Why did Lucien make Lysander the Iridates' Primus? Doesn't need to be an odyssey of a tale
Also... would you ever consider making one Terran Lightborn or one from before the Primarch was rediscovered? 👀👀
helo my fren >w< Thank u dearly for asking!
Lysander was made Primus aged 21, which is pretty much Astartes Fetus age. The TLDR is that Lucien liked him because he was uniquely resistant to his aura, and able to keep a level head while everyone else was at risk of cumming their brains out when receiving their Primarch's orders.
This was a very new problem Lucien discovered when he inherited a Legion to lead, a VERY different lifestyle and environment to his upbringing as a responsibility-free prince. If he's gonna be a general leading space marines, how can he give orders if they're all trying to climb him with abandonment issues pouring out their ears and going mad with desperation for his favour?
Lysander didn't have any of that. Secret lore - his geneseed actually responds to Tactus's aura instead of Lucien's.
Lucien also appreciated Lysander's tenacity and how he'd clawed his way to the surface of Praelucente from the underhives, with sheer willpower and refusal to die. Those are good traits to have in a leader! Additionally, despite his combat inexperience, Lysander had a natural talent for violence (he took his first life aged 8 years old) and was real good at killing shit, better than the vatgrown elites the Emperor helped fill the Legion with in the early days.
Note that despite babying Lucien and sending him to learn Primarch-ing from Magnus and Dorn, the Emperor didn't tell Lucien shit about how to run a Legion. he just dropped him in there like he did with Angron and said 'go crusade, son'. This lack of direct, personal guidance influenced how the Iridiates turned out - that is, entirely at the mercy of Lucien's subconscious projection of his traumas. If Big E told Lucien *anything* about his aura and how it works and how to manage it around people... oh, so many tragedies could've been avoided.
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As for a Terran Iridiate - one may very well exist on some forgotten planet the Imperium didn't purge of the IInd Legion's OG Founding. Since the Iridiates are canon-compliant, their First Founding was purged and re-formed decades later when their primarch was discovered. But yes, the whole Legion was built from Terran aspirants in the beginning.
10,000 of them joined hands in a ritual to locate their long-lost Primarch and opened a can of Warp whoop-ass that killed all of them. This was an accident!! They couldn't handle that power! The Emperor didn't even have to exterminate them for Purgatus (in fact he just wrote off the Legion bc he was embarrassed of what they'd done, it's not a good look if your Angels mass suiciide because dad took too long coming back from the store with the milk). Also, the Imperial Truth says that magic is heresy which was a great excuse in the public eye to axe the Iridiates.
The Emperor just had to get rid of a few that were holding various outposts and planets etc. But of course, the universe is a wide place and there probably was some Terran Iridiate who mastered his geneseed flaw, didn't go insane waiting for daddy to come home, and lived to die of old age before he ever had to see the Heresy play out.
It is possible!! But I don't have any defined OC like that yet. It was a great thought exercise though!
More Lysander lore below for you xD
In the beginning, Lysander is swayed by Lucien's aura just like everyone, but it's an obedience thing instead of a comforting blanket. He's compelled to obey... but his nervous system translates the aura into AHHHH STIMULI!!! STATIC!!! instead of cozy fog. He needed to lock tf in and cultivate immense discipline to not go insane, and that's a crucial trait in such a psyker-heavy Legion, constantly exposed to horrific warp threats.
​He's not a drooling hornball with his brain pouring out of his ears, suggesting innate psychic resistance that makes him very suited for his role. The caveat is that he's always in pain from Lucien's aura and at odds with the entire Legion's culture. But every Astartes is hypno-indoctrinated to serve the Emperor and their Primarch over themselves... so Lysander had no choice but to follow his orders for thousands of years.
