Primarchs' fall to Chaos

[Dlatrex]

Hey guys, I was hoping to lean on some lore-ninjas a little more up on the Heresy than I am. In going through the black library series I am currently caught up through Betrayer, and as the Primarchs are a large focus of the HH series I cannot help but try to put some order to their descent into madness. I am not sure if the following counts as SPOILERS but consider yourself warned.


Based on what the novels has listed, this is a rough timeline for the fall of the traitor Primarchs. (Time listed in relation to the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan v ~ 006.M31)

DSM -40: Lorgar reaches EoT and Cadia. Catalyzed 3 years earlier by Erebus and Kor Phaeron

DSM -6: Fulgrim acquires the blade of Laer which begins his downward spiral.

DSM -5: Alpharius/Omegon have their revelation with The Cabal. Unclear if they are actually under the sway of Chaos (at least at this point).

DSM -2: Horus falls to the Anathame at Davin. Events are catalyzed by Erebus.

DSM -2: Perturabo commits genocide against the rebellion on Olympus and realizes he is beyond forgiveness. Events catalyzed by Horus

DSM -2: Mortarion , Angron , and Fulgrim are called to meet with Horus and brought to his cause. It is possible that Mortarion was receptive due to the influence of Erebus by way of Typhon

DSM -2: Magnus the Red suffers the loss of Prospero and accepts the 'salvation' offered by Tzeentch. He appears to have achieved Daemonhood.

DSM +0: The Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V. Open Rebellion by Sons of Horus, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers, World Eaters, Death Guard, and Emperors Children. Magnus responds to Horus' invitation.

DSM +1: Perturabo and Fulgrim seek out the Angel Exterminatus. Fulgrim achieves Daemonhood.

DSM +2: Lorgar and Angron attack Ultramar. Angron achieves Daemonhood.


So with all the laid out the big question mark I have is Konrad Curze. The two stories featured in Shadows of Treachery, show his confrontation with Dorn as occurring before before the heresy has broken out, and it seems as if he was being recalled to Terra around the events of Istavaan. So the two queries I have are: have we seen exactly when Curze decides to throw off his loyalty to the Emperor? He's certainly unstable, but he seemed to try to be consilatory in part during The Dark King. Question #2. IF Curze was on the lamb, and marked for reprimand, when all hell breaks loose with Horus, should not the loyalists have suspected him FIRST when they heard legions were rallying against the emperor? Magnus was already on the black list, and they knew Horus had at least 4 legions, so I cannot think that the tactical commanders be they the Emperor, or just Dorn and his Ilk would have said "Oh! Curze, you're coming to help us pacify Horus? That's just tops!"...and not have expected a knife in the back.

Perhaps one of the later books covers this, but I haven't seen his stance explained so far.

[YorkNecromancer]

Magnus the Red suffers the loss of Prospero and accepts the 'salvation' offered by Tzeentch. He appears to have achieved Daemonhood.

Yup.



The first four Chaos legions from back in the day (World Eaters, Emperor's Children, Death Guard, Thousand Sons - one for each Chaos god, with the Black Legion as the Unaligned Chapter) all had Primarchs who Ascended/Descended into Daemon Princedom, and Epic-scale models that went with them, which, as you can see, were terrible.

Magnus was by far the ugliest model out of the four. His stats were pretty good; he was functionally equivelant to a Shadowsword but a bit more survivable. You used him for Titan killing.

Here's the other models in case you're interested. They're all pretty bloody awful.

[Force21]

Hmm....a good question about Cruze...

I'm not sure...but I would think that like a year or so before the drop sire massacre, Horus said to him "Hey Konrad want to kill stuff?"

I could see Cruze fall quite easily...because of his crazy visions of the future, you could say that he was fallen to chaos when he landed on Nastramo.

Same could be said for Perturabo when he was on Olympia, he did see the Eye of Terror since he was a child...


which is a bit odd...because if Logar got to the Eye of Terror first...don't you think he would name it?

wait... who named it the Eye of Terror....was it Logar or Perturabo? I forgot...

[DETHMOKIL]

The two of the biggest holes in the HH is 1, why the hell is Cruze sent to Isstvan, and 2 why are the Imperial Fists called back to Terra to build a fort, but construction of said fort doesn't start until the Einstein and Garro, WAAAYY later then Ullanor when the order is made to the Imps. Like at least a year in the warp doing nothing at all.

I'm personally not sure about why the White Scars do so little, besides being tricked my the Alpha Legion, via orks.

But if you ask me, Cruz was a never into capital C Chaos, he was insane and went bonkers on his own. The fact that he is 100% dead via assassin suicide, instead of suicide by daemon possession like fulgrim (arguably), tells me that he didn't have a little daemon whispering into his ear.

Also read/watch Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now, or play a personal favorite game, Spec Ops: The Line. Fantastic game. Even though you know, by me mentioning the source inspiration of the game, you slide right into the role with out even knowing it.

[DaveTycho]

The Imperial Fists didn't get back to Terra until after they found Garro was because they were stuck in a warp storm for months. Garro blowing the Eisenstien's warp core was what got them out of the warp storm and got them back to Terra. This was explained in Flight of the Eisenstien.

As well as this, the reason the Fists didn't leave for Terra straight after Ullanor was because the legion had loose ends to tie up in the galaxy at large, ie gathering the legion together, settling matters of state, Rogal Dorn making sure Horus' job as the new warmaster is less difficult for him. All of this is in Horus Rising.

[DaveTycho]

No one knows yet why the Night Lords were sent to Isstvan. Maybe ADB will explain it when he does the Night Lords Heresy novel. My opinion though is that while they were considered crazy, possibly criminal too, the Night Lords were never considered traitors, and that's why they were sent. Could also be that when the call came out to prosecute Horus, they were one of the 7 Legions who put their hands up and said "I'll do it!" while other legions were too busy/ far away/ themselves getting massacred

[Tetsugaku]

I'm personally not sure about why the White Scars do so little, besides being tricked my the Alpha Legion, via orks.

Covered in Scars - which I'm reading now. I know this thread has spoiler tags so.... Don't read any further.

Horus sent Jaghatai Khan and all his chums to the other side of the galaxy so that Khan couldn't attend Nikea. If he spoke, along with Magnus and Sanguinius, in support of the Librarius, there was a greater chance the Emperor would allow them to continue and be a significant weapon in the upcoming war. The traitor legions of course never gave up their psychic space marines.

The Khan is out of contact behind another mahoosive warp storm for two+ years, when he finds his way out, he has no idea who to trust, in fact the legion is split to a degree along original Terran, native Chogoris lines and there's significant influence from Horus and the lodges amongst the troops.

[Wildeybeast]

No one knows yet why the Night Lords were sent to Isstvan. Maybe ADB will explain it when he does the Night Lords Heresy novel. My opinion though is that while they were considered crazy, possibly criminal too, the Night Lords were never considered traitors, and that's why they were sent. Could also be that when the call came out to prosecute Horus, they were one of the 7 Legions who put their hands up and said "I'll do it!" while other legions were too busy/ far away/ themselves getting massacred

This is most likely the reason. Horus has engineered it so certain legions were well out of the way, whilst others were close to hand, namely the ones supporting him and some loyal ones he wanted to kill. The emperor probably just grabbed those who were closest and this who could most quickly gather their full strength and sent them.

[Dlatrex]

Love those Epic minis.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20 and it is difficult for us to see how the Emperor (or Dorn) could put his trust in these turncoats and not see the cancer that had been eating away at them. It's just in this case a bit hard for me to wrap my mind around as Curze appears to have been right in the middle of being brought to 'justice' by the Emperor (or Dorn!).

Further illumination is required, and if there is a Night Lords book on the.. well, books, then perhaps that will sort it out. On paper, just as I would not have called on Magnus to help the loyalists, I would not think the Night Lords have been on the invite list to this particular party.

[DWest]

Looking at that Fulgrim model, I really want to build a 40k-scale version, maybe using a Trygon as the base? Just for the sheer lunacy, if nothing else.

As for the Night Lords, Imperium HQ might have been naive enough to still consider them loyal, if a bit loopy; after all, the separation between the murder and mayhem in a Night Lords compliance as compared to say, a Blood Angels compliance is one of degree, not direction.