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From Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum
Undo revision 152056 by DaCrazyBeggar (talk)
==Horus Heresy and the Dragon of Mars==
In the book series, ''The Horus Heresy'', a great deal about an entity almost certainly the Void Dragon is revealed, called "The Dragon of Mars". The [[Emperor]] himself defeated a creature of godlike power who existed on [[Terra]] itself centuries ago (what this implies about the Emperor's natural lifespan is uncertain, but [[Space Marine]]s, his genetic children, do not age normally either) sometime during the 12th century (the text states during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian however, which suggests a date around the 3rd/4th century)<sup>3</sup>. He travelled to Mars and imprisoned the entity within the [[Noctis Labyrinth]], purposefully not being able to destroy destroying it. The creature is described as having "drunk the heart of stars" and "worshipped as a god", which heavily implies it to be a [[C'tan]]. It had no name of its own, but the Emperor dubbed it "The Dragon of Mars", and bound it there. Once the [[Warp]] storms began and the [[Dark Age of Technology]] ended, the Dragon of Mars sought to claim the red planet by sending out dreams from its imprisonment, teaching the humans there how to build incredibly advanced machines, and in turn, worship those machines. Thus, the Dragon directly created the [[Mechanicum]]. This was in fact the Emperor's plan all along: to create a technologically advanced society that would be able to provide the industrial machinery for his Great Crusade.
The Dragon of Mars is a being and a location at the same time. It exists beneath the [[Noctis Labyrinth]] in the form of an empty cavern of great size with walls of silver. The room is literally immeasurable, as physical laws warp and bend to the point of being meaningless inside. The air itself is malevolently sentient, and one can feel the hate and anger of the bound god all around them, driving most insane. The Dragon is guarded by a small lineage of humans who receive intense visions and are granted the ability to control and repair all technology merely by touch, this ability does not come from the Dragon however as the ability manifests itself from psychic energy. [[Dalia Cythera]], the [[Guardian of the Dragon|Guardian]] during the Horus Heresy first received her visions from direct contact with the [[Akashic Reader]], a psychic device akin to the Golden Throne. It is strongly implied in [[Mechanicum (Novel)|''Mechanicum'']] that this power is passed down from the Emperor himself as the Emperor displayed this ability (page 9). This group, the Children of the Dragon, live one at a time inside the Dragon, called to it by its desire to be free and replacing the previous Guardian. The Dragon's power grants them immortality until it passed on, and thus far all have chosen to deny the Dragon its freedom and serve the [[Emperor]] instead by waiting for the next guardian to arrive. It does not appear the Dragon has a choice in whether or not the Children receive its power, but instead they are somehow part of it to begin with.
