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So i was wondering..after reading HH (im only at 1k sons yet, so maybe there will be more info)..what exactly was the motivation for the primarchs to make them betray their (sometimes not so much) beloved brother, and most of all, their father, whome all of them loved (apart from Angron).

Horus: Well, he got baited to the chaos side bit by bit, and i think its actually comprehensible how it happened. Although i have to admit it seemed to happen in a moment..his decision after talking to Erebus and Magnus was kinda quick.
Fulgrim: Really, in my oppinion the most comprehensibly baited primarch. I really liked "Fulgrim", as it showed his fall in much detail.
Angron: Yah...that was kinda obvious from the beginning..
Mortarion: For me he is the primarch where i understand it the least. I mean, from what i know, all i can figure out is that his reason was "because i can". I also don't get how the old "death guard was trapped in the warp and he promised himself and his legion to nurgle to be saved" and the new fluff really fit together, but for me, the new fluff is "join chaos undivided", and sometimes after the "flight of the eisenstein" they got trapped in the warp (?!)
Lorgar: Nutcase
Magnus: Well..forseeable, but kinda sad, since he tried to be a "good son" until the end. I really enjoyed "A thousand sons". Well played Senor Tzeentch, well played indeed
Perturabo: Did he really just switch sides because of the mockery from Dorn?! O.o I mean, the SM are kinda whiny about alot of stuff..but to betray your brothers AND father for THAT ?! O.o
Alpharius/ Omegon: I like the notion of why they did it (as explained in "Legion"), and it's kinda sad (but inevitable) that they succumbed to chaos after such a long time in the eye
Konrad Curze: To be honest, i know almost nothing about him. He was the bloodthirsty batman of his city, and in the end destroyed it himself because they fell back to crime and corruption after he left. But was he baited or something? I don't know

Anyone got anymore background info he wants to share with me to shed some light on the whole thing? :>
Because, some of the stuff really confuses me xD

Horus: Dude got almost killed by a magic space sword and then had his ambition twisted against the Emperor whilst he was in a coma...
Fulgrim: Dude got possessed, he isn't even there anymore. Fulgrim died/lost it a long time ago what's left is a shell inhabited by a daemon.
Angron: His father let his comrades be slaughtered and refused to let him die beside them. Angron's entire existance from early childhood is based around honour and comradeship. The people that died were the only friends he had ever had. Fair to say he has some motive.
Mortarion: Bit of an outcast, other than his loyalty to Horus he doesn't have much of a reason tot urn.
Lorgar: His entire belief system was rejected by the only person he ever wanted to please.
Magnus: Tragic hero. Tried to help, used powers he didn't truly understand and ultimately it was his downfall. Though Horus gets the lion's share of the blame for that.
Perturabo: His legion were essentially used as fodder for a hundred different sieges and then the glory went to others.
Alpharius/ Omegon: They were trying to stop a worse future... they might still be... or not.
Konrad Curze: He wanted to prove what he had been doing during the GC was validated by the Emperor. Essentially all about redemption... through death admittedly but still redemption.

purplefood wrote:Horus: Dude got almost killed by a magic space sword and then had his ambition twisted against the Emperor whilst he was in a coma...
Fulgrim: Dude got possessed, he isn't even there anymore. Fulgrim died/lost it a long time ago what's left is a shell inhabited by a daemon.
Angron: His father let his comrades be slaughtered and refused to let him die beside them. Angron's entire existance from early childhood is based around honour and comradeship. The people that died were the only friends he had ever had. Fair to say he has some motive.
Mortarion: Bit of an outcast, other than his loyalty to Horus he doesn't have much of a reason tot urn.
Lorgar: His entire belief system was rejected by the only person he ever wanted to please.
Magnus: Tragic hero. Tried to help, used powers he didn't truly understand and ultimately it was his downfall. Though Horus gets the lion's share of the blame for that.
Perturabo: His legion were essentially used as fodder for a hundred different sieges and then the glory went to others.
Alpharius/ Omegon: They were trying to stop a worse future... they might still be... or not.
Konrad Curze: He wanted to prove what he had been doing during the GC was validated by the Emperor. Essentially all about redemption... through death admittedly but still redemption.

Horus: Yeh, but he seemed to be undecided, i mean why else would erebus come into his dream to dry to bring him to the side of chaos
Angron: Yeh, but you'ld think that "honouring your father and blood-brothers" would be somewhere on that list too ..
Mortarion: But, his father surely didn't reject him like many of his brothers did?
Lorgar: As i said, nutcase. If your god tells you to do something, you damn well follow his order ! xD
Perturabo: Ok, didn't know that. Can you name some incidents i can look up (or even happened in books)? : )
Alpharius/ Omegon: Well, seeing what their Legion is doing to loyal chapters and members of the imperium..im not sure. But now that i write this the thought popped in my head that they still try to make horus "win" by ending the imperuim, and by that "kill chaos"
Konrad Curze: I thought he die willingly to prove that he was right all along about the imperium, not because of redemption? Haven't read the books yet tho

Horus: Erebus coming to him in his coma was how he was turned....lied to when he was weak and had his ambition turned against him by what he thought was a loyal friend.

Lorgar: Thats just the point, The Emperor wasnt a God then! It was after his ascension to the Golden Throne that he was worshippedas a God (something he was trying to turn mankind away from)

Curze: Yes, to prove that what he did was valid by dying...essentially redeeming himself (or trying) by ahowing that he wasnt doing wrong in the first place (although, personally, i dont see how dying proves that...)

Horus - mislead by Daemon with false visions in coma. Swarn loyalty to Chaos Gods after he awoke and decided to became one true Emperor.
Angron - besides never forgetting his father that he left his comrades to die, decades of mindless slaughter of worlds were World Eaters went did it's part. ( he went crazy )
Mortarion - He just wanted bigger power, something witch Horus promised him after he win - witch Mortarion accept gladly.
Fulgrim - After annihilation Laer and taking sword from their temple as trophy, he was influenced by Daemon. The Daemon made him a little crazy as the time passed, in the end - nothing left of Fulgrim, after Daemon made him to kill his most belived brother ( Ferrus Manus ) Fulgrim realised what he has done and allowed Daemon to fully posses his body. His soul is now forever trapped in his body, and worse - trapped by Chaos Daemon.
Lorgar - he wanted to please his father by calling him a God. After the Emperor rejected that Lorgar got REALLY mad at him and decide to pay him back by start worshiping "real" gods. That eventually lead to his betrayal.
Magnus - that was misfortunate case, Emperor didn't like his toying with Warp powers. At the start of Heresy he tried to warn the Emperor about Horus by sending his psychic signal to Terra via Emperor's Webway. But, the only thing he successfully done was breaching Webway defenses and thus allowing Chaos Daemons to attack Terra. For this action Emperor demand for Space Wolves to bring Magnus to Terra - but Russ went a little to far and Magnus fled to Warp with what's left of his legion. But the reason Wolves go so far was because Horus told them to destroy TS instead of capturing them ( Russ didn't know that Horus has fallen ).
Perturabo - He was always kept at distance ( for being science geek I suppose ) and that annoyed him. And after his homeworld rebelled against him he went berserk and kill all population + destroyed all cities he has build. When he realized what he had done he sided with Horus ( the man who originally gave him mi=ghty hammer that he used to crush his homeworld - hm.....Daemon anyone? ).
Alpharius/ Omegon - they have been decieved by Cabal to join Horus and make sure that he win or Chaos will be victorious. And they listen to them
Konrad Curze - he was always a little crazy, he blew his own homeworld just for fun. And that was before the heresy.

It's kinda sad that the Emperor didn't just deploy Space Marines to save Angron's allies. I mean, there would have been what, two dead marines? And Angron wouldn't have been supressing rage against his father from day one.

gabrielhorus wrote:It's kinda sad that the Emperor didn't just deploy Space Marines to save Angron's allies. I mean, there would have been what, two dead marines? And Angron wouldn't have been supressing rage against his father from day one.

Not GrimDark...

Brother Coa wrote:Horus - mislead by Daemon with false visions in coma. Swarn loyalty to Chaos Gods after he awoke and decided to became one true Emperor.
Angron - besides never forgetting his father that he left his comrades to die, decades of mindless slaughter of worlds were World Eaters went did it's part. ( he went crazy )
Mortarion - He just wanted bigger power, something witch Horus promised him after he win - witch Mortarion accept gladly.
Fulgrim - After annihilation Laer and taking sword from their temple as trophy, he was influenced by Daemon. The Daemon made him a little crazy as the time passed, in the end - nothing left of Fulgrim, after Daemon made him to kill his most belived brother ( Ferrus Manus ) Fulgrim realised what he has done and allowed Daemon to fully posses his body. His soul is now forever trapped in his body, and worse - trapped by Chaos Daemon.
Lorgar - he wanted to please his father by calling him a God. After the Emperor rejected that Lorgar got REALLY mad at him and decide to pay him back by start worshiping "real" gods. That eventually lead to his betrayal.
Magnus - that was misfortunate case, Emperor didn't like his toying with Warp powers. At the start of Heresy he tried to warn the Emperor about Horus by sending his psychic signal to Terra via Emperor's Webway. But, the only thing he successfully done was breaching Webway defenses and thus allowing Chaos Daemons to attack Terra. For this action Emperor demand for Space Wolves to bring Magnus to Terra - but Russ went a little to far and Magnus fled to Warp with what's left of his legion. But the reason Wolves go so far was because Horus told them to destroy TS instead of capturing them ( Russ didn't know that Horus has fallen ).
Perturabo - He was always kept at distance ( for being science geek I suppose ) and that annoyed him. And after his homeworld rebelled against him he went berserk and kill all population + destroyed all cities he has build. When he realized what he had done he sided with Horus ( the man who originally gave him mi=ghty hammer that he used to crush his homeworld - hm.....Daemon anyone? ).
Alpharius/ Omegon - they have been decieved by Cabal to join Horus and make sure that he win or Chaos will be victorious. And they listen to them
Konrad Curze - he was always a little crazy, he blew his own homeworld just for fun. And that was before the heresy.

I thought that Mortarion joined because he listened to Typhus too much. Then when Typhus killed his Astropaths, he had no choice but to join Nurgle.
Angron was always crazy. He spent the first few months with his Legion slaughtering anyone who went near him.
The Alpha Legion spend the least time in the Eye, so they could still see themselves as doing what the Emperor would want.

Brother Coa wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:It's kinda sad that the Emperor didn't just deploy Space Marines to save Angron's allies. I mean, there would have been what, two dead marines? And Angron wouldn't have been supressing rage against his father from day one.

Not GrimDark...

Didn't the emperor have any option in just simply fighting alongside angron during that time?

Horus - After 200 years of being groomed as the Emperor's favored son, his Father just left him alone, with an entire Crusade to run by himself. He didn't even tell Horus why he left. Thanks to a little manipulation by some Daemons, this insecurity was turned to scorn and hatred. Horus was corrupted to feel like his father left those who did all the work to ascend to Godhood, leaving his sons forgotten and ruled by petty bureaucrats. His ambition and arrogance led him to believe he was the rightful ruler of the Imperium, so he started the Heresy.

Angron - As has been said a few times now, the only friends and comrades he ever knew were left to die without him on his homeworld. Since he was all about honour and pride, he hated the Emperor from day one. It helps when your a raving lunatic, so he was essentially manipulated by Horus, and found a deity that respected his principals more than the Emperor ever would.

Mortarion - Not too sure at the moment. Was probably partly manipulated by others, maybe wanted some power for himself. We may only know when another HH book on the matter is released. He may have wanted a return to how his old homeworld was run, the strong ruling the weak.

Fulgrim - Loyalty to his brother Horus played a part, so did Horus's manipulation of him. The main cause was obviously the Daemon within the Laer sword. It played on his weaknesses, turning a strive for perfection into aloof arrogance, which made him vulnerable. Without the sword's influence he was loyal, hence why he accepted oblivion after seeing what he had done. The Daemon took control after that.

Lorgar - Pretty simple. He had visions of his father's arrival on Colchis, prosecuted a planet-wide holy war that killed many millions of people. When the Emperor arrived, He didn't deny his godhood, and allowed Lorgar to worship him for 150 years,then suddenly humiliated his entire Legion in front of Guilliman, and told him he had failed. Lorgar sought others to worship, more deserving deities, and then found Chaos, who perhaps manipulated the truth, and caused Lorgar to turn against his father seeing him as a false God that would doom humanity. He cared for his race, but didn't want the Emperor to lead them down the wrong path, so started the Heresy.

Magnus - Straightforward. He had a large ego, and thought he had mastered the Warp and his powers. He was wrong of course, and destroyed the Webway project beneath the Throne after the Emperor forbid his use of Sorcery. After the Space Wolves attacked his world in their hypocrisy, he sold himself to save his own sons. After a little Tzeentch trickery, he decided to help his brother Horus to destroy the Emperor's realm for his barbarism.

Pertrurabo - He was always cold and calculating, and bitter. It doesn't help when your Legion is forced into being a footslogging siege army when they don't want to be. His Legion was slowly bled away over the years, carrying out protracted sieges and garrison duties. For his work, the Emperor and Imperium were thankless. No gratitude was given to the Iron Warriors for their toil. So, Perturabo grew bitter at his brothers and his father. When his homeworld rebelled, he let his anger out, and killed many millions. He knew there was no turning back, so harnessed his biterness at an ungrateful father.

Konrad Kurze - A more interesting reason. Kurze spent his early years striving to enforce justice through fear upon his world. A lonely existence forged him into a loner, one who would do anything to uphold his ideals. He believed he and his Legion tossed away their humanity to be the weapons no other Legion dared to be, one without remorse, one that inspired fear in their enemies. Like Perturabo, he lived in an ungrateful Imperium. They called for sanction, despite all they had done. Not even the Emperor gave thanks or acknowledged his work. Then his homeworld slipped back in lawlessness, and he saw that it could not be saved again, that corruption was seeping into the Legion. Then he saw that both him and the Emperor and the Imperium were what he strove to eradicate back on Nostramo. So he oined Horus, and eventually allowed himself to be killed as a show of redemption, an act to show his father he was right in his beliefs. "Death is nothing next to Vindication."

(Originally posted HERE. Edited for updated opinions and clarity.)

I love answering background questions. It tickles me pink to read the work of the writers, and then fill in the holes for people who haven't had a chance to read everything yet. It's probably my favorite part of the hobby.

So, first off: Good question.

...


...


...


...tragically, I can't think of a good answer. To be perfectly honest, the Horus Heresy series was supposed to shed some light on this dilemma, but has thus far failed to do so. I would love to see them get a writer who can write the fall of the primarchs and make it believable, but again, they haven't done so. Don't get me wrong, the HH is an awesome series, it gives great insight into the formation of the Imperium, and it adds a bunch to the background of the game. But by and large the primarchs themselves aren't handled well. Pretty much, Abnett is the only guy who is capable. (In my opinion.) So...I can tell you what happened (as far as the author intended) and what happened (as far as what they actually WROTE)

Horus
INTENDED: Horus felt minor feelings of abandonment by the Emperor leaving the progress of the war to him and returning to Earth to hijack the Webway. The Ruinous Powers, in conjunction with Erebus, (who had already turned evil) preyed on these feelings, deepening them, turning Horus on himself until he talked himself out of his own virtues, using his own faults as justification.

WRITTEN: On his own, the most loved and powerful being other than the Emperor, he got an injury and then, while doing some mind altering drugs, decided to take the word of his fevered hallucinations and some peon from a totally different legion over that of his creator, father, and mentor.

Lorgar
INTENDED: Lorgar wanted to deify the Emperor. When the Emperor rebuked him for this, Lorgar's adoration turned to bitterness, and his zealous vision twisted to see the Emperor as a 'false god' who was leading them all down a selfish path of annihilation. He thus turned his attentions to rebellion.

WRITTEN: Evil...seemed like a good idea at the time?

Alpharius (As a side note, written by Dan Abnett. Probably the best handled.)
WRITTEN/INTENDED: The Alpha Legion was persuaded by an alien force with enough longevity to understand such things that the Heresy was inevitable. In addition, they became convinced that if Horus WON, his remaining guilt over what he had done would compel him to turn humanity on itself in a never ending series of wars, driving the human race extinct and taking Chaos with it. They made the decision to make the ultimate sacrifice (on behalf of the whole human race) to destroy Chaos forever. The real tragedy is that Horus lost anyway, making their whole sacrifice mean nothing.

Fulgrim
INTENDED: Fulgrim became obsessed with his inability to access the parts of humanity that makes us (humans) a civilized race: art, beauty, creation, imagination. He focused on this so extensively that he eventually turned (unwittingly) to what he thought was a source of inspiration (Slaanesh). Tragically, his pursuit became what heroin addicts call 'chasing the dragon': a never ending pursuit of a transcendent experience that was always just out of reach. Eventually, he looked back at what he had done and what he had become in the pursuit of this, and by that time, he was already a monster. It was already too late.

WRITTEN: Fulgrim was a great artist, but his low self esteem caused him to always find fault in his own work, and so he picked up this magic telepathic sword that told him it was okay to do evil things, like murder people and make paintings using the victim's bodily fluids. Apparently, finding nothing strange about this AT ALL, Fulgrim went along with it. When he finally realized that the sword was EVIL, he tried to walk away, but he couldn't get over how cool a magic sword was, so he just threw morality to the wind and went to the other side.

Angron
INTENDED: Angron was damaged by his time in the gladiator pits of his homeworld. By the time that the Emperor found him, he was already a seething mass of hate. Bloodshed was all he knew, and all he wanted to know. Perhaps if he had been willing to reach out, or perhaps if others had just reached out to him, it would all have been different. Or perhaps the lesson is that some people are too damaged to help. But no one shall ever know, for he belongs to Chaos now.

WRITTEN: As the single most one dimensional primarch, Angron might as well have tattooed Khorne's symbol on his forehead from the get-go. His legion didn't need any set-up or explanation to fall to Chaos.

Magnus (Note: I haven't read Thousand Sons yet, so I can only give you the Intended part here. )
INTENDED: Magnus was rebuked by the Emperor for using the powers of the Warp to advance the Imperium. The Emperor felt that it was too dangerous, Magnus felt that he could control it. When Magnus did not give up his pursuits, the Emperor sent word to Russ to apprehend Magnus. Horus, however, told Russ that the Emperor wanted Magnus destroyed. Magnus escaped Russ's assault, and in self defense turned to Chaos, exactly as Horus wanted.

Mortarion
INTENDED: Mortarion had very few friends, and due to his upbringing, an intense desire to be liked, to fit in, to not be a monster. Horus and the Night Haunter (Konrad Curze) were his only real friends, and so they had more influence than anyone else (including the Emperor) with him. Adding this to the fact that the Emperor's first meeting with Mortarion involved stealing the primarch's thunder, showing him up in front of all of his people, and causing him to fail at his life's ambition, and you realize that Mortarion was always more loyal to Horus than the Emperor, and would have followed Horus no matter the Warmaster's reasons for rebellion.

WRITTEN: Everyone else was doing it...

Perturabo (If his fall is detailed in one of the HH books, then I haven't got to it yet. )
INTENDED: Perturabo never accepted the people of his homeworld as his own. Although they took him in, he never returned their acceptance, and so never grew attached to them. When he was found by the Emperor, he took command of his world by force. Small resentments grew between himself and other primarchs. Some disliked him because of his grasp of technology that they could not match. He disliked Rogal Dorn for excelling in the area he considered to be HIS area of expertise. When the people of his homeworld rebelled, he over reacted (fearing the shame of being the only primarch to suffer such an indignity) and slaughtered over five million of the people who had adopted him and taken him in as one of their own. His is intended to be a tragic story, for if he had just opened up to them, this need not have happened. If he had opened up to his brothers, he would not have felt the need to hide his disgrace from them, instead getting their counsel on the situation. But instead, his own heart was as impenetrable as he believed his siege defenses to be, and so he closed himself off not only from personal connections, but from the rest of humanity as well.

Konrad Curze (Read the Night Lords books. Good stuff. )
WRITTEN/INTENDED: Curze was not raised by any adoptive family, good or evil. He grew up by himself, alone in the night of a planet which never saw daylight, and knew only treachery, betrayal, and murder. Curze tried to impose order on the world he grew up in but was unable to do so permanently. Eventually he realized that the world he had helped mold was nothing but a venomous serpent injecting a never ending supply of toxins into the galaxy. He destroyed Nostramo after realing that the inhabitants (and thus, his legion) were nothing but vile, treacherous scum. Thugs and brutal killers who could never escape that core corruption. The fact that the Emperor decided to destroy him for this only cemented the rightness of his action (in his own mind). He never turned Chaos, really, but his legion did, each of them telling himself whatever lies he needed to in order to deny the truth: that Curze hated them at the end, and he abandoned them without caring what became of them.

And I add this:

Jimsolo wrote:I don't want to be some kind of harsh internet troll who rails endlessly about how much he hates something, but I was seriously underwhelmed with the writing for most of the Horus Heresy. Particularly the temptation and fall of each of the Primarchs that I have read about thus far.

So, while pride may have been a contributing factor, I think Horus was really undone by sub-par writing.

I totally agree with Jim. Aside from Alpharius/Omegon and possibly Lorgar, none of the fallen Primarchs have been written adequately in the Horus Heresy series. I don't think any of the loyalists have either.

My favorite characterization so far has been mostly indirect - that of Curze in Lord of the Night and ADB's Soul Hunter series. I think those books give a really interesting and compelling view on the psyche of the Night Lords and the motivations of Curze.

The problem with the HH series (and I said this before they started writing it too) is that it abandons part of what always made the 40k fluff so good - the use of myth. When you get the feel that you're hearing a legend that's been passed down for 10,000 years after the fact, it has much more gravity. Events are cloudier and can be interpreted multiple ways. There are missing sections of plot, intentional or not, that leave room for speculation and imagination. In fact, when descriptions of events are just a little vague and cryptic in general, your imagination can fill in something bigger and better, in your own mind, than whatever the author would have come up with.

When you take legendary characters, and you portray them walking and talking, with two dimensional personalities and ham-fisted dialogue, it loses a lot.

I really liked Legion too. By not writing from the Primarch's point of view, Abnett preserves the illusion that Alpharius does not think like humans think (and the other Primarchs don't either). I like that point of view (although I understand that some folks don't).

The Word Bearers and Lorgar engineered the whole thing, it was their prompting and whispering that turned the majority of the Traitor Primarchs either directily or indirectly through their Legions or via Horus. Or a more interesting argument it was Erebus and Kor-Phaeron essentially two humans that ran the show.

Angron is the most misunderstood and this should be expanded in a forthcoming HH Book.

Kharn says in Age of Darkness, that the World Eaters believed in Unifiication more than any other Legion. So my bet is Angron believed in Unification but not in the Emperor himself. The World Eaters were corrupted via their implants, which were corrupted from enhancing strength and biologicial stimulants to driving them mad and through direct suggestion or dream implanting more susceptible to betraying the Imperium.

Curze is the odd one out, as he had already abandoned the Imperium before the Heresy as he didnt believe in it, the Night Lords had already been censored and would have been the next target for the Space Wolves.

In regards to the Alpha Legion and the Cabal, we only know the History that happened, the visions the Cabal showed Alpharius and Omegon could have been a different future which via their actions didnt happen and we got the 40k timeline we know and love.

To me the Heresy was inevitable, at some point the Crusade was going to end and all the Primarchs knew it was coming and had started to think what was going to happen to them next. Even if the Emperor had completed the Webway portal, sooner rather than later there would have been no foes to fight. What happens to a weapon you have no use for? You either bin it, put it in storage or replace it with a better weapon. Only a few Primarchs had peace time skills and therefore a role to play.

Thanks for the answers so far: )

heresy4life wrote:To me the Heresy was inevitable, at some point the Crusade was going to end and all the Primarchs knew it was coming and had started to think what was going to happen to them next. Even if the Emperor had completed the Webway portal, sooner rather than later there would have been no foes to fight. What happens to a weapon you have no use for? You either bin it, put it in storage or replace it with a better weapon. Only a few Primarchs had peace time skills and therefore a role to play.

This argument has been passed around so much, but tbh i think it's not true.
Necrons awaking on worlds (yes, they won't be able to use the warp if the emperor had managed to sepparate the warp from reality, but they would still awake on worlds, tens of thousands at a time), Tyranids drifting through the void (afaik they don't use warptravel, but it seems like the swarm is trying to expose some tyranids to the warp)..and those are the two factions i always see coming out ontop of every "who will win in the end" discussion So..plenty of stuff to kill.
Also, without the perils of the warp, the eldar civilization might bloom once more (also using gateway) and become an even greater thread to humanity.

I agree that not every HH book has the same quality, but i did enjoy them nontheless

Regarding to lorgar: I thought the emperor told him not to worship him form the beginning, and after he failed to do so he rebuked him?

Angron: I agree he is very 1 dimensional, but i hope they will change that. It's not like there isn't room for a tragic story between him killing of his own sons after being recovered and the HH

Kurze: Btw, wasn't it him who asked his fellow brothers for advice (i think Dorn?) after his world went to "$%&, but was more or less made fun of because he couldn't handle it, which almost turned into a brawl between the 2 primarchs? Maybe im mixing something up here..

It's kinda .. strange how the primarchs sometimes are superior-deluxe, and the next second they act like kids ..

edit:
Perturabo: Is there any source to that? I never heard that they didn't want to be the siege-master, or that others got the praise for their victories. The only thing i know is that he and Dorn clashed because neither would admit that the other could beat him in a siege-game

The Iron WArriors were used in almost every engagement in the Heresy. To the point where 5 Iron Warriors were forced to quell a world spanning rebellion.
Because they were so disperced only several squads would fight alongside massive forces of the other Legions. Despite their heroic contributions they were overshadowed by the other Legions greater involvment.

heresy4life wrote:To me the Heresy was inevitable, at some point the Crusade was going to end and all the Primarchs knew it was coming and had started to think what was going to happen to them next. Even if the Emperor had completed the Webway portal, sooner rather than later there would have been no foes to fight. What happens to a weapon you have no use for? You either bin it, put it in storage or replace it with a better weapon. Only a few Primarchs had peace time skills and therefore a role to play.

iDevour wrote:This argument has been passed around so much, but tbh i think it's not true

I'm not to sure, I think if it wasn't Horus then it certainly would have been someone else. We know that Lorgar was way down the path and maybe he and the Chaos Gods would have chosen Guilliman or The Lion. Both have the ambition to rule and the Lion is bit of a dark horse at the moment.

iDevour wrote:Regarding to lorgar: I thought the emperor told him not to worship him form the beginning, and after he failed to do so he rebuked him?

The Emperor let Lorgar get away with it for a very long time. Lorgar knew how his father felt about religion, but he still chose to ignore him. Both in a way, are as bad as each other in the blame game.

iDevour wrote:Kurze: Btw, wasn't it him who asked his fellow brothers for advice (i think Dorn?) after his world went to "$%&, but was more or less made fun of because he couldn't handle it, which almost turned into a brawl between the 2 primarchs? Maybe im mixing something up here.

It's kinda .. strange how the primarchs sometimes are superior-deluxe, and the next second they act like kids ..

Dorn accosted Nighthaunter for ever thinking that his father would even contemplate killing one of his sons. We know how that went. I can't seem the find the point you are referring to but I vaguely remember reading that and I found something along the same lines involving Peturabo

Perturabo was by this time tired of repeatedly having to prove his worth and now, after all his battles, the thought of being the only Legion unable to hold its own home world appalled him.

iDevour wrote:
Perturabo: Is there any source to that? I never heard that they didn't want to be the siege-master, or that others got the praise for their victories. The only thing i know is that he and Dorn clashed because neither would admit that the other could beat him in a siege-game

From Index Astartes: Iron Warriors

The Iron Warriors were turning into a garrison Legion with tiny deployments all over the Imperium. For example, the infamous Iron Keep on Delgas II was garrisoned by one squad of ten Iron Warriors despite the world having a disgruntled population of almost 130 million. Resentment began to build up throughout the Legion and particularly with Perturabo himself.

This was reflected in the way his deeds are recorded in the legends passed down from those times. In one famous story describing the occasion when Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan routed the Orks of Overdog Mashogg, Perturabo features only as the 'comrade' who calculated the optimum way to bypass Mashogg's low orbit defences.

As the pyres burned through the long Olympian night, the Iron Warriors slowly realised the extent of what they had done. One moment they were humanity's heroes assaulting the Hrud and the next they were committing genocide. Perturabo was like a man emerging from a drunken stupor who finds blood on his hands, only dimly aware of how it got there, but is aware of an oppressive feeling of shame nonetheless. He knew that the Emperor could never forgive him his crime.

Mortarion didn't like the way that he had replaced one Tyrant for another, nor how he was not able accomplish his goal without the Emperors assistance.

The information about Peturabo is pretty spot on, they were the underappreciated wardogs. But Currently rereading the Flight of the Eisenstein it's hinted Mortarion felt the same way. During the trip to deliver the distress signal from the Istvaan system to Horus' ship he is speaking with Garro and makes a mention of it. It is a single line but as it had been written fitting around the previous books which had revealed the stories of Horus, Fulgrim, the Istvaan massacres it seems to have been written as an explanation line.

Angron I believe went over to Horus on ideology. He believed in unification, a warriors code and the fact that war is brutal.
With the IoM being given over the the bureaucrats he would have been angry at the slight to the warriors winning the galaxy for humanity. The fact his way of making war had been controversial incurring the Emperors ire and being rebuked would have made him bitter.

Alpharius and the Cabal was a great point in the HH series for me, though I suspect how much of this chaos engineered after all, the legion siding with Horus ended up with the stagnation and effects they claimed they wished to avoid. Perhaps they knew nothing good was on xenos TV for a few millennia so wanted something to watch while watching popcorn?

Kruze I think was the tragic fall of ideals story. He wanted peace, justice, order. So took up the mantle of Batman for his adoptive homeworld in order to impose his ideals for the greater good upon it. It just happened these methods were what people respond to from tyrants. Upon being found and given his legion to make worlds compliant he used these methods which in turn got the Night Lords a sinister reputation and himself in trouble with the Emperor.
Undaunted though, he sees the truth of the IoM itself reflected in his homeworld, a tyrant needing to have those within it complying to the order the tyrant envisages.
When he is censered for this behavour and rebuked, he rebels at the hypocrasy and ultimately sees the future of the Imperium within his own world going back to the way it was before his reign of terror made them into his model society.
By allowing himself to be killed he shows the Imperium is wrong to decry him and his methods when they themselves utilise the same tools.
Side with us, or perish is always an ultimatum to make people think through their fear.

Thanks for all the info, that put the Iron Warriors in a completely new light for me!

Pilau Rice wrote:
I'm not to sure, I think if it wasn't Horus then it certainly would have been someone else. We know that Lorgar was way down the path and maybe he and the Chaos Gods would have chosen Guilliman or The Lion. Both have the ambition to rule and the Lion is bit of a dark horse at the moment.

Sorry, i think i got that wrong. I thought this was going in the direction of the "the Emperor knew and let it happen so his legions would always have a war to fight"-argument

Mortarion: Believed in Typhon (Typhus) way too much when Typhon had, in fact, been an agent of Nurgle from the get go. He lost his astropaths (Don't remember if Typhon killed them or convinced everyone that they needed to be killed) in the warp on the way to Istvaan so he relied on Typhon to guide his fleet through. Unfortunately, he guided them into the jaws of Nurgle. The Lord of Decay struck them down with diseases most unpleasant but wouldn't kill them, ironic because the Death Guard were supposed to be the most resilient of the marines, until Mortarion literally begged for salvation and he begged Nurgle too. He got salvation, the diseases didn't hurt anymore but that was because they were now on Grandaddy Nurgle's team.

Typhus killed the Astropaths, claiming they were loyal to the Emperor, then said his own powers would let them move safely through the Warp.

That was during the wafrp trip to earth wasn't it though? It's the motivation to go over to Horus that people are trying to deduce .
Though it's possibly akin to the Lorgar thing with Typhons trusted advisor role having too much sway after he began worshipping Nurgle. Again stemming from the Word Bearers influences and the lodges as is mentioned in Flight of the Eisenstien.
I'm still leaning towards underappreciated again though.

Mortarion isn't really expanded on, so it probably is similar to the Iron Warriors.

heresy4life wrote:To me the Heresy was inevitable, at some point the Crusade was going to end and all the Primarchs knew it was coming and had started to think what was going to happen to them next. Even if the Emperor had completed the Webway portal, sooner rather than later there would have been no foes to fight. What happens to a weapon you have no use for? You either bin it, put it in storage or replace it with a better weapon. Only a few Primarchs had peace time skills and therefore a role to play.

"Do you really think the Crusade will ever end? There will always be some new threat, some new battle." HH

Even if the entire galaxy were to Fall to the Imperium, there would still be new fights. New galaxies to conquer, new races to beat. Humanity is expansion and war.

Mortarion loathed any kind of weakness, and soon grew to hate the citizens he was sworn to protect because they were too weak to protect themselves. This "enslavement" to the weak pushed him away from the imperium. What pulled to chaos was the promise of complete invulnerability, the thing that Mortarion craved most.

If Typhon was a Nurgle agent from the beginning, shouldn't it have showed? I remember a short story, i think it was from "Dark Imperium", were the only reason they find out someone is a traitor is because they see a pustule on his neck, almost hidden beneath the armor.
But i cant believe that Typhon always ran around with a turtleneck etc

Maybe it was less obvious for him? Or, being in a trusted position, no one thought to check?

iDevour wrote:If Typhon was a Nurgle agent from the beginning, shouldn't it have showed? I remember a short story, i think it was from "Dark Imperium", were the only reason they find out someone is a traitor is because they see a pustule on his neck, almost hidden beneath the armor.
But i cant believe that Typhon always ran around with a turtleneck etc

Was that the one with the Silver Skulls helping some guard at a polar region on a planet and there was no darkness? Recounted by a veteran of the campaign to someone from the medical folks looking to cure a similar outbreak? If so think it was called Pestilence, it was in the Deathwing collection of short stories too. Certainly one of the best and shows how things can slip by.
Also Erebus had led Typhon down the path in the Lodges iirc.

Durza wrote:Maybe it was less obvious for him? Or, being in a trusted position, no one thought to check?

Well before the heresy noone would've known what to make of such marks anyways. But i doubt they would've gone unnoticed. At least for the other legions there are frequent descriptions of training in robes or with bare upper body etc, not to mention apothecary checks after fights (i don't think he never got wounded).
Well, maybe they just never mentioned it..

I never understand the argument that states the Primarchs are weapons and would eventually be obsolete. For one, even if the IoM gained control of the whole galaxy there would still be the bug problem. You know, that race that has wiped out a galaxy already and looking for a tasty snack. How long would that war last??

Secondly, Primarchs are not one track mind killing machines. They are all, for the most part, incredibly intelligent and charming individuals. Im sure at least Fulgrim, Magnus (if he isnt sitting on the throne), Sanguineous, Vulkan, Alpharius, Johnson and Dorn could go on leading there own "little empires"? No?