Thunder Warriors and the Custodes.

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Galas**

But... then... what about all the Emperor being struck down by Horus because he loved him and dind't wanted to kill him, but after he killed Ollanius Pius/A Custodes/ETC, the Emperor seem how corrupted Horus was, and thinked him out of existence?

And the comparasion between custodes and the Hetairoi of Alexander the Great is pretty accurate. The 300 Custodes that defend the Golden Throne are called the "Companions"

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Companions

**BrianDavion**

Audustum wrote:
Ginsu33 wrote:
gnome_idea_what wrote:

This interpretation seems accurate. Keep in mind that he built his primarchs, so he may consider them to be more expendable because if he loses them he can just create them again. The Custodes were people, so he may consider them to be more "real" than his other sons.

He did lose them, and his great crusade involved finding them... making them sound like their from a production line or 'expendable' to such a degree doesn't fit the lore at all.

The custodes have their own purpose, which is to serve as his personal body guard, so obviously they would have to be liked and trusted, that's logical.

His sons however, were scattered from him, he had to meet them when they had grown without him, the relations with each would be different as his feelings for them, but even Hours pained him, so IDK why people discard it all as a mere annoyance for the Emperor, it wasn't.

Not to mention, by all accounts the Emperor darn near let himself be killed before finally destroying Horus. You don't do that for just a tool.

agreed. the first rule about the emperor is that we cannot trust anything said about the emperor,

**Ketara**

Ketara wrote:
At the end of the day, his 'sons' are his lab rats. Some of them turned out well, others not so much. He probably has a varying level of attachment depending upon the son. I think for the majority though, it's a deeply resounding 'Meh', which is often mirrored in some cases. Look, for example, at Khan or Alpharius. Nothing wrong with them so much as people pre-heresy, they're not like Curze or Angron or the destroyed two, but both appear ambivalent towards Daddy and I would expect he reciprocates. He certainly barely trusts most of them, he didn't even tell them about the Warp or Webway Gates, which all his Praetorians know about.

The Custodians, on the other hand, were hand-picked. People he personally raised in effect or already knew and thought they'd make a good addition. The people he specifically selected to surround him at all times. More akin to friends and companions than distant adopted sons. He was ready to sacrifice their lives for the 'Greater Good', but you get a sense of genuine regret and loss from him in doing so. Horus and Co? Their betrayal is more of a general irritation than an emotional blow.

The only real issue with the above theory seems to be a dispute that the betrayal of Horus was an actual blow to the Emperor, and that he seems to have had an attachment to him. Which I'll happily concede to, there's been enough good evidence shown in that direction.

I maintain though, that the vast majority of the Primarchs he either had little connection to, or had little connection to him. We have Angron, who despised him from the day they met, Curze, who considered him the Galaxy's biggest hypocrite, Alpharius, who thought his entire vision illogical and pointless and resented standing in his brothers shadow/spent the least amount of time with Daddy, Mortarion and Perturabo, who very publicly rant about the 'favourites' thing and resented it, Lorgar, who Daddy torched a world for just to get him to step back in line and went from one extreme to the other, Khan thought him a dictator with a pointless dream, Vulkan something similar.

Corax, the Lion, Russ, and Manus don't seem to have paid it much thought either way beyond pride in their position and loyalty (pre-heresy).

Horus, Sanguinius, Guilliman, Dorn, & Fulgrim appear to have been the favourites. So he probably lamented Fulgrim and Horus falling from him. The rest? It's pretty clear that he would have been less attached. His speeches to his Custodes and the Mechanicum prove as much.

If we proceed on the basis that he very much had varying levels of attachment/regard for his sons, whilst recognising the Custodes always had that special place in his heart, it makes sense.

**Ynneadwraith**

Ketara wrote:

The only real issue with the above theory seems to be a dispute that the betrayal of Horus was an actual blow to the Emperor, and that he seems to have had an attachment to him. Which I'll happily concede to, there's been enough good evidence shown in that direction.

I maintain though, that the vast majority of the Primarchs he either had little connection to, or had little connection to him. We have Angron, who despised him from the day they met, Curze, who considered him the Galaxy's biggest hypocrite, Alpharius, who thought his entire vision illogical and pointless and resented standing in his brothers shadow/spent the least amount of time with Daddy, Mortarion and Perturabo, who very publicly rant about the 'favourites' thing and resented it, Lorgar, who Daddy torched a world for just to get him to step back in line and went from one extreme to the other, Khan thought him a dictator with a pointless dream, Vulkan something similar.

Corax, the Lion, Russ, and Manus don't seem to have paid it much thought either way beyond pride in their position and loyalty (pre-heresy).

Horus, Sanguinius, Guilliman, Dorn, & Fulgrim appear to have been the favourites. So he probably lamented Fulgrim and Horus falling from him. The rest? It's pretty clear that he would have been less attached. His speeches to his Custodes and the Mechanicum prove as much.

If we proceed on the basis that he very much had varying levels of attachment/regard for his sons, whilst recognising the Custodes always had that special place in his heart, it makes sense.

This makes a lot of sense.

The other thing to consider is do we actually know how the Emperor felt about the Custodes? Did he actually care about them in the slightest, or could he just have been feigning interest in them in order to instill an extra degree of loyalty. They could be just as much tools as any of his other creations. I would expect he would have made many a rousing speech to the Thunder Warriors to instill loyalty and bravery in them before battles on Terra, yet he was perfectly happy to hunt them down to a man when they'd outlived their usefulness.

It depends on how cold and calculating you want Big E to be...

**Ketara**

Ynneadwraith wrote:

The other thing to consider is do we actually know how the Emperor felt about the Custodes? Did he actually care about them in the slightest, or could he just have been feigning interest in them in order to instill an extra degree of loyalty.

I think he probably tried to establish a connection with all of them. Even if purely from a pragmatic point of view, it's good to get on with your senior commanders! Plus, crafted as they were, they were likely to be the closest thing to himself he'd ever encounter in terms of intellect and power, I'm sure he had high hopes. So I don't doubt that for most of them, he worked at it. He gave them armies, gave them anything they wanted, spoiled them with fancy gifts and titles. He held long discussions with those philosophically inclined, quaffed booze with others.

But....he couldn't get everything right. Like any human, no matter how powerful. When Angron laughed in his face and spurned him, he forced Angron to watch all those he held dear burn. When Lorgar insisted on a level of brainwashing even he found distasteful, he was willing to torch an entire world to punish him. When Magnus flew across the galaxy to deliver dire news, he sent his minions to hunt Magnus down and drag him home in chains.

We see it in the short story where he goes to burn the last Church on Terra. The Emperor is prideful and vengeful enough that when those aspects of him revealed themselves to a number of his sons, they caused ruptures. He is as arrogant as Magnus, as prideful as Fulgrim, as ambitious as Horus, as paranoid as the Lion, and as vicious as Curze when he wants to be.

EDIT:- I just wrote this out thinking you were talking about the Primarchs, not the Custodes. Herp derp.

With regards to the Custodes, I don't think he'd have lied. Why? Because he had no need to. He didn't have to elevate any of them. For each one who got made immortal, I daresay there are a dozen bosom friends who didn't. The Custodes were recruited over a 7,000 year history. We saw him inviting Grammaticus in at one point. Over 7,000 years, he only elevated a 1,000 Custodes? There must have been far, far more people he met along the way he looked at and went 'Nah'.

**Carlovonsexron**

Weeeelll.... There were 10,000 of them rather than 1000.

I think he didnt have custodes before because

A) He didn't need them. All of 30/40k is due to humanity standing on a ledge and about fall off unless he actually, finally directly intervened.

B) the tech wasn't there, because there wasn't a need to create immortal guardians before he acted in the open.

Also, I don't think he intended Grammaticus to be a Custodian. He’s a psyker if I recall correctly, and the Custodians don't have any in thier ranks. (until GW decides they want to sell us Custodian psykers, and then we can quietly retire the Grey Knights entirely...)

I think it's more likely that either the emperor has a major interest in other stable human psykers and will make a place for them in his household for them, OR (and this is a big or) Grammaticus and Olanius Pious represent the “sensei” , or the biological, naturally born children of his thays hes sired through the ages.

**Ketara**

Carlovonsexron wrote:
Weeeelll.... There were 10,000 of them rather than 1000.

Correct. My bad there.

A) He didn't need them. All of 30/40k is due to humanity standing on a ledge and about fall off unless he actually, finally directly intervened.

(B) the tech wasn't there, because there wasn't a need to create immortal guardians before he acted in the open.

Incorrect, they were formed back in the Wars on Terra when he was personally involved. He needed them less once the Legiones Astartes had charged off.

Also, I don't think he intended Grammaticus to be a Custodian.

I actually mistyped there, what I meant to indicate was that the Emperor has been swanning around looking for people to enter his employ (more generally) for a very long time; Malcador and his order would be another example. Over 7,000 years, the Emperor has doubtless seen and interacted with millions of people he liked, and personally enlisted hundreds of thousands in his various schemes.

Yet out of all those people, he hung onto ten thousand specifically. I would wager good money that those are the people he liked and who impressed him the most. They're his handpicked, his chosen, his immortal companions he wanted to accompany him down the centuries. We know from the Custodes' flashbacks that there wasn't just a unit of ten thousand of them shoved together and told they were being Custodes starting tomorrow. They were melded using the flesh of the Emperor himself and I would imagine granted psychic protection in a way few bar the original Marines were.

I have little doubt he would care for their like far more than the half broken test tube experiment gone wrong that was Angron.

**Karhedron**

Audustum wrote:
Ketara wrote:
Have you seen what the Emperor was like when he had Angron chained unconscious to a table with his head carved open? The Primarchs were just a tool. The more warmongering ones would have been ill suited to peacetime, and removed from the board once there no was no further use for them. Angron, Curze, possibly even Russ, would have been purged. The rest would have been pushed into new purposes and uses. Magnus would have been hooked up to his chair, Guilliman would probably have taken over the administration, and so on.

I never understood this 'Magnus on the throne' thing. The Emperor was building a Webway. If it had all worked, there wouldn't need to be any warp travel or an astronomicon so why would the throne even have a point?

And I'll point to the retirement castle again. I doubt he had that built just for giggles.

As I understand it, even the Emperor never mastered the psychic technology the Old Ones and Eldar used to construct the Webway. The extension into the webway from Terra was not self-stable and had to be held open by a powerful psyker whenever it was in use. That Psyker would have been Magnus. The Golden Throne was a gate and could be opened or closed. Unfortunately after Magnus broke into the throne room, the gate was fused open meaning that the only way to stop daemons swarming through the webway extension and onto Earth itself was for the Emperor to sit permanently on the Throne.

As for the retirement castle, it may have basically been a gilded cage. A place to keep the Primarchs out of trouble while they were not needed.

I could be wrong though but I thought the Emperor actually cried when he realised he could not heal Angron. I thought the implication was that he sent him into the Crusade anyway in the hope that he would have a clean death in battle rather than a long drawn-out death from the Nails.

**Carlovonsexron**

Ketara wrote:
Carlovonsexron wrote:

A) He didn't need them. All of 30/40k is due to humanity standing on a ledge and about fall off unless he actually, finally directly intervened.

(B) the tech wasn't there, because there wasn't a need to create immortal guardians before he acted in the open.

Incorrect, they were formed back in the Wars on Terra when he was personally involved. He needed them less once the Legiones Astartes had charged off.

Consider bot the why and the when of my statement. The unification wars and the crusade are a pitifully small portion of time in tue setting, and for the 30000ish years before them the Emperor had no Custodians.

He began the unification war erc because humanity was on the brink.

Ketara wrote:
Carlovonsexron wrote:
, I don't think he intended Grammaticus to be a Custodian.

I actually mistyped there, what I meant to indicate was that the Emperor has been swanning around looking for people to enter his employ (more generally) for a very long time; Malcador and his order would be another example. Over 7,000 years, the Emperor has doubtless seen and interacted with millions of people he liked, and personally enlisted hundreds of thousands in his various schemes.

Yet out of all those people, he hung onto ten thousand specifically. I would wager good money that those are the people he liked and who impressed him the most. They're his handpicked, his chosen, his immortal companions he wanted to accompany him down the centuries. We know from the Custodes' flashbacks that there wasn't just a unit of ten thousand of them shoved together and told they were being Custodes starting tomorrow. They were melded using the flesh of the Emperor himself and I would imagine granted psychic protection in a way few bar the original Marines were.

I have little doubt he would care for their like far more than the half broken test tube experiment gone wrong that was Angron.

I don't disagree that he kept his favorites as long as he could, but the Custodes were his favorites because he nolded them to be that way, considering how young they have to be to begin the process of becomming a custodian.

But whats important to remember is that the Emperor hasnt been around for 7000 years- hes been around for tens of thousands. 30,000, 40,000 maybe more counting from when the heresy began.

**Otto Weston**

Audustum wrote:
Ginsu33 wrote:
gnome_idea_what wrote:

This interpretation seems accurate. Keep in mind that he built his primarchs, so he may consider them to be more expendable because if he loses them he can just create them again. The Custodes were people, so he may consider them to be more "real" than his other sons.

He did lose them, and his great crusade involved finding them... making them sound like their from a production line or 'expendable' to such a degree doesn't fit the lore at all.

The custodes have their own purpose, which is to serve as his personal body guard, so obviously they would have to be liked and trusted, that's logical.

His sons however, were scattered from him, he had to meet them when they had grown without him, the relations with each would be different as his feelings for them, but even Hours pained him, so IDK why people discard it all as a mere annoyance for the Emperor, it wasn't.

Not to mention, by all accounts the Emperor darn near let himself be killed before finally destroying Horus. You don't do that for just a tool.

You say that but the Emperor came across as really depressed/fatalistic after the collapse of his webway portal.
Maybe when Horus arrived he dgaf anymore and kinda hoped Horus would kill him --- maybe he only decided he wanted to live at the last minute after all.

In a way, I now hope this is actually what the Black Library intends to do. It would humanize the Emperor, bring awareness for mental illness and be a really great twist that won't be expected............ but that just won't happen.

**Sersi**

Otto Weston wrote:
Audustum wrote:
Ginsu33 wrote:
gnome_idea_what wrote:

This interpretation seems accurate. Keep in mind that he built his primarchs, so he may consider them to be more expendable because if he loses them he can just create them again. The Custodes were people, so he may consider them to be more "real" than his other sons.

He did lose them, and his great crusade involved finding them... making them sound like their from a production line or 'expendable' to such a degree doesn't fit the lore at all.

The custodes have their own purpose, which is to serve as his personal body guard, so obviously they would have to be liked and trusted, that's logical.

His sons however, were scattered from him, he had to meet them when they had grown without him, the relations with each would be different as his feelings for them, but even Hours pained him, so IDK why people discard it all as a mere annoyance for the Emperor, it wasn't.

Not to mention, by all accounts the Emperor darn near let himself be killed before finally destroying Horus. You don't do that for just a tool.

You say that but the Emperor came across as really depressed/fatalistic after the collapse of his webway portal.

Maybe when Horus arrived he dgaf anymore and kinda hoped Horus would kill him --- maybe he only decided he wanted to live at the last minute after all.

In a way, I now hope this is actually what the Black Library intends to do. It would humanize the Emperor, bring awareness for mental illness and be a really great twist that won't be expected............ but that just won't happen.

I tend to agree. He flat out told Diocletian nothing mattered, the war was over, the heresy and how it would end didn't matter. Without the webway Chaos would eventually win and Drach'nyen would eventually kill him. Basically, Tzeentch played him, blocking his ability to see the future. He has no other plans, he doesn't know what to do. But he's certain he can't win any longer.

On the Primarchs they were just tools that he eventually intended to discard, as were the Astartes, and Thunder Warriors. He did like some of them more than others. But, Malcador was his oldest and most loyal friend, the Custodes and Sisters his most loyal servants. He values them far more. Who does the Emperor confide in though? He concealed the Webway project and the High Lords being the future ruling body from the Primachs. Malcador of course knows all his secrets. With the Custode's he shared his plan and his motivation for becoming the master of mankind. But he doesn't share everything with them, he and the Sisters kept the "Unspoken Sanction" a secret from the Custodes. That one surprised me because its not like the Custodes would leak a secret. Or would they object to the sacrifice. But it pretty clear from his past and the cold way he sacrifice both Ra and Malcador that the Emperor is utterly ruthless. He tells Ra that he was miserly with the lives of the Sister and the Custodes because they were the most valuable to him. Basically, "I values you guys more than anyone else, but you too are just fodder for my plan".

I doubt the Emperor gave either Ra or Malcador a second thought once they were no longer of use to him. Just like he doesn't care about the millions that die in his name everyday. He cares about the species, not the actual people.

**BrianDavion**

If the emperor cares mostly about the species I doubt he cares much for primarchs astartes OR Custodes beyond their value as tools. given the massive amount of genetic engineering done to them, it's proable none of them are fertile. which means at the end of the day, they're a dead end. I suspect he down plays the custodes to the primarchs, downplays the primarchs to the custodes. it may be in the emperor's intreasts to have them be somewhat at odds with each other.

**Ynneadwraith**

Sersi wrote:

I tend to agree. He flat out told Diocletian nothing mattered, the war was over, the heresy and how it would end didn't matter. Without the webway Chaos would eventually win and Drach'nyen would eventually kill him. Basically, Tzeentch played him, blocking his ability to see the future. He has no other plans, he doesn't know what to do. But he's certain he can't win any longer.

On the Primarchs they were just tools that he eventually intended to discard, as were the Astartes, and Thunder Warriors. He did like some of them more than others. But, Malcador was his oldest and most loyal friend, the Custodes and Sisters his most loyal servants. He values them far more. Who does the Emperor confide in though? He concealed the Webway project and the High Lords being the future ruling body from the Primachs. Malcador of course knows all his secrets. With the Custode's he shared his plan and his motivation for becoming the master of mankind. But he doesn't share everything with them, he and the Sisters kept the "Unspoken Sanction" a secret from the Custodes. That one surprised me because its not like the Custodes would leak a secret. Or would they object to the sacrifice. But it pretty clear from his past and the cold way he sacrifice both Ra and Malcador that the Emperor is utterly ruthless. He tells Ra that he was miserly with the lives of the Sister and the Custodes because they were the most valuable to him. Basically, "I values you guys more than anyone else, but you too are just fodder for my plan".

I doubt the Emperor gave either Ra or Malcador a second thought once they were no longer of use to him. Just like he doesn't care about the millions that die in his name everyday. He cares about the species, not the actual people.

This is by far my favourite explanation of the Emperor's motivations and psyche so far. It's just the level of bleak desperation that fits the 40k universe to me. The shining light of humanity, the God that humanity worships...treats them all as tools. Whatsmore, he has to for humanity to survive in the fethed up universe that is 40k. He tells each branch of his creation what he needs to for them to achieve their purpose, and conceals from them what would turn them against him.

In that context, it gives Horus and his Heresy a sort of Paradise Lost-esque quality which is pretty sweet

Sure, he definitely has his favourites, but remember the Emperor's not human. Or, at least, he's so far removed from human as to be unrecognisable. It's a little like Dr Who and his companions. They're hand-picked because they pique his interest and they're the closest he can find to his intellect in the galaxy at that time, but if you want to be bleak they're not much more than glorified pets picked up to punctuate the millennia of loneliness. Now, port that concept into 40k where everyone is generally morally worse than the equivalent in other IPs, and Big E is in a desperate war for his entire species' souls against lovecraftian entities beyond our comprehension. How do you think the War Doctor felt about his pets?

**reds8n**

http://z13.invisionfree.com/The_First_Expedition/index.php?showtopic=1979&st=75

worth a read through, especially the comments by (then) editor Mr Goulding

On a personal opinion level, I don't see how anyone can say the Emperor made bad decisions. He had a plan so complex that human minds can't comprehend it, and then Chaos threw the plan off-centre, and he never managed to recover, or things were done in his name that ended up ruining the plan.

Maybe, MAYBE, it was something like this?

1) So, I need to help mankind ascend. The way I do that is by unifying the Imperium, removing the need for warp travel and then dying gloriously. That's my divine plan, I move in mysterious ways etc.
2) First, unify Terra, except my Custodian Guard are too valuable and too few to do it quickly. Create army of gene-spliced barbarian Thunder Warriors.
3) Terra is unified. Have Custodians kill off key elements of Thunder Legion, rest will eventually die because I didn't build them to last.
4) Reconquer galaxy. Going to need to be in about 20 places at once for this, so create post-human primarch generals to lead my armies of transhuman Space Marines. Give them all unique traits to add variety and specialisations.
5) Make deal with UNKNOWABLE GODS OF DARKNESS. Part of the deal involves "accidentally" scattering the primarchs across the galaxy. That's okay though, because I'll end up finding all those worlds as I conquer the galaxy anyway.
6) Next phase after this is a new age of peace and prosperity for mankind, where we won't need Space Marines or primarchs. Hmmm... I can't build in a limited lifespan as I don't know how long they need to last... So instead I need something a bit more elaborate...
7) Part of new age will also be the webway, which will get rid of three of the most powerful parts of the crusading Imperium - the Navigators, the Legions and the Primarchs. None of them are going to be happy about that, and they will do whatever they can to stop it, if they find out.
8) Instead of risking an unpredictable rebellion, I will engineer a smaller one. I know, I'll put Primarch XVI in charge of the others - he's popular, and ambitious, and smart. He'll figure out what I'm doing, and I've given him everything he needs to rebel in a manageable way, AND gotten rid of the psykers in the Legions who might have been able to foresee it. There's no way this can all go wrong, especially because I abolished all religion and any possible interaction with those DARK GODS that I tricked earlier...
9) Leave Great Crusade, start work on the webway.
10) FFS, MAGNUS. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? THIS WAS ALL CAREFULLY BALANCED, YOU DINGUS. Russ, go and fetch Magnus. What an idiot. I need to explain my secret plan to him. Hope that doesn't mess with the whole Horus thing... anyway, I need to deal with this. Dorn, Malcador, hold my calls while I go back downstairs. Sigh, daemons everywhere...
11) ...Wait, WHAT? I've been in another realm, unable to monitor the actions of my underlings, and you've all completely thrown this plan down the toilet. Right, I'll fix this. Let's just wait for Horus and his... four, five... NINE?!... traitor Legions to come here. It's fine, I can still have a glorious death, Chaos is now quite clearly the biggest danger to all sentient life, and humanity will do pretty much anything I say.
12) Deal with Horus. Hey Malcador, hold my beer...

on't for one minute think that William King's HH text will not be completely retconned at the first opportunity. I can give you a peek behind the curtain - I wanted to have Alan Merrett completely overwrite that really outdated passage for 'Visions of Heresy', and Alan wanted to do it... but we simply didn't have time before the deadline. We'll get to that task at some future point.

But William King's original HH text is no more canon than 'Space Marine' by Ian Watson. It's painful to see people clinging to it like it's the word of god, when everything else has been correctly, authentically and appropriately re-told since then.

No, no - we're getting confused here.

The Golden Throne is the only Golden Throne. It was built by the Emperor, possibly incorporating some of the technology from the Akashic Reader on Mars (even though that was built afterwards...)

The throne at Dark Glass was built by the Navigator Houses, because they foresaw their usefulness coming to an end. The found out pretty quickly that human minds can't take that kind of power.

The Astronomican is the Emperor's guiding light, shining from Terra - the birthplace of mankind. It continued to shine and to be fed by sacrificial psykers even when he was off on the Great Crusade, across the far side of the galaxy. It doesn't need him to operate.

The Emperor has combined the Golden Throne with the Astronomican to super-power HIS light in order to hold the webway portal stable after Magnus' intrusion. It is not a permanent solution, as it requires his almost constant attention. This is why he has been absent from the Heresy so far. This is what he's been doing.

He always intended loyal Magnus to sit upon the Golden Throne, not himself. That's been stated several times in the HH series. Magnus totally would have jumped at it - the chance for his consciousness to soar across the galaxy, knowing everything there was to know about all things? He'd jump at that in an instant... which is why the Emperor was so dismayed by Magnus being the one to break the webway portal. He wasn't sending Russ to kill Magnus, but to bring him back and get him inserted into the Throne NOW. (It was Horus who changed the plan, and told Russ to use lethal force!)

When Horus drops his shields, the Emperor is forced to react. He gets off the Throne and puts Malcador in - they both know this is a death sentence. The Emperor sacrifices his oldest friend, the only one who ever knew even a fraction of his grand plans, because he has to stop Horus NOW. He will do that, and then return to the Throne in bittersweet triumph.

When he is mortally wounded by Horus, totally unexpectedly, he knows that his plans are all screwed. Someone has to be on the Throne, or Chaos will win and daemons will flood through the webway onto Terra without any way to stop them. He hasn't thought far enough ahead, but he commands Dorn and Khan to put him in there...

...and that's it. It keeps him JUST BARELY alive, the tiniest flickering psychic light, amplified by greater and greater numbers of sacrificial psykers.

THIS IS NOT VICTORY. THIS IS THE LAST EXHALE BEFORE DEFEAT. MANKIND HAS LOST. THERE IS NO FUTURE, etc. ninja.gif

Custodes are/were developed from/using the Golden Men

http://z13.invisionfree.com/The_First_Expedition/index.php?showtopic=1984&st=0

**Exergy**

jhe90 wrote:

Ketara wrote:
Have you seen what the Emperor was like when he had Angron chained unconscious to a table with his head carved open? The Primarchs were just a tool. The more warmongering ones would have been ill suited to peacetime, and removed from the board once there no was no further use for them. Angron, Curze, possibly even Russ, would have been purged. The rest would have been pushed into new purposes and uses. Magnus would have been hooked up to his chair, Guilliman would probably have taken over the administration, and so on.

But Him having a new use for them in no way denotes affection. It's very clearly shown in practically all times he mentions the Primarchs without them present, his caring for them was little more than the mild attachment of a craftsman to his work. Like an author, he takes pride in what's on the page, but with no compunction about hitting the delete key and starting over if he feels it necessary.

He may of kept Russ.
He was highly loyal to the Emperor unlike the other two. He never seemed to question his orders and would see thr accomplished.

He planned on keeping Angron and Curze from the outset. He didnt plan on Angron getting whisked away to a gladiator planet and having brain implants turn his aggression up to 11. Curze sees the future, and he got really gakky when he saw what was coming, but without the HH he might have ended up a much more normal guy and thus pleasant to have around.