Editing Ollanius Pius (section)

===The Eternal Infantryman===
In the days of ancient [[Terra]] he was one of the Argonauts who adventured with Jason on the Argo to get the Golden Fleece and later he learned how to fight with a bayonet whilst fighting for the French in the trenches at Verdun during World War I. (Note that "Ole Persson" is the obvious pun, but in idiomatic French, "Olivier Personne" means "Oliver Nobody," which has interesting implications in and of itself.) Interestingly, Ollanius seems to be a sort of "eternal soldier" (he is also confirmed as having fought in the armies of [[Awesome|Napoleon]] and [[Heresy|Saddam Hussein]]), but always is depicted as being a part of the "[[Imperial Guard|poor bloody Infantry]]", in direct opposition to ''another'' perpetual, [[The Emperor|big E]] himself, who is spoken of as having taken on the roles of various august and well known historical personages, or at least being close to positions of power throughout history. There is also an implication that Ollanius always or at least usually fought on the losing side, which is also an interesting extension to this parallel. This makes him a sort of representative of the eternal ordinary everyman; unlike almost every other perpetual, he ''doesn't'' have superpowers (except the neat trick of not dying), and lives ordinary lives, again and again (as the Emperor says to him in the exchange quoted above.) This is more in line with the original spirit of the "legend of Ollanius Pius," and is a counter-argument to the more common view that he is becoming an OP [[Mary Sue]] instead of a representative of ordinary human strength and courage, the ultimate manifestation of which is seen in his actions aboard the ''Vengeful Spirit''.

We sometimes see glimpses of his soldiering past. In ''Unmarked'', another [[Dan Abnett|Abnett]] work (a short story in the anthology ''Mark of Calth''), he travels through time to various battles he fought in while evading the daemon prince [[M'kar]]. In ''Angel Exterminatus'', where an [[Iron Warriors]] Trident [[Warsmith]] Kroeger has a flashback (sort of, the memories were the memories of other people) and relives the near-death of "Carl", a German soldier at the hands of one "Olivier Perrson." Carl thought Ol was very rude because he interrupted Carl's dinner. Yes, poor Carl's dinner. Oll happened upon Carl eating . . . Carl's own commander. Oh yeah, Carl was a closet cannibal. Still, Carl thought it was a bit of an overreaction by an overly Pius asshole to stab Carl in the gut. Carl was only saved from a certain death when the crush of the battle forces Oll out of the trench.

We don't get it either but a vision given to Ollanius by Grammaticus indicates that he'll be restored to his original status as the person who sacrifices his life to save the Emperor from Horus, so at least he's back. Of course, whether he actually dies when this happens given the Perpetuals' ability to resurrect themselves upon death is anyone's guess. The confrontation with Horus might be "true death" for him, though, as in ''Unmarked'', he gets the distinct feeling that the [[Horus Heresy|current galactic clusterfuck]] is going to be the end for him. This might even make sense, given that he was killed by not only a primarch, but Horus supercharged by the energies of all four of the Ruinous Powers during an apocalyptic confrontation which outright killed another Primarch and put the most powerful being ever to emerge out of humanity in a near-death state. Get hit by what did ''that'', you're probably not going to get up, and immortality won't help you if your soul is snuffed out by one of the most powerful material manifestations of Chaos ever.

If he did regenerate, he'd probably wake up on the Vengeful Spirit unless his body was moved-Perpetuals don't teleport when they die, they just heal and wake up. This might wind up being a far, far worse end than having his soul shredded (see over on the page for [[Perpetual]] where we say that they've drawn the short straw? Here's an example of why...) Needless to say, being trapped in the bowels of a chaos-infested warship would not be good for him (assuming he can even get off the bridge before [[Abaddon|Abby]] or one of his guards [[Blam|shoots him]]).

Also in ''Unmarked'', Ollanius briefly hooks up with John Grammaticus, another perpetual (although far more of a dick, and, unlike Oll, apparently turned into a perpetual by the Cabal rather than being born one) .. you know, the guy who is actually with the Cabal, going along with their "Alpharius gambit" to destroy humanity but wipe out Chaos, but who is at some point persuaded by [[Eldrad|Eldrad Uthan]] to turn rogue ''against'' the Cabal, since in a rare moment of non-dickery, Eldrad decided that wiping out humanity might ''not be'' the best idea, giving John the final push after long having some scruples about aiding in the genocide of his own race for, among others, arrogant space elves and a sentient floating ball of gas.

Vulkan's permanent death does put a dent on Perpetuals being unkillable, Artellus Numelon had to sacrifice himself to bring Vulkan back from that death.

In the Fury of Magnus, the titular Primarch himself uses his Chaos Sorcery/Psyker Powers to PERMANENTLY kill '''REDACTED''' which doesn't give Olly a chance in hell he would survive the duel.