Everyone knew that Belisarius Cawl's extraordinary ingenuity never failed. He could always produce exactly what you needed, but...
Look closely at his masterpieces, and every one had a template, a precedent, or a relic from the Dark Age of Technology behind it, such as antigravity technology or improvements based on secret information left over from the Raptor Project.
What, then, had convinced everyone that he was so inventive? Exactly: his first and most important creation-the Armour of Fate.
It allowed someone inside a stasis field to enter a state of simultaneous life and death and thus act in the real world. Unheard of. Unprecedented.
But consider the reverse: what if he was not that capable?
Among the countless members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, geniuses abounded. Why did Belisarius Cawl alone stand so far above everyone else?
Once you assumed that the Armour of Fate did not possess such extraordinary capabilities, everything began to make sense.
What did "Guilliman" need to walk the world? A Primarch's physique and a Primarch's memories.
According to an ancient legend, the course of the Horus Heresy lay in the hands of the Emperor's eldest and youngest sons. The rebellion continued. The eldest had vanished from the world, but the youngest still walked among them! Long live Alpharius!
He was the first Primarch Living Saint in history. He walked through the Warp, foiling countless Warp schemes against humanity. On that day, in the Imperium of Man's darkest hour, at the end of the forty-first millennium, as Abaddon's Thirteenth Crusade swept across the Galaxy, he foresaw the Imperium of Man's future without him.
There was no future.
He stepped forward. Alpharius found Belisarius Cawl, who crafted the Armour of Fate and the "square box for putting on the armour." The enormous square box that fitted the armour