Ciaphas Cain, Warmaster of Chaos
, is a Ciaphas Cain fanfic by Zahariel.
The planet Slawkenberg is celebrating being liberated from the tyrannical government of the Imperium of Mankind, the revolution having been masterminded by the renegade Commissar, Ciaphas Cain.
Needless to say, Ciaphas didn't intend for that to happen.
This Fanfiction contains examples of:
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: What Emeli wishes to give to Cain. She believes he deserves the best for granting her the gift of immortality prior to her ascension to daemonhood. Played with in that Cain is desperate to avoid this at all costs, but can't let her know it.
- Asshole Victim: Cain has summoned a demon to eat an enemy's soul and has turned over a prisoner to a Dark Eldar for "interrogation". These would normally be well over the
Moral Event Horizon. But given the first was a Dark Eldar Archon planning to return from the dead to destroy Slawkenberg, and the second was a Practically Joker Space Pirate, it's this instead. - Assassin Outclassin': Cain fends off an assassination attempt by Inquisitor Amberly Vail with (seemingly) casual ease. He also avoids assassination attempts by Inquisitor Tannenburg's Agent Orion with pure luck (or through something altering fate on his behalf; the assassin's minor psychic foresight was foiled during all of these attempts). He also has some mandrakes try to assassinate him at one point, presumably sent by someone in Commorragh after he destroyed the kabal that tried to raid him, which Cain and those around him easily fight off. Cain's enemies consistently conclude that getting rid of him will cause his Protectorate to collapse, but this is much easier said than done.
- Badass Army: The Unified Slawkenberg Army (USA) combines Khornate ferocity, first rate disciple and morale, excellent equipment and logistics, exceptional physical fitness and the best medical care to produce troops that have won every engagement they've entered and that can keep up with a World Eater chaos space marine.
- The secret to keeping Khornate bloodlust in check is apparently utterly insane competitive training. Under the aforementioned Former World Eater. Their normal infantry are effectively getting Astartes training.
- Butterfly of Doom: Without Cain's canonical heroic acts, the situation in the sector is very poor for the Imperium, which means they're far too busy to deal with a "minor" rebellion. Problems he would have nipped in the bud turn into full-blown wars, uprisings, and exterminatuses. It didn't help that the Inquisition's initial attempts to suppress the Slawkenberg rebellion were so heavy handed that they disrupted Guard operations for the entire quadrant.
- The initial difference between canon and this universe is that Cain got himself assigned to be the commissar for the Slawkenberg PDF after the old one died instead of getting attached to an artillery regiment of the Imperial Guard, which led to him being in place to rise to the top of the rebellion. Also notable is that Jurgen is a psyker who got trafficked to Slawkenberg instead of a blank who joined the Guard; the two differences may be connected.
- Call to Agriculture: After numerous failed attempts to assassinate Cain, Inquisition agent Orion becomes certain that Cain still has the Emperor's blessings and retires to take up gardening.
- Children Raise You: The duty of properly raising his adopted daughter forces Cain to stop drinking to excess.
- Raising a daughter so far from the human genetic norm has also made him much less bigoted towards mutants, leading him to decide Areelu's daughter must still be acceptable to the Emperor given that Ogryns and Ratlings are both allowed to serve in the Imperial Guard.
- Becoming a father has even made a dent in Cain's signature cowardice. At the beginning of the latest arc he reflects that it's good he didn't know what he was facing. If he had known he would have run, and that would have been bad for everyone.
- Chuunibyou: A meta example. The Kabal of Murderous Death is, according to
Word of God, designed around the concept of "what a thirteen year old thinks is dark and edgy". - Curb-Stomp Battle: Jeremiah Smile and his forces flop hard when they try to invade Adumbria. They're no match for the new carrier doctrine the Protectorate employs against them, being overspecialized for fighting the Imperium. The Protectorate takes minimal casualties, prevents Jeremiah's fleet from getting anywhere near the planet or its infrastructure, and destroys, captures, or routs of his ships. When his flagship The Murderous Jest gets boarded by World Eater Chaos Space Marine Hektor and a bunch of USA troopers, they breeze through to the bridge without taking any casualties, effortlessly mowing down or corralling all of the forces Jeremiah sends against them, and easily knock him out to bring back as a prisoner.
- Decapitated Army: The Valhallan 18th immediately defect to Cain's side after he kills their commanding officer Chenkov. They realized that they weren't going to win and that Karamazov would kill them if they retreated into orbit, so with their leader and his goons gone and unable to shoot them for treason, they decide surrendering is the best option after Cain offers the chance following Chenkov's death. It didn't help the Imperium that they all hated Chenkov for his cavalier attitude with his men's lives, so Cain killing him made his men more favorably disposed to surrendering to Slawkenburg.
- Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: 100% Cain's sole reason for adopting and raising Zerayah, so that she doesn't go on a killing spree like her mother. It is most definitely only for that purpose and not because he genuinely cares about her.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Cain raises the last child of Legienstrasse as his adopted daughter.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Cain is able to defeat and banish a Great Unclean One. And then Emeli gets hold of him.
- Don't Create a Martyr: Discussed and subverted. When Inquisitor Amberley Vail winds up on Slawkenburg, they get very close to Cain shortly after arrival, but don't assassinate him due to worrying about this trope. After the Drukhari raid is over, they do more research on the situation, and conclude that this trope probably doesn't apply due to how essential Cain is to the cohesion of Slawkenberg's government, so assassinating him would be a good idea to take down Slawkenberg (and its ideology). They proceed to try.
- Do with Him as You Will: The ultimate fate of Jeremiah Smile is to be handed over to the stationmaster of a space station he recently visited. The stationmaster in question reflects on how Jeremiah had done something unspecified to his daughter and promptly shoots Jeremiah in the head then and there.
- Dying Declaration of Love: What most of the people who live on Slawkenberg think happened in regards to Cain and his love interest, lady Emeli, during the initial rebellion. In reality Emeli is still quite alive, and has ascended to full-fledged daemonhood thanks to a gift given to her by Cain himself.
- Egopolis: The capital city of Slawkenberg was renamed Cainopolis shortly after the revolution. Played with in that this was not Cain's idea and he, personally, hates it.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Cain's view on why the previous ruling family wasn't corrupted by Chaos. They were so vile that the Ruinous Powers didn't want anything to do with them.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Killian finds out that Cain is taking much of his fleet into the Torredon subsector he instantly assumes it must be because Cain knows about the shadowlight since otherwise why would he pick a fight with the Bloodied Crown cartel on their home turf? Can't be because they expect retaliation for defeating the last attempt by the cartel to seize control of them, or because they want to help the subsector and rid it of pirates for moral reasons...
- Evil Chancellor: Averted in an almost comical manner by Jafar, who despite having such red flags as: sharing a name with one of the most famous examples of the trope and worshiping Tzeentch, he keeps overestimating just how shrewd Cain is to the point that he routinely talks himself out of any attempts at trying to betray Cain/ Surely such a brilliant mind would see right through any plot Jafar came up with....
- Evil Versus Evil: One of Cain's most successful manipulations of the Chaos followers of Slawkenberg (who serve Tzeentch, Khorne, and Slaanesh) is to unite them against Nurgle, who he has designated as Slawkenberg's primary enemy (even more so than the Imperium, as worship of the God-Emperor is at least tolerated as long as they don't preach sedition or take after the Giorbas). It helps that Cain himself is genuinely disgusted by Nurgle and his corruption, and his disdain and enmity towards the Plague God is one of the few motivations he's openly honest about in his interactions with the rest of the Liberation Council. This particular tactic is so successful that when Cain freely gives a copy of the Panacea to Amberley Vail, his Chaos-aligned subordinates barely bat an eye.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: The Imperium of Man. It is quite telling that many of Cain's unintentional successes come from telling the people of Slawkenberg to abandon things the Imperium trained him to believe were utterly required for human society to function. As an example Tesilon-Kappa, the leader of the Liberation's tech-priests, notes that they've been wanting to replace most servitors with trained workers and automation and increase safety in the factories, but their plans were always rejected by their superiors. Once the revolution occurred (and killed their superiors) and Cain told them to implement these things, the factories turned out much more efficient.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Karamazov's response to Slawkenberg's rebellion. In his heavy prioritization of Chaos over all other threats and his absolute certainty that he's right and anyone who opposes him is an enemy, he purged the local sector's command of many competent officers and administrators who told him that they couldn't afford to move resources away from other fronts towards Slawkenberg, leaving the sector disorganized and in chaos (no pun intended). The only general who agreed to help him was Chenkov, who is incompetent and hated by his men. After his incompetence and wasteful human wave tactics lead to Slawkenberg winning handily against him and to almost all of the planetside soldiers defecting, Karamazov immediately turns to exterminatus of the planet, only to be killed by Cain and have his ship blown up. Karamazov's soul ends up in the clutches of Emeli, who plans to torture him for all eternity, and whose gratitude to Cain for giving her Karamazov's soul plays a part in Emeli arranging for the Space Hulk to arrive at Slawkenberg. Later, we see that Karamazov's purge of the local sector command led to the Imperium being in dire straits in the area, which means it can't spare resources to deal with Slawkenberg, and keeps having to pull resources away from areas to deal with more pressing threats, which provides an opportunity for Slawkenberg to sweep in and provide help, thereby gaining more allies. In summary, Karamazov's efforts to end a Chaos rebellion didn't hinder the rebellion, but instead massively helped it, ensured its ability to expand, and screwed over the Imperium, all while getting himself damned in the process.
- Good Running Evil: Cain thinks/hopes he's in this situation, being a secretly loyal Imperial leading a bunch of Chaos worshippers. The truth is more complicated than that. Not the least because the Imperium is at its most evil and incompetent here, while Chaos is a bit Lighter and Softer than normal.
- Good Shepherd: Father Anthony is one of the priests of the God Emperor still practicing on Slawkenberg even after the Liberation. While most of the members of the Ecclesiarchy on the planet were in it for the money and power, Anthony actually wanted to help people, which pays off when his own followers kept him safe him during the tumult of the Liberation. Whenever we see him, he's providing help and advice to whoever he's talking to, which genuinely makes things better for them.
- How good is he? He gets a rather accurate insight into Cain's true thoughts, and understands Cain's self-loathing. The only other person to see through Cain like this was Amberley in canon.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: Emeli gifts her beloved Cain with a several hundred kilometres long collection of extremely valuable space junk known as a "Space Hulk", within which contains the STCs for advanced Powered Armor, the Panacea and a Subspace Ansible.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Surprisingly, averted for the fic's version of Jenit Sulla. After one aborted coup attempt she concludes that Cain, despite being the leader of a group who openly worships three of the four Chaos gods, is still a loyal servant of the Emperor of Mankind. She's entirely correct, giving her a far more accurate read on his motivations than her canon counterpart.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite all the changes brought about by Cain's new situation in the galaxy and the fact that Emeli now has no interest in it at all, Adumbria still finds itself suffering from a Chaos uprising, although by Nurgle rather than Slaanesh.
- The Leader: Charismatic, but mistaken for The Mastermind. He has the loyalty and love of seemingly the entire population of Slawkenberg, he can unite all the various factions of Slawkenberg and convince them that what he wants is best, and he regularly charms everyone he meets and convinces them that he's heroic (or intelligent, depending on the person). Imperials who end up on Slawkenberg note that without Cain, the entire rebellion would likely fall apart.
- In general, Cain tends to subscribe to the strategy of knowing how to do things by knowing WHO can do things. He, of course, describes this as laziness.
- Lighter and Softer: Chaos in general is portrayed as this in this fic, at least on Slawkenberg. The positive aspects of the Chaos Gods are reflected in their followers on Slawkenberg: Slaaneshi characters such as Emeli and Krystabael are capable of genuine (if obsessive) love and affection towards Cain, while General Mahlone represents the martial honor aspect of Khorne rather than the typical "savage bloodlust" side typically seen by him. Even Chief Clerk Jafar, the primary Tzeentchian character, isn't interested in backstabbing Cain (although part of this is because he thinks that Cain is far too much of a genius for him to ever successfully backstab). He also utilizes his ambition and scheming capabilities to expand his sorcerous knowledge through more subtle and less harmful ways than the typical human sacrifices and daemon summoning (as both are banned by Cain's edict), and actually appreciates the long-term and practical benefits of turning away from Chaos' less abhorrent aspects. The only exception to this trope where Chaos is concerned is Nurgle, whose followers are depicted as every bit as abhorrent and disgusting as they are in canon, and who both Cain and Slawkenberg's Chaos followers are fully united and opposed against.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: There are lots of odd strokes of luck that make it appear that someone or something is manipulating things to "help" Cain. It may be Tzeentch, Cegorach or the Emperor, or a combination of them. At least some of it might just be luck, but his future being hidden even from warp entities and foresight failing to predict outcomes in his life points to something magical being involved, though to what degree is uncertain.
- Mini-Mecha: The Liberator Armor. A Dreadnought sized combat walker that serves as Cain's primary weapon, transport, and first line of defense when he's forced to take the field. Cain's feelings about the armor are mixed. On the one hand, it's incredibly powerful, able to duel an Ork Warboss and a Great Unclean One, and he couldn't ask for better protection in the field. On the other, its very existence means he has fewer excuses to not be on the front lines in the first place.
- Mistaken for Badass: While Cain genuinely is a skilled fighter, others can't read his internal monologue to know that most of the fights he gets into are accidents or fights he felt obligated to join for fear of losing respect, and think he's just a badass fighter who always wants to jump into the front lines. There are also times where he makes a decision or takes an action that's random or only supposed to save himself or sabotage his side that turns out to have great results for his team (e.g. randomly firing his gun at Chenkov's charging men and hitting the knee of a Sentinel, disabling it), which makes people think he planned it all along or has great instincts. Given that this is Ciaphas Cain we're talking about, it's par for the course for him.
- Mistaken for Profound: Everyone thinks Cain is a genius. He is making it up as he goes along (probably, and still being very good at it). People tend to take random decisions he made as having a deeper symbolic meaning, which usually ties back into convincing people that he's a genius. As an example, Cain chose a random room for the Liberation Council to meet in immediately after the revolution in order to prevent anyone from setting anything shady up beforehand, which he cleans out and sets up chairs and a flag in. General Mahlone notes that the room used to be full of statues of the planet's previous, much-despised leadership, and figures that Cain chose the room to make a statement about how they all had to work together to defeat them, but that he ultimately killed the previous governor himself; he also figures he's making a statement by not sitting on a throne, when it doesn't seem to have occurred to Cain to do anything other than set up some chairs.
- Mysterious Past: In canon, Cain's homeworld being unknown was a footnote. Here it's making the Inquisition very worried. The Inquisitor who launched the investigation into his background comes away assuming that he was corrupted before entering the Schola (he wasn't) and is part of a massive conspiracy that worked to place him into a position of power at the head of the Slawkenberg rebellion (he's not).
- Neat Freak: This story's version of Ferik Jurgen prefers his surroundings to be clean as possible, as opposed to his canon self's more laid back approach to dirt and grime. It's the result of having been held captive for an extended period of time by cultists of Nurgle.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Cain does this to a captive Inquisitor Amberly, after the Harlequin Leirahaz gives him the Panacea STC from Commoragh, which gives Cain an excuse to deal with her safely and without killing her by having a final dinner with her and sending her off with it. Amberley Vail certainly wasn't expecting such nice treatment after their attempt on Cain's life.
- Noble Demon: Cain comes across as this to Imperials, which, as Amberly notes, means he is much more dangerous than the typical frothing Chaos worshiping madman. He doesn't perform human sacrifice or daemon summoning (of daemons that aren't Emeli), he treats the men under his command extremely well, and he seems to genuinely care about the people under his rule. He's still the leader of a bunch of Chaos-worshippers though, which qualifies him as a "Demon" in the eyes of the Imperium.
- Not Helping Your Case: The initial Imperial response consists of Inquisitor Karamazov and General Chenkov. Chenkov fails miserably at retaking Slawkenberg after sending a bunch of his men out to get mowed down by the United Slawkenberg Army and getting shot in the back shortly afterward running away from an attack headed by Cain; Karamazov then proceeds to jump right to Exterminatus of the planet, spending hours and hours ranting to the populace, before getting killed by Cain and having his ship blown up shortly afterwards. Cain notes that most Imperial generals and Inquisitors are not this stupid or inclined towards pointless murder (at least according to what he learned in the Schola), but the fact that such people exist within the Imperium and have actual power really doesn't help its reputation, especially amongst the Slawkenbergians who've only ever had to deal with Imperial cruelty and incompetence.
- Panacea: An STC recovered by Protectorate forces aboard the 'Emeli's Gift' Space-Hulk is the Panacea, a medical marvel capable of curing any illness or injury, including (early-stage) Nurglite plagues and Genestealer infection, while being cheap enough to produce to provide freely to the population.
- The Power of Love: Emeli claims this is how she was able to enter Commorragh and kill the Haemonculus trying to bring the Archon who attacked Slawkenberg back from the dead, thereby permanently killing all of the Drukhari who died while trying to raid Slawkenberg. More broadly, her love for Cain attracted Slaanesh's attention (along with the soulstones), enabling her to become a daemon in the first place, and allows her to manifest near him and help him more easily, without human sacrifices or other such extreme measures.
- Practically Joker: One of the members of the Bloodied Crown cartel, who is assigned to forcefully incorporate Adumbria into their sphere of influence after discovering that it's not actually dead, is Jeremiah Smile, who has a drug-addled, immensely strong sidekick named Big Joe, pilots a ship called the Murderous Jest, wears a purple suit of armor, cackles maniacally on the regular, and is noted to enjoy torturing and killing anyone who displeases him in any way, or whom he thinks would be fun to victimize.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Cain is a very good ruler and, much as he may deny it, genuinely cares about his people.
- Red Baron: This version of Ciaphas Cain quickly becomes known as "The Liberator" for his (overestimated) part in helping the liberation of Slawkenberg.
- Springtime for Hitler: The heart and soul of the fic, the more Cain tries to make Slawkenberg fail, the more it succeeds. Choosing to train and equip his current army extremely well instead of focusing on its expansion, banning the use of servitors and encouraging the Mechanicus to innovate, making Panacea available to the whole population, making education free and available to all... And those are just some of the policy decisions. It really says something about how dysfunctional the Imperium is that doing the opposite of what it says is necessary turns out extremely well. If Cain had actually tried to make Slawkenberg succeed, it would probably be doing significantly less well, or even have failed entirely.
- Succubus in Love: Make no mistake, despite being the newest daemon princess of Slaanesh, Emeli genuinely does love Cain to an obsessive degree to the point where her long term goal is the eventual ascendance of Cain. In fact, her love for him is the very reason for her ascension in the first place, as -in conjunction with the souls of many of Slaneesh's favorite meals- the strength of her obsession attracted the attention of the God of Excess. After all, obsession is still obsession, even if Emeli's love is a more positive one than is typically associated with Slaanesh.
- Trapped in Villainy: Cain's caught between his Chaos worshiping followers, who he's convinced will kill him if they find him out, and the Imperial Inquisition who want him dead for leading said Chaos worshipping followers.
- Unequal Pairing: Cain is a seemingly normal human. Emeli is a Daemon Princess who's desperately in love with him. Cain is afraid of associating with her because she's a daemon (and before that, a Slaaneshi sorceress), but he's even more afraid of rejecting her.
- Villainous Rescue: For a certain definition of villain. The Valhallan 296th on Adumbria is saved from the Nurglite monsters by Cain and the (admittedly Khornate) Slawkenberg Army.
- Younger Than They Look: Cain's adopted daughter already looks likes she's in her late teens despite having not turned ten yet.
