Leto Barbaden
Leto Barbaden was the Governor of Salinas, and the former commander of the Achaman Falcatas regiment of the Imperial Guard.[1a]
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History
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This page contains spoilers for: | The Killing Ground (Novel) |
Early Service
Barbaden served as the regiment's quartermaster during its deployment to Subsector Paragonus to suppress a Chaos rebellion, and in this position, he had little frontline combat experience. When the regiment's commander, Colonel Landon was killed in action, as the next senior officer, Barbaden assumed command.[1b]
Salinas
As a reward for twenty years of combat service, the Falcatas were awarded the Right of Settlement and allowed to occupy the planet Salinas in the subsector, while suppressing any rebellious elements there.[1b]
Although no open rebellion had broken out on Salinas, and its people swore they had always been loyal to the Emperor, Barbaden was in no mood for half measures. Immediately on the Falcatas' arrival on Salinas, he had the planetary governor, Shaara, executed. When an unarmed embassy from the planetary Administratum visited Barbaden to plead for understanding, Barbaden had them surrounded and gunned down by his soldiers.[1b][1c]
These acts ignited an insurgent war and gave birth to an underground resistance, The Sons of Salinas, led by the charismatic Sylvanus Thayer.[1b][1c]
Knowing that the Sons of Salinas could not outgun or outfight the Falcatas in a conventional battle, Barbaden orchestrated a plot to draw them out into the open. He assembled the Falcatas outside the city of Khaturian, on the pretext that its inhabitants were sheltering Thayer. In fact, Barbaden knew full well that Thayer was not there, and the Sons had been careful not to involve Khaturian in the fighting, as many of them had family living there. When the city's people protested that they did not have Thayer, the Falcatas marched into the city and burned it to the ground, massacring all of its several thousand inhabitants - men, women, and children alike.[1b]
As Barbaden expected, the enraged and grief-stricken Thayer was provoked into leading the Sons of Salinas into a "glorious charge" against the Falcatas, where the former were slaughtered. The insurgent war came to an end, though sporadic terrorist acts continued for many years thereafter.[1b][1c]
Far from regretting his actions, Barbaden declared the end of the war as a national holiday, "Restoration Day," and renamed the capital city "Barbadus," after himself. He assumed the governorship of the planet, passing command to his lieutenant, Colonel Verena Kain.[1c][1d]
Governorship
Barbaden was in office in late M41, when Uriel Ventris, Pasanius Lysane, and the Unfleshed were deposited on the planet by a Daemon Engine after their escape from Medrengard. Uriel and Pasanius approached Barbaden, where they asked for, and received, permission to send an astropathic message to Macragge. While awaiting a response, Uriel and Pasanius learned the history of the insurgent war and observed the sullen unrest of the populace.[1e][1f]
Matters came to a head when the Unfleshed were possessed by the spirits of the people killed at Khaturian, and began wreaking havoc. The Grey Knights arrived on the planet, warning that Chaos was about to break loose, due in no small part to the psyker turmoil caused by the dead. The Knights demanded to know the full details of what had happened at Khaturian. When Barbaden described what he'd done, Uriel stepped forward and placed the governor under arrest. He was held in a section of the palace, surrounded by a psychic barrier created by the Knights, to await trial for war crimes by the sector governor.[1g]
However, the spirits of the dead, empowered by Chaos, were so powerful and so implacable that Uriel realized the only way to placate them was to allow them to take their revenge on Barbaden. The Grey Knights dropped the barrier, and the dead invaded the palace en masse and slowly tore Barbaden to pieces.[1h]
Pasanius, having "witnessed" the massacre through psyker memories, commented that "a bullet in the brain" would have been too quick and merciful a death for Barbaden.[1h]
He was succeeded by Daron Nisato, a former commissar of the Falcatas who had not taken part in the massacre. An uneasy truce prevailed between the people of Salinas and the Imperial Guard forces.[1i]
Character
Daron Nisato reflected that, as a quartermaster by training, Barbaden was used to seeing war in terms of mathematics and statistics, and had little regard for the human element.[1b]
Uriel Ventris formed the same impression of Barbaden on their first meeting: that he was an extremely dangerous man, who would go to any lengths necessary to accomplish his mission, and do so without any concern for the cost in lives, either on his own side or to the enemy.[1e] Cardinal Shavo Togandis, who witnessed the Khaturian massacre firsthand, called Barbaden a monster.[1g]
Performing cartomancy in Barbaden's chambers, Leodegarius drew the card of "the Sorcerer" to represent Barbaden, explaining that it did not mean Barbaden had sorcerous powers, but instead it represented a man who was always in control of himself and his decisions, but used the power he was granted for evil ends, without regard for consequences.[1g]
Barbaden himself was a great admirer of Lord Solar Macharius, and imagined himself a man of the same mold: a man who possessed the vision to see what needed to be done, and the resolve needed to carry it out. In his view, commanders who worried about minimizing casualties to either their own soldiers or the enemy were fools, since manpower was the one resource the Imperium had a limitless supply of.[1j]
Right up until his dying moment, Barbaden was absolutely convinced that his actions had been necessary, justified, and even heroic. In his mind, he had successfully drawn out and defeated the rebel army and brought peace to Salinas. The facts that he had accomplished this by slaughtering thousands of unarmed civilians, and the "peace" he had brought to Salinas was hardly worthy of the name, did not bother him in the slightest. He was fully expecting to be exonerated by the sector governor and to return to the governorship of Salinas, when the dead entered his chamber to kill him.[1g][1h]
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