Black Legion Quotes

“The promise of mutually assured
destruction had a way of calming even the fiercest hearts.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“He did not answer, nor did he watch as I left. He was seeing Sigismund again, dwelling on replies he could never speak to a brother he had once admired and who had died despising him.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“Horus had been hollowed-through by the powers he had sought and failed to control; Abaddon was drained by forever resisting them. The father had been but a host for the strength of others. The son was a bastion of his own will and endurance.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“I will give you NOTHING! Shall I tell you what I believe, Thagus?...I believe you are likewise trapped in the storm. I believe the Warp aided your pursuit of us, then cut you adrift in our wake, leaving you becalmed and with no idea why. I believe that the malignant essences we call Gods have brought us together in the heart of this storm to play out a game of kings and pawns, just to see where their favour should fall...I believe, most of all, that you are frightened of us. You fear us because despite your raving speeches that we are betraying the Legions, and despite your petty crusades to destroy us, we not only survive, but THRIVE. We grow with every conflict. The icons of the failed Legions are sheared from ever more suits of armour, and the colours of shame are eclipsed in numbers no other warband can match. You fear that we are right and you are wrong. You fear us, more than any other reason, because you had to chase us. Because we were here first. Because we are the ones on the verge of breaking free, despite all your attempts in these last decades to hinder us. We have been working towards this fate, while you have done nothing but seek to stop us. We've fought for true unity, all brothers beneath the black banner, while you've fought against it in the guise of preserving the old, failed ways. We, Thagus, have acted. You have reacted. And here we stand at our prison's edge. Even now you have no answers to give your men. Instead, you force this meeting with us, praying you can glean insight into our plans and scavenge victory through threats. You'll lose this war, Thagus. You'll lose because you desire the Gods' favour and you fear it falling upon anyone else.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“I will meet the dying Emperor's empty eye sockets and tell him the war is almost over. At last, after ten thousand years of banishment in the Underworld, his fallen angels are coming home...These are the end times. None of you are destined to survive the coming of the Crimson Path. The Imperium has been losing the Long War since it was first declared, and now we enter the endgame. I will tell you everything, Inquisitor, because for you, it will change nothing.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“Soldiers,' he made an insult of the word. 'Once we were crusaders Khayon, and now we're warriors, but we were never soldiers. Keep that foolishness to yourself.'

I swallowed my argument, following his train of thought. It was not the first time legionaries have disagreed over those semantics, and it would be far from the last. Some believed soldiering came down to discipline, or fighting for a state or a leader rather than for yourself. Some believed warriorhood was a matter of heart that elevated them above a soldier's station, while others considered it a state of barbarity that dragged them beneath it. Some questions have no answers. No matter how seriously we took warfare, no matter how adamantly we clung to our disciplined roots as a Space Marine Legion, many of our number were ultimately the raiders and marauders that time had made them. For better or worse, we would never have the ironclad discipline of a Throne-loyal Adeptus Astartes force. Even back then, we had lost much of the discipline we had once possessed as Legions of the Great Crusade.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“In my experience, you mon-keigh make a great many claims when it comes to your own prowess, awarding yourselves title after title, your psyches awash with the hope that such posturing will intimidate your foes."

"Undeniably true, though that seems harsh criticism from a species that attaches poetic nonsense like" The Storm of Silence" and "The Cry of the Wind" to its demigods, no?”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“For many years, I believed Him to be a god. I was instrumental in spreading the belief myself.'

'You still believe it'.

'I know what I know. A god or not, His power renders Him indistinguishable from divinity'.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“The only good is knowledge, Sekhandur. The only evil is ignorance'.

'That is a saying uttered by as many fools as visionaries and an attitude that has led to damnation more than once. The last man to speak those words in my presence doomed our Legion.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“This Imperium is ours. We fought for it. We built it with blood and sweat and wrath. We forged it with the worlds we took. The empire is built upon foundations of our brothers' bones...We didn't rebel out of petty spite, Sigismund. We rebelled because our Lord and master played us false. We were useful tools to bring the galaxy to heel, but He would have cleansed us from the Imperium the way He purged the Thunder Legion before us, wiping us all from history like excrement from His golden boots.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“The only way to kill me was to welcome his own death, and he did it the moment the chance arose.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“They believed the Emperor was a god. I knew how and why this had happened, even before she said another word. It happened as it always happens, as any scholar of their own species’ history can tell you: it happened because the helpless masses were fearful, and because the powerful wanted unchallenged control. Every religion rises for the same reasons – the lower tiers of a society crave answers and comfort, needing rewards in an afterlife to justify the harshness and grimness of their lives. And to prevent uprisings in search of better existences, their rulers institute a creed that keeps the masses obedient and compliant. Meekness, obedience, submission… These become virtues that the oppressed must embody in pursuit of a greater good or a later reward. To stand against the prevailing belief becomes not just philosophy but heresy. Heresy worthy of execution. And so control is maintained by the strong over the weak.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion