Roboute Guilliman
 | This article or section involves Matthew Ward, Spiritual Liege, who is universally-reviled on /tg/. Because this article or section covers Ward's copious amounts of derp and rage, fans of the 40K series are advised that if they proceed onward, they will see fluff and crunch violation of a level rarely seen. |
Roboute Guilliman (A.K.A.: Rowboat Girlyman, Rawbutt Jellyman, Rampant Gullytan, Robot Gulliver, Robot Gorillaman, Reboot Gigabyte, Robert Gullible, Big BobbyG, Papa Ultra Smurf, or High Lord Douchebag and Ward's Ever Chosen Robart "Is said to be slowly healing bullshit" Gilmanz) is the Primarch of the Ultramarines in Warhammer 40,000. Thanks to the rabid fanboying of Matt Ward, most of /tg/ hates him, which is sad, because he's actually one of the nicest and most with-it Primarchs, even if he did cling to tradition so much that it made him look like a total jerkwad; this included an inability to deal with "unconventional" tactics, which accidentally turned a few Primarchs to Chaos.
In case you're wondering, the audiobooks (at least "the Unremembered Empire") seem to have settled on the pronunciation "Row-BOOT-ay" "GILL-uh-man" [ɹəʊ-buːt-eɪ ɡɪl-ə-mæn].
Life
Unlike most worlds that the other Primarchs landed on Macragge was a pretty perfect and nice place to live on. However it was a Greco-Roman theme so someone like Magnus or even Sanguinius would have been thrown off a cliff for being defected, plus Guilliman was found by a politician while they were on a hunting trip.
Konor was one of the co-rulers of Macragge and took the young boy. Konor was a pretty cool dude, he advocated helping the common man and reforms that would make the world a meritocracy. These were a major influence on Roboute and stayed with him throughout his life. It also says something that Konor's seneschal, Tarasha Euten, was effectively Guilliman's surrogate mother, making him the only primarch to have a conventional family, a fact that twisted Konrad Curze's nipples no end (which goes double when she tells him to go fuck himself).
One day while Roboute was coming back after fighting the Macragge's version of the Gauls, Roboute came to find his home in chaos. Konor was the victim of some Roman politics. The other co-ruler, Gallan, was pissed off at all these reforms and so just sent his army to rape, pillage and burn. Seeing his once peaceful home burning, neighbors looting and killing each other; left the second major impact on Roboute and the most likely source of why he was always so anal about keeping things in order.
After gutting Gallan and restoring order, Roboute worked to make his father's dream a reality. This was the third major impact on his life: though he claimed that Gallan's death was justice, Guilliman came to realize that it was in fact vengeance, and worked to master his emotional self-control.
By the time the Emperor reached Macragge, Roboute had ruled for five years and turned the world into a place were you had to earn your place, not just be born, like what his father wanted.
Great Crusade
Generally Roboute was a classic "Jerk with a heart of gold" he was a total asshole for people he didn't think earned their place, and a great number of people he saw as chaotic and unorthodox (although secretly he had great respect for Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan) but was humble and nice to normal people treating them like equals and very much big on the need to raise the living standards of the Imperium. As a result, many of his brother Primarchs were uncertain about his intentions, and fewer still even liked him. His only friends among the Primarchs were Horus, Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus, and Rogal Dorn.
A good example of this was his dealings with Alpharius. While the common view is that Guilliman was simply annoyed at his younger brother for not having the same tactics as the Ultramarines, in truth it was because Guilliman was thinking After the battle. While the Alpha Legion's methods were great at messing and breaking an army, they left the world a ruined and chaotic mess with very poor public order and mass unrest. Compared to the Ultramarine's straightforward tactics, the planet was mostly intact which allowed it to be more easily integrated into the Imperium.
He was also a fairly poor field commander; he was a statesman first and warrior third. Sure he could plan great battle formations and organized armies and supply lines like no other, but when push came to shove his plans tended to fall apart as he was too tactically inflexible. Despite this, he worked very hard to turn the Ultramarines into an army of thinkers. His primary rule as a commander was "Information is victory", emphasizing that Space Marines needed theoretical (a sound understanding of the tactical situation) knowledge and practical (a means to achieve their objective) experience. But he was too inflexible to lead troops as battle plans were often the first casualty. In spite of this, with over 250,000 legionaries, he managed to achieve compliance on the second highest number of worlds during the Great Crusade, surpassed only by the Luna Wolves. The planets were also model military worlds, and the Ultramarines would not leave until a modern Planetary Defence Force was established.
Another note was he was one of the few who didn't really see the Emperor as his father, as he was the the first to state how shitty the Emperor was at raising kids and never fully forgave the Emperor for using him and his Legion as a tool to humiliate Lorgar.
Horus Heresy
When civil war broke out, Guilliman was tricked into taking most of his Legion to Calth for a joint Ultramarines/Word Bearers engagement. While most of his Chapter Masters believed it was just Horus flexing his muscle, Guilliman realized it was partly political: when the Emperor of Mankind rebuked Lorgar Aurelian for spreading the Lectitio Divinatus, he ordered the Ultramarines to sack Monarchia, capital city of Khur, as an example of what would happen to those who continued to defy the Imperial Truth. Guilliman carried out his orders, but privately confided to some of his officers his discomfort in doing so, feeling that the total humiliation would irreparably damage relations between the XIII and XVII Legions. Guilliman saw this as a chance to mend fences and forge friendships the old fashioned way: by getting Space Marines to kill Orks. Unfortunately, Horus and Lorgar used the Calth muster to kill over half the Legion in a surprise attack. When he found out Lorgar's treachery he personally declared to hunt Lorgar down and kill him, only to attacked by some sort of Daemonic proxy and voided onto his flagship. Guilliman did what any other pissed off Primarch would do: go on a rampage against Word Bearers trying to board the Macragge's Honour by punching them to death. In space. Without a helmet. (Dan Abnett is still pretty proud of that scene).
Anyway, after the Battle of Calth, Guilliman had to contend with the Shadow Crusade, as Lorgar and Angron tore the 500 Worlds of Ultramar a new one.
After seeing off the Shadow Crusade, Guilliman decided that if his father could not be saved, His ideals would be, setting up a new government called Imperium Secundus, a second Imperium of Man which would reject Horus's alliance with Chaos. Although potentially heretical, Guilliman's motives at least appeared sincere, he made a big hoohah about not taking the throne himself, since he would look like a Tyrant if he did. Fortunately/Unfortunately, the Lion arrived at Macragge and didn't like where it was heading neither brother trusted the other with the job of ruling the next Imperium. Sanguinius got the job only to settle the matter between the two and was declared regent of the Imperium in the Emperor's absence, which meant fuck all because he promptly got murdered by Horus in the battle of Terra.
Whatever his intentions, Guilliman lead over one hundred thousand Ultramarines to Terra with the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves, intent on relieving the Blood Angels, Imperial Fists, and White Scars defending the throneworld. Learning about this and knowing that he could not sustain the assault on Terra anymore once the bulk of the loyalist forces came into the fight, Horus lowered the void shields upon the Vengeful Spirit in an all-or-nothing gambit to win the war by killing the Emprah in a duel. The rest is history...
Popular Opinion
He's pretty much the only Primarch to realize that the Emperor's ideals were more important than the man himself, which is something that Malcador kept preaching.
He was also one of the best Primarchs when it came to logistics and organization, which is pretty much one of the only reasons why the Imperium of Man didn't collapse after the Horus Heresy. He was able to train and equip more than twice as many Marines during the Great Crusade than any other Legion, and he wrote the Codex Astartes (still the standard for Space Marine tactics). He is credited with reorganizing the entire governmental and administrative system of the Imperium of Man (yes, the Administratum ended up running the galaxy into the ground, but the fact that it's still running at all is a good sign).
However as the Horus Heresy series continues, it is revealed that it was actually Malcador the Sigillite who had been creating the foundations for the later Imperium. In fact it is continuously being hinted that Guilliman positioned himself to take over the Imperium after the fall of the Emperor, whether through good intention or through sinister means has yet to be revealed.
This is almost explicitly stated in Vengeful Spirit and found as an unsurprising revelation in a discussion between Malcador and the Emperor:
"It's Guilliman, what do you think he's doing? He's building an Empire" - Malcador
"and the Lion goes to stop him?" - Emperor
"So the Wolf King says, my Lord, it seems the warriors of the Lion stand with us after all"
"You doubted them?"
Despite this, Guilliman avowedly claimed that he had no desire to be Emperor and promised his brothers that if the otherwise impassable Ruinstorm abated, he would immediately send his fleet to Terra. That said, the Blood Angels managed to get back to Terra somehow, despite being on the wrong side of it, so it's unknown just how difficult it was to get back.
Unfortunately, thanks to 10,000 years of propaganda and exaggeration (and Matt Ward's Codex: Space Marines), Guilliman is absolutely perfect in every way and treated as second only to the Emperor through the entire Imperium. This is bullshit as:
- a.) Sebastian Thor is actually the main Imperial saint
- b.) Although not mentioned often; Sanguinius is actually the Primarch held in the highest regard, because of that whole "noble sacrifice" thing. (Hell, Sanguinius has his own holiday, called the Sanguinala. Horus himself thought Sanguinius was better qualified to be Warmaster than him, which is saying something.)
Regardless; he is pretty high on the list and the only Primarch who's body is on public display.
That being said, he was just as heavily flawed as the other Primarchs; he did a lot of tricky things in Horus Heresy, like that whole Imperium Secundus thing, and it's popularly theorized that he was bitter he never got to be Warmaster. Furthermore, Guilliman stuck closely to tradition, and his unwillingness to adapt to "dishonourable" tactics pissed off many other Primarchs, most notably Alpharius. Also, though the Codex Astartes undoubtedly did a lot of good things, it also had some less-than-perfect tips, plus it's now basically treated as infallible by the Ultramarines (at least the more faggot-y ones; there's at least some who take it with a grain of salt and realize where it's strengths and weaknesses lie). This may have been good advice but by forcing all of his brothers to split the Legions into Chapters it risked a second galactic civil war.
Additionally, although it isn't (entirely) his fault, Guilliman is usually blamed for turning the Ultramarines into such faggots (even though he specifically said the Codex Astartes should not be treated as a bible to be followed unerringly, besides the organizational parts, which he forced on his brothers as part of the post-Heresy reforms). Recently he's been increasingly entrusted to the care of the Mighty Dan Abnett and his faggot level is dropping rapidly. Now, Guilliman isn't portrayed as a power armored Sun Tzu, but as a logistical genius, planning planetary conquest in a way that would leave said worlds in a state that could quickly be returned to order and Imperial rule. His high number of compliant worlds is a direct product of this, helped by a Legion size that could compensate for slower battle plans.
Once upon a time, thanks to the rabid fanboying of Matt Ward, most of /tg/ hated him, but many of them have since come around.
| The Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions |
|---|
 Loyalist Corvus Corax - Ferrus Manus - Jaghatai Khan Leman Russ - Lion El'Jonson - Roboute Guilliman Rogal Dorn - Sanguinius - Vulkan |
 Traitor Alpharius/Omegon - Angron - Fulgrim Horus - Konrad Curze/Night Haunter - Lorgar Magnus the Red - Mortarion - Perturabo |