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Picture this: The Emperor, Sanguinius, and Dorn board Horus' ship. After slaying Sanguinius, Horus engages the Emperor in mortal combat. After suffering a mortal wound, the Emperor strikes at Horus one last time, but all for naught.

First of all, would Dorn have died in the battle?
Second of all, What overall effect would this have on the Imperium Of Man? Would they have never written the codex astartes? Would they only have two main branches of the inquisition? What would have happened?

What was told to Alpharius/Omegon that if he joined the side of chaos, it would win, Horus would defeat the Emperor, realise what he had done, go Ape Shiz, wipe out humanity in a crazy-ass blood crusade and basically take away all of chaos' power in the mortal plane. Mostly.

JohnnoM wrote:What was told to Alpharius/Omegon that if he joined the side of chaos, it would win, Horus would defeat the Emperor, realise what he had done, go Ape Shiz, wipe out humanity in a crazy-ass blood crusade and basically take away all of chaos' power in the mortal plane. Mostly.

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Well just for fun here is an idea I had.

Depending on how weak Horus was after killing the Emperor, Rogal Dorn finds and finishes off Horus(Unlikely, but this is assuming it was a VERY close fight and Horus is very weak). The forces of Chaos retreat and flee. After the battle Rogal Dorn becomes so popular with the humans they want him to be their new leader. The other primarchs do not agree with this and this leads to another civil war between the supporters of Dorn and those who oppose him. I totally see Rogal Dorn fighting Pappasmurf in a similiar way to Horus vs The Emperor.

Whoever the winner is now leads a crippled empire that is sure to be destroyed.

Depending on how weak Horus was after killing the Emperor, Rogal Dorn finds and finishes off Horus(Unlikely, but this is assuming it was a VERY close fight and Horus is very weak). The forces of Chaos retreat and flee. After the battle Rogal Dorn becomes so popular with the humans they want him to be their new leader. The other primarchs do not agree with this and this leads to another civil war between the supporters of Dorn and those who oppose him. I totally see Rogal Dorn fighting Pappasmurf in a similiar way to Horus vs The Emperor.


I don't think that would happen as all the primarchs would realise it's just a mirror image of what had just happened, yet then again there are some very stupid primarchs...

Tibs wrote:
Whoever the winner is now leads a crippled empire that is sure to be destroyed.

I wouldn't say that it would sure to be destroyed, nor would it necessarily start a civil war. Personally I trust Dorn to do what is right before anyone else, he avoided a civil war by agreeing to the Codex Astartes, he didn't rebel, he didn't build a mini empire, he was one of the primarchs most trusted by Guilleman, and he didn't simply wander off because he was emo or wanted to go looking for a cure or something like Corax or Russ. Honestly I could see him calling together the surviving loyalist primarchs and forming some sort of council. Since most of the more aggressive and untrustworthy primarchs are dead, rogue, or incapacitated he might convince them to agree to hand over leadership of their legions to others and serve purely as strategic military officers and political leaders.

Honestly it probably would have been the most logical thing to do with all of these super geniuses instead of letting them fight on the battlefield and either get lost, get killed, or wander off.

The Imperium would contract and fall, with no guiding light for their ships safe(ish) warp travel would become near impossible for Imperial ships, the out lying worlds cut off from Imperial help would fall to Xenos, Inside fighting or Chaos.

Legions not within Terran or close to Terran space would probably form their own mini empires but in the end, the Imperium of Man would be over. Without the Emperor (or Malcador before his death) on the Golden Throne then The Astronomicon would have no guiding will and fail, the psychic power needed to hold back the ruptured Webway would also be missing so Terra would be over-run by Daemons and other Warp Powers within a day.

On the same note though, should Xenos or Chaos manage to severely damage and limit the abilities of the Black Ships then Terra and the Imperium would fall. With no sacrifices to keep the Emperor 'alive' on the Golden Throne then the Astronomicon again would fail. Unless the Ultramarines were to get Tigurius to Terra before the Emperor died and he managed to take over the job of handling the Astronomicon guidance. Though I believe that would be a temporary measure, Tigurius is only a Space Marine, the person who could have taken the Job and was destined to help with it was Magnus the Red.

I think most of the Primarchs, seeing the death of the Emperor will instantly go insane and go out lashing agains Chaos and kill as much chaos they could. But I also think that Horus would be de-capitated by one of his brethen and the man who killed him would take over the entire operations. But the Primarch Lion 'El Johnson would still be alive and the war of the Rock wouldn't happen. But the IoM would fall nonetheless like SkyD stated. But the after-effects would be that the planets that survived the horrific downfall would create their own mini-empires to then be crushed by the Xenos.

Dorn would have killed him

Horus has just been attacked by the emperor and sanguinus, it gonna leave a mark...

Horus was only defeated by the Emperor because he was the Emperor. If the final psychic assault on the Horus made by the Emperor had failed then Dorn would not have had a hope in hell of defeating Horus.

JohnnoM wrote:What was told to Alpharius/Omegon that if he joined the side of chaos, it would win, Horus would defeat the Emperor, realise what he had done, go Ape Shiz, wipe out humanity in a crazy-ass blood crusade and basically take away all of chaos' power in the mortal plane. Mostly.

Wouldnt the Chaos Gods just kill him before he could do that?