"You believe that the wall separating civlilisation from barbarism is as solid as steel, but it is not. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of pagan superstition, fear of the dark and the worship of fell beings in echoing fanes."
- — Primary Iterator Kyril Sindermann
Kyril Sindermann was a notable Iterator of the burgeoning Imperium of Man during the Great Crusade, whose gifts as a skilled orator and master of rhetoric were widely known throughout the galaxy during the late 30th and early 31st Millennia.
In the wake of the tragic events of the Horus Heresy, Kyril Sindermann would take on a new identity as one of the four founders of the newly-created Inquisition.
As the Inquisitor "Lastan Neemagiun Veritus," Sindermann would play a pivotal role during the mid-32nd Millennium in the wake of the War of the Beast in creating the Ordo Malleus, the Ordo Xenos, the Deathwatch, laying down the structure of the present-day Inquisition and ultimately forging the alliance between the Inquisition and the greatest Daemonhunters of Mankind -- the Grey Knights.
History[]
Primary Iterator[]
The most famous and perhaps skilled of the Imperium of Man's Iterators during the Great Crusade was Primary Iterator Kyril Sindermann, who served as the chief Iterator for the Warmaster Horus' 63rd Expeditionary Fleet and dwelled aboard his great flagship, the Vengeful Spirit. Sindermann was a particular favourite of Captain Garviel Loken of the Luna Wolves Legion, with whom he often discussed the weightier matters of philosophy and the reasons why the Emperor of Mankind had undertaken the Great Crusade to force other human cultures into His Imperium, by diplomacy if possible, but by force if necessary.
Sindermann was a dedicated atheist and powerful proponent of the Imperial Truth until the day during the Luna Wolves' conquest of the world designated Sixty-Three-Nineteen when he and several Remembrancers from the 63rd Expedition witnessed the daemonic possession of the Luna Wolves Battle-Brother Xayver Jubal. To see what could only be described as a daemon called every one of Sindermann's most cherished beliefs into question. He spent solar months after the incident cooped up in the Vengeful Spirit 's Archive Chambers hunting for answers in the knowledge of the human past. He was particularly concerned by one burning question: why would the Emperor have promulgated the atheistic doctrine of the Imperial Truth if He, as humanity's greatest psyker, was keenly aware that such entities existed within the Immaterium?
Sindermann eventually spoke with Euphrati Keeler, the Remembrancer who had taken hololiths and images of Jubal's hideous transformation, but had come to grips with her own confrontation with the daemonic by becoming a devoted follower of the Lectitio Divinitatus, the growing Imperial religious cult that believed in the divinity of the Emperor and ultimately laid the foundation for the Imperial Cult and the Ecclesiarchy. Sindermann attempted to use fragments of text and images taken by Keeler and other Remembrancers to decipher the religious text sacred to the Word Bearers Legion known as the Book of Lorgar which supposedly held the collected wisdom of many dark priesthoods and superstitious faiths across the galaxy.
It had been created after the Primarch Lorgar had completed his infamous Pilgrimage four solar decades before. While reading a portion of the text aloud from the heretical tome, Sindermann inadvertently summoned a Lesser Daemon from the Warp that began to damage the library stacks of the Archives aboard the Vengeful Spirit. Euphrati Keeler banished the creature back to the Immaterium through the exercise of her extraordinary faith in the Emperor, after which she fell into a coma-like state.
This latest encounter with the daemonic broke Sindermann's remaining tenuous belief in the atheism and materialism of the Imperial Truth and forced him to confront the reality that he lived in a universe where spiritual beings did exist and could hunger for the lives and souls of human beings. In such a universe, the only thing that could protect men was the power of other supernatural beings. Thus Sindermann came to exchange the Imperial Truth for a new faith in the divine God-Emperor as embodied in the teachings of the Lectitio Divinitatus.
By this time, the corruption of Chaos had wormed its way deep into the Warmaster Horus and most of his renamed Sons of Horus Legion, and so with the aid of Captain Iacton Qruze of that Legion, Sindermann, the Remembrancer Mersadie Oliton and Euphrati Keeler managed to escape the Venegeful Spirit during the start of the Istvaan III Atrocity. They made their way to the Imperial frigate Eisenstein. They were taken in by the Death Guard Loyalists under the command of Battle Captain Nathaniel Garro and escaped from the Istvaan System to Terra after many trials and tribulations to warn the Emperor of His son Horus' great betrayal.
The Inquisitor[]
Surviving the tragic events of the Horus Heresy, Kyril Sindermann eventually went on to become one of Malcador the Sigillite's four original founding members of the newly created Inquisition. He assumed a new identity -- "Lastan Neemagiun Veritus" -- and he would faithfully go on to continue to serve the Imperium of Man. He was kept alive for the next 1,500 Terran years through the use of an ornate suit of Power Armour in conjunction with arcane technologies. During this time, he also somehow developed the formidable abilities of a psyker.
Veritus survived well into the middle centuries of the 32nd Millennium, and during the War of the Beast, Inquisitor Veritus had garnered a reputation as a senior member of the Inquisition's Puritan faction who was well known for his fanatical loyalty to the God-Emperor and the Imperial Cult. A cold and calculating individual, the man who had once been known for being such an open-minded and philosophical thinker was now a cold-hearted authoritarian, who viewed the Inquisition as the ultimate tool of control. It was to be used to rein in the Senatorum Imperialis and eventually directly rule over all of humanity, for Mankind's own benefit.
Veritus finally saw his opportunity to do so during the events of the War of the Beast. Veritus called for an Inquisitorial Conclave against the Inquisitorial Representative to the High Lords of Terra, an Inquisitor named Wienand, who he viewed as grossly negligent in her duties as the senior representative of the Inquisition and her mishandling of the war against the Ork Warlord known as The Beast. He also accused her of becoming corrupted by the political intrigues and infighting that plagued the Senatorum Imperialis.
Failing to oust Wienand from her position, the Conclave inevitably failed, which forced Veritus to take a more direct approach in removing the upstart Inquisitor. He did so by deploying his own Inquisitorial agents in an attempted assassination attempt upon Wienand, who was only saved thanks to the efforts of the Venenum Assassin, Esad Wire. Following this unsuccessful attempt on her life, Wienand was forced to fake her death and go into hiding.
Veritus was then appointed as the new Inquisitorial Representative, and assumed a seat on the Senatorum Imperialis. Following the appearance of an Ork Attack Moon over Terra, Veritus abandoned the High Lords of Terra in order to pursue his vendetta against Wienand after discovering her deception. He then moved against Drakan Vangorich, the Grand Master of Assassins, who thwarted Veritus' assassination attempt on his life, by deploying his own Officio Assassinorum operatives, who successfully took out the sniper sent to despatch him.
When Juskina Tull, the Speaker of the Chartist Captains attempted to organise a mass offensive against the Ork Attack Moon which threatened Terra, by utilising civilian volunteers and Merchant Fleet vessels known as the Proletarian Crusade, Veritus refused to support her. Due to their lack of military resources, poor strategy and a complete lack of military knowledge or experience, the Crusade proved a complete disaster.
Instead, Veritus focussed his efforts on gaining complete control of both the Senatorum Imperialis and the Inquisition. With the Crusade's failure and the appearance of a mysterious Ork "ambassador" before the High Lords themselves, Veritus condemned the members of the Senatorum Imperialis for their incompetence and took his leave.
Not long after this event, a small force of Aeldari Harlequins attempted to raid the Imperial Palace in a failed attempt to deliver a message to the Emperor of Mankind. In the aftermath of this lamentable event, Veritus found himself allying with Vangorich. After interrogating the Harlequin Shadowseer Lhaerial Rey (who insinuated that Veritus might have envisioned something significant in regards to the machinations of the Ruinous Powers), Vangorich was able to successfully mediate a truce between Veritus and Wienand.
The Inquisitors would later declare themselves as co-Inquisitorial Representatives and would throw their support behind Chapter Master Koorland (the last surviving Imperial Fists Astartes) in the successful political coup to overthrow the incompetent leadership of Lord Commander of the Imperium Udin Macht Udo, and help Koorland's assumption of command over the Senatorum Imperialis.
Following this successful coup, Veritus informed now-Lord Commander Koorland of valuable information that could potentially drastically change the outcome of the War of the Beast -- the lost Primarch of the Salamanders Legion, Vulkan, had been rediscovered upon the world of Caldera, waging a one-man war against the Greenskin hordes of The Beast. When Lord Commander Koorland and Veritus traveled to Caldera to seek out the lost Primarch, Vulkan seemed to know who Veritus was, but his relationship to the Primarch remains elusive. He once again displayed his uncanny knowledge of the past, when he informed Koorland of the existence of the last bastion of the Sisters of Silence upon the world of Nadiries. He told the Lord Commander that he had long sought them out even before the events of the War of the Beast.
After The Beast was successfully defeated upon the world of Ullanor, both Veritus and Wienand laid out their future vision for the Inquisition. Both agreed to the foundation of two new Ordos Majoris -- the Ordo Xenos and the Ordo Malleus -- with Wienand serving as the leader of the former, and Veritus as the leader of the latter daemon-hunting organisation. The Ordo Xenos would concentrate its affairs upon alien threats, while the Ordo Malleus would devote itself to rooting out Chaos wherever it showed itself. The newly-raised Deathwatch would act as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Xenos, while the secret Astartes Chapter known as the Grey Knights would act in a similar role for the Ordo Malleus. Both Ordos would be equal in power so that the Inquisition would be better able to combat threats mundane and supernatural.
Though there were other dangers facing the Imperium, these two were the largest. This would not be an absolute division of the Inquisition, as the nature of the threats was such that sometimes they were intertwined. Individual Inquisitors would be free to move between the Ordos at will. Others might stay free of both Ordos Majoris. Veritus also proposed that the organisation of the Inquisition be formalised but not transformed into a binding hierarchy -- for the freedom of Inquisitors to act as they saw fit was their greatest strength. But they could no longer rely upon ad hoc quorums to guide their fate. There had to be a council of the most high Inquisitor Lords to set overall direction. This council would be smaller than the Senatorum Imperialis, and uneven in number so that deadlock could be avoided.
Revelations[]
The secrets that Veritus long held spilled from him to Inquisitor Wienand as he knew his end drew near. He revealed that the secret Grey Knights Chapter had been preparing over the centuries for the time when they would be needed. They were a force of warriors without peer, engineered from gene-seed taken from the Emperor Himself a thousand Terran years earlier in the final days of the Heresy. The Grey Knights were a last, parting gift from Mankind's God before He was taken from them to sit upon His Golden Throne. Veritus explained that they were greater than the peerless warriors of the Adeptus Custodes, as each Astartes of the Grey Knights was a potent psyker. The Grey Knights' strength was in their brotherhood. As the end had approached, the Emperor had foreseen a need for warriors who could stand against the threat of Chaos, incorruptible and mighty, and He made them so, the mightiest warriors beside the Primarchs He ever created. For them, the daemon held no fear.
The secret of the Grey Knights had been Veritus' to bear for many standard years -- assassination and execution had been the sentries of knowledge employed by the four founders of the Inquisition to maintain the secret of their existence. Veritus himself had employed Exterminatus on three occasions to keep the Grey Knights hidden, for this was how delicate the matter of the Grey Knights' existence was. That is why he could not utilise them to face the threat of the Orks during the War of the Beast, for they were too valuable a weapon against Chaos. Veritus also revealed that the mad Lord Protector Drakan Vangorich had more than likely poisoned him and that he was slowly dying, but that Vangorich likely had given Wienand an antidote to save her from the poison that was killing him, as the Lord Protector harboured romantic feelings towards her.
During his meeting with Wienand, the ancient Inquisitor collapsed from the poison that had been secretly administered by Vangorich over a matter of solar days as a harmless gas, which only became lethal once it mixed with the life-sustaining chemicals of Veritus' own Power Armour. Wienand desperately rushed the stricken Veritus to the Inquisitorial Fortress on Terra to seek medical treatment, but it was for naught. As Veritus lay dying, he was able to awaken long enough to reveal that he was one of the four original founding members of the Inquisition.
He then gave Wienand the key to the Citadel of Titan and named her his successor. She would be the liaison between the Inquisition and the secret Grey Knights Chapter, who were stationed on Titan. Veritus urged Wienand to work with Vangorich to preserve the Imperium, so that it would not fall into internecine conflict and civil insurrection, and to bide her time before she made her move to remove Vangorich from power. He then bade her to go to Titan and seek out the Supreme Grand Master Janus, the commander of the Grey Knights.
Before he died, he revealed to Wienand his greatest secret -- that he was, in actuality, Kyril Sindermann, the chief Iterator of the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade. He had been present during the beginning of the Age of Darkness that was the Horus Heresy -- having witnessed the Warmaster Horus' fall to the corrupting influence of Chaos. He had been there as the Luna Wolves were corrupted from within. He was there at Istvaan III when brother turned on brother. He had endured the Siege of Terra, and he knew Saint Euphrati, the first of the Imperial Saints, as a friend.
And he had been there the day the Emperor slew Horus. After revealing all, he then wheezed out his last breath and his heart stopped. Following Veritus' death, Wienand mourned the passing of her former rival, honouring him as probably the oldest man still living within the Imperium. She then made her way to Titan and met Janus, before returning back to Terra to work alongside Vangorich as his advisor.
Due to his extended longevity and role as one of the Inquisition's founding members, Sindermann possessed a vast trove of knowledge about some of the greatest secrets of the Imperium of Man, which included the creation of the Daemon-hunting Grey Knights Chapter and their hidden citadel on Titan, the location of the lost Primarch Vulkan and the location of the last surviving members of the Silent Sisterhood.
Videos[]
Sources[]
- Horus Rising (Novel) by Dan Abnett
- False Gods (Novel) by Graham McNeill
- Galaxy in Flames (Novel) by Ben Counter
- The Flight of the Eisenstein (Novel) by James Swallow
- Fulgrim (Novel) by Graham McNeill, pg. 178
- The Emperor Expects (Novel) by Gav Thorpe, Chs. 10, 18, 20
- The Last Wall (Novel) by David Annandale, Chs. 11, 18
- Throneworld (Novel) by Guy Haley, Chs. 4-6
- Echoes of the Long War (Novel) by David Guyner, Ch. 18
- The Hunt for Vulkan (Novel) by David Annandale, Ch. 7
- Watchers in Death (Novel) by David Annandale, Chs. 4-6
- The Last Son of Dorn (Novel) by David Guyner, Ch. 7
- The Beheading (Novel) by Guy Haley, Chs. 10-13