Heretical musings.

I am starting this thread because I was inspired by Brother Zealander's quote:

Zealadin wrote: I like TSon's, but as the misunderstood and betrayed chapter, rather than as a traitor legion.

This thread is not created so that we can post all manner of emperor praising quotes and yell heretic!
I have created it in the hopes to better understand GW's representation of the "truth" in regards to the emperor's knowledge and relationship with chaos.

That being said, I will explain myslef further:

I find that as I read more BL novels there are a lot of traitor chapters that are portrayed as being misunderstood, and/or only partially corrupt....kinda like being a little pregnant I know! , but i hope you know what I mean.....

- Soul Drinkers:

"oops!" I followed chaos for a while, killed/executed my brothers loyal to the emperor, and mutated into a spider thing!!! but I realize I was wrong, so I am a good guy again now.

- Night Lords:

Some members are just mad at the emperor for killing their dad, and using their savagry as a weapon and then punishing them for it, others are full on chaos followers

- Thousand Sons:

I haven't read very much on these fellows yet, but I know they are punished because of their use of Sorcery, even though they use it for good.

- Even the Word Bearers!

in the begining they were punished for being faithful to the emperor

*The first trend I have noticed is that Chapter's characteristics/traits are initially embraced by the emperor as the crusade is in its infancy, The chapter's traits are even said to be parts of the emperor's own personality manifested in his sons. And then his sons are punished and shamed when the crusade is reaching its twilight, and the charactoristics/traits that are defining points of pride for the legions in question and thought to be parts of the emperor himself are shunned and punished.

*Secondly, there is also a common thread in many BL novels of the emperor allowing his children to be scattered to the edges of the galaxy, and being very much aware of the chaos gods existance if not even making pacts with them in order to create his sons. While the whole time keeping the chaos god's existance secret from his sons, and stating that gods do not exist. There is very little if any literary evidence to contradict this information thus far.

We never see any loyalist chapter stories in which a character is transported/taken back in time to show the "good guys"/emperor's side of what happened in the chamber below Terra where the primarchs were created.


There are many other points worthy of discussion, but I think these will be enough to get us started
So please remember, keep the "Heretic!!" posts to a minimum and give some thought to what GW/BL is saying about the emperor and his knowledge of chaos.

as i understand it : the major sin of most primarchs and their near followers were Ubris they wre so pretentious : i'm a semi-god and can handle everything, i can do anything ... woops ! chaos forces are stronger and subtiler than me ... woops i'm screwed !
it's like that that i see the Horus Heresy, and the fall of so many legions.
and many legions had the seeds of their own corruption in their creation itself : world eaters were brutal and nearly berserkers even before their fall (for instance)
maybe i'm wrong but ... i don't think so !
Aubec

Great points Brother.

This point is where I am directing my questions:

Aubec le noir wrote: many legions had the seeds of their own corruption in their creation itself : world eaters were brutal and nearly berserkers even before their fall (for instance)

What level of knowledge/understanding did the emperor have of these "seeds" that lead to his sons corruption, he created them afterall. And again isn't the World Eaters' savagry considered to be one aspect of the Emperor's personality gifted to his sons? Are the space wolves, Blood Agels/Flesh Tearers not savage to the brink of butchery?........ ++cough, death company, cough, cough!++

Unfortunately only Sace Wolves can be considered to be "brutal" in the first place,since the Blood Angles(and theyr funding Chapters) suffer from theyr condition after Horus Heresy,so theyr Red Thirst and Black Rage(or something) were not something the Legion suffered before or furing the crusades and as such they weren't really "brutal"

one hypothesis was that during the "incident" of the stasis capsules of the primarchs, the 4 powers made something to the Primarch foetuses. So, 2 were lost (or dead nothing is sure) but the 18 others were subtly corrupted at that point.
My 2 throne gelts
Aubec

Aubec le noir wrote:one hypothesis was that during the "incident" of the stasis capsules of the primarchs, the 4 powers made something to the Primarch foetuses. So, 2 were lost (or dead nothing is sure) but the 18 others were subtly corrupted at that point.
My 2 throne gelts
Aubec

So the emperor would have to have known about chaos at that point in time then, right? Which means he was covering it up from then on.
AND because the Emperor has the ability to see into the future, wouldn't he have had at least a slight idea that something as huge as the Horus Heresy was comming?

As a side note, I am wondering if anyone knows why the emperor has such a strong aversion to sorcery if he was unaware of the powers of chaos...........

The book The First Heretic goes into some details about this.

The Word Bearers are the first Imperial forces to visit / find the Eye of Terror. There they take part in a ritual that brings about a Daemon. This Daemon shows a number of the Word Bearers the stasis chambers where the Primarchs were grown. Think time travel.

The Word Bearers wreck havoc with the machinery and I'm sure that this is how the Primarchs are lost - an agent of Chaos tricking Space Marines from the future on their way to damnation.

As a side note, I am wondering if anyone knows why the emperor has such a strong aversion to sorcery if he was unaware of the powers of chaos...........

The Emperor already knew about Chaos. The same book I talked about before tells us that the Emperor bargained with the powers of Chaos in order to make the Primarchs themselves! He's so adverse to sorcery because he knows that it's a primary way to commune with the for es of Chaos.

Well I've heard a rumor about the two missing primarch's. Both of which ended up in The Old World (WHFB) and they are Sigmar and someone else but on the side of chaos. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but its a theory about the primarchs that I've heard.

As far as initially allowing his children to use the tactics that they used during the Crusade was fine and dandy during the outset, but as time grew on, and as the Crusade was coming to a close, it wasn't so. With all of those reporters riding about during the crusade to see first hand what these warriors are doing, and seeing what 'could' happen to them if they get a bit out of hand.

Just like the one T-Son who started to mutate during the one battle in the novel, "A Thousand Sons," where they fought alongside the Space Wolves where Leman Russ was present. Even then in the end, Magnus in his belief to be truly perfect, and wanting to warn his father, tried to reach him through the use of sorcery despite being told to no longer do so. By doing so, he inadvertently cause a daemonic incursion on Terra. This Incursion was pouring forth from the Webway Gate that the Emperor was working on in the Imperial Palace.

We can see why the Emperor would want to punish them. Though what happened to them on Prospero wasn't the doing of the Emperor, but Horus whose word at that time before his betrayal became known, was to be treated as if it was the Emperor's himself. He ordered Leman Russ to take care of Magnus compared to the original order to just take him into custody. This simple order would force the T-Son's, who are loyal to the Emperor, to flee from Prospero and onto a planet that was a gift to them by a new lord, Tzeentch. They were loyal to the Emperor, but before the Architect of Fate, the God of Magic himself, they couldn't really help it. Besides, with being branded as traitors due to Horus, and then their departure, they became renegades, truly misunderstood renegades who at one point, really only wanted to help the Emperor.

For the Emperor knowing about Chaos and not letting anyone else know about it, its pretty simple to know why he didn't. It's because the knowledge of Chaos is just as dangerous as Chaos itself.

DarkRonin wrote:Well I've heard a rumor about the two missing primarch's. Both of which ended up in The Old World (WHFB) and they are Sigmar and someone else but on the side of chaos. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but its a theory about the primarchs that I've heard.

As far as initially allowing his children to use the tactics that they used during the Crusade was fine and dandy during the outset, but as time grew on, and as the Crusade was coming to a close, it wasn't so. With all of those reporters riding about during the crusade to see first hand what these warriors are doing, and seeing what 'could' happen to them if they get a bit out of hand.

Just like the one T-Son who started to mutate during the one battle in the novel, "A Thousand Sons," where they fought alongside the Space Wolves where Leman Russ was present. Even then in the end, Magnus in his belief to be truly perfect, and wanting to warn his father, tried to reach him through the use of sorcery despite being told to no longer do so. By doing so, he inadvertently cause a daemonic incursion on Terra. This Incursion was pouring forth from the Webway Gate that the Emperor was working on in the Imperial Palace.

We can see why the Emperor would want to punish them. Though what happened to them on Prospero wasn't the doing of the Emperor, but Horus whose word at that time before his betrayal became known, was to be treated as if it was the Emperor's himself. He ordered Leman Russ to take care of Magnus compared to the original order to just take him into custody. This simple order would force the T-Son's, who are loyal to the Emperor, to flee from Prospero and onto a planet that was a gift to them by a new lord, Tzeentch. They were loyal to the Emperor, but before the Architect of Fate, the God of Magic himself, they couldn't really help it. Besides, with being branded as traitors due to Horus, and then their departure, they became renegades, truly misunderstood renegades who at one point, really only wanted to help the Emperor.

For the Emperor knowing about Chaos and not letting anyone else know about it, its pretty simple to know why he didn't. It's because the knowledge of Chaos is just as dangerous as Chaos itself.

The one thing about the WHFB theory is that these Primarchs were found and were given a Legion. They aren't missing as much as deleted from history.

I hear that the "deletion" occurred in non-fluff reasons to allow players to create their own Chapters which have descended from deleted Legions. One Legion for Loyalist, one for Chaos. I'm a bit skeptical, but it seems somewhat logical.

I find it kind of interesting in the TSons novel because

Spoiler:

The mutation caused when they fought alongside the Space Wolves was also possibly caused by chaos forces in the area they where fighting, as opposed to just a Space Marine falling to chaos.

The biggest issue I had was the Space Wolves are VERY similar to the TSons in many ways, Wulfen are like the TSons who start mutating, both use Librarians, even when they were banned, although the SW's claim their power comes from Fenris despite using psychic powers.

Space Wolves however in the TSon's novel were shown as being extremely savage and happy to kill, while the TSon's wanted to gather knowledge and would have been more happy to include people in the Imperium, rather than start wars and fight them into subservience.
It even mentions how many of the wars that wiped out civilisations were started by Primarchs who apparently where just following the Emperor's orders, but the actual reason for the conflict could never be found.
Other Primarchs however were able to get great swathes of planets to join by much less violent means.

I mean I know it would be considered the worst Heresy, but its possible the Emperor was a reborn Old One, who were basically gods and capable of similar feats to the Emperor. Would explain his knowledge of the chaos gods, of psychic powers, or the webways and their use and possibly further creation for humanities own ends, and many of the other mysteries. Particularly the golden throne he was working on that was destroyed by Magnus.

TSon's I find so interesting because they had a flaw not by their own doing, that was of course terrifying and horrible, and yet given a chance they did all they could to help the imperium and uphold the emperors wishes (apart from not using psychic powers which was obviously a large part of them). As has been said each primarch and legion is a small part of the Emperor, in a slightly more focused way. So flaws and benefits magnified.
The Chaos gods afterall are just reflections of a normal part of humanity that when given too much focus can take over. Knowledge, Lust, Conflict, even disease and corruption are all parts of life, particularly intelligent life, and as the eldar discovered, they have to be balanced and controlled.

I still think that it is strange that the emperor would allow the legions and humanity to travel through the warp and not inform them of what might lie within it, especially if there is a chance that they could be corrupted by it.

The majority of the traitor primarchs were seduced and tricked by chaos, I can't help but think that if they were given a "heads up" by the emperor that they may not have fallen so easily, and would have been able to prepare themselves for any attempts by chaos to corrupt them......... We know that GKs have never fallen, so surely a little extra info given to the primarchs would have prevented a lot of trouble........... Just like the old Terran saying......... " an ounce of prevention equals a pound of treatment"

The anti-pshycher stance taken by the impirium also seems off to me......... Psychers are an indisposable resource for mankind, some of the greatest members of the Legions are librarians, AND the emperor himself is one. I see psychers as the next stage in human evolution, Look at how amazing the GK are for example

The whole approach taken by the imperium in regards to preserving the "purity" of the human race (with genetically engineered freaks, aka space marines ), and destroying ALL xenos tech and knowledge seems like a REALLY counterproductive stance. In several Horus Heresy novels civilizations that could have taught the imperium A LOT were destroyed and that knowledge was lost for ever. The stance the imperium takes definitely (to me anyways) seems to be very closed minded, and sets humanity back more than helping it to grow.

Another old Terran saying........."The enemy of my enemy is my friend"...............would apply here.
How powerful would the imperium be if they worked with the Eldar, or Tau against chaos, tyranids, orcs, etc? Heretical concept I know, but think about it

I will end this post with a well known phrase to all of us 40K fans........"Knowledge is power, guard it well".................. Really? does that make sense? I say share it!

And you wonder why my marines now fight For the Greater Good?(other than of course the fact that she asked me really nicely,so how could a guy refuse?)

Brother Ezekiel wrote:And you wonder why my marines now fight For the Greater Good?(other than of course the fact that she asked me really nicely,so how could a guy refuse?)

LOL! Manners are very important! Please and thankyou go a long way in the 41st milenium

Something that just popped into my mind is that Horus AND the Word Bearers were each depicted in BL novels as being in the emperors palace when chaos threw them across the galaxy............... In Horus' experience the emperor looked right at him, and in the Word Bearer's decription the captain smashed his swords on one of the vats

Could it be that chaos is not telling the absolute truth!?

I know,how shocking of the people you claim to be heretics,traitors,mutants,rogue psykers,monsters and the like.It totally not likely of them to lie.

Haha, it is a mystery!