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Hi.

I was reading the Alpha Legion entry on the Forgeworld Horus Heresy book Extermination and found some interesting stuff that maybe is a hint to the missing Primarchs. There are lots of stuff about the Alpha itself but there is already a topic on that.

First: all Legions go through an 'Alpha' test. It is the final test before the massive recruitment begins. The Alpha Legion was supposed to be on Alpha levels (1000 - 2000 marines) for a very long time, which was the reason of the Alpha Legion name. The relevant paragraph is on pg 79.

And know comes the relevant part:
Now, the book is supposed to be written by a quite well informed imperial sage right after the Heresy, with lots of information about the traitor Legions and the nature of Chaos not redacted. My take on in is that a Legion didn´t pass the Alpha test.

Second: following page (80). One single sentence:
This gives us a good reason to why a full Legion may get destroyed.

Third: in pg 80 we have this sentence: This may refer to a completely different thing though.

Fourth: Another "redacted" thing in page 80 too. I don´t think this has nothing to do with the lost primarchs, but it is a good source for Custodes being made after the Astartes. Does anybody know what "Labryck Polaris" may be?

Fifth: this is a little bit of information about the Sisters of Silence. I think it is the first time we see their official name written down: Pg 82.
Inconcessus means "forbidden" or "not allowed".

Thoughts?

It it consensus that FW's Heresy books are so on point that they make codex's and most of BL's stuff look...amateurish?

At least what I've read of their stuff and especially the stuff written by Alan Bligh it is very well researched and much better than the fluff in codecies and some BL books. And there's very little written about the pre-heresy legions so FW csn write pretty much whatever they want without contradicting any fluff allowing them to write all the cool stuff without having to think about what's been written before.

It is quite good. Light years ahead of what you find in the Codexes. I am deeply impressed.

And there is also a lot of stuff. I mean, most background in the codex is "this unit is awesome, the faction is awesome, they are so awesome, they always win"... just empty words to fill page after page. If you start to get interesting information (like "historical" data) you finish with just a few sentences.

FW bombards you with an overwhelming amount of information, full of hidden references and eastern eggs. It is tantalizing, you end the book with a need to re-read it.

I completely agree about the quality of forge worlds writing. It's the difference between an artist that takes the time to craft a tale and someone who simply does it to put food on the table.

 da001 wrote:
Now, the book is supposed to be written by a quite well informed imperial sage right after the Heresy, with lots of information about the traitor Legions and the nature of Chaos not redacted. My take on in is that a Legion didn´t pass the Alpha test.

It also hints of something else: At the time this sage wrote his account of the Heresy, he was free to write about and discuss certain events that were edited out by some unknown censor on a later date. Whatever it was, it only became a forbidden topic after the Heresy had come to pass.

I think it has to do with Legions II and XI, too, but the academic openness with which the in-universe author of the HH tomes presents this information contrasts with the self-censored, almost fearful tone the characters of the Horus Heresy novels use in the rare instances they have approached the subject of the lost Legions.

My only issue with Forge World's writing is the amateurish level of grammatical and spelling errors through a large amount of their earlier books. The Horus Heresy books seem to have better editing, but some of the earlier IA books have proofreading problems that would be embarrassing for a freshman college student.

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

 da001 wrote:
Now, the book is supposed to be written by a quite well informed imperial sage right after the Heresy, with lots of information about the traitor Legions and the nature of Chaos not redacted. My take on in is that a Legion didn´t pass the Alpha test.

It also hints of something else: At the time this sage wrote his account of the Heresy, he was free to write about and discuss certain events that were edited out by some unknown censor on a later date. Whatever it was, it only became a forbidden topic after the Heresy had come to pass.

I think it has to do with Legions II and XI, too, but the academic openness with which the in-universe author of the HH tomes presents this information contrasts with the self-censored, almost fearful tone the characters of the Horus Heresy novels use in the rare instances they have approached the subject of the lost Legions.

Yeah I thought about that too. Perhaps it was written in a time when, since the war was over, it was OK to talk about it again. But then someone somewhere decided that the missing Primarchs were to be remain missing.

If you think about it, it doesn´t make much sense: what´s the point of keeping the II and the XI in darkness when the betrayal of half the rest was known? How could the II or the XI be more a failure than the VIII or the XII?

 Darth Bob wrote:
My only issue with Forge World's writing is the amateurish level of grammatical and spelling errors through a large amount of their earlier books. The Horus Heresy books seem to have better editing, but some of the earlier IA books have proofreading problems that would be embarrassing for a freshman college student.

Perhaps some years ago. Now, imo, it is quite a good read. And the proofreading problem has moved to Codexes.

I agree Alan Bligh is doing a great job at the helm of the writing and lore of this HH series.

I'm enjoying this tidbits scattered throughout the novels.

But they now seem to leave us with too many missing legions..

- We know that one was censured by the Space Wolves
- We know that one failed the Alpha stage
- We know that one was folded into the Ultramarines
- We know one was referred to as 'the forgotten' and one 'the purged'
- We know that one primarch had his casket cracked/broken before 'the gods stole him'
- We know that some of this was shameful EVEN TO WORD BEARERS!

My guess, based on current information

- 'The Purged' was mutated/chaosified/evil/rebellious (possibly due to his casket being damaged) and had mutated/chaosified legion, (and thus may have failed their Alpha stage). The Space Wolves killed them all. This is shameful.

- 'The Forgotten' had died before being found (possibly due to the casket being damaged or whatever) but, since his Legion were fine, they were folded into the Ultramarines.

 ArbitorIan wrote:

- We know that one was censured by the Space Wolves
- We know that one failed the Alpha stage
- We know that one was folded into the Ultramarines
- We know one was referred to as 'the forgotten' and one 'the purged'
- We know that one primarch had his casket cracked/broken before 'the gods stole him'
- We know that some of this was shameful EVEN TO WORD BEARERS!

Couple of corrections on the first three.
1. It is not clear that the Space Wolves censured either of the missing legions as all of the references to 'Emperor's Executioners' are made by space wolves. We have never had an external source refer to the Wolves as such in any official capacity. In addition, the references to the Wolves having been unleashed on other legions before is most likely a reference to the Night of the Wolf, where they fought the World Eaters, and not the missing legions.

2. Except we have confirmation that all of the legions fought in the great crusade, all primarchs were found and all primarchs met one another. All three have been confirmed by Laurie Goulding. This means whatever failed in the Alpha stages was not one of the missing legions.

3. ADB has explicitly stated that the missing legions were not folded into the Ultramarines. It was an in-character rumor spread by the Ultramarine's hated enemy who were attempting to explain how the legion had grown so large so fast. Except we know the reason is because of the Ultramarines extremely efficient recruitment process and large pool of candidates.

jareddm wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:

- We know that one was censured by the Space Wolves
- We know that one failed the Alpha stage
- We know that one was folded into the Ultramarines
- We know one was referred to as 'the forgotten' and one 'the purged'
- We know that one primarch had his casket cracked/broken before 'the gods stole him'
- We know that some of this was shameful EVEN TO WORD BEARERS!

Couple of corrections on the first three.
1. It is not clear that the Space Wolves censured either of the missing legions as all of the references to 'Emperor's Executioners' are made by space wolves. We have never had an external source refer to the Wolves as such in any official capacity. In addition, the references to the Wolves having been unleashed on other legions before is most likely a reference to the Night of the Wolf, where they fought the World Eaters, and not the missing legions.

2. Except we have confirmation that all of the legions fought in the great crusade, all primarchs were found and all primarchs met one another. All three have been confirmed by Laurie Goulding. This means whatever failed in the Alpha stages was not one of the missing legions.

3. ADB has explicitly stated that the missing legions were not folded into the Ultramarines. It was an in-character rumor spread by the Ultramarine's hated enemy who were attempting to explain how the legion had grown so large so fast. Except we know the reason is because of the Ultramarines extremely efficient recruitment process and large pool of candidates.

Interesting...

The White Scars refer to the Wolves as Executioners in Scars. As far as I remember, iin other books it I s referred to that legions have been sanctioned by the Emperor before, but we know that the Night of the Wolf was Russ acting unilaterally and NOT as sanction by the Emperor - Angron calls his bluff during the engagement. So, I'm not sure if the Night of the Wolf is actually the cause if all those rumours. So, I guess either could still be true?

If a missing legion got to the alpha stage (which is battlefield testing) then they conceivably have been found wanting, terminated and still 'have fought in the great crusade'. Their primarch could still have been found by the Emperor, as could a dead primarch...

To be continued....

 ArbitorIan wrote:

My guess, based on current information

- 'The Purged' was mutated/chaosified/evil/rebellious (possibly due to his casket being damaged) and had mutated/chaosified legion, (and thus may have failed their Alpha stage). The Space Wolves killed them all. This is shameful.

- 'The Forgotten' had died before being found (possibly due to the casket being damaged or whatever) but, since his Legion were fine, they were folded into the Ultramarines.

I've always suspected that one of the missing Primarchs was mutated, and not in a good way like Sanguinius. Enough that it became necessary to destroy him and his legion that his mutation was passed on to. The other Primarch I suspect may have, well, not so much turned traitor but turned his back on the Imperium. I figure if you have 20 baby Primarchs scattered through the galaxy, one of them would have landed on a Xenos world. Thus, he probably wouldn't much like the Emperor's crusade to destroy all xenos and unify the galaxy under humanity. But, that's just my idea.

The first mention to one Legion being folded into another or something similar was in "Red Fury", the third Blood Angels book, by James Swallow.

After the events of the first two books (a civil war inside the Blood Angels, no less), the Chapter has taken so many casualties that it is no longer functional. Dante calls the Chapter Masters of the successors and ask them for some men to refill their companies. Seth, Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers, a Chapter dangerously close to extinction too, say that it would be better if the Blood Angels themselves were to be disbanded and scattered among the successor Chapters.

This is the exchange:
Dante speaks:
Seth´s answer after a discussion:
The book is from 2008. What is Seth talking about? Which First Founding Chapter / Original Legion was disbanded?

He's most likely referring to Guilliman seperating the legions into chapters.

jareddm wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:

- We know that one was censured by the Space Wolves
- We know that one failed the Alpha stage
- We know that one was folded into the Ultramarines
- We know one was referred to as 'the forgotten' and one 'the purged'
- We know that one primarch had his casket cracked/broken before 'the gods stole him'
- We know that some of this was shameful EVEN TO WORD BEARERS!

Couple of corrections on the first three.
1. It is not clear that the Space Wolves censured either of the missing legions as all of the references to 'Emperor's Executioners' are made by space wolves. We have never had an external source refer to the Wolves as such in any official capacity. In addition, the references to the Wolves having been unleashed on other legions before is most likely a reference to the Night of the Wolf, where they fought the World Eaters, and not the missing legions.

2. Except we have confirmation that all of the legions fought in the great crusade, all primarchs were found and all primarchs met one another. All three have been confirmed by Laurie Goulding. This means whatever failed in the Alpha stages was not one of the missing legions.

3. ADB has explicitly stated that the missing legions were not folded into the Ultramarines. It was an in-character rumor spread by the Ultramarine's hated enemy who were attempting to explain how the legion had grown so large so fast. Except we know the reason is because of the Ultramarines extremely efficient recruitment process and large pool of candidates.

You do realise that your #1 is wrong though.

In Unremembered Empire Guilliman states that it is well known that the Wolves are the "Sanction". In Scars Malcador calls Russ the Executioner. Finally in Vengful Spirit Malcador says "Your Executioner" when talking about Russ to the Emperor. Which makes it more then clear that the "Executioner" idea extends way beyond "Just the Wolves".

jareddm wrote:
He's most likely referring to Guilliman seperating the legions into chapters.

Yes, but none of the known founding Legions were disbanded. They were merely cut down in size to aid in the creation of Chapters.

I do love everything FW produces. They're obviously written by people who have a deep passion for the setting, and understanding all the nuances and quirks. I know Bligh is the primary force behind the books, but the opening pages make clear he doesn't work alone.

I enjoy the way they write, how they actually seem to have a much better understanding of warfare than GW (New players who ask, "so how do Space Marines, being small in number, actually win wars and whatnot?" to read the Siege of Vraks) , and can make a faction interesting without resorting to "They're awesome, they beat everyone, everything they do is awesome." They also have no small talent at setting building, the Fall of Orpheus being particularly noteworthy in that regard, basically developing a whole sub-sector before killing everyone.

Extermination seems like a logical development, I quite liked their interpretation of space warfare, less Ships of the Line in Orbit, more Ender's Game, and there's so many little tidbits in here. The Alpha Legion section is chock-full of them, ranging from Alpharius having possible Necron connections, to their nature actually being the Emperor's intention, and their casual dismissal and disdain for the other traitor legions, which further feeding into the theory that they're not traitors of the same ilk as the Sons of Horus and Word Bearers.

My personal favourite in this book, however, was the origin of Necromunda.

Origin of Necromunda!?
I'm gonna have to check that out.
I've really liked the FW stuff I've had the opportunity to read thus far.