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Do most imperial citizens in the "modern" imperium think there were only 9 primarchs?

It certainly hints at this fact in Vaults of Terra: Carrion Throne.

 BigbyWolf wrote:
Do most imperial citizens in the "modern" imperium think there were only 9 primarchs?

Yes. In one of Chris Wraight's Custodes novels (can't remember which of the 2 and can't be bothered to trawl them at this hour), one of the characters remembered being punished as a child for asking why the Emperor only brought forth an equal number of Primarchs to match the evil monsters (i.e. the traitor Primarchs). Clearly the version of the Heresy he had grown up with had omitted the fact the Emperor had had Primarchs turn traitor since that would imply fallibility.

 BigbyWolf wrote:
Do most imperial citizens in the "modern" imperium think there were only 9 primarchs?

To most Imperial citizens, the Primarch's would be figures of the most distant shrouded myth, many have never heard of them at all (not particularly relevant for hab worker #8,120,182,917,295 to know anything but how to run the lever on their widget maker station and their daily work hymns), knowledge of the Horus Heresy and other Primarchs would be information that likely simply would never be available to most in the Imperium, and would be...undesireable if they did.

Not sure about how much knowledge of the primarchs is widespread in the Imperium. I wouldn't be surprised if many imperial citizens don't know a thing about them. Given that "regular" space marines are viewed as near mythological by a great deal of the Imperial population. Guess it's a case of where you live as well as what the local ecclesiarchy teachings are. That being said the one thing I can think of his Horus being mentioned by Inquisitor Eisenhorns savant in his proper traitor context. Not much help since they're privy to classified info but still.

Sanguinius's sacrifice and death appear to be widely known (There is an annual enormous religious commemoration on Terra). The rest perhaps less so. Nonetheless in the Imperial religion, they occupy positions akin to archangels. Horus assuming he is mentioned at all, would be as a Satan figure opposing the Emperor.

It varies with how "enlightened" a planet is or is allowed to be. For marine recruitment worlds, most of them are not even aware more than one marine chapter exists, much less that there's evil ones or that there was a civil war. Backwater and feral worlds are on a similar level; one story in the 3.5 edition codex had a story told from the perspective of a desert raider; he was unaware that the "sky giants" fought against each other, much less who was the good one (it's implied the one that chose him to "ascend" with was Abaddon himself).

The opposite is likely true on shrine worlds or worlds with great imperial importance. The people of the Macragge system likely knows about all of the exploits of Roboute Guilliman for example, while worlds heavily controlled by the ecclesiarchy probably knows the full events of the heresy (although probably hilariously skewed). And the people of Terra herself likely knows the entire story, although it getting out to the wider imperium is probably not an issue considering most pilgrimages to Terra are started by grandparents and finished with their grandchildren dying not long after setting foot on the planet (so that's more or less a minimum of 5 generations if they want a return trip).

I would have thought that Imperial priests would talk about them as archangels or something like that. Like by saying the Emperor created 9 sons it would make the Space Marines seem more "divine" by essentially saying they are the Emperor's Grandchildren.

Sanguinius gets a holiday and I imagine that places that live in areas around a Primarch's birthplace are fans of that Primarch. If you asked around you'd probably find out about the others. I think Horus is known just as the big evil arch traitor but that might just be for people who run into Chaos Marines and wonder where they came from.

The IoM is enormous. I would imagine that there's any wide variety of knowledge when it comes to the HH. As a general rule I think most citizens knowledge of the HH is akin to native English speakers knowledge of the Arthurian legends or The Book of Revelation. Kind of a mixed bag of hazy memories and maybe a few facts or quotes. 10, 000 years later I'm sure it has little bearing on most humans lives. The Eye of Terror and its demons would still exist without the HH.

I'm with Red Marine, there's a big old Imperium out there with ten thousand years of history so you can imagine just about any teaching.

That being said I'd say for the 99% Primarch=Saint or Arch Angel, Horus=Demon or Devil and they have no idea what their history is.

But for some worlds they may teach that Horus was a traitor as an example of why you must always obey. Maybe teach the Primarchs as opposites, Goofus and Gallant style.

Roubert followed orders and today Ultramar is a shinning example of mankind's glory, Horus disobeyed orders and now he's dead and his followers are insane mutants hiding in the Eye of Terror. Be like Roubert.

The Ciaphas Cain books have many characters use Horus’s name as a curse, replacing “the devil” in many phrases. From those books and the Eisenhorn books we can see that people entrusted with some amount of knowledge about Chaos (commissars just learning some barebones info to detect and combat it, with more understanding through firsthand experience of Chaos forced, and inquisition members having access to a lot of knowledge otherwise forbidden) know that Horus was once aligned with the Emperor before betraying him. In addition, the books mention imperials classifying CSM into legions, and contrasting that with the Loyalist SM’s splitting into chapters, which shows some cognizance of the first Space Marines coming from the same source, even without knowledge of the HH or gene-seed. It wouldn’t be outside possibility for an imperial soldier or official with access to info to infer the existence of the traitor primarchs.