Editing Gaspard Lumey (section)

===Youth===

''Unlike the other Primarchs, I would never come to see the Emperor as my father.  His science had created me and I was a willing convert to his cause, but neither of us pretended to familial intimacy.  Even had the Emperor sought such a thing, I would have had to refuse him, for I could have asked for no better parents than those I had on Ciban IV.''

(Gaspard Lumey, journals)

Throughout the dark days of the Age of Strife, the Emperor of Mankind had been trapped on Terra by fierce Warp Storms.  But in His great wisdom, He foresaw that the Immaterium would clear again and He would once more be able to influence the destiny of humanity.  In order to complete His great plan, the Emperor used his advanced science to create twenty Primarchs, embryos that would grow into giants of outstanding military and political prowess.  These godlike beings would be the weapons of a [[Great Crusade (Hektor Heresy)|Great Crusade]] to reunite humanity and establish man's hegemony over the [[Galaxy (Hektor Heresy)|Galaxy]].  Yet the Chaos Gods were aware of this threat, and their agents intervened, stealing all but one of the Primarchs and hurling them into the Warp.  Bouyed by the unfathomable currents of that mysterious ether, the incubation capsules of the lost Primarchs were scattered across time and space.

[[Ciban IV]], often known as Ciban Felix or just Ciban, is a Civilised World in the Segmentum Pacificus.  At the time that the infant Primarch Gaspard Lumey appeared on its surface, Ciban had attained a level of culture and technology approximating that of Second Millenium Earth.  The planet was dominated by large, sophisticated states ruled by hereditary aristocrats.  The Primarch of the Void Angels landed in Fennechia, a coastal region of Ciban IV's Jolof continent.  At the time of the Primarch's arrival, Fennechia was a colony ruled by the empire of Gallia.  His capsule crash landed close to a farming community named Nouvelle-Havre and was taken in by the Lumeys, a childless middle aged couple.  It was quickly apparent to the close-knit villagers that the child Gaspard was something more than human, but the elders of Nouvelle-Havre counselled tolerance and encouraged the youth to see his strength as a gift to shared with all.

As Gaspard Lumey absorbed the morals of his adoptive community, he learned the martial skills of a frontiersman.  Hunting trips honed his natural talent for stealth, outdoor survival, and marksmanship.  Gaspard also became deadly with an axe, whether thrown or in close quarters.  Contented with this simple life in Nouvelle-Havre, the young Primarch never expected to be sent from the community.  Nevertheless, on the sixteenth anniversary of the Primarch's arrival in Nouvelle-Havre, Père Lumey informed Gaspard that the time had come to seek new challenges.  The old man explained that it was not out of shame that he drove his adopted son into the world, but the reverse.  Gaspard was a source of pride to the Lumeys, having shown that he had the potential to better the lives of a great multitude.   However much the couple might love their son, they could not let him spurn his destiny.

====Plain Truth====
[[File:The hunter by silberius-d8lzd0o.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The streets of royal St. Vercy]]
''The principal lesson that Ciban IV taught me was my relative unimportance.  My arrival on this humble world had coincided with the awakening of its inhabitants to the great task of their '''self-emancipation'''.  Although I was welcome to join in that struggle and enjoy the new age opened up, the Cibanese never considered me their saviour, or even their greatest hero.  If any future historian should consider writing that it was my hand that saved the Imperium from collapse, let them mark my words and the billions of hands behind my own.''

(Gaspard Lumey, ''Reflections'')

Dutiful to parental advice, Gaspard Lumey travelled to the townships and cities of the colonies.  If his first jobs are lost to history, his first and defining career was as a journalist in the dissenting press of the day.  He issued a steady stream of broadsides and pamphlets condemning first the excesses of the colonial government, then the degeneracy of the aristocracy.  The effectiveness of Lumey's works is still evident in the full title of his most popular pamphlet, ''Plain Truth: An Honest and therefore Illegal account of Fennechia's Misgovernance''.

Growing unrest resulted in the formation of quasi-legal '''Committees of the Common Good''', a kind of shadow government that gained the trust of the public as colonial governors became increasingly unpopular.  Lumey, as a wanted man, did not participate in the Committees at first.  However, his pamphlets were often read aloud in Committee hearings.  Surviving minutes attribute Lumey's remarks to "the Voice of the People".  As the situation moved from unrest to open war, Lumey became increasingly close to the Committees and his writing gave direction to the colonial struggle.  Few were surprised when Lumey volunteered his services to the rebel army.

Fennechian patriots initially suffered severe defeats at the hands of their oppressors.  Gaspard Lumey achieved some renown as a guerilla leader, but he quickly realised that the colonists lacked the strength to triumph in a purely national struggle.  Undeterred, Lumey smuggled himself into Gallia and circulated pamphlets denouncing not just the oppression of Fennechia but the whole regime of privilege.  His message struck a chord.  Even before Lumey arrived, Gallians were reading copies of ''Plain Truth'' and similar pamphlets written by figures such as '''Margarette Poisarden''' and '''Didier Bonchance'''.  Political criminals, including Bonchance, flooded the Donjon, the great prison at Gallia's capital of Saint Vercy, but a jail cannot hold a whole people.  When the imperial government attempted to raise a new tax for the war effort, ordinary Gallians began to revolt in their homeland, declaring that they were just as oppressed as the Fennechians.

Events in Saint Vercy developed at lightning pace.  The Donjon was stormed by dockworkers and its inhabitants liberated.  Regiments deployed to stifled the revolt arrested their officers and joined the rebels.  Gallia's monarchy and national government fled the capital.  The Committee of the Common Good, headed by Poisarden became the ''de facto'' government.  A tremendous debate broke out in the Committee.  Bonchance advocated a policy of temperance and forgiveness towards the old regime.  Initially, his fraction held the majority, until Gaspard Lumey entered the hall.  His prestige as a fighter in the colonies and rebel journalist won him the right to speak, but the Primarch's towering stature and personal charisma commanded the Committee's attention.  Lumey hammered away at his rivals in the debate, explaining in sharp terms what the consequences of their mercy would be - a bloodbath organised by the aristocracy.  In order to head off disaster, Lumey proposed a policy of "Righteous Terror", beginning with the imprisonment of supporters of the old regime and going so far as summary execution of aristocrats.  While Lumey carried the majority, the fierce debate provoked splits.  Didier Bonchance and his closest followers stormed out.  These dissidents would escape Saint Vercy to sign on with the Royalist faction of a brewing civil war.

Mixed news from the rest of Gallia flowed into the capital.  Committees were leading uprisings in the other big cities, but there was also news of armies being raised in the provinces - and worse, armies of intervention being prepared by Gallia's rivals.  The Saint Vercy Committee of the Common Good acted decisively.  The '''Republic of Ciban''' was declared and the other Committees across Gallia, Fennechia, and, rather optimistically, the whole of the planet were invited to freely join as equal participants.  Margrette Poisarden was elected Speaker of the Republic's Assembly, at the head of the Governmental Committee.  Gaspard Lumey was initially elected to the head of the Subcommittee for Foreign Affairs and served with distinction.  His diplomacy, sharp and forthright, centred more on exposing the perfidy of the Republic's enemies than making accords, but in this regard he did much to destabilise the reactionary coalitions.  Ultimately, however, the conflict between the new order and the old could not be settled with the pen.  As the borders of old Gallia succumbed to invading armies, the Republic turned to Gaspard Lumey to organise its defence.

====Lumey's hunting hounds====
[[File:1453945795739.png|thumb|right|200px|Sketch of a citizen-soldier fighting for the Republic of Ciban, unknown year.]]
''For years I believed that Jean-Davide was the most extraordinary person I would ever meet.  If I was an outsider to Ciban IV's struggle for liberty, I had at least been raised by these people, loved by them, and joined the fight as an adopted son.  D'Orléans made himself a renegade twice over by joining us and never flinched at the hardships of his decision.''

(Gaspard Lumey, journals)

For Lumey, the line between foreign war and civil war was little more than terminology.  The Primarch understood that the aristocratic states mobilising against the infant Republic were just as unpopular at home as the Gallian monarchy had been.  Therefore, his strategy was decided by a political question: how to break the ordinary people from their leaders?  Lumey's approach was two-fold.  Firstly, he offered an open hand to conscripts in enemy armies, declaring that the Republic bore them no ill-will for their misfortune and pledging assistance to those who deserted.  Secondly, Lumey promised the guillotine to officers of aristocratic heritage, outlining that they were guilty of a crime against two nations for leading armies against the Republic.

Gaspard Lumey threw himself into the organisation of a new army of the Republic.  If officers were in short supply, volunteers for the new army were not.  Lumey's main struggle was in convincing militias from different regions of Gallia to support one another and welding these disparate parts into a unified whole.  One of his most important aides was the remarkable '''Jean-Davide d'Orléans''', a former Marquis and officer in the Royal Army of Gallia who had resigned his commission and surrendered himself to the Republic, pledging that the skills he had acquired for the defence of the nation rightfully belonged to the nation's people.  D'Orléans and the handful of other officers who abandoned the monarchy endured considerable suspicion and harsh measures.  On Lumey's orders, their families were held hostage.  Some protested and refused to serve under such conditions, but d'Orléans persevered, famously remarking, ''"did not the old order hold the families of peasant conscripts hostage for the sake of its wars of ambition?  Surely this new order, which is fighting daily to emancipate the common man, has the right to put a leash on its hunting hounds."''

Although Ciban's revolutionary wars were bloody and long, the Republic's constant and sincere appeals to the ordinary people eroded the foundations of the armies arrayed against them.  Where Republican armies advanced, they found new supporters, willing to give them supplies, intelligence, and sometimes fresh volunteers for their armies.  Where the forces of reaction pushed back, they encountered a surly populace, resentful at their presence and sometimes taking up arms as partisans.  In the professional army, Lumey and d'Orléans were joined by a new generation of military commanders who had risen up through the ranks.  Particularly notable were '''Bulus Tawfeek''', the handsome Fennec cavalryman, and '''Rani Stolarz''', a young woman whose mousey, studious appearance concealed cool courage and military genius.  Tawfeek's lightning tactics were highly successful in liberating the colonial areas of Jolof.  Stolarz is remembered even thousands of years later for her heroic defence of Surville, a turning point in the war against the Kingdom of Occitar. 

The completion of the wars saw the Republic stand alone on Ciban IV as a popular world government.  Unity paved the way to rapid development.  New factories, printing presses, schools, hospitals, aqueducts, roads, and other infrastructure were planned and built for the common good.  Gaspard Lumey laid down his arms gladly.  He returned to his calling as a journalist, documenting his homeworld's new age of prosperity.

====''On Virtue''====

''Shortly after the Revolutionary Wars, I became disquieted.  Perhaps I sensed something wrong before, but a real turning point was the receipt of a short note from Margrette on the content of my recent speech.  She wrote, "You have become v. predictable and somewhat boring.  Each speech the same.  Struggle for x, lines of march, weigh y as decisive point, any shirking of duty leaves us vulnerable.  This after 5 years' peace!"  Even more disturbing to me was that I immediately wrote in the margin, almost without thinking, "I am a spear in a struggle waged by cannon."''

(Gaspard Lumey, Journals)

Rogue Traders probing ahead of the Great Crusade first came to Ciban IV in 848.M30.  The world's sophisticated culture and unitary government was something of a surprise, and tales of Gaspard Lumey immediately caught the ear of the canny merchants.  News travelled swiftly back to Terra, and the Emperor determined to investigate, strongly suspecting that the great revolutionary hero and representative in the Cibanese Assembly was one of his missing sons.  After landing on Ciban IV, the Emperor approached Lumey openly, explaining their relationship by way of introduction. This did not convince the Primarch, who began to question his creator on his views of morality, testing the answers against what he had come to believe on Ciban. Their debate, which lasted three days, was collected in a series of texts entitled ''On Virtue''.

During the debate, Lumey initially took the role of protagonist, outlining the moral sensibilities that he developed on Ciban.  The Primarch particularly stressed the rule of law and the importance of government serving the needs of the people, and explained himself by examples from his homeworld's history.  In reply, the Emperor began with an assertion of the destiny of mankind to rule the [[Galaxy (Hektor Heresy)|galaxy]], then sought to prove how the Imperial Truth and its doctrines of atheism, reason, and science would serve that end.  While ''On Virtue'' is a particularly fine explanation of these points, its centre is Lumey's attack on the Emperor's position.  The Primarch particularly questioned how an autocracy forged through conquest could be the embodiment of a rational culture.  In answer, the Emperor artfully drew from Ciban's recent history, noting that the means used by the rebellion and those used by the old order had differed but little.  What set the two apart was that one pointed towards the future, the other to the past.  Past this pivot in the argument, Lumey and the Emperor spend a great deal of time further clarifying points of ethics and civics, but the Primarch's questions are clearly those of a student, not a rival.

At the end of the debate on virtue, the Emperor of Mankind offered Gaspard Lumey command of a Legion of Space Marines to carry forward a vision of human unity and rationality.  The Primarch's response was modest.  While accepting the wisdom and judgement of the Emperor, Lumey expressed his doubts that his life on Ciban IV had adequately prepared him for a task of such awesome proportions.  He further avowed that, while he would exert all of his powers and will upon the task, it was not a post he had sought out.