Roboute Guilliman

"I drew a picture! Wanna see? I am your spiritual Liege!"

Roboute Guilliman (/rɒb'uːt 'guːlɪmæn/) is the Primarch of the Ultramarines. In addition to his Legion's exploits during the Great Crusade, Guilliman became renowned, in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, for his efforts to preserve the Imperium. Among his most noteworthy achievements is the authoring of the Codex Astartes. Guilliman later received a mortal wound from the traitor Primarch Fulgrim, and was interred in a stasis field at the moment of his demise. He now resides on his throne within the Temple of Correction on the Ultramarines' homeworld of Macragge.

Despite the hate, Guilliman does get shit done

History

Youth

Like the other Primarchs, Roboute Guilliman was one of twenty genetically engineered "sons" of the Emperor of Mankind. Like his "brothers," Roboute was taken as an infant by the powers of Chaos, and removed to a far-flung world in an effort to prevent the coming Age of the Imperium.

The infant Guilliman's capsule fell to earth on Macragge, where it was discovered by a group of noblemen hunting in the forest. Inside the capsule they found a child, surrounded by a glowing aura. He was taken back to Konor, one of the two Consuls who governed Macragge, who adopted the infant as his son and named him Roboute.

Roboute's arrival on Macragge was a portentous time, and many reported strange sights. Most notably, Konor dreamed of the Emperor, and found himself beside Hera's Falls in the Valley of Laponis. Upon awakening, Konor assembled his bodyguard and rode to Hera's Falls, where they found the child. The name Konor gave the child, Roboute, means "Great One".

Roboute was a prodigy, growing fast in both body and intellect. By age ten, he had mastered every subject the wisest men of Macragge could teach him, and his insights into matters of history, philosophy, and science often stunned his elders. However, his greatest talents were as a military leader. These talents led his father to give him command of an expeditionary force to Illyrium, a mountainous region in the far north of Macragge, whose wild inhabitants had terrorized the civilized regions for years and successfully resisted every previous military campaign.

Not only did Roboute fight a brilliant campaign but he also earned the respect of the wildmen who never again threatened the more civilised parts of Macragge. However, on his return to the capital Roboute found the city in chaos, as his father's co-Consul, Gallan, had attempted a coup. Gallan led a faction of Macragge's nobility who were used to enjoying their wealth and position at the expense of armies of slaves, and resented Konor's legislation favoring the common people, among whom he was immensely popular.

Approaching the city, Roboute and his soldiers saw the city in chaos, being sacked by mobs of Gallan's men, while the Consul House was under siege. Roboute left his men to restore order to the city, while he rushed to the Consul House and lifted the siege, only to find his father close to death, surrounded by his loyal bodyguards. He had been mortally wounded by an assassin in Gallan's employ, and with his dying breath, told Roboute who was responsible.

Roboute swiftly crushed the rebellion and, amid a wave of popular relief, assumed the title of sole Consul of Macragge. He set about punishing the treachery and carrying out his father's vision. Gallan and his co-conspirators were executed, and their lands and wealth were redistributed to the people. With superhuman energy, Roboute reorganized Macragge's entire social structure, creating a meritocracy where office and honours were given to the hard-working, rather than the wealthy and influential. Under his leadership, Macragge prospered as it never had before.

The Arrival of the Emperor

While Roboute was prosecuting his war against the Illyrian rebels, the Emperor of Mankind and his armies had reached the neighboring planet of Espandor. It was there that the Emperor heard stories of the extraordinary son of Consul Konor, and realized that he had found one of the lost Primarchs.

However, due to an unexpected warp storm, his ship was thrown far off course and by the time it reached Macragge, Roboute had been ruling for almost five years.

When the Emperor reached Macragge, he found a world that was self sufficient, prosperous, with a strong and well-equipped military, and engaging in trade with nearby systems. Impressed, the Emperor assigned command of the Ultramarines Space Marine Legion to Guilliman, and relocated the Legion's forward base to Macragge.

The Great Crusade

With the exception of the Luna Wolves, no Legion conquered as many worlds, or conquered worlds as fast, or left conquered worlds in such good state during the Great Crusade, as the Ultramarines. Whenever Guilliman liberated a world, he would not move on until he had set up a self-sufficient defense system, and left advisors behind to create industry, set up trade routes with the rest of the Imperium, and form a government whose first concern would always be the well-being of the people.

At the same time, with the help of his new advisors, Guilliman created a supremely efficient military machine on Macragge and its surrounding worlds, that provided the Ultramarines with a steady flow of new recruits. This factor, combined with the minimal casualties suffered thanks to Guilliman's tactical skill, allowed the Ultramarines to become the largest of all the Space Marine Legions.

When Horus was appointed Warmaster by the Emperor, the reaction among the other Primarchs was mixed. Some supported the appointment out of affection for Horus, some opposed it, and some were cynically accepting. However, Guilliman, Rogal Dorn, and Jaghatai Khan supported the appointment, believing in their cool, rational judgment, that Horus was really the most worthy of them. For this reason, and because of their military genius, Horus valued Guilliman and Dorn as his closest advisors.

Privately, Guilliman held four of his brothers in the greatest esteem: Dorn, Sanguinius, Leman Russ, and Ferrus Manus. He referred to them as "the dauntless few", and pronounced that he could win any war, outright, if he had those four and their Legions at his side.

The Horus Heresy

Despite the hate, Guilliman does get shit done

At the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, Guilliman and the Ultramarines were tricked by Horus, who sent them to the Veridian system while Horus carried out his treasonous plot. When the treachery was revealed, the Ultramarines were poorly placed to react to it.

While the Ultramarines mustered their forces at Calth, in Ultramar, they were attacked by the Word Bearers. However, the Word Bearers had overlooked two major points: the unbreakable fighting spirit of the Ultramarines, and the brilliance of Guilliman's command.

At first unknown to the Ultramarines, Angron of the World Eaters and Lorgar of the Word Bearers had launched a Shadow Crusade on isolated worlds in Ultramar. Their plan was to destroy as much of Ultramar as they could while the Ultramarines were occupied on Calth. After the victory at Calth, Gulliman, presumably under the guidance of his newly reinstated Librarians, traveled to an isolated Warp jump point on the outer fringes of Ultramar. There he encountered Sanguinius of the Blood Angels who has just recently finished his war in the Signus cluster. The Navigators of the Blood Angels had been ordered to find the closest stable Warp zone, which many assumed would be Terra. Instead fate brought them to Ultramar. With the addition of the Blood Angels to his forces, Gulliman pronounced they could finally begin countering the Shadow Crusade. After Calth, Guilliman pursued Lorgar, who had since allied with Angron, to the world of Nuceria. There, the Ultramarines engaged both the World Eaters and Word Bearers while Guilliman himself battled Lorgar, finding the once-weaker Word Bearers Primarch to be surprisingly capable in combat. The situation for Guilliman got worse when Angron arrived, battering Guilliman with a furious assault and eventually defeating the Lord of Macragge. However as Angron was about to land the final blow, Ultramarines were able to arrive and safely retrieve their Primarch.

Finally, Guilliman immediately set course for Holy Terra. Travelling at maximum speed, his Legion was only hours away along with several other Legions. This ultimately decided the Imperium's fate when Horus was forced to gamble by letting the Emperor teleport onto his Battle Barge.

After the Heresy

In the aftermath of the Great Betrayal, the Emperor had been incapacitated, and the Space Marines' numbers had been decimated by defections to Chaos and battle losses. The Ultramarines were left as the largest loyal legion, and Guilliman assumed the title of Lord Commander of the Imperium. For years thereafter, Guilliman deployed and led the Ultramarines throughout the galaxy, reclaiming worlds lost to Chaos and preventing the loss of still others to rebellion or invasion from outside the Imperium.

At the same time, Guilliman reorganized the Space Marine Legions as Chapters and composed the Codex Astartes, the tome that the Ultramarines (and many other chapters) follow strictly.

Guilliman led the assault against the Alpha Legion in the aftermath of the Heresy, and due to the vanity of Alpharius, he utilised a surprise attack at the heart of the traitors and killed Alpharius in a duel. However, he and the Ultramarines were greatly mistaken in their belief that the snake would die without the head, as indeed, the Alpha Legion's symbol is a hydra, a multi-headed serpent. The Ultramarines were soundly pushed back time and again by the traitor marines, undaunted at the loss of their Primarch. Guilliman eventually pulled his forces back into orbit and bombarded the planet from above.

Later, in a battle against the Emperor's Children, Guilliman would meet his end. Where Alpharius had not greatly embraced the Chaos powers, and was essentially unchanged from his original Primarch form, Fulgrim had been to the Eye of Terror, reaping the terrible powers therein, and had been elevated by Slaanesh to a mighty and fell Daemon Prince, no longer resembling a man, but his original purity of form corrupted and augmented by the ruinous powers. Fulgrim was now a serpentine creature of immense stature, and multi-limbed. Each limb carried a poisoned sword, and in the clash he stabbed Guilliman in the neck; Guilliman was interred in the Stasis field by the Apothecaries, and remains frozen in the instant of death, while Fulgrim escaped back to the Eye of Terror.

Currently, his mortal body remains in stasis, on the Shrine of Guilliman deep within the Temple of Correction, one of the holiest places in the entire Imperium. Some pilgrims claim that the Primarch's wounds are slowly recovering, a feat credited to the power of the Emperor. Others deny the phenomenon, and point out the sheer impossibility of change within the stasis field. Yet enough believe the stories to come and witness for themselves the miracle of the Primarch.

The Codex, an Autobiography of Sorts

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. While the other primarchs looked outward, intent on destroying the traitor legions and finding new recruits to rebuild their armies, Guilliman cast his furious gaze inward, towards the loyalist Space Marines themselves. The codex and most authors say that Guilliman played a big part in the Scouring (the campaign to drive the Traitor legions back and reclaim the worlds lost to Horus) and that the Codex was written only after the Scouring was over. Meaning that he played as much of a role as Dorn,the Blood Angels or any of the other Legions that participated. Get your damn facts straight. Yes, because not participating until the enemy is routed and fleeing, in other words doing little more than chasing down a defeated enemy (and failing to eradicate them, by the way), really earns you the same level of respect as the guys who succesfully held out for months on end in a desperate losing battle against three-plus times their number, right? Right?? No. Yeah it is acuity, tides have been turned in real wars because an routing army was able to regroup and lunch a counter attack, quit being bias it isn't Guilliman's fault he's Ward's favorite.

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, they didn't take heavy losses like the Salamanders and Imperial Fists., still somehow managed to loose more then half legion to formidably less numerous (like one-to-four or even worse) Word Bearer and Alpha legion forces)) 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 currently 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. To Guilliman's credit, his priority was the safety and well being of the people of the Imperium. To his credit, like all deranged leaders before him, Guilliman was courageously paranoid FOR THE PEOPLE. 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, blaming himself for the death of the Emperor, and he eventually succumbed to Guilliman's plans. That and those lazy bastards opened fire on him.

What ensued afterward was what many acolytes now refer to as “a flipping 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.

Now, the big reason Guilliman wanted this was to implement checks and balances, which would minimize the damage more chaos traitors 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 Gotta ya, man we changed sides 100 years ago. Seriously man, it's on my Facebook page you should check out my Status now and again" 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.

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 guild-line and shouldn't be followed to the letter as long as a Chapter followes the baseline they can be whatever they see fit. EI the White Scars still have heavy use of drop pods, and bikes with little heavy weapons.

Thanks to his 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