Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Eh plans change. He himself started the Inquisition and he knew the "Imperial truth" had failed to work as planned.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:The Thunder warriors didn't fit with the next evolution of the Emperor's plan. The Space Marines were as much part of the Emperor's vision as anything else.

I've already said this much on the Thunder Warriors, uniting Terra was their task, they succeeded and were then terminated when they weren't useful.

Veteran Sergeant wrote: It wasn't like the end of the Great Crusade would be the end of warfare in the galaxy.

No, but nothing the united Imperium of Man couldn't handle.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:You guys are falling for the same lie that Chaos tricked Horus with, lol.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we just see things as they are without being blinded by the glamours of the Emperor This isn't the only opinion I have on the Emperor, there's one point of view that he was a good man and did his best as a father.

Hunterindarkness wrote:

IGdude354 wrote:well wouldn't it be logical to keep at least one legion around? ( for peacekeeping) and maybe send the other legions to possibly work on expanding the IoM to other galaxies? I also don't think he would be able to keep the Primarchs happy while he exterminated their legions slowly...

Why would he need to?They failed and outlived their usefulness. They are small in number and many of the chapters have defects and the gear is old, little understood and sometimes ill kept. He crafted them, it is damned easy for him to replace them.

Exactly, when the Space Marines and Primarchs completed their mission of wiping out xenos and uniting mankind, what would be their relevance. Even during the Crusade the Emperor was replacing them.

Yep, he was a dick that way. When something was no longer useful he had no need for it.


Some people find it odd I think he planned to do away with the admech after the crusade as well.

Pilau Rice wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote: It wasn't like the end of the Great Crusade would be the end of warfare in the galaxy.

No, but nothing the united Imperium of Man couldn't handle.

Well, sure, but the same can be said of the Great Crusade, lol. I mean, the fluff doesn't really make sense when you realize there were only 1,000,000 or so total Space Marines, even during the Great Crusade (If the Ultramarines had 250K, and the Word Bearers 100K-ish, and everybody else was way smaller). The Imperial Army was still doing the bulk of the heavy lifting during the Crusade, and yet, for whatever reason, the Space Marines were considered necessary. If anything, a scale-back of the Imperial Army would have made more sense than getting rid of the Space Marines. Moving troops from place to place can't be cheap. Legions require far less assets than Army Divisions if all you need are shock and assault troops to repel invasions, or bring compliant worlds into like.

Logistically speaking, of course. De-com most of the Navy and Army, and retain the Legion Fleets. Suddenly you need only about 5% of the assets you needed before (assuming some Navy and Army assets are retained), whereas reducing the 1% doesn't really do any good as you still need vast fleets to move hundreds of thousands, if not more, troops around. A truly efficient Post Crusade Imperium keeps most of the Marines (eliminating the uncivilized ones like the Night Lords, World Eaters, Space Wolves, etc), and gets rid of the Army because the Army is slow moving, expensive to move, and inefficient (just like in real life ).

If the Emperor was alive, he would probably crushed Abbadon before anything else, got the Astromech's to shut the warp where the Tyranids came in, got the guard and exterminated the Tau, and then killed Luther and the whole Dark Angel legion for betraying Lion 'El Johnson. The Eldar he would then purge from the galaxy. If he survived he would do what the Necrons did; Purged the life from the galaxy, with the exception of Humanity. He would then slowly turn onto first Russ of the Space Wolves and the impure Space Marines and would rip the whole Imperium apart with SM's vs IG and die by a Primarch that way.

HH: We still don't know enough yet to actually declare what the Emperor's true intentions were re: Primarchs and Astartes. One of the driving themes of the series (and which contributed to Horus rebellion at the behest of Chaos) was his uncertainty over the Emperor's own plans, the Primarchs/Astartes uncertainty over the future (The Emperor keeping secrets from everyone was one of his biggest mistakes in the whole series), and the general 'less than perfect' way the Crusade and the Imperial Truth has come across because of that secrecy. It's all given Chaos plenty of wiggle room in which to plant its interpretation of events and create doubt, and it's still up in the air whether what has been insinuated in various novels is correct, wrong, or something different or in between.


If the Emperor survived and had won the duel, for one thing he wouldn't be the guy he was before this all happened. He'd be a harder person (at least if you believe the part about him casting out the good parts of himself) and his Imperium is severely - possibly irrevocobly - changed by the entire Heresy. It's unlikely the aspects like the Remembrancers or other 'upbeat' elements would remain. Things would be more restricted, more militant. Terra would have bene devastated, and odds are the Crusade would have foundered anyhow (If for no other reaosn they have a major enemy to stop.) The rebel legions would still be around, and probably still be fighting (although they probably would still retreat to the Eye, including under Abbadon.) and Chaos would still have gained a significant victory in blunting Big E's plans. Not as total as they had gained, but still significant, and gained a substantial boost to their own forces as a result.

What's more, only some of the Primarchs would be alive to help hold things together, which should also help a bit. Sanguinius is still dead, as is Ferrus Manus. Vulkan is still (probably) missing, The Lion will (probably) still fall to Luther unless Big E intervenes there himself, so we'll have Dorn, Guilliman, Corax, Russ and Khan.

I expect the Imperium would turn to something of a middle ground between the Great Crusade/HEresy era and what we get in the 'modern' 40K. Perhaps not as backwards and superstitous, not as religious (although the Imperial Cult is going to simply have gone underground rather than stopped completely - it gained tremendous traction during the HEresy, and its refusla to die will only complicate things for the Imperium rather than helping.) and its bound to keep alot more of its neat technological bits (the IG/Army gets to keep antigrav vehicles, for one thing.) but its going to be more militant, more repressive, and we'll still probably end up getting the Inquisition and such. An interesting question woudl be would the Sisters of Battle still evolve, and if so, in what form would they show up as? I doubt the Reign of blood/Age of Apostasy happens, but that's hardly a bad thing.