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Ok so this isn't so much of a question of "who were the missing primarchs" or "what did they do to be erased from history"

My question is simply; What is the point of keeping them a secret anymore?

Orginally they were left open so that players could make up their own Chapters origins if they so pleased, but this neither makes sense anymore, nor is it necessary.
Firstly in terms of the game, it is easy to make up a Chapter or Warband of your own and simply make it's orgin legion unknown, a good deal of established Chapters have mysterious origins anyway.

Secondly, the HH series has invalidated that argument. Before, they were "The Missing Primarchs" but it's been long established in the series now that they were purged. the Primarchs killed and the legions either wiped out or hinted to be rolled into the Ultramarines. So it's virtually impossible for players in 40k to have Chapters taken from these Legions. Considering the fact that the Night Lords and World Eaters got away with their excesses for 200 years and the only other Primarch to come close to being "dealt with" was Lorgar, it must mean that the unknown Primarchs must have done something totally unforgiveable to be wiped out from memory.

So why not just capitalise on our reader curiousity and tell us? Either that or never mention them again. It is so pointless to tease the reader with a plot point, even give bigger hints on occasion, but never actually go for the big reveal. It's like watching a TV show that gets cancelled before they tie up plot points, except we're being lead to believe they will never tell us.

There have been plenty of other revelations that were previously canonically unknow, such as Angron's homeworld, that have already been revealed.
For anyone who thinks we should keep the mystery, I would argue that we should never get POV stories from the Primarchs either then. Because it is stupid that we get a look into Lorgar, Magnus, Horus, etc right into their minds, and yet they still won't even say what happened. Half of them are traitors, who cares about the oath they swore not to mention it? Surely that would have been the apex of recruitment tools for the Heresy "remember how Father purged 2 of his own sons? What kind of uncaring man does that? Join me and I'll make sure it doesn't happen again"

If they had made no such hints or references to it then I would argue to leave it alone, but they have teased us with it too many times now, I think it would really reinject some interest into the series if they at least told us the story of one of them. They could make it special additon novel that costs £200 and I would still buy it if I knew that was the story being covered.

Simply because for every player who say

'Ah Ha I knew I was right' and is happy with whatever explanation GW come up with

far more will say

'Aargh they retconed that, I hate them....'

besides they're not done with telling the Horus Heresy story one day at a time, maybe after that's finished?

That seems to be the case for about 90% of the Heresy so far though. I wish if they were going to get out the magic markers for a retcon spree they would do it across the board so the story was more cohesive. It's already technically a retcon to admit they were likely killed by the Space Wolves, they may as well flesh it out with details rather than leaving is with more questions than they answered.

i emailed BL a while ago about this and all i got back was that they do not plan to ever tell us what happened (probably because they wont be able to write something that lives up to the hype they have created surrounding them) and they will also continue to drop hints, some are planned and some will probably just be there to tie stories together. either way we will never know sorry guys

Talking about TV shows cancelled at the final episode... did anyone ever watch The Borgias? They cancelled the very last episode of that... SO fikkin annoying!

I heard Dan Abbnet was taking the rest of 2014 off. Just so he could give this subject the attention it needs. To be released in 2015-16.






I kid, I kid. That is blatantly made up

pfft time owf... hes making a movie or something isnt he? about one of his WHFB books. proper holiwood and stuff

 MrBlackledge wrote:
i emailed BL a while ago about this and all i got back was that they do not plan to ever tell us what happened (probably because they wont be able to write something that lives up to the hype they have created surrounding them) and they will also continue to drop hints, some are planned and some will probably just be there to tie stories together. either way we will never know sorry guys

This makes sense. It's such a big and obvious part of the fluff that has drawn myriad interpretations that going into it in major detail now would just be divisive.

Would be interesting to get another race's take on it all though...

How bad a thing could they have done to be erased considering those taking part in the Heresy are still accounted for? I think it's been implied that they took part in the Heresy as well, on one side or the other.

It could be that they were erased long before the Heresy, after the Heresy it seemed ridiculous to try to erase half the remaining chapters. We know the legions were formed so that the Primarchs could lead them when found. My favourite theories are that the remaining two Primarchs were complete non-starters that the emperor treated as a failure, so they were scrubbed from the records because they never established themselves as the leaders of their legions. One or both were either pacifists or horribly mutated and corrupted. Either way, their legions were useless from the start so were abandoned.

Alternatively one or both legions left our galaxy pre/post Heresy to travel elsewhere. They were deleted from all records to ensure their safety. It could be that the Emperor foresaw the inevitable threat of chaos in our galaxy and the incursion of the Tyranids and reawakening of the Necrons and decided his backup plan was for humanity to colonise another galaxy and start again. So sent fleet of humans and a legion or two of marines to leave our galaxy permanently and then destroyed all records to ensure their safety could never be betrayed.

I always theorized that tone did some thing so much worse, so much more evil than any other legion that they were removed from all records, most likely pre-hersey, and the other is the grey knights. But I don't know much Grey knight fluff, so I could be completely wrong about that.

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:


Orginally they were left open so that players could make up their own Chapters origins if they so pleased, but this neither makes sense anymore, nor is it necessary.
Firstly in terms of the game, it is easy to make up a Chapter or Warband of your own and simply make it's orgin legion unknown, a good deal of established Chapters have mysterious origins anyway.

Just because you don't see that as an important thing doesn't mean GW and a lot of other players see that as an important thing. It's not so they can make their own CHAPTER, but so they can make their own legion.

Also glossing over the "hype" the unknown legions means you never really got it. Why do you think there's the hype in the first place? Player intrigue created by the fans.

I'd be upset if they gave us official lore behind the lost legions, personally. I doubt they'd do what I personally think would be cool, which is that at least one of the lost primarchs was raised by Xenos and decided not to join the Imperium. It'd explain why that legion's soldiers got swallowed up in another one just fine, and I personally like the idea of one of the unknown primarchs just chilling, waiting, and protecting the Black Library.

It's not that I "don't get" the unkown Legions. My point is that they have already stripped your ability to have a Legion based on them because it is quite clearly implied that Russ wiped them out. Several sources point to this, for one, Russ wouldn't have had the reputation as the executioner if he hadn't have succeeded. Magnus mentions to Lorgar in first Heretic that there was talk of wiping out the Word Bearers like the forgotten Legions. In Betrayer Angron laughs off Russ when he tries to censure him because he knows that this time the Emperor hasn't given his blessing and Russ doesn't have the authority to kill him. If any Primarch had refused the call to arms then they would have been slain. The fact that their Legions were destroyed seems to imply that they were at least put in charge of them at some point. Or perhaps they weren't and the Terran legions were just rolled into the Ultramarines as has also been implied.

My point is, they have shown us too much already so they now may as well reveal them. When the Heresy was just a legend in the background, it made sense to have all these unknowns but now as we are exploring the rest of the events in depth, it makes no sense to just leave plot lines with no resolution.

You do realize that there are large numbers of players who think the HH novel series is gak and don't read them, right?

You mean the Horus Hearsay, right?

 Furyou Miko wrote:
You mean the Horus Hearsay, right?

Eh, some of it's good. The fluff on the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus, Thousand Sons, Emperor's Children, and Dark Angels (Dark Angels especially) have all been pretty good. But the HH fluff on the Night Lords (or just Curze), Lorgar, and the Alpha Legion is hideous.

I quite liked A Thousand Sons once I got into it (the opening was very weak) and Mechanicum is one of my favourite Black Library books, but the rest of the series I've found rather disappointing. By Horus Hearsay, I more mean that you don't have to take any of the stuff that happens in the books as 100% fact.

On A THousand Sons, I'll have to admit I'm biased towards it because A) I like Ahriman as a character, and it treated him fairly, and B) it uses the acceptance of homosexuality as a way of demonstrating that pre-heresy, the Imperium was actually a fairly forward-thinking, progressive culture.

That hasn't changed, though, in the post-Heresy Imperium, at least not if you take Abnett's writings in the Ravenor series to be indicative of the Imperium in general.

 Psienesis wrote:
That hasn't changed, though, in the post-Heresy Imperium, at least not if you take Abnett's writings in the Ravenor series to be indicative of the Imperium in general.

As I've stated many times before, the IOM by our standards, is civily progressive by and large. Equal rights for everyone, few care about your "race" or gender. The IOM only takes offense when your people's genetic pool has been isolated for so long that you're an entirely different species, like the Interex.

Holy crap, how did I miss the gay in Ravenor?

Not sure, but the mention I remember most is when Ravenor is mind-flying around a city and happens to drop in on two gay guys on the roof of a building somewhere, practicing a play and about to (or have just recently finished) going at it like two crazed weasels (the crazed weasels bit is my own addition).

 Stonerhino wrote:
I heard Dan Abbnet was taking the rest of 2014 off. Just so he could give this subject the attention it needs. To be released in 2015-16.






I kid, I kid. That is blatantly made up

You are a sick, sick man. One shouldn't play with people's emotions.

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
My question is simply; What is the point of keeping them a secret anymore?

The same point there always was in them being a secret - It's a story hook. It's something to make people talk about what might have happened to cause them to be erased from records so completely.

Orginally they were left open so that players could make up their own Chapters origins if they so pleased, ...

They really weren't.

Players have always had the ability to create their own Chapters without the missing Legions needing to be involved. They were there for a bit of mystery, nothing more.

. It is so pointless to tease the reader with a plot point, even give bigger hints on occasion, but never actually go for the big reveal.

So long as people keep speculating, it's clearly still interesting enough to leave it in there...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/570355.page

More discussion here...

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
It's not that I "don't get" the unkown Legions. My point is that they have already stripped your ability to have a Legion based on them because it is quite clearly implied that Russ wiped them out. Several sources point to this, for one, Russ wouldn't have had the reputation as the executioner if he hadn't have succeeded. Magnus mentions to Lorgar in first Heretic that there was talk of wiping out the Word Bearers like the forgotten Legions. In Betrayer Angron laughs off Russ when he tries to censure him because he knows that this time the Emperor hasn't given his blessing and Russ doesn't have the authority to kill him. If any Primarch had refused the call to arms then they would have been slain. The fact that their Legions were destroyed seems to imply that they were at least put in charge of them at some point. Or perhaps they weren't and the Terran legions were just rolled into the Ultramarines as has also been implied.

My point is, they have shown us too much already so they now may as well reveal them. When the Heresy was just a legend in the background, it made sense to have all these unknowns but now as we are exploring the rest of the events in depth, it makes no sense to just leave plot lines with no resolution.

Again, that's your opinion. Considering how vague the authors ever describe things, it doesn't really matter what they imply. Maybe Leman Russ earned the title of executioner for eviscerating an entire human world which had turned to Chaos, but no one knew how deep the Chaos threat actually went save he and the Emperor.

Meanwhile, the primarch of the 11th legion roams the webway, defending the Black Library with the Eldar Exodites who raised him. This according to my fluff, which I think is kind of awesome.

 SRSFACE wrote:

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:
It's not that I "don't get" the unkown Legions. My point is that they have already stripped your ability to have a Legion based on them because it is quite clearly implied that Russ wiped them out. Several sources point to this, for one, Russ wouldn't have had the reputation as the executioner if he hadn't have succeeded. Magnus mentions to Lorgar in first Heretic that there was talk of wiping out the Word Bearers like the forgotten Legions. In Betrayer Angron laughs off Russ when he tries to censure him because he knows that this time the Emperor hasn't given his blessing and Russ doesn't have the authority to kill him. If any Primarch had refused the call to arms then they would have been slain. The fact that their Legions were destroyed seems to imply that they were at least put in charge of them at some point. Or perhaps they weren't and the Terran legions were just rolled into the Ultramarines as has also been implied.

My point is, they have shown us too much already so they now may as well reveal them. When the Heresy was just a legend in the background, it made sense to have all these unknowns but now as we are exploring the rest of the events in depth, it makes no sense to just leave plot lines with no resolution.

Again, that's your opinion. Considering how vague the authors ever describe things, it doesn't really matter what they imply. Maybe Leman Russ earned the title of executioner for eviscerating an entire human world which had turned to Chaos, but no one knew how deep the Chaos threat actually went save he and the Emperor.

Meanwhile, the primarch of the 11th legion roams the webway, defending the Black Library with the Eldar Exodites who raised him. This according to my fluff, which I think is kind of awesome.

And you are equally entitled to your opinion but if we go from established facts, dead or not, the 2 Unknown Primarch's were erased from records, not merely undiscovered.
Herein lies the dilema. From a background point of view it is perfectly acceptable to have mysteries with no answers. But in the case of a story, a novel, TV show or movie, it is disappointing to have loose ends that don't further the story as I find it just frustrating. Like the show Lost, tons of things weren't answered and it didn't leave a fun ambiguity, it just felt disappointing and lazy writing.

I like to think that a C'tan ate one of the lost primarchs...

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
I like to think that a C'tan ate one of the lost primarchs...

What. The C'tan are dead, all the rest were devoured by the final four, who were then shattered into pieces by the Necrons during the War in Heaven. Current C'tan shards, while powerful, can be put down by Space Marines.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
I like to think that a C'tan ate one of the lost primarchs...

What. The C'tan are dead, all the rest were devoured by the final four, who were then shattered into pieces by the Necrons during the War in Heaven. Current C'tan shards, while powerful, can be put down by Space Marines.

Isn't that in the current year? The C'tan were still alive in whatever millenia the Pre-Heresy days were occurring, and since we don't even have a concrete timeline for anything after the primarchs were scattered, I think it's a fun possibility.

 Psienesis wrote:
You do realize that there are large numbers of players who think the HH novel series is gak and don't read them, right?

Doesn't make it any less canon.

I don't own a SM codex, but SM are still T4.

MarsNZ wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
You do realize that there are large numbers of players who think the HH novel series is gak and don't read them, right?

Doesn't make it any less canon.

I don't own a SM codex, but SM are still T4.

+1. Gak or not, they are endorsed and licensed by GW and are considered canon.