchs were uncertain about his intentions, and fewer still even liked him. His only friends among the Primarchs were Horus, Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, and Rogal Dorn.
A good example of this was his dealings with Alpharius. While the common view is that Guilliman was simply annoyed at his younger brother for not having the same tactics as the Ultramarines, in truth it was because Guilliman was thinking After the battle. While the Alpha Legion's methods were great at messing and breaking an army, they left the world a ruined and chaotic mess with very poor public order and mass unrest. Compared to the Ultramarine's straightforward tactics, the planet was mostly intact which allowed it to be more easily integrated into the Imperium.
He was also a fairly poor field commander; he was a statesman first and warrior third. Sure he could plan great battle formations and organized armies and supply lines like no other. Despite this, he worked very hard to turn the Ultramarines into an army of thinkers. His primary rule as a commander was "Information is victory", emphasizing that Space Marines needed a theoretical (a sound understanding of the tactical situation) and a practical (a means to achieve their objective). But he was too inflexible to lead troops as battle plans were often the first casualty. In spite of this, with over 250,000 legionaries, he managed to achieve compliance on the second highest number of worlds during the Great Crusade, surpassed only by the Luna Wolves. The planets were also model military worlds, and the Ultramarines would not leave until a modern Planetary Defence Force was established.
Another note was he was one of the few who didn't really see the Emperor as his father, as he was the the first to state how shitty the Emperor was at raising kids. In fact he would rather get help form his foster mother than the Big E.
Horus Heresy
When civil war broke out, Guilliman was tricked into taking most of his Legion to Calth for a joint Ultramarines/Word Bearers engagement. While most of his Chapter Masters believed it was just Horus flexing his muscle, Guilliman realized it was partly political: when the Emperor of Mankind rebuked Lorgar Aurelian for spreading the Lectitio Divinatus, he ordered the Ultramarines to sack Monarchia, capital city of Khur, as an example of what would happen to those who continued to defy the Imperial Truth. Guilliman carried out his orders, but privately confided to some of his officers his discomfort in doing so, feeling that the total humiliation would irreparably damage relations between the XIII and XVII Legions. Guilliman saw this as a chance to mend fences and forge friendships the old fashioned way: by getting Space Marines to kill Orks. Unfortunately, Horus and Lorgar used the Calth muster to kill over half the Legion in a surprise attack. When he found out Lorgar's treachery he personally declared to hunt Lorgar down and kill him, only to attacked by some sort of Daemonic proxy and voided onto his flagship. Guilliman did what any other pissed off Primarch would do: go on a rampage against Word Bearers trying to board the Macragge's Honour by punching them to death. In space. Without a helmet. (Dan Abnett is still pretty proud of that scene).
Anyway, after the Battle of Calth, Guilliman decided that if his father could not be saved, His ideals would be, setting up a new government called Imperium Secundus, a second Imperium of Man which would reject Horus's alliance with Chaos. Although potentially heretical, Guilliman's motives at least appeared sincere, he made a big hoohah about not taking the throne himself, since he would look like a Tyrant if he did. Fortunately/Unfortunately, the Lion arrived at Macragge and didn't like where it was heading neither brother trusted the other with the job of ruling the next Imperium. Sanguinius got the job only to settle the matter between the two and was declared regent of the Imperium in the Emperor's absence.
Whatever his intentions, Guilliman lead over one hundred thousand Ultramarines to Terra with the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves, intent on relieving the Blood Angels, Imperial Fists, and White Scars defending the throneworld. Learning about this, Horus lowered the void shields upon the Vengeful Spirit. The rest is history...
Popular Opinion
He's pretty much the only Primarch to realize that the Emperor's ideals were more important than the man himself, which is something that Malcador kept preaching.
He was also one of the best Primarchs when it came to logistics and organization, which is pretty much one of the only reasons why the Imperium of Man didn't collapse after the Horus Heresy. He was able to train and equip more than twice as many Marines during the Great Crusade than any other Legion, and he wrote the Codex Astartes (still the standard for Space Marine tactics). He is credited with reorganized the entire governmental and administrative system of the Imperium of Man (yes, the Administratum ended up running the galaxy into the ground, but the fact that it's still running at all is a good sign).
However as the Horus Heresy series continues, it is revealed that it was actually Malcador the Sigillite who had been creating the foundations for the later Imperium. In fact it is continuously being hinted that Guilliman positioned himself to take over the Imperium after the fall of the Emperor, whether through good intention or through sinister means has yet to be revealed.
This is almost explicitly stated in Vengeful Spirit and found as an unsurprising revelation in a discussion between Malcador and the Emperor:
"It's Guilliman, what do you think he's doing? He's building an Empire" - Malcador
"and the Lion goes to stop him?" - Emperor
"So the Wolf King says, my Lord, it seems the warriors of the Lion stand with us after all"
"You doubted them?"
Unfortunately, thanks to 10,000 years of propaganda and exaggeration (and Matt Ward's Codex: Space Marines), Guilliman is absolutely perfect in every way and treated as second only to the Emperor through the entire Imperium. This is bullshit as:
- a.) Sebastian Thor is actually the main Imperial saint
- b.) Although not mentioned often; Sanguinius is actually the Primarch held in the highest regard, because of that whole "noble sacrifice" thing. (Hell, Sanguinius has his own holiday, called the Sanguinala. Horus himself thought Sanguinius was better qualified to be Warmaster than him, which is saying something.)
Regardless; he is pretty high on the list and the only Primarch who's body is on public display.
That being said, he was just as heavily flawed as the other Primarchs; he did a lot of tricky things in Horus Heresy, like that whole Imperium Secundus thing, and it's popularly theorized that he was bitter he never got to be Warmaster. Furthermore, Guilliman stuck closely to tradition, and his unwillingness to adapt to "dishonourable" tactics pissed off many other Primarchs, most notably Alpharius. Also, though the Codex Astartes undoubtedly did a lot of good things, it also had some less-than-perfect tips, plus it's now basically treated as infallible by the Ultramarines (at least the more faggot-y ones; there's at least some who take it with a grain of salt and realize where it's strengths and weaknesses lie). This may have been good advice but by forcing all of his brothers to split the Legions into Chapters it risked a second galactic civil war.
Additionally, although it isn't (entirely) his fault, Guilliman is usually blamed for turning the Ultramarines into such faggots (even though he specifically said the Codex Astartes should not be treated as a bible to be followed unerringly, besides the organizational parts, which he forced on his brothers as part of the post-Heresy reforms). Recently he's been increasingly entrusted to the care of the Mighty Dan Abnett and his faggot level is dropping rapidly.
Once upon a time, thanks to the rabid fanboying of Matt Ward, most of /tg/ hated him, but many of them have since come around.
The Codex, an Autobiography of Sorts
 This page is in need of cleanup. Srsly. It's a fucking mess. |
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After the death of Horus and the near-death of the Emperor, Guilliman assumed the throne and became the Lord Commander of the Imperium, which granted him the same authority as the Emperor. Guilliman was in a position of immense power at the time, possessing the strongest Space Marine legion (Because the Ultramarines did not participate in any of the major battles of the Horus Heresy due to Guilliman being duped by the Alpha Legion, the most political sway (He was noted for being the Emprah's favorite after Horus, Rogal Dorn, and Sanguinius, the former and latter dead, while the middle was then an emotional wreck from failing to save the Emperor), and more than enough resources to make any calls needed to repair the Imperium. What the fractured and devastated people needed most was a strong leader willing to take action and to resolve the problems the galaxy now faced. What they got was Guilliman. The primarch of the Ultramarines supremely doubted his brother primarchs and their ability to stay pure for the unforeseeable future.
Hence, while he occupied the throne, he began work on the Codex Astartes: a skub-tastic work that's part book of tactics and spiritual advice, part pure insecurity and paranoia that would soon tear the Space Marines apart and make them more difficult to manage and rebuild than ever (it is rumoured to be based on an ancient Terran game called "Simon says", Roboute decided that Roboute Says was too obvious and went with his publishers recommendation of "Codex Astartes"). Assuming the worst of his brethren, and perhaps even his own men, Guilliman decreed that all Space Marine legions must be broken into chapters of no greater than one thousand, forcing them to act as more individualistic groups lacking in cohesive leadership.
(Quick note before we go forward, there are lots of arguments both for and against the Codex. Naturally, we're gonna focus on the "against")
Imperial historians hum, quietly, that there may have been alternatives at the time. The people were shocked at the force the traitor legions had brought to Terra, but many were certainly more interested in being protected from the ravages of the splintered traitors than they were in seeing the Imperium's best armed forces made disorganized. One possibility may have been consolidating all Marines into one force, organizing them like a real army with checks and balances, but Guilliman would have none of it.
Instead, he demanded the fragmentation of the Imperium's finest, which was frankly outrageous to the other primarchs. Rogal Dorn even sought to topple the decree, risking a civil war for the sake of keeping the Space Marines as functional groups that could fight and act as a whole. In the end, however, Dorn was too preoccupied with self-doubt cutting, blaming himself for the death of the Emperor, and he eventually succumbed to Guilliman's plans. That and those magnificent bastards opened fire on him.
What ensued afterward was what many acolytes now refer to as “a flapping paperwork nightmare” (which is no small feat in the Administratum). Roughly one thousand documented chapters are known to exist, each with their own idiosyncrasies and movement patterns. They fly around the galaxy, attacking and defending whatever their chapter masters think is most important at the time, but they lack a unifying look at larger pictures without direct intervention from inquisitorial staff. To their credit, the Space Marines usually behave very well and show more concern for the common people than a planet's rulers, which is something of an oddity in the Imperium. To their credit, excluding the Salamanders, there is no canon source claiming that soldiers bred for perpetual war make a better governmental body than anything else in the Imperium (if they even pay attention to the petty lives of common men), but it can be inferred that they spend so much time fighting wars on the other side of the galaxy that it's hard for them to directly cause problems on the planets they've claimed. But as an elite military force, their current situation is absolutely the worst possible way for them to exist in this time of strife. It's also pretty absurd to not allow units to grow when possible given the atrocious attritional rates the Astartes frequently endure. This is a self-negating process that almost guarantees that the disposable military power of the Marines will only ever diminish over time. (This is debatable, as various sources state that each chapter is forced by tradition to pay about five percent of their harvested geneseed to the Adeptus Mechanicus, which is used to found new chapters when the surplus becomes great enough, resulting in another Founding. Therefore, while individual chapters will never grow beyond one thousand standing men, new chapters are created when the situation allows for it, or demands it.)
Now, the big reason Guilliman wanted this was to implement checks and balances, which would minimize the damage more Chaos-related treachery could do to the loyalists as a whole. Problem is, the individual chapters are known to infrequently go rogue or turn to Chaos, simply because they are so autonomous. They report to themselves alone, and often seize control of planetary governments. This leads to some comedy events with Marine Chapter SITREPs reading "Yeah we're still loyal....... Nah gotcha, man we changed sides 100 years ago. Seriously man, it's on my Facebook page you should check out my Status now and again. No, just because I didn't mark I was interested in girls... Damn it not gayballs, just don't have time for the- Screw you." and other Brotherly Shenanigans, that usually resulted in widespread blood shed, planets razed and untold billions put to the sword. Like I said comedy. Rarely does the Imperium know what each chapter is trying to accomplish, and at times the Marines can go without supplies or support for years, which only increases the distance between the soldiers and the ideals they were meant to uphold.
Further outlining Guilliman's insecurities, the codex explains in great detail exactly how each chapter is meant to behave and approach every combat situation. The doctrine is unyielding, and some Marine chapters are known to severely punish officers that fail to uphold the codex. This micromanagement, too, was also widely reviled by the other primarchs. Corax was reported to have hissed at the document, insisting, “Theory cannot equip the mind with formulas for solving problems!” before spitting on the tome and hurling it at Guilliman's feet, an act which was not taken lightly between the two men. Leman Russ was of similar sentiment, but with more swear words and unflattering comments to Konor Guilliman's late wife. The Space Wolves still use the Codex as toilet paper to this day. Given the alcohol and meat fueled diet of your typical Fenrisian, they probably order in volume from the nearest Codex-compliant chapter.
Those bold enough to question wonder exactly what Guilliman's aim truly was. His codex weakened the other legions to considerable lengths. The White Scars, which were known for their swift attacks, became encumbered by the increased organizational demands from the Codex, as one example. However, if Guilliman desired power over his fellow Marines, then why did he abdicate from power in such a short time after the Heresy? Then again Guilliman was fairly open that the Codex was simply a framework and manual and shouldn't be followed to the letter as long as a Chapter follows the baseline they can be whatever they see fit. IE the White Scars still have heavy use of drop pods, and bikes with little heavy weapons.
Thanks to his (nearly, and imminently) fatal wound at the hands of Fulgrim, the Imperium may never know Guilliman's exact plans, and it is possible that such is for the best. (Especially because the plan in question involved leaving the Imperium to rot in favor of converting Ultramar into what he referred to as the Imperium Secundus. Only to make sure that the Emperor's legacy would survive him, of course. Riiight...)
| The Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions |
|---|
 Loyalist Corvus Corax - Ferrus Manus - Jaghatai Khan Leman Russ - Lion El'Jonson - Roboute Guilliman Rogal Dorn - Sanguinius - Vulkan |
 Traitor Alpharius/Omegon - Angron - Fulgrim Horus - Konrad Curze/Night Haunter - Lorgar Magnus the Red - Mortarion - Perturabo |