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This question arises after reading the thousand sons novel. It was strongly hinted in several of the Horus Heresy novels that some of the Primarchs had begun to suspect that they were in for a nasty wakeup call if they suceeded in the Great Crusade. If the emperor eliminated all of man's enemies and he had a large peaceful empire of what use were the Astartes and their Primarchs? This tension is clearly displayed in the interplay with the iterators and the Astartes and Horus' own frustrations with the Imperial bearucracy telling Astartes what to do. The Emperor has stated several times that he primarily viewed his Primarchs as generals. Warriors. He took a dim view of those that were not doing what they were created for as witnessed in his treatment of Lorgar. He wasn't interested in Lorgar's worship or religious mission. He wanted Lorgar out there kicking ass and taking names for the Imperium.

What other use would the Primarchs have after the war? Well, in the Thousand Sons novel Magnus received a vision that had him in the place of the emperor lighting the Atronomicon on the Golden Throne. Not such a nice fate for one of his "sons". What other primarchs were destined for similar fates?

Granted these visions came from Chaos or the Warp so we can't be sure they are accurate or can be trusted but in light of some of the portrayals of the Emperor in the novels as someone with a plan who didn't mind using people to get them done one has to wonder just how much he viewed the Primarchs as sons or more as instruments, crafted to get the job done and once his utopia was complete those instruments could be discarded or put away to use only in case of emergencies.

Maybe the primarchs could have "retired" or found less militaristic places in the imperium. I could see Guilliman and others being rulers of their own sectors.

I'd definitley agree with you on that, even outside of the dubious nature of Chaos visions, the Emperor is a tyrant of the most extreme caliber, willing to do what is necessary to ensure his species rises to the top and stays there for all time, his "sons" as loved as they may or may not have felt, were all tools in the Emperors grand scheme. Gene engineerd warrior-generals of the most supreme ability who's purpose was galactic unification.

Something that is often overlooked by primarchs, and astartes alike, is the fate of the original thunder armored astartes precursors, they're purpose was planetary unification through the most extreme measures, however when they had served their purpose they were disposed of and erased to make way for the newer, grander, astartes of current fluff who were engineered for galactic unification.

In essence if the primarchs had only looked to their own roots, they would've seen a microcosm of what would eventually be their fate. So in retrospect the heresy saved the Astartes from being a footnote in the grand scheme of the Imperium, and instead established them as the eternally vigilant defenders of humanity and gave the now chaos marines what they always desired, a galaxy full of war that never ceases to test their martial skill.

Most of the primarchs background basically made the badass at whatever they did. So they could just become like vice-emperors for the Imperium/ Empire.

The Emperor had a plan for all of them. I think Magnus would become more than just a "golden throne operator- guiding the astronomican and controlling the webway"...

But the first steps were to reclaim the Galaxy and secure it, so Generals are neccessary in these years.
PLus, now M40 has shown there are plenty of orks, nids, necrons, and young upstart empires to enact war upon, beeing a space marine would not mean to sit
on your ass or play tour guide/ security for some remembrancers/bureaucrats/traders.

The complaining sons had it wrong. Victory is never final. Some new threats will rise no matter how hard you cleanse the 40k-verse.

1hadhq wrote:The Emperor had a plan for all of them. I think Magnus would become more than just a "golden throne operator- guiding the astronomican and controlling the webway"...

But the first steps were to reclaim the Galaxy and secure it, so Generals are neccessary in these years.
PLus, now M40 has shown there are plenty of orks, nids, necrons, and young upstart empires to enact war upon, beeing a space marine would not mean to sit
on your ass or play tour guide/ security for some remembrancers/bureaucrats/traders.

The complaining sons had it wrong. Victory is never final. Some new threats will rise no matter how hard you cleanse the 40k-verse.

God that would've been awesome to see a united Imperium face down the 'nids

Brother Heinrich wrote:

1hadhq wrote:The Emperor had a plan for all of them. I think Magnus would become more than just a "golden throne operator- guiding the astronomican and controlling the webway"...

But the first steps were to reclaim the Galaxy and secure it, so Generals are neccessary in these years.
PLus, now M40 has shown there are plenty of orks, nids, necrons, and young upstart empires to enact war upon, beeing a space marine would not mean to sit
on your ass or play tour guide/ security for some remembrancers/bureaucrats/traders.

The complaining sons had it wrong. Victory is never final. Some new threats will rise no matter how hard you cleanse the 40k-verse.

God that would've been awesome to see a united Imperium face down the 'nids

You know that Forgeworld that just made Land Raiders? That would be so much fun to still have fighting 'nids. Imagine a mechanised regiment of IG but instead of chimeras they are mounted in Land Raiders.

led by the primarchs, yikes.

They were flawed beings, of course they were doomed. We are all doomed.
I think the greatest problem with the Primarchs lies in the fact that they were fundamentally misunderstood by the Emperor. Demi-Gods ( I use that terms to describe them as signifcantly powerful beings that are not entirely divine) are not Gods, like the Emperor can be considered to be. Rather the Primarchs, while not entirely human, were significantly more human than a being like the Big E. I can see that in the tens of thousands of years of his existance, the Emperor, due to his nature, has grown significantly distant from human emotion. Ergo, the wants and needs of the Primarchs are entirely misunderstood or ignored by the Emperor, who frankly just doesnt understand anymore. I think the biggest issue with the Emperor was that he failed to provide the reassurance that a lot of the Primarchs needed. In a galaxy of countless souls, these 20 dudes, who are amongst the most powerful of beings, have no clear place. Gotta be kindof unnerving.

purplefood wrote:

Brother Heinrich wrote:

1hadhq wrote:The Emperor had a plan for all of them. I think Magnus would become more than just a "golden throne operator- guiding the astronomican and controlling the webway"...

But the first steps were to reclaim the Galaxy and secure it, so Generals are neccessary in these years.
PLus, now M40 has shown there are plenty of orks, nids, necrons, and young upstart empires to enact war upon, beeing a space marine would not mean to sit
on your ass or play tour guide/ security for some remembrancers/bureaucrats/traders.

The complaining sons had it wrong. Victory is never final. Some new threats will rise no matter how hard you cleanse the 40k-verse.

God that would've been awesome to see a united Imperium face down the 'nids

You know that Forgeworld that just made Land Raiders? That would be so much fun to still have fighting 'nids. Imagine a mechanised regiment of IG but instead of chimeras they are mounted in Land Raiders.

I really want to write an alternate history fanfic for this.

I'd read that.

I probably would as well if only to see what might have been...

I think that the wars would never have ended no matter what as there would always be new foes to face and battles to be won, the way the "universe" of 40K is set-up.

I think eventually a couple of them would have fallen in battle and others would have kept leading from the front while still others fall back into more administrative/leadership roles.

if the Heresy hadn't happened they might have tried to go to new Galaxies.


the Emperor probably would have forseen the Tyranid invasion and would have built the Astartes up to massive numbers to face them.


The Emperor would also have had to invade Corrmuragge(Spl fail ) and thats a fight that Angron and Lorgar would have loved.



Prehaps the original intent of the Sus-an membrane was so that, after the crusade, the Astartes could be put into stasis untill they were needed. Thousands of years could pass before Astartes were needed.

I don't think too much credence should be given to chaos visions. If not for the idiocy of Magnus and the uprising of Horus, the emperor would have gained control of the webways and the Empire could have stopped using warp travel, thus eliminating the need for the astronomicon

Grey Templar wrote:if the Heresy hadn't happened they might have tried to go to new Galaxies.


the Emperor probably would have forseen the Tyranid invasion and would have built the Astartes up to massive numbers to face them.


The Emperor would also have had to invade Corrmuragge(Spl fail ) and thats a fight that Angron and Lorgar would have loved.



Prehaps the original intent of the Sus-an membrane was so that, after the crusade, the Astartes could be put into stasis untill they were needed. Thousands of years could pass before Astartes were needed.

This was my belief as well. Had the Great Crusade succeeded I believe the Emperor's ambition would have led to him turning his attention to other galaxies, at which point the Astartes would still be necessary.

Besides, we can clearly see in other Horus Heresy novels that the Emperor trusted at least some of his primarchs to rule, and not just fight.

I have to agree with maurin, magnus kinda screwed over the imperium with his... endeavours

tom_gledhill7 wrote:I have to agree with maurin, magnus kinda screwed over the imperium with his... endeavours

Alpharius boned the Imperium good and proper. If he had told the Emperor what the cabal had told him then everything would've have been ok.

or would it




On the original post I think some were doomed from the start, as soon as the Chaos Gods decided which ones they wanted their fates were sealed.

I've been thinking that it was also the intention of the Emperor to create a duplicate of each type of Primarch and decide which one to keep as some of the brothers have very similar traits.

For example

Horus or Guilliman = The Tacticians
Dorn or Perturabo = The Siege experts
Corax or Night Haunter = Fond of the Dark
Angron or Leman Russ = The Bloody Warriors

Might not be the best of correlations between the two but I think you get what I am hinting at. We know Magnus was intended to be a big battery so the Emperor had a use for him, but their doesn't seem to be a Primarch to link him up to. Maybe one of the missing Primarchs was extremely psychic and was the expunged?

From that idea half would have been doomed by the Emperor.

Prehaps that explains why 2 Primarchs are missing.


the Emperor had already started "thinning" the herd and then the Heresy happened.

Yeah right. This is the same emperor that couldn't bring himself to kill Horus until after he had suffered mortal wounds himself. There's no way the emperor intended to eliminate primarchs.

Maurin wrote:Yeah right. This is the same emperor that couldn't bring himself to kill Horus until after he had suffered mortal wounds himself. There's no way the emperor intended to eliminate primarchs.

Yeah that's him, the same guy that sent Assasins to kill Night Haunter. The same Emperor that made an entire Legion bow before him. The same Emperor that abducted one of his sons against his will.

I know what you are saying, I also like to think the Emperor as being a good guy in all of this and that he did the best he could for humanity and his sons. I've mentioned before that all the Emperor did wrong wasn't necessarily due to him, for example being forced to reprimand Magnus at Nikea by Mortarion and Leman Russ and Lorgar for not doing enough by Guilliaman. But there is also the Emperor that is the power hungry warmongering Tyrant who is not that good at all.

Grey Templar wrote:Prehaps that explains why 2 Primarchs are missing.


the Emperor had already started "thinning" the herd and then the Heresy happened.

They must have really screwed the pooch to get disappeared. My personal theory is banishment for both of 'em.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pilau Rice wrote:

Maurin wrote:Yeah right. This is the same emperor that couldn't bring himself to kill Horus until after he had suffered mortal wounds himself. There's no way the emperor intended to eliminate primarchs.

Yeah that's him, the same guy that sent Assasins to kill Night Haunter. The same Emperor that made an entire Legion bow before him. The same Emperor that abducted one of his sons against his will.

I know what you are saying, I also like to think the Emperor as being a good guy in all of this and that he did the best he could for humanity and his sons. I've mentioned before that all the Emperor did wrong wasn't necessarily due to him, for example being forced to reprimand Magnus at Nikea by Mortarion and Leman Russ and Lorgar for not doing enough by Guilliaman. But there is also the Emperor that is the power hungry warmongering Tyrant who is not that good at all.

You can't think of the Emperor as a man. He isnt. I submit that the Emperors greatest failing was his detachment from humanity. While his sons certainly are not enitrely human, they are more so than the Emperor. He believed himself to be doing the best he could for humanity, and in a large part he has. Problem is he isnt very good at figuring out human emotion, simply because he isnt human.
Besides, Night Haunter had it coming and the Word Bearers deserved it.

Sorry, but you are wrong.


the Emperor was/is a human. he was born to human parents and just happened to have a conglamoration of thousands of Human Psykers for his soul.


the Primarchs were un-natural abominations the Emperor created in his Labs. the only Human part of them would have been the Upbringing they recieved on the worlds they landed on.

they had to learn to be human.


this is why Angron and Johnson were so aloof and wierd. they weren't raised like Humans. Johnson raised himself in the wilds of Caliban for a long time and never had contact with humans. he was more of a wild animal then a human. Angron was enslaved and Lobotomised.

Gulliman, Russ, and some others on the other hand were adopted and raised by Human families as if they were just Humans. Gulliman became a compassionate, yet powerful, ruler. Russ became a Drunken hoolligan, but Human enough for him to have empathy. Thats the Key, Empathy with Humanity. the Emperor would have had it(30k+ years of living with them) and those Primarchs who were raised as and among humans would have Empathy too.

all the Primarchs probably realised at some point that they weren't Human, at least not normal humans, but they would have lived and acted as humans.


it was probably the upbringing that predestined how the Primarchs behaved in the Heresy.

Grey Templar wrote:Sorry, but you are wrong.


the Emperor was/is a human. he was born to human parents and just happened to have a conglamoration of thousands of Human Psykers for his soul.


the Primarchs were un-natural abominations the Emperor created in his Labs. the only Human part of them would have been the Upbringing they recieved on the worlds they landed on.

they had to learn to be human.


this is why Angron and Johnson were so aloof and wierd. they weren't raised like Humans. Johnson raised himself in the wilds of Caliban for a long time and never had contact with humans. he was more of a wild animal then a human. Angron was enslaved and Lobotomised.

Gulliman, Russ, and some others on the other hand were adopted and raised by Human families as if they were just Humans. Gulliman became a compassionate, yet powerful, ruler. Russ became a Drunken hoolligan, but Human enough for him to have empathy. Thats the Key, Empathy with Humanity. the Emperor would have had it(30k+ years of living with them) and those Primarchs who were raised as and among humans would have Empathy too.

all the Primarchs probably realised at some point that they weren't Human, at least not normal humans, but they would have lived and acted as humans.


it was probably the upbringing that predestined how the Primarchs behaved in the Heresy.

Yeah, happens all the time that some guy is born with a conglomoration of THOUSANDS OF HUMAN PSYKERS FOR HIS GODDAMN SOUL. Dude, really? Homeboy is 36k years old, possibly the most powerful being in existance and you expect him to be *normal*? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Every person the Emperor has ever loved and known has died, except for those he knows and loves right now. I submit that this would simply force him into being *more* detached, not more empathetic. Furthermore, the dude regularly condemns billions of humans to death through wars of conquest. Not a couple thousand, or a millions here or there, but billions. World after world after world. Combined with all his knowledge and psychic power, you probably have a dude that isnt particularly normal.

Physical appearances dont matter. Yes, the primarchs are modified humans. Yeah, they are superior in every way by leaps and bounds. By your own admission however, they were raised by humans in human society as humans. What makes you think they had to learn to be humans? Does every human have to learn to be human? Of course the Primarchs knew they werent normal humans, that doesnt mean they didnt have emotions. Despite their differences, at their core they share more in common with the human condition than the Big E does.

DEUS VULT wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Snip

Yeah, happens all the time that some guy is born with a conglomoration of THOUSANDS OF HUMAN PSYKERS FOR HIS GODDAMN SOUL. Dude, really? Homeboy is 36k years old, possibly the most powerful being in existance and you expect him to be *normal*? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

DEUS VULT wrote:Physical appearances dont matter. Yes, the primarchs are modified humans. Yeah, they are superior in every way by leaps and bounds. By your own admission however, they were raised by humans in human society as humans. What makes you think they had to learn to be humans? Does every human have to learn to be human? Of course the Primarchs knew they werent normal humans, that doesnt mean they didnt have emotions. Despite their differences, at their core they share more in common with the human condition than the Big E does.

I don't think Grey Templar is saying that he should be normal nor that the Primarchs didn't have emotion, quite the opposite in fact.

DEUS VULT wrote:Every person the Emperor has ever loved and known has died, except for those he knows and loves right now. I submit that this would simply force him into being *more* detached, not more empathetic. Furthermore, the dude regularly condemns billions of humans to death through wars of conquest. Not a couple thousand, or a millions here or there, but billions. World after world after world. Combined with all his knowledge and psychic power, you probably have a dude that isnt particularly normal.

You could argue that as the Emperor is made up of 1000s of humans, regardless of if they are psykers or not, then he is more human than human (White Zombie rock!) and more attuned to human emotion than any other being but able to control because he understands human nature. Hence the Unification of Terra and the Great Crusade.

An Imperium where the heresy didn't happen would be pretty interesting, the psychic coffe shops on Prospero were pretty cool before they got blown up.

Pilau Rice wrote:

DEUS VULT wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Snip

Yeah, happens all the time that some guy is born with a conglomoration of THOUSANDS OF HUMAN PSYKERS FOR HIS GODDAMN SOUL. Dude, really? Homeboy is 36k years old, possibly the most powerful being in existance and you expect him to be *normal*? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

DEUS VULT wrote:Physical appearances dont matter. Yes, the primarchs are modified humans. Yeah, they are superior in every way by leaps and bounds. By your own admission however, they were raised by humans in human society as humans. What makes you think they had to learn to be humans? Does every human have to learn to be human? Of course the Primarchs knew they werent normal humans, that doesnt mean they didnt have emotions. Despite their differences, at their core they share more in common with the human condition than the Big E does.

I don't think Grey Templar is saying that he should be normal nor that the Primarchs didn't have emotion, quite the opposite in fact.

DEUS VULT wrote:Every person the Emperor has ever loved and known has died, except for those he knows and loves right now. I submit that this would simply force him into being *more* detached, not more empathetic. Furthermore, the dude regularly condemns billions of humans to death through wars of conquest. Not a couple thousand, or a millions here or there, but billions. World after world after world. Combined with all his knowledge and psychic power, you probably have a dude that isnt particularly normal.

You could argue that as the Emperor is made up of 1000s of humans, regardless of if they are psykers or not, then he is more human than human (White Zombie rock!) and more attuned to human emotion than any other being but able to control because he understands human nature. Hence the Unification of Terra and the Great Crusade.

You could argue that, but I dont think it really holds much water. Your either human or not. The Emperor, by his condition of immortality alone, is not human. People are drawn to the Emperor cause he is/was a living God, not cause he could incite the crowds.

It depends, did you pass your psychic test?

One aspect of the primarchs has been bothering me and I think is linked into the OP's original question.

Their seperation, being flung across the universe.

Was that by the Chaos gods? Or by the Big E? Or did the Big E know it was going to happen and allow it?

Thoughts?

Hangfire wrote:One aspect of the primarchs has been bothering me and I think is linked into the OP's original question.

Their seperation, being flung across the universe.

Was that by the Chaos gods? Or by the Big E? Or did the Big E know it was going to happen and allow it?

Thoughts?

afaik it was by the chaos gods and they did it while the Emperor wasn't watching