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Fulgrim gave Horus the head and weapon of Ferrus Manus as a sign of allegiance. The meat of the head was likely destroyed and the skull left to be used for Hamlet re-enactments.
And no, the brain would be far beyond the point of no return.

 Gert wrote:
Fulgrim gave Horus the head and weapon of Ferrus Manus as a sign of allegiance. The meat of the head was likely destroyed and the skull left to be used for Hamlet re-enactments.
And no, the brain would be far beyond the point of no return.

Thank you!

I mean having a brain does not mean you have the individual. Even with the technobabble of 40k, people need their souls to be the people they are.

 Gert wrote:
I mean having a brain does not mean you have the individual. Even with the technobabble of 40k, people need their souls to be the people they are.

I'm feeling really fluffy

 Gert wrote:
I mean having a brain does not mean you have the individual. Even with the technobabble of 40k, people need their souls to be the people they are.

in 40k though, the mind and soul are intertwined, so the brain is the realspace soul plug. You can't cut off someone's leg and expect to have their soul. But their brain? More than likely. until they're dead, then the soul is left untethered from reality so there's nothing physical you could hold connected to it.

And Ferrus Manus was very very dead, so my point very much stands.

The death of ferrus manus has always felt quite odd to me, from a story perspective. Each primarch has quite a big long story arch that has been padded out and new reveals provided by a never ending series of black library books. Most primarchs last right to the end of the HH, surviving one on one combat with each other and most of the dead ones have had question marks put over their death.

But ferrus is just dead in book 3.

His death is a catalyst for Fulgrims story and he pretty much only exists to serve as such. Its a bit rubbish because as a character we don't get the depth or stories attached to the other Primarchs but his death is a defining moment of the Heresy and Fulgrim specifically.

mrFickle wrote:
The death of ferrus manus has always felt quite odd to me, from a story perspective. Each primarch has quite a big long story arch that has been padded out and new reveals provided by a never ending series of black library books. Most primarchs last right to the end of the HH, surviving one on one combat with each other and most of the dead ones have had question marks put over their death.

But ferrus is just dead in book 3.

That's because it's a relic of the pre-HHCCG and HH novel series, when most of the primarchs were actually killed off.

Originally, Ferrus, Vulkan and Corax were ALL killed at the dropsite massacre, hence its name. Losing 3 primarchs in one fell swoop made the story more desperate as the remaining loyalists fought a rearguard action outnumbered.

However, with GW superhero-ifying the primarchs and trying to make the emperor an infallible god while still having a heresy that's some kind of threat, we had all the primarch deaths repealed except Ferrus.

And now with the whole 'well primarch souls aren't destroyed so they can be brought back' crap we're getting now, I doubt even he will stay dead.... They're getting pretty close to jumping the shark with the way they're going. Sanguinius getting asspulled back to life will be the final straw IMO.

Originally, it was just Sanguinius, Khan, Russ, Lion, Dorn and Guilliman against 9 traitor primarchs and their legions. Then Sanguinius gets killed, leaving just 5 living primarchs who later died or disappeared during the post heresy mop up (in 2nd ed primarchs were specifically described as not immortal), while the traitor primarchs received the reward they had turned traitor for - daemonhood and eternity of enslavement to their dark masters - sans curze and Horus.

 Hellebore wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
The death of ferrus manus has always felt quite odd to me, from a story perspective. Each primarch has quite a big long story arch that has been padded out and new reveals provided by a never ending series of black library books. Most primarchs last right to the end of the HH, surviving one on one combat with each other and most of the dead ones have had question marks put over their death.

But ferrus is just dead in book 3.

That's because it's a relic of the pre-HHCCG and HH novel series, when most of the primarchs were actually killed off.

Originally, Ferrus, Vulkan and Corax were ALL killed at the dropsite massacre, hence its name. Losing 3 primarchs in one fell swoop made the story more desperate as the remaining loyalists fought a rearguard action outnumbered.

However, with GW superhero-ifying the primarchs and trying to make the emperor an infallible god while still having a heresy that's some kind of threat, we had all the primarch deaths repealed except Ferrus.

And now with the whole 'well primarch souls aren't destroyed so they can be brought back' crap we're getting now, I doubt even he will stay dead.... They're getting pretty close to jumping the shark with the way they're going. Sanguinius getting asspulled back to life will be the final straw IMO.

Originally, it was just Sanguinius, Khan, Russ, Lion, Dorn and Guilliman against 9 traitor primarchs and their legions. Then Sanguinius gets killed, leaving just 5 living primarchs who later died or disappeared during the post heresy mop up (in 2nd ed primarchs were specifically described as not immortal), while the traitor primarchs received the reward they had turned traitor for - daemonhood and eternity of enslavement to their dark masters - sans curze and Horus.

Vulkan has always been a bit ambiguous. Some bits stated/implied that he died at the DSM, but his reaction to the Codex Astartes/breaking of legions into chapters was also recorded so he must have been about for that. This contradiction is probably why they went the perpetual route for him.

Corax was known to have survived the DSM at least as early as Index Astartes in the early 2000s (pre card game) as he led the experiment to rebuild the Legion faster which went wrong and was known to have fled to the EoT with the last message of ‘Nevermore’ (*groan*).

I know the superheroing, as it’s been called, of the primarchs is a bit naff but if they are going do it they should have done it for all, including Ferrus. He could have had his body rebuilt by the admech and been a mega cyborg type thing then they could do all the robocop type cliches with the man in the machine trying to live with himself and restore his pre cyborg self

A group of Iron Hands managed to retrieve one of Ferrus' arms and used it to create an automaton of him in an attempt to unite the Shattered Legion forces under their rule. Vulkan destroyed it.
The thing with Ferrus is that he is more important to the story of the Heresy dead than alive. Without his death, the Iron Hands don't unite with the other Shattered Legions to wage a guerilla war against Horus and they stick to their rigid nature and tactics. If Fulgrim doesn't kill Ferrus, then his fall to Chaos is slowed or he dies instead.

 Hellebore wrote:

And now with the whole 'well primarch souls aren't destroyed so they can be brought back' crap we're getting now, I doubt even he will stay dead.... They're getting pretty close to jumping the shark with the way they're going. Sanguinius getting asspulled back to life will be the final straw IMO.

Agreed.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ferrus_Manus

"...using the daemon weapon he acquired fighting the Laer to strike his head from his shoulders in one fell swoop. Fulgrim, distraught with grief that his closest brother was dead by his own hand, was soon thereafter possessed by the daemon within the sword. The possessed Fulgrim then delivered Ferrus's head to Horus."

"...as Horus fell deeper and deeper into Chaos and his mental state perhaps began to deteriorate, he took the skull of Ferrus Manus, mounted it on his throne, and began to increasingly speak to it. During their one-sided conversations, Horus lamented that he only had bloody-handed tyrants, mass murderers, and daemons for his generals instead of strategists and men of duty like Ferrus"

"Ten thousand years later in the 41st Millennium, a daemonette of Slaanesh taunted Iron Hands Sergeant Naim Morvox on Shardenus, claiming that it had seen Manus's head, and "it is still screaming."

"Inquisitor Kinebad, accompanied by a companion named only as 'Scar-borne', uncovered an ancient Obelisk detailing a pact made between Guilliman, Dorn and the Shattered Iron Hands legion. In return for their adherence to the nascent Codex Astartes, the Iron Hands were returned the Skull of Ferrus Manus. How exactly Guilliman and Dorn retrieved the skull is unknown.[7] As of M41, Ferrus’ skull is rumored to be at the center of the Eye of Medusa upon an altar watched over by a Helfather who does not eat, drink, sleep or blink in his ceaseless watch of the Primarch."

So much interest in skulls, yet what they really want is the man so much so Fulgrim cloned him, but how? and from what? Seems to me that with the body being diced up for trophies was a bit of a rage fest, yet they must have taken care to preserve the Progenoid glands?

Not only, but there is much emphasis on memories, as we can see above with Horus lamenting over Ferrus' genius. Filgrim's break down over what he did to the extent he tries to clone his brother.

So if it is true Space Marines have photographic memories, and moreso "the Remembrancer" organ which allows them to digest thought, then I think there may be a bit more to the story lost in translation and likely laced with propaganda.

Wasn't the latest Fulgrim perfect?

Adeptekon wrote:
So much interest in skulls, yet what they really want is the man so much so Fulgrim cloned him, but how? and from what? Seems to me that with the body being diced up for trophies was a bit of a rage fest, yet they must have taken care to preserve the Progenoid glands?

Last I checked, they weren't a thing in Primarchs.

The Primarchs were the source of DNA from which genessed was created but they do not have the gland themselves.

 Gert wrote:
A group of Iron Hands managed to retrieve one of Ferrus' arms and used it to create an automaton of him in an attempt to unite the Shattered Legion forces under their rule. Vulkan destroyed it.
The thing with Ferrus is that he is more important to the story of the Heresy dead than alive. Without his death, the Iron Hands don't unite with the other Shattered Legions to wage a guerilla war against Horus and they stick to their rigid nature and tactics. If Fulgrim doesn't kill Ferrus, then his fall to Chaos is slowed or he dies instead.

Ferrus' death so early one also serves as a very important dramaturgical beat: It establishes, early on, that gak just got real and that primarchs, no matter their supernatural and preternatural powers, can and do in fact die, on screen, and are not imbued with so much plot armour that they can only be erradicated of-screen like II an XI. The scene with his not-ambiguous-at-all-on-screen-his-head-got-chopped-off-and-highlander-power-came-out establishes the stakes and the rules of the game, and gives a benchmark for the level of injury that would be sufficient to kill a primarch. The later events where everbody gets beaten to within an inch of his life, but no further, kinda undo this, but still that first anchor is here and it sets the tone for a huge part of the series.

Now, for the possibility of bringing back the dead-dead primarchs, my personal preference would be some sort of Monkey Paw / Pet Sematary scenario: Something was brought back, but it isn't Ferrus. Just like with the traitor primarchs, the imperial ones leave a lot of room for their return to be less than obviously good for the imperium or their subfaction: The Imperium largely survives on momentum and the power of the status quo, and after 10.000 years of absence and doing who-knows-what in the Warp, every single Primarch is a huge treath to the status quo just by existing. Expect Roboute of course, who spent the millenia literally in stasis for our convenience.

TBF with Ferrus it wasn't just the decapitation but rather hours of intense fighting against normal Astartes then a lengthy duel with Fulgrim where both Primarchs were landing blow after blow that would have killed Astartes outright. But for decapitation, that's kind of a hard thing to come back from. Arms, legs, and other body parts can be redone but losing a head is kind of the endgame.

Ok forget the glands, we still have a strong emphasis on memories and nostalgia for Ferrus who was clearly charismatic and would have been more valuable alive if only he would have switched sides.

Rather than dismember the body which leads to well, nothing, but bragging rights, instead I could see them wanting to consume his brain to become even more powerful with his experience and knowledge.

Pretty sure there's a number of examples where the brain survives without damage after clinical death with a person's medical revival; and without damage in some cases.

So I suspect a Primarch demigod could hang on to their body a bit longer as well if a regular human can. But the bursting highlander energy thing, not sure how that works. Apparently bursting highlander energy means the soul has left, but a copy of the memories should still be material unless they're contained in the soul?

Considering Fabius Bile made a butt load of clones of Ferrus, he probably got the brain as well as the rest of the corpse. Its unlikely it survived in any meaningful way past the end of the Heresy.

I wonder what they thought they would do with the clones? If they don't have his experience I can see them being killed easy. If someone wanted to make the Anti-Ferrus and trick people then it makes sense.

I haven't gotten that far yet.

If clones of primarchs are born with the memories of their genetic original do you think that means that the emperor made them to biologically encode memory data as some form of bio indoctrination?

He could have done this to implant some of his own memories into them at the pint of creation to guide them into becoming the type of leader he wanted them to be, thus explaining why each primarch seems to embody a specific part of Big E or serve some specific role.

mrFickle wrote:
If clones of primarchs are born with the memories of their genetic original do you think that means that the emperor made them to biologically encode memory data as some form of bio indoctrination?

He could have done this to implant some of his own memories into them at the pint of creation to guide them into becoming the type of leader he wanted them to be, thus explaining why each primarch seems to embody a specific part of Big E or serve some specific role.

There are several instances of weird gene-memory things happening with primarchs and their offspring, the Black Rage, Dorns Darkness, and the whole Alpha Legion blood memory thing, too. There seems to be some sort of component that allows for genetic memory, but it may as well be warp based.

40k science also isn't very "hard". Its wishy washy and if you think about it too hard your brain starts to melt.

 Gert wrote:
40k science also isn't very "hard". Its wishy washy and if you think about it too hard your brain starts to melt.

It all does seem convenient for story. I mean, beyond the concept of an 'STC' I think the foresight we've come to expect from sci-fi is less so here about the the laws of physics and more so that games can be played and books can be sold. The real brilliance of WH imho is in the philosophical, and ethnical lessons it has to teach through its parodies and satire.

I gave up, my intel ran out, finding his head or the thoughts it contains is likely a dead end (no pun)