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I was reading another discussion board and came upon an interesting point.

A user claimed that in the Horus Heresy books, when the traitor legions first turned upon the loyalists within their own ranks it was always the Terrans who were slain? The original members that is.

I thought about the Angels of Darkness novel and remember that Lion El'Jonson distrusted the Terrans and, indeed, those that were sent back to Caliban and rose against him were mostly formed of the original Marines, at least, according to Astelan.

This thus leaves us at an interesting point... do/did Marines have more loyalty to their Primarch or the Emperor?

To be honest, I think the Primarchs really were a failed experiment... aren't Chapter Masters so much better eh?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hrm or perhaps the better distinction to make is that "those marines who walked beside the Emperor" were the loyalists.

the books make it seem like every marine had to make a personal choice where his loyalties lay, at least in the traitor legions. the whole loyalist element emphasis is pretty new. Before the books it was pretty much assumed that legions went over en masse; after a little bit of light purging on Istvaan everything was good. Now it looks alot more brutal and divisive. I remember how cool it seemed that there might be surviving loyalist elements when the Garro story first came up in WD.....

I tend to think that most marines went whichever way their primatch did though, since the emperor was far off and the primarch was an inspirational presence they saw pretty regular.
AF

I think it depends on the Legion/Chapter in question.

And as to the Primarchs being failed experiments?

No, not really.

No Primarchs = No Space Marines = No Great Crusade = Game Over for Humanity.

It was the intervention of the Chaos Gods that really messed things up.

No Space Marines? What I find iffy is that the technology existed/exists to make both the non-Space Marine Dark Angels and the Custodes... though the latter is a long process.

Why did the Emprah even make the Primarchs rather than moving straight on to Marines?

God Archangels Angels
Emperor Primarchs Marines
Its just the way the mythology goes thats all.

Primarchs were fantastic...

Plus the fact that back then Space Marine legions numbered in the hundreds of thousands. They weren't whimpy little formations like you see in the year 40,000...

The intervention of Chaos messed everything up, tainting them as they were transported across time.

For Example, although this actually helped Sanguinius, and didn't corrupt him, his wings were Mutations...

and probably his Far Seeing Eye too... sounds a bit Tzeenish to me.

Because they need generals

Emprah did their battle in somewhat medieval/ roman style/heroic fantasy
and therefore the best general is a general that can fight like 10 men on his army or in other words be special

if somehow the pod was not scattered the emprah would raise the primarch simultaneously

probably being a better parent

And not have his favorite son kill his favorite daughter.

And wouldn't the Emprah be a very charismatic character? That would probably help explain why many more were loyal to him? idk

Daughter?

Loyality was meant as:
-first the Emperor/ Imperium
-second Primarch/Legion

To put a primarch over the Imperium wasn't intended but happened when the Legions recruted from their own sources and the recruts didn't
see the Emperor that often..

The 'original' Marines, ( the first batch, recruted and organized under the gaze of the Emperor ) shared some time with the Emperor and
know of a time without their respective primarch as the primarchs had to be searched.

It is one of the better ideas of the HH series to make the split into factions a personal choice.