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 Sir Arun wrote:
Chaos Legions have theirs, although those that are, are all horribly mutated and rulers of daemon worlds and not really interested in leading armies anymore.

Still, I feel that Sanguinius, Guilliman, Dorn, Manus and Khan can remain dead and the Lion can remain asleep, but the rest (Corax, Vulkan and Russ) would have very much had the chance to be alive, but GW went "feth it, let's just make these guys disappear so that no loyalist legions/chapters can have Primarchs leading them anymore". It kinda annoys me a lot, so what do you think?

We know for a fact that Vulkan is alive considering he's a perpetual, which I don't think we've even been informed on how one of those can be killed. Guilliman is healing and more KTFO'd than KIA, Russ, Corax, and Khan are AWOL, Dorn's status is iffy (IIRC, I think it's just his hand now that was found, and it's possible he could be alive), and if you buy into the theory that the Sanguinor is Sanguinius reincarnated, well, he's not dead either. The only one I think we even know for sure is permadead is Horus and Manus.

(And they even tried to revive Horus once!)

So yeah, it varies from the fluff I've read, but they can swing between KIA to MIA depending on what you read. Although it's most likely that Vulkan and the Lion are alive, and Khan, Russ, and Corax stand a high chance of being in a living, breathing state. Don't hold your breath for Rowboat Girlyman, Dorn, Manus, or Sanguinius.

 Wyzilla wrote:


We know for a fact that Vulkan is alive considering he's a perpetual, (And they even tried to revive Horus once!)

Unremembered Empire has ways to kill a perpetual

 PredaKhaine wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


We know for a fact that Vulkan is alive considering he's a perpetual, (And they even tried to revive Horus once!)

Unremembered Empire has ways to kill a perpetual

Easy, or is it on the 'ten steps to kill Alucard' level of hard?

If you haven't read unremembered empire

 PredaKhaine wrote:
If you haven't read unremembered empire

Spoiler:

Get special knife, blessed by Empy.
Stab Perpetual.
Job Done

Oh, well then that's impossible. Kinda hard for Chaos to kill Vulkan or any other perpetuals when the only person capable of making such a weapon is stuck on the Golden Throne.

He's made a few and left them lying about...

 PredaKhaine wrote:
He's made a few and left them lying about...

Man, there's been redshirts with more foresight and competence than the GEOM at this point. I know GW loves their MacGuffin's, but this is getting ridiculous if they keep those around just to get a plot if Vulkan ever shows up. I love the Horus Heresy, but GW needs to pay attention to some of the writers they hire.

Massive Unremembered empire spoiler

 PredaKhaine wrote:
Massive Unremembered empire spoiler

Spoiler:

ATM, Vulkan is in a coffin on macragge. They stabbed him with a special knife. He's dead...or is he?!
Cue GW cliffhanger music

Alive. He hid the artifacts after the Horus Heresy and thus survived it.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 PredaKhaine wrote:
Massive Unremembered empire spoiler

Spoiler:

ATM, Vulkan is in a coffin on macragge. They stabbed him with a special knife. He's dead...or is he?!
Cue GW cliffhanger music

Alive. He hid the artifacts after the Horus Heresy and thus survived it.

I'd forgotten that - thanks. Now I can ignore the ending of that book as I didn't like it anyway

 PredaKhaine wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 PredaKhaine wrote:
Massive Unremembered empire spoiler

Spoiler:

ATM, Vulkan is in a coffin on macragge. They stabbed him with a special knife. He's dead...or is he?!
Cue GW cliffhanger music

Alive. He hid the artifacts after the Horus Heresy and thus survived it.

I'd forgotten that - thanks. Now I can ignore the ending of that book as I didn't like it anyway

Unless the GW made W40K timeline is even more screwy than before and Vulkan has a time machine, it's pretty hard to hide nine master-crafted artifacts for his Chapter to find while a corpse. Although then again, GW making a screwy timeline isn't that far-fetched. This is why adding to a large fiction with rich lore retroactively doesn't work well and is extremely messy.

PredaKhaine wrote:
I'd forgotten that - thanks. Now I can ignore the ending of that book as I didn't like it anyway

Unremembered Empire was just plain awful. It was a book about absolutely nothing in which absolutely nothing significant happened, nor anything to advance the plot of the Heresy.

Games Workshop is literally selling people filler now just to draw out the storyline and sell more books.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Vulkan has a time machine.

Given the fact that any ship mentioned in 40k lore has a 90% probability of being lost/scattered through time and space. A time machine wouldn't be that surprising.

As to the original topic: I think I like that the Primarchs are gone, and they don't really find their way into the story or game except as part of legend. Even though it would be really awesome to see models and play with them, it would also rob them of their mystery. We wouldn't be able to argue over who was best, or what might have been possible for them, because we would know, and then we'd lose interest.

^ yeah but if Vulkan had hidden his artifacts and then boarded his ship and got lost in the warp and resurfaced back in time, he would be inhabiting a universe that currently also had his twin in it.

Vulkan didn't just hide the artifacts. He IS one of the artifacts (apparently). The coffin refers to Vulkan as the "Unbounded Flame" on it and that's one of the artifacts that the Salamanders are looking for.

Which basically implies that once the Salamanders find all the artifacts, presumably the Unbound Flame will be the last, which will mean they found him.

Which probably ties into the whole "Vulkan will return once the Salamanders find all the artifacts" legend.

Umm... Has anyone mentioned that Johnson is still alive?

He's just sleeping on the rock

Off the top of my head, Lion El'Jonson would be the easiest to re-introduce into the conflict, he's basically just waiting for a signal. The other Loyalist Primarchs are either missing, dead, or semi-dead.

Alpha 1 wrote:
But who knows what GW has planned.

More over priced books and minis.

Or nothing at all.

I'd say it's 50/50.

 Psienesis wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:Tyranids were advancing too. Leviathan and the "Oh gak, they can outflank the GALAXY?" thing didn't come up until 4th Edition.

And what has that changed?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They are still a swarm of locusts of countless numbers coming from somewhere outside the galaxy, but now we have more of them because using the names of mythological god-monsters is cool.

Nothing has *changed* about the Tyranid situation in 25 years. That there are now more Hive Fleets than there were previously doesn't *change* anything about the setting or move a story along in any significant way, because there isn't a story being told. We're going to see neither the eradication of the Nids nor of the Imperium, because they aren't going to Squat either of the associated product lines.

They're also not going to fundamentally change the nature of the setting as that would require actually re-writing all the Codices from that point forward, rather than just the copypasta job they do these days. You think they want to sit down and contemplate writing Codices for an Imperium broken into seventeen separate parts by the Hive Fleets? They don't, and they're not going to.

The same holds true for the threat of the Tau and the Necrons. They will always be threats, or threats on the horizon, and there may be future releases that allows one or both of these factions to enjoy some time in the limelight, but it's not going to significantly *change* anything.

There is an advance of fluff. Its just so slow that it just doesn't look like it. For instance the previous Blood Angel codex now has Baal under threat from Tyranids and Daemons. So you may ask whats changed? Well thats one thing that changed because that is now the current point in the Blood Angels codex. i.e. Its the last event listed in it which wasn't there beforehand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 PredaKhaine wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 PredaKhaine wrote:
Massive Unremembered empire spoiler

Spoiler:

ATM, Vulkan is in a coffin on macragge. They stabbed him with a special knife. He's dead...or is he?!
Cue GW cliffhanger music

Alive. He hid the artifacts after the Horus Heresy and thus survived it.

I'd forgotten that - thanks. Now I can ignore the ending of that book as I didn't like it anyway

Unless the GW made W40K timeline is even more screwy than before and Vulkan has a time machine, it's pretty hard to hide nine master-crafted artifacts for his Chapter to find while a corpse. Although then again, GW making a screwy timeline isn't that far-fetched. This is why adding to a large fiction with rich lore retroactively doesn't work well and is extremely messy.

Don't worry about it. There are things from the book that you've not been told yet in regards to this incident. It isn't totally clarrified that a weapon blessed by the empy can kill perpetuals and at the end of the book its still clear that Vulkan is alive because there is a noise from his coffin


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

PredaKhaine wrote:
I'd forgotten that - thanks. Now I can ignore the ending of that book as I didn't like it anyway

Unremembered Empire was just plain awful. It was a book about absolutely nothing in which absolutely nothing significant happened, nor anything to advance the plot of the Heresy.

Games Workshop is literally selling people filler now just to draw out the storyline and sell more books.

I don't see it that way. The book is setting up for the reason why the Blood Angels get back to Terra while the Ultramarines and Dark Angels don't. It also explains how Maggrage got a light for warp travel, especially since parts of the fluff state that the only light is on Terra (Astronomicon) but past fluff has stated that Ultramar did in fact have a light during the heresy. This book explains why Maggrage has one during this period.

Khan and Guilliman are not dead. Khan is held by the dark eldar and fights in their arenas as a gladiator, (only reffered to as the white giant but come on its khan) and guilliman is in stasis in trazyn the infinites libaries on solemnance.(Giant man in baroque power armour)

 necronspurs2012 wrote:
Khan and Guilliman are not dead. Khan is held by the dark eldar and fights in their arenas as a gladiator, (only reffered to as the white giant but come on its khan) and guilliman is in stasis in trazyn the infinites libaries on solemnance.(Giant man in baroque power armour)

Guilliman is on one of the Ultramar planets I believe (don't remember if it is Macragge or another planet in their fold). Pilgrims come to see him. He's frozen in a stasis bomb's field with a mortal wound in his neck (that according to 'lore' is healing over time). Still, on public display with pilgrims that flock to see him.

Wyzilla wrote:We know for a fact that Vulkan is alive considering he's a perpetual [...] So yeah, it varies from the fluff I've read, but they can swing between KIA to MIA depending on what you read.

The last sentence is important, considering that the 6E Rulebook flat-out claims that there are no immortal Primarchs.

For what it's worth, I much prefer 40k without something as crazy as "Perpetuals", too. Ultimately, however, this is a question that each of us must answer for themselves - this also entails that there are no "facts" concerning this topic, though. Just lots of opinions and overlapping, deviating interpretations.

Just to throw my quick two cents in, I would have to agree that the primarchs being alive in "current" time would ruin some of the reason why the universe is in the state that it is in. I think if any primarch would return, it would tip the balance one way or the other.

Also, I do like the holding on to hope that some of the lost ones will return adds to the atmosphere to the game that you wouldn't get otherwise. It is apart of their legendary status, the tales of times long past.

That being said, bringing one back on each side would add interesting storyline twists that could be interesting but I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

Envihon wrote:Also, I do like the holding on to hope that some of the lost ones will return adds to the atmosphere to the game that you wouldn't get otherwise. It is apart of their legendary status, the tales of times long past.

Exactly, as a legend and a myth it fits perfectly - it's part of the superstitious and desperate culture of the Imperium, similar to the teachings of the Ecclesiarchy including but not limited to the deification of the Emperor, or the Adeptus Mechanicus' machine spirit dogma.

The franchise would certainly lose flavour without these facets. Rational thinking has a place in many sci-fi settings, but not in 40k.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
An Alpha Legion substitute is on one of the Ultramar planets I believe (don't remember if it is Macragge or another planet in their fold). Pilgrims come to see him. He's frozen in a stasis bomb's field with a mortal wound in his neck (that according to 'lore' is healing over time). Still, on public display with pilgrims that flock to see him.

Fixed

 DarthOvious wrote:
There is an advance of fluff. Its just so slow that it just doesn't look like it. For instance the previous Blood Angel codex now has Baal under threat from Tyranids and Daemons. So you may ask whats changed? Well thats one thing that changed because that is now the current point in the Blood Angels codex. i.e. Its the last event listed in it which wasn't there beforehand.

Things like that get changed, but I suspect the 'advancement' being discussed is in terms of approaching a conclusion. GW take the Zeno's Paradox approach to 'story' development: If they keep on saying that the Imperium is closer to collapse than it was before, they don't have to actually change the storyline. The Tyranids have gone from 'a threat', through 'a big threat, 'a great big threat' and 'a huge threat', and now they're '4 defs a huge threat'. The next Codex release will upgrade them to '4 real 4 defs a big huge threat like wow', and that's the most substantive change that will occur. You can call that 'advancement' in a grimly technical way, but it's scarcely satisfying.

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:
Prior to the series of books the Horus Heresy was truly steeped in mystery, legend and half-truths. You had tales of all sorts of things going on, such as the tale of the venerable Ollanius Pius - did he actually exist in M31? Was he a propaganda tool for the Imperial Army, then changing to the Imperial Guard, to give it a patron Saint to unite behind? We just have a tale that the fight between Horus & the Emperor took place in the Imperial Palace on Terra and in some tales Pius does not exist. But there's another legend that states the fight was aboard the flagship of Horus and the role Pius played was actually performed by an Imperial Fist. Further to that there's a tale that it was a member of the Adeptus Custodes who sacrificed himself to grant the Emperor the vital seconds needed to defeat Horus, not an Imperial Army soldier or an Imperial Fist Astartes.

I preferred that story with an unknown soldier. An unwitting grunt (identity not recorded) stumbled in to his immediate death, the momentary distraction allowing The God-Emperor (mankind's mightiest hero and greatest hope) to win the day and save humanity. It's full of symbolism. If you care to speculate on what uplifting parables the Ecclesiarchy teaches Imperial children, every citizen probably knows this one.

On topic, it's because they're written into the background as a historical item and have only recently begun to be explored. They didn't come up with the idea and then decide to (functionally) kill them all off; they came up with a setting that included them as historical characters. They weren't deliberately removed from the current setting; they were never in it to begin with. It's the same reason they decided not to let the old Eldar Empire still be around.

 Lynata wrote:
The franchise would certainly lose flavour without these facets. Rational thinking has a place in many sci-fi settings, but not in 40k.

This is just the sentiment I think of when I read the Horus Heresy books. What would the primarchs do if they could see what the Imperium is now? I wonder if they would even suffer to let the Imperium as a whole survive for what it has become. I couldn't even imagine what the Emperor thinks as he sits on his golden throne and can only watch as the Imperium slips back into the dark ages that he rescued humanity from in the first place. The primarchs would be pissed. That being said, it would be pretty interesting and add some interesting storyline but again would ruin what makes the phrase "There is only war". The point is that no side is suppose to have an advantage and everything is just crappy for everyone.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Man, there's been redshirts with more foresight and competence than the GEOM at this point. I know GW loves their MacGuffin's, but this is getting ridiculous if they keep those around just to get a plot if Vulkan ever shows up. I love the Horus Heresy, but GW needs to pay attention to some of the writers they hire.

And then you remember the writer of Unremembered Empire was Dan Abnett.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Because they're too close to the emperor, and the emperor is too closely based on catholic mythology.

There has been a lot of writing on this, and being on my phone i can't go as deeply into this as i'd like to, *but*, part of the defining feature of christianity, especially the earlier christianity that 40k borrows from, was the death of Christ. Just as christ's father abondoned him ('father father, why have you forsaken me?' ), so Christ abandoned humanity - yet it was humanity's own sin that caused it.

Similarly the emperor was destroyed by his son's humanity, and now the imperium must deal with its sin. The loyalist primarchs would shatter this mechanic, as witnesses to the divine truth they would be living beacons of the emperor's message, the hope of all mankind.

Instead we have millions of bastard priests and beaurocrats running mankind for the sake of running it, a mindless, indifferent tyrany that is sliding invariable into chaos.