Event · M41–M42
Primaris Awakening
The Primaris Awakening was the emergence of Belisarius Cawl’s Primaris Space Marines from Mars at the close of the forty-first millennium. The term is used on Orrery for the point at which a warrior host, recorded as prepared in secret over many centuries, was revealed to the Imperium and committed to war. Its origin lies in the Primaris programme attributed to Cawl, the Archmagos Dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, whose work is said to have followed plans set out by Roboute Guilliman before his wounding. The resulting Space Marines are larger and more heavily equipped than earlier Astartes and are held in reserve on Mars until the Imperium’s crisis makes their release necessary. The awakening coincides with the return of Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines, whose revival is credited to Cawl’s ministrations. Accounts differ on the precise sequence of events and on how far the Mechanicus leadership knew of the project beforehand. Cawl, Guilliman and the Primaris forces are the principal participants, and Mars is the map anchor, since the Martian forge-vaults are where the Primaris Marines were kept in stasis. The timing overlaps with the opening of the Great Rift, the warp-storm that divides the galaxy into realms of differing accessibility. This gave the release of a new fighting force an immediate strategic purpose. The main consequence was the Indomitus Crusade, launched under Guilliman’s authority as Lord Commander of the Imperium. It carried Primaris reinforcements to Chapters across the Imperium in what is termed the Ultima Founding. It also began the era known as the Dark Imperium, in which Guilliman’s reforms strain against the established institutions of Terra and Mars. Later tradition holds that the Primaris Marines changed both the composition of the Adeptus Astartes and the political standing of the Ultramarines. Its links on the timeline run to Cawl’s earlier work on Mars and to the Indomitus Crusade and Great Rift that follow.
See where Primaris Awakening occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.