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[Grim Portent]

Reading the Horus Heresy novels.

Are Primarchs even capable of rational thought? I'm starting to think the reason they're so large is that they're half Ork or something >.>

They are part warp sorcery, grew up in months so they never had a proper childhood learning period, and passed through the Warp during their gestation if that's any help understanding them being less than rational sometimes.

[Loud Whispers]

Reading the Horus Heresy novels.

Are Primarchs even capable of rational thought? I'm starting to think the reason they're so large is that they're half Ork or something >.>

Their daddy issues are so big they count as monstrous creatures

[Neonivek]

Reading the Horus Heresy novels.

Are Primarchs even capable of rational thought? I'm starting to think the reason they're so large is that they're half Ork or something >.>

Their daddy issues are so big they count as monstrous creatures

Oddly enough that is sometimes literal.

[TempAcc]

Pretty much all of the chaos primarchs had massive daddy issues. The loyalist primarchs had issues too, obv, but they were minor in comparison or they just got over it (I mean, just look at lorgar, angron, fulgrim and magnus, they're like, godlike manchild tier, not sure about mortarion). Its also kinda hard to say anything about the loyalist primarchs since they've been turned into plot excuses by GWS to keep the status quo forever unharmed either dead/half dead or mysteriously gone somewhere to supposedly return when big E dies or is close to dying or some other arbitrary issue is resolved.

Lorgar is a special case, though. If he's to be believed, he never actualy hated the big E, he just wanted to know something, and apparently eventualy wanted humanity to willingly join with chaos, instead of becoming possessed by daemons. And despite being a daemon prince for chaos undivided, he hasn't done anything since he became a full daemon, just sitting in his monastery thinking about... Stuff.

[GiglameshDespair]

Everything in the Horus Heresy could have been avoided if Emps wasn't a duechebag to Lorgar.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Everything in the Horus Heresy could have been avoided if Emps wasn't a duechebag to Lorgar.

Read "wasn't a douchebag" as "let him start a fanatical cult that inadvertently stood against almost everythjng the Imperial Truth signified and let him spread it among the first and staunchest defenders of the Imperial Truth".
The biggest mistake the Emperor made here was letting him keep his Chaos cult leader buddy Kor Phaeron as second-in-command.

Cease your heresies.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Reading the Horus Heresy novels.

Are Primarchs even capable of rational thought? I'm starting to think the reason they're so large is that they're half Ork or something >.>

They are part warp sorcery, grew up in months so they never had a proper childhood learning period, and passed through the Warp during their gestation if that's any help understanding them being less than rational sometimes.

They, and Astartes as a whole, both also exist under the concept that there's just "more" to them than normal humans. They exist on a larger scale, and everything that they do and think happens in an accordingly larger scale as well. Hence why you get the 20000-page epics on lost relics and chapter rivalries, extreme battle ratios, etc.

It's like the idea of the difference between smallfolk and nobles in ASoIAF.

Everything in the Horus Heresy could have been avoided if Emps wasn't a duechebag to Lorgar.

Not true, Kor Phareon had already secretly embraced Chaos and was spreading it. Nobody knew to try and root it out because Big E kept Chaos a secret. Chaos was also returning from a more calm period of the Warp on its own, and would have crashed headlong into the Imperium eventually anyway.

And if you believe certain stories about a certain Corpse-God not keeping promises to his betters, then nothing could have stopped it.

Lets go down the list, shall we?
I - Lion El'Jonson: Loyal, repeatedly betrayed by others, consorted with Xenos. Alive.
II - Unknown: The Forgotten.
III - Fulgrim: Traitor, obsessive perfectionist, chaos twink. Trusted Fabius Bile. Initially became daemonhost out of despair, later served Slaanesh willingly. Alive.
IV - Perturabo: Traitor, coldly logical euphoric fedora who doesn't need a God-Emperor. Committed genocide on his own homeworld. Serves Chaos Undivided. Extended dick-measuring murder contest with Rogal Dorn. Alive.
V - Jaghatai Khan: Loyal. Literally Genghis Khan. Lack of detail. Currently Dark Eldar pain slave. "Alive."
VI - Leman Russ: Loyal. Doesn't afraid of anything. Out-drank and out-ate the Emperor. So annoying the Emperor punched him in the face once. Really eager to murder Magnus and everyone he ever loved. Just kind of fucked off after the Heresy. Alive?
VII - Rogal Dorn: Loyal. Sentimental. Went all emo after the Emperor died. Presumed dead.
VIII - Konrad Curze: Traitor. Psycho Terrorist Batman. Could see the future of the Emperor killing him. CRAWWWLING INNNN MYYY SKIINNNNN. Dead.
IX - Sanguinius: Loyal, filthy mutant, Space Jesus. Technically the Emperor's appointed successor. Only Primarch Horus regretted not being able to turn. Still not as cool as Ollanius Pius. Ruining his legion as a dank meme. Deadist.
X - Ferrus Manus: Loyal, has iron hands. Boring. Died like a bitch to his best friend.
XI - Unknown: The Purged.
XII - Angron: Traitor, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGAAHAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE HATED THE EMPEROR HATED EVERYBODY BUT HORUS STILL KILLING IMPERIAL DOGS ALIVE BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOOODDDDDDDDD
XIII - Roboute Guilliman: Loyal, your spiritual liege, crippled the Imperium's ability to wage war out of paranoia, elitist racist prick even to his own brothers, wanted to be the Emperor. Horrifying living death in stasis.
XIV - Mortarion: Traitor, Blighttown personified, super edgy. Only cared at all about Horus. Serves Nurgle, as should you. Totally defeated by Kaldor Dragio because each of the Grey Knights is as a Primarch unto themselves! Yeah! "Alive."
XV - Magnus: Traitor. Knew the Emperor better than almost anyone thanks to telepathy. Shunned by most of his brothers for being a witch. Was only trying to help. Serves Tzeentch, barely. Alive.
XVI - Horus: Arch-Betrayer. Most beloved son of the Emperor, Space Judas. Only person to have a good relationship with all of his brothers. Retroactively infected with grimdark. Avatar of Chaos. More dead than you can imagine.
XVII - Lorgar: Traitor, would worship anything shiny, total pansy. First traitor primarch. Created the Ecclesiarchy. Actually cared about Angron, for some reason. Alive.
XVIII - Vulkan: Loyal, immortal, tried to be a humanist in 40K. Tortured to insanity by Konrad Cruze. Killed anyway, maybe. Dead?
XIX - Corvus Corax: Loyal, desperate, crazy rebel wannabe. Alive.
XX - Alpharius Omegon Traitor, master of deception, small as a normal Astartes, only really knew Horus. Dead.

[nenjin]

Let me give a slightly more nuanced take on that list

Lets go down the list, shall we?
I - Lion El'Jonson: Loyal, repeatedly betrayed by others, consorted with Xenos. Made a habit of keeping secrets all the time, about everything, which alienated a lot of his people and other legions. Unlike Jaghatai Khan, who was mysterious because he wanted to be left alone, El'Jonson was mysterious because it was simply in his blood to keep everyone in the dark about everything. Something about growing up on Caliban in those dark woods with that dark secret underneath them. Alive, but basically in stasis until the little guys in robes decide it's time for him to wake up. Unsurprisingly, almost no Dark Angels know this fact.

II - Unknown: The Forgotten.

III - Fulgrim: Traitor, obsessive perfectionist, chaos twink. Trusted Fabius Bile. Initially became daemonhost out of despair, later served Slaanesh willingly. Alive. This is pretty much accurate. Fulgrim was the 2nd to fall behind Lorgar, made vulnerable by his own ego and passions. Also the first to kill a fellow primarch.

IV - Perturabo: Traitor, coldly logical euphoric fedora who doesn't need a God-Emperor. Committed genocide on his own homeworld. Serves Chaos Undivided. Extended dick-measuring murder contest with Rogal Dorn. Alive. Really, Perturabo feels under appreciated by everyone. They get the grunt work fortifying worlds, Imperial Fists get all the glory building key note fortresses. Everyone thinks the Iron Warriors are just good at building functional static defenses and doesn't respect their other talents. Perturabo is the equal of Dorn and Guillman as a tactician, but no one will say it. Jealousy, in other words. When Horus offered him the chance to both show he was better and take revenge on Dorn, Guillman and the rest, he was all about it.

V - Jaghatai Khan: Loyal. Literally Genghis Khan. Lack of detail. Currently Dark Eldar pain slave. "Alive." The Khan is a free spirit. He like, just wants to ride, man. Orders, plans, taking sides....whatever. That's so not how he rolled on Chogoris and he's not about to change now. Is deliberately elusive even to allies, so no one can pin him down. The ultimate Easy Rider.

VI - Leman Russ: Loyal. Doesn't afraid of anything. Out-drank and out-ate the Emperor. So annoying the Emperor punched him in the face once. Really eager to murder Magnus and everyone he ever loved. Just kind of fucked off after the Heresy. Alive? Disappeared, probably hibernated after the Heresy. May have gone off questing into the Warp. Russ and the Space Wolves have always been the Emperor's hatchet men, tasked with the undesirable mission of punishing or killing their own. Everyone is scared of Russ, and respects him, but Space Wolves have always stood apart from everyone else, by choice and by design. That's why they're the best legion for the job of being executioners. No mixed loyalties.

VII - Rogal Dorn: Loyal. Sentimental. Went all emo after the Emperor died. Presumed dead. Dorn is just an asshole, really. He's so rigid about everything that he's unlikable and has no pity. He's got feels, like he regrets having to turn Terra into a fortress. But he's so uncompromising that he's pretty much the poster boy for what Traitor Legions hate about the Emperor's Astartes.

VIII - Konrad Curze: Traitor. Psycho Terrorist Batman. Could see the future of the Emperor killing him. CRAWWWLING INNNN MYYY SKIINNNNN. Dead.
Another of the Emperor's Unloved Children. Born on a shit hole world, insane from Day 1, developing a repugnant way of waging war, no one was ever going to like Cruze. He's the ultimate nihilist, and his genes ensured his legion would be a problem as well. In some ways, other than the two lost legions, I think he got dealt the shittiest hand out of everyone.

IX - Sanguinius: Loyal, filthy mutant, Space Jesus. Technically the Emperor's appointed successor. Only Primarch Horus regretted not being able to turn. Still not as cool as Ollanius Pius. Ruining his legion as a dank meme. Deadist.Blood Angels hate detected. It's generally agreed, other than perfection at everything, Sanguinius was the best of all the primarchs, because he was the most human. (Despite, you now, being a vampire.) He pretty alone out of all the primarchs had empathy and due to semi-prophetic skills, had the largest view I think of the Heresy short of the Emperor. Space Jesus is about right.

X - Ferrus Manus: Loyal, has iron hands. Boring. Died like a bitch to his best friend. Ferrus Manus was a passionate, creative dude. Hard, uncompromising, talented, willful. His fiery and impetuous nature is what drove him against the Traitor Legions at Istavaan IV when everyone else was retreating, and lead to Fulgrim-Daemon separating his head from his body. The two were actually pretty close before the Heresy.

XI - Unknown: The Purged.

XII - Angron: Traitor, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGAAHAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE KHORNE HATED THE EMPEROR HATED EVERYBODY BUT HORUS STILL KILLING IMPERIAL DOGS ALIVE BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOOODDDDDDDDD. I mean, Angron is the easiest to pigeon hole out of all the Traitor Primarchs. Truth is, he's got some actual pathos. Landing on a world of slave gladiators and being implanted with The Nails, which hyper fueled his aggression for the amusement of his masters, he was pretty much in his element until the Emperor showed up. Angron's Gladiator pals were killed in the uprising to overtake the planet, and Angron was driven even madder by the loss of the one thing in the universe he gave a shit about, his friends. The Emperor? Fuck him, had a fight with him as soon as he saw him. His Legion? Fuck em, he killed them by the dozens in his rages the first years. The Imperium? Pffft. There was really only direction for Angron to go, and that was into Khorne's arms. Like Cruze, one of the Emperor's ugly, unloved bastards.

XIII - Roboute Guilliman: Loyal, your spiritual liege, crippled the Imperium's ability to wage war out of paranoia, elitist racist prick even to his own brothers, wanted to be the Emperor. Horrifying living death in stasis. In fact, he started Imperium Secundus because the Ruin Storm over his worlds cut off all contact and travel with Terra. Figuring this was the opening gambit in an all out assault on the Imperium, and not being able to go anywhere, he figured he'd start planning for the future.

XIV - Mortarion: Traitor, Blighttown personified, super edgy. Only cared at all about Horus. Serves Nurgle, as should you. Totally defeated by Kaldor Dragio because each of the Grey Knights is as a Primarch unto themselves! Yeah! "Alive." Unlikable Bastard #3. The Emperor, in his infinite wisdom, basically designed all the primarchs to fill some battlefield role. Cruze, terror troops. Angron, frontline shock troops. Mortarion, super heavy tank troops. Unfortunately, between the world Mortarion landed on (poisonous shit hole), and the Emperor's gene coding, he was a dour and unlikable bastard before he ever went to Chaos. Taciturn, implacable, a loner, it's always the quiet ones you gotta watch out for. Like Perturabo, he turned to Chaos because Horus, deceptively or not, offered him friendship and inclusion where few others wouldn't, and revenge against those that had so smugly placed themselves above him.

XV - Magnus: Traitor. Knew the Emperor better than almost anyone thanks to telepathy. Shunned by most of his brothers for being a witch. Was only trying to help. Serves Tzeentch, barely. Alive. Hubris, that's Magnus' thing. He had the talent and the capability and naturally asked 'Why not do all these things?' That mistakenly extended to disobeying the Emperor on the Edict of the Council of Nikea, but, when you're literally made for Warp Sorcery and have built an entire culture around it, by the guy now telling you to stop.... The Thousands Sons could have been a powerful ally against Horus, if a) Magnus hadn't tried to help and b) everyone wasn't in such a hurry to kill them. And even IF they'd joined the Emperor during the Heresy, for whatever reason, they'd have been screwed. Magnus couldn't fix the flaws inherent in their geneseed that were causing them to mutate, so Ahriman would have either done the Rubric and doomed them all anyways, or a modern day Imperium would have had them exterminated. All that power and knowledge, and still not able to fix what's wrong with them.

XVI - Horus: Arch-Betrayer. Most beloved son of the Emperor, Space Judas. Only person to have a good relationship with all of his brothers. Retroactively infected with grimdark. Avatar of Chaos. More dead than you can imagine. And you know what was at the root of it all? Resentment. Not just daddy issues, but, resenting conquering a galaxy and having to let someone else administrate it. That's....literally it, other than being tricked into a Chaos ritual that was the first chink in his armor that allowed Chaos to take root. Basically, when you're almost as strong as the Emperor (to begin with) and everyone loves you, it's probably natural anyone starts asking if they could do a better job than Dad.

XVII - Lorgar: Traitor, would worship anything shiny, total pansy. First traitor primarch. Created the Ecclesiarchy. Actually cared about Angron, for some reason. Alive. Lorgar's descent into Chaos is kinda two-fold: one, having his worship of the Emperor spurned, watching the Emperor and Ultramarines torch a city he loved as a message to him, and two, truly believing and caring about a higher power. Lorgar, as you say, was going to worship something either way. Between the Emperor making him a god basically, and then shoving him away, it was pretty inevitable he was going to bump into the next greatest power of the Universe, and serve it. I don't know if the Heresy could have happened without Lorgar and his Legion's total commitment to scheming and overthrowing the Imperium. That's the real value of their devotion. Because, g'damn, they're were the architects of almost every plot and dirty-handed trick pulled against the Imperium during the Heresy.

XVIII - Vulkan: Loyal, immortal, tried to be a humanist in 40K. Tortured to insanity by Konrad Cruze. Killed anyway, maybe. Dead? Not really much else to say about Vulkan. I think thematically he's the sacrificial lamb of the Imperium, or like a symbol of untameable life and rebirth. Generally a decent guy by Primarch standards, loses his legion, gets tortured, driven mad, tortured some more. Who he and his legion are, is kind of at odds with the most obvious things about them (black skin, live in volcanos, dragons.) I guess sort of like a volcano, they're soft spoken and slow to anger, but once you do get them mad, they rage like crazy.

XIX - Corvus Corax: Loyal, desperate, crazy rebel wannabe. Alive. Well, he and the beginnings of his legion did break free from and overtake a prison world, before the Emperor showed up and made them all Space Marines. Stealth infiltrators and assassins, their skills honed by having to kill guards and overseers barehanded in the dark tunnels of the prison. Corax and his legion are damaged goods in the sense they were pretty badly abused which sets the stage for a lack of trust of others and staying isolated.

XX - Alpharius Omegon Traitor, master of deception, small as a normal Astartes, only really knew Horus. Dead.I mean, where to begin with these two? First off, only one of them is supposed to be "confirmed" dead. Quotes because with them you never really know. Psychological warfare, on everyone, that's their game. Everyone, even Horus, was uncertain about their loyalties. In the modern Imperium, the Alpha Legion still do things and act mysteriously for their own reasons, playing at a strategy only they see. That they're involved with Tzeentch is no surprise, but, if I had to point to one legion that would pop out of nowhere to save the day for the Imperium during some cataclysmic 40k event, it'd be the Alpha Legion. They did what they were designed to do so well during the Heresy, if Alpharius/Omegon had really tried to bring the Imperium down for Horus, they could have.

[Bohandas]

Everything in the Horus Heresy could have been avoided if Emps wasn't a duechebag to Lorgar.

Read "wasn't a douchebag" as "let him start a fanatical cult that inadvertently stood against almost everythjng the Imperial Truth signified and let him spread it among the first and staunchest defenders of the Imperial Truth".

Given that the Imperial Truth was in fact a huge lie I'd say that yes, it was indeed douchey to not let him take actions that are in opposition

[Tack]

Ok, in Angron's defense, he pulled a 'Spartacus', and was just about to do his last and most awesome battle with all of his mates when Emprar turned up and was like 'C'mon'.
To which Angron said 'Only if the other slaves can come with me'. But Emprar had other ideas and pulled him out of there and left everyone else to get slaughtered.

Oh Noo, we can't make THEM into space marines.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Everything in the Horus Heresy could have been avoided if Emps wasn't a duechebag to Lorgar.

Read "wasn't a douchebag" as "let him start a fanatical cult that inadvertently stood against almost everythjng the Imperial Truth signified and let him spread it among the first and staunchest defenders of the Imperial Truth".

Given that the Imperial Truth was in fact a huge lie I'd say that yes, it was indeed douchey to not let him take actions that are in opposition

Well, it sort of was a lie. But it was still preferable to Lorgar's plain nutsballs ideas about everything. It was not a choice between a huge lie and the truth, it was a choice between a huge lie that served a rational purpose, however misguided, and a huger lie the only purpose of which was satisfying Lorgar's massive religion-boner and which had a large part in leading the Imperium to the fucked-up state we know and love today.

[quamzie]

How emperor did not manage to put some extra protection on primarch making lab?

Also, does anybody here play wh 40 k conversion of space station 13?

[Loud Whispers]

How emperor did not manage to put some extra protection on primarch making lab?

He did, but some time traveling word bearers destroyed it

I - Lion El'Jonson: Loyal, repeatedly betrayed by others, consorted with Xenos. Made a habit of keeping secrets all the time, about everything, which alienated a lot of his people and other legions. Unlike Jaghatai Khan, who was mysterious because he wanted to be left alone, El'Jonson was mysterious because it was simply in his blood to keep everyone in the dark about everything. Something about growing up on Caliban in those dark woods with that dark secret underneath them. Alive, but basically in stasis until the little guys in robes decide it's time for him to wake up. Unsurprisingly, almost no Dark Angels know this fact.

There's a great theory that the Dark Angels are the heretics and the Fallen are the loyalists

[Xantalos]

Can you explain that one for me, LW? I've been trying to find it but I can't.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In short, that the Dark Angels are willing to flat-out murder anybody who so much as suspects the existence of the Fallen, including other loyal Astartes, is suspicious. They say that they fear being marked as traitors just for the Fallen existing, but that doesn't make any god damn sense. Space Marines fall all the time, and for the most part that doesn't trigger indiscriminate purging of the parent chapter, especially not one of the legion chapters. In addition, virtually every legion had both loyalist and traitor minorities who went over to their respective sides once the fighting started.

It is almost as if the Dark Angels want to make sure that nobody in the Imperium ever gets the chance to talk to the Fallen, or vice-versa. Add that in with a lot of the Fallen living weirdly peaceful lives for supposed Chaos Space Marines and you begin to get a picture that the Dark Angels have a very literal name. The habit of keeping secrets as a chapter culture does not help their image.

And then you have to think about the Watchers in the Dark. That they're xenos the DA tolerate is heresy itself, but the Watchers are very bizarre for xenos. Their esoteric knowledge and almost-intangibility is very similar to some daemon varients, when you think about it.

And thus it was that Lion El'Jonson was in fact a secret Tzeentchian and Luther was just an ignorant but noble man who discovered things he shouldn't have.
They aren't the only ones either. There's basically mountains of evidence screaming that the Space Wolves are doing some hardcore Chaos loving on Fenris, hence why they won't allow anybody else to come within lightyears of it.