Talk:Belisarius Cawl

Gathering Storm[edit]

It has been released. Basically it was Belisarius whining about how he failed Cadia but he won't fail the Imperium. Cypher, and what I assume to be Fallen, briefly appear in it and then it shows Gulliman in his stasis field while Ultramarines music plays. Tyranid Memestealer (talk) 20:02, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Making new stuff does not make Cawl a Mary Sue.[edit]

I'm going to go over the main points that Flutist seems to have against Cawl, done in list format:

"Cawl made happen everything the admech tried to do in 10k years!" Because he had 10k years to do it. There's nothing surprising about somebody who's supposed to be very smart (and who also studies xenotech) managing to eventually get something right.
"Cawl made improvements on the Space Marines when the AdMech and Emperor couldn't do it before!" Except they did do it before. The few chapters of the cursed founding that were successes were vast successes. The Sons of Antaeus ended up being virtually indestructible for example. Also Corvus Corax managed to do it as well using the Emperor's cliff-notes (and from the looks of it, Corax's Raptors would at least be on-par if not better than Primaris Marines). The Emperor also could make far more powerful warriors than the Space Marines (see the Thunder Warriors), he just chose not to because they were far easier to control. I also wouldn't call the Emperor "the most brilliant mind of Mankind" since there's a whole event that happened, bit of a minor footnote really called the Horus Heresy that happened because he was both a little too impatient and didn't trust his sons enough to tell them about Chaos, even trying to hide it from the son who was raised by a fucking Nurgle-sorcerer. That sure ended well.
"He didn't have 10k years to do it, aspirants were chosen too early and they wouldn't live that long!" They were kept in stasis the vast majority of the time, if they're kept like that they can easily live that long. A lot of Space Marines too seem to be mostly free from age as well, them still being fine isn't an issue in the slightest. This also only applies to the initial aspirants and since he could make changes throughout the years, he definitely had 10k years to do it. Saying it's not a sensible option to claim that somewhere over the course of 10k years to integrate a few more organs to make these new marines is nonsense.
"How'd he make new grav-craft, and in such supply to give them to the new kids on the block when even the Talons of the Emperor had them in short supply?" This one's easy, the Talons of the Emperor were getting their stuff from STC's and Cawl made new STC's to make the new craft and gear. Doing this would be tech-heresy in the eyes of the AdMech and revealing this would be the equivalent of putting his own head on the chopping block which leads into this next point:
"Cawl's a heretek!" Technically he is, yes that is correct. Good thing he managed to get the support of the Lord Commander of the Imperium to protect himself from any sort of backlash. It's almost as if having Guilliman's backing (and assisting in his resurrection) is allowing him to get away with a hell of a lot of shit that would otherwise get him condemned.

While I do have some issues with how Cawl showed up, him managing to get all this done in 10k years and how he unveiling it are the least of his issues. I wouldn't call him a Mary Sue for any of these reasons because they are all easily explained away in-universe. -- Triacom (talk) 07:06, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

- Okay, here's the thing:
- "Cawl made happen everything the admech tried to do in 10k years!" So he alone is smarter than galactic-spanning civilization. Not a Mary Sue, sure.
- "Cawl made improvements on the Space Marines when the AdMech and Emperor couldn't do it before!" Yeah, they did, but quess what? They backfired horribly, either sending the purity of gene-seed down the memory hole, developing horrible mutations or simply dying from space cancer (in case of Thunder Warriors). Space Marines are ideally balanced for their role, they are not Custodes nor they should be ones. But Cawl, once again, alone outsmarted everyone, Emps included, with numarines being simply better with no downsides. Oh yeah, and as far as I remember, Magos responsible for 21st founding were burnt at the stake or something like that. The Emperor having no social skills does not make him a less brilliant scientist.
- "He didn't have 10k years to do it, aspirants were chosen too early and they wouldn't live that long!" Yeah, I know he put them in stasis, but we both know how it works - no one getting out or in. So you suggest he picked a bunch of neophytes and juggled them back and forth between his labs and stasis pods? I highly doubt this is how it works. Also, in that short story the name of which I don't remember (where Cawl talks to runaway Ultramarine neophyte previously kidnapped by his Skitarii while listening to Mozart) is taken place shortly after the Scouring, and the project is nearing completion, with Cawl correcting mistakes.
- The part about making an STC is tech-heresy in itself. That's not how it works.>:/
- Well, yeah, I know he has protection of Guilliman, and that is the reason Primarises were not unleashed the moment they were created - to avoid torches and pitchforks. The other matter entirety, however, is the means by which he concealed all his heretical stuff from fellow Mechanicus. As you know, they are feudal as hell, with every Magos worth his salt constantly and jeleously watching for the works of his rivals/colleagues, employing espionage, bribery, kidnapping the personal - you name it. If something really, really unacceptable is discovered (like working on such grand scale with Xenotech or meddling with the Omnissiahs work), the Magos runs to his superiors, they declare the guy heretek, and then the Skitarii/Knights/Titans level the forge of the judged with Tech-priests scavenging the remains. Once again, Mechanicum are outsmarted by our not-Mary Sue. No Mechanicum in nine thousand years can't put a dent in this guys plan.
- So, yeah, rifling the bolters is just a cherry on a cake. Draigos ability to fuck anything daemonic is likewise explained in universe, but he is still considered a Mary Sue.--Flutist (talk) 08:22, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

If I recall, almost all of those 10k years are spent on the equivalent of an explorator ship where he's the head honcho and the Martian hierarchy is a distant thought. Since those ships are where most of the innovation/tech-heresy occurs, it's not surprising that Cawl would come back home only rarely. That's not even mentioning the possibility of Mars at large just forgetting about him over ten millennia. --97.125.194.237 08:35, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

This is also a really good point. If he spent most of his time on his ship and only occasionally came back home then that would further minimize the risk of him getting caught since the law there is whatever he makes it. -- Triacom (talk) 09:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

No Cawl is not smarter than a galaxy-spanning civilization. There's been many people before him who have (or at least attempted) to make similar devices/improvements before, they've usually been killed in one way or another, or just kept to themselves. Cawl on the other hand is an Archmagos for a reason, not only does he have millenia of experience to look back on but he has all the information the AdMech has gathered in separate experiments should he really need to look at it. What Cawl does is what you'd expect of a scientist at his level, take existing properties and make improvements on them (in regards to everything except the anti-grav stuff).
"Yeah, they did, but quess what? They backfired horribly-" Except for the part where they didn't backfire horribly. The Thunder Warriors were easily salvaged but much harder to control and as such the Emperor didn't want them. Corax didn't send the purity of his gene-seed down the shitter by making superior marines either and the Sons of Antaeus have no issues whatsoever with their gene-seed while remaining virtually indestructible. I have no idea what you mean with your Custodes comment, unless you're referring to the Marines specializing in specific warfare like the Custodes do, in which case they don't. There are many Custodes we haven't even seen on the tabletop yet because they aren't suited for that sort of war with the current rules for the Custodes (in the same way we never got to see the 5th and 6th assassin temples on the tabletop). Once again he didn't outsmart the Emperor, the Emperor chose not to make the Marines stronger when that was something he easily could have done, and was something that Corax was able to do quite easily when he was given daddy's permission. Also I've never read that the Magos responsible for the 21st founding were ever killed, and the Emperor being a great scientist doesn't factor into why I said he isn't the most brilliant mind in the galaxy, even if he wasn't getting outdone by a Tau scientist who makes Cawl's achievements look pitiful by comparison (seriously that guy managed to make a better disease than FUCKING NURGLE (not kidding)).
Yes that is exactly what I'm suggesting. To make his improvements he'd need to pull his recruits out of stasis to operate on them and then test them out, and this isn't anything new to the AdMech. When the Exorcists were considering being founded the AdMech made a few squads of them and then sent them to a Daemonworld where it would be impossible to win, just to test out their combat capabilities before they all died. When they ended up getting a 98/1 kill ratio they put in a petition to greenlight them, which was quickly granted and now we have a chapter of Space Marines that are nearly invisible to Daemons.
"The part about making an STC is tech-heresy in itself." EXACTLY. I think you missed the point there. You know what else is tech-heresy? Cawl's fascination/appropriation with xeno-tech, as well as his pact with Trazyn and the knowledge he gained from the Necron (being able to command the pylons is pretty fucking big), as is his ability to manipulate other Necron tech (for example being able to remove mindshackle scarabs from somebody implanted with them) as well as his many dealings with the Eldar (I wonder where he might have gotten certain anti-grav ideas from...) and a lot of other shit he did. He would be a heretek to any puritan AdMech, but being a radical does not mean he's a Mary Sue.
Cawl being able to keep his work secret isn't exactly that big a stretch either. He's an Archmagos, which immediately puts him on a pedestal in the eyes of the AdMech even before we look at other radicals who might sympathize with him (and as such are much less likely to plot against him), but we don't even need to do that. All we need to look at are how Cawl's facilities seem to be run almost entirely by him or copies of him. I'm honestly struggling to think up a single Magos mentioned as working with him before the reveal of the Primaris Marines (if you can find one, feel free to tell me). Even if I could then I'm certain they'd be just as radical as he is and ultimately loyal to his cause (he wouldn't be outed in the same way that Xanthite Inquisitors aren't immediately outed so long as they only reveal their secrets to fellow Xanthites). Working almost entirely with fanatics and yourself would certainly minimize the risk of being discovered, and he could always claim that he was doing something else, like reclaiming STC's or studying old technology which nobody would be able to call him out on since in Fall of Cadia it doesn't seem to be out of place for him to do this stuff. I'd be willing to bet that no AdMech tried to find out what was going on with Cawl for that long because he'd either worked only with those who shared the same ideals, or caught those who attempted it (and get caught by the Archmagos you're spying on would also be a death sentence everyone could get behind).
The riffling on the bolters is just the pettiest thing on top of everything else. We don't know how exactly that works (you know what else isn't good for a rocket? Being fired exactly like a bolter fires it) and I'm willing to bet there's more to it than that. -- Triacom (talk) 09:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Just for reference, he had a reputation as a Maverick back in Wolfsbane, which was all the way back in the Horus Heresy. This kind of unorthodoxy isn't new for him by a long shot. --Newerfag (talk) 13:38, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Cawl mainly works in his underground laboratories on Mars as per Codex. I won't make any comments on Mechanicums presence on Mars. >What Cawl does is what you'd expect of a scientist at his level, take existing properties and make improvements on them (in regards to everything except the anti-grav stuff).< Yeah, typical genius from fan-fiction who can do absolutely everything, from genetics to quantum physics. Let me give you an example I know all too well about: to make a blueprint of ATGM that has any connection to reality, you'll need at least 5 people: the one who studied engines, the one to make the warhead, the one to make it fly (i.e. the guy who has degree in aerodynamics), electronics engineer to put a homing head/guidance system and make those rudders turn, and, finally, a chief engineer to put all of it together. That's just the bare minimum, I'm not even talking about technologists or whatnot. So, even if we assume that Cawl has a team of loyal acolytes somehow not affected by aging and acts as a chief engineer in all the technological miracles he pulls off (as we know from the books, he worked on Primarises in person, without any known helpers, which kinda makes sense given he's Magos Biologis first and foremost, but still, the idea of improving the Emperors work doesn't become any less blasphemous), that's still a LOT of work and too many knowledge for any real person, especially the one mind-wiped twice (!) and slowly going bonkers (once again, codex). So, yeah, I'm sure you'll agree his a wee bit too competent not to be a Mary Sue, not to mention his xenotech expertise (and don't bring up Tau, they have a guy who cracked a book Primach had been written for 100 years or so during a single campaign).
About superior marines - you may want to re-read fluff about Raptors and why Corax dissapeared, why Thunder Warriors were doomed from the start and how Sons of Antaeus appear in Imperial archives - they are "sighted" on the battlefields, but no one knows where did they come from or where they depart after the battle. There is still something not right about them. Custodes are mentioned because they're fucking wrecking balls of destruction both in fluff and on the tabletop, and Emps knew how to make them even before making Thunder Warriors (they are the Firstborn), but deemed it too costly.
Now, about the STC: if the Imperium ever obtains the ability not to make a new STC, but simply copy existing ones, the WH40k would be over as a universe, it's as simple as that. Humans won, gg, everyone. Baneblades as a Main Battle Tanks, Knights produced as easily as Sentinels and all other wonders of the Dark Age of Technology one button push away from every backworlder.
The other Admechs work with Cawl on regular basis when he decides to stretch his mechanodendrits once in a while and capture some delicious ~~heretical technology~~ resources needed for the good of mankind, even going as far as lending him forces in exchange for knowledge. Cawl's really not such a hermit as he seems. --Flutist (talk) 14:37, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at Wolfsbane, it has a partial explanation there inasmuch as Cawl technically stole some of his knowledge from his former master's cloning experiments. But in all seriousness, continuing this is a waste of time since virtually any character can be interpreted as a Mary Sue with the right viewpoint. Our own Mary Sue page says as much. --Newerfag (talk) 20:34, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

So we allow Draigos page to consist mainly of bitching about how being a superior daemonslayer makes him Mary Sue despite that is the job requirement but adding a paragraph about sueness to other characters is wrong, am I right? --Flutist (talk) 20:49, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

First, Draigo's page is mostly an artifact of the Ward-era backlash compounded by Draigo's lack of personality and Ward's crappy writing. Second, I'm saying that instead of wasting time trying to justify yourself you should just add the paragraph and let the consensus decide whether or not it shall stay. (And I mean "a paragraph", not the giant rant you had that I can see in the history, which is all I shall say about it because I've had this exact same conversation with you about the NuMarines being blasphemous before on the main 8th edition talk page.) --Newerfag (talk) 21:21, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

The paragraph about what? So it's okay to add giant rant about how Cawl is great (Uncle Cawl for Fabricator General!), but not the other option? Got it. "Just put it there and start an edit war" is a bad advice, the Dicsussion page exists to prevent this sort of things. The 8th edition page now has wrong information about Custodes communicating with the Emps (there is a core difference between statement from absolutely reliable narrator and "those guys think that", the one I fleshed out at least two times during Discussion, but oh well), but I just dropped it there because, really, there is no point in discussion when two sides do not hear each other and I'm not overly protective of my edits anyways. If a number of people doesn't think they are needed (as is the case here) and state their position clearly - ok, what can I do besides wondering about why they think so? --Flutist (talk) 22:18, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

If you looked past the title of that section, you'd notice it's pointing out he's been doing a lot of things he shouldn't be doing as a techpriest- which I've made clearer by cutting out excess wank.

As for your question "what can I do besides wondering about why they think so?", the correct answer is "nothing, just let it go". You can't always get your way, and the more you complain about it the less likely the changes you want will ever happen. For a guy who says he isn't overly protective of his edits, you sure seem to get upset whenever the rest of the community decides they don't make the cut. --Newerfag (talk) 22:31, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for (correctly) answering the rhetorical question. Don't see me "complaining" anywhere, or do you take the willingness to debate things as such? The only thing I get upset about in situations like this is my failings to deliver my own thoughts properly. --Flutist (talk) 19:52, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Even if you could deliver them properly, what difference would it make? People are going to disagree with it no matter how it's presented, as you can probably see by now. And a debate where neither side is convinced or even slightly moved by their counterpart's arguments is little more than a waste of effort in my books. --Newerfag (talk) 20:42, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

>a debate where neither side is convinced or even slightly moved by their counterpart's arguments is little more than a waste of effort in my books.< Couldn't agree more, but what if the inability of the opposing side to agree is not a matter of their stubbornness or my own arguments being weak, but of a lack of the proper presentation of the latter by myself? As far as I understand, absolute majority of the 1d4chan posters barring trolls can be reasoned with. --Flutist (talk) 20:53, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Personally I'd rather have discussions like this even if we can't come to an agreement because I'd like to know where the people I disagree with stand on the issue. It does not help anyone at all to just change something on the main article and then have the original author immediately give up on defending their own viewpoint. It also helps to know where other people stand when you want to rewrite portions of the article (as you did Newerfag with the former Uncle Cawl section). I also do like to think that I can be reasoned with, as there are a number of discussion pages I've participated in where I've left with a different viewpoint than I'd entered with. -- Triacom (talk) 07:34, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

In any case, it appears to me that an impasse has been reached with this argument. While wishing to present one's arguments as well as possible is commendable and I have felt similarly in the past, in times like this it can be better to simply agree to disagree. --Newerfag (talk) 16:16, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

If this were something we couldn't provably argue on then I might do that, for example I'm going to have to agree to disagree with this statement. Considering that the Mary Sue page has a list of guidelines and considering how 40k has people who outperform Cawl still, I'm going to keep arguing that he's not a Mary Sue since all of the points we're bringing up are more factual than opinion based. -- Triacom (talk) 17:35, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

"Cawl mainly works in his underground laboratories on Mars as per Codex." No he does not. The codex lists his underground work as only one of many things he does, alongside his fieldwork. We're not given a conclusive data on where he spends most of his time, just that he calls Mars his home.
"Yeah, typical genius from fan-fiction who can do absolutely everything, from genetics to quantum physics." Except Cawl cannot do everything. His fields of expertise are clearly laid out and when it comes to other fields, Cawl is left stumped on what to do/how to proceed, as seen when Trazyn had to teach him how to interact with the pylons. I also don't recall him ever doing anything with quantum physics unless you're talking about his stasis pods/experiments, which already existed in-universe even before his introduction (and he hasn't changed that). As for your blueprint example, Cawl's got devices that not only grant him increased intellectual ability, but he has millennia of study on top of a vastly increased memory, even before we introduce his helpers, extra copies of himself. Whenever he works on something there might as well be a whole team of people who also work on it. I'd also be willing to bet that any one of the people you list there would be able to build the warhead if they had a century to study it and the other fields while having a vastly increased memory, let alone the 10k years Cawl had (yes two mind-wipes, however if his copies can act as backups he'd have been able to get that information back pretty quickly and from what we know by his work on the pylons, he's not too stupid to learn something new and the codex also says he did get some of his memories back).
"*About superior marines -" You might want to re-read fluff about Raptors and why Corax disappeared. It wasn't because he wasn't successful, it was because he was sabotaged. The Thunder Warriors were also doomed but not in a way that they couldn't have been saved if the Emperor was interested in doing something about the degradation (which he did in a fashion, since his solution was to create the Space Marines instead). The Sons of Antaeus also appear in Imperial Archives as a part of the Cursed Founding, the AdMech knows exactly where they came from and they even gave one of the reasons behind their increased durability (surprise, they implanted them with more shit). Saying nobody knows where they came from or where they left is hilarious since the former is known, as is the later, they were last seen fighting a group of Eldar and that was the last mention of them before GW forgot they existed. "There is still something not right about them." And you're getting this from where? As for your Custodes point, if that's really the issue about it then this has no weight to it either. The Primaris Marines are not Custodes and they are not made as Custodes, they have 3 parts that make Custodes into what they are added to them and that's it. This would be a marginal increase in cost at best, as opposed to the costly procedure of making an actual Custodes.
"Now, about the STC" I don't really get this point, since you're not really arguing against making new STC's (which they could do for a very long time), but arguing about copying old ones which have nothing to do with the discussion. I might as well shut this down all the same though. The reason the Imperium does not copy all the STC's they have despite being able to is twofold: firstly they need these machines to keep working non-stop to keep up with the Imperial war machine. Having them taken offline for years, decades or centuries at a time for study would not be a good use of resources, speaking of those that is the second point. STC's require a lot of resources to make what they do, making new ones does you no good if there's not enough supply for them. Even if you had an area where supplies were plentiful there'd be further issue, for example actually getting enough ships to ferry enough supplies between the foundries and the STC's that need them. Even if you managed to get to a point where you had everything you needed to power and supply a new STC it won't do you any good if it's too far away from whatever wars are going on and then you'll need to try and send the new -insert whatever you want- to that warzone which could take who knows how long. In short, the reason they don't make copy STC's all the time is because it isn't efficient (or logistically plausible) to do so.
"The other Admechs work with Cawl-" And they also revere him, as stated in the codex. They're not going to be planning shit against him.
In your argument with Newerfag you liken Cawl to Draigo when there are many key differences between the two. Firstly Draigo was presented as the unfallible supergenius badass who beat down Primarchs and carved names into their hearts, somebody so great that with will alone he was able to ruin what the Chaos gods had made and beat Lords of Change in battles of psychic might. Cawl on the other hand is presented as being fallible, as making mistakes, as trying his best but not succeeding, as needing teachers in subjects he doesn't understand, as being reclusive, as being paranoid, as being forgetful to the point of shutting himself down, as having his mind stolen twice and shying away from open combat in favour of studying technology, even when it's putting him and his forces in a predicament. In other words unlike Draigo, Cawl was rounded off as a character, he's built up a lot as having many great talents and achievements, and he also has a lot of faults and failures. If he really was a Mary Sue then nobody in the setting would be questioning him right now, his plans to make traitor/lost legion Primaris Marines would not have been forcibly sidetracked, and Guilliman would have made him Fabricator General. -- Triacom (talk) 08:26, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

"Endless experiments he conducts" should point on how many time he dedicates to them (answer: a lot). The time he spends as Dominus is limited at best (as he is inspired to do so after long periods of inactivity).
Now, let's make a short list of things Cawl invented: 1) Primarises as such. Correlates with his specialization, if still makes him DA BEST in Imperium. 2) Their weapons, named after himself, and quite an astonishing range of those at that. Does not correlate to his expertise, at all. 3) Their armor. Does not correlate to his expertise. 4) Anti-grav tech. If we assume the Tech-Clans that made gear for Talons of the Emperor shared secrets with him (and why would they, they despise AdMech and the whole point of their work is to keep the best the Imperium has to offer independent from the whims of cog-worshippers), they still failed to produce anti-grav powerful enough to make Land Raider fly, Custodes tanks have worse armour despite being constructed from superior materials. The only one who could help him would be Land himself, hasn't he disappeared during the Second Expedition. So the only option is reverse-engineering Custodes tech, which isn't that easy or something anyone has done, else all Space Marines would have been riding Jetbikes. 5) Aforementioned Stasis Fields, which are, in fact, a Dark Age of Technology tech, barely understood and manufactured in very limited numbers (see Dark Angels and their unique toys). Cawl, however, is working on improving this one. Do you know any examples of someone "improving" Dark Age tech? 6) Plasma Cannon from the Knights Codex, made explicitly by him, right on place. 7) His heretical "not-AIs", which, for which, once again, I can't remember any analogue at all. 8) Various xenotech devices, including his current work on Blackstone monoliths. I also fail to remember any field of study Cawl hasn't succeeded in or the one where he did and isn't DA BEST. Finally, how does he even survived all those years without dying like all the other AdMechs, including Fabricator-Generals, do?
Raptors project was sabotaged, but there isn't any info on what it would have been without being infiltrated by Alphas. All we know it could make marines quick. You also miss the point on the Sons of Antaeus - normal Chapters aren't "sighted" on the field of battle, Lords of Terra know their whereabouts, if not too accurate, in any given time. I can't remember a thing about existing of the possibility of Thunder Warriors to cure their space cancer or creeping madness that are a byproduct of their modifications.
STC are far more than what you think they are. First, Imperium can't make any new ones, they are relics from the Dark Age. The only thing tech-priest can do is changing the process of manufacture slightly (that is how the Rhinos came to be, for example, remade from civilian vehicles). Second, not all the tech in Imperium is an STC. Third, the value of STC is such the guy who found an STC for a scout knife (the one you see on miniatures) was awarded three solar systems with all inhabitants. Dunno where you get an idea an STC-factory demands more resources than a normal one for the same result.
The other AdMechs who work with him - maybe. But what about their opposition on the same Forgeworld? You're saying they won't as if Adeptus Mechanicus aren't as friendly to each other as a baby sharks fighting in mommies belly. While some part of them respects Cawl for his knowledge, the other hates his guts.
Cawl doesn't shy away from combat, he just does it when he pleases and kick absolute ass in it (but well, with so many goddamn metal in their bodies any Magos should do so). His project on working with Traitor gene-seed still carries on as planned because Sons of Phoenix exist. The only reason he isn't a Fabricator-General is an orthodox, i.e. main, body of AdMechs not willing to see him at this position as he frequently goes against basic doctrines of the faith. He cheats death itself, he puts the greatest minds of his age to shame, he's absolutely confident in his abilities, literally saying "I'm the only one who could improve the Emperors work", gets away with forbidden technology, and his "downsides" are literally traits of every Magos out there. I'm not a tiny bit convinced he could ever be seen as nothing less than a poorly written deus ex machina. --Flutist (talk) 19:52, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

"Endless experiments he conducts" And as we've already seen, Cawl doesn't have to be present in his labs for his experiments to still be running. It's also stated that a lot of his experiements are fieldwork.
"The short list of things he invented" 1) Primaris Marines are not nigh-indestructible, which would arguably put them lower than the Sons of Anteaus and their performance doesn't fully match up with Corax's Raptors. His Marines are good but I wouldn't say they're the best versions ever made, and besides that he's an Archmagos who specializes in this stuff, I'd hope he's the best if not very close to it in this field. 2) 10k years lets you do a lot of experimentation. It was a commonly stated fact on the AdMech page before that if the AdMech had a period of undisturbed peace like the Tau then they'd be able to make similar advancements, so why is it strange that Cawl was able to do the same? You're also forgetting that even though it's not his expertise he's also not a novice as far as that stuff's concerned seeing as how he built Guilliman's armour, was able to work the pylons after a short lesson from Trazyn and is stated to have studied multiple fields. This is the same complaint you gave earlier with the missile and it has the same counter, I'd expect anyone who has the same mind-enhancing tech as Cawl to be able to make similar advancements if they had 10k years to do it and were willing to study alien weapons which already do what they want their own weapons to do. 3) Same thing. 4) It's almost as if Cawl had made deals with a xenos race that had plenty of anti-grav technology and is willing to study xenotech to learn what he wants... almost as if there's more than one faction that has access to anti-grav tech... 5) Once again, when you have 10k years I'd expect you to do a lot such as figure out how something works when you have labratories and other copies of yourself also working on it. As for 'improving' Dark Age tech, I sure do know an example, it's called Grav-Weaponry. All grav-guns that are around in the current timeline are the result of an AdMech taking graviton weapons and making a much better weapon out of them. They flat-out didn't exist before the Great Crusade, unlike graviton weapons. 6) I don't see what the point of this one is, Cawl made a lot of new plasma guns. 7) I don't get why this is a point either. Making a copy of yourself is arguably a grey area since it would be hard to argue for or against it being a true Machine Spirit. Considering the AdMech is fine with their members fully replacing their bodies with technology though I'd say he could probably get away with it, especially since his mind is still in control/concert of/with them. I also don't get what you mean by not being able to find any analogue, since there are many factions that create their own AI (the Tau as a particularly egregious example). 8) Why's his study on xenotech a point at all? Also there was a pretty big field study Cawl failed in, it was called the Pylons and it led to a planet called Cadia being destroyed. You might have heard of it, I think there might have been a book written on it or something, but since you can't remember it then it must be a minor footnote really. Finally onto his survival (presumably still part of point 8), why would he die exactly? So long as they keep getting parts replaced the AdMech can be effectively immortal. It's also not as if they're the only faction (in the Imperium even) to have limited immortality either.
"There's no info on what it would've been like if the Raptors weren't sabotaged!" Yes there is. The first marines made by Corax were almost perfect and only flawed thanks to the sabotage. There's no reason to assume they would not have turned out the same way if Alpharius hadn't done anything. We also know that they had physical capabilities above and beyond what normal Astartes were capable of. You also misunderstood the Sons of Antaeus, they were sighted because they arrived to assist another chapter and the other chapter didn't know they were coming, meaning that they were sighted by them. There's nothing in any of the lore to indicate otherwise.
"The Imperium can't make new STC's!" The Imperium can make new ones, the AdMech have hard-copies of STC's that they copy and then modify which turns it into something new (ie it makes a new STC). I also never said that a STC factory would require more resources, no idea where you got that from, I said that the reason the AdMech doesn't copy and spread the STC's like crazy is partially because they wouldn't be able to support the scale factories they require everywhere in the galaxy, it does not matter if they're a STC or regular factory.
"But what about the opposition on Mars?" Explained away in the codex when it mentions the measures Cawl takes to hide his experiments from prying eyes.
"Cawl doesn't shy away from combat!" Yes he does. If he has the option between study and warfare he'll choose the former over the latter every time until he has no choice but to interfere. The only exception is when he's leading his forces to gather new knowledge, in which case he immediately starts studying it the second he gets his hands on it, regardless of whether or not there's still a warzone around him, as seen in Fall of Cadia. Sons of the Phoenix are only hinted to be Emperor's Children successors and that's it, you can't call them that definitively until we have more information. He also doesn't put the greatest of minds of his age to shame either seeing as how he's not a genius in every aspect and has certainly been outsmarted twice which resulted in him losing his memory both times. His confidence is one of his flaws since it's a part of his pride and incredibly huge ego to the point where he believes he could do no wrong. Cheating death is nothing new for practically any character in this setting, him not being made Fabricator-General is a great example here of why he's not a Mary Sue, he gets away with forbidden technology because he either hides what he's doing or he gets somebody much more powerful than he is to vouch for/defend him. His downsides being typical of his kind are not a write-off of them (in fact him keeping them and having them be even more exaggerated is another reason he's not a Mary Sue) and finally he's not a dues ex machina because he didn't solve the jeopardy the characters were in back when he was introduced. He showed up, failed and had to flee with everyone else while losing almost everything he had arrived with. Saying he's a deus ex machina doesn't do more than demonstrate an ignorance of the term. -- Triacom (talk) 07:34, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

"Endless experiments he conducts in his underground labs", okay. Even if they are as simple as "press the button/wait for 5 years/come see what happens" they still demand Cawl coming back once a while.
You appear to think memory is something akin to a warehouse where you can store anything you want and it won't go missing or simply expire. This is not how memory works, not in real life nor in 40k, where even Space Marines, who gain eidetic memory as part of their transformation, still can forget things as times go on (Dante, for example, can't recall exact details of his early life heroics, as in how many orkz he killed that particular day). Or what, Cawl is smarter then the Emps once again? Even if you have 10 thousand years, you can't master anything, it's a fact, as simple as that. That's the reason Magos have specializations, hell, even Necron Crypteks, who are techno-sorcerers able to pull miracles defying laws of physics out of their asses, still suffer from those - and something tells me their memory circles are of better quality than anything Mankind can make. And, yeah, grav-guns are based on graviton guns, but I don't believe they are the improvement (it's hard to improve something working on unknown principles, and AdMech do not know how they work despite being able to manufacture them - that's the fluff) but rather an introduction of them as an infantry weapon. Or they discovered an STC, who knows. The only thing that flies and has a mass comparable to that a Land Raider is Necron Monolith, and yeah, I'm pretty sure you can't get any of this things. The only Imperium AI I know is Project Kaban, conducted by Dark Mechs. In "modern" Imperium even animalistic Machine Spirits of Voraxes or Castellaxes are forbidden. Tau had engineers of an entire race working on AI resembling Puretide and achieved only limited success, not a true conciseness. Saying Cawl is not a Mary Sue for failing at Cadia is the same as saying Draigo is not one for allowing current Grandmaster and his retinue to die by Mortarions hand. Like, speak it out loud: "I expected Cadia not to fall in "Fall of Cadia". Sounds kinda silly, right? But oh boy, nowadays Cawl is constructing the system of pylons near that new Eye of Terror thing and thinks that's the way he can make it close. So after a short initiation on "How to:Pylons basics" by Trazin he totally masters another technology and is ready to prove he's the smartest of them all. You'd be surprised, but even the most seasoned of Tech-priests have organic parts, and those tend to fall into decline over time. That is the reason Forgeworlds aren't ruled by the same people since Horus Heresy.
Okay, didn't know there were any clean Raptors. Still no proof everything would have been alright with them in a longshot, they just as easily could have been Thunder Warriors 2.0. If the Sons of Antaeus are so great, why don't make all other newly founded Chapters like them? Yeah, they come on the battlefield without warning, help the Loyalists, then dissapear without a trace, are tough as nails even for marines... Huh, kinda reminds me of something.
Man, read the new Imperial Knights codex, there is a shining example of how well Imperium can copy STC there.
>mentions the measures Cawl takes to hide his experiments from prying eyes< Uh-huh, outsmarting everyone up to and including Fabricator-Generals for 10k years straight. Waaay to go.
Oh no, the galaxy is in shit, Imperium is crubling, forces are spread too thin... How fortunate we have that super-genius, who produced a legion of numarines, which are better than regular ones in every respect, and supplied them with everything they need to be an effecive battleforce, allowing Robby G to call his Crusade and save the day. Apparently, one can produce a legion of space marines on the capital world of AdMechs without them even noticing. You really think this is good writing? --Flutist (talk) 19:21, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

It would only be shit writing if Cawl produced such a legion of numarines in a decade. Instead he had TEN THOUSAND YEARS! Granted it is kinda weird how no one noticed though. Tyranid Memestealer (talk) 21:04, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

"Endless Experiments." I'm not claiming his fieldwork prevents him from coming back to Mars, I'm saying we don't know how long he stays there compared to out in the field.
"You don't seem to know how memory works." That's how human memory works, Cawl like many AdMech has a memory that works like/as a computer where he can literally write it to something and then open up specific memories to see what they were in more vivid detail. This isn't unique to him and in Fall of Cadia we see that his older memory banks do in fact degrade, however they still retain some information that happened 10k years ago and it's mentioned that even if he forgets everything he still retains some skills, which also isn't unique to him. If you have your entire memory wiped for example you will still know how to walk, how to talk, and you will have an intrinsic talent with the skills you used to practice since your body can still remember what your mind forgot since humans do not store all of our collected memories in one place. " Even if you have 10 thousand years, you can't master anything, it's a fact, as simple as that." I'm going to assume you fucked up and accidentally wrote "anything" when you meant to write 'everything'. You would be correct, but Cawl's never had to master everything. I'm not a master of literature but I've written a collection of short stories that could be combined into a book. I'm not a master filmmaker or an editor yet I've made and released hundreds of edited videos. I'm occasionally toying around with making codices despite not being a graphic artist yet I'm clearly making progress still (my attempts are on my user page, and at some point I should update those with better versions I made in the meantime). I'm not a master brewer yet I know how to make, bottle and keg out beer. I'm not a master distiller yet I know how to make all of the commonplace hard liquors and I operate a still a lot. I could go on to talk about other jobs and things I've had or done (believe me, I could easily triple this section) but I think you get the point, people can accrue a large amount of skills and a large amount of knowledge in many subjects over a few decades without needing to be a master in those subjects to get good results. Hell if I had 10k years to do what I wanted and Cawl's enhanced mind/memory I'm sure there would be a shitload more I could do. What Cawl has done does not stray into the realm of beating Crypteks at what they do since he's managed to make a tank float, while they do stuff like control weather patterns on the fly, transmute elements into other elements, create and command nanomachines that are so small you need an atomic microscope to see them and alter the fabric of space and time. This is also why Cawl fucked up and couldn't figure out what to do with the pylons until somebody else sat him down and taught him what to do. I'd also like to point out that if he really needed to, he could easily find loyal followers who specialize in the fields he needs, get them to work on whatever project he wants, then steal/delete their memory and/or kill them to make sure nobody else could know about it while taking all the credit for himself (which is right in line with his character). As for the grav-guns, they yield far better results, are far more efficient and are much easier to manufacture, they're a superior gun in every sense of the word, probably because the original wasn't meant to be a gun and this is a weaponized version of that. Also the AdMech do have an idea of how they work since otherwise they wouldn't have been able to alter the original and create new STC's for these. They also didn't discover a STC for this since it's explicitely stated to have been created by a tech-priest, not found by a tech-priest. As for the mass argument, I don't really get this. What's the point of it, and are we ignoring super-heavy hovering tanks/constructs like tessaract vaults or the Eldar super-heavy hovering tanks? I don't see why Cawl wouldn't be able to get his hands on some anti-grav xenotech considering how much of it the Imperium has destroyed, wrecked or captured. For the AI, like I said you'd have a hard time trying to disprove them as Machine Spirits and they aren't comparable to Castellaxes or Voraxes since they're based on him, not whatever those are based on (yes I know they hinted that it was daemons, it's a stupid plot point to try and justify them not being around in M41/M42). As for the Tau, the AI that I was mainly referring to was Shas'vre Ob'lotai 9-0, because there can't be a single thing in the modern canon about Farsight that isn't terribly written (I think you also mean 'consciousness' and not 'conciseness'). When you bring up Draigo I'm not sure which you're referring to, the codex or the great audiobook. If it's the former, Draigo had nothing to do with that happening. Nothing he did could have stopped it and he had no choice but to follow what his superior said to do, whereas Cawl could have saved Cadia had he done things differently (not losing the majority of his forces on another planet for example, having his forces assist more directly in Cadia's defence or if he was an even faster learner started the process sooner). In Heart of Mortarion however (if you're referring to the audiobook) the author doesn't make Draigo into a Mary Sue since while he still isn't responsible for Geronitan dying, he isn't the invincible, unstoppable badass that he is in the codex. When he faces Mortarion he gets his ass kicked, barely managing to defend himself at first before being overpowered and thrown backwards as if he was a toy. His victory also doesn't come about thanks to how great he is, it comes about thanks to Mortarion's inherent weakness now that he's a Daemon. Cawl's also attempting to construct new pylons, we don't know if he's going to be successful and even if he is, that's because a Necron showed him exactly how they work. Before Trazyn taught him, Cawl had no clue what to do with them despite intensive study on the subject. You're also downplaying how much Trazyn taught him and saying that by building more pylons he's 'mastered' more technology is ludicrous. Getting a comprehensive guide on something and following it doesn't mean you're a master of that subject. To cap this paragraph off though, you seem to be unaware that there are AdMech who do not need organic components to live, and even the ones who do can create new body parts for themselves. Another Archmagos named Inar Satarel was able to survive even having all of his flesh melted off by a xenos, so he made himself some new fleshy bits and continued on (despite rumours that his experience fucked with him). There are plenty of reasons why forge worlds change rulers, and I wouldn't list age as a major factor.
"On Raptors and Sons of Antaeus." The Raptors were made differently than the Thunder Warriors with no indication they'd have the same degradation without the sabotage. For the Sons however, there are two reasons newly found chapters aren't made like the Sons: firstly they were still made alongside the rest of the Cursed Founding chapters, which has the more superstitious (ie most of the Imperium) antsy about them. Pitching an idea that you want to make more of Cursed Founding members isn't exactly going to net you a lot of supporters right off the bat, especially when a lot of those chapters allegedly turned traitor. Secondly they were created because somebody innovated with the process, and the AdMech hates innovation. This isn't helped by the first point either and combined with their low public profile (understandable since they're part of that founding) they haven't exactly built up a list of great victories that would leave most AdMech convinced that this innovation is a good idea (especially with the rumour of their gene-seed going around). If the rumours of their gene-seed are true then I can also see why the Sons (and the AdMech) wouldn't want successors, and would want to keep their Primarch a secret (seriously, having that info get out would doom the chapter). You could argue that Cawl would be in favour of this, and I would reply that you're right, however he already took that train of thought and used it to create the Primaris Marines.
"On STC's." Some STC's are more complicated than others, the Imperium fucking up in one area doesn't mean they'll fuck up in every area.
"On Cawl's hiding." You don't need to outsmart anyone if none of the people who would oppose your projects knows what you're doing, or if you have fanatics who are loyal to what you do who can cover your ass for you (as Cawl does). Before Guilliman's return Cawl kept to himself and kept his projects secret, I don't recall him having a single mentioned rival before Guilliman came back (since you can now claim his rival's the Fabricator-General) so why would the Fabricator-General need to be tricked by him before that time? Even if he did, Cawl could just get those loyal to him to leak information that isn't true.
"Cawl the 'savior'." We've already gone over the Primaris Marines and their conception, considering what Cawl added to them it's not surprising that he was able to figure out how to do that in 10k years and as you've said, this sort of thing is the subject he specializes in. Whenever new chapters are founded they are always supplied with everything they need to be an effective battleforce. The AdMech doesn't create a lot of new chapters and then just have them jump into space with nothing. As for producing a legion inside his laboratories, considering that they're city-sized, I'm going to say yes, there's plenty of room there and he has multiple laboratories that size. -- Triacom (talk) 06:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Endless Experiments. Didn't you said it yourself he shunned combat? That kinda contradicts all that STCs he uncovered, with 40k being 40k, every expedition out of your comfy labs invariably comes to bloodshed.
On mindwiping and aging: even hard drives have their limit, and no Techpriest can hope to become 100% machine, the brain still is organic, and protein parts of it still must wither and die. There are two options of Cawl living 10k years: either his age-reversing are DA BEST in Galaxy since I can't remember any human who survived 10k years without Warp bullshit, or he's tech-heretic to the extreme and all of his parts are mechanic. Either way, that makes him one-of-a-kind.
On mastering everything (yes, I wrote "anything" instead of "everything", guilty as charged): it's widespread mistake to confuse common knowledge and scientific one. Understanding principles and having the ability to apply them and get good results as you describe is simply not enough. This is kinda personal experience, scientific expertise is extremely narrow as you're expected to boldly go where no one has ever before, and demands not only for knowledge, but also for abilities and understanding are harsh. For example, in my field of work one must know metalworking on level far beyond basics, but he's not expected to do something an expert in it should do and, to the contrary, is supposed to consult with him. The said expert would naturally know metalworking on advanced level and be extremely proficient in his (rather narrow) own field of work, but not in all metalworking. While he's likely to be suited for work as an engineer in any branch of industry where it is used, it'll do little good to him as a researcher in those. While any technological progress in 40k is essentially frozen and so there is less of a problem to be aware of latest breakthroughs (there's still occasional STCs popping up here and there, but why'd rival techpriests give you access to it?) the way Cawl is described betrays the fact the person who wrote the description never engaged in actual scientific work himself. Of course, why would they, but it still makes his genius extremely cartoonish, having so many areas of expertise it's not even funny. I suspect 40k technology is a bit more complex than ours, so even more narrow specialization would apply. All that memory-implants and brain-stimulants can only achieve that much: even 40k scientist from Magos Biologis bear titles like "Magos Biologis Neuralis", declaring, in this case, that his specialty is neurosurgery. It could be, as I said earlier, brushed off with him being the overlord of multiple organisations of extremely capable heretic techpriests driven by the need to innovate, maintaining a spy network across all the Imperium to gather candidates akin to what Space Marines do, and it would be cool and logical. But nope, him getting a crew of fellow Tech-priests lately is described as something highly new and unusual, everything he has done before is all his doing.
On pylons: highly doubt Trazyn, who is a Pharaoh and not a Cryptek, could teach Cawl anything but basics needed for the job, especially considering Crypteks hide their secrets the same way AdMech do. Even with Dark Age of Technology in mind, necron tech to human one is the same as a computer from the 60-s to your average monkey.
On Cadia: Cawl couldn't save it for the sake of advancing the storyline, it's as simple as that. The idea human can make heads or tails on Necron technology (see above) is laughable (shoud hold that thought until Warhammer Adventures, lol). The version of Draigo matters not, he still had to fail to save the Grandmaster to become one himself.
On Grav-weapons: article in Munitorum series explicitly says no one knows how they work: "Unlike some of the other forms of Imperial weaponry, like Plasma Guns, Meltaguns and Lasguns, very little is understood about how a Grav-Gun functions. The ancient and venerable Tech-Magos of the Omnissiah have passed down the numerical prayers and ritual equations of creating the Grav-Gun from Tech-Priest to Tech-Priest. Over generations, this knowledge has been reduced to complex analogue rites and droning binary chants. Individually, each of the components of the gun seem strange and incomprehensible, created by lengthy processes which are themselves a mystery to the Tech-Priest toiling to perfect them. However, when assembled in the correct order, and the blessed hymns of awakening are sung, the Grav-Gun takes on lethal functionality." There is also Graviton Imploder in HH that works the same way as Grav-guns do and is stated to be the basis upon which those were produced "when more arcane patterns couldn't be made in the cataclysmic war aftermath".
On Grav-tanks: Eldar vehicles (even super-heavy ones) are ridiculously light because wraithbone and therefore capable of going on no less ridiculous speed (Falcon can go at 800 kph). It's also impossible to get hands on Necron technology, at least in ground battles, because it teleports back the moment damage is too dangerous to continue fighting.
On AIs: I was thinking about Puretides neuro-implant, or what's its face, that device to assist their commanders. Shas'vre Ob'lotai 9-0, as I remember, is simply combat AI with no true consciousness (yeah, the last time auto-correct got me), please, please, tell me it is so. Voraxes and Catellaxes have that exact "not-AIs" things, "a primal web of bellicose instinct", they are not simple robots guided with programs, nor do they have any daemons of any kind, yet even them are deemed dangerous and forbidden shortly after HH.
On Raptors and Sons of Antaeus: "Victory needs no explanation, defeat allows none". There surely would be consequences if those new Space Marines were so effective with no downsides. There are also Chapters like Flesh Tearers, whose presence anywhere is, to the contrary, closely monitored exactly because everyone are antsy about them.
On STCs: that's exactly how they work, and why everyone is so mad about them.
On Cawl's hiding and Primarises supplies: by the love of god, he could've produced Daemon Engines there just as easily. It's not about anyone knowing what exactly is going on; it's about something fishy happening right under everyones noses. Judging by the fact Cawl is an innovator, I'd say yeah, his relationship with the orthodox part of the Machine Cult (i.e. the majority of them) has been rather cold all along.
As a side note, I might need more time to answer to anyone, things are a little tense on this side. --Flutist (talk) 15:57, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

"Didn't you said it yourself he shunned combat?" Yeah, because if he has to choose between studying new artifacts and fighting, he'll choose the latter since he shuns combat in favour of study. If he has to fight to get to new artifacts then he'll fight until he gets them, at which point he leaves the fight to study even if the fight isn't over yet. This doesn't mean he's terrified of combat or avoids it every chance he gets, it just means he cares more for technology than he does warfare.
"On mindwiping and aging: even hard drives have their limit, and no Techpriest can hope to become 100% machine-" Somebody's not familiar with the lore. Cawl's memories do have their limit as we see in Fall of Cadia, I already mentioned that they do fail in time. It also is entirely possible for them to become 100% machine, including their brain since Archmagos Inar Satarael did exactly that (he was also called 'The Fleshless Lord' because of this). Cawl is also a Magos Biologis, aka the people who grow new organs and body parts for themselves and who can replace the parts that die with new ones. Cawl's also not human in the same way that Custodians and Space Marines are not human. Custodians do not age at all, whereas Marines can have their aging entirely removed if they're interred in Dreadnoughts. In no way does Cawl's methods of beating time (whatever they are) make him one-of-a-kind since there's entire factions that also have their own techniques as well.
"On mastering everything:" Once again I'll point out that even if Cawl didn't have the capabilities or time or his intellect (since remember he's not subject to the same restrictions a person is, he's got devices that vastly increase his own intelligence) or whatever have you to become familiar enough with the subjects at hand, he has loyal followers that could easily specialize in the fields he needs. Taking credit for their work is also entirely within his character, however I doubt that's the full truth (I think his acolytes would have assisted him in matters that they were more specialized in, and not just done all the work for him). He might not be the best researcher in all the fields that he dabbled in, however when you have 10k years to tinker and make improvements you do not need to be the best in your field. I'd also like to point out something you also seem to be unaware of, Cawl's mind is divided into many sections (in a literal sense) which each store different specialties and when he switches from one subject to another his mind actually switches over into something more appropriate for the task at hand. This was established in his first book appearance in Fall of Cadia. Essentially what this means is he doesn't need to remember everything at once, since he can switch back and forth whenever he needs to and quite literally file information away for later. I'd argue that thanks to this the narrow specialization applies to him much less than it would somebody in real life, especially if he stole or took knowledge from others, which we know he did.
"On pylons:" Trazyn's a Phaeron who has a grasp of technology that I would argue rivals a Cryptek. If he didn't then his various exploits, impersonations and body snatching would be very easy to detect whereas even the Necrons can't tell he's doing it and his showings with his technology have been very impressive. As for their technology being more advanced, you're correct, that's why Cawl couldn't figure out what to do until he was taught despite his studies into the subject. I'd also like to point out that the Deathwatch has been using Necron technology quite handily without Cawl's help and it's also not strange to see Deathwatch teams mess around with Necron technology (it's even on the cover of one of their RPG's). There's also the Inquisitor who Trazyn gave an altered Tesseract Vault to as she figured out how to use it and was apparently able to disarm/escape it. Apparently understanding it isn't as hard as you think (or I'd like. I'm honestly with you in your feelings on that, but unfortunately that's not the reality).
"On Cadia:" So Cawl did fail then didn't he? If you're trying to brush that off as "he failed because the setting forced him to" then I'm sorry, but you have no argument. Regardless of why you think the corporate decision was to make Cawl fail it's now a part of the setting's history and a part of his character, it makes him fallible. Draigo also didn't fail to save the Supreme Grandmaster because A) he wasn't supposed to save him and B) it was literally impossible for him to save him. Unlike Draigo, Cawl actually could have saved Cadia in-universe, and he screwed it up.
"On Grav-weapons:" Except for the tech-priest who originally made them (granted they're almost certainly dead). Also saying 'very little is known' doesn't mean they don't have a clue. They might not know how exactly the parts work with one another but it wouldn't be hard for any radical (or even a team of real-world scientists) to study the relationship between the parts.
"On Grav-tanks:" Hold up, where are you getting 'ridiculously light' from? Yes Wraithbone is lighter than a lot of materials, but there's a very good reason those vehicles are designated as "SUPER-HEAVY". You're also out of the loop on Necron technology, that hasn't been mainstream for the faction for a long while now and any time a tomb world is taken out it's litered with Necron tech.
"On AI's:" Sorry to disappoint you, but Ob'lotai 9-0 is a fully functional AI of Ob'lotai, a friend and teacher to Farsight. The Tau also now have a fully functional AI engram of Aun'Va which is why he's still around and can still give his own speeches and make his own decisions. As for Voraxes and Castellaxes, at one point we called those Machine Spirits, GW just decided to make up a stupid reason for why we don't see them in 40k.
"On Raptors and Sons of Antaeus:" Victory needs no explanation makes a nice bumper sticker, but in practice isn't how the Imperium operates. The Flame Falcons for example were wiped out for/in spite of their victories (and how effective they could be). This slogan also doesn't account for how radicals or hidden heretics might have achieved victory and that's why people still tend to watch out for it.
"On STC's:" I don't understand this point, are we in agreement on it?
"On Cawl's hiding:" Why would they think something fishy's happening though? Cawl's cover story both in Fall of Cadia and in the actual book are that he's out hunting for new artifacts to study.
"Side note:" Take your time, we can wait. -- Triacom (talk) 23:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

"It just means he cares more for technology than he does warfare." Uh-huh, and that kinda suggests he spends most of his time on Mars doing his research stuff. Not saying he sits there nearly for as much percentages of time your average neckbeard spends in the basement, but you got the idea. Also, this is literally what I said one reply earlier.
On mindwiping and aging: I know perfectly well about his segmented memory, but it still must decay and must has it limits, especially taking the titanic amount of stuff he needs to remember in consideration, not to say he conveniently forgets how he learnt stuff, but not the stuff itself. Inar Satarael, actually, had a brain in his new metal shiny body: "his flesh was liquefied and drunk from his body, leaving no more that a shattered and broken cluster of augmentics and a few scraps of brain and cerebrospinal tissue". Becoming Full Metal Techpriest immediately turns you into Silica Animus with understandable consequences.
"Cawl's also not human in the same way that Custodians and Space Marines are not human": I'm sorry, what? Those either have the gene-seed or are affected by molecular alchemy even our Mary Sue can't crack. And both do, in fact, age: Dante, Iacton Qruze, even Sigismund himself are living testimones to Space Marine aging, as Custodes tradition of becoming Occuli Imperator is to Cusodians. Space marines in Dreadnoughts are usually kept in stasis, otherwise they'll go mad because being buried alive isn't all fun and games. Even Bjorn spends 99% of his time sleeping. Once again, I can't recall a single human being that lived through 10k years, warp and stasis excluding, correct me if I'm wrong.
"On mastering everything:"while Cawl having helpers seems to be logical, in any lore piece featuring him working shows he does all his stuff himself. I also fail to understand how dividing ONE, however stimulated, mind in many sections helps achieving goals entire generations of Magoses failed in (and I'm not talking about Primarises here, working on those would be blasphemy against Omnissiah, but all the other tech he miraculously pulls out, Bolt Rifles including), or simply containing so much information. We know Magoses have specializations; we know club "Cawls Little Helpers" emerged only recently; that draws us to conclusion that while yeah, he could've stolen some tech as he did from his former master, he either rivals Blood Ravens as or still has an absurd amount of knowledge as even reverse engineering is a pain in the ass.
"On pylons:"yeah, I totally forgot about their swords in Deathwatch (and also assassins have that Phase Blades that can't hurt C'Tan...). Still don't necessary agree using weapons equals understanding principles on which those work: after all, those are usually built so even your average soldier, who is about as smart as an Ogryn, can use it without breaking. Pylons,on the other hand, are something else entirely.
"On Cadia:" you don't get the point. It's not about Cawl's not failing (he did), but it couldn't be averted as Imperials had no ways of countering Blackstones Fortresses smashing into the ground (not to say a force of CSM ten times the original Legion(don't know what did person who wrote it smoke) Abaddon gathered during 13th Black Crusade). The same way Draigo had no chance of saving Geronitan, Cawl couldn't save Cadia. Anyways, did Cawl learn something from this or did it change his character in any kind? Nope, he's still a massive dick with a huge ego.
"On Grav-weapons:" 40k Grav-guns are literally budget Grav Imploders, it's literally written in fluff. It's not an improvement.
"On Grav-tanks:" from IA:Doom of Mymeara, where on p.198 it's shown Nightwing with full weaponry weights two times less than modern jet of roughly same proportions with empty hardpoints. They use the same material pretty everywhere, I can't remember any information about sorts of Wraithbone. Mustn't Necron Tomb be blown completely, or Necron Warriors will just keep coming? I remember Helbrecht capturing Imotekhs ship, but plunging it into the sun, and Ultrasmurfs capturing some world after some Gauss pylon powerlifting, but they utterly destroyed any trace of Necron presence.
"On AI's:" damn, they just keep screwing Tau fluff. Voraxes and Castellaxes were under suspicion even them (as could turn into literally Machina Malefica), and their intelligence was never called Machine Spirit, but yeah, the main reason they are not in 40k is GWs money-grabbing.
"On Raptors and Sons of Antaeus:" that's how Predators Annihilators and many other cool toys came to be. Of course, meddling with the Emps work is another story altogether, but still.
"On STC's:" that STCs can't be copied or replicated?
"On Cawl's hiding:" Why would they think something fishy's happening though?: because it's 40k. And Mechanicum. --Flutist (talk) 19:26, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

"Uh-huh, and that kinda suggests he spends most of his time on Mars doing his research stuff." No, it means he spends more time on his research than he does fighting. You seem to think the only time he does his research is when he's on Mars when we both know full well that he does fieldwork and neither of us know how he divides his time between the two.
"On mindwiping and aging:" It does decay, in Fall of Cadia we learn it decays so I'm not sure what the issue here is. He also doesn't conveniently forget how he learned stuff when he has had two mindwipes, and I've already gone over how somebody's inherent skill with something is not fully linked to their memory of it. That is something that happens to real people and is why you can lose all of your memories, yet still know how to walk and talk (not to mention be inherently skilled in what you used to do). As for Inar Satarael, turning yourself into a machine is different from creating a machine and I can't find anything that says doing so would make you an Abominable Intelligence. Even it that's the case in modern canon though it didn't seem to be the case before the Horus Heresy as Inar Satarael kept his Archmagos status.
"Cawl's also not human in the same way that Custodians and Space Marines are not human:" I think you missed my point. In all of their cases they've been augmented physically and mentally to surpass normal human limitations. Judging them by human standards at that point and saying what they do is impossible since normal humans can't do it is silly, also Custodes do not age, it says as much in their Codex. As for Space Marines, I said they do age, so your whole spiel about them showing examples of aging was pointless. What I also said is that their aging can be removed if they're interred in a Dreadnought, which is true. Also Marines interred in a Dreadnought do not get put into stasis, they get put into a deep sleep. They're both suspended animation but one directly removes time from affecting you and the other does not. As for your last sentence, once again I'm going to point out that Cawl isn't human and we shouldn't judge him as such.
"On mastering everything:" I'll agree most of the lore shows him working alone, if we were to discount the other versions of him that also work alongside him (you keep treating him as if he's a single person rather than a team). I also don't see how he's doing something entire generations of Magos' failed in since I don't recall a lot of Magos' trying to improve the bolter. Even then it wouldn't be too hard to argue that he took their research, improved on it slightly and called it his own. I'm also going to say that he's likely stolen a good chunk of what he knows if his history is any indication, although if he had to build up that much knowledge, 10k years seems like a reasonable timespan to do it in.
"On pylons:" Small point, but the reason the Phase Blades can't hurt the C'tan is because they're made out of the necrodermis specifically used as C'tan skin. Once you stab them with it they just absorb it right back. As for the other point, as of yet Cawl hasn't managed to build working pylons so I think we should wait and see.
"On Cadia:" But they did have a way to counter that, the only reason the Black Legion was able to do that was because people were too stupid to notice they were doing it (I've got a lot of problems with that book, that's only one of them). Even if Cawl couldn't manage to save Cadia however, he could have managed to close the Eye of Terror, which would have been more than a fair trade for the Imperium. As for it affecting Cawl, it did affect him which can be seen in the Rise of the Primarch trailer, him helping to bring Guilliman back restored his bruised ego.
"On Grav-weapons:" And Grav Imploders are improved versions of Graviton weapons, which is what I was talking about. Grav-guns as a whole are a much better weapon than Graviton weapons ever were thanks to both their effects and how they're manufactured.
"On Grav-tanks:" Now you're just reaching, fighters and tanks are not comparable in terms of weight. There are many planes that are longer and have a wider wingspan than tanks have width, yet they weigh a fraction as much. While you would be right that Jets with a similar wingspan are much heavier, there are jets without such an exaggerated wingspan that manage to be comparable in terms of weight, the JF-17 Thunder for example. Also I'm going to point out that its weight is just an estimate because the Imperium does not know. I'm also going to point out that Primaris vehicles have more than double the amount of anti-grav devices compared to Eldar vehicles, if we're going with the idea that they're heavier, this is probably to compensate for the weight. As far as the Necron stuff goes, in the new stuff you don't need to blow up everything, just the vital bits. The Necrons aren't going to keep coming because a few research stations are intact for example and even if you were to blow up a part of a monolith, it no longer has the ability to have the rest of it vanish, meaning that anything not ruined by the explosion could be taken and studied. As for the Marines you mentioned, their goal was to eradicate the Necrons on the planet (it was a part of a retaliatory effort), so they did just that.
"On AI's:" I definitely agree on the Tau. The explanation you give here for the Vorax and Castellax would also have been much better than the reason we actually got for them not being used anymore.
"On Raptors and Sons of Antaeus:" Yeah it's how they were able to make some new stuff, however not all of the Imperium operates the same way, which is why some Inquisitors would've been fine with the Flame Falcons, and they happened to get one of the ones who wasn't, so their chapter was condemned.
"On STC's:" But they do have hard-copies of them, which they change to make something new and therefore make a new device out of it. Them making a hard copy of the STC in the first place is also a way of copying them.
"On Cawl's hiding:" But he has a cover story, so why would they think something fishy's happening? If the galaxy wasn't embroiled in so much war I might actually agree with you on this point, however I think most of the AdMech have more important matters to attend to than trying to break through the security measures of an extremely revered member of their group just to make sure his cover story holds up (and the risk on dying if they're caught wouldn't be worth it when they're needed elsewhere). -- Triacom (talk) 21:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Plasma bits[edit]

@Triacom. A pair of ventral and dorsal studs with ridges so thick that they’re like fins, looks literally nothing like a small box with an angled corner out of which protrudes a pair of side-by-side-at-a-45*-angle relatively smooth cylinders. The pre-8e Imperial Plasma Cannons have the former. Both the brand new plasma incinerators and the Tau plasma weapons have the latter. Their bits look exactly the same and not like any of the prior Imperial bits. I dare you to show me a single prior example of that cornered-box-with-paired cylinder bit on an Imperial model. You won’t. And yet it’s on every single prior Tau plasma rifle and cannon to the point where the design team was clearly and intentionally establishing it as the visual signature of that weapon type for that army. I get the feeling that you’ve had to stubbornly, pedantically “correct” this so many times because it is blindingly obvious to everyone else, and I wonder if it’s ever occurred to you that it might, in fact, be you who are the “fucking moron.”

One of theses things is not like the others... One of these things, doesn’t belong...

The Plasma Cannon and Plasma Incinerator both have the same studs, if you think they don't then you're not looking at the picture. The Tau Plasma Rifle does not have these studs, it has smooth cylinders, and the cylinders are literally the only thing it shares in common with the Incinerator, even when it's technically not the same shape thanks to the protruding bits on the Incinerator. The angle they point at is irrelevant because they're still pointing in different directions. I'm calling anyone who's claiming that the Incincerator is derived from a Tau Plasma Rifle a fucking moron because they are, the Incinerator looks like a stretched out and scaled down Plasma Cannon and the only way to make it look like a Tau Plasma Rifle is to pull out your hobby knife, shave off the studs sticking out of its cylinders (the same it shares with the Plasma Cannon), then remove them and glue them in another place. -- Triacom (talk) 05:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Dude. It literally doesn't get more obvious.

Pictured: That bit.

Not pictured: That bit.

And the bit in question has the same studs that the bit on the plasma cannon does. As I've already pointed out the only way to change that is to take out a knife and shave those off. You can also clearly see that it has nothing in common with the Tau plasma weaponry besides having those two bits be close together. It's a ridiculous stretch to say it's derivative when you can need to use a knife to make them look similar on one tiny part, and otherwise they have nothing in common. Let's also not forget that they're on different positions on the guns themselves. -- Triacom (talk) 18:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

looooooooool it's literally the same fucking bit! It's literally the same fucking bit. You're clowning yourself. I could make a silhouette of each and every instance of that specific bit and overlay them on each other and it would have at least 80% overlap, and I could not do that with a single bit on any other Imperial plasma weapon. You're just a self-important namefag grognard who cannot admit that you are obviously and clearly wrong lest it affect your position of Lord of the Wiki. And burying this at the bottom of the page underneath the wankfest above isn't going to change that.

It's only the same bit if you grab a knife and shave off the parts that make it the same bit as the part from the Plasma Cannon. If you made a silhouette of the cylinders, compared them to that of the Incinerator and Cannon you'd see the fins protruding from both of those prevent them from matching. I don't know why you keep insisting that those protruding bits don't exist, but until you admit that they're there you are lying to yourself. Also I didn't "bury" this at the bottom of the page, new topics go to the bottom, that's how wikis work. -- Triacom (talk) 19:35, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

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Talk:Belisarius Cawl

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Making new stuff does not make Cawl a Mary Sue.[edit]

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