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TheOpposition wrote:

But I don't understand why people call Perturabo a petulant man child when the Emperor admited that he was on purpose keeping Perturabo out of the spotlight and making him a bitterd basstard for his own plans of the future heresy.

I haven't been keeping up with the fluff what is this about?

I don't recall the emperor himself admitting this but one of the audio tdrama's about Malcador the sigilite says the emperor intended the heresy all along and that it was engineered by carefully over praising some primarchs well ignoring others (clear allusions to Dorn and Perty) because the emperor forsaw the need to kill off the Astartes eventually and intended to let them destroy themselves.

BrianDavion wrote:

TheOpposition wrote:

But I don't understand why people call Perturabo a petulant man child when the Emperor admited that he was on purpose keeping Perturabo out of the spotlight and making him a bitterd basstard for his own plans of the future heresy.

I haven't been keeping up with the fluff what is this about?

I don't recall the emperor himself admitting this but one of the audio tdrama's about Malcador the sigilite says the emperor intended the heresy all along and that it was engineered by carefully over praising some primarchs well ignoring others (clear allusions to Dorn and Perty) because the emperor forsaw the need to kill off the Astartes eventually and intended to let them destroy themselves.

It happens in First Lord of the Imperium, and yeah pretty much happens as you say. Having said that there is some room for doubt, as he said it to a close friend/subordinate to make her feel better and even started the phrase roughly as: "Would it make you feel better if I told you we planned it?". Personally I think that was the plan as the alternative would be gross oversights and missteps that are laughable given the power level of the Emperor and Malcador (the Emperor I could see not understanding the importance of emotional connections and communication but Malcador??). However it's important to remember Malcador is saying this after the rebellion started, and it would be very easy to spin the events in such a way to build confidence and justify things are going are going roughly as planned to the lower chain, because it would be very bad to say "yeah, we upped and pissed off half the primarchs, my bad .

My take on that is that the Emperor and Malcador planned something like the HH to cull the primarchs and legions that had become unreliable, but that they did not realise a full half would go traitor, and that they never specifically intended any particular primarch to turn.

Which side of the conflict certain primarchs ended up on seemed to come as a genuine surprise to the Emperor. Magnus was clearly not meant to end up a traitor. There's no way his wrecking the Imperial Webway could have been part of the Emperor's plan. Likewise, Jaghatai staying loyal was a surprise (the Emperor pretty much told Malcador to assume Jaghatai had joined Horus).

So I don't agree with the idea that the Emperor deliberately drove certain primarchs to turn traitor. I do think he was probably relieved that he kept Dorn rather than Perturabo, though, and he probably considered Angron and Curze lost causes from fairly early on.

Jaghatai was treated quite similarly to Perturabo, his achievements disregarded and apparently disdained, yet he stayed loyal. I think it comes down to testing their character. Jaghatai passed the test (to the Emperor's surprise), while Perturabo failed.

 Duskweaver wrote:
My take on that is that the Emperor and Malcador planned something like the HH to cull the primarchs and legions that had become unreliable, but that they did not realise a full half would go traitor, and that they never specifically intended any particular primarch to turn.

Which side of the conflict certain primarchs ended up on seemed to come as a genuine surprise to the Emperor. Magnus was clearly not meant to end up a traitor. There's no way his wrecking the Imperial Webway could have been part of the Emperor's plan. Likewise, Jaghatai staying loyal was a surprise (the Emperor pretty much told Malcador to assume Jaghatai had joined Horus).

So I don't agree with the idea that the Emperor deliberately drove certain primarchs to turn traitor. I do think he was probably relieved that he kept Dorn rather than Perturabo, though, and he probably considered Angron and Curze lost causes from fairly early on.

Jaghatai was treated quite similarly to Perturabo, his achievements disregarded and apparently disdained, yet he stayed loyal. I think it comes down to testing their character. Jaghatai passed the test (to the Emperor's surprise), while Perturabo failed.

I'm inclined to agree, it would seem weird to put Horus in charge of effectively all military forces (!?) if they meant for him to go traitor as they could have contained things much better and neater if they really wanted to off him and others. Personally I imagine the likes of Angron would have been purged as there was hardly any love lost between them to begin with, although it raises the question of why even bother saving Angron. For the others I dunno, it would be interesting to get into the mind of the Emperor and see whether any of the Primarchs were meant to survive the Great Crusade and what their role would be, and what he actually thought about each Primarch individually.

well if we go by what Malcador said the idea would be to let the primarchs fight, and then finish off the survivors with the custodes. I think the HH is best viewed as a tragedy brought about by the Hubris of a few men, and I think the biggest act of Hubris was the emperor beliving he could create 20 demi-gods, give them each a perfect army to conquer the stars, and engineer a eventual civil war between them, without it going horrificly wrong.. granted if not for the intervention of chaos (and I don't think one can account for acts of god) it likely would have worked, you'd likely have seen individuals legions go rogue one at a time and get curb stomped

I might not play Iron Warriors, but Perturabo is by far my most favorite primarch. That's who I'm going to go with.

R0bcrt wrote:
it would be interesting to get into the mind of the Emperor and see whether any of the Primarchs were meant to survive the Great Crusade and what their role would be, and what he actually thought about each Primarch individually.

I think the original plan didn't include any civil war / cull at all. The Emperor intended to raise and teach the primarchs himself, almost like super-Custodes. He had personal quarters prepared for all of them in the Palace, a big conference room with twenty seats, and so on. It was the scattering of the primarchs through the galaxy by the Chaos Gods, and their individual upbringings in less than ideal conditions, that screwed that up and made Plan B (an engineered civil war to justify a cull) necessary.

I also think making Horus Warmaster was primarily intended to test the Lion's loyalty. The Lion very clearly expected to be made Warmaster, but didn't have the personal charisma to persuade half his brothers to join him, so his rebellion would have been relatively easy to put down. The thing is, Horus really should have been the safest choice, from the Emperor's PoV, as the one primarch who could be trusted never to rebel. He's the only one the Emperor pretty much did get to raise personally, the way he intended to raise all of them. So he makes Horus Warmaster and sits back to see which of his brothers reject the choice and rebel... and then gets blindsided because the Chaos Gods are one step ahead of him and put all their effort into turning the one primarch who should never have turned.

Again, while I don't think the Emperor intended any particular primarch to turn traitor, I do think the most likely outcome (from his PoV) of making Horus Warmaster would have been a rebellion led by the Lion and consisting of the most flawed and unreliable primarchs and their legions: maybe as few as four legions in total and certainly no more than six. Horus would have crushed the rebellion, and that would have been that. Only the relatively unflawed primarchs and legions would have remained.

TBH I prefer for the Emperor to had planed to purge the Space Marines from the beginning.

Maybe not the Primarchs ,but clearly the Space Marines. They where nothing more than weapons and the Imperium was for men not for super-men.

And for all the "Omg but he called them the angels of death, their perfect creation, how could the Emperor have destroyed the space marines?!"
I'm sure Thunder Warriors were told the same lies.

 Galas wrote:
TBH I prefer for the Emperor to had planed to purge the Space Marines from the beginning.

Maybe not the Primarchs ,but clearly the Space Marines. They where nothing more than weapons and the Imperium was for men not for super-men.

And for all the "Omg but he called them the angels of death, their perfect creation, how could the Emperor have destroyed the space marines?!"
I'm sure Thunder Warriors were told the same lies.

We don't know much for certain about the emperor, he is a man of many contridictions, but what we do know beyond a Shadow of a doubt is that the man appers as we wish him to apper. it stands to reason he lies like a carpet.