Central to this theory is the idea that though a single man may have but the tiniest shred of spiritual or mystical ability, the uncounted trillions of humans that populate the Imperium all contribute to a kind of psychic reservoir that can be tapped into in extremis, even by those who do not realise they are doing so. They believe that the subconscious power of hope is so strong, that when combined with the nascent psychic abilities that lurk within HumanityвЂ™s minds and a stimulus of imminent death, it can potentially be made reality. There are radicals amongst the Librarius who have a similar theory, though they believe the Legion of the Damned is a kind of consensual hallucination, and occasionally even manifestation, conjured by Mankind as a whole.

These scholars believe it is a ChapterвЂ™s burning conviction that the guilty must be punished that gives the phantoms of the Legion a physical form.

It is quite possible that the Librarians of the Adeptus Astartes tap into this belief and make it real, whether by accident or design, resurrecting the ghosts of their fallen brothers and giving them a chance to wreak their terrible revenge. The Space Marines that have remained loyal to the Emperor since then have a deep-seated belief that those who betrayed them should be made to pay for their transgressions with fire and fury. Events such as the Drop Site Massacre or the death of a Primarch were so traumatic they left a permanent scar on the psyches of all of the First Founding Legions, so these theories run, a scar so deep it has permeated not only the Chapters that came after them but hundreds of successor Chapters since that ДЄ few scholars of Adeptus Astartes have proposed that the Legion of the Damned is a psychic backlash made real. Combat can initiate the final stages of the disease, in which the Marine reaches a peak in power and enters a berserker state. Each Marine is rapidly approaching the moment when he will succumb to the contagion. The Legion are afflicted by a warp contagion that destroys their sanity as it progresses their bodies decay, but they grow in supernatural strength.

Legion of the damned space marines art