Who's to blame for the Horus Heresy?

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**TheWanderer**

tneva82 wrote:
oldravenman3025 wrote:
Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Who do you consider to be most at fault when it comes to laying blame for the Horus Heresy? Who contributed most? This is a broad topic, as there is plenty of blame to go around, and there are still plenty of Horus Heresy novels being released. I find myself absolutely loathing Erebus - he's sneaky, conniving, and incredibly evil.

While everybody screwed up at one point or another in the days leading up to the Heresy (including the Emperor), the Horus Heresy is misnamed. It should be the "Erebus Heresy", since he was the main one who got the treason ball rolling. When it comes to the Imperial VIP side of Chaos mischief, Erebus was the "beachhead" (for want of a better term) for Chaos to spread their vile influence amongst the Primarchs (who were both the Imperium's pointmen and the Imperium's major weak point).

Well I like that misnaming. It's good IN UNIVERSE name. After all for Imperium at large Erebus's role wasn't known. Wonder if any loyals ever found out? Horus however...He's one known pretty much everywhere so when he's the poster boy of the heresy so to speak...No wonder heresy got named Horus Heresy.

I think Erebus is bigged up a bit too much really, even if he wasnt there it would just have been one of the others being the first to drop.

**Nomeny**

The Emperor is to blame. It's spelled out, as only Graham McNeil can, that he arranged for the Horus Heresy so that humanity could survive through the sacrifice of himself and his progeny. The Primarchs were created through collusion with the Chaos Gods in a kind of a gamble on both sides, the Emperor hoping that they could build up the Imperium enough to survive the storm.

**reds8n**

...hmm... generally we prefer it if 2 year old threads aren't dug up like this.

But we'll leave it this time, please bear it in mind for the future.

Ta.

**FabricatorGeneralMike**

Nomeny wrote:
The Emperor is to blame. It's spelled out, as only Graham McNeil can, that he arranged for the Horus Heresy so that humanity could survive through the sacrifice of himself and his progeny. The Primarchs were created through collusion with the Chaos Gods in a kind of a gamble on both sides, the Emperor hoping that they could build up the Imperium enough to survive the storm.

Well...actually it was a Chaos vision shown to Horus by the Chaos gods who totally told him about that time that E-Money borrowed some power from them to make something, sometime, somewhere....because the Chaos Gods are totally trustworthy and why would they lie to Horus?

Yeah yeah I know rocket ship, perpetual, -Plot-™, etc etc etc.... I know GW is going to do what they do best, take a good idea and run it way past its best before date and flog it like a dead horse when it should of been taken behind the barn like old yeller and put out of its misery a while ago.

The whole Horus Heresy is just dragging on way to long. There is WAY to much -Plot-™. I lost interest a while back, wake me up when we get to Terra.

They need to end the heresy and move onto the scouring.... that's where things can get really interesting. Formation of the inquisition and the Grey Knights. The rich and powerful playing their games while squishing the normal folk under there heels in a bid to gain whatever scrap of power they can. The really powerful jockeying to become High Lords of Terra. The dismantling of the Legions into Chapters. Robute trying to get anyone and everyone to read his book. The rise of the Adeptus Ministorum. So much more potential there, so many hooks for bolter porn, to power struggles played by the powerful to a Romeo and Juilet story between two Navigators on the opposite side of the heresy

**Aijec**

jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
I think the Heresy and the manner in which it ultimately unfolded stems ultimately from the Emperor being a total sham. I personally can't decide if this is a product of poor writing or if we just haven't been shown enough about the Emperor's actions, but there are just so many mind bogglingly poor decisions being made by a being that we've been told: 1) watched humanity for thousands of years before acting; 2) is a super scientist whose ideology is one of reason; and, 3) is massively psychic. Two big ideas jump out at me in this regard:

His total lack of understanding of emotions:
-The handling of the Word Bearers. He put the ideology of his vision ahead of the character of Lorgar. Rather than compromising or having an open dialogue, he publicly shamed his most fragile son. This shows an absolute lack of understanding of emotional responses.
-The acceptance of Curze and Angron as generals of his armies. It doesn't make any sense given what we're told about the Emperor, that he couldn't tell these two were train wrecks. He could have folded their legions into the existing forces and not have risked the obvious consequences of their behavior.
-There are also probably other examples, such as with Perturabo, who felt unrecognized or under appreciated, or Mortarion, who was kind of a broody jerk and probably needed a hug.

His ironic inconsistent application of reason:
-Denying the primarchs and their legions knowledge about the warp and of chaos. This one is a doozy. What if Magnus had actually understood the nature of the Ruinous Powers? What if Fulgrim had known to be wary of chaos artifacts and demons? What if Lorgar had understood that the reason the emperor didn't want to be worshiped was that there actually were gods in the warp and that rationalism was the only way to overcome them? That he didn't share the information with them is embarrassing.
-We're told he designed the natures of the primarchs. It's arguable that his work was affected by their casting out into the universe by the gods. However we're still continually told that the primarchs manifest the spectrum of his character. If that is the case, his handling of Lorgar and Magnus become even more troubling. We're led to believe that he designed a psychic juggernaut and a zealot, but didn't follow up on his designs with proper instruction? That's not very reasonable.

Well written. It's funny that he keeps information about the warp secret from his sons. Breaks his own teachings.

**ThunderFury 2575**

Rak'Gol

**Xathrodox86**

The magnificent duo - Erebus and Kor Phaeron. Lorgar was just a tool, which those two wielded magnificently.

Also blame the Emperor, since he obviously made a ton of mistakes and was a horrible parent/leader. I hope that the "Master of Mankind" by ADB will shed some positive light on his decissions, because as of now, he's just a brain-dead moron.