FABIUS BILE, The Emperor's Frankenstein | Warhammer 40k Lore
Welcome to the TTP Field Manual’s End-of-Year Special!
In these FINAL DAYS, join Joshy and Jonny as they delve into the characters of Warhammer 40,000, exploring their stories, motivations, and roles in the grim darkness of the far future. Each episode in this series unpacks the "who, what, where, why, and how" of iconic figures, making it the perfect introduction—or reintroduction—for fans old and new.
For Episode #3 we delve into the twisted genius of Fabius Bile, the infamous Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children. Driven by an unyielding pursuit of human perfection, Bile’s experiments have led to both horrifying breakthroughs and catastrophic consequences. From the creation of the infamous Noise Marines to his audacious attempts at self-cloning, we examine how his relentless obsession has shaped his dark legacy. Join us for a captivating exploration of Fabius Bile and the far-reaching implications of his quest for genetic mastery.
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TTP Field Manual is brought to you by Joshy and Jonny, best friends and gaming enthusiasts from their local group, Trust the Process Hobbies. Die-hard fans of the Warhammer universe, we use this podcast as a platform to share our passionate (and somewhat humorous) ramblings about all things Grimdark.
By day, Joshy is a therapist; by night, he's an RPG aficionado who grew up on (not-so) Final Fantasies and crafting his own Dungeons & Dragons worlds. Jonny, a hospitality manager, spends his downtime conquering more video games than Joshy can keep track of.
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Notes:
- Fabius Bile is a complex character who seeks to improve humanity through genetic experimentation.
- Despite his villainous actions, Bile sees himself without morality when it comes to his work.
- He has created various enhanced warriors, including the infamous Noise Marines and the Terata.
- Bile's ambition includes cloning key figures, including his former Primarch, Fulgrim.
- His perspective on Chaos is unique; he views it as mere energy, not divinity.
- Throughout his long existence, Bile has continually evolved his methods and goals, making him a significant threat.
Transcript
Well, hello there.
Speaker A:Welcome to the TTPFM Advent Calendar.
Speaker A:Today, Joshi, we will be talking about the wonderful, the wicked, the fabulous Bile.
Speaker B:Bill.
Speaker B:We're talking about Bill.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Fabius Bile is the man of the day.
Speaker A:And to start as usual, I have a quote for you.
Speaker B:I love quotes.
Speaker B:Hit me with it.
Speaker A:If a man dedicates his life to good deeds and the welfare of others, he will die unthanked and unremembered.
Speaker A:If he exercises his genius, bringing misery and death to billions, his name will echo down through the millennia for a hundred lifetimes.
Speaker A:Infamy is always more preferable to ignomy.
Speaker A:Fabius Bile.
Speaker B:Why are Chaos so edgelords?
Speaker A:Hey, hey.
Speaker B:So they have to get.
Speaker B:They have to get so philosophical on why they're a douche.
Speaker A:No, that's just Fabius entire personality.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:I don't know very much at all about Fabius, so this will be a real treat.
Speaker A:Well, this man has been around for a long time.
Speaker A:We have about 10,000 years worth of lore to cover in a brief period.
Speaker B:Of time in like 20 minutes.
Speaker A:Fabius Bile goes by many, many names.
Speaker A:The more popular ones being Clone Lord Primogenitor, the Spider, which he despises and Manflayer.
Speaker A:He is a Chaos Space Marine Apothecary.
Speaker A:Although he doesn't see himself as fallen to Chaos.
Speaker A:Originally the Chief Apothecary, Apothecary of the Third Legion, the Emperor's children.
Speaker A:And he has continually used his extensive knowledge of cloning and genetic engineering to create a superhuman beings that he can control.
Speaker A:His end goal and his entire.
Speaker A:What he sees as reason for existence is to match and exceed the Emperor of Mankind's achievement of creating the Primarchs and the Transhumanistates in the hope of creating the perfect human form.
Speaker B:So he's just a renegade Frankenstein?
Speaker A:That is a very good description.
Speaker A:He is.
Speaker B:He's not evil, right?
Speaker B:Well, he's not that evil.
Speaker B:He's just dedicated to his craft.
Speaker A:It's this strange thing where, like, yes, he is doing this thing for what he feels is a noble cause.
Speaker A:But in order to get the resources and do and like everything that he needs, he conspires with Chaos Space Marines.
Speaker A:So he has become a heretic in the process, in the eyes of the Imperium.
Speaker B:Does he like the Imperium, though?
Speaker A:Oh, God, no.
Speaker A:Hates him.
Speaker A:Okay, yeah, 100%.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker A:He was born on Terra in the mountains of Northern Europe, essentially during the Unification wars, and was an honoured legionary of the Third and was one of the few surviving Terran battle Brothers that travelled with the Emperor to Chemos.
Speaker A:When Fulgrim was discovered, he was one of the first there.
Speaker A:He was also one of the first Apothecaries to be trained as an Astartes, and one of the first in his legion to be called an Apothecary.
Speaker A:Hence why he kind of rose very quickly in rank up to chief at the time.
Speaker A:During his time as the Apothecary of the Third Legion, though, he did a lot of experimentation upon his brothers and enhanced a lot of their physical capabilities to try and create the perfect Astartes.
Speaker A:He used a lot of xenos genetics that he learned from a strange race that isn't really covered much, but essentially he modified the gene seed of his brothers, which isn't a very good thing to have done.
Speaker B:Was this the Istvaan race?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Yeah, I did remember that little book.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:The Screaming Maidens or something like that.
Speaker A:Something like that, yeah.
Speaker B:They screamed you into submission.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's also part of the technology he used later on to create the Noise Marines.
Speaker B:So I have a question already.
Speaker B:He wants to make the perfect Astartes.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:But he wants to rival the Emperor.
Speaker B:What did he see wrong with the Astartes in the first place that he had to keep working on them.
Speaker A:They are flawed.
Speaker A:They have quite a few things wrong with them still.
Speaker A:And even after seeing the work of the Primaris, he was like, they're just.
Speaker A:You just repeated the same work.
Speaker A:You didn't actually make anything better.
Speaker A:You just added more muscle.
Speaker A:He feels that the Astartes aren't perfect because of all the flaws, especially the flaws in a lot of their gene seed.
Speaker A:In particular, the Emperor's children, who had a fairly brutal gene seed mutation.
Speaker A:Which we are about to get into.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:During the early days as an Apothecary, the gene seed stores of his Legion were attacked, destroying much of the genetic stores and infecting those remaining with the blight, causing the decay of the gene seed, crippling the ranks of the Third Legion.
Speaker A:This began Fabius Bile's research looking to rid his legion of this infection that unleashed tumors in their gene seed, ultimately destroying it.
Speaker A:After working on the corpses of many of his battle brothers, he discovered a way to test for the blight.
Speaker A:And true to their ideals, every infected Astartes was executed.
Speaker A:Oh, yep.
Speaker A:The Legion just purged a large portion of them to try and kill the infection.
Speaker B:And they're also perfectionists.
Speaker A:Exactly right.
Speaker A:It's like, you're not perfect.
Speaker A:You're not good enough.
Speaker A:In their testing, Fabius Discovered that he was infected.
Speaker B:Oh, no.
Speaker A:But his ego is massive.
Speaker A:He seed himself as way too important.
Speaker A:He's too important to kill.
Speaker B:So I'm not that sick.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker B:I don't need to wear a mask.
Speaker A:It wasn't so much of that.
Speaker A:I'm not that sick.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I'm the only one with the power to fix it, so I have to survive.
Speaker B:That is a very valid point.
Speaker A:So he swapped a test with a perfectly fine battle brother who was executed in his stead.
Speaker B:Ugh, Bill.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This was like the first step to both his corruption and his whole legion's corruption.
Speaker A:As a lot of the Emperor's children see Fabius as the reason they fell.
Speaker B:To Slaanesh, he forced them more into the perfection seeking, excessive mindset.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And then he's like, but not me.
Speaker B:I'm out of here.
Speaker A:This led him down the path of creating the Noise Marines, which were super enhanced sonic marines that could screen a hole in a ship.
Speaker A:It also started his secretly stealing genetic material from his brothers to prolong his life.
Speaker A:And at Isvaan 5, when Fulgrim was turned, Fabius kind of broke down to him and confessed everything he had done up until this point wrong and basically said, my science has failed.
Speaker A:I can't fix myself.
Speaker A:Can you help?
Speaker B:Ooh, it's pretty selfless.
Speaker B:Or not selfless, but very selfish.
Speaker B:Yeah, I didn't mean to say that.
Speaker B:But that feels exceedingly honest.
Speaker B:From what I understand of this guy.
Speaker A:From what I gather, from everything I've learned of Fabius, he is pretty honest.
Speaker A:He might be sneaky and secretive and backstabby, but.
Speaker A:But he's pretty honest.
Speaker A:Especially with Fulgrim.
Speaker A:He adored Fulgrim up until the point of his transformation because he was designed to be perfect.
Speaker A:Yeah, he was supposed to be the best of them.
Speaker A:And after Fulgrim fell, Fabius was very disappointed and ended up leaving.
Speaker A:We will do some quick fire notes of some of the things that he managed to accomplish in the earliest stage of his life.
Speaker A:So these will be kind of like quick fire dot points.
Speaker A:Please jump in if you have any questions or input.
Speaker A:So on the request of Fulgrim, Fabius made multiple clones of Ferrus Manus so that Fulgrim could attempt to convince him to join the traitors.
Speaker A:And every single time, the clone refused and Fulgrim was forced to kill them.
Speaker B:Ah, poor Ferrus.
Speaker A:Poor Fulgrim.
Speaker B:Well, poor both of them.
Speaker A:Fulgrim adored Ferrus Manus.
Speaker A:That was like his closest brother and the best relationship he had.
Speaker A:And the real Ferrus Manus was killed after Fulgrim tried so hard to turn him and he refused.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Fabius was instrumental during the heresy, reviving both Lord Commander Eidolon and Lucius.
Speaker B:Ah, I remember that.
Speaker A:At the demand of their primarch.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Eidolon specifically had his head removed by Fulgrim, who then immediately regretted it and was like, please fix this.
Speaker B:Eidolon's got a book coming out soon.
Speaker A:He sure does.
Speaker A:During this time he also created his first generation of Terata, or enhanced warriors.
Speaker B:Terata?
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:That's what they called these like buffed up super Astartes that he made that were physically stronger than an Astartes, but were prone to rampant mutation and mental instability.
Speaker B:Wasn't going to be a perfect solution, was it?
Speaker A:No, this was Gen 1, remember that he experiments.
Speaker B:How experts has he done?
Speaker A:Oh, I don't think anyone knows how many he's done at this point.
Speaker B:Yeah, sorry.
Speaker B:Please continue.
Speaker A:During his experimentations on his many brothers over the course of his time, he managed to rewire their senses of pain to stimulate brain's pleasure centers instead.
Speaker A:Which really helps you see how they got drove into Slaanesh.
Speaker A:When pain is pleasure.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And is another reason why a lot of people think he was completely responsible for their legion falling to Slaanesh.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:Completely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Midway through the War on Terror during the final act of the Horus heresy.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But before Horus's defeat, Fabius up and left.
Speaker A:Just abandoned everything.
Speaker A:And Fulgrim managed to place a bounty on his head.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:His own father.
Speaker A:Ish.
Speaker A:Fabius then moved through the galaxy, offering his assistance in exchange for prisoners.
Speaker A:Genetic material and ancient tech.
Speaker A:All of which he was using to help develop his cloning and improvisation of the human race.
Speaker A:Eventually he found the Aeldari crone world of Urum, within the Eye of Terror.
Speaker B:Oh no.
Speaker B:Oh no.
Speaker A:Which became his home.
Speaker A:And Apothecaryan that he started himself.
Speaker A:This is where the traitor legions would come to him so that he could get help with extracting progenoid glands and creating new space marines.
Speaker A:He was instrumental in keeping the forces of Abaddon at a point where they could continue their war.
Speaker B:That checks out.
Speaker B:I was always curious how chaos kept resupplying.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, Fabius was kind of the one.
Speaker A:Him and his apothecaries.
Speaker A:He would teach and train apothecaries for the other legions so that they could then continue the fight.
Speaker B:Was he teaching them so they could continue on his work?
Speaker B:Or was he actually just happy to teach?
Speaker A:This was like a side project and more of a passion project.
Speaker A:He was doing this kind of as his day job, while his night job was cloning and recreation and improving.
Speaker A:There's 10,000 years here.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And he still hasn't perfected what he was doing.
Speaker A:So there would be times where he'd be like, okay, cool, I need to do this for a bit, and then I'll come back to what I was doing.
Speaker B:You've read or listened to most of the Fabius books?
Speaker A:Most of them, yes, most of them.
Speaker B:Because warp time is iffy at best.
Speaker B:Has he actually been around for like 10,000 years, or is it like a couple of thousand and he just pops in and out of real space here and there?
Speaker B:Or do they not really touch on it?
Speaker A:Time works a little differently around the warp and in the Eye of Terror, but for the most part, it's slower.
Speaker B:Ah, okay.
Speaker A:It's kind of like the intense gravity and shifting.
Speaker A:Some places will be quicker and slower, but there's a lot of him coming out and being like, okay, what's changed?
Speaker A:How long have I been gone?
Speaker A:All of this, like, rediscovering what's happened around the Eye while he was gone.
Speaker A:There's also a lot of periods where he was dead for a while or, you know, re establishing his body or, you know, in recovery, because the dude dies a lot.
Speaker B:He's just a guy.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:At some point after the heresy, Bile managed to steal the body of Horus from the Sons of Horus Legion World of Malium and use that genetic material.
Speaker A:Bile cloned Horus, hoping to curry favor with Abaddon.
Speaker A:Instead, Horus was kind of completely mad, and Abaddon was forced to destroy his own father yet again, and then proceeded to crack the homeworld of the Emperor's children, leaving it in pieces again.
Speaker A:The Emperor's children do not like Fabius because they blame him for a lot of things.
Speaker A:And it's kind of fitting because he is probably the problem.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm putting that together.
Speaker A:He does these things very selfishly, and everyone around him kinda suffers.
Speaker A:And no one suffers more than the Emperor's children at the hand of his need and drive.
Speaker B:So what.
Speaker B:What did he do next?
Speaker A:At one point, Biles studied under the tutorage of the Homunculi of Commera.
Speaker A:Of course, after impressing the coven of the 13 scars with his abilities in improvisational torture.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Specifically, that was what impressed them.
Speaker B:Did he realize this and really, like, focus that, or is it just he's just a torturing bastard.
Speaker B:And they're like, hey, come over.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:No, he.
Speaker A:He went there looking for other knowledge.
Speaker A:He wanted to know more from the Homunculi about their genetic skills, because they are very skilled genetic modifiers.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:He kind of snuck into Komura and then got caught and was a prisoner for a little bit, and then impressed them with his abilities and knowledge as he was basically like, shit talking.
Speaker A:Them being like, you could do that better, as they're torturing people to the point where they were so impressed, they decided to teach him what they knew, thinking that he was stuck there forever.
Speaker A:He helped them create what they call the Tower of Flesh, which is a living, breathing fortress made of the remains of those that have wronged the coven.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker A:He then managed to escape, and the Homunculi of the coven of the 13 scars tracked him down across the universe.
Speaker A:There's like a whole novel about that.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's one of his trilogy books.
Speaker A:One of the trilogy books which ended up with Bile dying yet again, but not for the last time.
Speaker B:Poor guy.
Speaker B:Rip.
Speaker B:But when he dies, does he have, like, a cloud, save for his knowledge?
Speaker A:Yes, that is exactly what he does.
Speaker B:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker A:So he has done some research, and the people at, comma, helped him as well, into Wraithbone technology.
Speaker A:And he essentially has a Wraithbone organ within his brain that every now and then will upload his consciousness, essentially, it will upload all of his knowledge, all of his personality, everything.
Speaker A:And then when he dies, he essentially has, like, a brain scan that gets implanted into wherever it needs to go.
Speaker A:There is definitely some.
Speaker A:Some lost memories, because if he hasn't had a chance to back it up in a while.
Speaker A:He's done a lot of work with Wraithbone and assisted some of the Noise Marines in the cacophony in the harvesting and growth of Wraithbone forests.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Which, for those who don't know, Wraithbone, is essentially solidified warp energy, which means that it reacts really well with the cacophony's harmonic songs and chaotic essence.
Speaker A:So they can use their gifts, given by Fabius, to cultivate and grow and nurture this stuff.
Speaker A:At one point, he captured an Aeldari prisoner, tortured and genetically modified them to become essentially a key, and named it Key so that he could go into.
Speaker A:Oh, no, I'm blanking.
Speaker B:Webway.
Speaker A:The Webway.
Speaker A:It was essentially a webway Gate Key.
Speaker A:As a person, but a person.
Speaker B:Oh, that's gross.
Speaker A:He had no eyes, could barely talk.
Speaker A:He Was essentially just a living key that just sent out a wraithbone resonance that would open up the portals whenever he was near one.
Speaker A:And then he explored the webway.
Speaker B:Is this the homunculi science he picked up?
Speaker A:Ah, this was before that dude's got skills.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This was when he found Urum at one point.
Speaker A:And some of these things aren't necessarily in order because there's not a lot of order to what he's doing, because everything's a little weird when it comes to time.
Speaker A:Disguised as an Adeptus Mechanicus Magos, he managed to infiltrate the Blood Angels chapter on Bhaal, who were attempting to use cloning to replenish their ranks after.
Speaker B:Yep, yep.
Speaker A:The decimation of bile.
Speaker B:I read about this last night for one of my character research.
Speaker A:Oh, I look forward to jumping back into this then.
Speaker A:Where he corrupted the experiments, creating the blood fiends that broke free and terrorized the fortress monastery, Giving bile the chance to steal a vial of blood containing the mingled blood of sanguinary priests and Sanguinius himself.
Speaker B:Bill, Bill, Bill.
Speaker B:How does he keep getting away with this?
Speaker B:He must be, like, really adept at combat as well.
Speaker A:He is.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:He is still a veteran that has been fighting for the last 10,000 years.
Speaker A:He's one of the originals.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:Every time he gets into a fight, he is very proficient.
Speaker A:Skills honed over, you know, millennia.
Speaker B:He's a veteran of the Long War?
Speaker A:Yes, very much so.
Speaker A:One of his crowning achievements is the creation of the new men, which are a hardened cadre of enhanced humans who exhibit strength, speed, and intelligence many times higher than normal humans, but are bred in such a way that they're kind of depraved psychotic killers.
Speaker B:Ooh.
Speaker A:He kind of taught them overarching survival instincts and used a lot of survival of the fittest to help breed stronger and better versions.
Speaker A:He essentially accelerated the evolution of the human race through genetic mutation, disease, introduction, and just letting them kill each other to a point where these are now, like, pretty close to what he wanted to accomplish, but he's still obviously working on it.
Speaker B:That's a key statement there.
Speaker B:Is it genuinely what the human race would evolve to or what he wants them to evolve to?
Speaker A:Well, part of his problem is all of the iterations seem to not be solely autonomous.
Speaker A:They always seem to rely on him or worship him, and they're not quite where he wants them to be.
Speaker A:But what he does is he'll take some of them, drop them off on a planet, and just leave them alone, then take some More drop them elsewhere.
Speaker A:He will drop them in here and use them to infiltrate their entire society so that he can take over a world.
Speaker A:Like, they're very close to human, but they're just so much better in every regard.
Speaker A:So he kind of uses them, but at the same time, he wants them to not be used by him.
Speaker A:This man is batshit crazy.
Speaker B:I'm getting that.
Speaker A:Sometime in the 41st millennium, he finally succeeded at cloning a primarch.
Speaker A:This time it was Fulgrim.
Speaker B:Oh, Clone Grimm.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:As the memes would have it, unlike.
Speaker A:His previous attempts, this Fulgrim was exact.
Speaker A:As pure as the original, but with none of the taint of Slaanesh.
Speaker B:How'd he manage that?
Speaker A:He doesn't remember.
Speaker B:Well, that's just lazy writing.
Speaker A:He goes back to the Emperor's Children homeworld, where he originally.
Speaker A:Oh, no, sorry.
Speaker A:Back to Urim after a very long time, and his apothecary is in ruins.
Speaker A:And he goes downstairs and he finds a room locked away by a bunch of mutants.
Speaker A:And he unlocks the door, and there's a baby Fulgrim in a tank.
Speaker A:He's like, this has been here for thousands of years.
Speaker A:It shouldn't be alive or sustained.
Speaker A:And he takes the baby out and is like, holy shit, it's alive.
Speaker A:And then it just grows up into an actual Fulgrim in a very short period of time, because that's what primarchs do.
Speaker B:Can't imagine he really maintained a lot of Fulgrim identity, though.
Speaker A:So this clone grew quickly, and due to the way that primarchs are made, they actually have a genetic memory.
Speaker A:So he had all of Fulgrim's knowledge of the events of the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.
Speaker A:He knew everything he had done.
Speaker A:This version of Fulgrim expressed great regret for his actions during the conflict and swore to atone for his sins.
Speaker A:But Bile got in the way.
Speaker B:Of course he did.
Speaker A:Bile saw this version of Fulgrim as so exact that it was doomed to fall to chaos.
Speaker A:Eventually he was like, it's so close.
Speaker A:It'll end up in the exact same situation.
Speaker A:So he betrayed his primarch yet again and trapped him in the hands of Trasin, the Infinite.
Speaker B:My boy.
Speaker A:At one point, he just falls into Trazin's gallery.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:And Trazen's like, hey, you're Fabius.
Speaker A:Bile, you're with me forever now.
Speaker A:And he's like, how about.
Speaker A:Hold on.
Speaker A:You let me go, I will give you literal Fulgrim.
Speaker B:He Just fell into the Solumnus Galleries.
Speaker A:Quite literally.
Speaker A:Like crack in the Earth fell into it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That sounds like Trazen.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:How he ended up on the planet, specifically.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Nah, it's.
Speaker A:It's just a whole lot of read.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Was that one of the more recent things that Fabius has done?
Speaker A:Was one of the more recent things in more recent lore.
Speaker A:So coming into what we're actually doing in the more current scheme of things.
Speaker A:Bile stole a Death Guard artifact called the Ark.
Speaker A:Quarno.
Speaker A:Contagious.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Which is capable of causing catastrophic mutation and uncontrollable growth on a scale that could easily corrupt entire worlds in a matter of days.
Speaker B:But it's nurgle magic.
Speaker B:Isn't it something that Fabius wouldn't be into.
Speaker A:Ah, mutation is.
Speaker A:Remember, Mutation is a thing he needs.
Speaker A:He's using it to mutate the human gene.
Speaker B:Uh, I guess because he doesn't really accept nurgle.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:As a concept.
Speaker A:I haven't really touched on that much, and I should probably jump to that.
Speaker A:He is an atheist in a world full of literal chaos gods.
Speaker A:He sees the warp as just entropy.
Speaker A:He sees chaos demons as just emotions made manifest in a physical form, but they are dumb and just an emotion.
Speaker A:He sees the chaos gods as nothing more than balls of chaotic energy.
Speaker A:But not gods.
Speaker A:He sees them as just entities out there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like gestalt energy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:At one point, he's reflecting on everything that's going on around him and everything that's going wrong.
Speaker A:And he looks up and he sees a face in the sky, and that is the face of Slaanesh.
Speaker A:And he basically is like, you're not real, and turns away.
Speaker B:Is he saying that?
Speaker B:Because he.
Speaker A:He desperately has to believe it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So he knows in the back of his mind that there's something deific about them, though, doesn't he?
Speaker B:Like, he.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's strange.
Speaker A:Like, I don't think he sees them as deific.
Speaker A:He just sees them as very strong entities.
Speaker A:And he's just like, you are not a God.
Speaker A:You cannot have control of me.
Speaker A:I've seen what you've done to Fulgrim and my legion.
Speaker A:And I don't care.
Speaker A:You're not real.
Speaker A:Go away.
Speaker B:Classic, classic 30th millennium philosophy there, Fabius.
Speaker A:And it really comes to show, like, a lot of people will say that Fabius is the last of the space marines loyal to the Emperor's true intentions.
Speaker A:He doesn't worship gods.
Speaker A:He's only looking to establish the human race in a further way.
Speaker A:And I think that kind of plays into this, like wanting to do what the Emperor did, but better.
Speaker B:I can see it.
Speaker B:He is just doing whatever he can to further what he feels is right.
Speaker B:The Emperor himself wasn't exactly a good guy.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:But this guy looked up to the Emperor to the point where he's like, I want to be better than you.
Speaker A:But continuing back to the Arc Corner Contagious.
Speaker A:He stole it off the Death Guard.
Speaker A:Typhus got really angry and sent a plague fleet after him.
Speaker B:Typhus Known subtle guy.
Speaker A:Known subtle guy.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Bile then had to team up with the Shriven and a guy named Argento Corian in a conflict known as the War of the Spider, AKA Bile.
Speaker B:Ah, I know about this.
Speaker B:Yep, go on.
Speaker A:Bile managed to manipulate all sides of the war and escaped with captive custodies and Sisters of Silence.
Speaker B:I didn't know that part.
Speaker A:So he managed to escape with the Arc of Corner Contagious.
Speaker A:And now he has Custodes Gene Seed and the Sister of Silence null abilities.
Speaker A:And this is kind of where they leave off the story.
Speaker A:He is now in possession of Primaris captives Custodes, as we said, the ability to negate the warp in the Sisters of the Silence.
Speaker A:He has the Emperor's own genetic material in Sanguinius's blood.
Speaker A:A Death Guard artifact.
Speaker A:And a passion to recreate a clone of the Emperor himself.
Speaker B:Oh, the Emperor himself.
Speaker B:Hey.
Speaker A:Under Fabius control.
Speaker A:He wants to recreate the Emperor.
Speaker A:This is what he's been doing for 10,000 years.
Speaker A:It all leads back to that original plan of finishing the Emperor's job.
Speaker B:Well, I'm curious there because there's a lot of conflicting beliefs on what the Emperor is.
Speaker B:A genetic being, a synthetic being.
Speaker B:Energy being.
Speaker B:Does it ever really explore what Fabius finds in his journey to recreate the Emperor?
Speaker A:Not yet.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:This is where they've left off.
Speaker A:Currently, this is up to date.
Speaker A:This is where Fabius sits.
Speaker B:Is this the new Gene Father book?
Speaker A:Or is this is before the events of the Gene Father Books?
Speaker B:So the Gathering Storm War of the Spider era.
Speaker B:But this is the turn of the millennium.
Speaker A:Yeah, but this is where the law starts to become very recent.
Speaker A:But this is.
Speaker A:This is what he's managed to accomplish over the last 10,000 years.
Speaker A:And how close he's getting to his end goal.
Speaker A:He's ballin'yeah.
Speaker A:Man.
Speaker A:Then we move into what this guy does in game.
Speaker A:And this guy is a pretty cool dude in game.
Speaker B:He is pretty strong.
Speaker B:I'll give him that.
Speaker A:He is a pretty cool model with all of his, like little chirurgeon with its little blades and stabby bits and very surgical looking backpack.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:He has his flesh cape, his little surgeon acolyte that runs around behind him doing whatever he needs.
Speaker A:He has a precision anti infantry weapon, which just makes him really good at taking down enemy leaders.
Speaker A:He buffs his bodyguard unit.
Speaker A:He makes them stronger and tougher so they're harder to take down.
Speaker A:He has an ability to shrug damage once per turn.
Speaker A:And when he dies, he just gets back up because he's a clone lord.
Speaker B:On a two up, wasn't it?
Speaker A:Yeah, on a two up.
Speaker A:So it's very rare that it will fail.
Speaker A:And hopefully you've kept your reroll for it.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's always a chance of failure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And Grotmas gave us a Bile entire thing.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:So at the time of writing or recording, mid December, halfway through the Grotmas literal advent calendar of detachments, he's back.
Speaker A:He got his own Chaos Space Marine detachment, which allows him to buff all of his allies.
Speaker A:And if you have him as your warlord, you get to reroll your dice to see what buffs they'll get.
Speaker B:I see.
Speaker B:He's a bit of a melee rush.
Speaker B:Chaos Marine playstyle.
Speaker B:Bit of possessed, bit of legionaries.
Speaker A:Well, yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, it's a very Astartes focused kind of playstyle in this new way with everyone getting one or two buffs.
Speaker A:One if you pick two at random, with his ability to reroll at random so that you can kind of try and get what you want.
Speaker A:But this is.
Speaker A:This is Fabius Bile.
Speaker A:He's a mad scientist.
Speaker A:Some.
Speaker A:Some people will relate him to Rick from Rick and Morty.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:He and Belisarius Call have some very interesting interactions in the Gene Father book, as they're both kind of doing the same thing, but on different sides of the spectrum in that one of them is trying to genetically modify the Astartes, while the other is trying to genetically modify the human race.
Speaker A:And there's.
Speaker A:There's a really fun interaction which I won't spoil too much in the book, where Fabius and Belisarius essentially have a video call and Fabius Bile spends the whole time being like, I'm just doing what you want to do.
Speaker A:Come help me.
Speaker A:Give me all of the information on creating Astartes and Primaris and help me fix everything.
Speaker A:And Belisari's like, you're an idiot.
Speaker A:I'm not giving you anything.
Speaker B:Genius sadist scientist.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's hilarious.
Speaker B:Versus genius sadist engineer.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Allied Detachment, Bile and Admech.
Speaker A: When I mean,: Speaker B:You must Pringle and Bile together, they.
Speaker A:Would make a very potent force in the universe.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Alpha Primus would disappear very quickly, though.
Speaker A:Yeah, but he ain't doing so crash hot.
Speaker B:Well, that's Bile, though, eh?
Speaker A:That's what I've got for Bile.
Speaker B:He's a lot more nuanced than I anticipated.
Speaker B:I was expecting a bit more of a mad Frankenstein doing things just to do things for the sake of being twisted.
Speaker B:But he seems to be very centric, I suppose, in morality.
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:He does bad things, but not to be a bad guy.
Speaker A:Yeah, he's.
Speaker A:He's kind of like chaotic Neutral.
Speaker B:He's given up on Chaos forces, he's given up on Imperial forces.
Speaker A:But he straight up says to Belisarius call.
Speaker A:He's like, I'm not.
Speaker A:I haven't fallen to Chaos.
Speaker A:What do you mean?
Speaker A:I just couldn't come back to Earth and had to do things my own way.
Speaker B:Yeah, he's a renegade, which is not full traitor, which try explain that to an Imperial.
Speaker A:But he really, really plays into the way his character thinks about both himself and what he's doing.
Speaker A:Like, he thinks he's on the higher path.
Speaker A:He is doing the right thing.
Speaker A:He's the only person who can fix the human race, who can help us conquer the universe and do everything the Emperor originally wanted to do.
Speaker A:But in order to do that, he needs to know what the Emperor knew.
Speaker A:And the only way to do that is to clone the Emperor and use his genetic memory to learn what he needed to do.
Speaker A:You know, like, there's all these steps along the way to what he wants to accomplish.
Speaker A:And in typical Emperor's children fashion, like, he just keeps failing whenever he tries.
Speaker A:But there's these small successes that are just starting to group up and gather to where Fabius may become a pretty substantial problem in the future for the Imperium.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:If there's one thing these Chaos Chaos Marine characters seem to really showcase for me as a Law fan is what 40k originally was was fantasy in space.
Speaker B:You hear so much of this, like, oh, they went to the Dark Elves land.
Speaker B:You know, they tinkered away in their cave.
Speaker B:You know, they set a little village to the slaughter to advance their goal.
Speaker B:But it's on a sci fi stage.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:They add some zeros on the end of all the numbers.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Which I really think 40k characters benefit from going into that more fantastical storyline.
Speaker B:And I think Bill really is one of those fantastical characters.
Speaker A:He's definitely a character.
Speaker B:Oh, Bill.
Speaker A:But I think that's where we're going to leave that here, because it's going to be a bit longer than some of the others.
Speaker B:And I think this will be our longest of the batch of this year's.
Speaker A:There was a lot to cover, and I think the rest will be a little bit shorter and more sweet.
Speaker A:But I barely touched on just how much there is.
Speaker A:I definitely suggest if anyone is interested in this character, read the novella.
Speaker A:It's decent.
Speaker A:Gene Father is very well written.
Speaker A:I've enjoyed it.
Speaker B:Yeah, we spoil all the secrets.
Speaker B:What is.
Speaker B:What are the listeners going to do in their spare time?
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Well, thank you for coming to our Advent calendar, and we will see you with the next one.
Speaker A:Bye bye now.
Speaker B:Ciao.
Speaker B:Ciao.
