Wilmut Sachs

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This page details people, events, and organisations from the /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the /tg/ Heresy Timeline and Galaxy pages for more information on the Alternate Universe.

High Genetor Wilmut Sachs, the Devil of Vischmauz

"He was my brother, the most brilliant man I had ever met, save Johannes or the Emperor himself. I loved him, but he could not love. All that could be said of Vrach, he did what he did out of love. Sachs did what he did for no reason other than that he could, that was why he was so wonderful, and that was why he became the disgusting monster that could kill a sweet man like Edentis. It was my responsibility to look after my brothers, I failed them, and now I will hunt down the man who caused all this and end his life."

-Gaius Vira to Sebastion Rex, The Meeting at Duranesh

Even in the extensive gallery of heretics and traitors to Mankind, the figure of Wilmut Sachs stands out as especially ominous. The mere list of his vicious crimes against humanity can drive a lesser person insane with terror and disgust. One of the Galaxy's brightest minds, he served as the High Genetor with the Life Bringers, where his role involved creating cures to the numerous diseases that plagued the Galaxy. As his battle brothers clashed with the enemies of Mankind upon smouldering battlefields, he relentlessly fought its intangible foes in his laboratories. Although initially successful in his endeavours, his inability to find the ultimate panacea against all disease as demanded by his Primarch, Johannes Vrach, slowly chipped away at his sanity. Driven to utter desperation by his mounting failures, he begged the masters of the Immaterium for assistance - but, as expected, their help came at a hefty price. In exchange for the ultimate cure, Sachs forged a pact with Nurgle and corrupted his Legion in the name of his new master. After crushing defeat suffered by the Life Bringers in the Battle of Rai, he led the remnants of his Legion into the Eye of Terror, where he eventually rose up to become one of the pre-eminent warlords.

Youth

Early years

Without a scintilla of doubt, Holy Terra is the shining jewel in the crown of Mankind. With palaces that could house petty kingdoms on provincial worlds, forests of dreaming spires that pierce the atmosphere and cyclopean monuments that peer down from the Empyrean like vengeful gods, it exemplifies the greatness of our race like no other place in the Galaxy. Pilgrims that come there from all around the Imperium are more than content to quietly wither away in its shining streets, realising the futility of ordinary life after having witnessed the marvels of the cradle of humanity. So magnificent is this planet that it almost appears absurd that human hands could have wrought a work of such grandeur. And yet, ten thousand years ago, Terra was very different from the Imperial capital we're all used to. It was a place of savagery and cruelty, of desolation and ruin, of anarchy and inquity. Where gilded palaces now stand, there stood enormous slave pens; where elegant cathedrals stretch their spires skyward, foetid petrol swamps were choking with industrial wreckage. Over this husk of a planet, countless petty warlords lorded, most of them little more than glorified gang leaders. However, some of these kingdoms were truly bizarre, such as Lusopolis, the birthplace of Wilmut Sachs.

Mutations and congenital deformities were hardly uncommon on Terra during the Age of Strife: baleful emanations of the Warp exacerbated by heavy radiation and omnipresent pollution made monstrous births a common occurrence. In most places, such children were considered portents of ill fortune to come and exiled into the ruins, where they joined feral herds of demihumans like themselves. The citizens of other principalities viewed mutant infants as gifts from their primitive gods and groomed them to take on positions of authority when they grow up. However, one of these petty Terran polities was truly unique in that it was populated entirely by beastmen: the Gerontocracy of Lusopolis. Such a peculiar situation was caused chiefly by this citystate's isolation from the nearby human realms. Trapped in a deep valley surrounded by irradiated mountain ridges, the citizens of Lusopolis had no choice but to resort to inbreeding, and over the course of centuries their small gene pool was overwhelmed with mutations. Deformity quickly became the new norm, which only shows how relative the notion of normalcy truly is.

However, as even healthy women sometimes give birth to deformed children, the beastwomen of Lusopolis sometimes brought perfectly healthy infants into this world. Ironically, these unfortunate souls were considered freaks and disgusting subhumans who had no place in the Gerontocracy. They weren't killed or exiled into the mountains like they would be in a savage society: in spite of its bestial-looking population, Lusopolis was a place of considerable refinement, only slightly seasoned by the heartlessness that is so characteristic of societies cherishing their civility. Instead, the healthy kids were taken away from their parents and taken to the House of Smiles - a prison-like freakshow where the beastmen came to gloat at healthy humans.

Wilmut Sachs was born into a patrician family that was anxiously anticipating an heir. Initially excited at the perspective of finally getting a son into the family, geront Ataulf Sachs was profoundly disappointed when his wife brought him a perfectly healthy child. Although his spouse suggested to conceal the boy's lack of beastial features by having him wear a pair of fake horns, Ataulf refused to go along with this charade and ordered for Wilmut to be brought into the House of Smiles. The boy was brought up there together with other normal children, without any knowledge of his family. The scarce education that they received was only aimed at teaching the kids to act in a civilised manner to the amusement of the visitors, yet the teachers quickly noted the affinity for learning young Sachs displayed. Eventually they started bringing him old books and journals just to bet on how quickly the boy will finish reading them. Wilmut cared little what books he received, for all of them helped him to escape from the grim reality of his life as a sideshow freak; yet he especially enjoyed the manuals on ancient biology and genetics, considered utterly worthless in Lusopolis. As he saw the illustrations of men, women and their body organs, he slowly came to realise the simple fact that the beastmen successfully managed to forget: he was a normal human, they were the monsters.

His sad existence came to an abrupt end when he was in his early twenties. One day, terrible panic took over Lusopolis: the agitated citizens were running back and forth, not sure what to do. From overhearing fragments of conversations, Wilmut managed to deduce that the valley was attacked by a band of giant warriors wearing armour that even five men struggled to life. Apparently, they were greatly weakened by the heavy dose of radiation they received when crossing the mountains and the city's militia managed to bring most of them down; yet some managed to escape and scatter throughout the valley. Always a quick thinker, Wilmut immediately realised that the general panic offered an excellent opportunity for him to escape from captivity. Taking his closest friends with him, he waited until the guards were sufficiently distracted and sneaked out from his prison. He knew the city map well enough from the journals he's read, so escaping from Lusopolis was a trivial task for him and his followers.

Admittedly, Wilmut had no clear plan of action once they've left the city, but the destiny smiled at him for the second time in one day: they barely walked a couple of miles away from Lusopolis when they came across a giant warrior wearing a suit of armour emblazoned with thunderbolts. The warrior was heavily wounded and clearly dying, yet he had enough strength left in him to talk to the young people. In a strange dialect, he explained that he was one of the Thunder Warriors sent by the Emperor of Mankind to reclaim Lusopolis, cleanse it from the beastmen and retrieve the valuable Dark Age artefacts contained within the city. Unfortunately, his squad failed to fulfil the objective, but at least the defenders of Lusopolis were also broken. Now all that remained was to call in reinforcements to finish what was started, but the only vox device capable of doing that belonged to the squad leader and was captured by the beastmen after his demise. Before closing his eyes for the last time, the warrior begged Wilmut and his friends to find and use the vox transmitter in the name of Mankind.

He didn't need to ask twice. Wilmut hated the beastmen with a passion, and now that he had a confirmation that they were a bad joke of nature, he was determined to help wipe their vile kin out. With a couple of grenades and a combat knife taken from the Thunder Warrior, the young people made their way back into the town. By hiding in dark back alleys and eavesdropping on the conversations, they soon found out that the armour of the defeated giants was being displayed on the main square. Once there, Wilmut threw a grenade into the crowd surrounding the armour suits from his hiding place and made a charge towards them in the ensuing confusion. He's never seen a vox device before, but the Thunder Warrior's description was accurate enough for him to spot it at the first sight. With the device clenched firmly in his fist, he rushed back into the dark alleys of Lusopolis, which eventually led him back out of the hated city.

All that remained was to activate the call for reinforcements, which Wilmut did with great pleasure. It was with grim contentment that he watched from afar how the Thunder Warriors turned Lusopolis into a pile of smouldering rubble. Once that was over with, large flying machines came from beyond the mountains and landed in front of the ruins, safe from the flak cannons that normally guarded the sky over the valley. A shining demigod in golden armour walked out from one of these machines, basking the debris of Lusopolis in his divine light. This was the first time Wilmut Sachs saw the Emperor of Mankind, and this encounter affected the young man profoundly. He was still standing in place looking at the Master of Mankind when he was approached by one of the officers in charge of the operation. He commended the young people on their quick and decisive actions and offered them a place amongst the Emperor's servants. Wilmut immediately agreed.

Unification Wars

As was common with the orphans found by the Imperial forces during the Unification wars, Sachs received a thorough military training. Although he showed himself as a talented and capable soldier, his true passion still lied in biology and genetics. Now that he had access to the vast archive of scientific data the Imperial forces were gathering in the conquered territories, nothing could satiate his craving for knowledge. While his fellow cadets usually spent their free time enjoying the scarce pleasures the young Imperium could offer them, he was far more likely to be found with an ancient manual on genomancy. Noting Wilmut's scientific leanings, the pedagogues selected him for training as a field medic. But, although he excelled at his new occupation due to his natural talent, his aspirations were still set higher than that. Scalpels and syringes were crude tools befitting of a cavemen to him, for he dreamt of working on a molecular level. His early years spent amongst the mutants of Lusopolis opened his mind the fact that a human body is not the end point of evolution. Sachs didn't want to fix humans; he wanted to improve on them.

Although Wilmut was less than enthusiastic about medical lessons, his talent and impressive theoretical knowledge allowed him to effortlessly remain one of the top students. This was in a sharp contrast to his peer Edentis Pneuren, another contender for the top student spot. Unlike Sachs, Pneuren spent several years begging the staff at the military school to allow him to take medical training, for he felt like helping the injured was his true calling. Not as gifted as Sachs, Pneuren was nevertheless incredibly diligent and compensated with hard work what he lacked in raw talent. Although there was initially certain rivalry between the two, they quickly became good friends once Edentis realised that Wilmut was not at all competitive.

As the two very best students in the field medic training centre, both cadets were eventually selected by the Imperial authorities for an implantation of geneseed to serve amongst the Space Marines - the ultimate supersoldiers of the future. Both Sachs and Pneuren received the geneseed of Johannes Vrach, the twelfth of the twenty lost Primarchs of the Emperor. Due to the unfortunate flaw peculiar to the Primarch's genome, the implantation made both cadets rather plump and balding well before this process would start naturally, giving them somewhat of a homely appearance so unusual for the Space Marines. On the other hand, it gave them above average resistance to poisons and toxins of any kind. It was based on this advantage that their squad, the Twelfth, was dedicated to fighting in hazardous environments.

The first several engagements of the Twelfth squad brought them little glory, although their performance was perfectly adequate. Their finest hour came during the Infiltration of Tarrant. The great Hive of Tarrant was firmly protected by a layer of toxic fog generated by an infernal machine built by the Hive's tyrant, the mad alchemist Hermes Geber. Unable to assault the enemy fortress directly, Hektor Cincinnatus opted to use the Twelfth Squad to infiltrate it and destroy the fog generator, allowing the rest of the Imperial forces to advance. Although the squad members managed to successfully accomplish their objective, two of their numbers met their demise by chemical weapons and another one, Gaius Martinus Vira, inhaled too much toxic gas during the operation, putting his life at risk. Since Pneuren was busy elsewhere, Sachs was the one to perform the detoxification, thus saving Vira's life and earning one more close friend.

The squad's new commander, Theophrastus Salk, was so impressed with the chemical weapons used by Geber that he decided to adopt them for usage by the Twelfth. While Pneuren was busy developing superior chemical protection that would render the application of toxic agents much safer, Sachs was tinkering with the captured chemical weapons themselves, making them more usable for a Space Marine. The toxic grenades that later became one of the signature weapons of the Brothers of Death were in fact his invention. The new breathing apparatuses and chemical weapons designed by Pneuren and Sachs were put to a field test during the siege of the Hive of Xebek. The resounding success of the operation was in many ways determined by the preliminary efforts made by these two.

The Asclepeion

Near the end of the Unification Wars, the Imperial strategists started preparing for the imminent Great Crusade. It was clear to all that it would require a very different approach from the one used during the Wars, but very few generals had any idea what exactly to expect. In this atmosphere of uncertainty, the suggestions from the veterans were listened to with great attention, particularly those coming from such distinguished individuals as Edentis Pneuren. He stressed the utmost importance of field medicine, arguing it to be one of the key success factors in any battle. His words resonated with Hektor Cincinnatus, who ordered to open the Asclepeion, a medical school for the Space Marines aimed to prepare them for the Great Crusade.

The school was staffed with some of the best physicians and genetors found in the young Imperium, but a headmaster befitting of such an establishment was not so easily found. Ultimately, the genetors suggested Lyster Larrey, an Adept Biologis of Mars for this role. Larrey was glad to accept the invitation, for it gave him a highly coveted opportunity to study the biology of the Space Marines. As expected, both Pneuren and Sachs were star students in the Asclepeion, but it was the latter who quickly became Larrey's pet. The adept admired young Wilmut's burning curiosity, innovative mindset and craving for experimentation, for these qualities reminded him of himself. Although Pneuren was bz all accounts a superior and more diligent physician, it was with Sachs that Larrey spent a lot of hours in his laboratory, performing experiments that could be charitably described as extracurricular. Nevertheless, this did nothing to damage the firm friendship between Sachs and Pneuren; if anything, their time together in the Asclepeion only made their bond tighter.

While Larrey was by all means a formative influence on Sachs, the opposite is true to a certain extent as well. It was him who suggested to the adept that the positions of a field medic and a geneseed caretaker should be merged into one due to the abundant overlaps between the two. Larrey relayed the proposal to Hektor and suggested the name Apothecary for this new position. The Primarch found it to his liking and ordered the founding of the Apothecarion. Sachs and Pneuren were the very first Apothecaries to graduate from the Asclepeion, although their skill sets were quite different at this point. Edentis grew to become a peerless physician, while Wilmut deepened his knowledge of gene manipulation, which he fully intended to use for the glory of Mankind.

The Heresy

As the Great Crusade went on, Wilmut Sachs plunged deeper and deeper into bioheresy in his desperate quest to find the panacea his Primarch would be satisfied with. Disillusioned with traditional methods of medicine, he made the hard decision to shed the shackles of medial ethics entirely. Soon, he and his closest adherents experimented eagerly on the kidnapped battle brothers of their own Legion, picking out those who openly stated that the Life Bringers' transformation from a military force to a glorified interstellar hospital was a disgrace to their origins. Valetudinarium became a dangerous place to speak up against the Primarch. And yet, success eluded the Genetors time and again. Constant failure made the once open-minded and curious Sachs into a bitter, callous man who would do anything necessary to bring his research to a successful conclusion. He didn't know yet what exactly was necessary, but he was most determined to find out.

Soon after the Culling of Genetory, the Life Bringers were struck by another major blow from the Emperor, this time in the form of the Council of Nikaea. The Legion's Librarians were infuriated by its outcome, none more so than Vertumnus Alraun. They certainly had a good reason for discontentment: never once have the exemplary Librarians of the Twelfth Legion overstepped the narrow limits set by the Emperor, even when the opportunity called for it. And as a reward for their impressive self-restraint they got stripped of all their powers and forced to feel ashamed of the way they were born. As he was surrendering his regalia to the Legion's Armoury, Alraun cursed both the Black Augurs and the Winged Victory and wished for them to perish to a man to the perils of the Warp. Since his traumatic youth on Clapet, the Chief Librarian had always considered psychic powers a great boon to Mankind that could right many wrongs that ordinary tools were powerless against, and the Emperor's harsh ruling established him as a near-sighted control freak in the eyes of Vertumnus. As he was going back to his quarters, he was suddenly stopped by High Genetor. With sparks of nascent madness dancing in his eyes, he told the former Librarian that perhaps his powers could serve Humanity at least one more time. Intrigued by Sachs' enigmatic proposal, Alraun followed him to his new secret laboratory.

Wilmut Sachs, it turned out, had carefully studied the logs of the Council of Nikaea. What really drew his attention was the evidence presented by Darius Cyaxares against the Black Augurs. It included detailed descriptions of the dark rituals the sorcerers of the Fourteenth Legion purportedly used to establish contact with powerful sentient entities inhabiting the Immaterium. One name that kept coming up was that of some Master of Disease, a godlike entity with seemingly absolute control over all sorts of plague and pestilence. Sachs was determined to contact this entity and strike a deal with it that could help him find a universal cure that his Primarch so desired. For a price, of course, but High Genetor was long past the point of caring about the price.

And so, using the notes from the protocols of the Council of Nikaea, Alraun and Sachs managed to step by step recreate the forbidden rituals of the Black Augurs and summon forth an evil spirit of the Warp, paying for this privilege in blood of several battle brothers too critical of their Primarch's new course. A bloated, repugnant creature truly worthy of the title of Plaguefather looked back at them from their amateurishly drawn pentagram. The creature introduced itself as Ku'Gath, a beloved grandchild of the Master of Disease himself. Although it was apparently delighted to be summoned by the Life Bringers, as it had a fondness for making new friends, it stated that they were unworthy to speak to his divine grandfather. That honour belonged to their Primarch, and to him alone. With these words, the entity departed the occult chamber, leaving only a repugnant smell in the air and a pool of diseased slime on the floor as sole reminders of its visitation. Although both Space Marines were most impressed by the profane spectacle they had witnessed, their opinions on it varied drastically. Wilmut Sachs was elated by long-overdue progress; finally, after years of wallowing in failures, a glimmer of hope for success shone in his eyes. Vertumnus Alraun, on the contrary, was shocked and appalled by the creature he personally had summoned. He now understood perfectly what the Black Augurs had been punished for, and he was honestly surprised that the prodigal Legion was allowed continue to exist after the revelation of its dark dealings with profane entities.

Johannes Vrach himself gave his approval to the experiments of Sachs and personally spearheaded High Genetor's research. Progress that would have normally taken decades of trial and error was made every day, and soon Vrach and Sachs presented the first outcomes of their research to the Legion - experimental creatures known as Sym-Biomes, permanently diseased yet theoretically immortal half-living monsters. Very few knew how the Primarch managed to achieve such impressive results so quickly, and Alraun was amongst them. Desperate in his hopeless quest to find the ultimate cure, Johannes Vrach agreed to summon the Master of Disease, who revealed himself to the prodigal Primarch as the Plague God Nurgle. As a patron of life in all of its forms and manifestations, Nurgle refused to give Vrach the panacea that would cure all illnesses - indeed, why would he give anyone a horrible weapon capable of killing billions of billions of viruses and bacteria who have the same right to live as humans do? Instead, he offered the Primarch a deal. He would shield a select few from disease, but only if they offered their bodies as hives to billions of his smallest grandchildren, by which he meant pathogenic microorganisms. With a heavy heart, Vrach agreed, thus cursing himself and his entire Legion for all eternity. Immediately thereafter, a dark ritual was conducted, during which several of Nurgle's high-ranking daemons possessed Librarians of the Life Bringers. With help from those repugnant advisers, the prototype Sym-Biomes were ready in no time at all.

Edentis Pneuren, the Chief Apothecary of Life Bringers, was absolutely appalled by the actions of his former friend. He openly took the lead of the opposition to Sachs and his Genetors, trying to bring the Primarch he used to be so close to to his senses. Pneuren's faction was soon joined by his long-time friend Gaius Martinus Vira, better known as the Reaper. Although the two were counting on Bercilak joining their ranks, the Green Ghost preferred to stay by Galen's side and out of the politicking. The clashes between the followers and adversaries of Sachs became more and more frequent, some of them even resulting in fisticuffs, yet no side could clearly gain the upper hand. Centuries later, Vira said with regret that if only Galen and his Green Men could shed their damned neutrality and join his faction, Sachs and his vile clique would be crushed and the Legion would still have a chance at redemption. Unfortunately, Nikephoros didn't think much of Chief Apothecary and his primitive methods. He needed the triumph over Sachs to be his, not Pneuren's, and so he refused to join their cause.

The Great Sacrifice at Vischmauz

It all culminated in the infamous Great Sacrifice at Vischmauz. On this planet, a massive Loyalist force was assembled in order to try and stop the advancement of the Life Bringers towards Terra, or at least slow it down. Sachs, however, saw them as less of an adversary and more of a generous sacrifice to his divine patron. Deep in the recesses of his laboratory, now flooded with blubbering filth and crawling with organic overgrowth, he prepared the greatest pest yet to see the light of day - the infamous Unmaker Plague. But as he was preparing to unleash it upon the doomed loyalists, he was finally directly confronted by his once-friend Edentis Pneuren. The Chief Apothecary tried reasoning with the mad doctor, recognising that it was daemonic influence that drove him to such ignobility. He reminded Sachs of who he used to be, and who he could still become if only he denounced Nurgle and repented for his sins. Seemingly moved by Pneuren's speech, High Genetor showed repentance and invited him to share a brotherly embrace. But as Chief Apothecary embraced his old friend, firmly convinced that he was on the road to redemption, Sachs injected him with a strain of the Unmaker Plague and watched, giggling and making notes in his notebook, as Pneuren collapsed into a pile of formless flesh. When Chief Apothecary was done for, Sachs set his unholy creation lose upon the Emperor's forces on Vischmauz, all the while singing praises to the Plague God.

With Pneuren dead and High Genetor's Plague Marines openly hunting down his followers, Vira and his Plague Doctors saw no better option than to escape from the spaceship that once was their home, but has now turned into a horrible death camp. The last bulwark of opposition to Sachs's reign of terror had now been crushed.

Current situation

Since the heresy, Sachs has earned a name for himself as a potent Genetor for-hire. Tales of his experiments, both those which have resulted in better and brighter marines and those which created unspeakable nightmare men comprised of mouths and numb swollen limbs. There are so many different forms his craft takes, as it is often subject more to function than aesthetics, and Sachs' dark eldar teaching is clearly evident in this. The Devil of Vischmauz carries a pair of potent liquifier guns with him on the field of battle, carried aloft by spindly limbs grafted to his underside, in order to test out his new creations. This is rarely anything less than a spectacular show for his followers.