Thursday, July 22, 2010

Was Alpharius a Twin From the Outset?

We now know that the primarch of the Alpha Legion, Alpharius, had a twin; Omegon. In the novel Legion, they are actively described as one soul that occupies two bodies. My question today is this: were they always twins?

Why do I ask this? Well, when the emperor created the primarchs, he created twenty of them. Two of them were lost forever, leaving the 18 we know about ... adding Omegon to this would make 19. So, when the Emperor set about gestating the primarchs, did he see one or two beings in legion XX's capsule?

One theory I've heard toted around is that the Emperor only created one primarch for the Alpha Legion. However, when Chaos spirited the primarchs away and scattered them throughout the galaxy, they probably mutated (or tainted) at least a couple of them. Notably, Sanguinius displayed wings, Conrad was a strong clairvoyant (particularly about his own doom; although that psychic ability could have been inherited from the Emperor), etc. Some the traits seen in the primarchs probably originate with the Emperor -- Magnus's strong psyker abilities were most likely a reflection of the Emperor's at least, rather than a mutation.

Hence: here's the idea. When being dispersed through space by Chaos, perhaps Alpharius was mutated by being twinned / duplicated / cloned along the way. What do people think? Plausible or just plain silly?

6 comments:

Marshal Argos said...

If I understand you right I agree. I firmly believe that Omegon is not one of the original 20, but was in fact created/influenced by chaos when Alpharius was lost in space.

jabberjabber said...

Hi Marshal Argos -- Yes, that's exactly what I was suggesting. Nice to hear that I'm not the only one to think this!

suneokun said...

Nahhh ... it depends on the gestation period. The split to a mono-zygotic twin is pretty early in the egg stage. I always thought that the Chaos intervention came at a later 'fetus' stage.

It could be that the process produced one egg, one placenta (or equivilent) and as such there is no differentiation.

A clone is a different aspect entirely. A later 'twin' wouldn't be a true twin and couldn't 'share' a soul as such ... much like a dual-zygotic twin (non-identical)

However, this concept of 'sharing souls' is typical non-twin fantasy drivel rubbish, like shared pain and shared thought processes ...

I'm a twin ... obviously.

TheGraveMind said...

I always viewed it more as an Avatar like thing, he'll have two bodies, one in stasis, and then can switch to the other to be in a different location. kind of like astral projection.

jabberjabber said...

Nice debate guys!
Suneokun -- I wonder a what developmental stage the chaos powers spirited away the primarchs? I assumed it was approximately when they were small babies. Of course, I could be utterly wrong in that assumption!

JamesCabak said...

Frankly, I found the whole twins thing very specious and almost an attempt to "do something heretofore undone for the sake of the doing." This is one reason, amongst many, that the Legion novel is pretty questionable. In my own interpretation, Alpharius is indeed one man. Omegon and everyone else state they share one soul because that is the indoctrinated training of the Alpha Legion. However, and this is where it begins to fail as a plot, if the Legion was, essentially, gifted to Alpharius by the Emperor as his legion, then wouldn't the Emperor know the whole Twins bit? I have ceased examining the book too closely as, like Abyss or Fulgrim, if you examine it too close, it comes apart really fast.

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