Julius Kaesoron is a minor antagonist in the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. He is one of the first Noise Marines, a Space Marine of the Emperor's Children Legion who fell to the corruption of Slaanesh during the Horus Heresy, and was later resurrected as a Daemon Prince.
Julius Kaesoron was featured in the novels Fulgrim, The Primarchs, Wrath of Iron, and Angel Exterminatus.
Biography[]
Great Crusade[]
In the grim darkness of the far future, the Emperor of Mankind created the Imperium of Man. In the 31st millennium, He launched a Great Crusade across the stars to rebuild the divided, crumbling human race and return it to its lost golden age. To do this, the Emperor created many Space Marine Legions, each under command of a Primarch, the Emperor's transhuman sons. The Emperor's Children Legion, the IIIrd Legion, was given to the Primarch Fulgrim, who had transformed the bleak, dying world of Chemos into a flourishing center of art and prosperity. Julius Kaesoron, presumably from either Terra or Chemos, joined the Emperor's Children and was modified into an Astartes, better known as a Space Marine. He joined the 1st Company, becoming its captain, and like Fulgrim, he had an appreciation for fine arts. His favorite art form was poetry, especially the Imperial Cantos of Remembrancer Ignace Karkasy, but Kaesoron also enjoyed music, commonly attending musical recitals in the auditorium of the Pride of the Emperor, flagship of the Emperor's Children.
During the Great Crusade, Kaesoron befriended 3rd Company captain Marius Vairosean, and found Vairosean's perfectionist military doctrine amusing, commonly joking that Vairosean was better suited to the pragmatist Ultramarines Legion. Vairosean, however, took it as a compliment. Kaesoron later accompanied Vairosean and Fulgrim on a xenocidal campaign against the Laer, a hostile Slaanesh-worshipping serpentine xeno race. While Vairosean's company was ravaged in the assault, leading to Vairosean falling into despair over his perceived failure and locking himself in the decks of the Pride of the Emperor, Kaesoron joined Fulgrim in the ground assault against the Laer's Slaaneshi temples. As such, Kaesoron followed Fulgrim into the central Slaaneshi temple, where dazzling sights, cacophony of sounds, and other discordant floods of Warp-laced sensations began to corrupt Kaesoron towards Slaanesh. Fulgrim himself picked up a Daemon-hosting sword from the temple, which also began to corrupt him. As such, when Kaesoron returned to the fleet, the Laer left exterminated, Kaesoron continuously sought ways to stimulate his senses in an effort to recapture what he had felt in the Laer temple, both on and off the battlefield. The Emperor's Children as a Legion began to spiral towards Slaanesh corruption as well, the Astartes falling to their vain aspirations and other hedonistic desires, save for a few Loyalists who held true to their ideals.
Following the campaign, the Legion's chief Apothecary Fabius Bile began modifying the Emperor's Children gene-seed for supposedly greater perfection. While some refused, Vairosean, Kaesoron, and many other Emperor's Children willingly submitted themselves to the unethical experimentation, spreading the Chaos corruption even further throughout the Legion.
Horus Heresy[]
Aside from Fulgrim, other Primarchs were falling to Chaos, such as Lorgar Aurellian, Magnus the Red, Konrad Curze, Perturabo, Alpharius, Omegon, Angron, Mortarion, and even Warmaster Horus Lupercal. While most of their respective Legions had joined them, there were still Loyalists in their forces. As such, Horus, Fulgrim, Mortarion, and Angron plotted to purge the Loyalists from their Legions during a campaign to the renegade planet Isstvan III. However, Fulgrim, who was friends with Loyalist Primarch Ferrus Manus, sought to bring Ferrus to their side. As such, Vairosean and Kaesoron accompanied Fulgrim to meeting with Ferrus Manus at the Iron Hands fleet. However, Ferrus refused to join Fulgrim, and the encounter turned violent. The Emperor's Children clashed with the Iron Hands, and Kaesoron personally fought Iron Hands 1st Company Captain Gabriel Santor, nearly killing Santor with Lightning Claws. Then, Fulgrim ordered them to stand down before the Iron Hands fleet could be completely destroyed. As such, the Emperor's Children withdrew to Isstvan III. On Isstvan III, all known Loyalists in the Legion, including legendary Dreadnought Rylanor, were deployed to take out the Isstvan III rebellion. Once deployed, the Loyalists were all slaughtered by virus bombs, orbital bombardment, and an assault by Angron's World Eaters and Horus' Luna Wolves, now known as the Sons of Horus.
After Isstvan III, the Emperor's Children, now fully in the control of the traitors, set out to Isstvan V to set a trap for Loyalist Legions. During the journey, Fulgrim, Vairosean, Kaesoron, and the rest of the Pride of the Emperor's officer corps and crew were called to a concert being hosted aboard by Bequa Kynska, a Terran composer and remembrancer who had accompanied the Emperor's Children. She had been present on the campaign against the Laer, and had entered a Slaaneshi temple on the planet's surface, which quickly corrupted her. As such, she craved to recreate the sensations of the unholy shrine, and remade the ship's auditorium into a grotesque recreation of the alien temple. Once the traitors took their seats, Kynska began playing the Maraviglia, a symphony she composed to recapture the wonderous sounds of Slaaneshi taint. The music utilized strange sonic instruments, and the cacophony was no mere song, but a ritual to open a Warp rift. Said rift allowed the power of Slaanesh to enter the auditorium, washing over the audience and immediately mutating many of them. Additionally, the Slaaneshi corruption created an orgy of both hedonism and bloodshed in the audience, and summoned Daemonettes to join the slaughter. However, the Daemonettes had taken the bodies of the concert's players in order to manifest, killing Kynska in the process, so Kaesoron, Vairosean, and other Astartes rushed the stage to keep the music going. However, the Astartes all fumbled with the instruments, having no idea how to work them, until Vairsoean made one unleash a devastating sonic shockwave. Now holding the instrument like a gun, Vairosean realized he could use them as sonic weapons that fired blasts laced with the energy of Chaos itself, something Kaesoron also realized, even as he was driven insane from the rush of sensations.
Vairosean, Kaesoron, and the other Astartes who picked up the vile instruments were mutated further as they gave the entirety of their souls to Slaanesh, and formed a new unit known as the Kakophoni, the first Noise Marines. After arriving at Isstvan V, the trap was sprung on the Loyalists who just arrived to put down the growing rebellion. The Kakophoni were deployed against the Loyalist Legions, including the Iron Hands, Raven Guard, and Salamanders, in a battle forever remembered as the Drop Site Massacre. However, while Vairosean charged ahead while blaring his heretical racket, Kaesoron lagged behind, instead taking the time to cruelly mutilate the Loyalist corpses, taking pieces of them as trophies to wear on his defiled armor. Then, Kaesoron was confronted by none other than a recovered Gabriel Santor. Santor engaged Kaesoron in battle, where Kaesoron moved with blinding speed while screaming like a madman. Ultimately, both Kaesoron and Santor mortally wounded each other, and collapsed in utter agony. However, Kaesoron found the agony pleasurable, for the servants of Slaanesh found pleasure in even the most excruciating pain. As such, Kaesoron thanked Santor for granting him such an exquisite experience as the two died.
Daemon Prince[]
Slaanesh itself then decided that it could not let a promising servant go to waste, and as such, resurrected Kaesoron as a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh. Now immortal and effectively unkillable, Kaesoron would later materialize in realspace some 10,000 years later, in the 41st millennium, where he led an invasion of Hive World Shardenus during the Iron Hands' campaign to retake the rebellious Purge of Contqual Sub-sector. However, the Iron Hands managed to stop Kaesoron's attempts to open a Warp rift to convert the planet into a Daemon World. Kaesoron was soon confronted by Iron Hands Librarians, led by their Lord Commander Arven Rauth, who managed to destroy Kaesoron's physical form, banishing his soul back to the Warp. However, as Daemon Princes cannot be truly killed by merely having their physical forms destroyed, Kaesoron still exists in the Warp, reforming to one day return.
