Missing Primarchs (40K)

[Rogue 9]

Its like you dont get 40k at all. Sure, making better use of this or that is a great idea, like recopying Dreadnaught schematics from the Machines themselves and mass-manufacutring them.

And the Plasma Gun thing isnt quite so bad.


As for the rest...apparently the Imperial Guard is entirely loyal etcetcetc.

No, it isn't, but if you assume that they will all turn traitor and fail to arm them, then you have no Guard worthy of the name. Yes, Guardsmen sometimes turn to Chaos, sometimes even whole regiments of them. But it isn't a majority of the Guard, or even close to it. The simple fact is that the Imperium of Man is in slow decline partly (though certainly not entirely) through its own damn fault. Could it be an open and egalitarian society? No. Could it be a hell of a lot smarter? Yes, assuredly. An Imperium of Man that wasn't constantly losing its own best technology because it can't be arsed to have backups of their schematics (which doesn't even require the Adeptus Mechanicus to change its position on research!) would be in a much better position to deal with the myriad threats menacing it.

[Rogue 9]

Ghetto edit: As for Chaos Marines not having Baneblades, nonsense. One of the big collection guys at the local shop has a Stormlord that he's dubbed the Obliteride for his Chaos army, because it totes around Obliterators. Even if you don't count that (it is explicitly in the rules that Chaos can have Imperial superheavies to represent traitor formations) there are canon Chaos superheavies on the Baneblade pattern like the Plaguereaper.

[Dominarch's Hope]

It doesnt have be 1% of the Guard.


Now, Im am not entirely disagreeing with the whole shipping them around to multiple Forge Worlds to ensure survival of the tech, but aa far as releasing everything to the Guard? Bad idea. It would be better to release it to Space Marines or maybe Sisters of Battle. That way, balance of force is maintained. Otherwise, the damage regiments of Guard can do grows exponentially, while constricting it to Astartes limits the number of leak points.



But still. Releasing everything in the 40k galaxy just strikes me as a horrifically bad idea.


Edit. The Chaos SuperHeavies. Good, good. I was wondering.


Plague reaper? Link?

[Black Admiral]

An Imperium of Man that wasn't constantly losing its own best technology because it can't be arsed to have backups of their schematics (which doesn't even require the Adeptus Mechanicus to change its position on research!) would be in a much better position to deal with the myriad threats menacing it.

Well, they do have backups - as I recall, everything the Mechanicus comes up with is archived on Mars - it's finding the damn things that's the problem, since thanks to the tendency of individual Magi to hoard knowledge the design backups are often as good as lost, since no-one still alive (or available to ask) may know where it is. This also leads to things like the Genetor-Magi apparently having chucked all the Soul Drinkers' gene-seed tithes into a fridge somewhere without even a cursory examination.

[Rogue 9]

Edit. The Chaos SuperHeavies. Good, good. I was wondering.


Plague reaper? Link?

Plaguereaper. The rules for it are in the base Apocalypse book, and it's fairly frightening. Not as frightening as an actual Baneblade, but it also costs less (in points).

Of course, they don't make a kit, so you need green stuff and a lot of converting to actually make one.

An Imperium of Man that wasn't constantly losing its own best technology because it can't be arsed to have backups of their schematics (which doesn't even require the Adeptus Mechanicus to change its position on research!) would be in a much better position to deal with the myriad threats menacing it.

Well, they do have backups - as I recall, everything the Mechanicus comes up with is archived on Mars - it's finding the damn things that's the problem, since thanks to the tendency of individual Magi to hoard knowledge the design backups are often as good as lost, since no-one still alive (or available to ask) may know where it is. This also leads to things like the Genetor-Magi apparently having chucked all the Soul Drinkers' gene-seed tithes into a fridge somewhere without even a cursory examination.

But they could still stand wider dissemination. Forge Worlds are canonically intensely competitive with each other and secretive about their designs; when Gryphonne IV and Stygies VIII replicated the Vanquisher they refused to allow their patterns to be deployed to the same warzones because they didn't want to risk side by side comparison. As you say, if it's stuck in a vault somewhere and the key thrown away by some guy who wants to be the sole proprietor, it's exactly the same as losing it.

[PainRack]

You forget, most of the Imperium's, and humanities, enemies arent the reasonable type.


Lets run down the list.

Dark Eldar-Not much of a threat strategically, but damned annoying. And the Imperium cant find them again so why bother?

Tau-In a thousand years, they will never be able to threaten the Imperium, in fact, its implied that they are one of a dozen of their size. They are also mostly isolated to a single region of the galaxy.

Eldar-Attacks arent that frequent, Ulthwe is even an ally IIRC. Strategically, they *do* present a massive threat, but only if they are suicidal. They mostly just fuck off in Deep Space or rescue Exodites when and if they need it.

Last Chancers documents an alien race that was met as mercenaries to the Tau and they hate the Imperium because the Great Crusade virus bombed their homeworld.
And this isn't unique. There are other stuff documented throughout the fluff where we see that the Imperium creates enemies for itself.
Hell, in Codex Imperialis, we are told that the Imperium routinely commits wars of aggression against aliens and it would find enemies that were too powerful/aggressive that only containment would work(The example used of the Cadian Gates is obviously retconned).
Hell, XENOS hide in the Maelstorm and Eye of Terror...... because the Imperium wars of aggression displaced them and led them to Chaos.

Everybody else? The existence of the species is at stake and the enemy can perform out of the blue attacks.

In Death Watch Rites of Battle, we learn that the DeathWatch in the past had a crusade just to wipe out an alien race, no known threat to the Imperium outside of the Ordos Xeno assessment.
There are also fluff incidents in the codexes where the Imperium xenocide worlds where the aliens were not space faring............ Again, if a complete xenocide was conducted? Ok. The Imperium gained resources and etc. But in areas where it wasn't?

That I beleive is the main Morality Tale of 40k. Being a horrendous, brutal fascist theocracy is only defensible if you literally are and have been under the threat of annhilation against enemies which could never have been reasoned with even if you tried.

Otherwise, you are a monster and need to die.

People like us remember when the Imperium was a parody, of hey, the Good Guys are THESE FUCKERS. The evil slavery fucks are football hooligans going WAAAAGH!Elves are arrogant dicks! Om Nom Nom Nom.

Oooh. For the era when Space Marine players were limited to sixty seconds in their turn, because Genestealers were so much faster reacting than them.


Also, the main point is that the Imperium is the one being dicks and aggravating its own problems. Stuff like mutation are partly aggravated by Imperial own policies afterall, and the solution of cleanse and burn hurts the Imperium too......

[Dominarch's Hope]

The mindset required to contually face implacable and dangerous foes from within and without is not the type of mindset conducive to live and let live.


And sure, they make thousands of xeno species there enemies. But the vast majority of them put together, outside of Tau sized polities, couldnt take half a segmentum. Because the Imperium has already smashed them into effective oblivion.

Im not disagreeing with your conclusion, but in no way has the Imperium's Crusades against xeno empires weakened it it the strategic sense. Especially not the point of beinf comparable to the big boys.


Outside of them, the codex factions, the Imperium can wipe their asses with any ten of them with a Sector's effort. Which means that their contributions would be nill.

The parody stuff? Yeah? Your point?

[Cykeisme]

For the folks who think that the Imperium's xenocidal policies are unreasonable (at best) or downright evulz (at worst), there's something you're forgetting.

You're comparing it with other science fiction where the timescales for the plot itself is a matter of a few decades or, at most, a few centuries. The Imperium in Warhammer 40,000 is ten thousand years in age; what was a stone age culture could advance into a spacefaring empire that could pose an actual threat, no matter how minor, to mankind's security.


Picture where mankind was a thousand years ago. See where mankind is today. Imagine where mankind will be a thousand years from now. Now imagine, instead, a subversive or downright dangerous alien race in WH40k's Milky Way.


If you're going to talk about resources expended, if you're going to talk about efficiency, then the most efficient method of dealing with budding civilizations of sentients is to wipe them out, there and then, when it'll take no more than a regiment of guard, a partial company of Astartes, or perhaps a cyclonic torpedo or two.


My views on the ridiculous amounts of authorial fiat that allow the Tau Empire to continue existing mirror those of Connor, but thanks to this discussion I realized that they are in fact a very important part of WH40k lore: they underline the dangers of laxity.
The slow response of the Imperium allowed a thorn in its side (no matter how small) to grow, whereas if they had gotten an extermination fleet there earlier back in the 34,000s, or if the explorator ship simply had bothered to bombard them itself instead of just earmarking it for cleansing. Sure, the warp storm that protected the Tau for six millenia was unusual, but it just reminds the Imperium not to risk letting it happen again.

If anything, they need to be more thorough in its campaigns of extermination. That much we agree on. Every Man must be watchful, must be vigilant, and the best way to ensure this vigilance is carried out by every Man, is to maintain the policy of hatred toward xenos.

P.S. - The Tau don't want peaceful existence. Their ideology demands that they are in control (regardless of how hopeless a proposition it is for them), and assuages their guilt at doing whatever it takes to accomplish that.

[Dominarch's Hope]

Yep, and for all its faults....


The Imperium of Man is a SUCCESS, a wild success, in that a civilization's main goal is self-perpetuation, I think only parts of India and China compare.

Now imagine that say, the Heresy only consist of Horus, Angron, and the other Primarch's who were already at Isstvaan. Imagine that whatever else happened, the other Legionnes also stayed loyal and the then the Emperor lived.

Or that the Heresy was Corax, Konrad and Alpharius Omegon but the rest stayed loyal.

Either of those would have resulted in an Imperium 10x as powerful as now. But even after a cataclysmic civil war which stole half the Warfighting capacity and set fire to the half that remained, the Imperium still stood strong for ten thousand years.

[Vaporous]

You can probably defend the Imperiums policies as necessary to a degree in 40K when the galaxy is already gone completely to shit, but the actual Great Crusade involved the unnecessary extermination of non-hostile alien civilizations just for the crime of not being human. Worse, human civilizations that learned to live with aliens , or who wished to remain semi-independent because they had managed to survive the Old Night just fine, are ruthlessly conquered or destroyed.

Black Library authors have gone out of there way to show that the things that are worst about the Imperium in 40K were already present to a degree in 30k, and that some people, even primarchs, already knew that they would end up posing problems later. Even Horus, before he goes batshit, decides that maybe not butchering their way across the stars is a better way to go. Once the wheels come off, of course, the Imperium is too unstable to show leniency. They can't take the kinds of risks they were in a position to take when momentum was on their side.

[Dominarch's Hope]

The Great Crusade was a response to the ongoing genocide against the human race. As such, killing all nonhumans possible is pre-emptive self defense.

This isnt Star Trek. The age of peace and understanding is long past and there will be no peace among the stars.

[Vaporous]

Quoting the title crawl of 40k books doesn't constitute an argument.

There are hostile aliens. The Imperium kills them. There are neutral aliens. The Imperium kills them. There are friendly aliens. The Imperium kills them and conquers the humans who get along with them. This continues way past the point where the Imperium is just Terra and Mars trying to forge some sort of order out of a cosmos that has been abusing humanity. Once the Imperium becomes more secure (by Ullanor at least), a policy of xenocide stops being self defense and becomes a waste of resources.

[White Haven]

The Imperium's decision-making flowchart is pretty simple:
Dangerous? ---> Kill it with fire.
Not Dangerous? ---> It's probably hiding something, kill it with fire.

The second part? In any given situation, maybe true, maybe not, but due to a plethora of reasons they don't bother trying to find out. Sometimes they're too busy to take the time to find out. Sometimes it's just habit born from dealing with so many dangerous aliens. Most of the time it's religious indoctrination telling them to hate, fear, and kill xenos. Understandable, yes, excusable, no. Given that the religion of the Imperium is basically the Book of Lorgar, slightly sanitized, that could even qualify as the best bit of Chaos infiltration ever...

As for being terrified of arming Guard regiments with weaponry worth a damn...are you fucking kidding me? Allow me to present four scenarios.

Stock Guard unit versus Chaos/Tyranids/Basically everybody: God dammit, we need some weapons worth a shit!
Stock Guard unit versus traitor Guard unit: Fucking traitors, good thing we're as well-armed as they are!
Upgraded Guard unit versus Chaos/Tyranids/Basically everybody: AwRIGHT, these plasma guns are fucking awesome!
Upgraded Guard unit versus traitor upgraded Guard unit: Fucking traitors, good thing we're as well-armed as they are!

Yes, there's the risk of some of them turning traitor. Tough titties. Deal with lasgun-toting traitors by shooting lasguns at them, or deal with plasgun-toting traitors by shooting plasguns at them. You're no worse off, and the rest of your enemies most definitely are worse off.

[Darksun]

It might be as simple as they refused to join a xenocidal dictatorship bent on galactic domination. Back then, perhaps traitors could be just disappeared... but centuries later Horus is just too high profile (to say nothing of the real imminent threat of him) to make go away with an information purge.

That is the conclusion I came to a long time ago. It seemed to be even worse than betraying the Imperium and shacking up with Slaanesh etc. But what is worse than that? I couldn't come up with anything. The simplest theory was that it couldn't have been however, if it was the same thing but it had the added shock of being the first time, then that might fit the bill. (This would also fit the warning that Dorn ruminates on)

Being on a smaller scale it would have been swept under the rug but the Heresy was just too massive, too far reaching to cover up.

I'm a fan of the Blank primarch theory, existence hidden as a trump card against Chaos. I'm working on ways to convincingly represent the Reasonable Marines/Knights Inductor on tabletop with existing rules, and in the meantime represent my Guard army as chapter auxiliaries. Not having Commissars is a handicap, but I can usually manage.

I like it too. Deus ex machina style, a 5th column, a faction who is suitably not retarded and regressive as a trump card from outside of the Imperium. The idea of the nids running from them made me lol.

The only thing that really does seem certain to me is that they must have some idea of where they want it to go at the Black Library. There has been quite a few references it seems only prudent they would have decided something in order to coordinate said references.


One thing I could never reconcile was how Chaos managed to blindside even Horus so completely. Almost all of them didn't even know there was any kind of intelligence there which is a big part of what left them open. You would think the big E would have at least made some mention.

“Now boys, there is thing called the warp and it is full of big nasty things that will fuck you up! Literally in the case of one of them..”

Nearest I could figure is he was naïve in thinking that he could get away with no telling them (and therefore warning them to guard against) because the big project he was doing was an attempt to cut the physical universe off from the warp. There are issues with the idea of the project being that, but that is what I heard 'the' project is.

[Dominarch's Hope]

I think Magnus knew damn well of the warp. I think it has a lot to do with why Emps was so fucking mad at him and nearly killed him at that little gathering that banned sorcery.

[Cykeisme]

Nearest I could figure is he was naïve in thinking that he could get away with no telling them (and therefore warning them to guard against) because the big project he was doing was an attempt to cut the physical universe off from the warp. There are issues with the idea of the project being that, but that is what I heard 'the' project is.

Not really, if you're referring to the grand project for which the Emperor returned to Terra to work on. The project was a human webway, partly cordoned off and partly extended from the existing webway built by the Old Ones, and still used by the Eldar.

So yes, retiring from the front lines of the Great Crusade allowed Chaos to take root in some of the Primarchs.. and no, even had He completed the project, it would not have prevented the Heresy.

The Big E is awesome, but he really did screw up by not educating the Primarchs against the corrupting dangers of Chaos. There's a lot of crazy shit he did that seems to show he's quite out of touch with being human, and the traitor Primarchs took the brunt of the bad decision-making (Lorgar's chastisement, Magnus' sanction without explanation, Angron's rebel army, etc etc).

"Cutting the physical universe off from the warp" was what the C'Tan were working on. It's a part of this incomplete project that (as a side effect) allows the Cadian Gate to exist.


Edit:

I think Magnus knew damn well of the warp. I think it has a lot to do with why Emps was so fucking mad at him and nearly killed him at that little gathering that banned sorcery.

They all knew of the warp. The human race uses it for interstellar travel.
Magnus did not know of Chaos, yet he used sorcery. The danger in this is clear, but it should have been handled by educating Magnus, instead of banning him from using magick without giving him an inkling of the reasons why.

[Black Admiral]

I think Magnus knew damn well of the warp. I think it has a lot to do with why Emps was so fucking mad at him and nearly killed him at that little gathering that banned sorcery.

No, he did not make any attempt on Magnus's life at Nikea, and to be perfectly honest, the Thousand Sons proved every accusation of recklessness and lack of comprehension of the dangers of the Warp levelled at them right; fuck, the entire Legion's got daemonic familiars (what they call Tutelaries, as I recall) which they use for trivial shit like cleaning their armour and weapons. They needed smacking down over that; the Emperor certainly could've handled the Nikean edicts better - a lot better - but the Thousand Sons needed reining in by someone because they sure weren't going to do it themselves.

[Dominarch's Hope]

Edit:

I think Magnus knew damn well of the warp. I think it has a lot to do with why Emps was so fucking mad at him and nearly killed him at that little gathering that banned sorcery.

They all knew of the warp. The human race uses it for interstellar travel.
Magnus did not know of Chaos, yet he used sorcery. The danger in this is clear, but it should have been handled by educating Magnus, instead of banning him from using magick without giving him an inkling of the reasons why.

No, thats what I mean. He knew of Chaos and of Tzeencth etc. The Subtext nearly confirms it outright. The Emperor had his sword drawn when he was facing Magnus. Atleast, thats what Ahriman notes.

I think Magnus knew damn well of the warp. I think it has a lot to do with why Emps was so fucking mad at him and nearly killed him at that little gathering that banned sorcery.

No, he did not make any attempt on Magnus's life at Nikea, and to be perfectly honest, the Thousand Sons proved every accusation of recklessness and lack of comprehension of the dangers of the Warp levelled at them right; fuck, the entire Legion's got daemonic familiars (what they call Tutelaries, as I recall) which they use for trivial shit like cleaning their armour and weapons. They needed smacking down over that; the Emperor certainly could've handled the Nikean edicts better - a lot better - but the Thousand Sons needed reining in by someone because they sure weren't going to do it themselves.

Exactly.

[Cykeisme]

Wait, you mean what I said? And you mean exactly what Black Admiral said?

Okay.

[Imperial Overlord]

Magnus did not know of Chaos, yet he used sorcery. The danger in this is clear, but it should have been handled by educating Magnus, instead of banning him from using magick without giving him an inkling of the reasons why.

Magnus knew about Chaos. His "deal" to gain the knowledge on how to reverse the flesh change and his warnings to Lorgar about not looking too far in the warp clearly show that he's long been aware that the warp contains powerful, intelligent, and dangerous entities. Magnus's fatal flaw is hubris, overestimating his ability and that of his sons to deal with warp entities. Of course, Tzeentch is smoothing the way so that they are more complacent until he yanks the rug out from under.

Nikea's purpose is clearly political, to appease the anti-psyker parts of the Imperial establishment and paper over the rift in Imperial unity. It fails to reign in anyone or correct any dangerous tendencies, in fact it goes out of its way not to condemn any group or organization (while clearly pissing on Magnus), instead it suppresses the public use of psychic powers by certain members of the Imperial establishment. No one is educated about the dangers of chaos. Dangerous practices are not discussed and selectively banned, study groups are not formed, information is not shared, etcetera. The Librarium's are merely suspended, waiting to be allowed again.

The Thousand Sons weren't the only ones with dangerous practices. I especially like the Space Wolves not even disbanding their rune priests or restricting their actions because they use "the natural powers of Fenris not the unclean powers of the warp", a statement that combines both willful ignorance and towering hubris that dwarfs the Thousand Sons..

[Dominarch's Hope]

Magnus was the nerdy type that thought he was just oh so smart and that those silly jocks just didnt know what they were talking about. Hes a DnD'r given the chance to be a wizard. He thinks he knows everything because hes read the books and etc. Magnus is basically what would actually happen if someone with the DnD'r munchkiner mindset got a hold of psyker potential. They fuck up horribly.

As far as the Rune Preist goes, it was different. Using psyker powers *is* different than outright sorcery, which is what the problem with Magnus was.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Roburto was the rules lawyer.....

[Vaporous]

Magnus obviously knew about the intelligences that live in the Warp, but I don't think he really understood "Chaos" the way the Eldar or the 40k era Inquisition do. He just thought he was dealing with powerful energy beings that he could potentially outwit, not with primordial forces actively seeking the domination and corruption of the material universe.

This is why the warning the Emperor gave him falls short. All he told Magnus was "Don't look too deep into the Great Ocean, it is dangerous." But Magnus was already looking pretty deep by then and thought he could handle it. If the Emperor had gone on to describe just how terrible these things are, maybe it makes a difference.

Or maybe not. Magnus had the arrogance of a man who is too conscious that he knows more than everyone around him. It's the entire point of his story, after all.

[Dominarch's Hope]

Roburto was the rules lawyer.....

Roboute? Primarch of the Ultramarines? No, it was Russ that was a rules lawyer and he never really stopped either.

But, no, the Emperor flat-out forbade any use of sorcery from that point on.

And then Magnus...I mean come on, how hard would it have been to simply travel to Terra?

[Imperial Overlord]

Magnus was the nerdy type that thought he was just oh so smart and that those silly jocks just didnt know what they were talking about. Hes a DnD'r given the chance to be a wizard. He thinks he knows everything because hes read the books and etc. Magnus is basically what would actually happen if someone with the DnD'r munchkiner mindset got a hold of psyker potential. They fuck up horribly.

No, he's not. He's a guy who could speak with the Emperor across the warp as a child. A being who could effortlessly surpass he teachers and wield vast powers. A man who could bargain with Tzeentch and seemingly come ahead. A man who crushed greater daemons and titans with his powers. Magnus's hubris was based on very real accomplishments. That's why he overstepped and that's why Tzeentch played the long game with him, letting him to build up confidence and hiding dangers because Magnus was so very capable and had literally decades of success under his belt.

As far as the Rune Preist goes, it was different. Using psyker powers *is* different than outright sorcery, which is what the problem with Magnus was.

That's not what I said or they did. The Rune Priests claimed not to be covered by Nikea because they didn't use the powers of the warp, which is wrong on both counts.