He hears Him, the day they met, recognising a kindred being. ‘The likes of us,’ He says to Oll, ‘the likes of us will leave our print on things down the ages. That is why we were made the way we were. The courses of our lives will not go unmarked.’

‘Mine will,’ Oll assures Him. ‘I have no stomach for the games you want to play with the world. I just want an ordinary life.’

‘My dear friend, you’ll have as many of those as you want.’ It was summer, a meadow beyond the walls of Nineveh. He had never met another Perpetual before. He would never meet another like Him.

pm713 wrote:
I think Oll was better as a guy and that this thread has no point.

phillv85 wrote:
Well I have zero context to go on other than the words you've pasted, but it sounds like Oll knows the Emperor is a megalomaniac.

pm713 wrote:
Why should he help the Emperor? Why should anyone? He's both incompetent and crazy. He is very much a bad character. If your goal was to fight Chaos then the Interex, Cabal and Eldar all present better options.

‘You mean the Emperor orchestrated the evolution of the Mechanicum?’

‘Of course,’ said Semyon. ‘He knew that one day he would need such a mighty organisation to serve him, and from the Dragon’s dreams came the first machines of the priests of Mars. Without the Dragon there would have been no Mechanicum, and without the Mechanicum, the Emperor’s grand dream of a united galaxy for Humanity would have withered on the vine.’

Dalia tried to grasp the unimaginable scale of the Emperor’s designs, the clarity of a vision that could set schemes in motion that would not come to fruition for over twenty thousand years. It was simply staggering that anyone, even the Emperor, could have so carefully and precisely orchestrated the destiny of so many with such skill and cold ruthlessness.

The scale of the deception was beyond measure and the callousness of it took her breath away. To lie to so many people, to twist the destiny of a planet to suit one man’s aims, even a being as lofty as the Emperor, was a crime of such monstrous proportions that Dalia’s mind shied away from that awful calumny.

‘If the truth of this became known,’ breathed Dalia. ‘It would tear the Mechanicum apart.’

Semyon shook his head as the last vestiges of the sands of Libya faded away to be replaced with darkness all around them. ‘Not just the Mechanicum, but the Imperium too,’ he said. ‘I know this knowledge is a terrible burden to bear, but the Treaty of Olympus bound the fates of both Throne and Forge together in a union that must never be undone. Neither can survive without the other, but should this become known, then those who hold truth sacred above all else will not see that, they will only see the righteousness of their cause. In any case, the Mechanicum is already tearing itself apart, but the horrors unleashed by the Warmaster’s betrayal will be as nothing if Mars and Terra make war upon one another.’

pm713 wrote:
He really does suck. Almost every Primarch that went Traitor went Traitor because the Emperor couldn't grasp they were people. The Emperor's grand plan for saving humanity was to conquer the galaxy and exterminating all alien life that wasn't lifestock followed by invading a labyrinth environment that literally moves to fight you that the Imperium can't use and could be destroyed for better travel.

What does that quote prove? That someone thinks the Emperor made the Mechanicum? Even if that was true it just shows how badly he handled things. The Mechanicum are awful at their jobs.

The man is a crazy and incompetent tyrant.

pm713 wrote:
The quote only showed the Mechanicum THINKS he did that. The Mechanicum take HUNDREDS of years to approve swapping the sponson weapons of a Predator.

Forcing all humanity to serve him, exterminating aliens he encountered regardless of their culture and historical interaction with humans and wrecking any decent ecosystem are pretty awful.

The Horus Heresy books focus on the warfare so they're hardly going to talk about the brutal genocide of peaceloving race 12. Even without that you have things like Interex and Diasporex who could easily have been talked to but just got shot instead.

Imperium in any state is a gakky place to live if you aren't indoctrinated in it. Children being taken to be turned into inhuman soldiers, forced massive industrialisation of your world/conversion to whatever the Imperium wants, no right to self rule and any chance of friendly relations with aliens being ruined forever are pretty bad.

30k Imperium isn't as bad as 40k Imperium but that's like saying losing a finger is better than losing a hand.

pm713 wrote:
By Mechanicum I was referring to the people in the quote.

Yes. You keep saying that but it doesn't really mean much. It's very clear that the Imperium wasn't interested in being friends with aliens.

I think it was inevitable seeing as the Interex liked aliens and the choice was probably join or die with the aliens.

The protectorate thing makes 0 sense outside of being a plot device. The reason for considering it was war would supposedly take decades yet they resided on one planet so you could just use Exterminatus and win in a day. It's less an indication of Imperial policy more a tool for Fulgrim to fall.

Andykp wrote:
Emperor, bad and he messed up everything he tried to do.

Old whoever- stupid perpetual that doesn’t belong in 40k

Ollanius pious. Hero of the empire and model imperial guardsman.

Yeah, he's been all around. In every war, there is Ollanius, squatting in the trenches, crawling through the dirt with every other soldier. Occasionally he is in a famous location, but never the star of the show, just a background character. Someone in his position could easily play their cards right and end up being a general, a billionaire, or avoid the war altogether. But not Oll. He is the common soldier, one of countless millions. It's in his name after all: Oll Perrson >> All Persons.

That is part of the reasons I am in favour of him being changed to a perpetual rather being than an ordinary soldier: because he is still the ordinary man, just an old one. He knows that when Horus kills him he won't come back, but he throws himself in the line of fire anyway. Just like he did at Calth. Just like he did in the Great Crusade. Just like he did at Verdun. Just like he did with Jason and the Argonauts.

When Horus kills Oll, he is not just killing a man: he is killing Humanity's history. Even if the Emperor was stuck on the Throne, Ollanius would still be there. Someone would be left to remember when humanity was better, before they succumbed to the grim darkness of the far future. He could have given up his dream of an ordinary life and finally take charge: he wouldn't be the Emperor, but he understood the Emperor's dream. But Ollanius died, and now there is no one left to remember what humanity once was and could be again. The Emperor's promise of a Golden Age died with him.

Even Guilliman can't fix it; he wasn't there for the Age of Technology, or the moon landing, or the years of peace when humanity spread across the stars. Oll Perrson was there, but he is dead. With his death humanity can't go back to before they were trapped by suspicion, hatred, and zealotry. So much was lost with him, never to be recovered. When Horus kills Ollanius, he kills humanity. That is why the Emperor finally kills Horus: because he knows at that moment the dream is dead. Chaos won.

Bharring wrote:
The "Just some grunt, who saw one demigod tear another apart, but then did his duty" version of the same character, before he was a Perpetual, has much more moving renditions than that.

pm713 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
The "Just some grunt, who saw one demigod tear another apart, but then did his duty" version of the same character, before he was a Perpetual, has much more moving renditions than that.

I 100% agree. He's a great person to have portrayed as the "proper" Guardsmen.

Bharring wrote:
It means that the story was better before it was written, though.

Onething123456 wrote:

Yeah, he's been all around. In every war, there is Ollanius, squatting in the trenches, crawling through the dirt with every other soldier. Occasionally he is in a famous location, but never the star of the show, just a background character. Someone in his position could easily play their cards right and end up being a general, a billionaire, or avoid the war altogether. But not Oll. He is the common soldier, one of countless millions. It's in his name after all: Oll Perrson >> All Persons.

That is part of the reasons I am in favour of him being changed to a perpetual rather being than an ordinary soldier: because he is still the ordinary man, just an old one. He knows that when Horus kills him he won't come back, but he throws himself in the line of fire anyway. Just like he did at Calth. Just like he did in the Great Crusade. Just like he did at Verdun. Just like he did with Jason and the Argonauts.

When Horus kills Oll, he is not just killing a man: he is killing Humanity's history. Even if the Emperor was stuck on the Throne, Ollanius would still be there. Someone would be left to remember when humanity was better, before they succumbed to the grim darkness of the far future. He could have given up his dream of an ordinary life and finally take charge: he wouldn't be the Emperor, but he understood the Emperor's dream. But Ollanius died, and now there is no one left to remember what humanity once was and could be again. The Emperor's promise of a Golden Age died with him.

Even Guilliman can't fix it; he wasn't there for the Age of Technology, or the moon landing, or the years of peace when humanity spread across the stars. Oll Perrson was there, but he is dead. With his death humanity can't go back to before they were trapped by suspicion, hatred, and zealotry. So much was lost with him, never to be recovered. When Horus kills Ollanius, he kills humanity. That is why the Emperor finally kills Horus: because he knows at that moment the dream is dead. Chaos won.

bogalubov wrote:

Onething123456 wrote:

Yeah, he's been all around. In every war, there is Ollanius, squatting in the trenches, crawling through the dirt with every other soldier. Occasionally he is in a famous location, but never the star of the show, just a background character. Someone in his position could easily play their cards right and end up being a general, a billionaire, or avoid the war altogether. But not Oll. He is the common soldier, one of countless millions. It's in his name after all: Oll Perrson >> All Persons.

That is part of the reasons I am in favour of him being changed to a perpetual rather being than an ordinary soldier: because he is still the ordinary man, just an old one. He knows that when Horus kills him he won't come back, but he throws himself in the line of fire anyway. Just like he did at Calth. Just like he did in the Great Crusade. Just like he did at Verdun. Just like he did with Jason and the Argonauts.

When Horus kills Oll, he is not just killing a man: he is killing Humanity's history. Even if the Emperor was stuck on the Throne, Ollanius would still be there. Someone would be left to remember when humanity was better, before they succumbed to the grim darkness of the far future. He could have given up his dream of an ordinary life and finally take charge: he wouldn't be the Emperor, but he understood the Emperor's dream. But Ollanius died, and now there is no one left to remember what humanity once was and could be again. The Emperor's promise of a Golden Age died with him.

Even Guilliman can't fix it; he wasn't there for the Age of Technology, or the moon landing, or the years of peace when humanity spread across the stars. Oll Perrson was there, but he is dead. With his death humanity can't go back to before they were trapped by suspicion, hatred, and zealotry. So much was lost with him, never to be recovered. When Horus kills Ollanius, he kills humanity. That is why the Emperor finally kills Horus: because he knows at that moment the dream is dead. Chaos won.

Horus being responsible or indifferent to the killing of trillions of civilians during the Heresy didn't give the Emperor a hint that Horus is killing humanity? Him being a regular human was a much more potent plot device than the undying perpetuals mumbo jumbo. Also, I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to get at with the threat.

phillv85 wrote:
Is Voltstagge someone of importance in the 40k writing world or just some random bloke on Reddit that you agree with?

bogalubov wrote:
So you like the way the story has been modified from the original telling. There are others who think it's worse than before. That's kind of the end of it.