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.

Malice could be a lost Primarch, destroyed by the Emperor after learning of Chaos and being zealots bent on combating it... and thus, spreading belief in it and undermining the Imperial "Truth."

Vojcek wrote:
I can imagine the records of the lost Legions being purged due to propaganda view if they were wiped by xenos. Astartes are supposed to be unstoppable, unbeatable military force. Being snuffed by xenos could quite hurt the morale of Imperium and irreversibly damage the image of Legions as almighty and superior to anything xenos.

And having half the legions go rogue isn't hurting morale?-)

That's the weird thing. Half the legions go renegade and they are still on records. Something happens with 2 and they are so secret even primarches didn't speak of them together.

tneva82 wrote:

Vojcek wrote:
I can imagine the records of the lost Legions being purged due to propaganda view if they were wiped by xenos. Astartes are supposed to be unstoppable, unbeatable military force. Being snuffed by xenos could quite hurt the morale of Imperium and irreversibly damage the image of Legions as almighty and superior to anything xenos.

And having half the legions go rogue isn't hurting morale?-)

That's the weird thing. Half the legions go renegade and they are still on records. Something happens with 2 and they are so secret even primarches didn't speak of them together.

The only thing I can think of is that they became pacifists. I think the Imperium would view that as worse than heresy.

There are lots of possible reasons why the primarchs wouldn't want to talk about the missing two, not the least of which is the emperor telling them not to. The two front runners in my head cannon are shame (the two legions did something so shameful that the other legions don't even want to talk about it), or the emperor messing with their minds. I'm leaning towards the later, because the emperor was kind of a douche, and it wouldn't serve if the primarchs spent a lot of time thinking about the two who had disobeyed.

As for the legions that went over to chaos not having their records purged, I imagine if the IoM had won the HH rather than just surviving it, the emperor would have purged them as well. With the emperor not responsive, and the threat still on going they couldn't afford to lose any information on the traitor legions.

I think I read somewhere that the UltraMarine Legion's numbers swelled by a good bit around the same time as one of the Legions was "lost", hinting that the UMs absorbed some of the Legion's numbers after their Primarch was gone.

Although, I like the mystery. It keeps creative options open

-

I think the UM getting the lost legions marines is a case of unreliable narrator, since it was two world eaters speculating on how the ultramarines had the numbers they did. The answer to their question is probably that the ultramarines had an easier route, didn't take part in the rangdan xenocide, and the worlds of ultramar were able to be recruited from more quickly because of the care RG took when conquering worlds.

tneva82 wrote:

Vojcek wrote:
I can imagine the records of the lost Legions being purged due to propaganda view if they were wiped by xenos. Astartes are supposed to be unstoppable, unbeatable military force. Being snuffed by xenos could quite hurt the morale of Imperium and irreversibly damage the image of Legions as almighty and superior to anything xenos.

And having half the legions go rogue isn't hurting morale?-)

That's the weird thing. Half the legions go renegade and they are still on records. Something happens with 2 and they are so secret even primarches didn't speak of them together.

Well, hard to hide information about 9 legions that go rogue and burn half of the galaxy including throneworld :-) On the other hand hiding information about failure of two legions in relatively isolated event could be easily doable. It seems similar to me like when Inquisition tried to hide information about existence of demons. This quite worked for ten thousand years until the Great rift opened when it was no more possible to hide it anymore.

We can actually work out roughly what happened to the lost legions from facts revealed thus far. So. Facts we know about the lost legions:-

-Sanguinius was scared that the genetic flaw of the Black Thirst being revealed would cause his legion to be destroyed. The logical conclusion is that some biological flaw must have occurred regarding one of the lost legions to base that assumption on.
- Both were destroyed in between the years 30,840 (the Finding of Lion El'Jonson) & 31,560 (The Drop Site Massacre). This means that one of them was potentially destroyed before the finding of Perturabo, Mortarion, Curze, Angron, Lorgar and the Khan.
-That the Space Wolves were involved in the destruction of at least one legion.
-That one of the Primarchs was considered 'Lost' before he was even found by the Emperor. We know this because the Emperor dismissed two of the Primarchs as being a bad subject matter when he found Corax, even though he'd only found one of the Missing Primarchs at that time (according to the official BL order of finding leaked by Laurie Goulding).
-Vulkan used the word 'Sanction' when describing what happened to the Missing Primarchs. This would appear to imply one of them disobeyed the Emperor.
-It is stated that a Black Scroll has been dispatched by Malcador to a Legion's homeworlds only twice before, the implication being for the dissolution of a Legion.
-Book seven of the Horus Heresy says that entire Legions were lost in the Rangdan Xenocides, which took place in the 30,860's.
-Lorgar stated that two of his Brothers 'Failed' whilst the rest ''turned' on the Emperor. So it is unlikely that the two went into open rebellion against the Emperor prior to their destruction.
-Cawl declares that the destroyed Legions were not at fault, nor was their geneseed, but the Primarchs (or their actions).
-There is a stated rumour that the Ultramarines grew large at the time one of the other Legions vanished. This has been stated by the author to have just been stuff he was making up as he went along and a rumour as opposed to anything canon. But still worthy of note (as the Universe exists independent of any individual author).



So. With all of those facts; we can draw up something of a hypothesis relating to both of them.


The first 'Missing' Primarch disobeyed and 'failed' the Emperor in some irrevocable way which required sanctioning/disciplining. Judging by the fact that he went missing before the finding of Corax, the timeline means that this Primarch must have been the head of the Legion destroyed during the Rangdan Xenocide.

What do we know about the Rangdan Xenocide? We know that the Space Wolves and Dark Angels had to purge the 'bio' taint of the Rangdan Cerabvores subsequently,leaving whole sectors lifeless (never the optimal solution); which means that the Rangdan Cerabvores had some way of irrevocably infecting biological organisms. As we know that this Primarch wasn't an out and out rebel (thanks Lorgar), and the Black Scroll of Doom/Ending has been delivered before, this Primarch and his Legion must have been willingly/knowingly sacrificed over the course of the campaign. Now this could be either because they were already tainted by the Rangdan Cerabvores from the Primarch's earlier disobedience (the most likely scenario given that no other Legions were allowed to perish entirely), or that the Emperor otherwise deliberately sacrificed them because he was so hacked off at them.

Their 'sanctioning', in other words, likely took the form of a suicide run. Depending on the form that the bio-taint of the Cerabvores took (so if it involved subverting or taking control of organisms), this could potentially be where the Space Wolves gained their experience fighting other marines (exterminating their remnants).


The second Missing Primarch on the other hand, was evidently compromised before he was found. He isn't regarded as having 'turned on' the Emperor (thanks again Lorgar) likely for the very simple reason that he never joined the Emperor to begin with. Whilst the author later disclaimed the story of another legion being folded into the ultramarines; this would actually be a good reason for a Legion to have been handed a Black Scroll and disbanded. Whether it was because he was the leader of an alien confederation, had already rejected the Emperor psychically, or was warp tainted to the extreme (invent your own reason), the Emperor knew this gent was never going to be a part of the Imperium before he managed to track him down. So the ready built Legion waiting for him would have needed breaking up and dispersing.

tneva82 wrote:

Vojcek wrote:
I can imagine the records of the lost Legions being purged due to propaganda view if they were wiped by xenos. Astartes are supposed to be unstoppable, unbeatable military force. Being snuffed by xenos could quite hurt the morale of Imperium and irreversibly damage the image of Legions as almighty and superior to anything xenos.

And having half the legions go rogue isn't hurting morale? That's the weird thing. Half the legions go renegade and they are still on records. Something happens with 2 and they are so secret even primarches didn't speak of them together.

But the two lost Legions were lost very early so they didn't have that much records or fame to speak of. Maybe it was easier to just let them be forgotten, something to not mention at family gatherings? The traitors at least already had some fame, so their records weren't as easily redacted as a Legion of unknown nobodies who got wiped out on their first or second campaign.

The Romans did the same sort of stuff. A really famous Legion that got wiped out was often refounded (with any surviving veterans), traitors were kept on record but forbidden from returning home, but a fresh Legion that got wiped out was never mentioned again since obviously it's number and symbol (if any) was pure bad luck.

I can buy one of the legions getting mulched, but the emperor made heroes of the thunder warriors, despite them getting wiped out and despite the fact he was the source of their downfall. If it were as simple as failure, I'm sure there would be legends of the last stand and the sacrifice made to save humanity. You also ignore one of the more tantalizing hints, that one of the legions used tainted stock. Which is the reason I think your timeline is slightly off, because when the dark angels started recruiting from caliban they did extensive test on the purity of the humans, which would imply that they had been burned before. A Further hint is the dark angels were mauled in the radagan xenocide, and when they went to caliban they had to stop crusading to replace the losses they had sustained. It seems like a good circumstantial case that the lion was found shortly after the Xenocide.

I think when you combine those hints with the term Cerabvores you get a fate worse than death, and certainly worthy of being expunged. Cerabvores, from cerebrum and vores, so at a guess Cerabvores means brain eaters. What if the rangdans were parasites that ate peoples brains and took them over? So a naive IoM just venturing out of the local area finds a seemingly friendly and benign technologically advanced people who were eager to join the IoMs great crusade. This world/worlds are recruited from heavily by a legion (probably XI as they would have just been getting spun up at the time), and then they find out that most of the legion is infected by the Rangdans and they've been infecting the worlds they claimed for the IoM. Suddenly the IoM is facing an existential crisis, they have to purge the legion, and sterilize the worlds they claimed or else all of humanity could be taken over. The records of this legion are purged to hide just how close to extinction the emperor's great crusade brought humanity.

That still leaves the second legion a mystery.

timeline of discovery of primarchs (best guesses based on books):

http://baddice.co.uk/primarch-discovery-order/

It's probably worth noting fulgrim talks about II being found before him, so II would have likely been third primarch found.

 Grimgold wrote:
A Further hint is the dark angels were mauled in the radagan xenocide, and when they went to caliban they had to stop crusading to replace the losses they had sustained. It seems like a good circumstantial case that the lion was found shortly after the Xenocide.

Nope. We have established dates. Caliban and Jonson were found twenty years before the Xenocides.

We also don't need to guess the discovery order, it was leaked by Laurie Goulding.

I kinda wish they'd make some stories about what might have happened, a la White Wolf and VII. Provide a book that details a number of different possibilities.

 Ketara wrote:
We can actually work out roughly what happened to the lost legions from facts revealed thus far. So. Facts we know about the lost legions:-

-Sanguinius was scared that the genetic flaw of the Black Thirst being revealed would cause his legion to be destroyed. The logical conclusion is that some biological flaw must have occurred regarding one of the lost legions to base that assumption on.
- Both were destroyed in between the years 30,840 (the Finding of Lion El'Jonson) & 31,560 (The Drop Site Massacre). This means that one of them was potentially destroyed before the finding of Perturabo, Mortarion, Curze, Angron, Lorgar and the Khan.
-That the Space Wolves were involved in the destruction of at least one legion.
-That one of the Primarchs was considered 'Lost' before he was even found by the Emperor. We know this because the Emperor dismissed two of the Primarchs as being a bad subject matter when he found Corax, even though he'd only found one of the Missing Primarchs at that time (according to the official BL order of finding leaked by Laurie Goulding).
-Vulkan used the word 'Sanction' when describing what happened to the Missing Primarchs. This would appear to imply one of them disobeyed the Emperor.
-It is stated that a Black Scroll has been dispatched by Malcador to a Legion's homeworlds only twice before, the implication being for the dissolution of a Legion.
-Book seven of the Horus Heresy says that entire Legions were lost in the Rangdan Xenocides, which took place in the 30,860's.
-Lorgar stated that two of his Brothers 'Failed' whilst the rest ''turned' on the Emperor. So it is unlikely that the two went into open rebellion against the Emperor prior to their destruction.
-Cawl declares that the destroyed Legions were not at fault, nor was their geneseed, but the Primarchs (or their actions).
-There is a stated rumour that the Ultramarines grew large at the time one of the other Legions vanished. This has been stated by the author to have just been stuff he was making up as he went along and a rumour as opposed to anything canon. But still worthy of note (as the Universe exists independent of any individual author).

Not that I disbelieve you, but [Citation needed] Just for my own curiosity so I can check what's been said.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
We can actually work out roughly what happened to the lost legions from facts revealed thus far. So. Facts we know about the lost legions:-

-Sanguinius was scared that the genetic flaw of the Black Thirst being revealed would cause his legion to be destroyed. The logical conclusion is that some biological flaw must have occurred regarding one of the lost legions to base that assumption on.
- Both were destroyed in between the years 30,840 (the Finding of Lion El'Jonson) & 31,560 (The Drop Site Massacre). This means that one of them was potentially destroyed before the finding of Perturabo, Mortarion, Curze, Angron, Lorgar and the Khan.
-That the Space Wolves were involved in the destruction of at least one legion.
-That one of the Primarchs was considered 'Lost' before he was even found by the Emperor. We know this because the Emperor dismissed two of the Primarchs as being a bad subject matter when he found Corax, even though he'd only found one of the Missing Primarchs at that time (according to the official BL order of finding leaked by Laurie Goulding).
-Vulkan used the word 'Sanction' when describing what happened to the Missing Primarchs. This would appear to imply one of them disobeyed the Emperor.
-It is stated that a Black Scroll has been dispatched by Malcador to a Legion's homeworlds only twice before, the implication being for the dissolution of a Legion.
-Book seven of the Horus Heresy says that entire Legions were lost in the Rangdan Xenocides, which took place in the 30,860's.
-Lorgar stated that two of his Brothers 'Failed' whilst the rest ''turned' on the Emperor. So it is unlikely that the two went into open rebellion against the Emperor prior to their destruction.
-Cawl declares that the destroyed Legions were not at fault, nor was their geneseed, but the Primarchs (or their actions).
-There is a stated rumour that the Ultramarines grew large at the time one of the other Legions vanished. This has been stated by the author to have just been stuff he was making up as he went along and a rumour as opposed to anything canon. But still worthy of note (as the Universe exists independent of any individual author).

Not that I disbelieve you, but [Citation needed] Just for my own curiosity so I can check what's been said.

Which one? I can substantiate all of them.

I thought we already knew that the Two Lost Legions and their Primarchs were all 'found' and 'known'.

I'm not so sure about one of them being 'lost' before he could be found.

Also, at this point, with the mess they've made of the Heresy, I'm 100% for 100% Open Kimono - show and tell us everything!

Everyone makes fun of anyone who says their homebrew is one of the Lost Legions anyway.

It's right up there with 'Lost in the Warp' for "Most Ridiculed"!

In regard to one of the Unknown Primarch's being "Lost" "compromised" before he was found. Wouldn't he be the one who's creation tank was cracked before the warp storm sucked up the Primarchs? In "First Heretic" During their vision of the Scattering, Argel Tal notes that one of the infant Primarch's (I forget if it was II or XI) was desperately banging on the broken glass in panic as his capsule was sucked into the rift.

I'm pretty sure that was actual 'reality' but a twisted Chaos Dream Vision Quest etc.

 Alpharius wrote:
I thought we already knew that the Two Lost Legions and their Primarchs were all 'found' and 'known'.

I'm not so sure about one of them being 'lost' before he could be found.

Laurie Goulding went online and released the official 'Find' order of Primarchs if you care to run a quick google. In it, you see that Corax was the 18th to be found, followed by one of the unknown ones, and then Alpharius.

Yet in the story where Corax is found by the Emperor, the Emperor tells him he only has seventeen brothers, and when pressed, says that they're a story for another day.

These two facts combined mean that the Emperor knew that one of the Lost Primarchs was done for/unrecruitable prior to having actually physically found/located him. As Lorgar explicitly separates the two missing Primarchs as having 'failed' instead of having turned on the Emperor; this can only mean that the second 'Lost' Primarch never signed up to the Imperium to begin with.

List order for reference (though... was posted on reddit by someone...)

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/5g67m0/primarch_discovery_order_as_told_by_laurie/

Can the "Laurie List" really be considered "Official" or perhaps "Still Official"?

And didn't we also hear from Official Sources that all of the Primarchs were found and had their day(s) in the Sun before any thing at all went pear shaped?

Laurie said (if you read the forum thread) that it was the official order/list that BL authors were working by; and he actually asked permission before posting it. All the Primarchs have finding dates assigned as well, but they wouldn't let him attach those publicly (presumably so as to not pin them down to that extent).

So until something appears in print to override him and indicate that they've changed their list, it more or less has to be taken as canon. Which means that one of the Primarchs was known as 'lost' so to speak, before he was found. Which very much fits with this missing primarch never having betrayed the Emperor. You can't betray what you never signed up to.

Except, by what's in print, that list is already shown as incorrect!

 Alpharius wrote:
Except, by what's in print, that list is already shown as incorrect!

Where so? Have they released a different discovery list order? What publication?

The one you listed!

Reading down that thread, the Emperor is already telling Corax about the 2 'Lost Legion' Primarchs even though, according to the List, one hadn't been found yet.

Yeah, that list is obviously outdated and the details may have changed, though I'm sure it's still roughly what they are going by.

Didn't all the Primarchs (including those two missing) have their statues on Terra at some point? Why would they raise a statue to Primarch who was never found?

I heard a theory that the Alpha Legion somehow absorbed one of the legions, and that either Alpharius or Omegon is the missing primarch of a lost legion that’s been manipulated into pretending to be the real AL primarch’s twin. While the theory is mostly baseless and pretty out there, it is supported by one of the missing primarchs being found just before Alpharius+Omegon. It also gained new credence in how the HH Alpha Legion acts completely different from the modern 40k Alpha Legion, most importantly in tactics and effectiveness. The failure of the AL to do anything substantial in the Horus Heresy is because the agents sent from the AL are actually the missing legion, so it stands to reason that their attempts to use Alpha Legion tactics would fail. Over time the AL replaced their losses with Marines made with actual AL gene-stock, making the legion what it is today. It’s pretty tinfoil-hat but interesting all the same.

Alpharius wrote:The one you listed!

Reading down that thread, the Emperor is already telling Corax about the 2 'Lost Legion' Primarchs even though, according to the List, one hadn't been found yet.

Well yes, that's kind of the point. Perhaps I'm not explaining this well.

When the Emperor meets up with Corax, he makes the point that two of Corax's brothers are already lost to him; even though he has yet to meet one of them according to Goulding's list. Goulding made a point of stating that these dates in his list referred to physical first meetings as opposed to them taking up command of their legions or suchlike. In other words, the Emperor already knew that one of the Missing Primarchs was lost to him prior to actually finding/meeting the fellow in the flesh, as it were.

Now there's an infinite number of reasons why that could be. It could be he was warp tainted and psychic, meaning the Emperor had already perceived his warp presence and knew him to be corrupted. It could be that he'd sent an emissary to the Emperor as Borg Slave #12765 because he had an irremovable implant like Angron; meaning the Emperor knew he couldn't be reclaimed. Who knows? The point remains that before meeting this second 'Missing Primarch', the Emperor already knew that this other Primarch was permanently lost to him. This ties in neatly with Lorgar's later statement that the two missing Primarchs 'failed' the Emperor instead of turning on him; because it means that this particular Primarch never joined the Imperium/Emperor to begin with (thus being unable to have betrayed him).

Vojcek wrote:Didn't all the Primarchs (including those two missing) have their statues on Terra at some point? Why would they raise a statue to Primarch who was never found?

Who knows? Maybe all the statues had the heads missing originally to be added as they were found? Or they were partially completed lumps of marble to be finished once the primarch was found? Art can be a funny thing.

My point is that "The List", while once valid, might not be anymore.

Plans change, everything is fluid, BL messes up a lot, etc.

 Alpharius wrote:
My point is that "The List", while once valid, might not be anymore.

Plans change, everything is fluid, BL messes up a lot, etc.

Sure, it might well do so in the future. But we're talking about the here and now; and as things stand, I'm just making logical observations from the collated facts that we have been given. So long as nothing is set down officially contravening Goulding's list (and therefore showing it to have been retconned), the Emperor has to have known that one of the Primarchs was 'lost' to him before meeting him.

Which really isn't that big a continuity problem; I gave two wholly plausible reasons above. It wouldn't be hard to generate more.