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From Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum
→Prelude
At the [[Council of Nikea]] the [[Emperor]] had personally declared that the deployment of [[Librarians]] and the use of [[psychic powers]] by any and all members of the Legiones Astartes was from that point on forbidden. He further threatened that any who transgressed against this announcement would be declared his enemy and suffer extreme retributive punishment. This judgement rested heavily on the shoulders of the Thousand Sons [[Space Marine Legion]] and their [[Primarch]], [[Magnus the Red]], who not only possessed and advocated the use of psychic powers themselves, but had felt personally unfairly judged and rejected by the Emperor at the Council, perceiving the whole affair as more of a rigged "Trial of Magnus" than anything else.{{Fn|1a}}
Essentially withdrawing from the [[Great Crusade]] because of the ruling of Nikea, the majority of the Thousand Sons gathered on their homeworld of Prospero. During the Council of Nikea, Magnus received a prophetic vision that his brother and the Emperor's favoured son, [[Horus]], would rebel against the rule of their father and burn the [[Imperium]] in a galactic [[Horus Heresy|civil war]]. Magnus, assured of his own personal psychic might, believed he could stop this event from happening using his knowledge and powers,{{Fn|1b}} and soon after returning to Prospero he set such events in motion. He first attempted to psychically guard Horus from [[Chaos|malign]] [[Erebus|interference]]; when this failed, he decided that he had to immediately warn the Emperor of what had transpired. To a colossus of such psychic power and personal vanity as Magnus, using a succession of intermediaries as communicators (the normal method of galactic communication) seemed too slow and unlikely to be convincing enough; Magnus was, after all, about to tell the Emperor that his favourite son and chief lieutenant aimed to overthrow him. So, to Magnus, the most obvious thing to do was to use his abilities to appear directly to the Emperor, not only allowing the essential truth of his news to be communicated, but also showing his father how skilled he was and how right he was to advocate the use of the complex psychic techniques that (to Magnus) lesser minds referred to as sorcery. Magnus therefore undertook a great psychic journey, transmitting his astral self into the very [[Warp]], breaching a conduit of the [[Eldar]] [[Webway]] (unknowingly allowing [[daemons]] to enter behind him), and finally forcing open and passing through the very gate of the nascent [[Webway|Imperial Webway]] itself, appearing in astral form in the [[Imperial Palance|Imperial Dungeon]]. This action, which Magnus believed would vindicate him in the eyes of the Emperor, had damned him. By using psychic techniques, he had betrayed the wishes of the Emperor, and his very actions betrayed the Emperor's hopes. Not only had Magnus's breaching of the Webway and the Imperial Gate to it irrevocably damaged the technology, killed thousands in related accidents and psychic flashpoints and left the [[Imperial Palace]] open to warp intrusion, but his choice and manner of doing so had forever removed him from the Emperor's plan to crown Magnus himself upon the [[Golden Throne]], to act as guardian and guide to [[Human|Humanity]] as they moved into the Webway. As the Emperor turned to regard Magnus sadly, the Primarch of the Thousand Sons achieved horrified understanding of this doom in an instant, and vanished.{{Fn|1c}}
Back on Prospero, Magnus realised how easily and fully he had been manipulated by [[Tzeentch|a great power of the Warp]] in this series of affairs. Devastated by his foolishness and hubris, and how completely he and his legion had been played and doomed, he decided that the only proper thing to do, the only way to retain some honour and possibly even vindication, was to passively await the punishment meted out by his father. That punishment was not long in coming.{{Fn|1c}}
[[Image:ThousandSonsProspero.jpg|right|thumb|350px|center|[[Magnus]] and his Thousand Sons defend their homeworld.]]
== The Veil ==
In order for his legion to receive their punishment without being tempted to fight back and therefore ruin their last chance at redemption, Magnus went to great lengths to keep the knowledge of the impending Imperial attack from them and reducing their chances from the outset. He threw up a psychic cocoon around the entire world, blocking [[astropath|astropathic]] communication and preventing the precogs of the [[Corvidae]] from foreseeing the future. The fleet elements of the Thousand Sons were ordered into four battle-groups and to head off into various parts of the galaxy, carrying sealed orders. Not long after this, the Imperial battlefleet arrived. Made up of ships from the Space Wolves, the [[Adeptus Custodes]] and the [[Sisters of Silence]], the grey, gold and black fleet numbered in the hundreds of vessels.{{Fn|1d}}
