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Just read first heretic, and it some how connected lines of thought fleshing out a theory:

The reason the Emperor generally kept horrible secrets about chaos, the web way, and didn't -apparently- foresee the heresy, and kept compassion for Horus until the last minute is because... he actually did foresee the heresy, but not the exact root of the cause. His attempt to stifle the heresy was by keeping his sons in the dark to chaos altogether, hoping ot eliminate that temptation. And perhaps his compassion towards Horus is due to the heresy that unfolded in the Emperors vision, Horus actually was redeemed - at the cost of a civil war, but at its end lead to reconciliation, not death...

Perhaps that's why the Emperor went so heavy handed in his censures of Lorgar and Magnus: because in his vision coddling them lead to no where, and they still became heretics. Acting is a such a way - a way meant to break their spirits was perhaps the Emperors way of -hopefully- taking out the push needed to sway to chaos. In stead it all backfired, and hard... adding distrust and insult to the raw power of Chaos as the reasons for the Primarchs betrayal, making them all the more attached to the cause.

I have not read the first heretic... YET. I have read all the others.

My thoughts on it were that he was trying to kill off the chaos gods or at least diminish them in power as much as is possible by eliminating all worship of them in real space. So his crusade was in part an ideological attack on chaos.

This helps to explain why the chaos gods took such direct and strenuous steps to take the imperium down in its infancy instead of slowly corrupting it like the eldar empire.

Thus, the emperor chose to try to erase the knowledge of chaos from the current understanding of the imperium, and continued to try to suppress it in order to further his goals. Hence the supreme emphasis on science and reason as well as the disdain for all things spiritual.

So when primarchs like lorgar or magnus started to get into dangerous territory he took strong measures against them in order to preserve his ultimate goal, which one can conceive how much more progressive and positive a place the galaxy would be with greatly weakened and enfeebled chaos gods.


This is a theory, but one that i find satisfactory as the emperor undoubtedly knew of the chaos gods and the whole of the monster of chaos itself, its role in the destruction of the eldar empire, the warp storms that isolated humanity, and the corruption of countless human civilizations. He knew the gods feed on the emotional energy of real space manifested in the realm of chaos, and saw that squeezing that lifeline would at least weaken the greatest enemy to his ultimate goals. Consider that he was the greatest psycher pretty much ever, was able to subdue and use the void dragon, and has the ability to stop time itself.

His mistake was that he had too much faith in his sons, the primarchs, who were unprotected as a result of his withholding knowledge and relying on science and no faith.
So he gave these men godlike power and set them loose on the galaxy, but failed to consider the possibility that they could still fall to chaos, that they were as deeply flawed as any man despite their power, so that even the dogma against spiritual things would not save them from tempation.

In the end the same thing is what brought the emperor down. He did not consider that he could have made such a grievous mistake. He was still imperfect despite his omnipotence. These two factors led to his unwillingness to believe that horus was truly evil and lost to him, even as horus had butchered untold billions in horrible ways, summoned chaos hordes, led his brothers astray, and even slain noble sanguinious. Only when the emperor was given a MORTAL wound by his son did he recognize his fallibility and failure with his son.

I think this interpretation fits very well with the whole feel of the 40k universe, especially the tragic nature of these events.

The Emperorr's censure of Lorgar in The First Heretic was jawdropping. I won't spoil it for those still to read it but .. wow. After that, was it any wonder Lorgar took the decisions he did?

The emperor is one of the worst father figures I've ever seen.



He sides with some politicians instead of his own son (Magnus)

Leaves and doesn't even send a get well card to Horus when he almost dies. The list goes on.

Lorgar got a lesson, but didn't get it ..

One has to wonder if the comment by the custodes isnt actually true...

I'm only up to flight of the Eisenstein but I think you might be onto something.

we still haven't yet seen the creation of the primarchs from the emperors p.o.v (not that i think we ever will) the only versions we have seen as stated above are chaos ones,

I am interested on some of the more dubious choices made at the end of the great crusade, the beurocracy the titheing etc and wonder at the emperors wisdom but: we are unsure at this point how much the emperor actually knows, he is in the vaults beneath terra working on the human webway a huge undertaking who knows how much of his attention this truely requires? does he have a vague idea of rebellion or not? he certainly doesnt have a space marine/primarch opinion as Dorn is unable to get an audience, has malcador informed him of the scope of the situation? do we even know if he is in communication with the regent? a regent is someone who rules in someone elses stead when they are unwilling or unable to, usually this person has autonomous control until the ruler returns, so maybe malcador is making all the decisions with the council. He has Magnus' warnings but seemed to pay them little heed in "Thousand Sons"

Ugly Green Trog wrote:we still haven't yet seen the creation of the primarchs from the emperors p.o.v (not that i think we ever will) the only versions we have seen as stated above are chaos ones,

Exactly!

I really doubt the Chaos versions of things are even half true!

Alpharius wrote:I really doubt the Chaos versions of things are even half true!

+1 and QFT

From what I've read the chaos gods gain power from human emotions not just their worship.

"I wish i was promoted the sergeant" 1 power point for Tzeetch.
"I hate that guy" 1 power point for Khorne.
"I've decided to not shower today" 1 power point Nurgle.
"I'm going to get high" 1 power point Slannesh.

I think the Emperor got it wrong, he should have forwarned and forarmed rather than least said soonest mended.

Alpharius wrote:

Ugly Green Trog wrote:we still haven't yet seen the creation of the primarchs from the emperors p.o.v (not that i think we ever will) the only versions we have seen as stated above are chaos ones,

Exactly!

I really doubt the Chaos versions of things are even half true!

We know what they've said is true, because we know what happens in the future. They could've lied and showed Horus a fake future, but they told the truth. There's no reason to believe they'd arbitrarily lie about the Emperor getting his power from the Chaos Gods. If they wanted to lie they'd just say he was a daemon or xenos tricking them (or worse).

Also the Emperor is already a proven liar - he lied about Chaos.

@ Rube: But the stupid thing is the reason Horus saw himself forgotten was because of his heresy, he saw his loyal brothers raised up and venerated alongside the emperor and got jealous but truely the only reason he wasnt there himself was down to his own weakness, Chaos blends lies and the truth in a subtle web, the chaos gods promised Horus victory and power, where did he end up? They lied!!

They didn't lie. They told Horus they would show him the future, and they did. Where was the lie?

Also they promised him power and they gave him power. The whole striking the Emperor down was kinda proof of that. As for victory? He wanted to be remembered, he wanted attention - that was his goal. He certainly achieved that, nobody's forgetting Horus any time soon!

Rube wrote:They didn't lie. They told Horus they would show him the future, and they did. Where was the lie?

Also they promised him power and they gave him power. The whole striking the Emperor down was kinda proof of that. As for victory? He wanted to be remembered, he wanted attention - that was his goal. He certainly achieved that, nobody's forgetting Horus any time soon!

ok so call it "aggressive advertising" then, at the point of his wavering that turn of events wasnt the future only a possible outcome, they presented the information in a certain way causing Horus to infer that he would be betrayed and forgotten, they didnt lie directly but neither did they show him the big picture or the whole truth,

In defense of the scene in the vaults of terra where the big E allows the primarchs to be cast among the stars, ok he let them go, but sometimes you have to take risks, he knew his primarchs would need loyal warriors and homeworlds to allow them to strengthen their legions and draw new recruits to fight the crusade, surely it is better that his sons earned the respect/loyalty of these worlds in their own right than at the might of the emperors armies?

Ugly Green Trog wrote:In defense of the scene in the vaults of terra where the big E allows the primarchs to be cast among the stars, ok he let them go, but sometimes you have to take risks, he knew his primarchs would need loyal warriors and homeworlds to allow them to strengthen their legions and draw new recruits to fight the crusade, surely it is better that his sons earned the respect/loyalty of these worlds in their own right than at the might of the emperors armies?

...and to allow that respect and loyalty to make them prideful, eventually leading to them rebelling. Which culminates in the Emperor getting a lungful of lighting claw.

How did he know they were getting spread to random human worlds anyway? For all he knew they were going to get munched on by daemons. Obviously Chaos deposited them on human worlds because they knew how things were going to end (the future they showed Horus), but the Emperor didn't know.

I understood that he guided them to safety himself, plus i think he had faith in the protection he had given them, note how no primarch has been directly affected by chaos, they had to be convinced, tricked and persuaded to turn even destroying primarchs was difficult, Kha Bhanda couldnt defeat Sanguinious and he was arguably one of the mightiest blood thirsters ever . The Emperor is a direct rival in power to a single chaos god in my reckoning, why else were they so afraid of him?

Surely they understood as did the cabal(cant remember their proper name offhand) in Legion, that chaos would burn out were Horus to achieve ultimate victory, in truth I believe they took a massive gamble in trying to turn the Primarchs against the Emperor in the Heresy but the ulternative was to be starved of belief, plus the construction of the human webway would also make warp travel irrelevant cutting the chaos gods off even further.

plus in all accounts i've read Horus only wounded the Emperor becaus.e the Emperor held back out of compassion for his favored son, when he truely unleashed his psychic might against Horus the gods fled him fearing that they too would be seriously injured or even destroyed in the attack further adding weight to the argument that the gods feared the big E.

Rube wrote:They didn't lie. They told Horus they would show him the future, and they did. Where was the lie?

Also they promised him power and they gave him power. The whole striking the Emperor down was kinda proof of that. As for victory? He wanted to be remembered, he wanted attention - that was his goal. He certainly achieved that, nobody's forgetting Horus any time soon!

Its rather Ironic that they got Horus to turn...by showing him the future where he had turned, they didn't lie to him whatsoever, they just withheld the context of it, which isn't in itself lying.

Mr Nobody wrote:The emperor is one of the worst father figures I've ever seen.

Spoiler:

The Emperor destroys his son's (lorgar) work and then calls him a failure

He sides with some politicians instead of his own son (Magnus)

Leaves and doesn't even send a get well card to Horus when he almost dies. The list goes on.

He wasn't really a father figure anyway, genetically, yes, but what the Primarchs singularly fail to realise is that they were created as living tools, nothing more.

Also, if he was depending on Ignorance to save his scrawny arse, god he was an idiot, since this 30,000+ years among humans should have shown him that ignorance solves nothing.

Rube wrote: Obviously Chaos deposited them on human worlds because they knew how things were going to end (the future they showed Horus), but the Emperor didn't know.

Too bad there are possible futures but never a pre-set one.
Thus, any inevitable fate isn't true.

Chaos played on the weakness of Lorgar. One fool to ruin them all.

The horus heresy series does a very good job of showing that no one ever thinks they're the evil ones. The primarchs believed they were in the right and every one else was wrong, and with the emperor on terra, no one is going to argue witht them.

Mr Nobody wrote:The horus heresy series does a very good job of showing that no one ever thinks they're the evil ones.

Including the loyalists.

They don't produce new technology or science and they destroy other civilisations and species. They are the good guys because they have the Emperor on their side, and the Emperor is good because he told them so.