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Simon Van Gelder

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Simon Van Gelder was a powerful industrialist on Tarsis Ultra.[1]

History

Spoiler!
This page contains spoilers for: Warriors of Ultramar (Novel)

When Tarsis Ultra was threatened by a sliver of Hive Fleet Leviathan, many people panicked and fled towards the spaceport. Van Gelder first encountered the Ultramarines relief force sent to the planet when his limousine caught a break in the road and caused his luggage to spill off the roof. Sergeant Learchus Abantes arrived in time to see Van Gelder berating his driver for the mishap. Van Gelder seemed oblivious to the fact that his stopped limousine was blocking the highway.

Learchus, already disgusted by the people's cowardice, lifted the limousine out of the road with his bare hands and placed it across the road, ordering the remaining people, including Van Gelder, to turn around and return to the capital city, Erebus.

Van Gelder continued to cause trouble as a member of the city's ruling council, angrily objecting to Sebastien Montante's decision to demolish several buildings inside the city walls, to deny the incoming Tyranids cover. Van Gelder sneered that the Ultramarines' martial valour must have been greatly exaggerated, if they expected the Tyranids to get that far into the city. Learchus lost his temper and came perilously close to killing Van Gelder.

Van Gelder, too thick-skinned to realize when he had been rebuked, continue to protest Montante's decisions, and Learchus reflected bitterly that he was a prime example that the people of Tarsis Ultra had largely abandoned Roboute Guilliman's ideals, since their planet's liberation by the Ultramarines millennia ago.

When the Tyranid invasion began in earnest, Van Gelder decided to flee the planet in his private starship, which he had loaded with almost the entire contents of his estate. Although all air traffic had been suspended, he had access to override codes allowing him to shut down the air defenses.

His timing could not have been worse. As his ship lifted off, and he sent the override codes, it crossed paths with a Thunderhawk gunship carrying a Space Marine strike force back from an important mission, pursued by a swarm of Gargoyles. Thanks to Van Gelder, the Gargoyles had not been stopped by the city's anti-aircraft guns, and the Thunderhawk took heavy damage before making an emergency landing. Van Gelder's starship was far too over-laden to evade the Gargoyles, which swarmed over the ship, smashed through the viewports and tore Van Gelder and his crew to pieces. The ship crashed in a poor quarter of the city, annihilating a warehouse being used by gang leader Snowdog as a stockpile for illegal goods.

Van Gelder's temporary shutdown of the air defenses also allowed a small flight of Harridans to slip into the city, undetected, and plant broods of Gargoyles behind the Imperial lines, which remained dormant until the final battle, when they awoke and allowed the Tyranids to completely encircle the remaining Imperial defenders.

Sources