Illiyan Nastase

This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane.

Rawr! I hate this!

How it was back then

Some older fluff mentions that Eldar and Humans both were created by the Old Ones, and therefore should be able to give birth to Eldar-Human hybrids. This, of course, is mad old fluff that can't be trusted to function anymore (humans probably didn't exist sixty million years ago, after all), and you can be sure that your friends at the Inquisition will tell you that mating with an Eldar will result in corruption, mutations, and one hideous baby no baby at all, before promptly blamming you (to be fair, banging a potent psyker species probably will have terrible effects on you).

Suffice to say, back in the old Rogue Trader days there were not only Human-Eldar halfbreeds, but some openly found their way into the upper echelons of the Imperium.

Ilie Nastase Illiyan Nastase was born on Badab towards the end of the Badab War in M41.912 to a human mother and Eldar father. After genetic testing, he was taken into Imperial Custody and when he was twelve years old was sent to Terra because he was a psyker.

He was then Soul-Bound to the Emperor and worked for the Administratum as an Astropath where he rose in rank to "Secundus Prefect" and held the position of "Consul" for four years where he was an advisor to the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

THEN he was attached to the Dark Angels for a further two years.

After which he was promoted to Chief of the Macragge communications link and somehow holds the rank of Chief Astropath within the Ultramarines.

Fun side note: named after Romanian tennis star of the 1970s, Ilie "Nasty" Nastase, affectionately called the "Bucharest Buffoon" by some.

Why this is bullshit today

First, eldar & human hybrids are extremely unlikely; despite possibly sharing a common ancestor, the two species are probably so far apart that offspring are not viable, especially since according to Xenology, Eldar DNA contains considerably more base pairs (which are used to determine amino acid structures) than humans do, and their DNA contains more helices (and therefore binds to itself differently). Not to mention whether or not they have the same number of chromosomes, and Eldar reproduction to create a zygote involves roughly five different stages, so either the woman gets it on with several other partners and makes a mixed baby OR the male partner tries over and over again to make it work. So basically one-night-stand pregnancies are out of the question... Unless human sperm is more manly than the Eldar's, which is pretty obvious.

• Genestealers can create hybrids, albeit parasitically and using tyranid shenanigans, so there is some limit to how different their DNA is, but that's a special case. Then again, Genestealers can infect ORKS, so it's not conclusive evidence.

Secondly, any such offspring would be considered an abomination under Imperial Law and by the Ecclesiarchy, and would be put to death. Oh, speaking of, did we mention that he was born on Badab during the Badab War? And thus likely didn't actually have much contact with Imperial Law or the Ecclesiarchy: Lugft Huron was a political secessionist at that time (not the raving chaos lunatic that he would later become). So any official sanction of a Human-Eldar hybrid would be extremely unlikely, and if it were sanctioned, would have been killed when the Carcharadons blew up the planet.

Thirdly, do you really think they'd let a human-eldar hybrid all the way back to Terra and be soul-bound to the Emperor? I mean COME ON?! THEN let him rise all the way up the ranks to become an advisor to the Adeptus Astra Telepathica?

Fourth, the Dark Angels in the older lore were constantly mentioned as having proclivities for disdaining mutants and abhumans, meaning if they knew about him they'd have something to say about his continued existence. The Dark Angels have mostly moved past those explicit prejudices in the fluff, and association with odd psychic creatures is probably something they don't want to be drawing attention to.

After all this... holding the rank of Chief Librarian means he'd have authority over the Librarium and therefore other space marines. Though in the days when the article was written the Ultramarines were pretty cool about having non-Astartes throughout the ranks. The article did actually explain the organisation of the Librarium as being a mixture of non-Marine Astropaths and Marine psykers, so because Nastase was explicitly not a Space Marine this is one saving grace for the whole article.

And that's not even getting into the views of the eldar on human/eldar offspring. While GW hasn't fleshed out the Eldar as much as their precious Imperium, considering how most eldar consider humans to be no better than monkeys, they'd probably view having sex with a human as bestiality. Of course that doesn't stop some people, but even the Dark Eldar would still oppose it as sullying their "superior" genes by mingling with a "lesser race".

Not so much bs today with the new happy feely Eldar smurf love Robbie now has. Who knows, in a few years the Spiritual Liege may retcon Nastase into becoming Roboute's and Yvraine's lovechild. You may now retch at the idea. Or just plain giggle at the prospect of such delectable HERESY.

• 007021.M02: In a surprise that no one in their right mind saw coming, Nastase returns in "Dawn of Fire: The Gate of Bones." This time as a Farseer of Ulthwe and a herald of Eldrad to Guilliman. He also appears again as an advisor for Guilliman in "Godblight." While he's just about at his limit from interacting with humans for a long time, he's grudgingly assisting Guilliman's forces in fighting Chaos. He also got some amusement from debating the nature of God-hood and faith in contrast to psychic sorcery with Roboute Guilliman.

Conclusion

Now in miniature version.

But, knowing 40K and GW, this is unlikely to be canon, especially since Varro Tigurius is the Chief Librarian during the dates that Nastase supposedly also holds the same rank, but on the other hand isn't an astropath whereas Nastase is.

Also, in the same article, the Ultramarines of Macragge were said to be a chapter of the THIRD FOUNDING raised to replace the 13th Legion who had turned traitor and fled to the Eye of Terror, and this new chapter received all of the paraphernalia of the old legion. ULTIMATE HERESY *BLAM*

On the other hand, didn't they explicitly state that all official fluff is debatable and subjective, often portraying whoever are the heroes to their favour?

Love might just be able to bloom anyway. NOOOOOOOOO NO NOOOOO. *BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM* HERESY!!!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Codex Illiyan Nastase

Now you can bring him back on the table to fight alongside the Ultramarines.

	Pts	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Illiyan Nastase	150	5	5	3	3	2	5	3	10	3+

Unit Type:

• Infantry (Character)

Unit Composition:

• 1 Unique

Wargear:

• Sword of The Telepathica
• Archeotech Laspistol
• Armour of The Chief Astropath
• Frag Grenades
• Krak Grenades

Special Rules:

• Chapter Tactics (Ultramarines)
• Independent Character
• Psyker (Mastery Level 2): Illiyan Nastase generates powers from the Biomancy, Daemonology, Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy disciplines.
• Adamantine Will
• Eldar Bloodline: Illiyan's life was anything but easy to him due to him being an impure bastard offspring between a human and an Eldar. To this day he wonders how he managed to survive in a civilization that would see him get purged on sight. On the other hand this doesn't seem to bother his brethren that adopted him, and he discovered some good things about having an Eldar bloodline...

Due to Illiyan Nastase's origins, all non-Ultramarines Space Marines (except for those who are successors to the Ultramarines) in an allied detachment become Allies of Convenience. Inquisition and Sisters of Battle allied detachments become Desperate Allies. Illiyan also gets the Ancient Doom and Battle Focus special rules (see Codex: Craftworld Eldar). Additionally, Illiyan gives Battle Focus to any squad he joins.

Chief Astropath

Although not a Space Marine, Nastase is a skilled psyker in his own rights, yet his telepathic abilities are even more impressive, as befits of a previous member of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

When manifesting and casting powers from the Telepathy discipline, Nastase gets a +1 to his rolls. Similarly, he gets a +1 to his rolls when he suffers Perils of The Warp if he fails to properly manifest or cast a power from the Telepathy Discipline.

Sword of The Telepathica

A unique Force Sword that was given to Nastase while he was still a Consul and advisor to the Master of The Adeptus Astra Telepathica. This blade is both well balanced and improves Illiyan's combat capabilities.

The Sword of The Telepathica is a Master Crafted Force Sword that grants Illiyan Nastase the Counter-Attack USR.

Archeotech Laspistol

An ancient design of Laspistol that pre-dates the Great Crusade, this weapon has enough power to make a mockery of Chaos Marine Power Armour.

The Archeotech Laspistol is an S6, AP3 Laspistol.

Armour of The Chief Astropath

Nastase's unique suit of Power Armour. At first glance it looks like a simple MK.VI Corvus Pattern Power Armour, but in reality it has additional systems designed to better protect him against danger, but especially against psychic powers.

The Armour of The Chief Astropath is a suit of Power Armour that has a Psychic Hood included and grants Nastase a 5++ Inv Save, which becomes 3++ when saving against a Psychic Power.

Retcon Resurrection

Though the Eldar-Human hybrid of yesteryear no longer exists in modern day fluff, an Eldar Farseer named Illiyanne Natasé was dispatched from Ulthwé by Eldrad to serve in Roboute Guilliman's retinue as an advisor during the Indomitus Crusade; they end up having a surprisingly intriguing discussion with one of his Librarians on what it means to be a god and whether it would be accurate to call the Emperor a god.