Editing Gaspard Lumey (section)

===Post-Heresy===

''Do you truly believe that Sebastion Rex could have slain one Primarch and crippled another?''

- Chapter Master Sergei of the Silver Cataphracts

Although the loyalist victory at Terra prevented Chaos from destroying mankind, the forces that held true to the Imperium could not rest. Thousands of worlds were held by the Traitors, and thousands of more had fallen away from the Imperial Truth due to renegacy or the actions of Xenos. As the leader of the strongest Loyalist Legion, Gaspard Lumey played a prominent role in what became known as the Scouring. This second act to the galactic civil war saw the loyalists drive the forces of Chaos back into the Eye of Terror and bring renegades back to the fold by the sword. It is no exaggeration to say that trillions died in this terrible time, but Lumey remained resolute and the great forges of Al-Sherar continued to pour war material into his hands. By the time that the Scouring was ended, the Fifth Legion was the mainspring of the Imperium's defences, far exceeding their ravaged brother Legions in men and material.

Throughout the Scouring, the Loyalist Primarchs had set aside the question of a new ruler for the Imperium. Some believed that the Emperor would recover, others simply shrank from dissent while the Traitors remained an obvious threat. However, the conclusion to the infamous '''Cage of Iron''' campaign against the renegade realm of Sebastion Rex posed the question sharply. According to the public accounts, the Rex had slain Roman Albrecht and grievously wounded Alexandri of Rosskar. While Alexandri was still comatose, his Equerry Sergei contacted Gaspard Lumey to convey misgivings over this official story. No document of Lumey's reply exists, and perhaps his views were rendered moot when Alexandri succumbed to his wounds. With the deaths of the Lord-Knight of Centauri and the Regent of Terra, there was no longer an obvious successor to the Emperor.

Those who speak well of Gaspard Lumey often point to his restraint at this time as the truest indicator of the Primarch's character. Rather than commanding his mighty Void Angels to seize control of the Galaxy, Lumey instead met with [[Shakya Vardhana]], [[Arelex Orannis]], [[Onyx the Indestructible]], and [[Brennus]] to agree on how to stabilise the Imperium. The Primarchs' plan saw Lumey act as '''Primaris Martial''', the first soldier of the Imperium with supreme authority over military affairs, while each of the other brothers was given authority over one of the frontier segmentums. Although the ten years of this arrangement were peaceful relative to the years of the civil war, the forces of the Imperium were constantly fighting against Xenos and rebellion. Lumey's military dictatorship was largely exercised from the command centre of his flagship, and although many fine victories were won in the name of Mankind the Imperium also gave up great swathes of space too thinly populated to be defended. In the annals of the Void Angels, the Primarch's crowning achievement was to hand over his role as ''Primaris Martial'' to Arelex Orannis so that the sire of the War Scribes might preside over the reconstruction of the Solar System.

For another decade, Gaspard Lumey directed military operations across just the Segmentum Pacificus. Afterwards, the Primarchs would no longer directly assert their control, instead of serving as nominal advisers - though it must be said that their advice was sought often and strictly adhered to. Gaspard Lumey's principal role in this time was the '''First Tribune''' of the Imperium, a supreme overseer of the Space Marine Chapters. This was light work by the Primarch's standards, as a great many of the Chapters were commanded by warriors of his own gene-seed well-accustomed to his command.  He had the time to write biographies of his loyalist brothers known as the ''Lives of the Primarchs''. [[Arelex Orannis]], whose Legion Lumey had once dismissed as [[War Scribes|"the scribes of war"]] assisted as editor of this series, up until his own untimely death. The ''Lives'' all followed a basic formula. While honest enough in his account, Lumey showed the Primarchs as fundamentally human and shaped by their environment. By doing so, Lumey hoped to make the trauma of the Heresy a comprehensible event and prevent the collapse of the Imperial Truth. However, in the anarchic conditions of the new Imperium, there were few worlds that received Lumey's message. Fewer still accepted it.

During the time in which he fought to defend the Imperium and its culture, the most important of Lumey's friendships was with [[Brennus]], Primarch of the [[Thunder Kings]]. The two would exchange many letters in these decades, and as their siblings died or vanished, the two Primarchs grew to cherish one another's company. After Brennus disappeared during the First Black Crusade, Lumey went into seclusion. His last public act was writing a biography of the fallen Thunder King. Although his fate is mysterious, rumour has it that the Primarch of the Void Angels slumbers in stasis somewhere on Ciban IV.