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No need to point out the big things, like "horus doesn't turn" or "The Emperor's church is never founded" I'm looking for clever changes that would have a major butterfly effect on the 40k universe without being obnoxious.

Don't bother explaining or justifying the effect on 40k, let us work out how it could of impacted the story or ended up not impacting it at all.

Mine would be to switch out half the force's from the Loyalists at Isstvan with companies from the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists
So half legion strength with primarchs from Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard WITH Ultramarines and Imperial Fists support filling that gap.

It's always annoyed me that the Chaos gods apparently meant for Horus to fail. They meant for him to attack Terra and lose. Lame. Just let it be a victory for the good guys and a loss for the bad guys and not some 'Ah ha! Just as planned!' moment.

 Blitzen the Solitaire wrote:
No need to point out the big things, like "horus doesn't turn" or "The Emperor's church is never founded" I'm looking for clever changes that would have a major butterfly effect on the 40k universe without being obnoxious.

Don't bother explaining or justifying the effect on 40k, let us work out how it could of impacted the story or ended up not impacting it at all.

Mine would be to switch out half the force's from the Loyalists at Isstvan with companies from the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists
So half legion strength with primarchs from Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard WITH Ultramarines and Imperial Fists support filling that gap.

Olanius goes back to being a regular human instead of some bizarre immortal perpetual thing. God that was such a stupid change. A Terminator or a space marine I can get, but what they did make him into was one of the stupidest things I've seen in a while.

 Saber wrote:
It's always annoyed me that the Chaos gods apparently meant for Horus to fail. They meant for him to attack Terra and lose. Lame. Just let it be a victory for the good guys and a loss for the bad guys and not some 'Ah ha! Just as planned!' moment.

That would definitely change some things, at least from a readers perspective. I'm not a fan of the "this is going to happen theme with a very very very small chance of succeeding" theme because you already know.... WOW they just so happened to succeed


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 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Olanius goes back to being a regular human instead of some bizarre immortal perpetual thing. God that was such a stupid change. A Terminator or a space marine I can get, but what they did make him into was one of the stupidest things I've seen in a while.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the perpetual concept, however I really do enjoy the insights into Pre-Heresy history that it allows.

I'd be curious how things would fair if Fulgrim didn't find that daemon sword. Istavaan might have been less...terrible.

either:

1) removal of the cabal (that's small, right )
2) Olanius back to a regular guardsmen, hell, I'm fine if he's like some ballsy captain, but so long as he's a regular human
3)Less general meddling with the plot. bring it back to the older explanations where 'tzeentch-syndrome' wasn't as common.

 Blitzen the Solitaire wrote:

Yeah I'm not a fan of the perpetual concept, however I really do enjoy the insights into Pre-Heresy history that it allows.

I wasn't keen on the whole Perpetual thing right up until the whole Vulkan vs Night Haunter thing... That was a really cool exploration of just how much being functionally immortal could be made to suck.


For me, the thing I would change is for Horus' fall to have a longer leadup. The way it was carried out in the books, he just flipped overnight from 'Emperor's Favoured Son' to 'Nup, Evil now...'


Even if they had made the whole Chaos influence in his turn more blatant, it would have fit better... But it was all rather downplayed, and made the whole turning just very convenient and rushed. It's like they wanted to fit in all into that book, got a bit bogged down with other stuff, and just decided to cram it in where they could fit it.

It would have been much more interesting if it had been a more gradual decline, as Horus came to see that he was capable of ruling the galaxy without his father's supervision, and having Chaos come in and work on that, rather than the other way around.

More Primarchs should have died during the Heresy.

Ferrus Manus NOT dying. Imagine the repercussions for the traitors if the Gorgon had remained in the fight throughout the entire Heresy?

EDIT: I realize this isn't a small thing.

Kharn would have killed Erebus during their sanguis extremis duel after Argel Tal's death.

Really not sure what consequences it would have had, as I don't really know what Erebus does after that point.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Kharn would have killed Erebus during their sanguis extremis duel after Argel Tal's death.

Really not sure what consequences it would have had, as I don't really know what Erebus does after that point.

He creates the 8 athames, given to his inner circle of commanders/Kor Phaeron/chosen ones. We have yet to see the impact of that, but I'm sure it will be important.

 insaniak wrote:

 Blitzen the Solitaire wrote:

Yeah I'm not a fan of the perpetual concept, however I really do enjoy the insights into Pre-Heresy history that it allows.

I wasn't keen on the whole Perpetual thing right up until the whole Vulkan vs Night Haunter thing... That was a really cool exploration of just how much being functionally immortal could be made to suck.


For me, the thing I would change is for Horus' fall to have a longer leadup. The way it was carried out in the books, he just flipped overnight from 'Emperor's Favoured Son' to 'Nup, Evil now...'


Even if they had made the whole Chaos influence in his turn more blatant, it would have fit better... But it was all rather downplayed, and made the whole turning just very convenient and rushed. It's like they wanted to fit in all into that book, got a bit bogged down with other stuff, and just decided to cram it in where they could fit it.

It would have been much more interesting if it had been a more gradual decline, as Horus came to see that he was capable of ruling the galaxy without his father's supervision, and having Chaos come in and work on that, rather than the other way around.

Definitely, I was really into the whole Crusade atmosphere 'Horus Rising' puts you in and wanted to see alot more of the regular rivalry before it was influenced by chaos.
I see them trying to go back and give you a view of the primarchs before the turn.... but too late they already tarnished the image in my mind.


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 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Ferrus Manus NOT dying. Imagine the repercussions for the traitors if the Gorgon had remained in the fight throughout the entire Heresy?

EDIT: I realize this isn't a small thing.

I would of liked to see an internal struggle between the primarch and his "machine addicted" sons. I got ya tho, I think they really got sidelined because of how things happened to him.


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 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Kharn would have killed Erebus during their sanguis extremis duel after Argel Tal's death.

Really not sure what consequences it would have had, as I don't really know what Erebus does after that point.

That's actually a good one. He's very influential with future events tho but yeah totally.
Also wanted to point out that the way they described that fight.... I don't think there's another fighter out there that could ever come close to Kharn. Erebus spared with Lucious for 16minutes.... for comparison here.

I would go quite far and say:
Erebus is not present during the Interex visit.

No Anathame (Possibly a nicer Horus later)
No war with the Interex (Possibly cool technology)

I would have to ask that Horus doesn't make such poor decisions. Sure, not a small change but things like going to the bridge alone to confront a Daemon Prince was pretty dumb.

Not just retreating from a Nurglized moon upon finding that it's covered in disease and zombies.

Sending the Blood Angles to fight a daemon incursion? Seems like a huge fething gamble which didn't pay off.

Allow orks in. That would make me really happy.

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Ferrus Manus NOT dying. Imagine the repercussions for the traitors if the Gorgon had remained in the fight throughout the entire Heresy?

EDIT: I realize this isn't a small thing.

This, but mainly because of how much it screws over Iron Hands players. They are the only ones with a dead Primarch.

I'd be fine with it if he died during the Siege instead.


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 Blitzen the Solitaire wrote:
.
Also wanted to point out that the way they described that fight.... I don't think there's another fighter out there that could ever come close to Kharn. Erebus spared with Lucious for 16minutes.... for comparison here.

And yet Erebus is only WS5 BS4. :((((

The "good guys" failing to stop the word bearers super ship. Thus it completes its mission and totals the smurffs. A small thing (stopping the ship) would have a massive impact on the imperium going forward.
So no smurffs, no codex astartes, no one to hold it all together after the invasion of earth , then going forward no mini empire to check the tau or the orks of occarius. Or stopping the nids of beamoth. If adding black liberary into it the nightbringer would have his flag ship and honso would have a bigger hold his grand company. Etc etc the smurffs are so integral that just failing to to stop that ship could rewrite the entire history.

The Emperor tricking/stealing his power from the Chaos Gods.

To be fair, this might be expanded on but it's still silly.

If the plan of Malcadors with the A.I. and the vertex australis would have worked, Mars would not be so a pain in the back for the Sol-system....

Sup /hhg/.

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to see how everything would have played out if Angron hadn't got the nails. He still likely would have turned, and for the same reasons, but he might not have gone to the surface of Istvaan III, thereby speeding up that campaign and allowing for more preparation at Istvaan V, possibly wiping the Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard even harder than they were.

Have Luther not turn. The DA would of been united, the Lion could've kept going to Terra instead of returning home, and possibly crushed more heretics.

A butterfly effect change?

The Emperor was stealing the Dark Eldar's portion of the webway instead of building his own prior to the heresy.

You said not to elaborate so there you go.

Magnus accepts Leeman Russ' offer and peacefully surrenders himself to be taken to Terra to stand judgement.

 insaniak wrote:

For me, the thing I would change is for Horus' fall to have a longer leadup. The way it was carried out in the books, he just flipped overnight from 'Emperor's Favoured Son' to 'Nup, Evil now...'

At the time they wrote that, I'm pretty positive they didn't think the Heresy would be the money printing machine it is. Nowadays that would have been half a dozen novellas, thirty quickreads, and one novel to tell the same story.

I liked it better when the whole things was ancient history, with just little references here and there. Mystery shrouded with rumors.

While I’ve enjoyed a few HH books, I think the setting overall was stronger with the details glossed over.

I would have made the current series follow the existing background instead of retconning so much.

That's technically one thing.

Reading HH book 6 at the mo and the Blackshields really dont sit well me at all as an idea, execution or addition to the story. I'd write them out completely.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Have Luther not turn. The DA would of been united, the Lion could've kept going to Terra instead of returning home, and possibly crushed more heretics.

This.

Also any form of actual Alien Intervention would be interesting and make it more in line with the fact there are other factions besides Imperial and Chaos in the systems.

The Lion and the Wolf never taking place.

Sigismund dying.

Malcador the Sigilite surviving on the Golden Throne.

What if Magnus had chosen to NOT use his powers to send his warning about Horus to the Emperor, and instead used more conventional methods?

Its a small change because the message was still sent, just sent following the rules as laid down by Daddy Emprah. 1,000 Sons are still loyal, the Emperor might have actually listened to the message and given the Space Pups a new target, the webway portal might have been completed.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Have Luther not turn. The DA would of been united, the Lion could've kept going to Terra instead of returning home, and possibly crushed more heretics.

The Lion didn't return to Caliban until after the battle at Terra anyway. He only went back because it was time to go home after the Heresy ended.