Why weren't the Primarchs destroyed? (WH40K)

[Stravo]

As I read over things about the Horus Heresy and the Primarchs in general something occurred to me. If Chaos was indeed responsible for the scattering of the Primarchs when they were infants why didn't they simply destroy the Primarchs? Or even more insidiously why didn't they take them into the Warp and raise them as demongods to come back years later and tear down the Imperium?

I would imagine that if the goal of the scattering was to slow down or frustrate the Emperor's plans it would have been worse to just kill them, no? Obviously it wasn't easy for the Emperor to recreate the Primarchs because he never went about doing that after the first batch vanished (unless he was somehow aware that they were scattered and not killed) so why not do the ultimate fuck you and kill them?

Was there something about the Primarchs that wouldn't allow the Chaos gods to kill them? Was the Horus Heresy the master plan from the start? If so, seems like a shaky plan to begin with - you have to hope Horus develops the kind of character flaws that would make him vulnerable to falling (unlike say a Sanguinus or a Guilliman), you have to hope you can isolate him, hope he will fall and then hope he does succeed.

I have a simpler plan. Kill them all.

Anything in the fluff that explains this weird logic to the Scattering or does anyone have any theories?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

It required all of the Chaos Gods' combined power (not sure if Slaanesh was included in that at the time) to penetrate the Emperor's defenses. All they could do was wildly fling the developing primarchs around.

The Chaos Gods, especially without Slaanesh, were much weaker prior to the Great Crusade, and the Emperor was in his prime. It's possible that if the Chaos Gods tried a bolder plan the Emperor could have wrecked their shit, or that such a plan wasn't even possible.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If the primarchs had been destroyed right away, the emperor would have just made new ones. I think the reason the emperor didn't recreate them is because he KNEW they were still alive, and Chaos was hoping to allow him to bond with his children to leave himself open to the kind of betrayal that Horus eventually did.

With twelve (I think) primarchs, one of them is going to have a bad upbringing.

[Serafina]

They couldn't.

All they managed was punching trough the Emperors defenses (however they might have looked like) and throw the Primarchs into the warp. They were presumably shielded on their own, therefore surving the journey, until they crashed on their respective planets.

You could ask the same question every time a Primarch (or the Emperor) traveled trough the warp on a ship - why did the chaos gods not destroy that ship?
Quite simple, they have limits.

[Stravo]

If the primarchs had been destroyed right away, the emperor would have just made new ones. I think the reason the emperor didn't recreate them is because he KNEW they were still alive, and Chaos was hoping to allow him to bond with his children to leave himself open to the kind of betrayal that Horus eventually did.

With twelve (I think) primarchs, one of them is going to have a bad upbringing.

Along those lines I always wondered whether perhaps the Emperor knowingly allowed the Primarchs to be scattered. How would they have been raised under the Emperor? Would he have been as tough on them as say Angron's upbringing as a gladiator? Would he have been as mericiless as the upbringing of some of the other Primarchs? They all went through similar struggles and tests and they came out on top stronger and mightier for it already leaders of men. Under the Emperor one has to wonder if he could have brought that out in them. Maybe he knew he would have coddled them too much or not been able to provide the kind of hard ships that they would get out in the real world without his protection.

We know he can be a real bastard- so why not imagine he knows Chaos is plotting something against his Primarchs and he just...lets it happen.

My reading of the Horus novel where the Scattering scene is replayed seem to imply the Emperor had actually entered into a pact with Chaos to have it happen.

[Ghost Rider]

As many said, they couldn't at that time because the Emperor, limits of themselves, or more likely a mixture of the two.

An interesting surmise, is that each of the Primarch children survived an unusually harsh enviroment. As some noted, they aren't just flesh and blood but possibly closer to what the Emperor was and something favored them usually. Take for instance Lion Johnson and his origin of Eldar or something trying to kill him and as a child he was enough to kill them.

Though of all their deaths, I do wonder of Konrad's and Dorn's. Most of their deaths are either through other Primarchs, and I could at least get the idea that Dorn's was through a huge Chaos effort perhaps. Kurtz, on the other hand, was killed by an assassin, though it can be said he lowered whatever made the Primarchs what they are to be killed.

[Aaron]

Lord of the Night pretty much says that Konrad Curze allowed himself to be killed and that the Heresy left him a broken man.

[Bedlam]

If the primarchs had been destroyed right away, the emperor would have just made new ones. I think the reason the emperor didn't recreate them is because he KNEW they were still alive, and Chaos was hoping to allow him to bond with his children to leave himself open to the kind of betrayal that Horus eventually did.

With twelve (I think) primarchs, one of them is going to have a bad upbringing.

Along those lines I always wondered whether perhaps the Emperor knowingly allowed the Primarchs to be scattered. How would they have been raised under the Emperor? Would he have been as tough on them as say Angron's upbringing as a gladiator? Would he have been as mericiless as the upbringing of some of the other Primarchs? They all went through similar struggles and tests and they came out on top stronger and mightier for it already leaders of men. Under the Emperor one has to wonder if he could have brought that out in them. Maybe he knew he would have coddled them too much or not been able to provide the kind of hard ships that they would get out in the real world without his protection.

We know he can be a real bastard- so why not imagine he knows Chaos is plotting something against his Primarchs and he just...lets it happen.

My reading of the Horus novel where the Scattering scene is replayed seem to imply the Emperor had actually entered into a pact with Chaos to have it happen.

Thats a very interesting idea, chaos selecting training camps for the primarchs, it might explain what happened to the missing primarchs, they failed their training.

The only thing I'm not sure of is the emperor letting chaos take them and then trusting them so much. It might be a matter of Hubris but I dont see the emperor going "Wow my kids are so great, I agreed for chaos to take them where they can get upbringings from hell and none of them were tainted, not the dark loving serial killer, not the guy with wings, not the one burning planets to the ground for my eternal glory, nope their all just fine"

I do wonder if the Emperor had to make a decission between getting them destroyed or scattered though. I dont think the Emperor did have the time to make more, the great crusade was on a tight time scale, it started after Slanesh was born which reduced warp storms and weaked the rest of the Gods while they sorted things out amoungst themselves. If the Emperor delayed to long then Chaos would get its act together while he was still setting up his empire rather than after most of it was formed and he was starting to consolidate which probably would have gone much worse for humanity.

[Ghost Rider]

Lord of the Night pretty much says that Konrad Curze allowed himself to be killed and that the Heresy left him a broken man.

What I am asking more or less, is how. Just bowing one's head and going "Cut here" seems a little too vague to be honest, given the sheer amount of power they protray just by their existence. I'm wondering if the assassin didn't have a C'tan blade or something or is there something more to them then just meat popsicle clone of the all powerful EoM.

[Serafina]

Lord of the Night pretty much says that Konrad Curze allowed himself to be killed and that the Heresy left him a broken man.

What I am asking more or less, is how. Just bowing one's head and going "Cut here" seems a little too vague to be honest, given the sheer amount of power they protray just by their existence. I'm wondering if the assassin didn't have a C'tan blade or something or is there something more to them then just meat popsicle clone of the all powerful EoM.

It's heavily hinted that the Primarchs (and GEoMs) physical power was a direct result of innate psionic abilities.
It almost has to be, given the amount of damage they can sustain (such as taking a direct hit from a plasma annihilator and only being stunned) and their other physical abilties.

Therefore, it is not unconceivalbe that it depends heavily on willpower and "will to live".
Either they are able to turn it down if they want to, or this trait get's stronger/weaker depending on their psychological status.

[Aaron]

What I am asking more or less, is how. Just bowing one's head and going "Cut here" seems a little too vague to be honest, given the sheer amount of power they protray just by their existence. I'm wondering if the assassin didn't have a C'tan blade or something or is there something more to them then just meat popsicle clone of the all powerful EoM.

Serafina has an interesting idea about their pysker potential, though I lean more towards a Kinebrach type weapon. I doubt the IoM expected him to just give up, so she would have needed some sort of edge.

[Ghost Rider]

What I am asking more or less, is how. Just bowing one's head and going "Cut here" seems a little too vague to be honest, given the sheer amount of power they protray just by their existence. I'm wondering if the assassin didn't have a C'tan blade or something or is there something more to them then just meat popsicle clone of the all powerful EoM.

Serafina has an interesting idea about their pysker potential, though I lean more towards a Kinebrach type weapon. I doubt the IoM expected him to just give up, so she would have needed some sort of edge.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of. My bit is that even as children these beasties were well above and beyond anything approaching mortal in many ways and as you said and is implied within the lore of it all...they thought Konrad was still going to give the assassin a fight, so they are not going to go "Here take this paper clip and this cup.".

Still I hope they do expand somewhere a bit of his death as it is really the only one that wasn't Chaos or Primarch involved in the death.

[Serafina]

The two are, of course, not mutually exclusive.

However, given the amount of damage Primarchs have been shown to sustain (sustaining a direct hit from an Emperor-Titans main weapon) under certain situations, it's hard to imagine a weapon that could have taken down a full-strenght primarch.

So, my thesis:
-The Assassin was equipped with a weapon against psionics-enhanced beings. The IoM has lot's of those, it's also possible that he used a psy-negating weapon (possibly a small null-field).
-Curzes abilities were disrupted enough to be affected by this
-Therefore, the weapon worked and he's now dead.

[Imperial Overlord]

There's a Heresy novel planned about Kurze's death. As for weaponry, Assassins gets the good stuff including C'tan phase swords. An old account has the Emperor smacking Russ around with a power glove when they first meet, so you don't need to go quite that far to ruin their shit. It's also a lot easier to kill a warpy superhuman when he sits there and lets you do it.

[Stravo]

I don't know about portraying the durability of a Primarch as superhuman to the point of invulnerable. In fact I think they're durability has been unevenly portrayed in the Heresy books. For example Fulgrim's flesh burns through his gloves from punching the Avatar of Kaine and is very nearly squeezed to death by a Wraith lord all in the same fight. In an earlier novel I believe Angron is almost killed by an avalanche from a collapsing fortification (a little fuzzy on that one) and Horus is easily stabbed just like any other man by a blade. I didn't get the sense that the Anetheme blade piercing him was a surprise to either him or anyone else - it was the effect afterwards that took everyone by surprise so they seem to have some varying degrees of invulnerability.

Granted in the Battle of Istvan V during the Drop Site massacre we have some truly superheroic things like Angron killing dozens of space marines with swipes of his blade and Vulcan and Corax surviving a near hit from a Titan's main guns that earlier had been described as liquifying heavy tanks.

The varilability in how tough they are may not just be uneven writing, it could be an indicator of a psychic component to their power. When are they at their best? When they are fighting in their element for their emperor leading their men. When Fulgrim was nearly killed by the Eldar for example he was in a state of confusion as he had just been told that Horus was going to betray the Emperor and he had the cursed sword whispering in his ear.

[Junghalli]

Therefore, it is not unconceivalbe that it depends heavily on willpower and "will to live".
Either they are able to turn it down if they want to, or this trait get's stronger/weaker depending on their psychological status.

The latter idea sounds rather reminiscent of Orks (e.g. making their weapons work better the more powerful they believe them to be).

[Black Admiral]

My reading of the Horus novel where the Scattering scene is replayed seem to imply the Emperor had actually entered into a pact with Chaos to have it happen.

It should be born in mind that that scene is a product of a psychic illusion partially created by Erebus, who is to say the least a lying fuck and has every reason to deceive Horus. It's not only possible but likely that he's lying through his teeth about any hypothetical deal between teh GEoM and the Chaos Gods.

[Ghost Rider]

There's a Heresy novel planned about Kurze's death. As for weaponry, Assassins gets the good stuff including C'tan phase swords. An old account has the Emperor smacking Russ around with a power glove when they first meet, so you don't need to go quite that far to ruin their shit. It's also a lot easier to kill a warpy superhuman when he sits there and lets you do it.

Well he is the Emperor, but yes there is a disctinction that they aren't quite the end all be all . Though I do hope they do Kurtze's death decently, but more importantly give some idea of his blithering, though I expect that to be even vaguer in some way then it is now.

Though I did look in the upcoming BL and notice they have one of Kurze's legion going ape after his demise. So we'll see.

[PainRack]

I'm more impressed by out how of the countless billions of potential planets they could have been dropped on, they virtually all dropped on human planets with viable settlements.

[Connor MacLeod]

Last I recall (although I've read so many goddamn 40K books at this point I can't precisely tell you WHERe in all my quotes and stuff it would be) the idea was to try destroying the Primarchs from the get go, but as Gaius mentions they lacked the power to do that while breaching through the Emperor's wards (hell, acting directly in realspace without a champion or other conduit is incredibly hard for them regardless, which is why you dont see them directly fucking in things in a more tangible matter as a rule.) Scattering them was apparently plan B (assuming they had any control over it at all - a point which IIRC remains debatable.)

As far as Primarch power/capability goes, I also recall it being stated they are all psykers, but that it manifested in certain specific ways (foretelling/precog, enhanced strength/speed/durability, charisma, etc.) and only Magnus was a psyker in the way we understand it. That said, for all their toughness they are still squishy organics and could still be killed. One has to remember that a big part of their physical prowess almost certainly stems form the fact the Primarchs had the second-best shit in the Imperium (Next to the Emperor) in terms of weapons and armor, which is naturally going to greatly boost their offensive capabilities.

It is also implied (and possible) that the Primarchs were intended to serve as the Human equivalent of Chaos Champions or Daemon Princes - basically acting as conduits and Avatars for psychic power. this could mean that their power could wax or wane depending on how "empowered" at a given time they are.

Edit: One also has to remember, lastly, that the Primarchs were always meant to be leaders and commanders, not fucking Goku. That means that traits they had in spades (intelligence, charisma, supernatural senses, physical prowess and toughness, etc.) were meant to play into those role. They inspired, they directed, and when situations required it they took on the really nasty shit that not even Astartes could take on. They don't need the ability to fly or shoot out laser death beams from their eyes to do that. (They can get technological equivalents to do that for them.)

If the primarchs had been destroyed right away, the emperor would have just made new ones. I think the reason the emperor didn't recreate them is because he KNEW they were still alive, and Chaos was hoping to allow him to bond with his children to leave himself open to the kind of betrayal that Horus eventually did.

Actually its stated in a number of sources that it is unlikely the Emperor could have recreated the Primarchs, and that's why he went with the Astartes (again, Plan B.) Had they been destroyed, he probably would have just done what he'd done and gone on as he did until he started re-discovering them. Something that might actually have resulted in a better outcome in the long run, honestly.

With twelve (I think) primarchs, one of them is going to have a bad upbringing.

Twenty Primarchs.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

snip

Considering the way the warp works, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. The warp would be thinnest around worlds with a lot of psychic potential, which would mean worlds with a decent population and probably some psykers. If the primarchs were aware of their situation (and 1000 Sons indicates they might have been), consciously or unconsciously, they could have had some influence in where they ended up as well, as we know that they can perform the same function as Navigators.

Yeah, the odds would overwhelmingly favor Chaos dumping the primarchs into the cold, empty void between stars, but that doesn't seem to be how Chaos works.

[PainRack]

snip

Considering the way the warp works, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. The warp would be thinnest around worlds with a lot of psychic potential, which would mean worlds with a decent population and probably some psykers. If the primarchs were aware of their situation (and 1000 Sons indicates they might have been), consciously or unconsciously, they could have had some influence in where they ended up as well, as we know that they can perform the same function as Navigators.

Yeah, the odds would overwhelmingly favor Chaos dumping the primarchs into the cold, empty void between stars, but that doesn't seem to be how Chaos works.

Lot of psychic potential still suggest Eldar exodite colonies or Ork worlds.

By the way, is there any new information on the two deleted Primarchs?

[Simon_Jester]

There's a Heresy novel planned about Kurze's death. As for weaponry, Assassins gets the good stuff including C'tan phase swords. An old account has the Emperor smacking Russ around with a power glove when they first meet, so you don't need to go quite that far to ruin their shit. It's also a lot easier to kill a warpy superhuman when he sits there and lets you do it.

Well, the Emperor is the Emperor, and it took him something like a day to beat down Russ. You could probably cripple (if not outright take apart) a Titan in a day using a power fist, so the cumulative toughness Russ displayed is still very impressive. Also, of course, the Emperor's warpy superhuman abilities will tend to cancel Russ's, just as we see in fights between Primarchs during the Heresy.

[andrewgpaul]

No, not really. There's a couple of mentions of their existence, but that's it. They're deliberately left undescribed, so there's room for players to make up their own Legions in their games. Sadly, the majority of the fanbase considers this deep heresy.

BTW, I'm sure that there used to be three missing Primarchs, and that the Raven Guard were invented by GW somewhat later than the other 17 original Chapters/Legions. I can't remember where I saw this though, and it bugs me.

[Night_stalker]

Yeah, all we know is that they commanded the 2nd and 11th legions.