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I'm going to assume everyone in this thread has knowledge of the start of the Horus Heresy. We all know the fall of many of the primarchs comes of as shallow (of course this is not always the case, magnus comes to mind for instance). Not that the stories are not well written but rather that the tragic can often be summarized to tricked by -person/object-, -shown vision- or -was evil all along-. I figured it could be interesting to have a thread about possible alternate ways things could have happened that would have made sense in universe. So see this as an what if thread I suppose. I've named this to be about the Horus Heresy but really, if you have a thought on the fall of the Eldar, the C'tan, the war of the beast or pretty much anything feel free to put it here.

Some rules to how I want to put this out. The outcomes must be the same. Which means the primarchs fall, the Emperor gets put on the golden throne, the great rift happens and the Imperium remains for 10k years. The road there may be changed.

I'll begin with an alternate version of the big H himself, the fall of Horus. Horus is the most successful of the primarch in the early days of the greay crusade. Contempt is growing among the astartes though that once the conquest is over the astartes will no longer be usefull. Horus himself comes across some forbidden records of the events involving the thunder warriors, and the extermination that follwed once they hade outlived their usefullness. Horus sees the potential of the same happening to his beloved astartes. He believes himself, and his brothers, to be safe from extermination but the same can not be said for his astartes warriors. He begins to question the righteousness of their crusade. Is it really the nature of man to eradicate all that is not usefull to it? Why does the Emperor not tolerate any xenos or other forms of life unless it's domesticated? With theese doubts Horus comes across evidence of an alternate dimension that is literally being starved into non existence solely because of the Emperor. Horus comes to the conclusion that the Emperors only goal is to eradicate all life that will not serve him and refuses to be a part in such an endeavor. He strikes deals with the denizens of this other dimension, who appear to him as twisted and strange, but who is he to question a diffrent form of life? He goes on a quest to convince his brothers to usher in an era of tolerance and acceptance for all diffrent forms of life in the galaxy. This results in him becoming the champion of chaos, leading the horus heresy and leads to the bloodiest war the imperium has ever faced.

So that's an idea anyway. Horus having a diffrent philosofical standpoint to the Emperor and wanting to protect rather then destroy. To me it's a more intresting story. It would see Horus going to far with his ambition and ending up causing more destruction then he ever would had he stayed on the Emperors path, despite having the opposite goal in mind. Maybe it's a little weak and Horus is better used as a bad guy who wants to usurp the Emperor. I'd love to see other alternate ideas on how things in 40k could have progressed, with ultimately the same outcome.

If you wanted to go for a more willing alliance i'd guess you could have a scenario where Horus and the others are convinced somehow that the Emperor is one of the five warp gods, who has broken the walls of the immaterium to claim the sum total of all souls.

The primarchs on Horus's side believe that each god is a manifestation of a different aspect of humanity both good and bad, and seek to banish the Emperor back to the warp before mankind becomes nothing but a reflection of his aspect alone.

A.T. wrote:
If you wanted to go for a more willing alliance i'd guess you could have a scenario where Horus and the others are convinced somehow that the Emperor is one of the five warp gods, who has broken the walls of the immaterium to claim the sum total of all souls.

The primarchs on Horus's side believe that each god is a manifestation of a different aspect of humanity both good and bad, and seek to banish the Emperor back to the warp before mankind becomes nothing but a reflection of his aspect alone.

This could an interesting one to consider when you think about Lorgar's Censure after proclaiming the emperor to be a god. In this alternate lore, This is ultimately what the emperor does want, but just not yet as he hasn't completed his plan yet to become the sole surviving aspect of chaos and humanity praising him as a god would ascend him much earlier than he intended and force him into direct contention with the other 4 gods.

 Tristanleo wrote:
This could an interesting one to consider when you think about Lorgar's Censure after proclaiming the emperor to be a god. In this alternate lore, This is ultimately what the emperor does want, but just not yet as he hasn't completed his plan yet to become the sole surviving aspect of chaos and humanity praising him as a god would ascend him much earlier than he intended and force him into direct contention with the other 4 gods.

It could work a number of ways. The same principle could be set that it isn't belief of a god, simply belief/belonging in general so eliminating religion while retaining belief in the imperium (as an extension of the Emperor) cuts the others out.

A.T. wrote:
If you wanted to go for a more willing alliance i'd guess you could have a scenario where Horus and the others are convinced somehow that the Emperor is one of the five warp gods, who has broken the walls of the immaterium to claim the sum total of all souls.

The primarchs on Horus's side believe that each god is a manifestation of a different aspect of humanity both good and bad, and seek to banish the Emperor back to the warp before mankind becomes nothing but a reflection of his aspect alone.

I really like this idea, it ties togheter a lot of fluff.

I honestly expected to open this and read someone only just found out about the old Dornian Heresy project.

That the theory where Dorn was thought to secretly rule the Imperium in place of the Emperor?

 Nerak wrote:
That the theory where Dorn was thought to secretly rule the Imperium in place of the Emperor?

Dorn falls to chaos.

You can find a brief summary and some links about alternative heresy projects from here https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Alternate_Heresy

At least Imperium Ascendant has quite a lot of written material about it. Legion of the Damned screw up the prelude to the Heresy (Primarch scattering) and the story takes off from that.