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How do you not undermine key aspects of the setting?

In particular, the medieval and religious aspects of the Imperium. These are quite important to the overall feel of the lore and a few armies are based around this premise. Black Templars, Sisters of Battle, the Inquisition. The religious element as a flaw/feature of the Imperium is quite key and I don't see how bringing te Primarches back wouldn't damage that. I mean one guy at local GW suggested that they might outright do away with all of it, disband the Ecclesiarchy.

Although I am not entirely sure since I think Vulkan is still alive during the Beast Arises and all of those institutions apart from the SoB exist. So perhaps it won't radically change the Imperium and is just an excuse for big heroes to return.

Also he seemed to think they would bring the Emperor back ala Age of Sigmar.

Well, there's lots of ways:

#1 - Primarchs are both loved & hated: Just because there's a Primarch walking around again does not mean everyone is going to believe Primarchs are walking around again. There's been so many false-prophets in the Imperium's history that few will believe they have returned. Not only that, but some will in fact start accusing that Primarch's chapter as becoming heretical, while others will know that the Primarch is aware of a secret and will attack them in order to silence this secret.

#2 - Religions do not rise overnight, and they certainly do not fall overnight: Even if the Primarch's return doesn't cause an instant civil war, the process of converting people from "God-Emperor" to "Emperor" is going to be a lengthy one. It could take a thousand years. Chances are, for the most part, the Primarch will have to adapt to this slow pace of change and work alongside such armies as well (again, assuming this doesn't cause civil war).

#3 - The Primarchs accept the Emperor as a God: This is just story-telling "that was easy" button. The Primarch comes back, and is all super-gung-ho-God-Emperor, just like everyone else! This means there's no civil war or needing to adjust the main storyline. It's a cop-out, but it does get around the problem, and being GW's story they're free to do this, even if it doesn't make sense.

If the Primarchs do come back there's more likely to be a quick and glossed-over civil war (with 'Ecclesiarchal fanatics' and 'Servants of the True Emperor' combined army lists) a la the Elvish civil war in WHFB that ends with the side of right and virtue victorious over a reunified Imperium and the audience throwing the book across the room in disgust.

To the average person in the imperium, there is not going to be much of a change in religion. The galaxy is a big place. They might hear rumors of the primarchs returning, but day-to-day, nothing changes. Even if reliable news filters down, it’s just going to reinforce their faith. God has heard the prayers of all the citizens fearful of the xenos and and dark, and had brought back His sons to fight them. At the very least, that’s how the infrastructure is going to spin it.

While the primearchs might not be happy with the imperial faith, a quick look would show how deeply ingrained it is. I think they all have enough organizational skills to realize that the faith is not an immediate crisis. First order of business: Put out the flaming dumpster fire that is the galaxy, second order, set thing straight.

The space marines already have a touchy status quo with the eclisiarchy, I suspect the big guys would just maintain that while they got thing sorted. And I think the religious powers would realize that going against the figurative sons of the Emperor would be a hard sell, and probably turn all of the space marines against them.

That said, a short sighted (or just scared/paranoid/misguided/chaos tainted) eclisiarch could start a civil war. Or if one of the primearch decided that zero tolerance was the way to go. But it’s not required, given them coming back. Depends what story/setting GW wants to go with.

Some of the corner cases could impact certain armies. If Dorn comes back, what would he do with the Black Templar? I don’t suspect that the 1,000 marine chapter system would go away. That was mostly settled before the primearchs went away. I do think there would be a more active war against the foes of mankind, rather then the damage control/status maintaining system there is now. If you have someone big enough to just ignore the bureaucracy and do what needs to be done, many interesting things could happen.

I mean the reason why this is weird is that the way I always read te Horus Heresy series is that Lorgar is right and that the Emperor IS the God of Humanity. It's just that that God does not like religion and believes it's a Trojan horse for Chaos. He's certainly not just a powerful psyker like Magnus. Simply te nature of his abilities and references made by chaos characters, eldar and demons attest to this.

Well the Ecclesiarchy can't start a civil war because it has no standing army like during the Age of Strife, it's specifically had that restriction to prevent this happening again. Yes they have te Sisters of Battle but A - I doubt GW would make that big a deal of them lore wise since they've been functionally squatted for over a decade and B - They always pick serving the Emperor over the Church itself. So it's more than likely that history would repeat itself in that case.

They might not have a standing army, but if they stood on the pulpit and shouted “These are demon imposters, sent from the ruinous powers to lead us from the true path! All loyal sons of the God Emperor must rise up and cast them out!” what do you think would happen? Hint: it would be neither peaceful or pretty.

Probbly slowly change at scale that only one who lived hundreds of years would be able to tell fully and understand.

Not burn down the church but slowly but surely modify to to own ends and needs.

Any primarch would likely have inquisition enemies and even space marines loyalty might be less farful if say Russ was leading the wolves and decided that no was the answer.

A foolish inquisitor would challenge a primarch directly.
And not have a long life.

Whilst most primarchs would probably violently disagree with the Ecclesiarchy and the religious overtones of the current Imperium, I imagine more statesman like characters such as Gulliman would be able to use it and the general unity it provides as a catalyst for their own uses...

I suppose a certain someone could write a book about strategies involving ways to avoid being stabbed in the neck. Maybe a book to have all the answers for all those vs threads as well so they can finally stop.
Vulkan would come back, grant the wish of the current chapter master, then scatter his artifacts again before vanishing.



More serious answer I think Guilliman may take a look at how the Imperium is and either assume control to try to steer it more in the direction he thinks the Emperor would have taken it or by retrying his idea for Imperium II to have more support out on the eastern fringes... basically Ultramar being super duper important, but also possibly easing some of the strain on the Imperium.

"The Hunt for Vulkan" definitely has him refusing to get involved within politics and the like.

He has a line within the books he is in, when asked by the High Lords of Terra to take command of the military forces arrayed, where he says something to the effect of:

"The last time one of my brothers was given the title of Warmaster, we shook our father's Imperium to its foundations.

Never again."

Remember that the Primarchs were not just warriors. They were statesmen, they were scholars, they were tacticians...but most of all they were believers in the ideals the Emperor laid down for an Imperium of Man.

What i foresee if primarchs come back.

Them coming back means one thing, the "end times" are coming, might not be the AoS style end times, but the end times of the IoM as we know it.

They would take control of their respective legions, and probably start regulating and rattle a lot of cages, mainly those of people worshiping the Big E as the emperor and those who think tech is mystical. There would then be a massive division in the IoM.

Those siding with the space marines, and those siding with the "emperor" Space marines, as i have found, do not worship him, they simply accept he has "god like" powers, but is still a man. The primarchs are very anti religion and would flat out say, no, none of this, we have a galaxy to control, we aint got time for this. So you would see a civil war start, which would result in the zelots (SoB, BT, Guard regiments, potentially titan legions.) and the rationalists, (Almost every original loyal space marine chapter, Mars, Assassins(?), and potentially the inquisitions. not sure if they worship him, they seem to only really care if your working against him and with demons.)

So it would break up the IoM quite a bit, but for the most part the space marines would be like sweet we dont need to put up with this emperor worship crap anymore.


THAT OR! they just groan and accept that for right now they need the IoM to live in ignorance for the time being until they can sort out the rest of the galexy, but they would push for tech to be de-mystified.

I would actually love to see Guilleman and The Lion come back and start duking it out over whol should rule the IoM. Then ofcourse you could always have Dorn or Khan ride back in, unite them, and crush the CSM/Orks/Nids/whatever.

 jreilly89 wrote:
I would actually love to see Guilleman and The Lion come back and start duking it out over whol should rule the IoM. Then ofcourse you could always have Dorn or Khan ride back in, unite them, and crush the CSM/Orks/Nids/whatever.

Its my super fannon that the lion and Russ are gonna come back, and fight it out for reasons because until they eventually become bros again and turn all their aggression on the enemies of the IoM.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
I would actually love to see Guilleman and The Lion come back and start duking it out over whol should rule the IoM. Then ofcourse you could always have Dorn or Khan ride back in, unite them, and crush the CSM/Orks/Nids/whatever.

Its my super fannon that the lion and Russ are gonna come back, and fight it out for reasons because until they eventually become bros again and turn all their aggression on the enemies of the IoM.

bro fist, then suddenly in cynimatic style the entire space wolves, 13th company and unforgiven charge warp above terra in time to save it?

Hollywood style fighting brother unie against a enemy with the opinion no one can harm this brother except me.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
I would actually love to see Guilleman and The Lion come back and start duking it out over whol should rule the IoM. Then ofcourse you could always have Dorn or Khan ride back in, unite them, and crush the CSM/Orks/Nids/whatever.

Its my super fannon that the lion and Russ are gonna come back, and fight it out for reasons because until they eventually become bros again and turn all their aggression on the enemies of the IoM.

bro fist, then suddenly in cynimatic style the entire space wolves, 13th company and unforgiven charge warp above terra in time to save it?

Hollywood style fighting brother unie against a enemy with the opinion no one can harm this brother except me.

AWWWWWWW YIS

i can see it now...

all standing with there arms crossed in a v formation left to right:

Corax, the Lion, Vulkan, Gulliam, Dorn, Russ, Khan

above them in shinning holy light and faded in clouds the big E flanked by Sanguinius and the Gorgon.

would be one epic ass poster!!!