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How many Primarchs?


Lestat

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I was having a discussion late the other night with a couple of buddies about the Heresy and the Legions. We got around to the Alpha Legion and were discussing Alpharius and Omegon.

To cut a long story short, we eventualy decided that there are in fact 21 primarchs, not 20 - with the Alpha Legion having 2.

 

Now, the Emperor was a genius and created the Primarchs in His own image. Does this mean that he either deliberately created the twin Primarchs, or is Omegon in fact one of the missing Primarchs. Or maybe he just made a mistake?

 

Can't really remember what the outcome of the discussion was (my neuroglotis doesn't seem to be up to it's job these days..............)

 

I was wondering what the fine fellows on B&C thought?

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20 Primarchs - the 9 Loyalists and 9 Traitors. 2 missing, and False Gods contains a scene suggesting they died in incubation (though Mechanicum implies they survived, and fell somehow later)

 

Omegon's existence is known by very few - the Alpha Legionnaires, the Cabal and the Emperor. And perhaps Horus. He and Alpharius are twins, and are counted as 1 Primarch (1 soul in two bodies)

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The Emperor created only 20 Primarchs. From the looks of things Omegon was likely just an accident, perhaps created by the warp, considering some of the other Primarchs were mutated. Hopefully we will see the remaining two legions appear at some point, likely not, since GW wont ever progress the storyline. >:huh:
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If you believe non-directly-produced-by-GW-products: In Dawn of War 2, the Blood Ravens are described as a chapter, that somehow forgot/lost the knowledge of their (probably dead) primarch (which means they do at the moment not know who their primarch was). So this could mean they are 1.founding and one of the lost primarchs is the Blood Raven primarch or they're 2.founding and just don't know where their geneseed came from. They never mentioned where the gene-seed for the Blood Ravens came from, so both could be possible.

 

So the question is for how "official" you consider a product under the license of Warhammer 40k.

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20 Primarchs - the 9 Loyalists and 9 Traitors. 2 missing, and False Gods contains a scene suggesting they died in incubation (though Mechanicum implies they survived, and fell somehow later)

 

Omegon's existence is known by very few - the Alpha Legionnaires, the Cabal and the Emperor. And perhaps Horus. He and Alpharius are twins, and are counted as 1 Primarch (1 soul in two bodies)

 

Although they might be twins, does not the Alpha Legion have, in effect, two Primarchs? I mean, they might be 1 soul in two bodies - a literal carbon copy of each other - but that would be like saying that twins are not individual people. They might be very similar, but there must be some differences between the two.

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If you believe non-directly-produced-by-GW-products: In Dawn of War 2, the Blood Ravens are described as a chapter, that somehow forgot/lost the knowledge of their (probably dead) primarch (which means they do at the moment not know who their primarch was). So this could mean they are 1.founding and one of the lost primarchs is the Blood Raven primarch or they're 2.founding and just don't know where their geneseed came from. They never mentioned where the gene-seed for the Blood Ravens came from, so both could be possible.

 

So the question is for how "official" you consider a product under the license of Warhammer 40k.

The Dark of War story however give hints of the Blood Ravens being from

Magnus the Red

's geneseed.

 

They might be very similar, but there must be some differences between the two.

No difference. That's the thing.

 

And there's also the part of how official Legion is to be taken since it's the first and only place throughout the 30 years of GW that Omegon has been mentioned at all.

 

TDA

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I mean, they might be 1 soul in two bodies - a literal carbon copy of each other - but that would be like saying that twins are not individual people. They might be very similar, but there must be some differences between the two.

No difference. That's the thing.

 

Indeed, Legion describes the Alpha Legion as actually taking steps to ensure that not just the Primarchs but also the Marines look alike.

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Omegon's existence is known by very few - the Alpha Legionnaires, the Cabal and the Emperor. And perhaps Horus.

 

as far as i'm aware there has never been anything to sugest the emperor or horus knew about the twins. i would say just like sanguinius's wings the twin thing came about after they were scatered by chaos. so officially there are only 20 primarchs recorded because no one who would recored it knew anything about omegon.

 

So the question is for how "official" you consider a product under the license of Warhammer 40k.

 

at the end of the day i'm sure GW wont let anything be published they dont want to be, they cant be stupid enough to not have clause's in their contracts for that sort of thing. the heresy series is a big earner for everyone involved with it (authers, black library and GW). guants ghosts , last chancers, blood ravens and inquisitor eishenhorn all have had rules, models and "official" GW fluff after having been in products under license.

so yeah i would say the heresy books are 100% cannon wether we like it or not

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so yeah i would say the heresy books are 100% cannon wether we like it or not

I would disagree on the "100% cannon" comment as you have to allow for artistic licence in creative work such as books. So whilst you can use the books for a flavour of the time, some of the information can be discarded as the author trying to make a fun novel.

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so yeah i would say the heresy books are 100% cannon wether we like it or not

I would disagree on the "100% cannon" comment as you have to allow for artistic licence in creative work such as books. So whilst you can use the books for a flavour of the time, some of the information can be discarded as the author trying to make a fun novel.

 

Don't have to remind people of the dreadful Blood Angels novels..........

 

 

Anyway, the Emperor must have some inkling that there were twins. After all, how do you explain finding two identical Primarchs on a planet when you only expected to find one.

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Omegon's existence is known by very few - the Alpha Legionnaires, the Cabal and the Emperor. And perhaps Horus. He and Alpharius are twins, and are counted as 1 Primarch (1 soul in two bodies)

This one.

The Cabal wouldn't speak to Alpharius alone, they demanded to speak with the WHOLE primarch (they wanted Omegon as well).

 

IIRC, GW has stated that the Heresy novels are 40k canon.

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so yeah i would say the heresy books are 100% cannon wether we like it or not

I would disagree on the "100% cannon" comment as you have to allow for artistic licence in creative work such as books. So whilst you can use the books for a flavour of the time, some of the information can be discarded as the author trying to make a fun novel.

 

Don't have to remind people of the dreadful Blood Angels novels..........

 

 

Anyway, the Emperor must have some inkling that there were twins. After all, how do you explain finding two identical Primarchs on a planet when you only expected to find one.

 

 

Alpharius wasn't found on a planet like the other Primarchs. He actually sort of "discovered" himself when he and an unspecified fleet of raiders attacked one of Horus's ships. So it is entirely possible that Omegon is a secret known to the legion and the legion only.

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IIRC, GW has stated that the Heresy novels are 40k canon.

 

Actually, that was Dan Abnett, but the novels haven't exhibited any glaring contradictions with existing fluff (as BL has a tendency to do) yet. Their canon status isn't confirmed, but it's a safe bet that with a massive series like this, someone from the Design Studio has given it the once-over.

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Alpharius was only stopped about a feet from Horus throat. And he stopped on his own account from recognizing Horus as his own kin.

 

Point being Alpharius didn't like the Emperor at all. Only briefly saying hello to him as he and Horus returned to Ancient Terra. And only after Horus had kept Alpharius a secret from the rest of the family for some time, possibly to make sure that he and Alpharius bonded in a different way than the rest of the brothers.

 

TDA

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Well is that not the sort of thing you'd tell your long lost dad - "oh by the way, I'm a twin - you've got two of us"

 

yes but alphaius/omegon were smart enough to know that while they were the only ones with that knowlege they had a tactical advantage, information is power after all. so why volenteer that info?.

 

and before somone says " but the emperor is so awsome he must have known about them" just remember this is the same emperor that didnt even know horus had gone bad untill he was told :lol:

 

anyway well off topic and all. i still say there were only officaly 20 primarchs as no one knew about omegon. but it could be interpreted as 20 primarchs all up as alphaius and omegon were " one soul in two bodies". but will we ever know?

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ok first of all there were only exactly 20 Primarchs. Omegon was probably something that happened in the warp like Sanguinius growing wings etc. Alpharius and Omegon count as one (1) Primarch only.

 

I doubt that Horus or the emperor knew about the twin at all. based on the Alpha Legion's background, Alpharius would not have told anyone about Omegon. knowledge is power and Alpharius would logically keep that power to himself.

 

so Legion says the cabal knew about the twins. what if the Alpha Legion planted that information within the cabal and that Omegon isn't actually a Primarch at all? what if he's just a big astartes that happens to look exactly like his Primarch? :D

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If you believe non-directly-produced-by-GW-products: In Dawn of War 2, the Blood Ravens are described as a chapter, that somehow forgot/lost the knowledge of their (probably dead) primarch (which means they do at the moment not know who their primarch was). So this could mean they are 1.founding and one of the lost primarchs is the Blood Raven primarch or they're 2.founding and just don't know where their geneseed came from. They never mentioned where the gene-seed for the Blood Ravens came from, so both could be possible.

 

So the question is for how "official" you consider a product under the license of Warhammer 40k.

100 Baneblades..

 

Not Canon...

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OK chaps, lets get back on topic here. It's not a question of what is or is not canon, it's purely a theoratical discussion I was having and thought I'd ask the people on here for their views. Remember, this was just a bunch of guys shooting the breeze late one night trying to explain one of the mysteries of the 40k universe.

 

So another idea that was put forward was that Omegon is indeed one of the lost Primarchs, but somehow his and Alpharius's souls became merged whilst lost in the warp. So you end up with one soul in two bodies - a carbon copy. To explain the fact that they are almost identical, maybe originally all the Primarchs were identical. It was differing aspects of thier upbringing/time in the warp/home planet that changed them.

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Omegon is definatley NOT one of the lost Primarchs - The Emperor didnt know of his existence. Its logical to assume that Alpharius was split into 2 bodies (his soul becoming divided between 2 bodies - essentially making them both the same person) due to warp mutation when they were sucked through the warp, similar in the way Magnus gained a cyclopean eye and Sanguinius gaining wings.

 

Also the Emperor created 20 Primarchs not 21. :D

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I agree with Omegon being a byproduct of Warp travel. The Emperor didn't make Sanguinius with vestigial wings. He sure as heck didn't make Magnus with a pineal eye. Nor did he 'save on pod space' by creating twins. We simply don't see someone being split into two halves as odd. A guy growing wings or a third eye? Freak! Guy has his soul placed into two identical bodies? Eh, twins happen every day, so it's nothing unusual to us.
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