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It's not that hard to figure out what would have happened.

1. No Forces of Chaos (duh)
2. Imperium much stronger due to no infighting and being led by the Primarchs and their legions. The Orks are crushed. The craftworld Eldar go into hiding.
3. Emperor accesses the webway and the Imperium becomes much better connected
4. With webway acccess, the legions destroy Commorragh and the evil Dark Eldar
5. With the webway, there is no need for the Astronomicon. Tyranids will never be attracted to the Milky Way and will never arrive.
6. The Ultramarines Legion will wipe out the primitive Tau in no time. Even the united, ascendant Tau will be wiped out.

Ultimately, it will be a showdown between the Primarchs and the Necron Overlords when they awaken. The craftworld Eldar will definitely be on the side of the Imperium.

So if the Horus Heresy had never happened it would not be all Noblebright for humans. Which side do you think will win?

With humanity and the Eldar united, the Necron don't have a prayer.

1) Chaos Still would exist and would probably corrupt various planets if they are far away enough from the Big E
2) I doubt they could handily remove 100% of orks
3) Travel definitely would be better though they would probably have more eldar conflicts
4) no clue
5) Nids i though were running away from something not being attracted to the astronomicon
6) Tau would probably be removed fairly quickly though did the Big E actually have a anti Xeno policy?

Nids i though were running away from something not being attracted to the astronomicon

This is a theory, nothing more, both in and out of universe.

Tau would probably be removed fairly quickly though did the Big E actually have a anti Xeno policy?

Yep. It was his belief that it was Mankind's manifest destiny to rule the stars unopposed.

 Desubot wrote:
1) Chaos Still would exist and would probably corrupt various planets if they are far away enough from the Big E
2) I doubt they could handily remove 100% of orks
3) Travel definitely would be better though they would probably have more eldar conflicts
4) no clue
5) Nids i though were running away from something not being attracted to the astronomicon
6) Tau would probably be removed fairly quickly though did the Big E actually have a anti Xeno policy?

given the success of gorro and ullanor, the Orks would definitely have been no threat to the Imperium. But the Heresy weakened the Imperium so much.

 Psienesis wrote:
With humanity and the Eldar united, the Necron don't have a prayer.

I doubt it.

The Webway is in shambles, and even with the Eldar and Imperium united the Necrons outnumber them.

even with the Eldar and Imperium united the Necrons outnumber them.

Citation needed, because there are many Tomb Worlds no longer in existence (Nids, natural cataclysms, Flayer virus), and not every Tomb World has billions of Necrons (and even if it did, the Imperium is *really* big.)

The budding Imperial cult gains steam.
Big Daddy E Man, in his infinite benevolence, "censures" a few dozen planets.
People grow disillusioned.
Mass uprisings exacerbated by Chaos.
New Heresy begins.

I'm gonna agree that some sort of civil war was inevitable. if the HH hadn't occured we miught instead have simply seen a multitude of small scale conflicts. as Primarchs clashed. we where already seeing it even before the Heresy to one degree or another. The World Eaters and Night Lords would have eventually been put down. The Iron Warriors and Imperial fists likely would have come to blows...

I'll assume that Fulgrim in this hypothetical scenerio avoids corruption and that Lorgar actually LISTENED to the Emperor instead of going off to worship Chaos.

Nah the world eaters would be fine, after angron dies due to the nails, then they would just stop useing them or the emp would tell them to stop, after that they would be back to being normal marines.

It would be quite funny that the nids invade and the big e sends JUST the ultramarines legion and they are made extinct... Nids couldn't handle 1 chapter, let alone what would be a couple of million by that point at least

1-There would still be forces of Chaos, perhaps on a smaller scale, but if Horus hadnt fallen it doesn't mean that the possibility of any Imperial forces turning to Chaos is totally removed. Plus deamons are still a thing
2-The Imperium much stronger? No Doubt. The Orks are crushed? Unlikely, there would still be more orks than humans, and Orks are never really gone thanks to the whole 'releasing spores upon death thing
3-Yes, but there are still nasties in the webway (deamons)
4-Probably, but it would take a very long time, and would take attention away from other things in the galaxy that need to be attended
5-Hard to be sure, but most likely there are no nids in the milky way
6-Undoubtedly

Maximus Bitch wrote:
It's not that hard to figure out what would have happened.

1. No Forces of Chaos (duh)
2. Imperium much stronger due to no infighting and being led by the Primarchs and their legions. The Orks are crushed. The craftworld Eldar go into hiding.

So if the Horus Heresy had never happened it would not be all Noblebright for humans. Which side do you think will win?

If horus didnt rise up then one of the other primarchs would have. The forces of chaos are always still there.




This is like killing hitler. If someone went back in time and killed hitler, well the 3rd riech would not have happened. Unless it did happen with someone more ruthless/less dumb than hitler. Or even if you kill everyone in Germany who might rise to power you have Stalin going for world domination without any germany to fight the soviets.


The HH isnt a fatal tragedy, a fatal tragedy is you are driving around on a highway and look down to change the radio station for a split instant. In that split instant another car's driver is also changing the radio station and you two collide and somehow cause an accident with hundreds of other cars on the highway that were otherwise driving well.

1930s europe was not that. Neither was the HH. The empire had grown too fast on too many lies and had too many violent elements.

On point one. Chaos would just be weaker, not gone.
2- orks never quite die out
3-yes but they will never fully understand it
4-umm not sure on that
5-not sure on that
6-maybe big E in wisdom recruit as them as a allied race.

7-still have some legion issues, world eaters, word bearers, maybe iron warriors and death guard to name as few due to various issues.
Maybe not full heresy but not as utopian future.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also night lords, too sdick and twisted to be used for use in any peace keeping or maitinence actions. At best semi held in exile unless they need to unleash them like chained attack dog

Unremembered Empire brings up something else that might have drawn the attention of the Tyranid fleets from across the intergallactic void.

And I'm starting to think that the Heresy was intended as a failsafe. That the Emperor built the Primarchs in such a way that as the Great Crusade drew to a close, they'd turn on each other, many would die, and many of the Astartes would die. The end result would be a galaxy ruled by humanity, with only the most loyal of the primarchs left, and the legions stripped of much of their power and reduced to small, hyperelite QRF formations.

What else do you do with the Astartes Legions when you no longer need 3 to 5 million of them running around? The Big E made sure the Thunder Warriors didn't survive the end of the Unification Wars. Why not make sure most of the Astartes don't outlive the Great Crusade that they were designed for?

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:
Unremembered Empire brings up something else that might have drawn the attention of the Tyranid fleets from across the intergallactic void.

And I'm starting to think that the Heresy was intended as a failsafe. That the Emperor built the Primarchs in such a way that as the Great Crusade drew to a close, they'd turn on each other, many would die, and many of the Astartes would die. The end result would be a galaxy ruled by humanity, with only the most loyal of the primarchs left, and the legions stripped of much of their power and reduced to small, hyperelite QRF formations.

What else do you do with the Astartes Legions when you no longer need 3 to 5 million of them running around? The Big E made sure the Thunder Warriors didn't survive the end of the Unification Wars. Why not make sure most of the Astartes don't outlive the Great Crusade that they were designed for?

I don't think Big E, as dickish as he was, would want the Imperium to erupt in Heresy. Maybe he would have gotten his custodes to cull them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jhe90 wrote:
On point one. Chaos would just be weaker, not gone.
2- orks never quite die out
3-yes but they will never fully understand it
4-umm not sure on that
5-not sure on that
6-maybe big E in wisdom recruit as them as a allied race.

7-still have some legion issues, world eaters, word bearers, maybe iron warriors and death guard to name as few due to various issues.
Maybe not full heresy but not as utopian future.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also night lords, too sdick and twisted to be used for use in any peace keeping or maitinence actions. At best semi held in exile unless they need to unleash them like chained attack dog

Some say that a chaotic heresy is inevitable. But what if the imperial truth becomes so deeply ingrained that its difficult for chaos to take root? (this is a rhetorical question by the way)

Getting back, United Imperium vs Necrons. Who will win?

Maximus Bitch wrote:
It's not that hard to figure out what would have happened.

1. No Forces of Chaos (duh)
2. Imperium much stronger due to no infighting and being led by the Primarchs and their legions. The Orks are crushed. The craftworld Eldar go into hiding.
3. Emperor accesses the webway and the Imperium becomes much better connected
4. With webway acccess, the legions destroy Commorragh and the evil Dark Eldar
5. With the webway, there is no need for the Astronomicon. Tyranids will never be attracted to the Milky Way and will never arrive.
6. The Ultramarines Legion will wipe out the primitive Tau in no time. Even the united, ascendant Tau will be wiped out.

Ultimately, it will be a showdown between the Primarchs and the Necron Overlords when they awaken. The craftworld Eldar will definitely be on the side of the Imperium.

So if the Horus Heresy had never happened it would not be all Noblebright for humans. Which side do you think will win?

1) So you're not only saying that there was no Heresy, but also that Chaos doesn't exist at all? Surely it would only be a matter of time before some other branch of humanity succumbed to the rot?

2) The C'tan and the Necrons could not exterminate the Orks. Humanity would fare no better. The Eldar are another matter.

3) The webway is nothing like it was, and the humans blundering around the webway is going to attract the ire of the Harlequins and Dark Eldar (who know the webway much better than the Emperor does). A webway war would be inevitable, and that is a war in which humanity cannot bring its numbers to bear.

4) See above, it really might not go down that way.

5) The Tyranids were on course for our galaxy anyway. The Astronomicon is drawing them towards Terra now that they are here, but it certainly isn't what brought them to our galaxy in the first place. Remember, the light of the Astronomicon is barely visible when you reach the halo stars. Visible from another galaxy? Not a chance.

6) Agreed, the Tau never rise to power.

I imagine that a brutal webway war would erupt, with the three Eldar factions coming together to do everything that they can to keep humanity out of the webway. Ork incursions would remain commonplace, and the Legions would be kept very busy trying to keep the Orks down. Between the constant need to push back the Orks and the treacherous Eldar warfare in the webway, humanity has no shortage of threats to keep itself busy.

The Necrons may actually start to rise sooner than expected; the Void Dragon cult on Mars leading the Mechanicus to delve into Necron lore and the great awakening begins sooner rather than later. There may even be a techno-heresy in place of a Chaos heresy, with Necron cults splitting humanity.

Finally, 10,000 years after the Horus Heresy fails to happen, the Tyranids arrive.

1. No Forces of Chaos (duh)

Perhaps, Big-E wanted webway access to shut down the warp, right?

2. Imperium much stronger due to no infighting and being led by the Primarchs and their legions. The Orks are crushed. The craftworld Eldar go into hiding.

How do Orks get around? The warp? If Big-E shut down the warp would the Orks find an in to the webway?

3. Emperor accesses the webway and the Imperium becomes much better connected

Yup.

4. With webway acccess, the legions destroy Commorragh and the evil Dark Eldar

The IoM would try. If the DE stopped back-biting one another they could perhaps put up a good fight.

5. With the webway, there is no need for the Astronomicon. Tyranids will never be attracted to the Milky Way and will never arrive.

I forget where, but I think I recall the penance of the elder gods started heading to the Milky Way after observing the birth pangs of Slaanesh in the Warp.

6. The Ultramarines Legion will wipe out the primitive Tau in no time. Even the united, ascendant Tau will be wiped out.

Yup.

Ultimately, it will be a showdown between the Primarchs and the Necron Overlords when they awaken. The craftworld Eldar will definitely be on the side of the Imperium.

No, the craftworld Eldar would be hiding or dead.

Assuming there is never any major uprising among the primarchs, the Imperium wouldn't need to ally with the Eldar to crush the Necrons. If the Emperor can damn near conquer the entire galaxy in 200 years, imagine what he could do in 10000.

On the other hand, it's also conceivable that by the time the Necrons wake up (if they were never discovered and dealt with before then) and the Tyranids arrive, the Imperium's standing forces may have severely diminished due to the lack of enemies to fight.

BrianDavion wrote:
I'm gonna agree that some sort of civil war was inevitable. if the HH hadn't occured we miught instead have simply seen a multitude of small scale conflicts. as Primarchs clashed. we where already seeing it even before the Heresy to one degree or another. The World Eaters and Night Lords would have eventually been put down. The Iron Warriors and Imperial fists likely would have come to blows...

Yep. Even if they didn't fall to Chaos, the DA and SW would most likely still be fighting, due to ancient grudges. Beyond that, as much as the Primarchs are superhuman, they're also egotistical, so it would probably break down into faction wars.

Without the heresy the human race would have evolved to such an advanced point that they would probably become the single most powerful force in the galaxy. The heresy basically put a damper on their progress making most AI technology useless to them.

If anything the TAO would be very close to competition as would Eldar be but the same time eldar pretty much much doomed themselves didn't they.

 UselessSage wrote:
1. No Forces of Chaos (duh)

Perhaps, Big-E wanted webway access to shut down the warp, right?

2. Imperium much stronger due to no infighting and being led by the Primarchs and their legions. The Orks are crushed. The craftworld Eldar go into hiding.

How do Orks get around? The warp? If Big-E shut down the warp would the Orks find an in to the webway?

3. Emperor accesses the webway and the Imperium becomes much better connected

Yup.

1-I dont belive the Emperor is capable of "shutting down" the warp, he can stop humanity from using it but its always going to be there
2-Orks use their space hulks and kroozers as always, nothing will change there
3-Yes, but humanity wouldnt really know what theyre doing in the webway, and the dark eldar and harlequins would be constantly at their throats

The Imperium would obliterate more or less everything. Not much to add.

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:
Unremembered Empire brings up something else that might have drawn the attention of the Tyranid fleets from across the intergallactic void.

And I'm starting to think that the Heresy was intended as a failsafe. That the Emperor built the Primarchs in such a way that as the Great Crusade drew to a close, they'd turn on each other, many would die, and many of the Astartes would die. The end result would be a galaxy ruled by humanity, with only the most loyal of the primarchs left, and the legions stripped of much of their power and reduced to small, hyperelite QRF formations.

What else do you do with the Astartes Legions when you no longer need 3 to 5 million of them running around? The Big E made sure the Thunder Warriors didn't survive the end of the Unification Wars. Why not make sure most of the Astartes don't outlive the Great Crusade that they were designed for?

While I find it very hard to believe that The Emperor engineered the Heresy, I often think on the other hand that he possibly had plans similar to the Thunder Warriors end for the future of the Space Marines and for the most, if not all, the Primarchs.

I'd like to think that he himself, after conquering all the possible Galaxy for humanity, would have simply disappeared in the crowd Man-of-Earth style to let simple humans sort it out for themselves (and maybe ready to pop out only if really needed again).

 Judge Dredd wrote:

While I find it very hard to believe that The Emperor engineered the Heresy, I often think on the other hand that he possibly had plans similar to the Thunder Warriors end for the future of the Space Marines and for the most, if not all, the Primarchs.

I agree with you on the Thunder Warriors front, that the Emperors intentions for the Astartes and the Primarchs is that they were a means to a end, that once they were finished uniting humanity he would off them the same way he did the Thunder Warriors.

Where I do not think he orchestrated the Heresy, it is hard to believe sometimes that with all his alleged ability of foresight, he doesn't see it coming.

Why does he wait 2 years from the time Magnus sends his message warning the Emperor of Horus' fall to do something about it? Why doesn't he at least investigate the possibility at this time? There are many things that could lead us to think that the Emperor had some intention towards the Heresy happening.

On the original topic, if the Horus Heresy never had happened, it would have been the Lorgar Heresy, or the Magnus Heresy. It would not have the same clout as the Horus Heresy did, as no Primarch could unite their brothers like Horus, but a heresy would have happened. As the crusade was drawing to an end squabbling, jealousies and rivalries had already begun to form, all chaos needed to do was poke the right Primarch in the right place and it would have been them.

All primarchs were touched by chaos from the time they were shipped off as babies and the effects would set in motion to one day create havoc amongst the brothers.

It's a simple tale that always end with the same song. Nothing good ever lasts forever and the fact that chaos knew it, sanguinious knew its a bit stupi to not think the emperor knew it too.... So question goes to if he knew it too and did nothing to stop it isn't that an act of chaos too? Maybe he was also in conjunction with chaos and they had a deal. The deal went sour at some point for the emperor and thus the Horus heracy happened. The emperors only alibi for not having anything to with the heresy is that he was waiting for another bonus from the chaos gods and got cheated.

I agree if it weren't to be the Horus heresy it would of been another primarch. There another 16 qualified candidates to snap at a later point in time from poor parenting by big daddy. The heresy was inevitable

 kerikhaos wrote:

It's a simple tale that always end with the same song. Nothing good ever lasts forever and the fact that chaos knew it, sanguinious knew its a bit stupi to not think the emperor knew it too.... So question goes to if he knew it too and did nothing to stop it isn't that an act of chaos too? Maybe he was also in conjunction with chaos and they had a deal. The deal went sour at some point for the emperor and thus the Horus heracy happened. The emperors only alibi for not having anything to with the heresy is that he was waiting for another bonus from the chaos gods and got cheated.

More than likely the deal went sour for the Chaos Gods, not the Emperor. He got the means from them to create the Primarchs and what ever else we needed and shut them off. That's how it looks at least if what the Chaos Gods would have us believe.

At the outset of the series I didn't believe it, but more and more it is looking like the Emperor made a bargain but reneged on that once he had what he wanted.

Lorgar's legion would of gone traitor, and the Night Lords would of been destroyed, because they were already on the run.

Basically it would be a better place. Magnus would of never gone traitor because he would of never sent the message in the first place.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Lorgar's legion would of gone traitor, and the Night Lords would have been destroyed, because they were already on the run.

Basically it would be a better place. Magnus would of never gone traitor because he would of never sent the message in the first place.

Magnus would've gone traitor eventually - Nikaea wouldn't have worked in the long run for the Thousand Sons.

Angron would probably have to be put down eventually.

Typhon would've corrupted the Death Guard because Lorgar goes traitor.

And suddenly you have 7 (these 5 plus the 2 unknown legions) going traitor.

 Pilau Rice wrote:


Why does he wait 2 years from the time Magnus sends his message warning the Emperor of Horus' fall to do something about it? Why doesn't he at least investigate the possibility at this time? There are many things that could lead us to think that the Emperor had some intention towards the Heresy happening.

Because it wasn't a realistic possibility. Sanguinius struck down Amit the Flesh Tearer for even suggesting Horus had betrayed them.

After the great crusade the troublesome chapters are pacified and the E starts working on improving the human race into super duper anti chaos psykers!

 ChazSexington wrote:

Because it wasn't a realistic possibility. Sanguinius struck down Amit the Flesh Tearer for even suggesting Horus had betrayed them.

Yet here was Magnus, one of the Emperors closest and most beloved Sons, risking his and his Legions life to warn the Emperor of the betrayal. The Emperor is a psychic beyond measure, closely followed by Magnus, surely in those moments of communion the Emperor could have gleaned the truth.

Amit is only an Astartes and it is above his station to be questioning the loyalty of Horus, Warmaster and Primarch. The Emperor on the other hand, is the Emperor.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

Because it wasn't a realistic possibility. Sanguinius struck down Amit the Flesh Tearer for even suggesting Horus had betrayed them.

Yet here was Magnus, one of the Emperors closest and most beloved Sons, risking his and his Legions life to warn the Emperor of the betrayal. The Emperor is a psychic beyond measure, closely followed by Magnus, surely in those moments of communion the Emperor could have gleaned the truth.

Amit is only an Astartes and it is above his station to be questioning the loyalty of Horus, Warmaster and Primarch. The Emperor on the other hand, is the Emperor.

True, but I think it's more of a reflection of how difficult it was to believe a Primarch could go rogue rather than an issue of social standing. Also, Magnus DID feth up the Emperor's webway project.

Nevermind the missing two actually setting (maybe?) a precedence for rebellion.