Lord General Zyvan

Lord General Zyvan is an Imperial Guard commander who repeatedly employs the commissar Ciaphas Cain, as recorded in Cain’s memoirs. Having served in many campaigns, Zyvan regards a competent commissar accompanied by a Blank, a person whose presence suppresses psychic ability, as a strategic asset. He holds this view although Cain insists that he is a coward.

Cain’s memoirs place Zyvan at the edge of several crises on a sector-wide scale. In each, Zyvan issues orders that leave Cain room to arrive at the practical solution. Zyvan is not deceived by Cain’s account of himself. The memoirs present him as a commander occupied with wider responsibilities, and he treats the distinction as more significant than the troops do.

Zyvan is not identified with the Valhallan or Cadian regiments, and he serves as neither a figurehead nor a symbol of either. He represents the professional officer who must secure a war’s outcome once its celebrated figures have been quoted and praised. Cain survives, and Zyvan makes use of that survival. Within the Guard the arrangement may be called patronage, whereas Zyvan describes it as staffing.