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While I have not read the Horus Heresy series, I was wondering what became of the ordinary Prospero civilian when the Space Wolves touched down and fought the Thousand Sons? I've heard that the Space Wolves have been characterized as humanitarians, saving citizens of planet "x" when other Imperium forces wanted nothing but utter destruction. Is there any mention of what happened to the people of Prospero?

That description of the Space Wolves does not apply in 30k. It is entirely a post-Heresy value of theirs.

As for the normal population, most were slaughtered, but quite a number of psychically-resonant people were captured by the Sons of Horus who were there in support of the Wolves.

Even 40K SWs aren't 'humanitarians'. Their objection to the Inquisition's purge on Armageddon was that it was 'dishonourable' to kill people who had fought by your side, not that exterminating large numbers of innocent people was evil. They weren't motivated by compassion, but by pride.

The Imperium are bad guys. There is no concept of humanitarianism or human rights or the sanctity of life in the Imperium, in either 30K or 40K. Individual human lives are worthless to the Imperium except inasmuch as they can be expended to further the survival of the Imperium itself.

To the Imperium, exterminating every man, woman and child is the default. They only spare you if you're useful to them. They'll cheerfully kill you just for being in the way.

They're only the protagonists because they're the main human faction, and because most of the other factions are even worse (at least from a human PoV). But don't imagine for a moment they are good or nice. Even the more 'reasonable' Imperial characters like Guilliman or Grimnar are Nazi-war-criminal-level monsters.

That is a very incomplete description of the Imperium.

Well, your post is a very incomplete counter-argument, so...

The Space Wolves are not known for being forgiving to the supporters of traitors. I doubt they show kindness to the population of any world that rebels against the Emperor. Different situation to fellow servants of the Emperor who fought along side them.

It's a description that guns in the right direction.

The Imperium isn't supposed to be a reasonably sensible authoritarian tyranny that does what has to be done to save mankind in a hostile universe, tragic as those necessary actions may be. It is supposed to be utterly out of whack, unhinged and decaying, stagnant and myopic, needlessly murderous and a dysfunctional dead end for human power in the Milky Way galaxy; a failed, impoverished, interstellar empire who can't even do science.

In a galaxy of horrors, the Imperium of Man is itself one of the baleful horrors. That's the true beauty of Warhammer 40'000.

The early Imperium of the Great Crusade was far more of a necessary evil and reasonable dictatorship, a sensible option in a terrible time. It was a post-apocalyptic renaissance and reconquest of the human colonies, rather savage and cruel but still having promise for the future. The Imperium of M40 is a failed promise, the death of a dream, the feverish nightmare of mankind in the darkest of futures.

And the burning of Prospero was pivotal in setting the Imperium of Man on its downward spiral. Since then, the best man could hope for was to tread water to barely keep breathing and delay drowning.

Cheers