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Yes, I think the scattering of the primarchs was the result of the Emperor cutting deal with the Ruinous Powers to create them in the first place. Again, this is just my take, but the Emperor not only saw it as a calculated sacrifice but as a necessary step to ultimately incite the Heresy itself, which would be his smokescreen against the Warp Gods.


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Omegus wrote:A lot of what people see as unbridled arrogance really strikes me as desperation and denial.

Two sides of the same coin.

Brother Thomas wrote:So everyone thinks magnus is such a traitor, he contacted the emperor with the quickest and pnly means possibly to effectively warn the emperor of what was about to happen <sarcasm> wow, what a terrible guy. </sarcasm>

No he should of used Navigators send a message. It would of been easier and would stopped the entire webway project in turning into a MASSIVE failure.
Magnus deserved what he got. And his sons had to pay for it. They didn't deserve it.
He deserved to be hanged.

The Emperor told him not to use pyschic powers or else he will be wraith upon them. They disobeyed and did it anyway. They were suppose to be arrested but horus said no kill them all. Magnus did not know that horus sent the wolves. Not the emperor. To destroy them all.

Tadashi wrote:

Manchu wrote:Magnus did not simply "use the most efficient means to warn the Emperor." The ritual used by Magnus to contact Terra blew a hole through the Warp that allowed daemons to invade the Golden Palace from within.

Have to agree on that account.

I don't know where anyone would get the idea that the Emperor would forgive direct insubordination.

Because Magnus is the one else apart from the old man who can actually use the Throne and survive.

Could you find a citation on that?

I think it's just a reasonable inference.

Emperor = "survives" on Golden Throne for five ten thousand years

Malcador = killed by Golden Throne is some relatively short period of time (minutes/days/months -- we haven't had that HH novel yet)

Since Magnus is usually referred to as the second most powerful human psyker ever to live, the idea is that he would have at least lasted longer than Malcador.

Manchu wrote:Magnus did not simply "use the most efficient means to warn the Emperor." The ritual used by Magnus to contact Terra blew a hole through the Warp that allowed daemons to invade the Golden Palace from within.

Ever consider the possibility that this wouldn't have happened had the Emperor told the guy who was meant to sit on the Webway that he was making a big Webway gate?

The idea that Magnus needs to know in order to be obedient is a sign that Magnus is not truly obedient.

The idea that the Emperor should be obeyed mindlessly without having to explain anything to his sons and most allegedly trusted generals is a sign that the Emperor isn't worthy of commanding.

He is the Emperor. He owes his subjects no explanation. The loyals ones will demand none because nothing can be demanded from the Master of Mankind.

Well at least you are under no delusions that he is anything more than a tyrant, albeit a very powerful one. Good on you!

The emperor obviously loved his sons. He is 3/4 dead because of his mercy with horus. So why couldn't he have just explained a few simple thngs to poor magnus?

The best answer is because the authors didn't have an explanation. Not all questions have answers, not all authors think of reasons why a living God would even feel the need to explain something to a subject he believed loyal.

As for the Emperor not making mistakes, that's an opinion, but in reality it's hard to contest the fact that on the eve of the Emperor's ideal of uniting the entire galaxy under humanity's peaceful rule, the Horus Heresy happened. Now again, I don't know much about the HH, but I find it hard to accept that a holy father figure who was strict, but nurturing to all of humanity suddenly became neglectful enough to risk its very existence as He remains almost completely powerless against the evils that assail them because of His favored son's fall and near coup d'éta. Bottom line, the Emperor made mistakes, to say otherwise only means you have eclipsed reason by zeal and jumped into the Age of Apostasy.

Just a though. If the things did go according to plan, Thousand Sons being brought to terra, Magnus babysitting the golden throne and the legion being pardoned. They would've kicked so much Chaos A** during the siege of terra

Tadashi wrote:Your forgetting that Magnus and the Sons weren't meant to be destroyed. Magnus' punishment was supposed to be to keep the Golden Throne under control while the Emperor oversaw the Terran defense and repaired the damage to the Webway. And the Thousand Sons would have gotten a pardon anyway - by the time of the Siege of Terra, the Edicts had been amended, considering that the Emperor personally directed Blood Angel and Imperial Fist Librarians during the penultimate assault on the Imperial Palace. Check Index Astartes III, pp. 40-47.

Agreed, If I remember correctly didn't Horus or Lorgar basically twist the Emperor's words in Russ' mind to the point that went from bringing Magnus back to Terra, to thinking that the whole legion as well as Magnus needed to be wiped out? This may be outdated fluff and I can't remember the source so don't crucify me.

It was Horus and Valdor that whispered in Russ' ear. But honestly, Russ was ready to attack Magnus back on Shrike if Lorgar hadn't intervened (and in one possible alternate universe, Russ would have still attacked and Lorgar would have been killed in their battle).

Leman Russ indeed was ready to kill Magnus for the horrible crime of his legion defending themselves from the attacking Space Wolves. They went out of their way to nonlethally incapacitate the attacking Marines, which Russ, who by the way killed several Thousand Sons with his psychic roar, considered grievous enough an offense to try to murder a fellow Primarch.

Such a nice guy, his actions are indeed all totally justified.

Manchu wrote:
The Emperor did not make a mistake regarding them. Magnus was a traitor. He masked his pride behind self-delusions of "good intentions." If he was truly loyal, he would have obeyed the Emperor. But because he cared more for his own ego than for his father, he slowly destroyed whatever trust the Emperor had formerly placed in him.

Magnus insisted that he knew better than the Emperor what was best for the Imperium. This is the very definition of treachery. The title "Master of Mankind" brooks no questioning except by traitors.

Written from a fluff perspective this is absolutely spot on, from our not so grimdark perspective Magnus wasn't a traitor until after the wolves came. There's a common phrase about a road and good intentions, it applies to Magnus.

Brother Thomas wrote:Well, psykers are very prevalent in M41 and completely accepted among the SM chapters, so why were the poor thousand sons executed for it?

Mostly because the fluff has always said they were. There is also somewhat of a difference between sorcery and psykers in the 40k universe although that line tends to be pretty fluid. You have to look at the 40k universe as an intentionally conflicted world in which logic plays no part.

Brother Thomas wrote:So everyone thinks magnus is such a traitor, he contacted the emperor with the quickest and pnly means possibly to effectively warn the emperor of what was about to happen <sarcasm> wow, what a terrible guy. </sarcasm>

He disobeyed the Emperor and opened the deepest sanctum of the Imperium to the enemies of mankind. if James Bond cut a bloody swath to the Queen and crashed an Aston Martin through her bedroom wall to tell her zie Germans were coming they'd shoot him too. use the bloody phone (astropaths)

What if the phone was off the hook or compromised by zoe Germans?

" the Emperor not only saw it as a calculated sacrifice but as a necessary step to ultimately incite the Heresy itself, which would be his smokescreen against the Warp Gods. "

Are you saying that the emperor wanted a heresy?

do you think the emperor knew Horus was corrupt from the start?

what do you mean a smoke screen against the warp gods?

why would the emperor bother creating the primarchs if he knew the chaos gods were going to claim a bunch of them anyways... so far over half were chaos or destroyed, 2 legions are gone. 1 of them were clearly close to Rogal dorn, Lorgar, and Magnus.

as far as i know, Lorgar is the only primarch who was always going to be corrupted

Konrad Curze, was always going to be to killed by his brothers or destroyed by the emperor eventually just like the lost legions, same with Magnus..

The world eaters are probably in the same vote as lorgar, curze, magnus...

Frecklesonfire wrote:" the Emperor not only saw it as a calculated sacrifice but as a necessary step to ultimately incite the Heresy itself, which would be his smokescreen against the Warp Gods. "

Are you saying that the emperor wanted a heresy?

do you think the emperor knew Horus was corrupt from the start?

what do you mean a smoke screen against the warp gods?

why would the emperor bother creating the primarchs if he knew the chaos gods were going to claim a bunch of them anyways... so far over half were chaos or destroyed, 2 legions are gone. 1 of them were clearly close to Rogal dorn, Lorgar, and Magnus.

as far as i know, Lorgar is the only primarch who was always going to be corrupted

Konrad Curze, was always going to be to killed by his brothers or destroyed by the emperor eventually just like the lost legions, same with Magnus..

The world eaters are probably in the same vote as lorgar, curze, magnus...

No, it was the Butcher's Nails that screwed the World Eaters, without that they could have been a functional part of the dynamic. Of course, it is one of the greatest fluff failures ever -the Emperor kidnapping Angron and leaving his buddies to die - in blatant disregard of how he treated pretty much every other primarch. I mean, let the War Hounds deploy themselves to support him... not that f'ing hard. Get a recruiting world out of it at least.

Unless he wanted some of the Primarchs to be dissatisfied with him ...

Well, given the events in Outcast Dead, I can only think that the Emperor knew how the whole Heresy would play out and how it would happen, and he just steered events into the best-case scenario. Like he said, sometimes the only way to win is not to lose.

Omegus wrote:Well, given the events in Outcast Dead, I can only think that the Emperor knew how the whole Heresy would play out and how it would happen, and he just steered events into the best-case scenario. Like he said, sometimes the only way to win is not to lose.

And even if we assume what the Cabal told the twins was true, the Emperor would most probably prefer to take a gamble on His eventual (or not) rebirth as opposed to letting Horus and win - ensuring Mankind's destruction.

Well, at the very least it buys him time.

Also, Tadashi, the Ravens are cool and all, but are you really quoting C.S. Goto in your signature? For shame. For shame.

Omegus wrote:Well, at the very least it buys him time.

Also, Tadashi, the Ravens are cool and all, but are you really quoting C.S. Goto in your signature? For shame. For shame.

Considering that there's no other source apart from the games for the Blood Ravens, its not like I have much of a choice, do I?

Manchu wrote:Unless he wanted some of the Primarchs to be dissatisfied with him ...

I'd rather just view the Emperor as fallible.

My ONLY gripe about the magnus and his battle with Russ, was Magnus pulling (or trying to pull) what appeared to be an Obi-wan Kenobi... kinda hammy. Other than that, I think magnus got his just deserts, as sad a it was. After all, he had been warned. Warned perhaps more than once as well if we consider the possible rumours about the missing two Legions.

Feelings for the 1k sons and their plight aside, Magnus really did think he knew best and put the Empire in jeopardy (as did his traitor brothers). The Emperor gave him a chance to 'save himself' from the influence of the warp and failed as he believed he could overcome the powers of Chaos. Such is the hubris of god-like men...

Russ, being Russ simply followed his genetic 'design' and relished putting his brother out of his misery. Call him the Emperors lap-dog if you will, but how should a father of gods respond when the future of humanity is at stake?

He even gave Horus a chance to fight off the power of Chaos as well, at the cost of his own mortal existence. What else should the Emperor have done? How many chances do you give someone when the stakes are so high?

Since the game is stagnant, we have this strange view that the Empire will exist forever. The ugly truth is, however, because of the traitors and their exploits, humanity is a dying species and will soon, by the standards of the universe, find itself quickly blotted out of existence.

What do you mean tried to pull an Obi-wan Kenobi? If anything, Russ is the one that did that, considering he was getting his face introduced to his ass for most of the fight, when in a masterful display of blind flailing, he managed to hit Magnus in his only vulnerable spot.

As for the Emperor giving him a chance to "save himself", that's clearly a bunch of nonsense. We're given every indication that the Emperor was caving to outside pressure when he made his decree. His grip on the Empire was far more tenuous than people imagine, considering there were still rebellious factions on Terra at the height of his power. It's the allegory of the cave, except in this case it's the Emperor showing the cave-dweller the wonderous world outside, and then ordering him back to the cave. And we, from our omniscient point of view, know that the Emperor's decision was extremely foolish, since it disarmed the Imperium of its most potent weapon.

So again, it goes back to the theory that either the Emperor was the most incompetent and stupid god-like being of all time, or everything was "just as planned". In which case, do you blame Judas for his betrayal, when that betrayal was according to God's plan? Who is the one really betrayed here?

Please note that the primarchs all had free will. The Emperor demanded that they show blind obedience to him. Some did, others didn't. If we know anything about 40k, we can say that the difference between being a loyalist and a traitor in 40k isn't the difference between being good and evil. The traitors had their reasons, yes. And the Emperor may well have understood that even as he made his plans. I tend to think he wasn't going to get in the way of their betraying him because that is what he was hoping for. I also think some of the Primarchs surprised him -- e.g., the Lion and Fulgrim. Still, the major players danced according to his tune so all's well that ends well.

GW Displayed the Emperor wrong IMO. Hes just as bad as chaos

I'd argue that if one is a human being, the Emperor is a lot better than Chaos.