Editing Saint Celestine (section)

==History==
Very little is known of her pre-Saint life, other than she was a [[Sisters Repentia|Repentia]] of the Order of Our Martyred Lady and participated in the Palatine Crusade. After being apparently killed in battle, her body was recovered by her sisters, who found her wounds miraculously healed. Believing this to be a sign of the Emperor's blessing, they placed her in charge of the Imperial forces for the next days attack. After the battle was an unequivocal success, she rapidly rose through the ranks, leading the Imperium to victory time and time again against the heretics, becoming a beacon of inspiration in the process. While the Imperial forces were massing to attack the sector capital, Celestine left the main force, making a pilgrimage to a crypt on the world of Sanctus Lys, which legend said had once been visited by Saint Katherine.

On the dawn of the next day, she emerged from the crypt, wearing the Armor of Saint Katherine and wielding the fiery Ardent Blade. After this, she was officially declared a [[Living Saint]] and went on a heretic-roasting-rampage, first leading the Imperial forces to victory in the Palatine Crusade, and then onto several crusades and wars of faith after. While she had become an icon to Imperial forces everywhere, the [[Sisters of Battle]] held her in particularly high regard. This lasted until she got [[Exterminatus|nuked]] on Forrax by a [[Heresy|traitorous warmaster]]. After presumably burning him to a crisp, the Sisters of Battle were comforted by the fact that she was undoubtedly with the Emperor.

[[Legion of the Damned|And that's when shit got weird.]] Sightings of Celestine began steadily increasing, typically arriving in battles when the forces of the Imperium were at their most desperate, and disappearing before the dust had settled. In particular, she seemed to have a thing for killing [[Daemon Prince|Daemon Princes]].

[[Image:Celestine Fall of Cadia.jpg|thumb|Right|350px|GTFO]]When the 13th Black Crusade hit full swing, Celestine swooped in with a small fleet of Sororitas ships that she'd rescued from the warp to wreck shit and pray to the Emperor (and she'd already said her prayers). After saving Kasr Kraf by [[Awesome|killing the daemon prince leading the chaos assault and throwing his body off the ramparts]], Celestine started doing what she did best, inspiring the hell out of the beleaguered Imperial forces along with her new Geminae Superia bodyguards (twin Canonesses she'd resurrected during the previous battle). All the while she was receiving prophetic dreams, which she believed were from the Emperor warning her of a future danger. During the Battle of the Elysion Fields, she went toe-to-toe with [[Abaddon]] himself, and although Cawl's pylon shenanigans robbed her of the Emperor's blessings, she still managed to hold her own long enough for Cawl and Greyfax to join in and force Abaddon to retreat into orbit. Oh yeah, she also used a power sword to give Failbaddon a [[Awesome|wound he had not been given since the heresy]].

Following the demise of Cadia, Celestine was the one who convinced Cawl and the [[Black Templars]] to head down to Klaisus, using her previously mentioned dreams as a guide. She then led the survivors to the webway portal and on to [[Ultramar]] to resurrect [[Roboute Guilliman]]. Following his resurrection, she played an important role in ensuring his safe arrival to Terra alongside her two [[Belisarius Cawl|new]] [[Inquisitor Greyfax|pals]], even making amends with Greyfax before the Battle of Luna. After Guilliman's arrival on Terra, she went to minister to the people of Terra before departing once again to continue the fight against Chaos.

She later showed up on Tsadrekha to help against the World Eaters, but unfortunately [[Khârn]] sensed her and showed up too. He managed to get the charge on her [[Rip and Tear|(with predictable results)]] and apparently Celestine rolled a 1 on her resurrection roll (or the writer just needed a convenient excuse for her to exit the story) because she didn't come back to life for round 2. Considering the fact that Celestine went toe-to-toe with Abaddon in Fall of Cadia without saintly powers and survived, it's safe to say that this was more of a failure on the part of the author than the character. Another thing to consider is that although the two should be fairly evenly matched in a fight, Khârn is a more popular character, and as one fan put it, "Plot Armor is powerful and good writing is rare." [[/co/|Comics]] fans will recognize this as the "wolverine factor" similar to the [[Star Trek|Worf Factor]], wherein any charcter who can heal or revive will lose a disproportionate number of fights just because losing isn't the end of their story the way it would be for other characters.

In the audio drama ''Our Martyred Lady'' Celestine is caught in the middle of a political dispute between Inquisitor Greyfax and the Ecclesiarch Decius who in the wake of the Great Rift wants to rescind the Decree Passive and allow men to fight with the Sisters of Battle by reforming the [[Frateris Templar]] to increase to power of the Ecclesiarchy. Throughout the drama, Celestine is conflicted about being used as a political figure when a Lord of Change blows up the largest cathedral in the Imperial Palace on Terra and the headquarters of the Ecclesiarchy. Celestine saves Decius by flying out the window with him seconds before he is incinerated by an out of control psyker. The rest of the drama has Greyfax, Celestine, and a Custodian named Longinus uncovering the plot to kill Decius and finds the lost Abbess of the Sisters of Battle fighting daemons on the planet of San Leor where she has been for over a hundred years when it was lost in a warp storm when the Great Rift was formed. As they journey back to Terra they are assaulted by the Alpha Legion and a Lord of Change attempts to sacrifice Celestine's body and soul to pass over into the material world. [[Inquisitor Greyfax|Greyfax]] tells Longinus to kill Celestine knowing she will come back. Her resurrection is enough to awe even a Custodian. The experience convinces Celestine that her faith and powers are more important than to be used as mere propaganda tool by the power-hungry [[Ecclesiarchy#Organisation|Ecclesiarch]] and summarily executes him for his crimes against the God-Emperor.

In Andy Clark's [https://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/novels/celestine-ebook-2019.html Celestine book,] the actual process of her resurrections were described in detail. Every time she dies, she wakes up half naked in the warp. In order to come back, she has to find herself again by piecing together her armour, which is scattered on a mountain [[Grimdark|made up of her own skeletons.]] Every time she dies, another skeleton is added to the pile. Guided by the faint sensation of the Emperor's light, she travels through the nightmarish realm in a totally not [[Berserk]] way, finding parts of personality, confronting her doubts and fears, and purging any daemons she runs into along the way. Finally, [[Awesome|she strikes a deal with the Emperor,]] offering her service yet again in exchange for the safety of a small girl in the warp, a representation of her hope. Hope that she could rest in that final, peaceful realm she visited in her trials. At the end of the whole ordeal, she is inevitably sent to a battlefield of Big E's choice to make a grand entrance there.