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Broly wrote:
I' really surprised so much people voted for Roboute Guilliman, since, of all primarchs, he had the biggest head start.


I voted for Curze.

Unlike all other primarchs, Curze had absolutely no allies, no adoptive father, no inheritance. He single-handedly scared an entire planet into submission.

Guilliman was found 8th, Curze 16th of the Primarchs. How many more years did that give Curze to get his act together and go beyond his own planet?

as others have said, I think "legacy" is important to consider here. especially as so many primarchs where in "world leadership positions" once a primarch took over? what did they do? did their changes etc stick?

looking at it.


Cruze: nothing he did mattered in the end, the minute he turned his back things went back to what they always where.
The Lion: it's hard to say as his homeworld underwent signfcigent changes once the Emperor arrived. I think it's notable that he;s the only primarch who approved the full scale industrilization of his homeworld. turning it from Feudal world into an industrial one. the Caliban of old was gone. it'd been bulldozed. although the Warp spawn eventually returned. as the Lion never realized he was clearing something more then beasts. I'll give the Lion a wash because you could make convicing arguements eaither way.
Fulgrim: there's evidance the positive changes he left remained in place. leading to a much better world... until the world was destroyed following the seige of Terra,
Lorgar: apparently fell back to it's old state the minute he left
Corax: the Liberation of his homeworld stuck, and the changes he made have, as far as I can tell remained more or less in place. Corax manages to score well on the legacy front
Jaghatai Khan: when he left the tribes he had united fragmented returning the world to it's semi-feudal status.
Gulliman: Gulliman started with a reasonably decent planet with a reasonably decent society, but there where problems with it as well. Mcragge had a large and powerful noble class that had become fat and happy on the backs of slaves etc. Gulliman broke this and eistablished a meritocracy upon which he built an empire. And Empire that continues to this day


the other Primarchs we have insufficant information on to detirmine the extent of the "pre-Imperial contact" legacy they've left behind. for the most part it seems that the Empires built by the primarchs collapsed as soon as they left. only a very small handful of Primarchs managed to build something lasting.

Going to have to go with Guilliman. Ultramar is the only place in 40K where the term utopia is thrown around.

BrianDavion wrote:
The Lion: it's hard to say as his homeworld underwent signfcigent changes once the Emperor arrived. I think it's notable that he;s the only primarch who approved the full scale industrilization of his homeworld. turning it from Feudal world into an industrial one. the Caliban of old was gone. it'd been bulldozed.

Untrue. Ferrus Manus raised up Medusa far higher than the Lion raised Caliban. And he did it before the Emperor arrived. Though I should mention that Medusa was not infested with daemons.

 j31c3n wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
The Lion: it's hard to say as his homeworld underwent signfcigent changes once the Emperor arrived. I think it's notable that he;s the only primarch who approved the full scale industrilization of his homeworld. turning it from Feudal world into an industrial one. the Caliban of old was gone. it'd been bulldozed.

Untrue. Ferrus Manus raised up Medusa far higher than the Lion raised Caliban. And he did it before the Emperor arrived. Though I should mention that Medusa was not infested with daemons.

Only C'tan

Only a single C'tan shard.



Did Ferrus really improve Medusa? Seems like he left well enough alone.

Yeah I know haha. I don't know much about Medusa before and after which may be pretty telling in itself...

 Manchu wrote:
Did Ferrus really improve Medusa? Seems like he left well enough alone.

The only thing he "left alone" was the clan structure.

 j31c3n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Did Ferrus really improve Medusa? Seems like he left well enough alone.

The only thing he "left alone" was the clan structure.

what exactly did he change? keep in mind my statement on the Lion wasn't exactly nesscarily all that complimentry. I'm basicly noting that even before the planet blew up Caliban had been completly altered. as in "forests bulldozed to make room for factories" altered. Honestly, it's no wonder the Lion had a rebellion on Caliban, he'd pretty much destroyed the planets way of life. I imagine he went almost overnight from a local hero, to a forigen opressor.

BrianDavion wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Did Ferrus really improve Medusa? Seems like he left well enough alone.

The only thing he "left alone" was the clan structure.

what exactly did he change? keep in mind my statement on the Lion wasn't exactly nesscarily all that complimentry. I'm basicly noting that even before the planet blew up Caliban had been completly altered. as in "forests bulldozed to make room for factories" altered. Honestly, it's no wonder the Lion had a rebellion on Caliban, he'd pretty much destroyed the planets way of life. I imagine he went almost overnight from a local hero, to a forigen opressor.

When Ferrus Manus arrived on Medusa, it was essentially a tribal, fragmented society, with technology around the level of the Bronze or Iron age. He decided to remain apart from the people of Medusa until he had bested every challenge of the world. Only after he slew the wyrm Asirnoth (theorized by fans to be a C'tan shard), Ferrus went to the tribes and taught them of technology. He advanced the society of Medusa from the Iron age to pre-Heresy tech levels between then and the Emperor's arrival. By himself. Using nothing more than the faculties of his own mind. He didn't have an STC blueprint or anything other than his pod, marked with an X. That is accomplishment.

 j31c3n wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Did Ferrus really improve Medusa? Seems like he left well enough alone.

The only thing he "left alone" was the clan structure.

what exactly did he change? keep in mind my statement on the Lion wasn't exactly nesscarily all that complimentry. I'm basicly noting that even before the planet blew up Caliban had been completly altered. as in "forests bulldozed to make room for factories" altered. Honestly, it's no wonder the Lion had a rebellion on Caliban, he'd pretty much destroyed the planets way of life. I imagine he went almost overnight from a local hero, to a forigen opressor.

When Ferrus Manus arrived on Medusa, it was essentially a tribal, fragmented society, with technology around the level of the Bronze or Iron age. He decided to remain apart from the people of Medusa until he had bested every challenge of the world. Only after he slew the wyrm Asirnoth (theorized by fans to be a C'tan shard), Ferrus went to the tribes and taught them of technology. He advanced the society of Medusa from the Iron age to pre-Heresy tech levels between then and the Emperor's arrival. By himself. Using nothing more than the faculties of his own mind. He didn't have an STC blueprint or anything other than his pod, marked with an X. That is accomplishment.

That's close, when Ferrus Manus arrived on Medusa, it was covered in techno-barbarians, which can mean they had tech anywhere from 20th Century to 30 millenium


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Did Ferrus really improve Medusa? Seems like he left well enough alone.

The only thing he "left alone" was the clan structure.

what exactly did he change? keep in mind my statement on the Lion wasn't exactly nesscarily all that complimentry. I'm basicly noting that even before the planet blew up Caliban had been completly altered. as in "forests bulldozed to make room for factories" altered. Honestly, it's no wonder the Lion had a rebellion on Caliban, he'd pretty much destroyed the planets way of life. I imagine he went almost overnight from a local hero, to a forigen opressor.

He took a bunch of techno-barbarian tribes and essentially started building up his own version of the Mechanicum. Only, he didn't use STCs, he only used his mind. One man's mind, taking Techno-barbarians and creating civilized men and women utilizing Dark Age-equivalent technology, without the aid of STCs. Think about that for a second.

I dunno where I got the Iron age tech from. Probably my own inner fanboyisms. Still massively impressive though.

 j31c3n wrote:
I dunno where I got the Iron age tech from. Probably my own inner fanboyisms. Still massively impressive though.

you proably read Barbarian and, naturally assumed iron age tech because that was the era of Barbarians on earth. easy mistake to make

BrianDavion wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
I dunno where I got the Iron age tech from. Probably my own inner fanboyisms. Still massively impressive though.

you proably read Barbarian and, naturally assumed iron age tech because that was the era of Barbarians on earth. easy mistake to make

Maybe I thought they were iron age barbarians who had invented techno music.

Some clans had bits and pieces of pre-heresy equivalent tech, some didn't. Ferrus united them, and hence shared out the technology - and more importantly was able to piece those bits of tech together into a functioning society.

The Iron-Fathers already existed - essentially a local version of the mechanicus - and Ferrus convinced them to disseminate their tech to the masses in return for him providing his understanding of technology to them in turn.

Note that there was a load of archaeotech buried beneath the ice of Medusa - which may have been actual archaeotech, old necron salvage, or a mix of the two - but regardless, did its job and lifted the planet sustainably (i.e. not dependent on Ferrus) out of barbarism.

Didn't realise Fulgrim wasn't a worker either. That puts him in pretty much the same league.


Corvus Corax started from nothing and managed to engineer a planet-wide jail break and regime change, but we don't know what he'd have done with it as the emperor arrived at its climax.

Curze certainly unified and improved the world he lived on (How crap does your world have to be that being ruled by Evil Mafia Batman is an improvement? Damn...) but those changes were all dependent on him - as noted they fell apart the moment he left.



I'd probably have to go for Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus as the two who achieved the most with the least.

locarno24 wrote:
Some clans had bits and pieces of pre-heresy equivalent tech, some didn't. Ferrus united them, and hence shared out the technology - and more importantly was able to piece those bits of tech together into a functioning society.

The Iron-Fathers already existed - essentially a local version of the mechanicus - and Ferrus convinced them to disseminate their tech to the masses in return for him providing his understanding of technology to them in turn.

Note that there was a load of archaeotech buried beneath the ice of Medusa - which may have been actual archaeotech, old necron salvage, or a mix of the two - but regardless, did its job and lifted the planet sustainably (i.e. not dependent on Ferrus) out of barbarism.

Didn't realise Fulgrim wasn't a worker either. That puts him in pretty much the same league.


Corvus Corax started from nothing and managed to engineer a planet-wide jail break and regime change, but we don't know what he'd have done with it as the emperor arrived at its climax.

Curze certainly unified and improved the world he lived on (How crap does your world have to be that being ruled by Evil Mafia Batman is an improvement? Damn...) but those changes were all dependent on him - as noted they fell apart the moment he left.



I'd probably have to go for Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus as the two who achieved the most with the least.

Actually, I think the Emperor turned up while Corax was doing his jailbreak, and left him to finish it, if I remember rightly from Extermination, and it was successful.

locarno24 wrote:
Didn't realise Fulgrim wasn't a worker either. That puts him in pretty much the same league.

What? Fulgrim did start out as a worker on Chemos but eventually rose to become essentially planetary CEO.

As to Ferrus - all this talk about him not having a STC ... so what? His intellect was genetically engineered to be far in advance of the most ingenious AdMech magi. Of course he could reverse engineer machines. For him, it was the equivalent of us changing the batteries in a remote control. And what did he achieve with that astounding acumen? He gave a few lectures to some tribes and let them keep up their infighting. I haven't read the IA entry for IH in a long time so maybe this led to much better standards of living on Medusa or something but I heavily doubt that because of course Ferrus would consider that sort of thing weak.

Doesn't he (corax) then have a chat with the emperor and then nuke the planet the moon is connected too? Something about making the right choice and not the morally good/bad choice.

 Manchu wrote:
As to Ferrus - all this talk about him not having a STC ... so what? His intellect was genetically engineered to be far in advance of the most ingenious AdMech magi. Of course he could reverse engineer machines. For him, it was the equivalent of us changing the batteries in a remote control.

By that logic, none of the Primarchs' achievements are notable, because they were all genetically engineered to be able to do those exact things that they did, thus making all eighteen of them completely unremarkable.

locarno24 wrote:
Some clans had bits and pieces of pre-heresy equivalent tech, some didn't. Ferrus united them, and hence shared out the technology - and more importantly was able to piece those bits of tech together into a functioning society.

The Iron-Fathers already existed - essentially a local version of the mechanicus - and Ferrus convinced them to disseminate their tech to the masses in return for him providing his understanding of technology to them in turn.

Note that there was a load of archaeotech buried beneath the ice of Medusa - which may have been actual archaeotech, old necron salvage, or a mix of the two - but regardless, did its job and lifted the planet sustainably (i.e. not dependent on Ferrus) out of barbarism.

Source on Iron Fathers already existing and there being a "load of archaeotech" buried in ice?

Not at all.

There is a big difference between having the ability to understand machines and giving lectures on it, like Ferrus, and having the ability to understand machines and using that understanding to revitalize an entire world's economy from the brink of extinction, like Fulgrim.

 Manchu wrote:
Not at all.

There is a big difference between having the ability to understand machines and giving lectures on it, like Ferrus, and having the ability to understand machines and using that understanding to revitalize an entire world's economy from the brink of extinction, like Fulgrim.

Maybe I've only read the older sources but I always understood Fulgrim's accomplishment to be one more of management and patronage (i.e. he put the right people on the job) than of inventiveness and engineering.

Seems to me that Ferrus dramatically reversed the technological regress of Medusa. But he did not interfere with the constant fighting between the clans. So did the general standard of living improve? Tech can make for much better circumstances in peace but it can also make for much more vicious warfare. So did Ferrus really just give Medusans better ways to fight one another? This seems likely, considering Ferrus believed very strongly in survival of the fittest. I am not sure, however, if this actually produced a better society. Seems like Medusa was already pretty grimdark in M29 (with the exception that the people had a better understanding of their tech) thanks to Ferrus.

Fulgrim began as a some kind of factory worker in a society where people had to work around the clock just to survive. They did not have adequate understanding of their techonology to increase its efficiency and therefore the factories' productivity. Fulgrim did understand those machines and set about to upgrading them as well as the processes by which the economy ran, and was therefore a master of systems engineering at all levels.

When you say older fluff, what are you talking about? My understanding is generally from IA, which is pretty old nowadays.

 Manchu wrote:
When you say older fluff, what are you talking about? My understanding is generally from IA, which is pretty old nowadays.

I mean the oooolllldddd stuff, like that horribly long and disorganized text file once known as the "40k Fluff Bible" and scattered White Dwarf articles that I read when I had the spare time to just hang out in my FLGS. I haven't had much time for fluff studying since 3rd edition, sadly. So a lot of my knowledge is going to be out of date, barring what I can read online - and most of that comes from relatively unreliable secondary sources like 1d4chan and /tg/ discussions and this very forum.

 Manchu wrote:
Seems to me that Ferrus dramatically reversed the technological regress of Medusa. But he did not interfere with the constant fighting between the clans. So did the general standard of living improve? Tech can make for much better circumstances in peace but it can also make for much more vicious warfare. So did Ferrus really just give Medusans better ways to fight one another? This seems likely, considering Ferrus believed very strongly in survival of the fittest. I am not sure, however, if this actually produced a better society. Seems like Medusa was already pretty grimdark in M29 (with the exception that the people had a better understanding of their tech) thanks to Ferrus.

I always understood it that when it is said that Ferrus Manus believed competition was healthy, it meant more-or-less friendly competition. Like all the clans were sort of informally competing to be the best clan and win Ferrus' favor, but he deftly avoided ever overpraising a clan and making the rest feel bad about it. Maybe I wish too hard for Noblebright in my favorite Loyalists, but that's my take.

My impression is, only near the end of his life did Ferrus realize he had gone a bit overboard on the ruthlessness thing. Keep in mind that the IH are about as GrimDark (as opposed to EmoDark like DA or BA) as a loyalist chapter can get. It seems they started out that way, too, thanks to Ferrus. We're talking about guys who save a world from a Chaos incursion then slaughter portions of the civilian populace to punish them for being so weak as to allow it to happen in the first place ...

Hmm. Well, I guess not every Primarch can be Vulkan. I like that interpretation, too.

TBH the merciless bastard aspect of IH is what I love about them.

 Manchu wrote:
TBH the merciless bastard aspect of IH is what I love about them.

That certainly fits with their disposition in M41, where they'd call off a battle if they were a single bolter shell short.

 j31c3n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
TBH the merciless bastard aspect of IH is what I love about them.

That certainly fits with their disposition in M41, where they'd call off a battle if they were a single bolter shell short.

So, are we suggesting the IH had aspergers?

 Shidank wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
TBH the merciless bastard aspect of IH is what I love about them.

That certainly fits with their disposition in M41, where they'd call off a battle if they were a single bolter shell short.

So, are we suggesting the IH had aspergers?

No, that's literally something it says in the Codex. The Iron Hands take machinelike logic to an insane level and perform intricate logisitical calculations to see if a given battle, campaign, or action is worth its projected cost. They've called stuff off for the want of a single bolter shell.

 j31c3n wrote:

 Shidank wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
TBH the merciless bastard aspect of IH is what I love about them.

That certainly fits with their disposition in M41, where they'd call off a battle if they were a single bolter shell short.

So, are we suggesting the IH had aspergers?

No, that's literally something it says in the Codex. The Iron Hands take machinelike logic to an insane level and perform intricate logisitical calculations to see if a given battle, campaign, or action is worth its projected cost. They've called stuff off for the want of a single bolter shell.

That’s... bloody awesome. As you pointed out previously, it fits their whole “machine” logic based doctrine perfectly.