The Role of Remembrancers in the Horus Heresy

[Stravo]

If you've been reading the Horus Heresy novels particularly from the beginning you know that there is this faction of artists, writers and scientists called Remembrancers that the Emperor has tasked with accompanying his forces on the Great Crusade in order to chronicle the whole thing.

In the stories I've read so far they have played important and not so important roles but in the end it is clear that they are constructing a pretty good record of how the heresy is unfolding. My question is what role do you think they will play in the overall story since I've seen no mention of them before in the fluff?

My guess is that with one of the themes of the Heresy being that the "current" 40k generation of humanity has no real idea what happened in the 30k Heresy era and that most of their stories are nothing more than myths and legends, that the role of the remembrancers will be a tragic one. By the end of the story they will have a pretty good accounting of what happened but that the leadership of mankind cannot bear to face these facts so they will wipe out that history in order to construct the Cult of the Emperor and make the tragic fall of humaity complete.

Or perhaps it is to offer a small hope for the future. Maybe this true account of the Horus Heresy will be hidden away by the end of the series with the implicit promise that perhaps when found it will spark a sort of Rennaisance for humanity.

What are your thoughts and ideas regarding their inclusion in the series?

[Simon_Jester]

My guess is that with one of the themes of the Heresy being that the "current" 40k generation of humanity has no real idea what happened in the 30k Heresy era and that most of their stories are nothing more than myths and legends, that the role of the remembrancers will be a tragic one. By the end of the story they will have a pretty good accounting of what happened but that the leadership of mankind cannot bear to face these facts so they will wipe out that history in order to construct the Cult of the Emperor and make the tragic fall of humaity complete.

One of the recent short story collections features a story where Rogal Dorn does exactly that- orders a remembrancer who to accompanied Horus and recorded all his deeds executed to conceal what he knows. And yes, it's explicitly presented as a transition, Horus forcing Dorn to turn his back on the ideals and optimism and relative freedom of the Great Crusade in order to prosecute the war and hold the Imperium together with his father out of the picture.

The same story also indicates that most of the remembrancers who were caught up in the Heresy alongside the Traitor Legions were killed. If the remembrancers were embedded with the legions, then many of the ones who had accurate information on what happened would probably get caught in the crossfire during various stages of the war. Either they'd fall or be killed as the legions went to Chaos, they'd die in battles where loyalist legions took heavy casualties (Isstvan), or they'd simply... fade into the background in the postwar environment.

Remember, too, that the Heresy and its aftermath was a multi-generational conflict; it wasn't wrapped up quickly and it took centuries to put the Imperium back into some semblance of order.

Or perhaps it is to offer a small hope for the future. Maybe this true account of the Horus Heresy will be hidden away by the end of the series with the implicit promise that perhaps when found it will spark a sort of Rennaisance for humanity.

This is not totally mutually exclusive with the other possibility.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

My guess is that with one of the themes of the Heresy being that the "current" 40k generation of humanity has no real idea what happened in the 30k Heresy era and that most of their stories are nothing more than myths and legends, that the role of the remembrancers will be a tragic one. By the end of the story they will have a pretty good accounting of what happened but that the leadership of mankind cannot bear to face these facts so they will wipe out that history in order to construct the Cult of the Emperor and make the tragic fall of humaity complete.

The Dark Heresy sourcebook 'Daemon Hunter' also sheds some light on the situation. It claims that the Ordo Malleus made it its first task to expunge all knowledge of Chaos and daemons, and that around ninety per cent of all accumulated human knowledge was destroyed as a result. The works of the Remembrancers would be pretty high if not first on the list.

[lordofchange13]

My guess is that with one of the themes of the Heresy being that the "current" 40k generation of humanity has no real idea what happened in the 30k Heresy era and that most of their stories are nothing more than myths and legends, that the role of the remembrancers will be a tragic one. By the end of the story they will have a pretty good accounting of what happened but that the leadership of mankind cannot bear to face these facts so they will wipe out that history in order to construct the Cult of the Emperor and make the tragic fall of humaity complete.

The Dark Heresy sourcebook 'Daemon Hunter' also sheds some light on the situation. It claims that the Ordo Malleus made it its first task to expunge all knowledge of Chaos and daemons, and that around ninety per cent of all accumulated human knowledge was destroyed as a result. The works of the Remembrancers would be pretty high if not first on the list.

The knowledge should still exist in the Black Library, as any information pertaining to chaos is gathered by the Eldar Harlequins and place there.

[Ahriman238]

The remembrancers gave a human perspective on a story about superhumans and demigods, but their role in the story is unfortunatly ended. At Isstvan III, Horus had the assembled remembrancers gather and hsowed them the virus bombing. Then he had them all shot. A couple were able to escape, thanks to Astartes assitance, and carry warning back to the Imperium with captain Garro.

By decree of the Emperor, the Guild of Remembrancers was dissolved after the Dropsite Massacre. Its former members are conscripted into the Imperial Army, or one of the many forges gearing up for total war. A few, those with technical skills, are able to escape that fate and become artifacers for the Legions. As one put it "nobody wants to remember what happens next."

So aside from the one used as a taunt to Dorn, neither side uses rembrancers in the Heresy.

[Connor MacLeod]

I think things like Remembrancers and Iterators are part of that "downslide" you get at the begininng of the HEresy. I mean Horus Rising starts on a pretty upbeat and positive note, everything's going great, but then by the end the crack's have started to appear. By the time you get to book 3, you're pretty much reached terminal velocity and everything gets worse from there. The Remembrancers, Iterators, and such are all part of that downslide. We're presented with an Imperium that is supposed to be dramatically different from what we're used to (supposedly) rational and logical, atheistic, sophisticated, educated... and so on. No obvious attempts at secrecy or lies or suppression of information.

On the other hand, I've developed the idea that the whole "Great Crusade Imperium" is dramatically different from the modern Imperium. You don't have religion, but you have a hard core ideology that is functionally the same as religion. The Iterators basically serve the same function for the Imperial Truth that priests do for the Imperial Creed, and remembrancers seem to be part of that as well: to show how great and wonderful the Imperium is bringing culture and compliance to everyone, as well as purging the foul xenos and all that.. while at the same time plastering over the problems the Crusade brings (war and bloodshed, especially when a world refuses to be part of the Imperium.)

Overall they're another propoganda/information control tool, and one of those themes that sets the stage for the 'modern' Imperium we are so used to.

[Lonestar]

In the last of King's SW novels you had the SW 13th Company encounter an Inquisitor, and say "Inquisitor? Is that like a Remembrancer?"

"Certainly not!" says the Inquisitor.


Maybe the Inq was bullshitting and didn't know what a Remembrancer was, or he was repulsed by the idea of it.

[Connor MacLeod]

In the last of King's SW novels you had the SW 13th Company encounter an Inquisitor, and say "Inquisitor? Is that like a Remembrancer?"

"Certainly not!" says the Inquisitor.


Maybe the Inq was bullshitting and didn't know what a Remembrancer was, or he was repulsed by the idea of it.

You mean wolf's honour? That was Lee Lightner, not Bill King. Same series but diff author. Not that they were bad novels..

[Lonestar]

Yeah yeah, I couldn't recall which one wrote it off the top of my head. I had a 50/50 chance.

[Connor MacLeod]

Well more like 66/34 There were 2 Lightner novels (Sons of Fenris and Wolf's hounour) and four King novels (Space Wolf, Ragnar's Claw, Gray Hunter, and Wolfblade.)

I wonder if they'll let Bill King continue the Space Wolf novels after he finishes with Macharius.

[Sinewmire]

Interesting perspective on the Remembramancers, Logan.

I thought the true purpose of the remembramancers was for the Astartes, not the general public. The Astartes and the Primarchs have been on crusade a long time.

They are surrounded by warriors, tacticians and other astartes, and I felt that the Remembramancers were there to represent humanity in the fleets. Art, music, frivolity, pointlessness - all very human - against the astartes' stern military inhumanity. One of the most human Luna Wolves, Loken, would list his hobbies as "polishing armour, reading whatever my Iterator thinks would be best for me to read" and I think the remembramancers were supposed to ground the fleets in what it is to be human a bit more.

They were also to show that although the Emperor does not travel with the Crusade anymore, the soldiers therein are not forgotten, indeed, are to be lauded as heroes.

[Kinyo]

Interesting perspective on the Remembramancers, Logan.

I thought the true purpose of the remembramancers was for the Astartes, not the general public. The Astartes and the Primarchs have been on crusade a long time.

They are surrounded by warriors, tacticians and other astartes, and I felt that the Remembramancers were there to represent humanity in the fleets. Art, music, frivolity, pointlessness - all very human - against the astartes' stern military inhumanity. One of the most human Luna Wolves, Loken, would list his hobbies as "polishing armour, reading whatever my Iterator thinks would be best for me to read" and I think the remembramancers were supposed to ground the fleets in what it is to be human a bit more.

They were also to show that although the Emperor does not travel with the Crusade anymore, the soldiers therein are not forgotten, indeed, are to be lauded as heroes.

I was under the impression that the rememberancers where there to document the great crusade for the people back home. That to the Astartes they where an annoyance at best and a threat at worst.

Part of the reason I see Horus and others getting annoyed and frustrated was, I believe, that they where being distracted from their role in the Great Crusade by poets and artists getting in the way of all the killing and liberating.

[Lonestar]

Well more like 66/34

50/50 chance. It either would have been King or it wouldn't have.

[Connor MacLeod]

You suck

[Sinewmire]

I was under the impression that the rememberancers where there to document the great crusade for the people back home.

That was the stated reason, yes. As I said, I disagree about that as to the true reason. We never hear about those picts and poems going anywhere. I think the real reason the remembramancers were there is to show the Astartes that there *are* people back home. Easy to forget that, for them.

That to the Astartes they where an annoyance at best and a threat at worst.

And that was why they needed to be there. They'd forgotten peace existed, and that not everything is militarily precise and ordered.

Part of the reason I see Horus and others getting annoyed and frustrated was, I believe, that they where being distracted from their role in the Great Crusade by poets and artists getting in the way of all the killing and liberating.

I disagree, on the phrasing at least. I'd blame Horus, not the remembramancers. I think the dislike of the remembramancers was, for the most part, a symptom of the Astartes' change from fighting for humanity to just fighting, rather than a reason. Horus didn't dislike the remembramancers enough to not have one write his memoirs.

[The Reaper]

Three months after the battle for the High City, the first of the remembrancers had joined the expedition fleet, brought directly from Terra by mass conveyance. Various chroniclers and recorders had, of course, been accompanying Imperial forces since the commencement of the Great Crusade, two hundred sidereal years earlier. But they had been individuals, mostly volunteers or accidental witnesses, gathered up like road dust on the advancing wheels of the crusader hosts, and the records they had made had been piecemeal and irregular. They had commemorated events by happenstance, sometimes inspired by their own artistic appetites, sometimes encouraged by the patronage of a particular primarch or lord commander, who thought it fit to have his deeds immortalised in verse or text or image or composition.
Returning to Terra after the victory of Ullanor, the Emperor had decided it was time a more formal and authoritative celebration of mankind’s reunification be undertaken. The fledgling Council of Terra evidently agreed wholeheartedly, for the bill inaugurating the foundation and sponsorship of the remembrancer order had been countersigned by no less a person than Malcador the Sigillite, First Lord of the Council. Recruited from all levels of Terran society – and from the societies of other key Imperial worlds – simply on the merit of their creative gifts, the remembrancers were quickly accredited and assigned, and despatched to join all the key expedition fleets active in the expanding Imperium.
Horus Rising

And in Last of the Remembrancers...

You were more than a remembrancer, said Dorn. Remember?
I was something once, he nodded still starring into the darkness.
Once. Back before Ullanor, when there were no remembrancers, when they were
just an idea. Voss shook his head and looked down at the parchment in front
of him. It was quite an idea.
¨Dorn nodded and Qruze saw the ghost of a smile on the primarch s normally
grim face.
Your idea, Solomon. A thousand artists sent out to reflect the truth of the
Great Crusade. An idea worthy of the Imperium.
Voss gave a weak smile. Flattery again, Rogal Dorn. Not completely° my
idea, as you must remember. Dorn nodded and Qruze heard a note of passion in
Voss s voice. I was just a wordsmith tolerated amongst the powerful because
I could turn their deeds into words that could spread like fire. Voss s
eyes shone as if reflecting the light of bright memories. Not like the
iterators, not like Sindermann and the rest of his manipulating ilk. The
Imperial truth did not need manipulation. It needed reflecting out into the
Imperium through words, and images and sounds. He broke off and looked at the black ink stains on his thin fingers. At least, I thought so then.
” You were right, said Dorn and Qruze saw the conviction flow into the
primarch s face. I remember the manuscripts you presented to the Emperor at
Zuritz. Written by you and illuminated by Askarid Sha. They were beautiful and
true. Dorn was nodding slowly, as if trying to tease a response from Voss
who was still looking at his hands. The petition to create an order of
artists to witness, record and reflect the light of truth spread by the
Great Crusade . An order of people to be the Imperium s memory of its
foundation: that was what you argued was needed. And you were right.
The Last Remembrancer (from Hammer and Bolter 7)