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 Grey Templar wrote:
It's really just another indicator that the Emperor was really dumb when it came to people skills

There's a meme here somewhere: "Made from group of people - can't manage groups of people"

With the TS Tutelaries, are they horrors? Or similar daemons?

NimoStar wrote:
The "before the heresy began" is a lame ass excuse. Before the Heresy began, chaos was actually much less of a threat. So why is dealing with Warp powers before the Heresy such a major anathema, but after we have daemonic rifts and such all over the galaxy, suddenly it is OK?

Magnus was wronged, and there's no way around it. If he was going too far with the research maybe some observers could have been posted on Prospero and other safeguards. Forcing him to go under and then burning everything down was not only wrong, it was also stupid. As it is, they became another Traitor Legion without even wanting to. Primarchs and the emprah were massively incompetent, since otherwise Magnus would have used his psykers and knowledge of the Warp for mankind, as was his intention from the start.

Although I agree with OP that the current Chaos is lame, and that the current lore goes too much into moralistic christianity, Leman Russ was always a bigoted fanatic; at the same time, his soldiers regularly becoming bloodthirsty monsters doesn't warrant him any reflection.

The Primarchs being not-so-bad, even the traitor ones, I think is warranted on the old version of the lore, to show how the Emperor was an ass too, and the Imperium of Mankind was kind of stupid even in thw "good old days" (some writers say that the Emperor's fiery persecution of all discipline-focused religion is what made humanity vulnerable to chaos in the first place).

In short, not all psychic activity is equal. Magnus and the Thousand Sons were not just practicing psychic abilities, they were unwittingly engaging in Chaos sorcery and were perhaps the first Legion to be corrupted, albeit one of the last to realise it.

The Council of Nikaea went too far in banning all librarians as an overraction, it was a mistake and hypocritical. That doesn't make Magnus right.

I'm curious - do we have that many examples of Magnus picking the right option when he had choices to make?

 Dysartes wrote:
I'm curious - do we have that many examples of Magnus picking the right option when he had choices to make?

Hmm... the only thing that comes to mind is trying to prevent Horus falling and then deciding to warn the Emperor. Obviously it is then followed by one of the biggest mistakes in the entire Heresy where he tries to contact the Emperor by sorcery and breaks the Golden Throne so badly a daemon portal is opened at the heart of Terra that traps the Emperor in place for almost the entire war (and next 10000 years).

 Grey Templar wrote:
So the Emperor forgetting that everyone besides himself is an irrational being could be seen as perfectly logical.

You say that like the Emperor himself wasn't an irrational being. Dude tried to make a utopia out of fascism. Was never gonna work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
I'm curious - do we have that many examples of Magnus picking the right option when he had choices to make?

Hmm... the only thing that comes to mind is trying to prevent Horus falling and then deciding to warn the Emperor. Obviously it is then followed by one of the biggest mistakes in the entire Heresy where he tries to contact the Emperor by sorcery and breaks the Golden Throne so badly a daemon portal is opened at the heart of Terra that traps the Emperor in place for almost the entire war (and next 10000 years).

Counterpoint, if the throne was that easy to break, then it would have happened sooner or later anyway.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So the Emperor forgetting that everyone besides himself is an irrational being could be seen as perfectly logical.

You say that like the Emperor himself wasn't an irrational being. Dude tried to make a utopia out of fascism. Was never gonna work.

Ain't that the truth.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
I'm curious - do we have that many examples of Magnus picking the right option when he had choices to make?

Hmm... the only thing that comes to mind is trying to prevent Horus falling and then deciding to warn the Emperor. Obviously it is then followed by one of the biggest mistakes in the entire Heresy where he tries to contact the Emperor by sorcery and breaks the Golden Throne so badly a daemon portal is opened at the heart of Terra that traps the Emperor in place for almost the entire war (and next 10000 years).

Counterpoint, if the throne was that easy to break, then it would have happened sooner or later anyway.

Eh, I'm willing to accept it was more fragile in the construction phase than its finished form might have been. I get the impression Magnus did his Warpcraft breaking and entering at the worst possible time- after achieving a Warp connection but before being able to build a stable Webway tunnel.

NimoStar wrote:
The "before the heresy began" is a lame ass excuse. Before the Heresy began, chaos was actually much less of a threat. So why is dealing with Warp powers before the Heresy such a major anathema, but after we have daemonic rifts and such all over the galaxy, suddenly it is OK?

The whole point of the Edict was to prevent what Magnus did from happening widescale and a vain attempt to keep knowledge of Chaos from spreading. It was forgotten during the Heresy much like almost every other rule or law prohibiting the use of certain technologies and weapons.
When the Heresy was over, a third of the Loyalist Primarchs were dead or missing, Malcador was dead, Valdor and the Custodes had entirely withdrawn from the Imperium and the Emperor was a half-corpse on the Golden Throne. The Edict was ignored because for once the powers of the Imperium looked at how bad everything was and actually made the right decision.
The Edict was a mistake but an understandable one but it doesn't excuse Magnus going further into sorcery to boost the powers of the XVth.

 Dysartes wrote:
I'm curious - do we have that many examples of Magnus picking the right option when he had choices to make?

Or potentially more interesting? Is there examples of Magnus doing the right thing, taking solely into account the information he had access to?

He was the Emperor's curiosity made manifest. The drive to learn more about everything and anything but without the caution or experience to know how bad things could get with sorcery and unregulated psykers.

That was his big mistake, he always went too far. Even his own Legion felt this way at Nikaea when Magnus took his turn to talk about why he encouraged the XVth to study their powers.
The Stormseers of the Scars and the Librarians of the Blood Angels both talked about using their powers in balance with being Astartes and humans, Magnus basically advocated for utter freedom to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted with no regard for the works of the other pro-Librarian Legions or the dangers discussed by those opposed to the project.

 Dysartes wrote:
I'm curious - do we have that many examples of Magnus picking the right option when he had choices to make?

Hmmm.....well, he did finally join the other Traitor Legions. That was obviously the correct choice. But, I'm not sure if he had a choice at that point. (Wasn't the Future Corpse God still trying to get him back? Sorry, still haven't gotten around to reading the later Horus Heresy novels. )

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So the Emperor forgetting that everyone besides himself is an irrational being could be seen as perfectly logical.

You say that like the Emperor himself wasn't an irrational being. Dude tried to make a utopia out of fascism. Was never gonna work.

Possibly. But if anyone could do it, it would be the most powerful psyker to ever exist, and naturally it would probably involve most humans dying. Most likely the end goal where humanity has become a fully psychic race only happens for a few people, everybody else is then exterminated as lesser beings by the Emperor and the perfected psychic humans he was working towards. So the galaxy is eventually inhabited solely by the super psychic humans, but only by virtue of exterminating everybody else.

Its technically a utopia. Not for the "lesser beings" of course, but they're dead so it doesn't count.

I would still posit the Emperor was a totally rational being. This doesn't mean he can't be stupid. Rational does not mean you can't make dumb decisions, it just means you do not use emotion in any of your decision making.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So the Emperor forgetting that everyone besides himself is an irrational being could be seen as perfectly logical.

You say that like the Emperor himself wasn't an irrational being. Dude tried to make a utopia out of fascism. Was never gonna work.

Possibly. But if anyone could do it, it would be the most powerful psyker to ever exist, and naturally it would probably involve most humans dying. Most likely the end goal where humanity has become a fully psychic race only happens for a few people, everybody else is then exterminated as lesser beings by the Emperor and the perfected psychic humans he was working towards. So the galaxy is eventually inhabited solely by the super psychic humans, but only by virtue of exterminating everybody else.

Its technically a utopia. Not for the "lesser beings" of course, but they're dead so it doesn't count.

Except even if you got to that point, the killing wouldn't stop. The criteria for being "perfect" would just continue to shrink, necessitating even more death, because fascism is a death cult that cannot survive without an internal enemy to persecute. And by that point, the culture would, like it is in 40K, be built around extolling the worst aspects of humanity such as aggression, xenophobia etc. as desirable traits.

The cruelty of the Imperium, right from the very beginning, has no end point, no end goal at which point the cruelty ends and isn't needed anymore. The cruelty isn't the means to an end, it is the end. It is the boot stamping on the face of humanity, forever.

You're mixing up real life and fiction.

The key difference here is the Emperor. He is actually immortal and is basically a living god. I am also willing to believe that his stated principles and goals, at least as far as we the audience are told, are genuine. The Emperor's end goal is attainable, at least theoretically. Which would mean eventually he would stop purging parts of humanity because the goal would have been achieved. Nothing left to purge.

Now we could ask if maybe as millennia pass by what might happen to the Emperor's psyche. Perhaps he degrades over time as he fails to adjust to a world where he has nothing left to do, perhaps to the detriment of humanity. But that isn't really relevant to this discussion. He could just as easily remain unchanged and lead humanity into a golden eternity, expanding into other galaxies and the rest of the universe.

Doesn't change that atrocious things happened to get us to that point. But insisting that the only possibility is an endless cycle of fascism if the Emperor wins seems flawed. That would prevent his goal of starving chaos by eliminating negative emotions from happening, since now he would be feeding chaos.

The immortal not-god who showed time and time again that he was inhuman and that he would sacrifice literally everything and anything to obtain those goals with ten thousand bio-engineered super-soldiers who obeyed him alone?

Yeah, I'm sure he wouldn't have moved any goalposts that kept him out of power.

 Gert wrote:
The immortal not-god who showed time and time again that he was inhuman and that he would sacrifice literally everything and anything to obtain those goals with ten thousand bio-engineered super-soldiers who obeyed him alone?

Yeah, I'm sure he wouldn't have moved any goalposts that kept him out of power.

Just quoting this so that I can give you some thumbs up. . And an Exalt.

Death to the False Emperor..

Discussing if the Emperor is fallible is besides the point.

Besides, he obviously is, otherwise 40k wouldn't be a dystopia.

Everything happening because of his "Love of Horus" is quite literally imperial propaganda, dude had like ten blind spots the whole time and his dozen of superpowered not-clones being his co-regents was cartoonish to say the least.

***
But, what is on trial is the characterization of Leman Russ and wether the "competency" aspect makes any less of an ass. For example OP tends to say in first post: "He kicked ass, therefore he can't be an ass!". I'd argue that's a fallacy if there was ever any.

I go back to Nikea: Even though Leman Russ was adamant in persecuting Magnus, after all psykers were banned by the Emperor,

*he did not retire his rune priests / librarians* like most of the others. The justification? "My people do never use the warp its spirits and stuff!" (like all spirits aren't the Warp anyways, even if it could be proven its *actually*
spirits?)
It was or should have been patently obvious to anyone that Rune Priests are psykers, even to "dense as rocks" Leman Russ himself, who obviously was on denial (very conveniently so). Specially if you are *supposed* to be an hyper-intelligent augmented human.

Its like saying "Yes I am going over the speed limit, but my car is called a Cobra and laws don't apply to wild animals! Checkmate..."
And the police officer is like "Hmm, sounds legit". Everyone is seemingly way below average IQ. Either that or they are turning a blind eye on purpose.

So, if like other poster said, Magnus and the Thousand Sons "deserved it" because of continuing to use warp magic in secret, then the Space Wolves deserved it x10 for continuing to use it in public (before, during and after asking for it to be banned), and they should have invaded and exterminatus'd their own planet first.

Again, Magnus only got censured under the Edict of Nikaea once he used a huge sorcerous ritual to astral project himself across the galaxy and break-in past the Emperor's "Do NOT disturb!" sign, leading to a literal Warp rift on the throneworld.

He didn't just continue employing psykers in the legion, he openly messed up directly in front of his dad whilst breaking his dad's pet project.

Yes, Leman Russ was hypocritical. That doesn't make Magnus less of an idiot.

NimoStar 814711 11704646 wrote:

***
But, what is on trial is the characterization of Leman Russ and wether the "competency" aspect makes any less of an ass. For example OP tends to say in first post: "He kicked ass, therefore he can't be an ass!". I'd argue that's a fallacy if there was ever any.

I go back to Nikea: Even though Leman Russ was adamant in persecuting Magnus, after all psykers were banned by the Emperor,

*he did not retire his rune priests / librarians* like most of the others. The justification? "My people do never use the warp its spirits and stuff!" (like all spirits aren't the Warp anyways, even if it could be proven its *actually*
spirits?)
It was or should have been patently obvious to anyone that Rune Priests are psykers, even to "dense as rocks" Leman Russ himself, who obviously was on denial (very conveniently so). Specially if you are *supposed* to be an hyper-intelligent augmented human.

Its like saying "Yes I am going over the speed limit, but my car is called a Cobra and laws don't apply to wild animals! Checkmate..."
And the police officer is like "Hmm, sounds legit". Everyone is seemingly way below average IQ. Either that or they are turning a blind eye on purpose.

So, if like other poster said, Magnus and the Thousand Sons "deserved it" because of continuing to use warp magic in secret, then the Space Wolves deserved it x10 for continuing to use it in public (before, during and after asking for it to be banned), and they should have invaded and exterminatus'd their own planet first.

The whole thrust of my argument was that before the hh novels and before the index, he had more written about him than most and he didn't have a long string of failures and donkey-cave moments . You literally using the new material I've specifically called out as evidence is ridiculous.

Before the CCG HH card game and the indexes that were released at the same time and before the fluffed out the HH with books that just kept adding stupid after stupid. How can you call out the op and fail to read it?

 Haighus wrote:
Again, Magnus only got censured under the Edict of Nikaea once he used a huge sorcerous ritual to astral project himself across the galaxy and break-in past the Emperor's "Do NOT disturb!" sign, leading to a literal Warp rift on the throneworld.

He didn't just continue employing psykers in the legion, he openly messed up directly in front of his dad whilst breaking his dad's pet project.

Yes, Leman Russ was hypocritical. That doesn't make Magnus less of an idiot.

Given the importance of the warning he was sending? Mitigation does exist.

And broke his Dad’s pet project he hadn’t told anyone about. And that very secrecy being a good chunk of why Horus was left vulnerable. Had The Emperor informed his sons? Things might’ve turned out very differently.

But note I’m only arguing mitigation, not exoneration.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Again, Magnus only got censured under the Edict of Nikaea once he used a huge sorcerous ritual to astral project himself across the galaxy and break-in past the Emperor's "Do NOT disturb!" sign, leading to a literal Warp rift on the throneworld.

He didn't just continue employing psykers in the legion, he openly messed up directly in front of his dad whilst breaking his dad's pet project.

Yes, Leman Russ was hypocritical. That doesn't make Magnus less of an idiot.

Given the importance of the warning he was sending? Mitigation does exist.

And broke his Dad’s pet project he hadn’t told anyone about. And that very secrecy being a good chunk of why Horus was left vulnerable. Had The Emperor informed his sons? Things might’ve turned out very differently.

But note I’m only arguing mitigation, not exoneration.

It is still the equivalent of warning someone by aiming the signal flare directly at them, having been explicitly told by that person not to play with fire because it is dangerous.

Magnus didn't send the message that way because he thought it was the best way to warn the Emperor, he did it because he wanted to show off how useful sorcery could be actually. He could've sent a more typical astropathic message.

No he couldn't. The Warp was clouded and choppy, the God's were personally intervening, and Horus knew Magnus was trying to stop his rebellion.

It was wrong because it was sorcery combined with accepting a deal from a Warp Predator but Magnus couldn't just send a normal astropathic message.

 Gert wrote:
No he couldn't. The Warp was clouded and choppy, the God's were personally intervening, and Horus knew Magnus was trying to stop his rebellion.

It was wrong because it was sorcery combined with accepting a deal from a Warp Predator but Magnus couldn't just send a normal astropathic message.

Fair. Still would've been better off trying to go in person than what he did.

 Haighus wrote:
Again, Magnus only got censured under the Edict of Nikaea once he used a huge sorcerous ritual to astral project himself across the galaxy and break-in past the Emperor's "Do NOT disturb!" sign, leading to a literal Warp rift on the throneworld.

He didn't just continue employing psykers in the legion, he openly messed up directly in front of his dad whilst breaking his dad's pet project.

That's not the case; Nikaea was before any of that, in 001.M31. Prospero burned three years later, after Magnus had tried some other stuff to ward Horus. Nikaea also didn't merely ban "sorcery" (whatever that means); it banned the Librarius project entire - which the Space Wolves just flaunted outright despite calling for the sanction because of some pretense that Fenris' mysticism has nothing at all do with psychics, you see.

But all of that sort of tracks; Magnus IS the Emperor's truest son, I think. He thinks that he alone knows better, that he can steal fire from the gods and get away unscathed. And just like the Emperor censoring Magnus for something he himself did, Magnus does the same with, amongst others, Aqhet Hakoris as the most notable example. It's a short story from one of The Primarchs anthologies, in which Hakoris traverses farther into the great ocean than Magnus permits (Magnus, as with the Emperor, refusing to explain anything) and then during a meeting to determine his legitimacy winds up pulling a Magnus-at-Nikaea and shows his arrogance off, leading to sanction.

Longstrider wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Again, Magnus only got censured under the Edict of Nikaea once he used a huge sorcerous ritual to astral project himself across the galaxy and break-in past the Emperor's "Do NOT disturb!" sign, leading to a literal Warp rift on the throneworld.

He didn't just continue employing psykers in the legion, he openly messed up directly in front of his dad whilst breaking his dad's pet project.

That's not the case; Nikaea was before any of that, in 001.M31. Prospero burned three years later, after Magnus had tried some other stuff to ward Horus. Nikaea also didn't merely ban "sorcery" (whatever that means); it banned the Librarius project entire - which the Space Wolves just flaunted outright despite calling for the sanction because of some pretense that Fenris' mysticism has nothing at all do with psychics, you see.

But all of that sort of tracks; Magnus IS the Emperor's truest son, I think. He thinks that he alone knows better, that he can steal fire from the gods and get away unscathed. And just like the Emperor censoring Magnus for something he himself did, Magnus does the same with, amongst others, Aqhet Hakoris as the most notable example. It's a short story from one of The Primarchs anthologies, in which Hakoris traverses farther into the great ocean than Magnus permits (Magnus, as with the Emperor, refusing to explain anything) and then during a meeting to determine his legitimacy winds up pulling a Magnus-at-Nikaea and shows his arrogance off, leading to sanction.

I don't mean the Edict of Nikaea was passed after Magnus tried to contact the Emperor via sorcery. I mean that the Emperor did not punish Magnus for breaking the edict until he did it so openly in front of the Emperor via his sorcerous message, at which point the Emperor censured him by burning Prospero. I.e. the edict was not really policed until that point. If Magnus had quietly scaled back the psychic activity of his legion to more typical levels in line with, say, the White Scars, he might have avoided actual punishment entirely, even though he was technically breaking the rule of the edict.

But as you say, Magnus was enormously hubristic and couldn't do that.

 Haighus wrote:
Fair. Still would've been better off trying to go in person than what he did.

Vanity and belief that his abilities would vindicate him in the eyes of the Emperor. After all, if Magnus could warn his father of Horus's betrayal using his gifts, surely the Emperor would rescind the ban on psychic powers?

Is it ever explained why Maggie didn't try contacting Malcador instead of Big E?

Magnus believed speaking to anyone but the Emperor himself would cause too much delay and allow Horus to launch his rebellion.
Malcador also wasn't trusted by a lot of the Primarchs.

there are two separate issues at play and they're not really that related.

Magnus used a nuke instead of a signal flare.

The emperor was sitting in a pile of kindling when he did.

That he didn't tell Magnus what he was sitting in doesn't make sending a nuke instead of a flare reasonable.