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I really don't like the idea that the SW killed off one of the Legions.

not only because they would have suffered heavy losses, the SW are good but not that good they can take out an entire legion without losses.

also the Big E couldn't bring it upon himself to kill Hours after he had created civil war, how could he bring it upon himself to kill an entire legionincluding primach for somthing presumably less.

i do like the idea of "The Lost" fighting through the webway naver to be seen again.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Relatively homogenous? I remember reading (in Tales of Heresy) that the War Hounds (Pre-Angron World Eaters) were pretty terrifying on the field, and the Thousand Sons were prone to genetic defects and also had a high concentration of pskers in their midst. This can't be coincidence and merely something each legion developed over time, can it?

I don't see that being prone to spontaneous mutation was likely something the Emperor planned for the Thousand Sons, no. If I remember A Thousand Sons correctly, their genetic defects and psychic powers were ventured to be the product of warp storms during their geneseed's cultivation, and only arose some years into the crusade. So far as the World Eaters go, surely the point made in After Desh'ea (in which Angron kills the Chapter Master and a number of their Captains) is that, with the exception of Khârn, they were not bloodthirsty maniacs like their Primarch.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:The way I see it is the Emp did plan out certain roles for his Primarchs, but perhaps not in the way we see them. There is no doubt though that the worlds they landed on shaped them into what they are and perhaps in some cases deviated from the path the Big E saw for them.

in short
Legions made for specific roles, Primarchs altered slightly from their roles due to planets.

The problem is that there is no positive evidence whatsoever for this, and to presume it would require credulity-stretching coincidence (or a really cheap 'just as planned') for the Primarchs to have fortuitously landed on worlds on which they would develop to suit some supposed plan.

English Assassin wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Relatively homogenous? I remember reading (in Tales of Heresy) that the War Hounds (Pre-Angron World Eaters) were pretty terrifying on the field, and the Thousand Sons were prone to genetic defects and also had a high concentration of pskers in their midst. This can't be coincidence and merely something each legion developed over time, can it?

I don't see that being prone to spontaneous mutation was likely something the Emperor planned for the Thousand Sons, no. If I remember A Thousand Sons correctly, their genetic defects and psychic powers were ventured to be the product of warp storms during their geneseed's cultivation, and only arose some years into the crusade. So far as the World Eaters go, surely the point made in After Desh'ea (in which Angron kills the Chapter Master and a number of their Captains) is that, with the exception of Khârn, they were not bloodthirsty maniacs like their Primarch.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:The way I see it is the Emp did plan out certain roles for his Primarchs, but perhaps not in the way we see them. There is no doubt though that the worlds they landed on shaped them into what they are and perhaps in some cases deviated from the path the Big E saw for them.

in short
Legions made for specific roles, Primarchs altered slightly from their roles due to planets.

The problem is that there is no positive evidence whatsoever for this, and to presume it would require credulity-stretching coincidence (or a really cheap 'just as planned') for the Primarchs to have fortuitously landed on worlds on which they would develop to suit some supposed plan.

Could you give me an approximation on where they said in Thousand Sons that it had something to do with warp storms? I vaguely remember that too but thought of it more as theories amongst marines rather than something... well other than theories. And I haven't heard of After Desh'ea, audiobook? New short? Or did is it in a codex.

But the thing with Angron, didn't they basically lobotomize some parts of his brain to make him more aggressive before they stuck him into the arenas? Or again are there bits of lore that i'm missing?

And is there evidence to support anything else? I'm pretty sure GW likes to keep things vaguely clear or clearly vague so they could always go back and do something about it later

Just to throw more fuel on the fire, in The First Heretic, when Lorgar and Magnus are talking, Lorgar starts to talk about the "Two already lost" and Magnus cuts him off to remind Lorgar to "Honor* the oath you took that day", which can suggest both missing Primarchs and their legions were expunged at the same time.

I'm fairly willing to bet that there is no actual story in existence and the only guideline that is being given to the fluff writers is to not talk about them, or talk about them in nebulous, non-specific terms. Hence why there is so much conflicting info in the Heresy novels. This little bit of fluff has stayed in the canon for so long that GW wrote itself into a corner when it decided to sanction an expanded Horus Heresy storyline. When the knowledge of the details of the Heresy was mostly "lost" it didn't matter. Now, when they have stories that are occurring in a contemporary setting, they have to find a way around it.


*British misspelling corrected.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Just to throw more fuel on the fire, in The First Heretic, when Lorgar and Magnus are talking, Lorgar starts to talk about the "Two already lost" and Magnus cuts him off to remind Lorgar to "Honor* the oath you took that day", which can suggest both missing Primarchs and their legions were expunged at the same time.

*British misspelling corrected.

I wouldn't go so far as to say at the same time, but I would say that all 18 "existing" Primarchs had knowledge of the last two, and knew their fate, but were honor bound not to talk about it... Though apparently they don't talk about this the way that Bob doesn't talk about Fight Club

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Just to throw more fuel on the fire, in The First Heretic, when Lorgar and Magnus are talking, Lorgar starts to talk about the "Two already lost" and Magnus cuts him off to remind Lorgar to "Honor* the oath you took that day", which can suggest both missing Primarchs and their legions were expunged at the same time.

*British misspelling corrected.

I wouldn't go so far as to say at the same time, but I would say that all 18 "existing" Primarchs had knowledge of the last two, and knew their fate, but were honor bound not to talk about it... Though apparently they don't talk about this the way that Bob doesn't talk about Fight Club

I don't know about that. It depends on how fast the primarchs where recovered and it what order. We know Horus was the first and only for a long while. I can see Dorn and Guilliman being rather early on also. Same with Lorgar ( unless Cholos has a fantastic recrutment drive to make them the second largest legion.) After that it's all a crap shoot, except for Alpharius/Omeagon we know they/them where last found by Horus himself and didn't spend much time with the Emperor before getting out there into 'the fight'.

We know Russ and the Wolves had to be 'found' but then as he did the dirty deed apparently on atleast one of them.

Personally I like to think a more interesting question is " Is "The Emperor" just a body who was given life by malcador ( who is the true Emperor) as a 'figure head' while he is the power behind the throne. Split your conceness into two beings who have no memorys of being one. Kinda like Alphy/omeg Two bodys one spirit?

EDIT; whoops Magnus would of have to of been found by then also. I guess it would be kind of awkard for Lorgar to have that conversation with Magnus while magnus is just having a "WTF" moment

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote: I don't know about that. It depends on how fast the primarchs where recovered and it what order. We know Horus was the first and only for a long while. I can see Dorn and Guilliman being rather early on also. Same with Lorgar ( unless Cholos has a fantastic recrutment drive to make them the second largest legion.)

The Word Bearers did significantly less fighting and conquering during the Great Crusade than the other Legions. Less fighting means less casualties. They also spent long periods of time on the few worlds the did conquer, which meant plenty of time to recruit. Those both probably aided their growth.

English Assassin wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Relatively homogenous? I remember reading (in Tales of Heresy) that the War Hounds (Pre-Angron World Eaters) were pretty terrifying on the field, and the Thousand Sons were prone to genetic defects and also had a high concentration of pskers in their midst. This can't be coincidence and merely something each legion developed over time, can it?

I don't see that being prone to spontaneous mutation was likely something the Emperor planned for the Thousand Sons, no. If I remember A Thousand Sons correctly, their genetic defects and psychic powers were ventured to be the product of warp storms during their geneseed's cultivation, and only arose some years into the crusade. So far as the World Eaters go, surely the point made in After Desh'ea (in which Angron kills the Chapter Master and a number of their Captains) is that, with the exception of Khârn, they were not bloodthirsty maniacs like their Primarch.

I think it is entirely possible

The Emperor is a bit of an ass to say the least. He created the Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra and then killed them once they had served their purpose. I do think that the Emperor could have orchestrated the whole unstable geneseed of the Thousand Sons.

We discussed it here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/240/403376.page#3580671

Imagine the Emperor knew that he couldn't be on the Golden Throne all the time and needed someone, being Magnus, to sit on it for him. He also needs to conquer the galaxy so needs as many Legions as possible. He creates the Thousand Sons with time bomb Geneseed as he can imagine that their father wouldn't leave them to fight on their own. So the only way to pull him away from his children would be for them to die and to give him purpose.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:The way I see it is the Emp did plan out certain roles for his Primarchs, but perhaps not in the way we see them. There is no doubt though that the worlds they landed on shaped them into what they are and perhaps in some cases deviated from the path the Big E saw for them.

It would have served the Emperor better if the Primarchs never had sent away. The Emperor had intended for all 20 to remain on Terra by the looks of it from reading Deliverance Lost. I think that the Primarchs individuality that led to a lot of them rebelling. If the Primarchs were kept on Terra and the Emperor had that much access to them I think they would have been as loyal to him as the Custodes, which the Chaos Gods didn't want. If anything it was the Gods of Chaos that chose what planets to dump the Primarchs on, 10 of them at least.

English Assassin wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:
Legions made for specific roles, Primarchs altered slightly from their roles due to planets.

The problem is that there is no positive evidence whatsoever for this, and to presume it would require credulity-stretching coincidence (or a really cheap 'just as planned') for the Primarchs to have fortuitously landed on worlds on which they would develop to suit some supposed plan.

I think that this might have been the Emperors original intention. Dorn, Perturabo, Magnus and Russ all seem to have been created with certain tasks in mind and the Emperor might have been able to work with these talents better had they had grown up on Terra. But seeing as they were scattered they might not have nurtured their full potential the way the Emperor would have intended for them and were also tainted, in a way, with humanity, which I guess is one of the Primarchs biggest flaws.

There is some talk in one of the HH books about the roles of the primarchs (and by extension their Legions).

I cannot for the life of me remember which, but they talk about Dorn "protecting the hearth" and so on...

Steelmage99 wrote:There is some talk in one of the HH books about the roles of the primarchs (and by extension their Legions).

I cannot for the life of me remember which, but they talk about Dorn "protecting the hearth" and so on...

Prospero Burns if I remember rightly

OP, the Blood Ravens are NOT a second founding Imperial Fist chapter. They are loyalist Thousand Suns. It is hinted at allover.

GK are a second founding, made from either the Emporer's gene seed or those from the Einstein that fled to earth.

Deathwatch are a chapter made of Marines "on loan" to the Ordos Xenos.

We all know, that the Angry Marines were one of the Legions.... And either the Reasonable Marines or the Pretty Marines were the other.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Could you give me an approximation on where they said in Thousand Sons that it had something to do with warp storms? I vaguely remember that too but thought of it more as theories amongst marines rather than something... well other than theories. And I haven't heard of After Desh'ea, audiobook? New short? Or did is it in a codex.

But the thing with Angron, didn't they basically lobotomize some parts of his brain to make him more aggressive before they stuck him into the arenas? Or again are there bits of lore that i'm missing?

And is there evidence to support anything else? I'm pretty sure GW likes to keep things vaguely clear or clearly vague so they could always go back and do something about it later

I don't recall where in A Thousand Sons (I'd have to re-read the novel), but the point stands that Astartes spontaneously mutating might be the result of any number of external factors, or of particular flaws in Magnus' geneseed, and is thus in no way positive proof of some kind of hypothetical intent.

'After Desh'ea' is a short in Tales of Heresy; your point about Angron rather hits the nail on the head - he was made into an unstable, bloodthirsty maniac by the lobotomy and cerebral implants he received on the unnamed world on which he was raised. Likewise Konrad Curze became space-Batman (complete with superhero alter ego) because he he grew up fighting crime on a world which was essentially space-Gotham, Jaghatai Khan ended up space-Genghis Khan because he was raised on space-Mongolia, Roboute Guilliman landed in space-Rome, avenged his adopted father's murder, and became space-Augustus, etc.

That the Primarchs' characters - and by extension those of their Legions, after their recovery - were formed by the worlds on which they were raised is unarguable, long-established background, whereas the hypothesis that the Emperor intended them for the particular roles they eventually filled is not only based solely in speculation, but requires accepting the ludicrous coincidence that they all landed on worlds which would inculcate just the qualities he wanted. On the information presently available - i.e. plenty about how the Primarchs' upbringings shaped them, and nothing about some supposed 'Imperial plan' - the only logical conclusion is to accept the former and disregard the latter.

Pilau Rice wrote:It would have served the Emperor better if the Primarchs never had sent away. The Emperor had intended for all 20 to remain on Terra by the looks of it from reading Deliverance Lost. I think that the Primarchs individuality that led to a lot of them rebelling. If the Primarchs were kept on Terra and the Emperor had that much access to them I think they would have been as loyal to him as the Custodes, which the Chaos Gods didn't want. If anything it was the Gods of Chaos that chose what planets to dump the Primarchs on, 10 of them at least.

Of course the flaw in that assumption is that the Primarch in whose upbringing the Emperor had the largest role was..? We have literally no idea what factors governed the infant Primarchs' destinations, they may have been deliberately chosen by the Ruinous Powers, they may have been entirely random, making guesses about numbers in a vacuum of information is specious.

English Assassin wrote:
That the Primarchs' characters - and by extension those of their Legions, after their recovery - were formed by the worlds on which they were raised is unarguable, long-established background, whereas the hypothesis that the Emperor intended them for the particular roles they eventually filled is not only based solely in speculation, but requires accepting the ludicrous coincidence that they all landed on worlds which would inculcate just the qualities he wanted. On the information presently available - i.e. plenty about how the Primarchs' upbringings shaped them, and nothing about some supposed 'Imperial plan' - the only logical conclusion is to accept the former and disregard the latter.

Despite of what we have in Deliverance Lost, pointing to the geneseed of the Primarchs being modified and what Russ goes into in Prospero Burns?

It's definitely their upbringing on their homeworlds that made them Space Vikings and Khans. But they were created with specific knowledge of how to do stuff. Corax just knows how to be stealthy, it's in his being. Which could be the way the Emperor created him, to be the stealth specialist.

English Assassin wrote:
Of course the flaw in that assumption is that the Primarch in whose upbringing the Emperor had the largest role was..? We have literally no idea what factors governed the infant Primarchs' destinations, they may have been deliberately chosen by the Ruinous Powers, they may have been entirely random, making guesses about numbers in a vacuum of information is specious.

Horus, who was raised on Cthonia, your point? He might have spent the longest time with his father but was still raised on Cthonia for an unknown period of time.

We can make a pretty accurate guess on what information we do have. The First Heretic shows each of the Primarchs that would turn traitor, plus the Lion who is a bit iffy, on their respective homeworlds. Who Orchestrated the abduction of the infant Priamrchs? The Chaos Gods. Who harboured Lorgar for the longest time in the warp? The Chaos Gods. Who had plans for the Primarchs since they found out about them? The Chaos Gods.

Maybe the two missing primarchs simply landed on gas planets or inside a black hole. After all, what is the probability of 20 primarchs landing on 20 planets that could support human life...

d-usa wrote:Maybe the two missing primarchs simply landed on gas planets or inside a black hole.

WWWWWWEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....... POP

Pulsing Rice wrote:Despite of what we have in Deliverance Lost, pointing to the geneseed of the Primarchs being modified and what Russ goes into in Prospero Burns.

Well, I haven't yet read Deliverance Lost. If it explicitly states that the Emperor deliberately engineered the Primarchs to fit the roles they subsequently filled - and that's the contention against which I'm arguing - then it's a retcon, and, quite frankly, it's unbelievably poor writing, since it requires we accept the aforementioned ridiculous coincidences.

Pilau Rice wrote:He might have spent the longest time with his father but was still raised on Cthonia for an unknown period of time.

Per Horus Rising he wasn't even there long enough to acquire a Cthonian accent.

d-usa wrote:Maybe the two missing Primarchs simply landed on gas planets or inside a black hole.

No, it's confirmed, as mentioned earlier in this thread, by 'The Lightning Tower' that they were both found by the Emperor.

Emperor did not engineer Magnus to sit on the Golden Throne.

Golden Throne was not conceived of until Great Crusade was under way (and nearly finished).
No one was required to constantly be on Golden Throne until Magnus broke it.
Emperor could not see the future.

English Assassin wrote:

Pulsing Rice wrote:Despite of what we have in Deliverance Lost, pointing to the geneseed of the Primarchs being modified and what Russ goes into in Prospero Burns.

Well, I haven't yet read Deliverance Lost. If it explicitly states that the Emperor deliberately engineered the Primarchs to fit the roles they subsequently filled - and that's the contention against which I'm arguing - then it's a retcon, and, quite frankly, it's unbelievably poor writing, since it requires we accept the aforementioned ridiculous coincidences.

What if you take pieces of that as a whole? Perhaps the Emperor imbued each Primarch with some aspect of his being, thus making Corax 'super stealthy', and Alpharius 'super sabotage-ey', BUT it was the planet that they landed on that ultimately shaped their whole identity? I had read that the Dusk Raiders fought in larger squads, slowly and implacably gunning down the enemy. Enter Mortarion who was a dour, no-nonsense type of dude who scorned all ornamentation but the essential and didn't care how pretty a victory was, so long as his men took not a single step back. The Legion, being made of his Genetic Materials already had some aspect of his personality, but it was his home planet that truly shaped his outlook and personality.

Just the same with Lorgar, if he had landed on Kiavahr, instead of Colchis (or whichever planet it was), he would have been plunged into a guerrilla style insurrection, as opposed to a religiously based "holy war" and thus, would have had his outlook and demeanor altered because of it.

But, in Deliverance Lost, it does discuss how the Emperor engineered each Primarch (however, doesn't thus far discuss engineering specific roles in the Great Crusade), so I think that it isn't too much of a stretch to see some sort of engineering roles, though ultimately I think that the planet each Primarch landed on had just as much impact on who they were as "people".

The 11th primarch is known as the lost one right? Now this may just be a coincidence (and probably is) Malal (now called Malice I believe) was referred to as 'The Lost God' and his sacred number is 11

Now if this is in any way connected then shouldn't 'The Sons of Malice' be the 11th legion?

Murdock129 wrote:The 11th primarch is known as the lost one right? Now this may just be a coincidence (and probably is) Malal (now called Malice I believe) was referred to as 'The Lost God' and his sacred number is 11

Now if this is in any way connected then shouldn't 'The Sons of Malice' be the 11th legion?

And as I pointed out in last week's Malal thread (and doubtless will again in next week's), they are in fact known as 'The forgotten and the purged.', so no.

#2 is the other missing Legion so the significance of 11 is a dubious one.

Engrish assassyn wrote:

Pulsing Rice wrote:Despite of what we have in Deliverance Lost, pointing to the geneseed of the Primarchs being modified and what Russ goes into in Prospero Burns.

Well, I haven't yet read Deliverance Lost. If it explicitly states that the Emperor deliberately engineered the Primarchs to fit the roles they subsequently filled - and that's the contention against which I'm arguing - then it's a retcon, and, quite frankly, it's unbelievably poor writing, since it requires we accept the aforementioned ridiculous coincidences.

It doesn't go out to specifically say the Emperor did it but who else engineered the Primarch Data. But I am not saying that the roles that they filled after they were rediscovered were the roles that the Emperor had intended for them. Some like Dorn and Perturabo seem to have done what the Emperor intended and been the Siege specialists. But did the Emperor intend for Perturabo to be sullen, moody and disliked, I wouldn'tve thought so. I am trying to say that the Emperor had a plan for each Primarch, and each had a purpose, but the subsequent scattering of the Primarchs changed this and they grew up as their homeworld dictated. Although they grew up acting on the latent abilities that the Emperor had intended for them. Should they had grown up on Terra they the Emperor could have guided them accordingly.

English Assassin wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:He might have spent the longest time with his father but was still raised on Cthonia for an unknown period of time.

Per Horus Rising he wasn't even there long enough to acquire a Cthonian accent.

Not entirely true as he could speak Cthonic 'with the particular hard palatal edge and rough vowels of a Western Hemispheric ganger'. True though he, didn't spend as much time on Cthonia as the other Primarchs did on their respective homeworlds.

Let me try this from a different direction.

Didn't chaos scatter the primarchs? I remember a bit in First Heretic where they talk about the pantheon being "fathers" in a sense to the primarchs as the Emp had delved deep to create them.

Could it be said that chaos spread the primarchs onto planets based on their element to grow independently and eventually turn on the emporer?

Maybe that's a little too much of a stretch....... must lay off the sharpie fumes....

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Let me try this from a different direction.

Didn't chaos scatter the primarchs? I remember a bit in First Heretic where they talk about the pantheon being "fathers" in a sense to the primarchs as the Emp had delved deep to create them.

Could it be said that chaos spread the primarchs onto planets based on their element to grow independently and eventually turn on the emporer?

Maybe that's a little too much of a stretch....... must lay off the sharpie fumes....

the sharpie fumes are in fact, the incense of Tzeentch

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Let me try this from a different direction.

Didn't chaos scatter the primarchs? I remember a bit in First Heretic where they talk about the pantheon being "fathers" in a sense to the primarchs as the Emp had delved deep to create them.

Could it be said that chaos spread the primarchs onto planets based on their element to grow independently and eventually turn on the emporer?

Maybe that's a little too much of a stretch....... must lay off the sharpie fumes....

the sharpie fumes are in fact, the incense of Tzeentch

oh dammit... BLarrrghhh...... *tentacles waving*

Pilau Rice wrote:He might have spent the longest time with his father but was still raised on Cthonia for an unknown period of time.

Per Horus Rising he wasn't even there long enough to acquire a Cthonian accent.

Well, thanks to a six-hour train journey back from London yesterday, I can now add my thoughts on Deliverance Lost. Not a bad read, actually, though the twist at the end is rather cheap, since it wasn't (at least that I noticed) foreshadowed at any point in the novel. It was, however, pleasing to see that Gav was evidently thinking of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress when he wrote Corax's flashback segments.

Anyway... fair enough, the novel establishes unarguably that the Emperor did not make all of the Primarchs identical. It does not necessarily follow from this, however, that he did this for the sake of specialisation; they were, after all, experiments. (One wonders who the 'control' was: Horus? The Lion?) Given the other information we have, the conclusion which requires the fewest assumptions remains that they were principally shaped by their disparate upbringings. Indeed Corax spends several pages reflecting on just that fact; he and Curze share certain similarities because they were scattered to similar worlds, but that Corax didn't turn into a compassionless killer, because, unlike Curze, he had others around him to teach him morality and the value of human life.

Sticking with the Primarchs, however, it is interesting also to note that the genetic differences observed are only peripheral to their developed characters. Perdurabo, for instance, was intended to be tough and to feel no pain, not specifically to be a 'siege specialist'.

Pilau Rice wrote:I do have a theory that the Emperor knew that something would happen with his children and created a copy of each one in case one was lost, so to speak. Certain Primarchs share capabilities that are pretty close to another, Dorn and Perturabo for example, to be just mere coincidence.

I'm not convinced by this either, Deliverance Lost dismisses any notion of design in the Curze/Corax pair, and, going back to Index Astartes (still the most detailed source we have on Dorn, until he gets his Horus Heresy novel) Dorn is not described as merely a master of fortifications, but as 'The Emperor's Praetorian', trusted with the most difficult and demanding tasks by virtue of his loyalty (and, to extrapolate from his personality, his self-flagellating determination). The rivalry between him and Perdurabo, I would venture, rested largely in the latter's mind.

English Assassin wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:He might have spent the longest time with his father but was still raised on Cthonia for an unknown period of time.

Per Horus Rising he wasn't even there long enough to acquire a Cthonian accent.

Is it mentioned that any of the Primarchs speak with the accent of their homeworld? It says that Horus was the only Primarch who didn't mature on their homeworld. So a few years maybe. Certainly long enough for a genetic super being to learn the lingo, so to speak.

English Assassin wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:Not entirely true as he could speak Cthonic 'with the particular hard palatal edge and rough vowels of a Western Hemispheric ganger'.

Unless I misremember, Horus Rising specifically makes the point that Horus artificially puts on a Cthonian accent to fit in with his soldiers, but that it is not his native accent.

True, but then do any of the other Primarchs state they they talk with their adopted homeworlds accent? Or is it all mimicry, like with the Lion being able to mimic the creatures of Caliban. Horus possibly spoke with a Cthonic accent up until the Emperor discovered him, finding out that Terra, and not Cthonia, was his homeworld.

English Assassin wrote:It does not necessarily follow from this, however, that he did this for the sake of specialisation; they were, after all, experiments. (One wonders who the 'control' was: Horus? The Lion?) Given the other information we have, the conclusion which requires the fewest assumptions remains that they were principally shaped by their disparate upbringings. Indeed Corax spends several pages reflecting on just that fact; he and Curze share certain similarities because they were scattered to similar worlds, but that Corax didn't turn into a compassionless killer, because, unlike Curze, he had others around him to teach him morality and the value of human life.

I don't know, I don't think the Primarchs were the experiments. I think they would have been the outcome of prior experimentation, the finished project so to speak. What if they would have gone wrong?

English Assassin wrote:Sticking with the Primarchs, however, it is interesting also to note that the genetic differences observed are only peripheral to their developed characters. Perdurabo, for instance, was intended to be tough and to feel no pain, not specifically to be a 'siege specialist'.

These also were the only points that Corax commented on, I'm sure that as with Corax, Perturabo would have had other talents embedded into his being.

English Assassin wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:I do have a theory that the Emperor knew that something would happen with his children and created a copy of each one in case one was lost, so to speak. Certain Primarchs share capabilities that are pretty close to another, Dorn and Perturabo for example, to be just mere coincidence.

I'm not convinced by this either, Deliverance Lost dismisses any notion of design in the Curze/Corax pair, and, going back to Index Astartes (still the most detailed source we have on Dorn, until he gets his Horus Heresy novel) Dorn is not described as merely a master of fortifications, but as 'The Emperor's Praetorian', trusted with the most difficult and demanding tasks by virtue of his loyalty (and, to extrapolate from his personality, his self-flagellating determination). The rivalry between him and Perdurabo, I would venture, rested largely in the latter's mind.

Hmm not sure I agree. Clearly the upbringing of the Primarchs on their respective worlds moulded them into something different from the Emperors original intentions and each Primarch garnered their own characteristics and personalities from this. Had it been intended for Dorn to be the Emperors Praetorian from the offset, from his birth. Was Perturabo a copy of Dorn, but flawed. You don't have to share the same theory

The debate about whether the Primarchs were created with a pre-designed skil set, seems to come down to a nature vs nuture debate.

Now the nature aspect of the primarchs is their genetic legacy desinged by the emperor, now because they were designed/created this gives a strong argument that their characteristics were deliberate.

Now Nature, being the world they grew up on, has undoubtably shaped the characters of the primarchs, Russ being a space viking, Angron have his brain tinckered with has got to have had a huge impact on who he was menat to be.

Whenever I'm not sure I generally settle for a nice shade of grey answer. The emperor didn't plan for them to be scattered, and it's highly unlikely that the forces of chaos would have been helpful enough to scatter the primarchs to the exact planets that would aid th development of the emperors pre made plans.

So here what I think, go easy just made this up after reading this thread, the emperor did have plans for each of them and had he been able to raise them on terra as intended each would have developed in a similar fashion, except with terran accents. As children are highly adaptable and being primarch kids you can imagine that they would pocess even greater adaptability. This would probably aided the emperor in his training of them. However it actually meant they embraced the traits of their new home worlds upbringing.

The planets they ended up on were random, and uable to resist DNA their natural traits expressed themselves in a "local Manner". If Khan had landed on a water planet he would probably been really nippy on a water ski. If Corax had landed on Maccrage he would have still been sneaky but with a heavier political leaning.

In short nature and nuture both have an impact to say one is more powerful than the other is in debate without end. Is the lion a secretive beacuse it's in his DNA or because he spend his formative years hanging out with chaos beasts. In my opinion it probably both. Nuture is hugely important but there are some genetic traits you can't fight.