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Hi all

Im re-reading third book of the HH series, False Gods, and its clear the Word Bearers are corrupted before the Sons of Horus / Luna Wolves.

If so, presumably their Primarch Lorgar was already corrupted?

Thus Chaos has its champion. If Horus can bring onside half the Legions, would it not also be fair to assume Lorgar could?

Discussion in HH series seems to suggest the Angel would have been the most charasmatic of the Primarchs - my reading is Horus was the most ambitious. So although he was clearly very good at diplomacy (ie use of Mornival etc) its defiantely not clear he had any special charisma and the Primarch's all had their own agendas.

So my thinking is even if Horus had of died on Davin, a major heresy was brewing.

Thoughts?

I think there are 3 primarchs failing in their allegiance to the Imperium:

- Lorgar, opposing the imperial truth.
Didn't turn out in his favor, he doesn't lead the heresy and his creations oppose chaos successfully ( ecclesiarchy ).
- Horus, he who talks too much. Politics are always fail and a Primarch-politician is fail x100.
Chaos used him to disperse the imperial forces, but as he needs them most the flee....
- Magnus, overconfident in his views, ruins his legion and the plans of the emperor as he taps things better left alone.

So step 1 was to trick magnus into a deal, step 2 was to switch to horus, step 3 was to use all the fools to ruin the IoM,
because a united IoM would have beaten chaos without a doubt.

IMo,
the heresy wasn't inevitable ( in a different setup ) per se, but neccessary to create the 40k universe as it is.
Heresy = fluff mechanic to split up the humans into 2 factions (good/evil, chaos/order, whatever you prefer..).

Lorgar could have seen the treachery of his lieutanants and kicked kor phaeron and erebus out.
Horus could have trusted his father and later believed Magnus.
Magnus could have followed his fathers orders.
Mortarion could have seen Typhus treachery.
Angron could have overcome his temper with discipline.
Fulgrim could have believed his captains and evaded his fate, but epic fail of the pointy eared should also be noted here.
Alpharius/omegon should have known better than to trust xenos.
Perturabo could have brought his issues before his father, instead of brooding and paranoia.
Curze could have dropped his batman costume. Beeing the judge and the executor at the same time leads to madness.

Reasons to turn are simply lack of trust and inbreed weaknesses, a combo that makes you vulnerable.

Did the other primarchs a better job?

Sanguinius, didn't see Horus issues.
Russ, didn't overcome his feral manners. Too many brawls.
Lion, wasn't able to identify friend and foe.
RobuteG could wasn't able to shrug off his bureaucratic behaviour.
Ferrus didn't see the trap and lost his head.
Dorn, offended too many of his unstable brethren.
Corax, blind? Should have watched Horus.
Khan, did as ordered.
Vulkan did as ordered.

My vote would go to vulkan and jaghatai.

Now, you could blame the Emperor to leave a bunch of brothers alone. Or blame the primarchs they should have grown up.

Fulgrim I disagree with - as soon as he gave into desire for that sword he was goneski, that demon weapon twisted him on himself

For that matter everyone who visited that shrine went down in a big way - makes me think it was inevitable sooner or later another legion would have stumbled across another temple

Yes, but in my opinion any of the Legions could have fallen - those that have, they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Every Primarch had its problems and issues with others. Them falling i think would have dragged along with them another 1 maybe 2 Legions. The only one who would have ever been able (and he was) to pull half of the Legions to the other side was Horus.

So in the end, some Legions would have fallen anyway. But it took wHorus to start the Heresy

I think Horus was 'needed' cause he had the best chance to unite enough bad guys to mount a decent threat against Terra. Can you imagine if Angron tried to do it, he'd have killed half his army before they even got to Terra.

Lorgar, I suppose, could have fared quite well with rallying some of his brothers to the cause.

However, despite his formidable charisma and oratory, would have probably been disliked by some of the heretics. Perturabo, Alpharius and Kurze wouldn't probably take it too well to his predisposition for... well, worshiping stuff...

Angron and Mortarion would just think he talks too much and wouldn't pay attention to him in the first place.

Thus, the starting line-up for the Lorgar heresy would have been completely different.

But I'd assume that even Lorgar - with his head full of religious crap - was aware of his shortcomings. Horus was a far more popular figure, because he didn't really lean towards any side of the spectrum. He was the better strategist. He was in a position where he could more easily sway primarchs to his side (either by flattery, bribe or simply pulling rank). He could subtly send the others to the arse end of the galaxy to stay out of their way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

rabidaskal wrote:I think Horus was 'needed' cause he had the best chance to unite enough bad guys to mount a decent threat against Terra. Can you imagine if Angron tried to do it, he'd have killed half his army before they even got to Terra.

And Istvaan III was what? A way to blow off steam?

Horus was Warmaster. He was in charge of every gun in the Imperium! He was also the most respected by all the Legions and even the Emperor himself. The Rebellion happens but goes no where fast. One of the reasons the Heresy was able to drive to Terra was Horus positioned the Ultramarines, who are the most numerous of all the legions, to galactic nowheresvilles. Effectively, taking them out of the fight.

well, for those interested B&C has an article suggesting an alternative heresy, quite well written, obviously as its fan made some may find flaws here and there, but overall is well written and a pretty solid/well founded alternative.

Those wishing to read more about it can check the article HERE

Thread so far seems to revolve around Horus' legit authority as Warmaster

Yes he was respected but fluff suggests the Angel was more respected, and the deference to Horus in the fluff was for public consumption, behind closed doors Loken reports a lot of 'sibling rivalry'

For any single Primarch, recuriting multiple legions to the cause was going to be hard

However thats not to say the title of Warmaster made all the difference

A lot of other legions requested tactical aide from Horus, which he seems to deprioritise - each Primarch was in essence a force to himself - the odd guidance would come through however what he did to Ultras seems an exception deliberately designed to remove them

Point here is not that as warmaster he could do stuff like that, rather each Primarch had to be recruited individually and whether title helped in that regard is questionable

Assume rather than Fulgrim finding his possessed demon weapon, Dorn found a Khorne hammer? Or Robute a Tzeentch artifact? Would that have had any different success than the Blissgiver and Fulgrim?

Even if Dorn and Khorne didn't work (resisted etc), intelligence in the immaterium was against 'imperial truth' so its not like the young imperium would improve its spiritual defence against the chaos gods - meaning the next key figure to be tempted was another roll of the dice - eventually one would fall..

Loricatus Aurora wrote:Hi all

Im re-reading third book of the HH series, False Gods, and its clear the Word Bearers are corrupted before the Sons of Horus / Luna Wolves.

If so, presumably their Primarch Lorgar was already corrupted?

Thus Chaos has its champion. If Horus can bring onside half the Legions, would it not also be fair to assume Lorgar could?

Discussion in HH series seems to suggest the Angel would have been the most charasmatic of the Primarchs - my reading is Horus was the most ambitious. So although he was clearly very good at diplomacy (ie use of Mornival etc) its defiantely not clear he had any special charisma and the Primarch's all had their own agendas.

So my thinking is even if Horus had of died on Davin, a major heresy was brewing.

Thoughts?

I think i've read somewhere in the fluff (mentioned a few times in the Heresy series) that Lorgar wasn't well liked by his brother Primarchs (apart from Horus, who knew all the Primarchs well), and that they distanced themselves from him due to his religious fervour and the fact that he worshipped the Emperor as a god before the Heresy.

A heresy of some sort probably would have happened with or without Horus, just the scale of things would be much different. It seemed that most of the traitor legions were already corrupted or seriously angry with the administration of the Imperium and the "abandonment" of the Crusade by the Emperor before Horus brought them all together.

Well thats's my 2 cents

It's worth pointing out that the heresy was a result of the Chaos Gods forming a rare pact to confront what they apparently saw as a threat to their existence, and that given this as its aim, the heresy was a complete success. Some kind of attempt on the Emperor was inevitable, and there was certainly enough for the Chaos Gods to work with to get one of their pawns in a room with the Emperor and dissuade him from his work. If none of the primarchs had fallen (pretty inconceivable) then the Gods would have had to attack in some other manner. Indeed, the Imperial Palace was put at peril long before the siege started thanks to Tzeentch's manipulation of then-loyal (or so he thought) Magnus.

The chaos gods organised the primarchs to be distributed randomly throughout warp space before they came out of incubation tubes.

Ie the can achieve some pretty wild stuff if they really want to.

To me this suggests their desired endstate is not completed anniliationof imp but rather only significant fragmentation and cohesion

Where would Khorne be with no GEQ?

I believe that the heresy was pretty much inevitable in answer to the OP. Just for a minute forget the primarchs and chaos Gods being the prime movers and look at the strategic situation:

Why did the Emperor leave the Great Crusade: because he belived that it was on the brink of completing its goal to reunite humanity and bring all worlds into the Imperial fold. He also wanted to concentrate on developing his psycic defences. Now let us assume that the Great Crusade continues without the heresy and the galaxy becomes complicit and to a great extent peaceful. You are now left in a situation where a vast ammount of worlds are controlled by a decentralised power on Terra. There is no religious doctrine for people to believe in so they do not believe that the Emperor watches over them mearly that they are a tiny cog in a vast machine. This is going to lead to trouble.

Also you need to consider the Space Marines and the Imperial Guard. The SM and Primarchs have been bred for one purpose as generals and supersoldiers designed to destroy humanity's enemies. At this point the Tyranids had not entered into the Imperiums reconing so there was no threat from them. The Orks had been destroyed as a major force (because remember we are assuming the Great Crusade was successful) The Eldar are keeping out the way, Chaos has yet to be discovered and the Tau are not in existence and Necrons are still asleep etc etc. The problem you now have is a very large group of super soldiers with no one to fight so what do they do? Space Marines and Primarchs are not going to be content putting down the odd system rebellion or fighting isolated pockets of Orks so there is going to be trouble. This follows the same logic as the Roman Empire, before the Caesars no soldiers were allowed in the city of Rome as a formed body because the government feared what would happen when a large group of fighting men were in a position where there was no one to fight then the generals might get political ideas.

The Imperial Navy were always going to be employed protecting cargo ships and maybe even being converted to a merchant navy themselves. PDF's always have a role but with the galaxy pacified there would be a very limited role for the regular Guard, the marines + primarchs and the Titan Legions therefore I believe in time the primarchs would quarrel and fight one another.

So in conclusion I think the heresy was always going to happen it just depended on when and where it occured.

Horus and Sanguinius were the only ones in a position to cause the sheer scope of the HH. Swaying dragging half the primachs, a third of the armed forces (likely about a third of the SM in total, since they killed their loyalists) and I'm not sure of the proportion but a large chunk of the Mechanium to chaos is a very impressive feat. Sure, a heck of a lot of damage could have been caused had the Heresy involved different individuals but the scope would have been smaller. Unless, of course, it went via different means and not outright frontal attack. Cracking open that gate into Terra would be an interesting and plausable angle.

I was of the impression the Emp returned to Terra to master more reliable transport than using the warp, ie mastering the webway

Loricatus Aurora wrote:I was of the impression the Emp returned to Terra to master more reliable transport than using the warp, ie mastering the webway

I've read about that as well. Not sure where though

Krauser wrote:

Loricatus Aurora wrote:I was of the impression the Emp returned to Terra to master more reliable transport than using the warp, ie mastering the webway

I've read about that as well. Not sure where though

A Thousand Sons mentions it, apparently the Emperor was working on a webway portal and that was what Magnus broke through.

1hadhq wrote:- Magnus, overconfident in his views, ruins his legion and the plans of the emperor as he taps things better left alone.

So you finally admit the truth.

I think that Dorn was a might-have-been Horus, minus the charisma. If he had turned, I doubt any but his own Legion would have followed.

nobody wrote:

Krauser wrote:

Loricatus Aurora wrote:I was of the impression the Emp returned to Terra to master more reliable transport than using the warp, ie mastering the webway

I've read about that as well. Not sure where though

A Thousand Sons mentions it, apparently the Emperor was working on a webway portal and that was what Magnus broke through.

Think you're right. He taped through it to warn the Emperor and in doing so he ruined the Emperor's work, hence leaving him very off.
As a consequence the big E released the hounds (aka SW) on Magnus to bring him to Terra.

But Horus had other plans...

This thread turned on its head though suggests that the Chaos Gods are not invincible

Were the webway project to succeed, and was the imperium to unite humanity - would still have had tyranids, orcs, dark eldar etc however better able to deal with them

+ imperial technological advance would not have slowed given rift with mars etc

I read in a Dakka thread the Emp could be a 5th minor chaos god - dont have link - and think a little rediculous, although who is to say some sort of 'order' god(s) couod not exist

Point here is were the right combo of events to unfold - a single race (tyranids even) to dominate the galaxy, chaos would diminish - were another extraordinary human of the scale of the emp born (ie saint sabbat even), this could be a significant catalyst

But all that said, I still think we come back to that old fundamental of democracies - separation off powers - key people are always going to fall off the wagon in one way or another - some more painful than others (if not of the scope of the HH) - but the pre-requisites of fufilling the emp's dream feasibly could be pulled together IMO

Manchu wrote:

1hadhq wrote:- Magnus, overconfident in his views, ruins his legion and the plans of the emperor as he taps things better left alone.

So you finally admit the truth.

I think that Dorn was a might-have-been Horus, minus the charisma. If he had turned, I doubt any but his own Legion would have followed.

Did I post that in this thread? Would agree he shouldn't bargain to save his legion in the first place.
So magnus ruined his legion and his father's plans. But remember, chaos had Magnus as n°1 target and horus as replacement.
Lorgar would be then.....n°20?

Dorn is to close to the emperor. IF the emperor was around Magnus/Horus, chaos couldn't have claimed them.
As posted somewhere in this thread, there is an alternate history at B&C with Dorn turning.

@Loricatus Aurora: chaos isn't invincible. Point is, they needed to ally to face the Emperor and if his sons didn't screw it,
chaos would be a minor irrelevant xenos-only annoyance.

It's never really spelled out entirely why the Imperial Webway was such a grave threat to the Chaos Gods, but it can be assumed that a stable homogenous atheist Imperium was what they were conspiring to prevent. They succeeded rather massively. If they hadn't been able to turn a primarch they would still have thrown everything they had at the Emperor to avert their marginalisation under a successful conclusion of the Great Crusade. That's irrelevant though, since not one of the primarchs lacked the potential to fall. Lorgar flipped without the Gods breaking a sweat.

You know, part of me wonders if the Emperor hadn't orchastrated the Heresy in an attempt to purge humanity of all the traits that made them desirable to Chaos.

In order to bring those people to the fore, charismatic generals were needed to bring them out of the shadows, and look at how the Emperor mishandled several of his Primarchs so badly that it could only have been intentional. Angron, Lorgar, Magnus and Mortarion come to mind as Primarchs where with just a simple change in how the Emperor handled them, their falls could have been prevented.

The problem the Emperor ran into was that he had most likely not expected fully half of his sons to fall.

Well, the Emperor was a natural leader and all that, but you need a mother to grow up good sons, or at least conceive them for that matter

nobody wrote:The problem the Emperor ran into was that he had most likely not expected fully half of his sons to fall.

Nobody did, and some of them (i.e. Fulgrim) didn't even know the way they were headed. After reading A Thousand Sons, not even Magnuts did.
Whorus turned of his own volition (although tricked by the Chaos Gods, he wasn't forced to turn or anything)

I think Lorgar and Perturabo were actually the only Primarchs to truly follow the path of Chaos 100% by choice, and funnily enough, they were opposite to each other in their beliefs (Lorgak was the religious, while Perturabo the logical)

As of Alpharius, no one can say, 10.000 years later, if he follows Chaos or not, Angron and Mortarion, well, Emperor had a pretty big part to play in their treachery, and Konrad Curze was never fully sane to start with

As of the loyalists, any of them could have easily been the traitor, they just were either lucky or strong enough to escape the lure of the Ruinous Powers

Actually, I think Curze was the sanest of the lot... Either that, or he was so crazy he went off the chart and came back through the other side making the others look like idiots by contrast...

Perturabo... hmm... I rather like to think he actually thought he was doing it to put an end to all wars (yeah, I know,the concept would have been like three hundred and one centuries old at the time, and never proven right) so he could finally get back to what he saw as more important in the long run - technological advances. The way I see it, he probably only realized what he was getting himself into at the Siege of Terra (when the Rubrics and the Death Guard and the Daemonic Angron showed up). By then it was too late to change allegiances again, so he just stuck with the only side that would have him, and finally gave in after the Iron Cage, disillusioned that not even thoroughly crushing Dorn didn't ease the guilt away.

The Emperor used warpcraft in the creation of the Primarchs. The Great Heresy was the price he paid for that.

Lupe wrote:Actually, I think Curze was the sanest of the lot... Either that, or he was so crazy he went off the chart and came back through the other side making the others look like idiots by contrast...

There was method to his madness, i do not contest that, but the things they did to the planets they conquered, having a whole legion of killers, rapists and assassins, and finally self-destructing after blowing your homeworld to pieces do not actually count as sane things to do

However, in his moments of lucidity, yes, he did make the others look like idiots, i totally agree on that. And him kicking Dorn's ass, well, that was sweet stuff

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Emperor used warpcraft in the creation of the Primarchs. The Great Heresy was the price he paid for that.

That actually nailed it down really well

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Emperor used warpcraft in the creation of the Primarchs. The Great Heresy was the price he paid for that.

Bioengeneering.

1hadhq wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Emperor used warpcraft in the creation of the Primarchs. The Great Heresy was the price he paid for that.

Bioengeneering.

Nope. The Emperor's deep dark secret is he dabled in warpcraft. That's why the Chaos gods were aware of his primarchs and scattered them to the 4 corners of the galaxy. He thought that was the price he had to pay but the truth was the real price was half the primarchs belonged to Chaos. If it were mere BioEngineering The Emperor would have made a million Primarchs.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

1hadhq wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Emperor used warpcraft in the creation of the Primarchs. The Great Heresy was the price he paid for that.

Bioengeneering.

Nope. The Emperor's deep dark secret is he dabled in warpcraft. That's why the Chaos gods were aware of his primarchs and scattered them to the 4 corners of the galaxy. He thought that was the price he had to pay but the truth was the real price was half the primarchs belonged to Chaos. If it were mere BioEngineering The Emperor would have made a million Primarchs.

But he made a lot mini-primarchs..

Maybe the dark secret is an imaginary one?

As every source puts the Emperor, laboratorys and scientists into the process of growing primarchs.
Chaos or the warp aren't part of this.