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So if a vessel of loyal Astartes from a Traitor Legion arrived "Garro - Sword of Truth" style, how would they be treated? Assuming they weren't executed, would they be tested for corruption and have their loyalties tested? Assuming they'd get past the previous two questions, where would they be taken - To Luna, to Khangba Marwu, or somewhere else?
Cheers
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/14 07:31:25
Similar thing happens in Master of Mankind to a 'traitor' knight house. They were incarcerated in the Seberekan Isolation Compound.
Astartes might warrant stronger incarceration.
In all likelihood Dorn or the Custodes would just kill them. Only intervention by Malcador is likely to save them as a useful asset.
Captyn_Bob wrote: Similar thing happens in Master of Mankind to a 'traitor' knight house. They were incarcerated in the Seberekan Isolation Compound.
Astartes might warrant stronger incarceration.
In all likelihood Dorn or the Custodes would just kill them. Only intervention by Malcador is likely to save them as a useful asset.
Likely.. They be held in custody, interrogated and likely exacutrd unless they could prove a good reason not to.
Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.
"May the odds be ever in your favour"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.
FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.
Captyn_Bob wrote: Similar thing happens in Master of Mankind to a 'traitor' knight house. They were incarcerated in the Seberekan Isolation Compound.
Astartes might warrant stronger incarceration.
In all likelihood Dorn or the Custodes would just kill them. Only intervention by Malcador is likely to save them as a useful asset.
Likely.. They be held in custody, interrogated and likely exacutrd unless they could prove a good reason not to.
There is also the likely hood that they would be sent to the DW as blackshields or the entire chapter would become a blackshield chapter so as to show their disavowed allegegience to their previous chapter.
RxGhost wrote:Twilight doesn't have vampires.
If you frolic in the forest and sparkle in the sun you are a FAIRY, not a VAMPIRE.
Mortality is for those who are to afraid to be great!!
2500pts Oruscar Dynasty-The re-awakening has come 1500pts Angels Sanguine
Newly started WoC Army
It's happened once or twice. I remember reading a story about a bunch of loyalist world eaters falling through time by way of a warp storm. They left before Istavaan and came out sometime in M41. After proving they hadn't been corrupted or were traitors, the only useful thing that the Imperium could think to do with them was to send them on an endless "penitent crusade", i.e. suicide missions to whittle down their chapter until the few survivors could be inducted into the DW without too many questions being raised about why an entire chapter's worth of marines were suddenly black shields.
They will receive the same reward all repentent traitors receive: the Emperor's mercy (aka a bullet through the head), so that they may meet with the Emperor and He can forgive them (or not). It is not up to mortal humans to decide whether to forgive treason, only the Emperor can do so.
If they can prove they really never were traitors, they might be sent on a penitent crusade or something to prove their loyalty. In the unlikely event that some of them survive, I could see them being taken up in the Imperium under very close scrutiny by the Inquisition.
The Imperium never takes any chances with possible traitors. It is better to kill a thousand innocents than to let one traitor live.
You're free to Forge the Narrative in any direction you want, but most Loyalist Traitor were weeded out and exterminated within the Legions. Garro and Co are exceptions for a reason. But hey, Caul has apparently tinkered with Traitor Gene, so we may not need to rely on Heresy era Marines.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/14 22:46:57
Yeah. Istavian 3 sifted out pretty much all the traitors suspected loyalist units.
Some consined multiple thousands to die on its blackened sands.
It could happen, just is a long shot is all.
Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.
"May the odds be ever in your favour"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.
FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.
Renesco P. Blue wrote:It's happened once or twice. I remember reading a story about a bunch of loyalist world eaters falling through time by way of a warp storm. They left before Istavaan and came out sometime in M41. After proving they hadn't been corrupted or were traitors, the only useful thing that the Imperium could think to do with them was to send them on an endless "penitent crusade", i.e. suicide missions to whittle down their chapter until the few survivors could be inducted into the DW without too many questions being raised about why an entire chapter's worth of marines were suddenly black shields.
Nightlord1987 wrote:You're free to Forge the Narrative in any direction you want, but most Loyalist Traitor were weeded out and exterminated within the Legions. Garro and Co are exceptions for a reason. But hey, Caul has apparently tinkered with Traitor Gene, so we may not need to rely on Heresy era Marines.
Well what I'm trying to make work is an incredibly small group (sub-100 Astartes) from the Word Bearers Legion who were all Terran born, loyal, and escaped the Second Purge (yes - I know - a controversial one to try haha). So time-warping to M41 or something like that is not on the cards, not to mention a 10,000-year jump is extraordinarily rare (the number of times such a jump happening probably being countable on two hands). And the DW isn't an option for me either given the era I'm going for. Here's where I'm at:
-- I want to start with a "Reverse Warrior Lodge" in the sense that they a Warrior Lodge of Astartes still loyal to the Emperor. I think it would make an interesting twist to have this inside a Chapter of the first Legion to fall to Chaos as well as facilitate these Astartes conspiring against their own Legion.
-- Then comes the Second Purge and the "Garro Syndrome" voyage to Terra. Because I'm basing my concept around creating a Chapter of the Word Bearers, I thought it'd at flavour to add civil strife upon civil strife by having these Astartes not only betray their Legion by showing their loyalty to the Emperor, but also fight those Colchisian Astartes within their own Chapter who are loyal to the Legion. Then they escape in a stolen vessel and make their way to Terra.
-- I was thinking they could have headed to Calth to try to warn the Ultramarines, but there's a few things wrong with that:
-- -- I don't know exactly when the Second Purge was.
-- -- Even if I know the above, it was likely long before Horus himself turned and thus long before Lorgar was given his attack order.
-- -- The Ultramarines probably would have opened fire on them regardless of their true loyalties.
-- I couldn't come up with any other plausible destination given the time bracket the Second Purge occurred in, so Terra seemed like the logical destination. It could also serve one of the following purposes:
-- -- Warn the Imperium of the Legion's newfound allegiance to Chaos (assuming the Astartes knew).
-- -- Tell them of the atrocities Lorgar had unleashed upon his own Legion.
-- Then comes the time frame of their journey. This is highly dependent on where they were in the galaxy, how badly their ship was damaged, and how liberal I want to be with the dates of the Second Purge (since I can't seem to find any dates). It also begs the question why they would go straight to Terra rather than somewhere else (though that's easily fluffed).
-- Then there's their arrival at the Sol System. I'm trying to fluff up their arrival time so that it's around the time of the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, meaning that their loyalties and usefulness would be put into question. That then makes it more difficult for me because I'd need some pretty high-up intervention to keep them alive along with a good reason.
-- -- The alternative is to have them arrive before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, then imprisoned upon the Imperium's discovery that their Word Bearer brothers are Traitors.
So all in all, I've got a little, but it's difficult to make work haha
if you're looking for a 30K army, just have them fighting it out out in the galaxy, not having returned etc. basicly they're fighting against the bad guys and "proably gonna die well"
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
BrianDavion wrote: if you're looking for a 30K army, just have them fighting it out out in the galaxy, not having returned etc.
That seems a bit easy and uninteresting in all honesty. If I was looking for a quick, easy fix, that would work.
BrianDavion wrote: basicly they're fighting against the bad guys and "proably gonna die well"
Since I'm fleshing out my own Word Bearers Chapter and Lorgar doesn't seem like he'd take the 'Meh, they'll probably die' approach (especially since he's actively purging elements of his own Legion in the name of loyalty only to him), I think I need something better haha.
keep in mind my general details where a wiiiide brush approuch, obviously within those lines there's a lot of room to add colour. some obvious thoughts that would come up.
1: did they change to the newer blood red armor, or keep to the old slate grey?
2: How are they managing resupply? chances are they'd have to scavange what they could.
3: loyalist units. chances are they'd react poorly to them. this is good story in and of itself. saving an imperial army regiment from annialation only to have them immediatly attack the chapter.
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
Renesco P. Blue wrote:It's happened once or twice. I remember reading a story about a bunch of loyalist world eaters falling through time by way of a warp storm. They left before Istavaan and came out sometime in M41. After proving they hadn't been corrupted or were traitors, the only useful thing that the Imperium could think to do with them was to send them on an endless "penitent crusade", i.e. suicide missions to whittle down their chapter until the few survivors could be inducted into the DW without too many questions being raised about why an entire chapter's worth of marines were suddenly black shields.
Nightlord1987 wrote:You're free to Forge the Narrative in any direction you want, but most Loyalist Traitor were weeded out and exterminated within the Legions. Garro and Co are exceptions for a reason. But hey, Caul has apparently tinkered with Traitor Gene, so we may not need to rely on Heresy era Marines.
Well what I'm trying to make work is an incredibly small group (sub-100 Astartes) from the Word Bearers Legion who were all Terran born, loyal, and escaped the Second Purge (yes - I know - a controversial one to try haha). So time-warping to M41 or something like that is not on the cards, not to mention a 10,000-year jump is extraordinarily rare (the number of times such a jump happening probably being countable on two hands). And the DW isn't an option for me either given the era I'm going for. Here's where I'm at:
-- I want to start with a "Reverse Warrior Lodge" in the sense that they a Warrior Lodge of Astartes still loyal to the Emperor. I think it would make an interesting twist to have this inside a Chapter of the first Legion to fall to Chaos as well as facilitate these Astartes conspiring against their own Legion.
-- Then comes the Second Purge and the "Garro Syndrome" voyage to Terra. Because I'm basing my concept around creating a Chapter of the Word Bearers, I thought it'd at flavour to add civil strife upon civil strife by having these Astartes not only betray their Legion by showing their loyalty to the Emperor, but also fight those Colchisian Astartes within their own Chapter who are loyal to the Legion. Then they escape in a stolen vessel and make their way to Terra.
-- I was thinking they could have headed to Calth to try to warn the Ultramarines, but there's a few things wrong with that:
-- -- I don't know exactly when the Second Purge was.
-- -- Even if I know the above, it was likely long before Horus himself turned and thus long before Lorgar was given his attack order.
-- -- The Ultramarines probably would have opened fire on them regardless of their true loyalties.
-- I couldn't come up with any other plausible destination given the time bracket the Second Purge occurred in, so Terra seemed like the logical destination. It could also serve one of the following purposes:
-- -- Warn the Imperium of the Legion's newfound allegiance to Chaos (assuming the Astartes knew).
-- -- Tell them of the atrocities Lorgar had unleashed upon his own Legion.
-- Then comes the time frame of their journey. This is highly dependent on where they were in the galaxy, how badly their ship was damaged, and how liberal I want to be with the dates of the Second Purge (since I can't seem to find any dates). It also begs the question why they would go straight to Terra rather than somewhere else (though that's easily fluffed).
-- Then there's their arrival at the Sol System. I'm trying to fluff up their arrival time so that it's around the time of the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, meaning that their loyalties and usefulness would be put into question. That then makes it more difficult for me because I'd need some pretty high-up intervention to keep them alive along with a good reason.
-- -- The alternative is to have them arrive before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, then imprisoned upon the Imperium's discovery that their Word Bearer brothers are Traitors.
So all in all, I've got a little, but it's difficult to make work haha
The Word Bearers didnt purge there legion at Istvaan, they purged it at calth, so a second purge is something im not aware of, your narrative still works however, as these could be a company heading to Calth to destroy it, but instead decide to try and break away and warn the ultramarines, they get damaged while fighting in the warp and knocked off course, they exit the warp above calth broadcasting a warning that the word bearers are coming to attack, but the message is 10k years too late.
The Word Bearers purged the vast majority of their force LONG before Horus turned traitor. Forge World essentially said that there were barely any Loyal Word Bearers due to this.
In fact, we have only (to my knowledge) one single Word Bearer who opposed Lorgar, Barthusa Narek. My emphasis on opposed Lorgar: he wasn't a Loyalist, and had no interest in joining them, but still believed that the Emperor was divine, and that Lorgar's fraternisation with daemons was wrong. The response when the Ultramarines caught him? Narek was tortured daily and given orders to be executed if he incriminated himself.
Generally, I don't believe there could be many Loyalist Word Bearers at all. Unlike all the other Legions, who could have far more leeway, the Word Bearers were meticulously purged long before the Heresy started. The Calth purge was to remove those who were too dangerous - ie, knew too much, too devout, believed in the Emperor's divinity, etc etc. They weren't secret Loyalists: they had all essentially died out.
Perhaps having them not "Loyal" but obsessed with the Emperor's divinity? As such, they could be an insurrectionist force promoting a very hard-line Ecclesiarchy movement? Maybe trying to reach Terra via subterfuge and "kill" the Emperor to force his regeneration - a la Cypher? That way, they're acting outside of the Imperium, but use their image to secure supplies from Shrine Worlds?
No true loyalist word bearers were around even before the horus heresy, as they were all purged with some still believing in the emperors divinity left alive due to the purgers not knowing that the pseudo-loyalists were still kinda loyal
1650 points approx. of deathwatch
2500 points aprox. of alpha legion and thousand sons
50 power admech
60 power salamanders
70 power thousand sons
I know it's a couple of weeks old but I hope I can help the OP if he is still interested in a Word Bearers army, I posted this from another topic but it may help you all the same, hope it help!
Spoiler:
Honestly I think you shouldn't put aside your idea if you want to commit to a loyalist Word Bearers army, and you've inspired me to think and maybe even create my own small loyalist section .
The galaxy is an enormous place and saying there are no WB loyalists is far too simplistic in my opinion, I think of it as there is a very very small fraction of said potential legionaries left, most of which are neutral by the start of the heresy. Lorgar, while having purged the legion before the heresy, still was purging his legion during Calth (where he said he sent the legionaries who didn't worship chaos enough for his tastes/ were too narrow minded on getting vengeance against the emperor). To me this implies the legion at this point was mostly loyal but not completely. Besides Narek, who was already mentioned, Sol Talgron was a legionary of the WB who did not believe in the chaos gods until well after the purge, kept because Lorgar thought him useful. If we have this example who's to say another captain somewhere felt the same, was spared from the purge and after seeing the work of chaos decided he had had enough of this haha. one Idea might be a single cruiser at Calth, operated by some aethist/unsure WB like Sol Talgron who then tilted the other way instead of being convinced and fled like Nathaniel Garro did at Isstvan. So I see no reason why you couldn't easily field an IC or even a few small squad/s, though probably not at full strength for fluff reasons to represent perhaps a few legionaries who did not want to defect from Lorgar's ideas and/or casualties that resulted from the WB rebelling. For me personally I would make an army of dark compliance which could easily represent the mix of a small cadre of loyalists with what ever crewman and mechanicum forces as allies to represent the increasing number of ship crew and support that is recruited to fill in gaps. Heck you could take survivors of the dark age and give them rhinos and landraiders, saying the legionaries let them use the equipment because the crew proved their worth by turning from the primarch they despised, and also you know there aren't enough legionaries to man all the vehicles they would probably have in their motor pool so why not use them?
Second idea is one of a loyalist faction that was campaigning with a loyalist legion like the IF. Given a galaxy wide crusade its hard for every detachment to respond to a summons, so maybe a small detachment of legionaries was out of reach of Lorgar's purging hand when the time came? This would keep legionaries who were pre-disposed of staying loyal, but again I would make it a smaller force as otherwise if its too big it makes it hard to believe Lorgar would just straight up forget or not take the time to purge the force, as obviously an entire chapter would probably force his hand to make sure they were loyal when the time came.
Thirdly we know Lorgar dealt with some loyalists by sending them on suicide missions. So its possible that an entire chapter was sent on some mission by themselves. The easiest method is the common warp shenanigans, went into the warp and came out in the middle of the heresy, but it doesn't have to be. What if the campaign they sent on was a cruel slog-fest for a couple of decades or devolved to guerilla warfare because, you know, the WB would probably have been sent against a far superior foe with little to no support. As zealous as the WB are I like to believe some captains were very pragmatic, and instead of charging in and being slaughtered maybe the captain decided to borrow some RG or AL or even WS tactics and play cat and mouse with the enemy, refusing to give up until they were victorious some 20-40 years later, which by then the Heresy could have started (either they finished the campaign or got news their brothers were traitors and peeled off for a good smack-down of vengeance). This lends itself to making a lighter and quicker force by their background because they were used to that method, and would work rather well for them in the actual heresy because they would have an uphill battle proving their loyalty to the loyalists. Also hit and run tactics would help preserve their numbers when fighting the enemy, which could be how the few remaining squads of loyal WB survive the heresy in one piece. Though again an entire chapter's worth of equipment could easily still be present even if the number of men was not, so you could use any normal legion equipment really.
Of course you could make them blackshields, rather make them a force of Word Bearers who might not like the Emperor for destroying Monarchia, but be like Sol Talgron and not be particular fond of the chaos gods. Like my previous example maybe the captain saw some worship and decided that's not the route he wanted to go so he became rogue in the sense of leaving Lorgar's worship but not necessarily leaving the side of Horus (kinda like how Mortarion felt before his corruption).
Those are a few ideas, I know in the fluff none are mentioned and many don't believe any exist but in a galaxy wide conflict I find it hard to believe there is not a single loyalist WB left somewhere. All the examples I gave seem reasonable to me within the fabric of the fluff so I don't see any reason why you should be worried about someone saying: "wait no loyal WB exists!". As someone who took too many years of science, you can't prove something does not exist XD! The key is to weave it into the fabric of the fluff in a way that is reasonable, ie I don't think there will be a fleet of loyal WB anywhere but a ship or two why not! Again its a galaxy wide conflict, it's presumptuous to assume there are no loyal "traitor" legionaries as well any traitor "loyal" legionaries like the white scars.
I could see a company or whatever sized group of these marines being renamed and anonymized by a well connected radical inquisitor if s/he was the first one to come across them.
As an aside, it bugs me slightly how it's sort of a trope that Terran legionnaires were more loyal than ones from the rest of the galaxy. I get that there's a general 'terrans were loyal to the emperor, whereas natives were loyal to their primarchs' thing, but it stikes me as far too simplistic and just a case of stroking egos of earthmen (i.e. us).
On something so devisive and radical as rebelling against the God-Emperor of mankind, i'd expect a lot more variation than 'Terrans are more loyal', considering they hadn't been anywhere near Terra for two centuries.
Oh, and also, i doubt Terra was that loyal to the Emperor anyway. They'd literally just been defeated in a bitter conflict with the Emperor's forces. If anything, they'd have more cause to hate him than the natives.
As an aside, it bugs me slightly how it's sort of a trope that Terran legionnaires were more loyal than ones from the rest of the galaxy. I get that there's a general 'terrans were loyal to the emperor, whereas natives were loyal to their primarchs' thing, but it stikes me as far too simplistic and just a case of stroking egos of earthmen (i.e. us).
On something so devisive and radical as rebelling against the God-Emperor of mankind, i'd expect a lot more variation than 'Terrans are more loyal', considering they hadn't been anywhere near Terra for two centuries.
Oh, and also, i doubt Terra was that loyal to the Emperor anyway. They'd literally just been defeated in a bitter conflict with the Emperor's forces. If anything, they'd have more cause to hate him than the natives.
Terrans were not more loyal to the Emperor than anyone else in the galaxy. Loads of Terrans turned traitor.
However, Terrans in general were less loyal to their Primarch than Marines from the Primarch's homeworld or other Marines that joined the legion after the Primarch was found. In fact, in many legions Terrans actively resented their Primarch and many Primarchs actively distrusted the Terran marines. That is why Terrans in traitor legions were more likely to remain loyalists while Terrans in loyalist legions were more likely to turn traitor (as can be seen in the White Scars and Dark Angels). Of course, there is plenty of examples of loyalist and traitor Terrans on all sides, so it is only a rough generalisation.
On the topic of the Word Bearers, the Word Bearers legion had already been fully purged long before the Horus Heresy even began. They were the arch-heretics. There is no such thing as a loyalist Word Bearer. Lorgar also purged his legion at Calth, but that was of those who were too fanatical and zealous. At this point, not all Word Bearers may have been Chaos worshippers yet (Chaos worship in general is something that only really took off after the Heresy), but they certainly were all loyal to Lorgar rather than the Emperor.
The only way I see it working is by having a task force sent on a suicide mission by Lorgar before the Heresy (as part of the purges) that somehow survives and completes its mission against all odds, with the few survivors suddenly turning up in the middle of the Horus Heresy. But even that is a stretch ( it is heavily implied Lorgar made damn well sure everyone he purged was actually dead). Unless being Word Bearers adds something to your loyalist traitor force that absolutely can't be added by being from any other traitor legion, I would suggest not trying to break the fluff and simply picking another traitor legion.
Yes, it's certainly possible in pretty much every legion to have loyalist and traitor elements, literally all except for the Word Bearers. They were purged long before any actual battles, and as such would either have been slowly indoctrinated or simply killed long beforehand. Our one example of a "loyalist" Word Bearer doesn't even support the loyalists. He just hates Lorgar.
It's like trying to have an Ultramarine who is a member of the Blood Angels Death Company. It's simply not a thing.
Yes, it's certainly possible in pretty much every legion to have loyalist and traitor elements, literally all except for the Word Bearers. They were purged long before any actual battles, and as such would either have been slowly indoctrinated or simply killed long beforehand. Our one example of a "loyalist" Word Bearer doesn't even support the loyalists. He just hates Lorgar.
It's like trying to have an Ultramarine who is a member of the Blood Angels Death Company. It's simply not a thing.
I'll concede that there's been no cannon loyalist Word Bearers during the heresy so far in the books, but exclusion does not equal proof of non-existence. I still think it's too bold a statement to say there was not a single Word Bearer left by the Horus Heresy that will, by the end of the heresy, have fought for the Imperium. The problem with your Ultramarine comparison is that the two are entirely separate concepts (hopefully it'll make sense once I explain) so it really does not have any validity in this argument.
Ultramarines in the Blood Angels Death company of course isn't possible by the definition that Ultramarines are Ultramarines and Blood Angels are Blood Angels. While they are both marines, they are in two distinct legions/chapters with two distinct gene-seeds. We know the cause of the red thirst and black rage, and that is on the gene-seed level of the Blood Angels, and since a marine of their respective chapter can be defined by the gene-seed they are implanted with then it is biologically impossible (barring gene tampering) for an Ultramarine to have the red thirst/black rage, and can not be physically put into that category, so of course one can say there are no Ultramarines in the Blood Angels Death Company with a high degree of certainity as the Ultramarines and Blood Angels are two different objects. It's like saying a sphere can be a cube really, it's literally not possible by how they are defined.
Now the Word Bearers are a different problem. We know for sure without any doubt that loyalist Word Bearers existed, as Lorgar proves that through comments by virtue of the second purge as that was specifically designed for that. Now the question really is: Out of all the Loyalist Word Bearers, are there any left by the Horus Heresy? While there is no evidence of any traditional Loyalist Word Bearers currently in the Horus Heresy series, it is scientifically inaccurate to make the claim that no loyal Word Bearers exist by then either, as one can not prove a negative, especially in this case where our sample size is how many dozen named WB legionaries? The only way to actually prove there are no loyalist Word Bearers in the Word Bearers legion by the heresy is to count every single possible point of measurement (Legionaries), and see what the results yield. Without this there is the possibility of loyal WB, no matter how small it can not be said definitively that none exist, only none to our knowledge. In this case it becomes a game of probability, and in my opinion the odds are higher that there are Loyalists still present than there aren't - you have a literal galaxy of variables that will get in the way of Lorgar attempting to wipe out every single legionary who won't turn to chaos, and while a primarch I sincerely doubt he can pull it off all the way.
Part of the problem is also that the trait we are talking about is a psychological trait which adds even more variables and complexity to the issue. Thinking about it Narek kinda proves my point: he might not be a "loyalist" in the traditional sense, but clearly Lorgar's purges and conversion process was not as effective as people like to make them out to be as at least one son turned from his primarch and wants to kill him. Sor Talgron also lends weight to arguing that there can be loyalists, as he was a Word Bearer like Narek- not particularly convinced about chaos until well into the heresy, but he swung into chaos rather than away form it. Given this, it's not unreasonable for some one to claim: My Word Bearers had a crisis of faith after Monarchia, and thus like Sor Talgron were spared from the purges because he wasn't particularly dogmatic and maybe even criticized the emperor a few times about shafting their faith (which would put him in a position like Sor Talgron, which makes it believable he survived the purge). However upon realizing the horror-filled truth of chaos first hand (could be a line captain who saw a chaplain do a ritual or saw their so called allies), he shot the chaplain on the spot and decided that his legion had gone too far, which is also believable since Narek thinks like this. Since both of those events happened I see no problems with this proposal.
This analogy is not Ultramarines in the Death Company/spheres and cubes, it's more along this line: What are the odds Lorgar can sift through 250,000 plus (much more possibly depending on which source you believe) constantly moving blocks spread throughout the galaxy and sort out the blue ones (loyalist), but some of the blue ones look virtually the same as the other blocks until you actually touch them, and some may not turn blue until after you sort them because psychology is fluid and complex. It's like exponential odds, it's pretty good odds he can get most, but the closer he gets to "all" his chances get exponentially lower.
My ultimate point is I don't want people to feel like they can't make loyal Word Bearers, they can! The key is to make it believable and make the effort to fit it into the fluff, it's easy to say my final last line of defense for a loyalist WB army which has no valid counter and is plausible in that it happens all the time for void travel: "my Word Bearers went into the warp on the way to Monarchia, came out during the Heresy after what seemed like a week of travel and were VERY confused", but I think that is very, very, very bland and completely unnecessary if you look at my other post on plausible explanations for an army, as those are not just plausible but alot cooler and complex- just think about how those possible loyalists could have survived the purge and how they interacted with their legion while becoming increasingly the black sheep of the family, and how they grapple not just with their loyalty to their primarch like the other legionaries, but with their very foundation and pillar- their religion, which is something none of the other legions had to come to terms with. I think it would be awesome to have a book on a Word Bearer who had the same crisis as Lorgar but came to a radically different answer in a legion that was becomingly increasingly more hostile to his secret ideas. I like that sort of continual crisis within the legion until the heresy as I think the whole: "we killed all the loyalists yay!" does the legion a disservice; I mean I find it a problem Lorgar could just go from "My father is a god!" to "F*%$ that guy! Let's find a new god" within a few months of sulking, even factoring in Erebus. There's alot they could have done with Lorgar grappling with the Emperor as a god in an old testament sense and his thoughts on the subject (like The Last Church), his relatively sudden and complete rejection to me just cheapens his pre-heresy self, as it speaks more of vanity and veneer like Fulgrim than someone who is actually faithful (which may be the point?), again citing The Last Church, that main character makes Lorgar and the Word Bearers look weaker than an arm-less grot in terms of their strength of faith haha.
Absolutely and 100% agree ROBcrt. Not only is it emanantly believable for there to be loyalist Word Bearers without warp shenanigans (it's as simple as: they thought the had killed them all, but either these guys survived their suicide mission, faked their own deaths when they realised what was happening, or were forgotten), but it makes for some kickass narrative potential. It's not often that stories can grapple with proper crises of faith in devout religious people when both their gods and devils are literally alive (and neither of them are what they seemed to be).
I also dislike Lorgar's sudden about-face and think it misses potential. I always like my antagonists to have some solid grey area, so throughout their narrative you want the nagging suspicioun that perhaps, just perhaps, they might be right. Plus, you have some neat options to make the heresy feel Paradise-Lost-y and other cool stuff
Again, don't have the book on me right now, but I'm fairly FW said that there were no Loyalist Word Bearers in their HH books. I could be wrong, but that's just what I remember.
If a publication outright says "this was never a thing", that is never a thing, such as Ultramarines having the Black Rage.
From all we know, we've not seen any evidence of a Word Bearer actually going Loyalist, and FW have said (to my knowledge) that they never existed. Now, sure, someone can always use the excuse of "the Warp made my men go forward in time! (a rather over-done excuse, in my opinion, seeing as so many people use it to justify their armies being used in 30k and 40k), but again, it's rather overdone, and all the same, I'd believe that a group picked up in a such a way would be fired at on sight (a ship coming out of warp broadcasting pre-heresy signals of a traitor legion? HERESY!), or otherwise incarcerated by the Ordo Chronos or another force.
The Imperium is simply too brutal to allow for "shades of grey" good guys now. They already have their own - the Inquisition - and they're far too paranoid to have to worry about a group of known fanatics whose loyalties are at risk.
If you're going to still run with the idea of Loyal Word Bearers, I suggest you don't have them folded into the Imperium. Have them rejected by everyone, and forced to pretend to be an obscure Chapter to lie and preach to Cardinal Worlds, and then steal their supplies to keep fighting the good fight. No allying with the Imperium, no forgiveness.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Again, don't have the book on me right now, but I'm fairly FW said that there were no Loyalist Word Bearers in their HH books. I could be wrong, but that's just what I remember.
If a publication outright says "this was never a thing", that is never a thing, such as Ultramarines having the Black Rage.
From all we know, we've not seen any evidence of a Word Bearer actually going Loyalist, and FW have said (to my knowledge) that they never existed. Now, sure, someone can always use the excuse of "the Warp made my men go forward in time! (a rather over-done excuse, in my opinion, seeing as so many people use it to justify their armies being used in 30k and 40k), but again, it's rather overdone, and all the same, I'd believe that a group picked up in a such a way would be fired at on sight (a ship coming out of warp broadcasting pre-heresy signals of a traitor legion? HERESY!), or otherwise incarcerated by the Ordo Chronos or another force.
The Imperium is simply too brutal to allow for "shades of grey" good guys now. They already have their own - the Inquisition - and they're far too paranoid to have to worry about a group of known fanatics whose loyalties are at risk.
If you're going to still run with the idea of Loyal Word Bearers, I suggest you don't have them folded into the Imperium. Have them rejected by everyone, and forced to pretend to be an obscure Chapter to lie and preach to Cardinal Worlds, and then steal their supplies to keep fighting the good fight. No allying with the Imperium, no forgiveness.
Maybe one of the books said that, I will check later. However even if that is true, the problem with FW/BL books is that it follows the "Everything said is cannon, but not necessarily true.", which is extremely important to understand as a concept. That is to say the very first HH black series book has a preface where it says the entire book is written from the perspective of one person compiling the history of the heresy (ie it's not meta and telling us what happened word for word). Here is one of the paragraphs from page 9:
Spoiler:
"It is for this reason I have assembled this record, the first volume of which you hold in your hand. Into it I have poured my learning and my memory. I know there are those now who would call my words lies or worse, treason, and I have no doubt that in the grim darkness oh what is surely to follow, my words at best may seem a cruel joke."
Now this is extremely important as it makes the whole book open to interpretation on certain levels. Many things we know are facts, we know Istvaan III and V happened for example. But minor details and things he (she? I didn't see a gender specified) claims are not necessarily true. Think of it like reading an ancient Roman author, many things are true but do we really expect them to have every right answer, especially when they are biased to the WB because they are on the opposite side (Imperium) and had won? let's not mention it was galaxy wide war. Did the author see every single WB get purged during the Great Crusade? Of course not, he can check sources but those are ultimately guesses because of the sheer amount of damage to the databases by the time he wrote the book (after the Heresy). Honestly I think it becomes a case of how the Romans wrote about the Gauls, they were the enemies and they had to be vilified to justify their actions- on many levels Gaulic life was advanced but the Romans failed to see it and now we think of them as naked unwashed barbarians for the most part. Now why not do this to Horus? Because Horus was once a hero to every Imperial citizen, while he is viewed as flawed and hated as an arch-traitor there is that ingrained amount of respect they had for him before the heresy (think of him like Hannibal, he's hated but Rome respected him) so they want to see him as a tragic fall. Now Lorgar is the cause of the heresy, how do you think people will treat him in the histories? Him and his legion are like the gauls to the Roman Republic, never particularly loved and absolutely reviled for turning half the legions against the Emperor through his corruption of Horus. So naturally they will smack him around in the history, and what better way to do that than to make it seem like the legion was inherently malevolent by saying: "and not a single one of the *&#^$*#&$ joined us that day.". The sources we claim are fact are only facts from a certain point of view. It's like the WB claim that the Ultramarines sucked up all the II and XI legion recruits, it's more rumor turned fact in their eyes than an actual scientific fact and statement and also underpins my argument: BL and FW are vital for the fluff, but it is not the last word of any statement unless we see the action occur before the very eyes of a character. Actions directly seen and done are cannon facts, statements are only cannon opinions and go as far as a real life statement can go, some people say true things but others are not the whole truth, even if they are perceived as a truth.
The 31st millennium was very different than the 41st millennium in my opinion. It's true that much of it depends on where the loyalist WB end up. Say they end up in Ultramar? Good luck talking to the Ultramarines haha, it will be kill on sight. But say they were in a sector without any legion support, and some astartes of some legion you haven't seen in 40 years show up and offer to defend you against Horus? I see no reason why the governor wouldn't jump at the chance! Or join up some other rag-tag loyalist traitor legion group? also why not. Yes it's an uphill battle but I doubt every loyal Imperial citizen will shoot on sight, it was no where near as dogmatic as the 41st millennium is so while brutal we have other loyalist "traitors" legions openly fighitng for the Imperium. In that context there is no difference from the other loyalist traitor legions and the WB, if they can do something then the WB can. There's a story of some WS and EC loyalists (can't remember the name but stop if you don't want spoilers) and the WS are the traitors and everyone assumed the EC were the traitors when people started dying, but they did not shoot the EC on sight until after the murders started happening, and even then it was because the WS attacked them first. Really in universe at that point the traitor WB and EC are basically the same in the eyes of the loyalists, both did some nasty things (Slaanesh versus Chaos undivided) so it's not like the WB would be viewed any differently than any of the other traitor legion loyalists. Also the Inquistion did not exist yet (I assume we are talking about the Horus Heresy and not present day 40K?) so that is not an issue. Having them rejected is the more likely option but not necessarily the only option as who they meet is very important.
While it's likely that very few survived the purges Lorgar instigated, it's quite possible a few loyalists survived. The tired and true 'The Warp Did it' is a fairly standard example of how to do, with a Battle Barge or small fleet being trapped in the Warp and sent forwards in time,l but it's certainly not the only method.
Of course, you can even have this force going back to the days of the Imperial Heralds (either being that old, or rejectecting everything Lorgar put in place), which would likely confuse the Imperium all to hell. They struggle enough identifying Word Bearers, given the limited knowledge of Chaos allowed.
But there are plenty of ways to keep them around until 40k. Maybe Malcador ordered a surviving and tested unit to be stored in stasis, only to be released on the right orders, and the orders became garbled through the centuries until someone went and pushed the button.
If they survived the purge, the Ecclesiarchy could have squirreled them away, having decided that a Company of Marines fanatically loyal to the Emperor was too good to waste.
The Ad Mech finding 'lost' gene-seed and, finding it stable, using it to create a new Chapter is also possible. There has been a few hints that other Chapters have been created in the same way,l perhaps to test whether it was the Primarchs or the gene-seed that led to there corruption.
It's even possible a Loyalist Legion hid a small group who had gone above and beyond their duty and proved their loyalty, allowing them to continue existence as a Second Founding Chapter rather than letting honourable Marines be slaughtered for the mistakes of their Primarch. Not likely, certainly, but then it wasn't exactly likely that the Grey Knights would be formed of Traitor Legionaries either.
Then we have the Machinations of various Xeno races - Eldar holding an attack force trapped in time before unleashing them back into the universe, causing confusion among the invading Imperial forces. Necron artefacts that warp space and time, allowing a unit to walk into a facility and re-appear 10,000 years later, etc, etc.
None of those are terribly original or hugely likely...but then, we're dealing with rule of cool. If he wants a pack of Word Bearers who rode through time via a Tyranid Horde that had eaten a Tardis, it's all good.
Okay I went to Book II: Massacre and went straight to the WB section.
Spoiler:
"For over four decades the XVII legion wore a false face of loyalty and planted the seeds that would eventually bloom into civil war. The precise nature of their preparations is only open to supposition, but much can be deduced from Lorgar's character and the atrocities that would come later. First, it seems likely that the Word Bearers' renewed energy in the Great Crusade was cover for its rapid growth in size, as well as the seeding of its new corrupting credd onto the worlds. It also must have been during this time that the Legion was cleansed of dissent. The last of the old iconoclasts, the few Terrans, and those who would not embrace the new faith must have been put quietly to the sword. The corruption of much of the apparatus of the Imperium also must have occurred in this time. So it was that when Horus finally fell, Lorgar had already prepared the ground for war." page 141 section rebirth"
Again it is clear that book is speaking from the perspective of the in-universe author, and the author him/herself points out it is supposition, and if you read the whole WB section there are alot of "Must haves", "probably", and "likely". If you read it the author does not even know the events of The First Heretic, only stating that the word "pilgrimage" was seen in texts he/she referenced. This is a perfect example of canon actions versus statements, his/her statement is cannon, as the author legitimately does not know what happened in-universe, but we know more in canon events than the author because we saw the events through Argel Tal in the book The First Heretic. Since the author does not even know some information we outside the universe know more details on, then can we trust the statement in the above quote: "(loyalists before the heresy)...must have been put quietly to the sword." as a fact beyond reproach? I personally don't think so, it is the truth in the sense that most of them were put to the sword during this time, but he/she can not guarantee all of them were as it is outside their ability to make an informed factual claim in-universe. While my Roman author comparison can be a bit extreme in the sense that the real author was some one in real life (ie our reality) which can lead to bias, it's clear the way Alan Bligh wrote it is in a way that does not plainly tell us what really happened, only what the fictional author thinks and saw from documents and their experiences, which is clearly not the whole story nor the entire truth of the events in the heresy.
For that extract you provided, it seemed pretty clear cut that no Loyalists had been found. As it says, according to them, they "must" have been put to the sword. Does it mention when that report was compiled? If so, then up until that point of compilation (which must have been some time after the Horus Heresy), there was no sign of a single Loyal Word Bearer.
Given that the same is never said for another Legion, we can infer that the Word Bearers were unique in that, up until this report, they had never found a Loyalist.
Therefore, this leaves us with two actual facts:
A - No Word Bearer Loyalists had been found in-universe at the time of this report - whether that is a fact or not is unknown, but to the reporter's best knowledge, there is no evidence of it ever happening.
B - We have never seen a Word Bearer Loyalist at all, in any GW publication. We've seen Word Bearers who don't follow Lorgar, we've seen ones that doubt Chaos, but none at all who have ever fully turned away to join the Imperium.
If we're talking about evidence, there is not precedent for a Word Bearer to be loyal. It's simply not happened, not more than to say "well, just because no Ultramarine has had the Black Rage doesn't mean that they couldn't!".
In any case, with how the Imperium actually deals with situations like these (see Death of Integrity), I doubt they'd be welcomed in with open arms.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: For that extract you provided, it seemed pretty clear cut that no Loyalists had been found. As it says, according to them, they "must" have been put to the sword. Does it mention when that report was compiled? If so, then up until that point of compilation (which must have been some time after the Horus Heresy), there was no sign of a single Loyal Word Bearer.
Given that the same is never said for another Legion, we can infer that the Word Bearers were unique in that, up until this report, they had never found a Loyalist.
Therefore, this leaves us with two actual facts:
A - No Word Bearer Loyalists had been found in-universe at the time of this report - whether that is a fact or not is unknown, but to the reporter's best knowledge, there is no evidence of it ever happening.
B - We have never seen a Word Bearer Loyalist at all, in any GW publication. We've seen Word Bearers who don't follow Lorgar, we've seen ones that doubt Chaos, but none at all who have ever fully turned away to join the Imperium.
If we're talking about evidence, there is not precedent for a Word Bearer to be loyal. It's simply not happened, not more than to say "well, just because no Ultramarine has had the Black Rage doesn't mean that they couldn't!".
In any case, with how the Imperium actually deals with situations like these (see Death of Integrity), I doubt they'd be welcomed in with open arms.
We may have to agree to disagree, as I pull a different take from it. Lack of evidence can not prove a point, it is the "argument from ignorance" fallacy. Unless this source is omnipotent and knew the fate of every legionary and event in the heresy then he/she can not make the claim that no WB existed and have us take it as 100% fact. It's true the author has seen no evidence of WB, which implies the odds are very low, but like I said in regards to probability it is high and not unreasonable for some loyailist WB to be around during the heresy. If only a few squads were around for example, do you think they would show up in the texts regarding 9 odd years of a galaxy-wide civil war, much of it having been destroyed or straight up not collected? Also remember this was after the heresy, so any loyalist traitor would have been changed in name and appearance and documents secretly changed and/or deleted, the author him/herself mentions this regarding a few events if you start reading the books from front to back. We already know the author is fallible and does not contain all the information to make all the informed statements on what happened and what didn't. In book I Betrayal page 68, the author does not know the fall of Horus exactly, he knows he went to the lodge but states they do not know if it was a wound, poison, or other uncertain means. He doesn't know, but we do, its the Kinebrach anathame dagger, and we know all those involved (which the author does not). page 106 the author can not tell us how Fulgrim ended up with Horus, which we know from the book Fulgrim, it was the laer sword and bad company, which again is something we know over the author. The author is not infallible and there are sections where we know more than them. He/she is rather cleverly written as someone who does not have all the facts nor knows everything that happened in the heresy. I could start listing every hole I find in the book while I read it if you want me to show more evidence that the in-universe author is fallible. Again, if there are subjects that we are more educated than the man/woman writing it, then we must approach such claims with more caution.
So to respond to your points:
A- To the reporters best knowledge is not enough evidence to make a factual claim, it's an argument from ignorance claim again. You can say the likely-hood is low, but that does not stop someone from making a WB army as there is reasonable doubt.
B- Another way to see it is: we've seen a WB knowingly and willingly turn from the legion of Lorgar and chaos after the purges. That's enough to say psychologically there's evidence WB can form their own divergent opinions/beliefs after the purge, which makes it not unreasonable that some WB could have disagreed and reverted back to their original faith, or some form of it, which allows someone to make loyal WB if they want to.
Again the statement is an argument from ignorance. While we can't say there are any known loyalist WB, one can not reject the possibility either. For the Ultramarines and Blood Angels see my previous post I'll quote below because it's an incompatible analogy, the U/BA idea is totally different then loyal WB!
Spoiler:
I'll concede that there's been no cannon loyalist Word Bearers during the heresy so far in the books, but exclusion does not equal proof of non-existence. I still think it's too bold a statement to say there was not a single Word Bearer left by the Horus Heresy that will, by the end of the heresy, have fought for the Imperium. The problem with your Ultramarine comparison is that the two are entirely separate concepts (hopefully it'll make sense once I explain) so it really does not have any validity in this argument.
Ultramarines in the Blood Angels Death company of course isn't possible by the definition that Ultramarines are Ultramarines and Blood Angels are Blood Angels. While they are both marines, they are in two distinct legions/chapters with two distinct gene-seeds. We know the cause of the red thirst and black rage, and that is on the gene-seed level of the Blood Angels, and since a marine of their respective chapter can be defined by the gene-seed they are implanted with then it is biologically impossible (barring gene tampering) for an Ultramarine to have the red thirst/black rage, and can not be physically put into that category, so of course one can say there are no Ultramarines in the Blood Angels Death Company with a high degree of certainity as the Ultramarines and Blood Angels are two different objects. It's like saying a sphere can be a cube really, it's literally not possible by how they are defined.
Now the Word Bearers are a different problem. We know for sure without any doubt that loyalist Word Bearers existed, as Lorgar proves that through comments by virtue of the second purge as that was specifically designed for that. Now the question really is: Out of all the Loyalist Word Bearers, are there any left by the Horus Heresy? While there is no evidence of any traditional Loyalist Word Bearers currently in the Horus Heresy series, it is scientifically inaccurate to make the claim that no loyal Word Bearers exist by then either, as one can not prove a negative, especially in this case where our sample size is how many dozen named WB legionaries? The only way to actually prove there are no loyalist Word Bearers in the Word Bearers legion by the heresy is to count every single possible point of measurement (Legionaries), and see what the results yield. Without this there is the possibility of loyal WB, no matter how small it can not be said definitively that none exist, only none to our knowledge. In this case it becomes a game of probability, and in my opinion the odds are higher that there are Loyalists still present than there aren't - you have a literal galaxy of variables that will get in the way of Lorgar attempting to wipe out every single legionary who won't turn to chaos, and while a primarch I sincerely doubt he can pull it off all the way.
Part of the problem is also that the trait we are talking about is a psychological trait which adds even more variables and complexity to the issue. Thinking about it Narek kinda proves my point: he might not be a "loyalist" in the traditional sense, but clearly Lorgar's purges and conversion process was not as effective as people like to make them out to be as at least one son turned from his primarch and wants to kill him. Sor Talgron also lends weight to arguing that there can be loyalists, as he was a Word Bearer like Narek- not particularly convinced about chaos until well into the heresy, but he swung into chaos rather than away form it. Given this, it's not unreasonable for some one to claim: My Word Bearers had a crisis of faith after Monarchia, and thus like Sor Talgron were spared from the purges because he wasn't particularly dogmatic and maybe even criticized the emperor a few times about shafting their faith (which would put him in a position like Sor Talgron, which makes it believable he survived the purge). However upon realizing the horror-filled truth of chaos first hand (could be a line captain who saw a chaplain do a ritual or saw their so called allies), he shot the chaplain on the spot and decided that his legion had gone too far, which is also believable since Narek thinks like this. Since both of those events happened I see no problems with this proposal.
This analogy is not Ultramarines in the Death Company/spheres and cubes, it's more along this line: What are the odds Lorgar can sift through 250,000 plus (much more possibly depending on which source you believe) constantly moving blocks spread throughout the galaxy and sort out the blue ones (loyalist), but some of the blue ones look virtually the same as the other blocks until you actually touch them, and some may not turn blue until after you sort them because psychology is fluid and complex. It's like exponential odds, it's pretty good odds he can get most, but the closer he gets to "all" his chances get exponentially lower.
My ultimate point is I don't want people to feel like they can't make loyal Word Bearers, they can! The key is to make it believable and make the effort to fit it into the fluff, it's easy to say my final last line of defense for a loyalist WB army which has no valid counter and is plausible in that it happens all the time for void travel: "my Word Bearers went into the warp on the way to Monarchia, came out during the Heresy after what seemed like a week of travel and were VERY confused", but I think that is very, very, very bland and completely unnecessary if you look at my other post on plausible explanations for an army, as those are not just plausible but alot cooler and complex- just think about how those possible loyalists could have survived the purge and how they interacted with their legion while becoming increasingly the black sheep of the family, and how they grapple not just with their loyalty to their primarch like the other legionaries, but with their very foundation and pillar- their religion, which is something none of the other legions had to come to terms with. I think it would be awesome to have a book on a Word Bearer who had the same crisis as Lorgar but came to a radically different answer in a legion that was becomingly increasingly more hostile to his secret ideas. I like that sort of continual crisis within the legion until the heresy as I think the whole: "we killed all the loyalists yay!" does the legion a disservice; I mean I find it a problem Lorgar could just go from "My father is a god!" to "F*%$ that guy! Let's find a new god" within a few months of sulking, even factoring in Erebus. There's alot they could have done with Lorgar grappling with the Emperor as a god in an old testament sense and his thoughts on the subject (like The Last Church), his relatively sudden and complete rejection to me just cheapens his pre-heresy self, as it speaks more of vanity and veneer like Fulgrim than someone who is actually faithful (which may be the point?), again citing The Last Church, that main character makes Lorgar and the Word Bearers look weaker than an arm-less grot in terms of their strength of faith haha.
Lastly they wouldn't be welcome with open arms, but not any more or less than the other traitor legions, and we know of IW (Dantioch) in Ultramarine forces not to mention Garro (and other DG too in the short stories) openly going to the imperium, it wasn't a warm welcome but they survived it, so the same thing happening to the WB is not unreasonable either.
I know there is no evidence saying loyal WB are a thing, but that does not equal prove of non-existence like I said earlier either. My point is that it is not unreasonable to make a fluffy WB loyalist force once you actually analyze everything with a critical eye.
Why is saying "We've never seen a Loyal Word Bearer, so they don't exist" an argument of ignorance, but saying "We've never seen a Black Rage Ultramarine, so they don't exist" is perfectly logical?
As they both are, no-one truly knows the ins and outs of geneseed. Considering no source we have is *completely* omnipotent, then why couldn't Black Rage Ultramarines exist, by that logic? After all, just because we've never seen it doesn't make it impossible, no? At least, that's what your argument suggests.
I'm using the fact we are presented with, instead of making assumptions with no logic. We see no actual evidence of Loyal Word Bearers. None at all - unlike every other Legion. Yes, I agree this is an unreliable narrator, but they have knowledge that at some time after the Heresy, there was no sign of a Loyal Word Bearer. During the Heresy, we see no Word Bearers who would rather side with the Emperor, and that is in our currently omnipotent state. As a statistic, we can say that 100% of all Word Bearers we as an audience have seen are anti-Imperium. Do you agree with that?
Essentially, I'm taking what evidence we have, and seeing what that all correlates to. In-universe, people believe that there are no loyalists. Out-of-universe, we see absolutely no depiction of loyalists, which is an exception to EVERY other case. Therefore, by not showing it, we can assume that it doesn't exist. Otherwise, would you think it logical to assume that the Tau are actually colonists of a larger race that controls every other galaxy, despite there being no evidence to support it, both in and out of setting?
Dantioch and his Iron Warriors are very much an exception to the case OP suggests. Dantioch's force arrived in Ultramar (a very much more relaxed place), at a time where people still recognised their traitor brethren as, well, brethren. They believed that there was some level of hope or redemption, because the effects of Chaos hadn't set in yet, and the centuries of war hadn't driven the two factions apart.
In Garro's case, he was nearly about to be killed by Dorn, for simply suggesting Horus was a traitor. Far worse than "not a warm welcome". Being associated to a largely unpopular, infamous traitor legion? That would be even worse.
If non-existence proves nothing, then surely ANYTHING in 40k becomes possible, because saying "just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean it can't exist". Ie, my Ultramarine Black Rage example.
Newly started WoC Army 
