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So after reading through the background on their creation, their relation to the warp, and relationship to the emperor, it seems likely that the primarchs are actually avatars of the original human pantheons.

Why do I think this-
For one, we know that the bodies of the primarchs are not what make them special (as fabius bile found out), the bodies are just vessels to contain the real power of the primarchs: their divine souls.

Why did the shaman sacrifice themselves to make the emperor? What was the real purpose. I imagine the "ragnorak" was going on in the human pantheon on terra. The war in the heavans was stirring up the warp. In order to fight the equivalent of Cthulhu, azathoth, and shub niggaroth (and all the other lovecraftian outer gods), the old ones had to stir up the warp. Where each race throughout the galaxy had their own respective pantheon, a super pantheon of nurgle, khorne and tzeentch were forming in the aftermath of the war and swallowing up the galactic races pantheons. The only pantheons we know of to survive this are the two of the favored children of the old ones: the eldar and orks. Are all the other galactic races just corrupt and evil worshiping the chaos gods? No, they just had the chaos gods gobble up their pantheons and assume control.

Ragnarok had come to the human pantheon and just had been foretold, they lost. Knowing that individually the shaman could not save the god, nor wishing to bow to this new super pantheon, they created the emp.

The emp, using the combined power of the shaman, did something that the elves could not do for isha, khaine, or any of the members of their pantheon, he rescued the human pantheon from the chaos gods. What he took from them was the equivalent of zues, odin, mars, baron samedi, osiris, etc. And he bound them to the mortal realm. People felt that the primarchs were actually gods, because they were gods (or once had been).

the chaos gods, and their infinite need to consume all of the other pantheons, had to have them back. The god essence was in the mortal realm and not the warp so they had to work through proxies to return them, thus the horus heresy,

Why did the emp weep so greatly when he destroyed horus? not only was he destroying a son he beloved, but forever destroying part of humanities pantheon.

the primarchs are most certainly demonic in some way, or at least warp related, my personal theory is that the emp was a anmagamation (sp) of all the shamans, so each primarch is literally a part of his soul broken off.

Fulgrim when he landed on Chemos was a literal ball of floating energy, then that energy seemed to sense the will and hopes of the humans that found it, shaping itself into what ever suited them best, this would explain a lot of how and why certain primarchs are tainted or mad.

for example if all primarchs landed on there respective planets and "scanned" the local populace for whatever was the prevailing need or feeling (sounds like chaos to me) then say the Lion, he would have landed, scanned, felt all the fear and insular nature of the humans on caliban, he would also have felt the nobility and need for change, the yearning to end the threat of the forrest, he would also have felt the darkness of the beasts and there secretive nature, stalking the shadows and never trusting any other being.

make sense?

 Formosa wrote:

for example if all primarchs landed on there respective planets and "scanned" the local populace for whatever was the prevailing need or feeling (sounds like chaos to me) then say the Lion, he would have landed, scanned, felt all the fear and insular nature of the humans on caliban, he would also have felt the nobility and need for change, the yearning to end the threat of the forrest, he would also have felt the darkness of the beasts and there secretive nature, stalking the shadows and never trusting any other being.

Sounds like Beast Wars: Transformers to me...

maybe scanned isn't the best word, but it is something akin to that, psychicly atuned themselves to the needs of the local population, sounds cooler but is still the same thing haha

 lcmiracle wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

for example if all primarchs landed on there respective planets and "scanned" the local populace for whatever was the prevailing need or feeling (sounds like chaos to me) then say the Lion, he would have landed, scanned, felt all the fear and insular nature of the humans on caliban, he would also have felt the nobility and need for change, the yearning to end the threat of the forrest, he would also have felt the darkness of the beasts and there secretive nature, stalking the shadows and never trusting any other being.

Sounds like Beast Wars: Transformers to me...

I like the sound of that! Transformers 40K! Megatron the new Abbadon, Starscream the plotting follower of Tzeentch, Emperor Optimas! I could go on for hours!

Sorry to go Off Topic.

I think you might be on to something. I mean, look at the Warp... it is a dimension of energy where form and thought are one and the same, and where the latter can shape the former.

The Emperor used some measure of Warp energy to build the Primarchs. While they incubated in their tubes, they were stolen by the Ruinous Powers and cast across the stars, to end up on their various "home-worlds" (I used that term loosely, because their actual home-world is, one and all, Terra). The nature of these various worlds... the culture, the environment, the actions of its people... these things shaped the infant Primarchs into the men they would grow to be.

Had Leman Russ landed on Prospero rather than Fenris... who the hell knows how that would have turned out? While the Space Wolves of Terra are based on the gene-seed that Russ was born from originally, the Canis Helix is not of Terran origin, but of Fenrisian... and if Fenris was to be the place that Magnus built into his "Planet of Sorcerers"!? Man, it blows my mind thinking about it!

 Psienesis wrote:


Had Leman Russ landed on Prospero rather than Fenris... who the hell knows how that would have turned out? While the Space Wolves of Terra are based on the gene-seed that Russ was born from originally, the Canis Helix is not of Terran origin, but of Fenrisian... and if Fenris was to be the place that Magnus built into his "Planet of Sorcerers"!? Man, it blows my mind thinking about it!

I think the Emperor had some control over the Primarchs' destinations. In False Gods he pauses the chaos vortex that is stealing the primarchs' tubes, he weighs up the pros and cons of them being stolen and decides to let them go. I believe he may also have been able to guide them towards planets that suit their nature.

I don't think it was an accident that Magnus landed on a planet where psychic powers were commonplace.

This does give the primarchs an interpretation of being independent beings instead of aspects of the Emperor. The Horus Heresy books would probably be better written with this thought.

I think the idea of them being aspects of the Emperor, rather than just having inherited some traits from him (as any child does from a parent) is a construction of the fans.