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So i haven't read any of the novels dealing with the Cabal, but i did come across how the cabal basically killed Vulkan. Furthermore they killed him with the single greatest plot maguffin/ stupidity i have ever read. A crystallized portion of the emperor's psychic manifestation ( real Russia sized plot hole). I understand that the Cabal was anti chaos and was willing to sacrifice humanity to stop them, but how did killing Vulkan, a perpetual, achieve this end? it said Uldrad told gramaticus to kill Vulkan so he could ascend to primarch-itude and tip the balance, but if he kills Vulcan, a primarch who is squarely in the loyalist camp, what would that accomplish? i read this on lexicaium. Vulkan was such an awesome character and was genuinely one of the only nice and semi-altruistic characters in the entire fething galaxy, the manner in which he experience final death really made me angry. To me this looks like further crap writing from the BL series, but it came out of unremembered Empire by Dan Abnett, who usually write pretty good books (I love the Eisenhorn series). Can someone explain this plot line a little better so I can understand it. I must be missing something.

The Cabal wants the traitors to win because they forsee chaos essentially burning itself out if they are the victors (sacrificing human kind in the process) whereas if the loyalists win, they will have to constantly battle the threat of chaos. From what I recall of this story, The cabal wanted Grammaticus to give the shard to Curze who could use it to kill Vulkan because it was hinted that it might be able to kill a perpetual permanently. Killing the loyalist primarch fits into the cabals plan of helping chaos win so that it will defeat itself in the future. Grammaticus doesn't go through with it.

They are looking for an exact balance.

If Horus wins outright, he will destroy all humanity in his selfhating victory, removing chaos's powerbase and allowing xenos to reclaim the galaxy.

IF Horus and the Emperor reach a stalemate or minor victory, then the inevitable extended civil war will drag the entire galaxy into destruction (so 40k)

If the Emperor wins outright,then humanity will dominate the galaxy, and the xenos will all be wiped out.

That makes sense. I didn't realize that was their plan... This is why we cant have nice things, like a decent and presentable demi-god you wouldn't mind bringing home to meet the folks.