Horus Heresy: Legion - revelations (big big spoilers)

[Lone_Prodigy]

Plenty of people have met Omegon as he is the captain of the 10th company. The secret is that he's not just a space marine, he's a primach as well.

Aren't primarchs a good deal bigger than your average space marine? Wouldn't anyone wonder why a Captain was half again as tall as he should be, or why a primarch is the size of a normal marine (when an Alpha Legion marine stands in for Alpharius)?

[Invictus ChiKen]

I think height was different from Primarch to Primarch.

[Lost Soal]

Finished reading it today and I enjoyed it.
To answer a few queries, the secret of the twins is stated as being known only to the legion itself, and to further that goal every member receives cosmetic surgery to make them look like Alpharius, to the point where only exceptionally perceptive people can see the differences.

While Alpharius is taller than the normal Astartes, very few people have actually seen a Primarch so probably wouldn't notice anything other than their huge, there's also the temerity of a standard marine claiming to be a Primarch which no one in any other legion would dare. Finally the Captain of the Terminator Company is almost as big as Alpharius is, and since we see so few of the Legion may well be others who can pass for him size wise

[Ford Prefect]

Besides, I always got the impression that Alpharius was a shorty in comparison to the other Primarchs.

[Connor MacLeod]

Space Marines can also vary quite a bit in height as well Some can be as short as 2 meters (7 feet), while others will be upwards of 3 meters tall (nearly 10 feet). And I don't think 3 meters is neccesarily "freakishly tall" for a Space Marine either (some humans can get to be 2-2.5 meters tall without Astartes enhancement too) and once you factor in the height added by power armour and all that...

[The Yosemite Bear]

Besides, I always got the impression that Alpharius was a shorty in comparison to the other Primarchs.

that would be correct....

though I wonder how well he would fare in comparison to "Goth Primarch" Corax?

[Kuja]

Having bought Legion yesterday and finished it today, I am finally prepared to comment in this thread.

First, let me say that 5/6ths of the book is Printed Awesome. It's like a hydra personified as a novel, with plotlines that twist and turn and merge together like the Alpha Legion's namesake. I adore the depiction of the Alpha Legionnaires and their well-earned reputation of being sneaky bastards.

But, ineveitably, we come to the last three chapters or so.

At this point, I absolutely despise the book and the horrible choices it makes. It takes a massive shit on Alpharius' established storyline, mangles the character into nonexistence, and in general falls apart. Alpharius is portayed as a polar opposite of how we used to know him (fuck Horus, praise the Emperor) and I can only come to the conclusion that Dan Abnett forgot to research the entire second half of his story.

The addition of YET ANOTHER faction that can read the fucking future annoys the living fuck out of me, especially given how bloody incompetant they are. If these guys have been around for untold tens of millennia, how could they possibly cock up so badly as to not realize the timetable their own goddamn visions are taking? Shit. Shit, shit, shit. And, of course, we have yet another bunch running around in fear of Chaos and sneering down their noses at humanity for being kids in a sandbox. You know, if so many people in the fucking galaxy have all these concerns about humanity, you'd think fucking one of them would have brought it to the Emperor's attention.

The Cabal doesn't work. Alpharius/Omegon doesn't work. The entire ending to the book doesn't work.

I'm calling Legion as the first true Horus Heresy flop. I had high expectations for this book, being written by my favorite 40K author and about my personal favorite amongst the primarchs. For eighty percent of the novel, I felt that Abnett had succeeded very well in giving us a window into the Alpha Legion's operations. But in the last few chapters, it completely rolls belly-up and dies. How utterly disappointing.

[NecronLord]

So, per the Cabal's vision, the entire galaxy is now fucked right?

They're idiots, and wrong, their demonstrated powers are also nothing to those of the upper end of Eldar farseers (Farseer Lasrantil, surely the greatest of the race, was able to predict the doings of Space Marines fifty million years before they were there, and he seems to view the most likely outcome as the necron Warding of the galaxy) who still hold out hope of other futures.

I would deem it almost certain that the Cabal are unknowingly thralls of Tzeentch; their 'visions of the future' served only to turn the Alpha Legion to Chaos, and prevent the Emperor's sidelining of Chaos for all time. If the Alpha Legion had been given clear counsel, they could have simply sailed home to Terra and prepared with enough foresight to crush Horus once and for all. Instead, the only legion that might actually listen to aliens is conviniently turned to Chaos by thier visions. I see the hand of the Architect of Fate here.

Also, the Autarch's arrogance is misplaced. John Grammaticus has lived long enough to have seen first hand the Fall of Eldar civilisation. He should know full well that the Eldar he's talking to is a shattered remnant of what was once great; it should be trivial for him to shut that autarch up (or provoke him into violence) by pointing out that if there were no Slanessh, there'd be no Heresy. Incidentally, what is this autarch doing pretending to be a farseer? Could they not get a real farseer? The rest of the Cabal should be saying 'shut up Eldar' (would you not lose all respect for them as farseers, when you saw that yourself?) whenever he speaks, he has no appreciable powers as a seer, and is a member of the race that got them into this absurd situation; this is less than one generation after the Fall. Less than a few centuries since the Eldar themselves were the savage self destructive race dooming the galaxy to endless suffering.

Which really isn't that good of an outcome anyways, since the Emperor is a genocidal tyrant who makes Hitler look like a fluffy bunny.

The old Star Child fluff had it that the Star Child's sapience was entirely different from the Emperor's, the good aspects of his personality, that he had to expunge to kill Horus. His mind would perish, its own would be very different.


Incidentally, the Black Cube, presumably an Old One weapon, was interesting, if only because it seems to nudge them more toward the human-sacrifice practicing Slann of WFB.

[Imperial Overlord]

I have to say that my expectations of the series were shattered with Horus's unspectacular wounding pathetic seduction into the service of Chaos the second book. It was an utter failure, as a piece of writing, and only served to convince me that Horus was a shmuck. The critical elements (a sufficiently terrible foe to wound Horus and a fatal personality flaw for Erebus to exploit) were not present which meant that we have a Primarch being mortally injured by a mere human chaos champion in single combat and Erebus, whose seduction starts out with an easily exposed lie, somehow convincing Horus to betray everyone he knows and loves.

Compared to that, Legion sounds better.

[Kuja]

Besides, I always got the impression that Alpharius was a shorty in comparison to the other Primarchs.

You know, that's something else that bugs me, and not simply because I'm an Alpharius fanboy.

Somwhere in the dank recesses of my memory continually resurfaces a tiny reference that I read somewhere long ago, something along the lines of "tall Alpharius" which implied that despite his lack of status amongst his brothers, Alpharius may have been on an equivalent level or moving towards the superior end, physically speaking.

The damning thing is, I can't remember where the bloody hell this comes from. It's just lodged up there, stubbornly refusing to come loose and the result is that every time I picture Alpharius, I do so with the image of a very tall man. I could accept an image of him as being relatively short amongst the primarchs, but the idea of him being able to pass as a normal space marine, and vice versa, is so fundamentally wrong to me that it constantly breaks SoD and I'm left with a lower opinion of the book for it.

[DocHorror]

Having read all the HH books so far (& the art-books), the one thing thats starting to annoy me is the gradual shift from the Emperor being a virtuous, but ultimatly pragmatic & wanting the best for the whole of humanity - to the Emperor being a bit of a shit, who is arrogant & bloodthirsty for power.

To me that tends to destroy the whole point of the Imperium, it was a good thing that was perverted & ruined over time by humans. Had the Emperor not been crippled by Horus the Imperium of the 41st Millenium would have been a near paradise.

[NecronLord]

It was interesting to note that a Crusade era commander could apparently have his men tortured for no reason; and had professional torturers on staff.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

It was interesting to note that a Crusade era commander could apparently have his men tortured for no reason; and had professional torturers on staff.

Whaaa? I thought the Great Crusade was supposed to be more enlightened than the 41st millennium...

Is this novel at least better than the Dark Angels one? (God, that was a turd.)

[NecronLord]

Whaaa? I thought the Great Crusade was supposed to be more enlightened than the 41st millennium...

It's still a place where all other species, regardless of how good or bad they are, are to be destroyed, where all humans must pay fealty to the Emperor or be destroyed, and where Apothecaries are trained by watching chemical weapons demonstrations on 'heretics.'

"'Great Crusade,' how telling was that title."

Is this novel at least better than the Dark Angels one? (God, that was a turd.)

Yes.

[Kuja]

I have to say that my expectations of the series were shattered with Horus's unspectacular wounding pathetic seduction into the service of Chaos the second book. It was an utter failure, as a piece of writing, and only served to convince me that Horus was a shmuck. The critical elements (a sufficiently terrible foe to wound Horus and a fatal personality flaw for Erebus to exploit) were not present which meant that we have a Primarch being mortally injured by a mere human chaos champion in single combat and Erebus, whose seduction starts out with an easily exposed lie, somehow convincing Horus to betray everyone he knows and loves.

Compared to that, Legion sounds better.

You know, having considered this post on my drive home, I'd actually have to say Alpharius' corruption is the worst to be depicted so far.

Horus' took the better part of two books to move through, involved a near-death experience and multiple points of outside intervention.

Fulgrim's requires the entirety of his novel, his slow turn away from his ideals manifesting at the beginning and his actual corruption starting to seep in halfway through.

Alpharius' takes one bloody chapter, and it goes something like this:

CABAL: The galaxy's fucked. You're going to have to turn against everything you believe in if you want to save any of it.

ALPHARIUS: Okay.

It's the most retarded betrayal seen in the entire Heresy series. Alpharius barely even stops to consider the possibility that this alliance of xenos (his collected enemies) might be duping him and instead rapidly (almost gleefully) turns on the 670th expedition and wipes it out (and I have to say, either the gunner on the Beta had the 'automatic headshot' option switched, or those Imperial ships were made out of paper mache for all the fight they put up).

The end of the book is like an insult to the reader, and on reflection, it seems to me like Dan Abnett read the snatch "the Alpha Legion often uses Imperialistic battle cries such as "For the Emperor!" to mock and frustrate their opponents' and decided hey, wouldn't it be cool if they actually meant it? and began laying down his outline without giving it the following thirty seconds of thought needed to tear the whole concept down again.

[LapsedPacifist]

Ifinished Legion this morning.

The ending really was as bad as people were saying.

I actually didn't mind the Omegon thing too much, but the ending. Ouch. Which is a shame because I really liked the rest of the book and Alpha Legion has always been a favorite of mine.

LP

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Having read all the HH books so far (& the art-books), the one thing thats starting to annoy me is the gradual shift from the Emperor being a virtuous, but ultimatly pragmatic & wanting the best for the whole of humanity - to the Emperor being a bit of a shit, who is arrogant & bloodthirsty for power.

To me that tends to destroy the whole point of the Imperium, it was a good thing that was perverted & ruined over time by humans. Had the Emperor not been crippled by Horus the Imperium of the 41st Millenium would have been a near paradise.

Prehaps that's being done to show the perspective from the Chaos side?

[Cykeisme]

Perhaps it's a matter of differing points of view?

Does the book describe Alpharius' perspective of what he thinks the Emperor's goals are, or does the book explicitly state that the Emperor is a dick who doesn't know what he's doing?

Perhaps the Emperor's strength is such that the Cabal and their prophecies may be wrong.

It may even be possible that the Emperor has such power that he is aware of those same predictions and possibilities that the Cabal foresees, but with that knowledge, he also knows he has the power to alter avoid fate and prevent it from coming to pass.. even if he defeated Horus and his patron Gods.
He could simply be playing closer to the same level as the Chaos Gods, which is simply out of the Cabal's league.

[Lonestar]

Not to repeat everyone here, but I loved the book. Right up to the last couple of chapters.

For a Chapter that is so cautious(If the Cabal is so shit-hot on predicting stuff, why'd they fall into the Alpha Legion trap?) they blandly accepted that there were only two options pretty quickly...from a group of people who would benefit from Humanity getting destroyed. That really, really pissed me off.

I did like John Grammaticus though, and him basically confirming that the Emperor is as big an asshole as most of his Primarchs. Fruit not falling far from the tree and all that.

[Cykeisme]

How big an asshole is the Emperor?

And are the facts that lead to this conclusion provided by unquestionable omniscient narration, or by characters' perspectives/claims?

[Kuja]

As an excercise in intellectual masturbation (ahhh, that's nice...anyway) I asked myself to stop simply bitching about Legion and thought about what I'd change, if I were given the chance. Here's what I came up with.

Although I have to admit the Omegon idea is...creative, I think it ultimately detracts from the character of Alpharius and requires too many hoops to jump through to be believeable. Although I think I'd keep Omegon around, I would delete the idea of the primarch twins from the book and remake him as a Maloghurst or Luthoresque figure from Alpharius' younger days, a man who's been with the primarch so long they have become virtual twins.

I would give a little more insight into the mind of Alpharius the man. Although using outside perstictives to showcase the Alphas' talent for subtely worked brilliantly, I think it was taken a bit too far. The book shines best at the brief windows when we get to see the Legionnaires banter between each other and it was to my supreme disappointment how little screen time Alpharius got.

The Cabal would get the biggest remake of the entire book. Rather than some future-reading bunch of cock-ups, I would make the Cabal an inter-species alliance, each of whom has been fucked over by humanity in some way, hellbent on stopping the Imperium's growth. Chaos doesn't need to be introduced at all (after six books of "Imperium learning about Chaos" I think the meme is a little tired). The Cabal would appear in the book as a group with the intent to assassinate Alpharius, seeing him as the weakest primarch and a good warm-up target. This motive would make the Cabal an excellent foil for the character of Alpharius, a man who spent his life demanding the respect of his peers and never quite earning it.

In the course of the book, we would learn that one of the reasons the Alpha Legion is being so sneaky on Noth is not simply out of habit, but because Alpharius is scouting for talent. Alpharius, you see, wants to set up a satellite state of his own, loyal to the Imperium but under his control. Though outwardly he has flowery and nice political motivations for doing so, the unspoken motive is that his seething rivalry with Roboute Guilliman is leading him to try and create his own version of Ultramar as a slap in the face to the Ultramarine primarch. The Genos, with their high standard of martial discipline and their motto of "Unit before Imperium, geno before gene" have attracted Alpharius' attention and in reality he is testing first to see if they're worthy of his approval and second to find if they'd be amenable to his cause.

Holy crap I just wrote a whole lot more than I intended. I'm gonna stop now before I lurch into full-blown fanfic mode. But anyway, my fellow Forty-kayers, what do you think? How would you change Legion, given the chance?

[LapsedPacifist]

Alpharius and his Legion being tall is mentioned in the WD article on them.

And on Legion: Having given it a bit of time I wish there was any emphasis on the rivalry between Alpha Legion and the other SM legions. The fluff makes it seem that one of the primary reasons they joined the heresy was simply to put their tactics to the test. -At least that's my take on it.

LP

[Sidewinder]

In the course of the book, we would learn that one of the reasons the Alpha Legion is being so sneaky on Noth is not simply out of habit, but because Alpharius is scouting for talent. Alpharius, you see, wants to set up a satellite state of his own, loyal to the Imperium but under his control. Though outwardly he has flowery and nice political motivations for doing so, the unspoken motive is that his seething rivalry with Roboute Guilliman is leading him to try and create his own version of Ultramar as a slap in the face to the Ultramarine primarch. The Genos, with their high standard of martial discipline and their motto of "Unit before Imperium, geno before gene" have attracted Alpharius' attention and in reality he is testing first to see if they're worthy of his approval and second to find if they'd be amenable to his cause.

That's actually a good idea. Mind if I borrow it for my own WH40K fanfics (when I finally get around to writing one)?

[Kuja]

Alpharius and his Legion being tall is mentioned in the WD article on them.

I love you.

That's actually a good idea. Mind if I borrow it for my own WH40K fanfics (when I finally get around to writing one)?

Sure, so long as you credit me and give me a shout when it goes up so I can read it.