Libertas as Excalibur
Libertas, Garro’s super-shiny sword that lowkey definitely will become the Titansword, is old as balls. It, or parts of it, predate Old Night (c.M25), the ‘unknowable science’ capable of ‘cancelling out’ the unreal anti-life of a daemon.
Garro, born in Albia, feels a special connection with the blade… could it be because it’s Excalibur, the legendary sword of Britain (aka Albion)?
It has Libertas written on the blade, which one could simply ignore completely as blades can be modfied, but where’s the fun in that. In fact, it says Libertas Rex on the cover to Garro:
Rex being Latin for king… as in King Arthur. The Latinised name for Excalibur? Caliburnus (from chalybs - ‘steel’). Caliburnus Rex. The King’s Sword.
Now imagine the Captain of the 7th Great Company of the XIVth Legiones Astartes is presented with a sword to go along with his new honorific ‘Battle-Captain’ after a battle in the Unification Wars. Faded by the millennia, the remaining letters read LIB R S REX. With fragments between it could be liberus, perhaps liberas.
He calls it LIBERTAS.
