Editing Gaspard Lumey (section)

====''On Virtue''====

''Shortly after the Revolutionary Wars, I became disquieted.  Perhaps I sensed something wrong before, but a real turning point was the receipt of a short note from Margrette on the content of my recent speech.  She wrote, "You have become v. predictable and somewhat boring.  Each speech the same.  Struggle for x, lines of march, weigh y as decisive point, any shirking of duty leaves us vulnerable.  This after 5 years' peace!"  Even more disturbing to me was that I immediately wrote in the margin, almost without thinking, "I am a spear in a struggle waged by cannon."''

(Gaspard Lumey, Journals)

Rogue Traders probing ahead of the Great Crusade first came to Ciban IV in 848.M30.  The world's sophisticated culture and unitary government was something of a surprise, and tales of Gaspard Lumey immediately caught the ear of the canny merchants.  News travelled swiftly back to Terra, and the Emperor determined to investigate, strongly suspecting that the great revolutionary hero and representative in the Cibanese Assembly was one of his missing sons.  After landing on Ciban IV, the Emperor approached Lumey openly, explaining their relationship by way of introduction. This did not convince the Primarch, who began to question his creator on his views of morality, testing the answers against what he had come to believe on Ciban. Their debate, which lasted three days, was collected in a series of texts entitled ''On Virtue''.

During the debate, Lumey initially took the role of protagonist, outlining the moral sensibilities that he developed on Ciban.  The Primarch particularly stressed the rule of law and the importance of government serving the needs of the people, and explained himself by examples from his homeworld's history.  In reply, the Emperor began with an assertion of the destiny of mankind to rule the [[Galaxy (Hektor Heresy)|galaxy]], then sought to prove how the Imperial Truth and its doctrines of atheism, reason, and science would serve that end.  While ''On Virtue'' is a particularly fine explanation of these points, its centre is Lumey's attack on the Emperor's position.  The Primarch particularly questioned how an autocracy forged through conquest could be the embodiment of a rational culture.  In answer, the Emperor artfully drew from Ciban's recent history, noting that the means used by the rebellion and those used by the old order had differed but little.  What set the two apart was that one pointed towards the future, the other to the past.  Past this pivot in the argument, Lumey and the Emperor spend a great deal of time further clarifying points of ethics and civics, but the Primarch's questions are clearly those of a student, not a rival.

At the end of the debate on virtue, the Emperor of Mankind offered Gaspard Lumey command of a Legion of Space Marines to carry forward a vision of human unity and rationality.  The Primarch's response was modest.  While accepting the wisdom and judgement of the Emperor, Lumey expressed his doubts that his life on Ciban IV had adequately prepared him for a task of such awesome proportions.  He further avowed that, while he would exert all of his powers and will upon the task, it was not a post he had sought out.