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| “ | The aether gifts me visions. I see a threat far more deadly than gene-hungry tyranids... A scream and a dark promise. A ship in the shadow, a relic from our secret past. | „ |
| ~ The Librarian getting premonitions of the Genestealer-infested space hulk |
The unnamed Librarian is the main protagonist of the 2016 video game Space Hulk: Deathwing, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. He is an Epistolary Librarian of the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, one of the Chapter's powerful psykers, who serves in the Dark Angel's elite 1st Company, the Deathwing. Outfitted in powerful Terminator Armor, the Librarian leads his allies, Nahum and Barachiel, through an amalgamation of wrecked spacecraft infested with Tyranid Genestealers while chasing disturbing visions.
The Librarian was voiced by Richard Heap. While serving as the main character in the single-player campaign, the Librarian can be used and customized in the game's Special Missions and multiplayer mode.
Biography[]
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. Humanity's last, dwindling hope was the declining, oppressive Imperium of Man, defended from the many horrors of the galaxy by its stalwart Imperial Guard and transhuman Astartes, the latter better known as Space Marines. The Librarian was a psyker in the Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, heavily augmented with cybernetics and gaining the rank of Epistolary, and was promoted to the Chapter's elite 1st Company, Deathwing- a company comprised of Dark Angels who exclusively use powerful Terminator Armor.
In the 41st millennium, the Dark Angels detected a large space hulk, an amalgamation of crashed spacecraft lost to the Warp, emerge into realspace approximately 314 light years from Terra. The space hulk was already infested with Genestealers, a foul strain of the Tyranid species who would infiltrate and sabotage human societies, creating masses of human-Genestealer hybrids to overrun planets in preparation for Hive Fleet arrivals. The Dark Angels also detected an incoming Tyranid Hive Fleet, so while other companies deployed to deal with the fleet alongside Imperial Guard regiments, Grand Master Belial of Deathwing ordered his company to purge the space hulk, dubbed the Olethros, of the Genestealer presence. Belial personally assigned the Librarian as commander of the assault, to be accompanied by heavy assault Terminator Barachiel and Terminator Apothecary Nahum.
As Deathwing assembled for the assault, the Librarian sat on his throne within a Dark Angels craft, and used his psychic abilities to look into the Warp for premonitions. Many images rushed through his mind, showing him that the threat was greater than Genestealers alone, for he could sense that the Olethros itself was somehow linked to the Chapter and its secretive history, possibly heralding an unknown cataclysm. As the Librarian readied to breach the floating wrecks, Belial confirmed the Librarian's fears, noting that scans of the Olethros revealed that an ancient Dark Angels ship was fused to the middle of the space hulk, but protected by an energy field that prevented teleportation into the craft, meaning that Deathwing would have to physically fight their way through the hulk. As such, the Librarian entered a boarding pod with Nahum and Barachiel, and were shot into the edge of the Olethros, easily breaching the ancient crafts with orders to make for the lost Dark Angels ship, while other Deathwing Terminators would deploy elsewhere on the hulk to battle and divert Genestealer swarms.
Immediately upon landing, the Librarian and his squad were contacted by Belial, who informed them that another nearby squad, Squad Gideon, had gone offline, sending the Librarian to investigate first. Alongside Barachiel and Nahum, the Librarian ventured through the first section of the Olethros, encountering several Genestealer-human hybrids, the first generations of Genestealer cults that would tear worlds apart from within. Slaying the monsters with ease, the Librarian soon got premonitions of death, before finding the remains of Squad Gideon. As such, the Librarian was forced to establish a hold within his section of the Olethros, the original goal of Squad Gideon, before being able to move further. Swarms of Genestealers and hybrids soon descended upon the Librarian and his squad, forcing them to fight through waves of the xenos before getting back to the hangar bay, making a stand long enough for more Deathwing squads to get in. Once the breach was secure, the Librarian was clear to go find the lost Dark Angels ship.
Moving deeper into the Olethros, the Librarian and his companions would soon be faced with more and more Genestealers, pouring out of almost every crevice of the ship in even stronger forms, with the Librarian's premonitions warning him of each emerging strain, from the invisible Stalker-strains to the hulking Scythe-strains. Each new Tyranid bioform was slain with the same grim determination of the last, leaving the space hulk's aging hallways littered with fresh blood. As the Librarian drew closer to the lost Dark Angels craft, the ship was identified as the Caliban's Will, a craft that was last seen during the Horus Heresy, a cataclysmic civil war over 10,000 years prior that drove the Imperium to its current state. The ship thus likely held treasures from Caliban, the homeworld of the Dark Angels, which was destroyed during the war. As the Librarian fought through the space hulk, he soon found a faint signal of a Dark Angel, far beyond where other squads had reached, but investigating the signal only led to the body of a long-dead Dark Angel, Brother Maegon, one of the Caliban's Will's original passengers. Touching the dead marine's body gave the Librarian visions of a strange chamber somewhere within the Caliban's Will, which the Genestealers seemed determined to defend. The Librarian thus made greater haste in reaching the craft, being forced to clear several Genestealer nests and fight through the Sanctum Imperator, an ancient lost Black Templars ship, to reach the Caliban's Will.
The Librarian, with Nahum and Barachiel, made greater haste through the Black Templars ship, finally locating an entryway into the Caliban's Will, only to find it blocked off with an energy field. Scans indicated that the field was being generated by reactors around the Black Templars' ship, which were guarded by psychic Genestealer hybrids, who were attempting to contact the rest of the Tyranid Hive Fleet. Slaying the psychic Genestealers, the Librarian deactivated all the power relays, allowing access to the lost Caliban's Will. However, just at the entrance, the Librarian was abruptly overtaken by a vision from a long-dead Dark Angels Terminator, fighting through swarms of Genestealers while plagued by strange words demanding to know what the duty of an Astartes was, before seeing an abnormally powerful Genestealer Broodlord staring back at him through the vision.
Troubled by the vision, and the fact that he had sensed a Dark Angels presence within the Broodlord, the Librarian pressed on after defending the entrance from a swarm of Genestealers, but he and his companions then came across strange Genestealers that looked radically different from what they had encountered before. Further troubled, the Librarian eventually made it to the heart of the Caliban's Will, having to slaughter ever-increasing hordes of Genestealers. Coming across a vault, the Librarian gained access, discovering that the vault was the very area from his visions- a cryogenic storage facility for Dark Angels gene-seed, the genetic material essential for the creation of Space Marines, stored from before the destruction of Caliban. Then, the Librarian was attacked by none other than the Broodlord from his vision, who breached the vault from a coolant vent. However, the combined efforts of the Librarian, Nahum, and Barachiel slew the Broodlord and its minions.
With the vault secured, more Dark Angels and their personnel from the Adeptus Mechanicus were able to enter and harvest the long-lost gene-seed, only to come to a horrifying discovery, that the Genestealers had been ingesting gene-seed and modifying themselves with it. These Genestealers were the different breed that the Librarian had spotted earlier, and was the reason why the Broodlord seemed to have a Dark Angels presence. As such, Grand Master Belial ordered that no Genestealer could be allowed to reunite with the Tyranid Hive Fleet, discovering that a group of gene-seed laden Genestealers were attempting to activate escape pods aboard another part of the Olethros, namely a derelict Rogue Trader ship. The Librarian and his companions made haste into the ship, with Barachiel accessing the ship's database to find the escape pod bay while Nahum and the Librarian held off incoming Genestealers. Once the bay was located, the Librarian fought his way to it and placed a modified teleportation beacon within it, before getting behind a heavily armored bulkhead with Nahum and Barachiel. Behind them, the escape pod bay was destroyed as the Dark Angels fleet used the beacon to teleport torpedoes directly into the chamber. With the Genestealers now trapped aboard the Olethros, Grand Master Belial then ordered his Techmarines to use C.A.T. drones to release a mutagenic Genestealer-killing virus in parts of the Olethros, which required the Librarian to clear the way for the unstable virus to be released precisely.
The Librarian entered another section of the Olethros, seeking the still-active environmental controls of one of the wrecked ships, which could pump the virus across the Olethros. However, the Librarian then came across another Broodlord, being forced to kill it first, and seal its surviving brood behind a massive bulkhead. Once the Broodlord was dead, its powerful psychic field dissipated, allowing the Librarian to detect three other strong Genestealer hybrid psykers whose signatures were previously hidden by the Broodlord. Belial ordered the Librarian to destroy the psykers before they could draw more of the Hive Fleet their way, so the Librarian and his companions scoured the ship for the psykers, killing every last one of them. Once the psykers were dead, the Librarian made for the environmental controls, fighting his way through masses of Genestealers before activating the pumps, coursing the mutagenic virus throughout the space hulk. While the Astartes were immune to the virus, Genestealers began dying in droves, allowing the Librarian and his companions to exit their part of the structure.
Despite the devastating blow to the Genestealers, parts of the Olethros remained infested and clear of the virus. Additionally, even with the death of many Genestealer psykers and Broodlords, the Hive Fleet was still heading towards the Olethros. As such, Belial ordered all Dark Angels forces to evacuate the Olethros with as much gene-seed as they could carry, so that the plasma reactors of one of the Sanctum Imperator could be overloaded and vaporize the entire space hulk with the Genestealers still inside, denying the Tyranids any of the Calibanite gene-seed. However, the Mechanicus tech-priests sent to secure the last samples of the gene-seed from the vault were abruptly ambushed and killed by a renewed infestation of Genestealers, so the Librarian was first sent to retrieve the last C.A.T. unit, which carried the valuable genetic material. The Librarian valiantly escorted the robot to an extraction point, slaying another Broodlord and any Genestealers that stood in his way. Once the C.A.T. had escaped the space hulk, picked up by a Dark Angels ship, the Librarian and his companions fought their way through yet another Broodlord to reenter the Sanctum Imperator, where they were tasked with commencing the self-destruct sequence. While Barachiel assumed that the mission would be a sacrificial one, which made him awed by the opportunity to die for the Chapter, Nahum and the Librarian wished to continue their service by escaping the space hulk. Regardless, Belial ordered the Librarian and his squad to remain on the Olethros for as long as possible to draw in as many Tyranids as they could.
The Librarian thus trudged through the crumbling space hulk, overloading three of the Sanctum Imperator's plasma reactors one by one, with each reactor chamber guarded by Scythe-strain Genestealers and a Broodlord. Regardless, every last one of the aliens fell under the Dark Angels firepower, and once the last of the reactors was set to blow, the Librarian made for a predesignated teleport spot alongside Nahum and Barachiel, where the three made a stand against masses of Genestealers that descended upon them. Just as hordes of Scythe-strains charged at them, the three Terminators were finally teleported off the Olethros and safely into a Dark Angels battle barge. With the last of the surviving Dark Angels cleared from the space hulk, the Librarian and his companions were flown away from the structure with the rest of the Deathwing. Behind them, the plasma reactors detonated just as Hive Fleet ships reached it, destroying the Olethros and all Genestealers on it in the holy fire of a man-made star.
