White Scars - Council of Nikaea: Just before the White Scars were sent on another campaign to continue prosecuting the Great Crusade, a great Imperial conclave was called upon the world of Nikaea. This grand convocation, known to history as the Council of Nikaea, was called by the Emperor of Mankind Himself, and was intended to determine whether or not the use of psychic powers represented a boon or a grave danger to both Mankind and the nascent Imperium of Man.There were three Primarchs who were primarily responsible for the creation of the Legiones Astartes Librarius. Two were quite well known within the official historical records; Magnus of the Thousand Sons and the angelic Sanguinius of the Blood Angels. Though Magnus was the figurehead, the most powerful and the most vocal in support of the use of psychic abilities, he was not the only voice. His brother Sanguinius was more subtle in his support.On this, though, Jhagatai always argued the same way. The Khagan had drawn up most of the rules for and formalised the structure of the Legions' Librarius, even though his name was never entered into the official datacores. Jaghatai's contribution to the development of the Space Marines psychic arts was never known by the other Legions or the rest of the Imperium.The citizens of the Imperium at large were taught that humanity had moved beyond religion and superstition. They believed this inherent Imperial Truth, just as they were meant to. There were no gods, they were told, and what looked like magic was just the growing power of the human mind. The Chogorians, on the other hand, never stopped believing. They understood, perhaps better than anyone, that the Warp could corrupt the finest -- the greater the strength, the greater the corruption.On Chogoris, the ability to wield the power of the psyker was called the "Test of Heaven." The Chogorians had always known of the existence of the Warp and the dangerous entities of Chaos that lurked within. It was how their Stormseers had become so powerful.Their cousins amongst the Space Wolves, the Rune Priests of Fenris, worked the same source for their elemental powers, though they would never openly admit it. The masses never learned about the Warp, and the vast majority did not even know of its existence.The Emperor preferred to keep those truths hidden from the people of the Imperium, and for all anyone knew He had tried to stamp out those who still understood them. The Khan never agreed with this obfuscation of the truth, especially the Emperor's refusal to explain to His people the dangers of Chaos, and father and son had often argued over the matter.This was the great question, the one they fell out over -- can you rest an empire on a lie? The Warp was not what the masses of humanity thought it was. It was alive and dangerous, and could be used. The Imperium was willfully blind, deliberately so. It had never wished to look at what held it together.In the beginning, Magnus had not wanted the Librarius integrated into the Legions. He wanted every human psyker to unlock their full potential, to explore all they were safely capable of -- with no restraint, and no guidance. But his two brother Primarchs disagreed, for they felt that such potentially dangerous abilities needed to be curbed. So the Khan and the Angel agreed to create a strict structure for the use of psychic powers, a structure intended to limit what psykers were allowed to do.As already noted, on Chogoris the use of such esoteric abilities was known as walking the Path of Heaven. Psykers, the zadyin arga, were taught that if they strayed from this path, the Warp would eat away at their very souls. The Chogorians had always known that utilising the powers of the Warp was inherently dangerous.As the argument over the use of such abilities came to a head in the Imperium, there were those who understood that the survival of the Space Marine Legions' Librarius was balanced on a narrow ledge. But there were those who thought that Librarians were witches, ripe for burning, and those who thought they were still-forming gods. Neither side could be allowed to win their arguments if the Imperium was to prosper. But in the end, the witch-hunters largely carried the day.When the Crimson King spoke in favour of the use of psykers and even psychic sorcery at the Council of Nikaea, as many proponents feared, he went too far. He never understood how much fear he caused. If he had managed to rein himself in, and acknowledge that his Legion needed to reform and that they understood that they needed to be more careful in their use of the Warp, then the outcome of the Council might have been very different.But instead he preached about knowledge and power and gave the impression that he was some kind of prophet. Finally, at the end of the conclave, Stormseer Targutai Yesugei, at the time a junior Librarian of the White Scars Legion, presented the Council of Nikaea a third option in regards to the use of psychic abilities and the maintenance or abolition of the established Legions' Librarius.He explained that there was nothing inherently evil about a psyker. If such a gifted individual was properly trained in order to obtain the greatest results, like any weapon, he or she could still be used, but with respect and not indiscriminately. Yesugei argued that human psykers should be trained rigorously to take advantage of their innate abilities in order to assist the Imperium in completing its galaxy-spanning conquest.With such an elite cadre of trained psychic specialists utterly loyal to the Emperor, the galaxy could be brought into the Imperial fold with ease. Yesugei also argued that psychic sorcery should be strictly forbidden, since in dealing and bargaining with the entities of the Warp, the ever-present risk of corruption was simply too great to be avoided.The Emperor's judgement at the Council of Nikaea proved severe, largely as a result of His anger at Magnus for delving into forbidden sorcery in contravention of the Emperor's explicit warnings to him decades before. The Emperor rejected the White Scars Librarians' compromise. With the exceptions of Navigators and Astropaths who were properly trained, controlled and sanctioned by the Imperium and were necessary to its continued existence, the Space Marine Legions were no longer to employ psykers within their ranks.He commanded that the Primarchs were to close their Legions' Librarius departments forthwith and not to indulge the undoubted psychic talents of those Legionaries who possessed the gift. All existing Space Marine Librarians were likewise forbidden to make use of their abilities.The Council's rulings also created a new position amongst the Space Marine Legions, the Space Marine Chaplain, to uphold the Imperial Truth and help maintain the purity of an Astartes Legion's dedication and fidelity to the Emperor's commands.Afterwards, Jaghatai came to believe that the outcome of the Council of Nikaea should have never been left in the Crimson King's hands. The Khan should have been there, side-by-side with his two brothers, standing with the Angel and Magnus. No one could have accused him of being a sorcerer. It would have calmed the others, to see a warrior-Primarch making his case in support of the Librarius.He did not attend because he was sent away to the Chondax System, just as the Council was preparing to meet at Nikaea. He spoke to Stormseer Yesugei and considered rejecting the Warmaster Horus' command to leave for Chondax, for he could have done so, but both White Scars warriors believed that the campaign on Chondax would be over in a matter of solar weeks. The enemy infesting that system were only Greenskins, remnants of the Ork empire destroyed on Ullanor, the last slivers of the Warlord Urrlak Urruk's horde.Perhaps some of the Primarchs would have balked at being ordered to hunt down the xenos -- it was not prestigious work -- but the Khan was happy enough. It was hunting, and in a way that he understood: cavalry charges across open spaces, going up against prey that had no concept of capitulation or self-pity. He had never complained. Nearly all of his Legion went with him, ranked in their various brotherhoods, eager for the hunt. Scores of white starships cut the void, each crammed with warriors of the ordu, all desperate to get back in the chase.