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 Manchu wrote:

 Seb wrote:
I agree that there is contradiction here, but it does not come from the legion, but from the Emperor.

No, the Emperor is clear: "I am awesome but you won't build up a Church in my name." The problem is with how Lorgar responds to this -- he's only hurt by it because he truly believes the Emperor is divine. If he didn't believe that then his humbling on Monarchia would have been far less humiliating and psychologically cataclysmic. At the same time, Monarchia widened a tiny doubt in Lorgar's mind, a suspicion that there were more powers in the galaxy than the Emperor. When he found them, he also found a new faith. Yet now there was a little doubt about them, too, a creeping suspicion that he was right (or closer to right) the first time

I still think the contradiction comes from the emperor. The faith Lorgar has never waivered, and ultimately tunred him against big E. Kinda like love transforms to hate.
IMHO, the twist comes from big E.

Let's imagine I have a Legion of crazy engineered walking tanks under my control. Their boss, my son, desperately wants to worship something, he needs to believe in something.
Option 1 : I go full on God style. Which I won't, because I really believe in humankind bla bla bla.
Option 2 : I slap him in front of his brothers. I know it will turn him against me.
Option 3 : I summon him to a remote planet, so that we can talk man to man. I tell him "yes, you saw the truth, I am a god. But my son, NO ONE CAN KNOW but you. Even your brothers. Especially your brothers."

Why in hell did the emperor not use Lorgar's zeal a litlle more manipulation?
Lorgar is desperatly simple, he simply wants a god, an object to worship. I think big E could have made a little tradeoff here, especially seeing how Lorgar would have felt privileged to be the only one to know.

I like this word : beLIEve.

 Seb wrote:
Kinda like love transforms to hate.

Even that analogy proposes a contradiction on the part of Lorgar: it's Lorgar whose love sours into hate, not the Emperor's. But we're not talking about love and hate; rather, faith and doubt.


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 Seb wrote:
Lorgar is desperatly simple, he simply wants a god, an object to worship. I think big E could have made a little tradeoff here, especially seeing how Lorgar would have felt privileged to be the only one to know.

It's not nearly as simple as that. First, Lorgar's "faith" in the Emperor was doubt-ridden to begin with. If he really believed the Emperor was divine, he would have followed his orders and Monarchia would never have been necessary. Second, the church Lorgar was building was anathema to the Great Crusade. The Emperor was about re-forging human unity. Lorgar's church would have fostered sectarianism or, at the very least, an alternative power structure to the Imperium ... which is exactly what happened regarding the Ecclesiarchy.

 Manchu wrote:

 Seb wrote:
Kinda like love transforms to hate.

Even that analogy proposes a contradiction on the part of Lorgar: it's Lorgar whose love sours into hate, not the Emperor's. But we're not talking about love and hate; rather, faith and doubt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seb wrote:
Lorgar is desperatly simple, he simply wants a god, an object to worship. I think big E could have made a little tradeoff here, especially seeing how Lorgar would have felt privileged to be the only one to know.

It's not nearly as simple as that. First, Lorgar's "faith" in the Emperor was doubt-ridden to begin with. If he really believed the Emperor was divine, he would have followed his orders and Monarchia would never have been necessary. Second, the church Lorgar was building was anathema to the Great Crusade. The Emperor was about re-forging human unity. Lorgar's church would have fostered sectarianism or, at the very least, an alternative power structure to the Imperium ... which is exactly what happened regarding the Ecclesiarchy.

And honestly, I think that it is here that our visions differs. I think that Lorgar wants to have his faith acknowledged. He want the object of his worship to high-five. The object of the faith has little importance.
That's my view however.

 Seb wrote:
And honestly, I think that it is here that our visions differs. I think that Lorgar wants to have his faith acknowledged. He want the object of his worship to high-five. The object of the faith has little importance.

Nope, that's not in conflict with what I have said about Lorgar:

 Manchu wrote:
Horus is a nice contrast to Lorgar in answering OP's question. Whereas Horus's motivations seem ...cloudy ... Lorgar's are very clear. Others have noted that Lorgar did what he thought was right but I'm not sure that was the case when it came to worshiping Chaos. The more I think about it, the more I think Lorgar still believed in the Emperor's divinity and pledged himself to the Chaos gods in spite. It's sort of like turning from God to worship Satan; it's not that you don't believe that God is God anymore -- but you're trying to spite Him by treating something else with the adoration that is due only to Him.

And then there's the issue of what belief demands. If Lorgar really believed the Emperor was God, why not just follow his commands? Why not just hold his tongue and believe privately? For Lorgar, it's not really about the Emperor. It's all about Lorgar. Lorgar wanted to be the high priest. What use is a god who forbids having high priests? The Emperor had no trouble with Lorgar's private belief. He said he wasn't a god and Lorgar thought that was just more proof that he really was. But what the Emperor could not tolerate was the building of a new church. It ran contrary to Unification, the Great Crusade, and the Imperial Truth.

Whether or not Lorgar was allowed to believe in the divinity of the Emperor was never at issue. The issue was that he could not use the Great Crusade as an excuse to build the Ecclesiarchy. Lorgar is a very self-absorbed character. He doesn't care about his god so much as he cares about himself acting as the head of the religion.

The thing that I think we all need to remember is the effect that Lorgar's writings have on the basic humans. I read First Heretic first, that was my first HH book, and I felt it was an appropriate choice, so I had an understanding of his views there, and already knew he wrote the "holy text" about the God-Emperor of Mankind.

I've started all the way at the beginning with Horus Rising and Galaxy in Flames, and you see the things that Lorgar has done by writing about the divinity of the Emperer. Look at the remembrancer Keeler, who was all for the Imperial Truth and the glory of the Crusade (though probably mostly her career). After the events on 6319, she changes from someone that follows the Imperial Truth to the Imperial Cult, the idea that he Emperor is a divine being. This is completely against what the Emperor is trying to do, and you can see how it affects Keeler even when you look at her actions in Galaxy in Flames. She is a completely changed person, now granted I will give her that she has had a traumatic experience and probably would have had her idea of the world shaken anyways, but she is just one example. There are a handful of other humans that believe the words in Lorgar's writing.

So we have a man that says the Emperor of Mankind is a god, look at all that he has done, he as brought us all into the fold, he protects us from the evils of the world (warp or not, because if you don't experience the warp, how do you know the big E is not protecting you?).

I feel as though Lorgar wants his own truth. He believes that there is a greater power out there, and that as such it should be made aware to peoples and they should worship the power because it is what holds everything together. When he united Colchis, it was because of visions he was having about the Emperor, and that is what he believed held mankind together, it bonded them from planet to planet. After Monarchia, he realizes that the Emperor could not be as divine as Lorgar had originally thought because there were greater connections on planet after planet (relating to the "old religion" of Colchis), so his faith forces him on this quest to find THAT truth in his life. The doubt comes into play because as a son of the Emperor, he must be loyal to him and do as he says (like a good son should). This doubt comes to full bearing when he is shown the "old religion" while on Cadia. So he has reasoning for worshiping this old gods, because has seen their greater connection. They were connecting planets that have been found by the Emperor's light, but they are being connected by something else, something older and greater. It also doesn't help that Kor Phaeron and Erebus have his ear.

There are more than a handful.

Well yes, but I've read a grand total of 3 Horus Heresy books, I'm speaking of a handful of people that are shown in the HH books, like Keeler, the soldier that she's caught in the sack with, and one of the Titan crewman in either Galaxy in Flames OR Know No Fear (as I'm reading both of those atm...)

Edit: A little more now in my last post

I can't agree about the "great connection of the old religion" point. It seems weak to me. I mean, in that way of thinking, why wouldn't Lorgar worship the Omnissiah after discovering STC tech on planet after planet?

 Manchu wrote:
I can't agree about the "great connection of the old religion" point. It seems weak to me. I mean, in that way of thinking, why wouldn't Lorgar worship the Omnissiah after discovering STC tech on planet after planet?

Because the mechanicus tends to keep most everything secret? Kinda hard to worship what he can't gain information on.

But again, Kor Phaeron and Erebus were also talking into his ear, and we all know they both worshiped the Chaos gods already..

 Manchu wrote:
Yes, and how many of those under his banner did he particularly mention? I feel like you're purposely talking past me. It's one thing to have strong feelings for a social movement and quite a different thing to have friendships or other personal affections.

I haven't read the story in something like three years and I don't actually have it on me. No I can't remember any slaves he mentioned by name.

What I do remember is that he didn't spend his time lamenting the "social movement" failing like you seem to want to believe, what he did spend his time moaning about was that his family died, and he was powerless to do anything about it, not even die beside them.

You can twist this to have some arbitrary "greater meaning" if you so desire, but the text depicts Angron as an emotionally stunted man who just lost his family.

If the point was that Angron had a lot of good buddies than surely at least one of us would remember Angron actually talking about some of them. Instead, we have Angron upset about being taken away from his freedom fighting army. That's simply no proof of the affection you postulate.


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 Alfndrate wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I can't agree about the "great connection of the old religion" point. It seems weak to me. I mean, in that way of thinking, why wouldn't Lorgar worship the Omnissiah after discovering STC tech on planet after planet?

Because the mechanicus tends to keep most everything secret? Kinda hard to worship what he can't gain information on.

That's rather beside the point. How hard is it to spot the same rhino chassis on six different planets, especially to the mind of a Primarch? In any case, my point is that I don't think Lorgar was motivated by finding similar heathens on a few planets -- although that certainly was the bread crumb trail he followed. But he had to be looking for them in order to find them. So his motivation must have come before that.

 Manchu wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I can't agree about the "great connection of the old religion" point. It seems weak to me. I mean, in that way of thinking, why wouldn't Lorgar worship the Omnissiah after discovering STC tech on planet after planet?

Because the mechanicus tends to keep most everything secret? Kinda hard to worship what he can't gain information on.

That's rather beside the point. How hard is it to spot the same rhino chassis on six different planets, especially to the mind of a Primarch? In any case, my point is that I don't think Lorgar was motivated by finding similar heathens on a few planets -- although that certainly was the bread crumb trail he followed. But he had to be looking for them in order to find them. So his motivation must have come before that.

Would that not come from the fact that Erebus and Kor Phaeron were pushing him in that sort of direction. It's been awhile since I've read the First Heretic.

Idk, just thinking out loud. I agree with you about the faith vs. doubt thing. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the motivation.

If Lorgar's character had been otherwise, Kor Phaeron and Erebus would have gotten nowhere with him. Everything about his fall is made possible because of the war of faith and doubt inside of him.

 Manchu wrote:
I can't agree about the "great connection of the old religion" point. It seems weak to me. I mean, in that way of thinking, why wouldn't Lorgar worship the Omnissiah after discovering STC tech on planet after planet?

Because the Omnissiah doesn't exist and Lorgar doesn't have true faith. In the HH books, Lorgar only worships things that actually exist as a matter of objective fact. Unlike the Emperor or the Ruinous Powers, the existance of the Omnissiah can't be proven as a fact.

The divinity of the Emperor and the Ruinous Powers also cannot be proven as a fact. The distinction your making is irrelevant. According to the religious-types on Mars, the Emperor is the Omnissiah -- and by your argument, the objective existence of the Emperor would be enough for Lorgar. But Lorgar does not worship the Emperor as the Omnissiah.

But as I already explained, that wasn't the point of my analogy anyway. The point is that Lorgar isn't motivated to worship Chaos because he saw evidence of similar cultic practices across several worlds.

 Manchu wrote:
III. Emperor's Children: Perfection v. Flaw
The exacting standards to which Fulgrim held himself and his legion proved a path into obsession. The Emperor's Children eagerly turned from rigorous self-cultivation to the excesses of self-debasement and the Phoenician himself vanished into possession.

Not exactly. Last time we saw him in the HH novels, he was free of possession and gathering raw materials to build a city of mirrors to admire himself in.

Really? Is that in one of the audiobooks? Because the last bit I read about him in The Primarchs anthology didn't make it sound like he was free of posession.

daveNYC wrote:
Really? Is that in one of the audiobooks? Because the last bit I read about him in The Primarchs anthology didn't make it sound like he was free of posession.

I'm guessing Omegus is referring to Reflection Crack'd in the Primarchs Anthology, unless he knows more than we do and has ANGEL EXTERMINATUS!! (evil The Omen music) ...

If you take the story as it is in Reflection Crack'd then it is the real Fulgrim, or you can read between the lines, not take a Daemons word as gospel and believe that it still is the Daemon and that Lucius is going along for the ride ass he recognises the power that the Daemon holds.

If any one is capable of ousting a Daemon from their body it is going to be a Primarch.

... It is Fulgrim back in charge of his own body.


.. Angel Ex. spoilers ahoy.... BIG spoilers.

seriously BIG.

you've been warned.......

1068SCP wrote:Security vs Paranoia: Not a contradiction. Paranoia often aids with security.

He doesn't mean security, like physical security you'd place around a business, or a military camp. He means the emotional feeling of security. Freedom from doubt, anxiety, or fear, etc.

 reds8n wrote:

Spoiler:

part of the plot of Angel Exterminatus revolves around a secret plan of Fulgrims'...... to offer up Perturabo as an offering to the chaos gods to try and ascend to daemonhood.

When did Fulgrim become such a thorough-going villain?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
He means the emotional feeling of security. Freedom from doubt, anxiety, or fear, etc.

Exactly correct.

He gives a meandering explanation of his new philosophy in the Mirror Crack'd.

A couple of things:

III. Emperor's Children: The Phoenician came back from the possession... Dead on about the other part.

VIII. Night Lords: He feared the Emperor's wrath simply because he had zero compassion himself and knew he had royally screwed up. From that perspective it was only a matter of time. I'd say the contradiction is more that he believed loyalty could be ensured through fear when it was his own fear of the Emperor that led him into rebellion.

XX. Alpha Legion: They knew that fact and fiction are concepts to be molded as needed. The contradiction of their fall is really that they took a "fact" from a dubious source and acted on it. That "fact" being the mental images of only 2 possible futures for the galaxy: chaos wins, everyone dies vs humans die, chaos loses. They should have known better. IMHO: the Alpha's aren't working to help the Imperium; they bought the xenos prediction hook line and sinker.