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I was curious if anyone else has read The Last Council and people's opinions on it,as it has some interesting (albeit limited) information about one of the lost primarchs. Generally speaking the scene is Horus, Alpharious (or Omegon, or neither... but memes aside/other side questions about timelines and if both were found at the same time or not), and the Khan go to Malcador when they hear one of the primarchs is being erased from the Imperial records, in particular the destruction of the statue in the Investiary. I assume this is the first Primarch to be deleted (and separate from the second), as there is no reference to another primarch being deleted and I feel it'd come up in the conversation if both were deleted/this has happened before:



Also besides seemingly confirming the two losses were separate events, it seems to imply this one failed militarily at a time of great loss to the Imperium. My gut reaction says this implies the Rangdan Xenocides theory, but do we have confirmed dates when Alpharious and the Khan were found? I'm gonna try to go through the information to see if the dates line up, though you'd expect some delay in time since warp travel/news would take a while I'd think. The only other thing I can think of would be necron related, what with the Ymga Monolith expedition undertaken by one of the primarchs.

Now for the potentially juicy part:




It continues a bit after as Malcador puts Horus in his place. On the one hand, I love this because it's mirrored my own sentiments in that you'd think one of the Primarchs wouldn't back down from talking about what happened. On the other, this could be a giant red herring. Given how Malcador reacts- getting a "vengeful rictus", I'm of the mind Horus is trying to say the Primarch's name, but of course "Mal" and the "al" could be Horus saying Malcador's name in shock, but then why would Malcador get (even) mad(der)? Of course Malal could be another option as the completed word, but that feels a bit too much, and would raise the question of why Horus would respect this Primarch if he had fallen.

My other question is one more of plot, why would the Primarchs swear not to speak of the lost Primarch/s (as per the above quote of Malcador saying the Primarchs already swore to the Emperor not to say their names), and then be shocked that Malcador is erasing their history? I feel like it could be a plot hole since they needed an excuse to not say his name, unless it was some vague "don't mention what happened here" that turned into a total ban.

Overall it's interesting enough to me, but what are other people's thoughts?

1) Thank you for posting this!

2)I will need to read the whole story to get a feeling for things, but this is all very interesting. I would echo your initial thought about it being related to the xenocides though.

I assume the statement of "if you can't see the reasoning..." means that the Primarch in question probably got a superiority complex about how THEY should be leading the Imperium, much like Horus.

Imagine how much better things would be if Malcador hadn't gone and died....

Although the Mal part has me wanting that 5th Chaos God back.

I really dislike how Malcador handle Horus, and so easily. I thought it would be less "frontal" and more subtle, in order, you know, to avoid bitterness from the better general of the Imperium.

Yeah, that all seems absurdly heavy handed. Both the hint drop and Malcador bullying the primarchs (and being able to bully the primarchs).

If there is one thig they should have taken away at this point, is some legends need to stay in the background and not be poked with the Stick of Revelation. It's honestly less interesting than What Might Be.

IDK, I for one am fine witht he unknown primarchs actually getting names, maybe even rthe legions themselves getting names.

And I REALLY want them to have descendant chapters in 40k, along with loyalist traitors

I think the whole Mal al by Horus is him probably freaking out/ panicking that moments after getting told that one of his brothers is not only dead, considered a disgraced figure and is now possibly moments from his own death. Malcador has always been portrayed as a powerful figure but this was something else.

He crippled Horus with (clear effort) and the other Primarchs didn't throw themselves forward but begged verbally for him to stop. They seemed to be able to little else. That is power that few could match.

Carlovonsexron wrote:
IDK, I for one am fine witht he unknown primarchs actually getting names, maybe even rthe legions themselves getting names.

And I REALLY want them to have descendant chapters in 40k, along with loyalist traitors

Nothing stops either of those things (deep in the records of Chapter X, it is whispered that...). But having Primarch Bob of the Salivating Army be named and bullet-pointed takes away one of the major mysteries of the setting for no real gain.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I think the whole Mal al by Horus is him probably freaking out/ panicking that moments after getting told that one of his brothers is not only dead, considered a disgraced figure and is now possibly moments from his own death. Malcador has always been portrayed as a powerful figure but this was something else.

He crippled Horus with (clear effort) and the other Primarchs didn't throw themselves forward but begged verbally for him to stop. They seemed to be able to little else. That is power that few could match.

I got the sense that they did not like what was happening but were still not going to move into outright physical attack of a superior. It didn't seem to me like the others were struggling to move, just Horus.

Carlovonsexron wrote:
IDK, I for one am fine witht he unknown primarchs actually getting names, maybe even rthe legions themselves getting names.

And I REALLY want them to have descendant chapters in 40k, along with loyalist traitors

GW will probably never provide either as those were supposed to be filled out by the players themselves. DIY Chapters and Legions are supposed to be a thing in 40K and 30K to. You can, after all, paint your model any way you want and give them any fluff you want. By living room open for such creativity, GW opens the door for players to invest themselves in the setting and create their own fluff.

Thanks for the responses everyone! I agree Malcador was a bit heavy handed, but it makes sense to me, rather given how they handled Lorgar and the two missing Primarchs it does highlight why Horus would suddenly, when he was stabbed by the anathame way back in the begining books, freak out about not seeing his statue in the future. It's a nice way of connecting Horus' previously random disdain and fears of the human bureaucracy with his desire for glory in my opinion.




Now for the personal opinions before going back to analysis:

While I understand the original missing primarchs were done to allow one to make their own legions, in practice I think it doesn't work. The metaphorical shoes have grown so much I think there is a certain bar on any such projects that are very hard to reach. Plus on the table many 30k players say they won't play against mk VII marines (a different discussion for another day), so custom made legions I'm sure receive a lot of flak if you are going to try it. It can work in 40k I suppose, but the events are so far removed it loses its importance/relevance personally.

Now the mystery aspect I can understand, but each person likes their own amount of mystery, and I personally would love to see the setting grow, drop hints, and eventually reveal what happened. At the least I want a coherent plan from BL, mystery for the sake of mystery is boring if there is no actual substance behind the fog. But again, those are completely my own opinions.

Now back to facts:




The more I think about this, the more I'm not sure it was the Xenocides. For dates of Primarchs we know:

Horus - first and kinda irrelevant here for the date
Khan- 850s (per the wiki, didn't find an exact date in what books I have)
Alpharius 970s-980s (per the wiki and backed up by the 3rd black book)

The big problem is Alpharius. This doesn't rule it out per se, but the xenocides took place from 850ish to the 890s, which would mean Alpharius/Omegon would have to be shadowing Horus for almost a century. Since the lore is inconsistent with how he was found though it could be possible- Vulkan spent a good while away from the Salamanders after being found so it wouldn't be impossible. Not to mention with Omegon who knows. The alternative was that Malcador waited close to a century before enacting his erasure, which while possible would raise more questions.

The scene seems to take place on Terra based on at the palace. It is definitely before the XVI became the Sons of Horus, and before False Gods as Horus made no comment about Petronella when he was introduced to Petronius Vivar for the first time in this story, not that that helps much. Given how the Emperor isn't present, and Horus accusing Malcador of not having the Emperor's seals on the orders damning the primarchs, I suppose it takes place in a small gap after Ullanor? That in itself isn't too satisfactory to me though as it only gives a small time frame for Horus to go to Terra and back before 63-19.

Here's the qoute of Horus accusing Malcador:



Though to be fair would the Emperor dare pass official documents erasing someone? Probably not so it's hard to say, though the projection of Horus' woes at the end of that quote is rather funny.

Is this too much analysis for something the author may or may not have thought through? maybe, but I enjoy it .

Here’s one for you. Given Malcador obvious power, did the Emporer really need to go to the vengeful spirit or could Malcador have handled it?

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Here’s one for you. Given Malcador obvious power, did the Emporer really need to go to the vengeful spirit or could Malcador have handled it?

keep in mind this was NOT the Horus of the Hersy era. Horus by the time of the Seige was pumped up on chaos juice.

Haaaaah I totally missed the Malal naming. LG trolling fanboys is a wonderful thing.


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Timeline wise, it's been stated before (by LG, who should know) that all the Primarchs were found before the two dissapeared. And they All agreed to not name them again. This is I believe the first source to confirm that the lost legions became lost on different occasions.

This doesnt completely rule out one "disgrace" happening during the xenocides, as the official censure could still have happened much later (vagaries of the warp?.. weak explanation but meh).

Of course what actually happened is probably never intended to be revealed.. I'm pretty sure LG knows.


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So assume this happens late crusade some time before the events of the novels.


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The thing that hurts the most is I'm pretty sure the Rangda was Alan Blighs baby so may never be fleshed out as intended

epronovost wrote:

Carlovonsexron wrote:
IDK, I for one am fine witht he unknown primarchs actually getting names, maybe even rthe legions themselves getting names.

And I REALLY want them to have descendant chapters in 40k, along with loyalist traitors

GW will probably never provide either as those were supposed to be filled out by the players themselves. DIY Chapters and Legions are supposed to be a thing in 40K and 30K to. You can, after all, paint your model any way you want and give them any fluff you want. By living room open for such creativity, GW opens the door for players to invest themselves in the setting and create their own fluff.

Your statement was true if we were talking years ago.
But times have changed.
People would have said they wouldn’t ever destroy the Old World. Move on the 40k minutes to midnight.
But here we are.

The missing chapters is no longer for us to create. As that is what subsequent founding date for
(Also if we have so much fluff about the fact they are definitely gone and lost etc, how would you use that for your own anyway?)

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I assume the statement of "if you can't see the reasoning..." means that the Primarch in question probably got a superiority complex about how THEY should be leading the Imperium, much like Horus.

It could also be that maybe they agreed with how the Primarch approached a situation and it just went sour (unexpected offense, didn't receive the reinforcements he wanted, etc.) therefore thinking it was over the top to get rid of his name.

Carlovonsexron wrote:
1) Thank you for posting this!

2)I will need to read the whole story to get a feeling for things, but this is all very interesting. I would echo your initial thought about it being related to the xenocides though.

The Xenocides do mention legions being lost, so it's a logical place for a Primarch to be lost too, and II and XI were definitely both there.
The Slaughth were (and are) scary.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:Here’s one for you. Given Malcador obvious power, did the Emporer really need to go to the vengeful spirit or could Malcador have handled it?

I think it needed the Emperor still, for all of Malcador's power here in this scene it did seem to effect him as per this qoute:



The crawling motes of light seems to imply Malcador was at his limit of power, that's how I see it atleast. Once Horus was "powered up" at Molech I don't think Malcador would have as easy a time, plus remember this is the equivalent of a sucker punch as Horus had no idea Malcador could do this at the time. Compared to the Emperor, who made an entire legion kneel, then I think the relative powers are still quite different from each other currently. Now if Malcador went in with Dorn/Sanguinus and they organized their attack? Maybe but it's impossible to say at this moment, we really just don't know Malcador's limits and how strong Horus really is (getting wounded by Russ makes me interested to see how things progress, I think he's likely to be stronger after reading Slaves of Darkness and how that book plays out).

locarno24 wrote:

Carlovonsexron wrote:
1) Thank you for posting this!

2)I will need to read the whole story to get a feeling for things, but this is all very interesting. I would echo your initial thought about it being related to the xenocides though.

The Xenocides do mention legions being lost, so it's a logical place for a Primarch to be lost too, and II and XI were definitely both there.
The Slaughth were (and are) scary.

The more I think about it the more the Xenocides seem less likely, with one plausible explanation. Rather the reference to the legions being lost reads as:

"Whole expeditionary fleets went to their deaths without a single survivor, worlds were laid waste, dozens of Titan Legions were obliterated and by the end, entire Space Marine Legions [REDACTED SECTION] lost to the Imperium."

The problem with this qoute is that we have no idea how long this "redacted section" is, whether it is just a couple of words (unlikely but I'm not famililar how governments redact documents, which may provide some insight) or paragraphs. It could be implying Space Marine Legions as in the sheer number of lives lost equaled a legion, but not a specific legion was lost. It could also be implying entire space marine legions were involved in some action, be it similiar to Russ' and the Lion's eradication of entire populations but so bad it was erased.

Either way we know all the Primarchs were found before the two primarchs were erased as per what Captyn_Bob said, and this seems to be backed up with Alpharius being present. This means, at least officially, the earliest this could be are the 970s, a good century later. We can actually whittle the options down to the 2nd Primarch IF the xenocides resulted in losing a primarch.

Since the xenocides took place during the mid 800s to 890s, and we know the XI was found after Angron, whom himself seems to be found around the 900s (using the wiki so feel free to provide a better source), we can assume the XI primarch is not likely to have been present at the xenocides. Therefore of the two the II primarch would be the one present. Since he wasn't erased until the 970s+, then the only way to explain a xenocides connection was what if the II legion and it's primarch were infected during the war, just like so many civillian sectors were during the main xenocides, and this wasn't discovered until much later. Of course I suppose this could be used in either case, where the XI legion would just be rotten with a pure/innocent primarch at the top that then gets secondarily infected, but if I had to pick I would pick the primarch that was crusading and possibly fought against the xenos. In this context, the quote above would read as: "...entire Space Marines Legions (were found to be infected and) lost to the Imperium."

That's really the only thing I can think of, the xenocides take place so early relative to when the primarchs were officially erased that it's hard to imagine the Imperium waiting around for near a century to issue such an order, especially the relatively efficient Imperium lead by the Emperor and Malcador, not the corrupt and massive one we have in 40k haha, that'd take millennia and probably lead to accidental publications in guardsmen primers.

A century is enough time for the death of a Primarch to drop out of living memory, at least for the mortals involved. Deleting a Legion from the records would be much easier to do after a century or two as auld mortality would take care of most of the people who had served alongside them.

Only the Primarchs and their Legions as well as top ranking Imperial bureaucrats with access to rejuvination would remember the deleted legions. This is a much smaller pool of people to bind with oaths, threats bribes.

Not conclusive by any means but I think it is at least plausible that the deletion of the records might have taken place sometime after the loss of the Legion and their Primarch.

 godardc wrote:
I really dislike how Malcador handle Horus, and so easily. I thought it would be less "frontal" and more subtle, in order, you know, to avoid bitterness from the better general of the Imperium.

Ah but bitterness is good for emperors plans


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Voss wrote:
Yeah, that all seems absurdly heavy handed. Both the hint drop and Malcador bullying the primarchs (and being able to bully the primarchs).

If there is one thig they should have taken away at this point, is some legends need to stay in the background and not be poked with the Stick of Revelation. It's honestly less interesting than What Might Be.

Malcador is most powerfull human psyker ever. Only emp and magnus outpower him. Better question than can he bully them is is Malc himself even human


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endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Here’s one for you. Given Malcador obvious power, did the Emporer really need to go to the vengeful spirit or could Malcador have handled it?

Yes. Horus at the end was powered up by chaos gods. Not by one but by all. Waaaay beyond humans. Emperor is above malc and yet lost almost(albeit more out of own failing by not being willing to kill Horus at the beginning)


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Captyn_Bob wrote:

Of course what actually happened is probably never intended to be revealed.. I'm pretty sure LG knows.

Actually i don't think anybody knows fully. Closed doors. They were just hints with zero planning what really happened. If they don't have plans of revealing no point even fully flesh out. Keep things open as needed and keep the mystery and appearance of deep well planned background that closed doors were designed to create

Since the xenocides took place during the mid 800s to 890s, and we know the XI was found after Angron, whom himself seems to be found around the 900s (using the wiki so feel free to provide a better source), we can assume the XI primarch is not likely to have been present at the xenocides. Therefore of the two the II primarch would be the one present.

Fair enough - I was only observing that both legions were present:



The Slaughth are big on corrupting (politically and physically) Imperial organisations. Infesting an astartes legion would take some doing but a slaughth in a skinned-astartes-suit is not inherently wierder than one in a skinned-normal-person-suit, and they're physically strong enough to make the deception credible.