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So with all of their obsession over perfection the Emperor's Children were fairly easy individuals for Slaneesh to corrupt, but what if the final push (aka Fulgrim getting his chaos on with his possessed sword) hadn`t occured?
Is it debatable that the Emperor's Children would have remained loyal, ever willing to show off themselves as the perfect defenders of the Emperor, or would they have fallen into Horus's scheme regardless of their primarch being corrupted or not?

More over, what if it wasn't a demon prince of Slannesh that possed the sword? What if say it was a great unclean one; would Fulgrim have been possessed and his legion fall to chaos still, would he been more capable of fighting of its whispers (unsettling thought, a great unclean one whispering in your ear), or would he have not even known?

Im a little rusty on these guys fluff, as in how loyal they where to the emperor personally or just opposed with their own model capabilities,
and fulgrim's personallity never seemed expansive beyond his desire for more fabulous hair in my eyes

The main problem wasn't Fulgrim's corruption - that's a separate situation imo. Even if he hadn't found the sword, I reckon the Empy's Children would have fallen simply because of Bile.

The real problem was encountering the Laer and when Fabius Bile began using Laer body parts (a species that had an entire civilization dedicated around worshiping slaneesh) to augment the Emperor's Children in their quest for perfection.

The Emperor's Children book from the HH series covers their fall comprehensively.

The fluff is vague enough for you to read any interpretation into it that you like. Seems possible to me that despite their perfection obsession the Emperor's Children might not have fallen into Heresy had Fulgrim not taken up that blade. Where a Primarch went his Legion pretty much followed, after all. Or else they got purged.

On the other hand Fulgrim's fall could have happened another way. Chaos has a way of sensing moral flaws and exploiting them. ALL of the Primarchs suffered from hubris of one kind or another; it was just a matter of which were the easiest/most convenient to corrupt.

I suspect that if another Chaos deity had possessed the blade the nature of the corruption and it's effects would be different. My personal guess is that Fulgrim, with his drive to flawless perfection, would have resisted Nurgle or Khorne more easily than the more subtle Slaanesh, or Tzeentch.

Subtlety isn't Nurgle's favored approach anyway. The conversion of the Death Guard was outright blackmail rather than persuasion.

Khorne practically had the World Eaters dropped into his lap. They were made for each other; range and bloodlust were their common language.

Tzeentch was subtle with Magnus, but it was deception and trickery playing on hubris rather than persuasion; by the time Magnus figured out the game it was too late.

Of all the traitor legions the Alpha Legion was actually persuaded to come over to Chaos through rational argument. The Word Bearers consciously chose their course as well, though it was a spiritual decision rather than a logical one. Lorgar was looking to fill the empty place in his soul the atheistic Imperial Truth could not fill.

Most of the rest, including Horus, stumbled into Chaos because Chaos exploited feelings of rejection or shame. Horus (and Chaos) offered them (some would say 'feigned') acceptance of themselves as they were and freedom to follow their own paths.

<<Edit: Otto makes a good point about Bile. Without the Laer it's still possible that Fulgrim may have resisted, but not at all certain. If Bile could not convince Fulgrim (not under the Laer's influence) that augmenting the Emperor's work was a path to perfection I could easily see a schism in the Emperor's Children not unlike that of the Dark Angels. With some following Fulgrim's vision and others following Bile's a violent clash would be certain. An interesting alternative scenario worth considering.>>

My two teef

http://www.blacklibrary.com/horus-heresy/chirugeon-ebook.html

would be worth a read in this regards perhaps

Spoiler for novel Fulgrim:
Well in Fulgrim the daemon tells Horus that had it not convinced Fulgrim that Horus was right then he was ready to head straight to the Emperor.

I believe the fluff source for what I'm about to say was the Forge World Horus Heresy books, but I could be wrong. At any rate, it's stated (by the Imperial Scholor narrative in the Forgeworld books, I believe) that the Emperors' Children apparently became paranoid after the initial gene accident that resulted in them almost going extinct before Fulgrim even met them, and thus long long LONG before the Laer they had this extreme paranoia about perfection. The scholor then postulates that they may have begun heretical genetic experimentation in a desperate obsessive compulsive desire to stamp out the flaw that made them almost go extinct in the first place, even beyond reason, and thus their descent into heresy began even before the Laer (and even before Fulgrim, possibly)

Of course, that's just speculation by an Imperial Scholar. Forgeworld probably left it open for you, the WH40k fan, to choose.

(I could be wrong about the source)

It seems that Chirugean black library story linked above might be addressing this, too.

 tikhunt wrote:
Spoiler for novel Fulgrim:
Well in Fulgrim the daemon tells Horus that had it not convinced Fulgrim that Horus was right then he was ready to head straight to the Emperor.

I wouldn't believe a daemon at the best of times, and that daemon has form for deceiving primarchs.

SideSwipe wrote:

 tikhunt wrote:
Spoiler for novel Fulgrim:
Well in Fulgrim the daemon tells Horus that had it not convinced Fulgrim that Horus was right then he was ready to head straight to the Emperor.

I wouldn't believe a daemon at the best of times, and that daemon has form for deceiving primarchs.

Yeah, this seems like a reasonable line to take. I mean, considering that the Daemon seems to have been trying to reassure Horus that he was following the right course of action in terms of the heresy overall, it has a solid reason to lie to him about what Fulgrim's aims were before the Daemon, er, had words with him.

 Zarjaz! wrote:

SideSwipe wrote:

 tikhunt wrote:
Spoiler for novel Fulgrim:
Well in Fulgrim the daemon tells Horus that had it not convinced Fulgrim that Horus was right then he was ready to head straight to the Emperor.

I wouldn't believe a daemon at the best of times, and that daemon has form for deceiving primarchs.

Yeah, this seems like a reasonable line to take. I mean, considering that the Daemon seems to have been trying to reassure Horus that he was following the right course of action in terms of the heresy overall, it has a solid reason to lie to him about what Fulgrim's aims were before the Daemon, er, had words with him.

Wouldn't that be counter productive though? Horus I think genuinely believed he was doing the right thing and I doubt that if his closest brothers doubted it from the beginning he may have doubted it himself, as opposed to later in the heresy where he was far too gone to turn back. Surely it would have been better to have said "He knew what you are doing is right and agreed with you completely but his will was broken when he blah blah blah Manus".

 tikhunt wrote:

 Zarjaz! wrote:

SideSwipe wrote:

 tikhunt wrote:
Spoiler for novel Fulgrim:
Well in Fulgrim the daemon tells Horus that had it not convinced Fulgrim that Horus was right then he was ready to head straight to the Emperor.

I wouldn't believe a daemon at the best of times, and that daemon has form for deceiving primarchs.

Yeah, this seems like a reasonable line to take. I mean, considering that the Daemon seems to have been trying to reassure Horus that he was following the right course of action in terms of the heresy overall, it has a solid reason to lie to him about what Fulgrim's aims were before the Daemon, er, had words with him.

Wouldn't that be counter productive though? Horus I think genuinely believed he was doing the right thing and I doubt that if his closest brothers doubted it from the beginning he may have doubted it himself, as opposed to later in the heresy where he was far too gone to turn back. Surely it would have been better to have said "He knew what you are doing is right and agreed with you completely but his will was broken when he blah blah blah Manus".

Hmmm, good point, that. Thing is, by that point I feel like Horus had already fallen into a sort of "with me or against me" mindset, hence his decision to battle against his fellow primarchs. It might be that the Daemon intended it as a lesson; you were nearly undone, but I saved you, therefore you can trust me. After all, the Daemon doesn't say that he forced Fulgrim into this decision, merely that he was persuaded that Horus was right - unless I'm horribly mistaken of course!

 Zarjaz! wrote:

 tikhunt wrote:

 Zarjaz! wrote:

SideSwipe wrote:

 tikhunt wrote:
Spoiler for novel Fulgrim:
Well in Fulgrim the daemon tells Horus that had it not convinced Fulgrim that Horus was right then he was ready to head straight to the Emperor.

I wouldn't believe a daemon at the best of times, and that daemon has form for deceiving primarchs.

Yeah, this seems like a reasonable line to take. I mean, considering that the Daemon seems to have been trying to reassure Horus that he was following the right course of action in terms of the heresy overall, it has a solid reason to lie to him about what Fulgrim's aims were before the Daemon, er, had words with him.

Wouldn't that be counter productive though? Horus I think genuinely believed he was doing the right thing and I doubt that if his closest brothers doubted it from the beginning he may have doubted it himself, as opposed to later in the heresy where he was far too gone to turn back. Surely it would have been better to have said "He knew what you are doing is right and agreed with you completely but his will was broken when he blah blah blah Manus".

Hmmm, good point, that. Thing is, by that point I feel like Horus had already fallen into a sort of "with me or against me" mindset, hence his decision to battle against his fellow primarchs. It might be that the Daemon intended it as a lesson; you were nearly undone, but I saved you, therefore you can trust me. After all, the Daemon doesn't say that he forced Fulgrim into this decision, merely that he was persuaded that Horus was right - unless I'm horribly mistaken of course!

Hmm again it's hard to tell when the damned warp things lie.

The quote is "Of course! Did you really think that you was that good of an orator? You have me to thank for clouding his perceptions and adding his strength to yours. But for me, he would have run to his Emperor screaming of your imminent betrayal." I think this quote is key to figuring out if Fulgrim would have fallen if not for the daemon.

I hardly think the daemon was trying to get Horus to trust him though considering that he openly mocks both Horus and Fulgrim deliberately angering the Warmaster. Of course this might give the above quote a different tone which is one of mocking and the daemons way of letting Horus know that he had no control over the daemon, he tells Horus that the most avid supporter of his cause and arguably the only sane one out of the traitors was against him from the start possibly personally putting a small seed of doubt in Horus's head for the daemon to feed off of.

 tikhunt wrote:


Hmm again it's hard to tell when the damned warp things lie.

The quote is "Of course! Did you really think that you was that good of an orator? You have me to thank for clouding his perceptions and adding his strength to yours. But for me, he would have run to his Emperor screaming of your imminent betrayal." I think this quote is key to figuring out if Fulgrim would have fallen if not for the daemon.

I hardly think the daemon was trying to get Horus to trust him though considering that he openly mocks both Horus and Fulgrim deliberately angering the Warmaster. Of course this might give the above quote a different tone which is one of mocking and the daemons way of letting Horus know that he had no control over the daemon, he tells Horus that the most avid supporter of his cause and arguably the only sane one out of the traitors was against him from the start possibly personally putting a small seed of doubt in Horus's head for the daemon to feed off of.

And this is the problem with Daemons, their motives and drives for certain actions are so completely esoteric. It might even conceivably be lying to Horus because it happened to be bored at that moment and felt like winding someone up, who knows?

It's also worth nothing that, according to the FW HH books, that a much larger portion of the EC legion remained loyal compared to the other traitor legions, which is why the ECs lost so many at Istvaan in the purge.