Zso Sahaal

[Noctus Cornix]

As to my point... Zso was a whiny, selfish, cowardly, lying, highly confused, self-righteous moron. And that's without using profanity. I'm proud of myself. Really. It's a first. Why not make your own Night Lord hero or better yet, use Talos. I get the impression that almost anyone in 10th Company's First Claw could bend Zso over, spank his whiny ass, and take the Corona back from his cowardly grasp.

 

Or better yet, why not Malcharion? He was so much more bad ass then the rest of the 10th company :)

[Mykra]

In the scheme of things he's pretty banged up at the end of the novel, and as awesome as he was against underhive human trash, he was well wooped by his own brothers. i don't think he has the resources to "replace" his body parts, so a one armed jump pack wielding Night Lord would not have eternal warrior. I'm fairly sure that Uza could beat Shaal with a series of back hands, not even wicked back hands, and then take his armour and the corona nox would just be a pretty skull for the skull throne.

 

I really like the marines of Soul Hunter, but I'm not thinking they are any more potent than 'normal' veteran marines. Hell, one Terminator marine was about to kill off what, 75% of the unit by himself before a Dread got involved? It's trendy all of the sudden to trash on Sahaal , but don't make the mistake of thinking he's a punk in combat because he took on some pretty nasty enemies (and some cakewalk ones as well), and he's alive and kicking around still. I suppose it would come down to the 'Whoever is writing it is who wins' argument you see in other character vs character threads. But I don't think he's as much of a wuss as people want to make him out to be now.

 

I think that the Exhalted, or Talos, or Krieg would make a better table top character then Shaal. Lord of the Night was a great novel, but it wasn't representative of the Night Lords. Besides what would Shaal say to his brothers,"Hey, I got this crown, and I know I left 1st company behind... But I really care for you guys. Even though you tried to kill me." :)

 

This I do agree with completely. I couldn't see a force following him as it stands at the end of LoN, if he was a special character I would think he'd be in more of a mixed army like the Black Legion is known for. I think he burned that bridge twice over with his own chapter, they would space him before bend knee, and I think he would probably be surprised it happened! So I will agree that others that Talos or the like would make more sense at the moment since they actually seem to be a part of the Night Lord forces in 'good' standing currently.

 

As to my point... Zso was a whiny, selfish, cowardly, lying, highly confused, self-righteous moron. And that's without using profanity.

 

Talos goes through pretty much the exact same path as Zso though. Several characters comment on his 'arrogance', he constantly remarks about fighting off melancholy, the bomb he takes near the end with the revelation towards the Haunters visions, yadda yadda. I'm not trashing on either character - I like them both and want to read more of each one!

 

If Lord of the Night and Soul Hunter has proven anything, it's that the Night Lords are completely deluded to almost the last man. Sahaal, Talos, even the Haunter himself. Whats the movie quote? 'What a cozy little family of psychopaths and miscreants we are'. I don't think the Night Lords really represent anything other than the fact they seem to be the 'survivors' of the Chaos Legions. I don't think there is any one marine character that will come along and personify the Legion, Hell, I don't even think the Haunter did seeing as they slipped through his fingers and became something he couldn't stand. That's part of what makes them so cool.

[The Nephilim]

As to my point... Zso was a whiny, selfish, cowardly, lying, highly confused, self-righteous moron. And that's without using profanity. I'm proud of myself. Really. It's a first. Why not make your own Night Lord hero or better yet, use Talos. I get the impression that almost anyone in 10th Company's First Claw could bend Zso over, spank his whiny ass, and take the Corona back from his cowardly grasp.

 

Or better yet, why not Malcharion? He was so much more bad ass then the rest of the 10th company :P

Because Malcharion

is dead

.

 

If Lord of the Night and Soul Hunter has proven anything, it's that the Night Lords are completely deluded to almost the last man. Sahaal, Talos, even the Haunter himself. Whats the movie quote? 'What a cozy little family of psychopaths and miscreants we are'.

This is differentiates the Night Lords from the rest of the Chaos Legions how? They all do that. Saying the Night Lords are the only ones who do is like saying the Dark Angels are the only Loyalist Legion with a secret they don't want to share.

[Mykra]

If Lord of the Night and Soul Hunter has proven anything, it's that the Night Lords are completely deluded to almost the last man. Sahaal, Talos, even the Haunter himself. Whats the movie quote? 'What a cozy little family of psychopaths and miscreants we are'.

This is differentiates the Night Lords from the rest of the Chaos Legions how? They all do that. Saying the Night Lords are the only ones who do is like saying the Dark Angels are the only Loyalist Legion with a secret they don't want to share.

 

Because the points you made as to why Sahaal sucks is basically a paint-by-numbers description of just about every Chaos Space Marine, including the 10th, which Soul Hunter showed. That's what I was saying, I never said it made them any different than any other Legion.

[Legatus]

I agree he may be pricey, but I was thinking as he's essentially the Night Lords 'Chapter Master' he should be fairly hard.

Wait...

Well, as a Legion, the Night Lords would have had several "Chapter Masters" (or however they called their coimmanders leading an entire Great Company)

 

 

I really like the marines of Soul Hunter, but I'm not thinking they are any more potent than 'normal' veteran marines. Hell, one Terminator marine was about to kill off what, 75% of the unit by himself before a Dread got involved?

You don't think a Terminator with Lightning Claws would beat a hand full of Marines with Boltguns and Chainswords?

 

 

If Lord of the Night and Soul Hunter has proven anything, it's that the Night Lords are completely deluded to almost the last man.

I assume we will se different view points from other Night Lords in the coming books. A D-B has explained in the past that there are probably a lot of different view points within the Legion, some being as deluded as Sahaal was, while others may not have any illusions as to the nature of the Legion and it's developement during the later stages of the Crusade. He probably did not want to alienate the fans of "Lord of the Night" so made the first Night Lords he wrote about have a similar view as Sahaal, at least initially.

[A D-B]

I assume we will se different view points from other Night Lords in the coming books. A D-B has explained in the past that there are probably a lot of different view points within the Legion, some being as deluded as Sahaal was, while others may not have any illusions as to the nature of the Legion and it's developement during the later stages of the Crusade. He probably did not want to alienate the fans of "Lord of the Night" so made the first Night Lords he wrote about have a similar view as Sahaal, at least initially.

 

Yes and no. Mostly, I just like the idea of someone potentially living in denial, and over the course of a long war, they see X, Y and Z that hardens and/or shatters their beliefs. War changes people. An eternal war would change people a lot. In the Night Lords, there's a lot of potential change for various characters to go through.

 

I tipped the hat to Lord of the Night in several places because I liked the novel, but I was less harsh to Sahaal than I would otherwise have been, because I didn't want people raging at me pretending I was trying to disparage Si Spurrier's character out of jealousy or something equally nonsensical. But honestly, I sometimes think people read a differet book to me.

 

The Zso Sahaal of Lord of the Night doesn't really exist. As this thread kinda proves, the myth around the character means that for whatever reason, he's often considered by fans as the true heir to the Legion (which he categorically isn't), and a brilliant warrior (which we have plenty of proof that he wasn't), an innovator when it comes to inventing the Raptors (which I've never heard anyone but Sahaal fans say makes any sense) and a noble, pure Astartes that the Night Lords would love to have back in their ranks (which makes no sense as he knows nothing of their conflicts in the past 10,000 years, and left his own men to die while he stole a trinket).

 

Before I wrote Soul Hunter, I was warned from many angles, by many people, that Sahaal had red a certain "fanoyish love" that was, and I quote, "almost ferociously ignorant" about the character, making him out to be the greatest Night Lord that ever lived, and ignoring all of his flaws. I never really encountered that in huge numbers at all - by and large, the reception to Soul Hunter drowned out such things, and people seemed to prefer First Claw's more grounded, realistic outlooks and activities, and how they represented the Legion.

 

Still, it's always interesting to see someone with a Sahaal avatar, sig or forum name, and their reactions to both Sahaal as a character and the Night Lords in general. The differences are pretty drastic, but totally fascinating.

[Legatus]

I don't know about people holding Sahaal as the greatest Astartes hero, but I have seen a lot of examples where people entirely bought his account about how the Night Lords were sacrificing themselves by doing exactly what the Emperor asked them to do but were then backstabbed by him. Refering to the conclusion of the book is usually the first thing I do in such a case, together with refering to the Index Astartes of the Night Lords or other background.

[Sons of Horus]

He abandoned his men... he shouldn't be allowed to join any unit.

[Bulwyf]

I hate to bring this up again but I find a daemon prince/Chaos Chosen at the end of "Lord of the Night" as hardly a reliable reference to refute what Sahaal believed. He had every material reason to lie to Sahaal. That is not a trust worthy character to dispute the narrator's tale.

 

The most fascinating thing to myself about the Night Lords is that it almost leaves it up to the individual to decide what they are. Were they renegades with a cause because they did the Emperor's dirty work and had to be purged later? There's enough there to say yes. Were they renegades because their home world was essentially nothing but Mafiaworld and they slowly corrupted without Chaos and became too dangerous to the Imperium to be left to their own devices? There's enough there to say yes to that as well.

 

So why is it wrong to say that even some of the Night Lords themselves don't know which is the truth? What is the truth anyways in this regard? Their own Primarch had a split personality. We don't know (AFAIK) what happened to the original Terran Night Lords before, during and after the Heresy so how did they see their Legion? Did they get purged as Loyalists or did they adhere to their Legion?

 

I would love to see a viewpoint offered from a Night Lord from Terra as to what happened to the Legion. It might be the only somewhat impartial viewpoint of what the "truth" is. There are exactly two First Founding Chaos Legions that have (IMO) fascinating origins: the Night Lords and Alpha Legion. And it because both of them have aspects of traitors against their will and yet both are capable of extreme savagery and violence. That is in an intoxicating mixture and one I'd love to see more of.

[A D-B]

I hate to bring this up again but I find a daemon prince/Chaos Chosen at the end of "Lord of the Night" as hardly a reliable reference to refute what Sahaal believed. He had every material reason to lie to Sahaal. That is not a trust worthy character to dispute the narrator's tale.

 

But Sahaal is an unreliable narrator. That's the point. It's how the book is nuanced and clever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

 

But there remains the minority that insist one compromised guy's tale rings truer than all published lore, and all evidence to the contrary.

 

EDIT: The thing is, Lord of the Night isn't a Night Lords novel. It's a novel about Zso Sahaal. But people read it, and it became seen as a Night Lord novel, because it was the only novel/detailed lore about a ) the Heresy at the time, and b ) the Night Lords themselves for several years. What he believes is the truth is categorically, explicitly denied everywhere else. It's even denied in his own novel. People use the "But Krieg is a daemon..." to justify that Acerbus might be lying. But we, as readers, should know he's not, because Acerbus tells Sahaal about the canonical lore already in place that we know is the Legion's true background.

 

Sahaal is an unreliable narrator. That's his shtick, and why the novel is a tragic slice of the guy's life. It sets him up all the way through, for the fall to come. Saying "But Sahaal was really right" when it flies in the face of all evidence that we already know in the background, is sort of missing the point. His viewpoint was awesome and compelling, but the tragedy lies in his deception. Sahaal was wrong. We know that as close to "fact" as you can get in the 40K setting.

[Legatus]

I hate to bring this up again but I find a daemon prince/Chaos Chosen at the end of "Lord of the Night" as hardly a reliable reference to refute what Sahaal believed. He had every material reason to lie to Sahaal. That is not a trust worthy character to dispute the narrator's tale.

That is why I reference the established Night Lords background. The description of Konrad Curzes fall had been described quite comprehensive in their Index Astartes article, which had fleshed out the Night Lords background that had been existed to this point.

 

Then you have Sahaal, claiming that it was all toally different, because Night Haunter told him personally. But then at the end of the book you have Krieg Acerbus, mocking him for falling for such stories, and explaining that it really was how the 40K background of the Night Lords had allways described it.

 

In short:

 

Established Night Lords background --> The Legion went bad, long before Horus started the Heresy. Curze cracked.

 

Sahaal --> The Night Lords were only enacting the Emperor's wishes, who then backstabbed them.

 

Krieg Acerbus --> The Legion went bad, long before Horus started the Heresy. Curze cracked.

[Bulwyf]

I hate to bring this up again but I find a daemon prince/Chaos Chosen at the end of "Lord of the Night" as hardly a reliable reference to refute what Sahaal believed. He had every material reason to lie to Sahaal. That is not a trust worthy character to dispute the narrator's tale.

 

But Sahaal is an unreliable narrator. That's the point. It's how the book is nuanced and clever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

 

But there remains the minority that insist one compromised guy's tale rings truer than all published lore, and all evidence to the contrary.

 

EDIT: The thing is, Lord of the Night isn't a Night Lords novel. It's a novel about Zso Sahaal. But people read it, and it became seen as a Night Lord novel, because it was the only novel/detailed lore about a ) the Heresy at the time, and b ) the Night Lords themselves for several years. What he believes is the truth is categorically, explicitly denied everywhere else. It's even denied in his own novel. People use the "But Krieg is a daemon..." to justify that Acerbus might be lying. But we, as readers, should know he's not, because Acerbus tells Sahaal about the canonical lore already in place that we know is the Legion's true background.

 

Sahaal is an unreliable narrator. That's his shtick, and why the novel is a tragic slice of the guy's life. It sets him up all the way through, for the fall to come. Saying "But Sahaal was really right" when it flies in the face of all evidence that we already know in the background, is sort of missing the point. His viewpoint was awesome and compelling, but the tragedy lies in his deception. Sahaal was wrong. We know that as close to "fact" as you can get in the 40K setting.

 

I understand what an unreliable narrator is. What I am saying is that adding in an unreliable source at the end of the novel is not a deus ex machina (deus ex machina that is believable. It creates the exact kind of uncertainty over the subjective "truth" of what actually happened that I mentioned in my other post. We have two unreliable sources and nothing but let's be honest almost bare bone details in existing BL or GW fluff or lore to fall back on for a deciding opinion.

 

You, naturally, have an informed advantage at this point that we mere mortal readers do not :) in that you have the liberty to further cement what actually took place.

[Legatus]

What I am saying is that adding in an unreliable source at the end of the novel is not a deus ex machina (deus ex machina that is believable. It creates the exact kind of uncertainty over the subjective "truth" of what actually happened that I mentioned in my other post. We have two unreliable sources and nothing but let's be honest almost bare bone details in existing BL or GW fluff or lore to fall back on for a deciding opinion.

We have the Index Astartes, which tells a quite different story from the one Sahaal believed to be true. The 2nd Edition Codex Chaos included a similar account to the one in the Index Astartes, though much shorter. The reports about atrocities commited by the Night Lords and even Night Haunter himself started to mount, so the Emperor finally demanded his presence at Terra, which was just when the Heresy started. Kriegs account confirms this background.

[Bulwyf]

What I am saying is that adding in an unreliable source at the end of the novel is not a deus ex machina (deus ex machina that is believable. It creates the exact kind of uncertainty over the subjective "truth" of what actually happened that I mentioned in my other post. We have two unreliable sources and nothing but let's be honest almost bare bone details in existing BL or GW fluff or lore to fall back on for a deciding opinion.

We have the Index Astartes, which tells a quite different story from the one Sahaal believed to be true. The 2nd Edition Codex Chaos included a similar account to the one in the Index Astartes, though much shorter. The reports about atrocities commited by the Night Lords and even Night Haunter himself started to mount, so the Emperor finally demanded his presence at Terra, which was just when the Heresy started. Kriegs account confirms this background.

 

It also does not say if the Emperor ordered it or not. Also there are other sources depicting the Night Lords as being authorized by the Emperor as exactly what they were: shock terror troops used to castigate worlds into subjugation.

 

Quoted from this site Night lord wikia:

 

?During the time of the Great Crusade, the Night Lords were used by the Emperor as a tool of terror to pacify planets which had been recently conquered by the other Space Marine Legions. Their fearsome reputation caused any rogue planetary governor or rebels to quickly pay any outstanding tithes or quell their uprisings, as the Night Lords were known to issue an Exterminatus order on several worlds for the most petty of crimes against the Imperium.

 

This ruthless behavior did not sit well with some of the other Primarchs and Legions. Finally, Curze and the Night Lords Legion were recalled to Terra to explain their behavior, where they were then reprimanded by the Emperor and the Council of Terra. The last straw for the Emperor was when the Night Lords had unleashed an orbital bombardment on their own homeworld, which was literally blown to pieces. Curze explained his actions to the Emperor by pointing out that Nostramo, in the Legion's absence, had slid back to its old ways of cruel violence and crime. He and the Night Lords were embittered by what they saw as the Emperor's and the Council of Terra's hypocrisy when they were censured for their brutality even as the Emperor had unleashed a Great Crusade that used military power to forcibly reunite the scattered worlds of humanity. The Night Lords thought the Emperor would acknowledge that their actions had been right. They also felt that these actions were the direct consequence of the mission that the Imperium had tasked them with, i.e. that of "sanctioned" terrorism against all who opposed the spread of the Imperium. To Curze, it seemed that the Emperor castigated him for carying out the same actions that had once been deemed so vital to the Imperium's expansion. "

 

Also here:

 

"While it may be possible that the Emperor secretly authorized these excessive examples to be made,2 the Night Lords were eventually brought to task for their predations upon Imperial citizenry." from Lexicanum Night Lords

 

I also think it has to be mentioned that Krieg never contradicted what Curze actually said in private to Sahaal. All Krieg postulated was that Curze was insane and had two personalities one of which was noble (the personality we readers assume talked to Sahaal) and the other which was insane (the personality we readers assume talked to Krieg). Krieg never refutes what Sahaal was told in private by the Night Haunter. Even as an unreliable witness with an inveterate nature to lie and deceive ESPECIALLY when it has something to gain it does not directly contradict what Sahaal was told.

 

So again it is more than reasonable to assume that while Curze may have been insane that at least one side of him did believe he was being unfairly persecuted and he confided this to some of his Captains. I wish I could find my source for where it said flat out Curze while imprisoned was attacked by an unknown assassin(s) which forced him to kill the guards and escape. Be that as it may there is still grounds to believe that as informed readers the Night Lords could believe themselves to be to some degree traitors by force instead of choice. I won't go so far as to call it a Soul Drinkers type of mentality but it does create a reasonable deduction for a reader to make.

[A D-B]

I'm fine with not trusting either of them, though Acerbus being (more) correct does play into the narrative and the official lore. Either way, those are fan wikis. By the official lore, Sahaal was dead wrong, no matter what way it gets sliced.

[Bulwyf]

I'm fine with not trusting either of them, though Acerbus being (more) correct does play into the narrative and the official lore. Either way, those are fan wikis. By the official lore, Sahaal was dead wrong, no matter what way it gets sliced.

 

A D-B, if you do not mind my asking, would it be possible for a third party Night Lord in your upcoming novel(s) to further clarify this? I know you have mentioned in other posts that Talos will undergo changes and revelations. Could we see, as I mentioned myself in an above post somewhere, that a Terran Night Lord who was with the 8th Legion before it found Curze and was renamed the Night Lords give some some kind of perspective to what the Legion was before Curze, during his control of the Legion and then after the effective dissolution of the Legion on Tsagualsa?

 

We not only do not know what happened to the Terran or Loyalist elements of the Night Lords from anywhere in the fluff/lore but it would give us a neutral observer to what happened to the Legion and what kind of Primarch Konrad was. I do not think you have refuted Krieg's statement that Konrad was a split personality which I would have to think would result in contradictory operations for any military unit let alone something as massive as a full Legion.

[Legatus]

Quoted from this site Night lord wikia:

 

?During the time of the Great Crusade, the Night Lords were used by the Emperor as a tool of terror to pacify planets which had been recently conquered by the other Space Marine Legions. Their fearsome reputation caused any rogue planetary governor or rebels to quickly pay any outstanding tithes or quell their uprisings, as the Night Lords were known to issue an Exterminatus order on several worlds for the most petty of crimes against the Imperium.

Unfortunately that site does not give proper citations, but you will note that "Lord of the Night" is among the listed references.

 

 

Also here:

 

"While it may be possible that the Emperor secretly authorized these excessive examples to be made,2 the Night Lords were eventually brought to task for their predations upon Imperial citizenry." from Lexicanum Night Lords

Here we actually have a citation (the "2"), and it refers to "Lord of the Night" as the source.

 

 

I also think it has to be mentioned that Krieg never contradicted what Curze actually said in private to Sahaal.

It has been some time since I have read the book, but I don't think Sahaal and Krieg had reason to debate how much the Emperor was to blame for the Legions downfall. IIRC they were more talking about the Night Haunters idea about the ideals of the Legion. For Sahaal, terror had still been mainly a tool, and the Night Lords never excessively used it for it's own sake or for pure enjoyment. But Krieg was more aware of what the Legion had become in the later stages of the Great Crusade.

[Mykra]

In short:

 

Established Night Lords background --> The Legion went bad, long before Horus started the Heresy. Curze cracked.

 

Sahaal --> The Night Lords were only enacting the Emperor's wishes, who then backstabbed them.

 

Krieg Acerbus --> The Legion went bad, long before Horus started the Heresy. Curze cracked.

 

 

I always thought it was pretty apparent that the Night Lord's went off the reservation before the Heresy, I thought the sticking point was always to the motive of the breakaway. What I always found fascinating about Sahaal wasn't that he was right (or completely wrong) but that he completely and totally bought the story in his head and just utterly ran with it. It was awesome at the time because after Lord of the Night every Chaos legion had to have their own 'We were screwed' story, but when LoN hit it was a fresh take of 'They could be soooooo wrong here, but I can see why they'd be mad'. Instead of the 'We're Chaos, we're bad, bad men'. It was refreshing to see people who had self-deluded themselves into thinking they were in the right fighting like they were. It just made sense looking at it from their twisted point of views I suppose?

 

I like the doubt to it. I would rather see more things call it into question into where people have to make judgement calls and say they buy the Night Lords story to a point or they think Kurze was completely mental and seeing enemies in friends (thus making them enemies proving him 'right' in his warped reality) than any defining lore that says 'This is this, the end'.

 

You don't think a Terminator with Lightning Claws would beat a hand full of Marines with Boltguns and Chainswords?

 

I don't think Sahaal is the end all, be all of combat. I just think people disparage him down to a lower level he isn't at (which I'm sure works in reverse and he's the unstoppable engine of destruction that eat's Mephiston and Khârn for breakfast and then moves onto Titans for lunch). He took out some nasty opponents but the general vibe of this thread was saying he could be rolled like a punk by a normal marine and I don't think he's that easy to take out, which I was remarking on that the Night Lords in SH didn't exactly shine in non-civilian combats either (Except the Dread; He was pretty rocking). I also don't see why anyone would think the Night Lords would take him back as he pretty clearly burned his bridges to the Legion in his own book (ditching his unit and then basically going to war with the Night Lords warband at the end of his book), and I don't know why - and have never heard anyone say - anyone would say that he invented the Raptors?

 

I hate to bring this up again but I find a daemon prince/Chaos Chosen at the end of "Lord of the Night" as hardly a reliable reference to refute what Sahaal believed. He had every material reason to lie to Sahaal. That is not a trust worthy character to dispute the narrator's tale.

 

I think there are two main camps in the Night Lords that we have seen. People like Sahaal and Talos who believe in the Night Haunter still and people like Kreig who think he was a blind nutter. I think if there is any truth to be found in the stories it's in the middle ground of both of them. The best part to it is the fact that it's put out there that the Haunter saw things that just flat-out played differently than his visions, which can lead to you seeing him developing self-fulfilling prophecies in compensation. (The Emperor's going to screw us, so we'll screw him first, but the Emperor really was our friend, but see, he's sending assassins to kill us now...we were right, he was going to screw us. That kind of madness.)

[Bulwyf]

Mykra, I'm glad I was not the only long time fan of Warhammer 40k to relish seeing a Chaos Legion be depicted as something besides slavering Khorne worshippers or generic cowards who betrayed the Imperium to worship Chaos. I always found it inconceivable (and yes, I hear the Sicilian from Princess Bride as I write this) that every single Chaos legion just betrayed the Emperor for almost no stated reasons.

 

There had to be some that actually had a motive for why they did it outside of "Chaos and Horus = good!" and with the Night Lords you have a Legion that did the dirty work, was reviled, and eventually cast out. They may have all been self fulfilling cruel bastards but at least there's something there outside of blind Chaos worship.

[Legatus]

The Night Lords have never been big into chaos worship. And I guess they could hardly care less about Horus' ambitions. They went downhill purely because several of the newer recruits during the Great Crusade were cruel and sadistic individuals which relished in killing and maiming. When Horus openly turned against the Emperor, the Night Lords sided with him purely because at that point it had already become impossible for them to longer side with the Imperium. They had already been carving a path of death and destruction through the Imperium at that point. Without Chaos (or the Emperor, for that matter) telling them to. The Night Lords went bad because of the insufficient screening of new recruits from Nostramo. The Night Lords sided with Horus because they had nowhere else to turn to at that point.

[Bulwyf]

The Night Lords have never been big into chaos worship. And I guess they could hardly care less about Horus' ambitions. They went downhill purely because several of the newer recruits during the Great Crusade were cruel and sadistic individuals which relished in killing and maiming. When Horus openly turned against the Emperor, the Night Lords sided with him purely because at that point it had already become impossible for them to longer side with the Imperium. They had already been carving a path of death and destruction through the Imperium at that point. Without Chaos (or the Emperor, for that matter) telling them to. The Night Lords went bad because of the insufficient screening of new recruits from Nostramo. The Night Lords sided with Horus because they had nowhere else to turn to at that point.

 

I know that this is an abridged short version of what we've seen before but I'll be honest that leaves a lot of holes that need to be filled. I've asked A DB about this so I'll repeat it again: what happened to the original VIII Legion? There is no way they lost that many Marines to replace virtually every one of them with Nostramo recruits. Think about the attrition rate that would necessitate. We know the Night Lords came too late to the party on Istvaan for the Loyalist purges. So what happened to the Loyalist elements? We know from other Chaos Legions almost all the Terran Marines that were in the Legion before they found the Primarch were the Loyalists. Was this different for the Night Lords?

 

I hope we get some answers for this. Personally I'd love to see a HH novel or even revelations in Blood Reaver or another ADB Night Lord novel that answers this by having a surviving Terran Night Lord character reveal these kind of answers. It is not reasonable to suspend enough disbelief to accept that in such a short time almost all the original VIII Legion would have been killed in combat and replaced with Nastramo Marines.

[Noctus Cornix]

You want the account of a terran marine Bulwyf? Go read Lord of the Night. Zso Sahaal IS a Terran marine, as stated in the book a few times. I cannot possibly imagine a Night Lord, terran marine or Nostramon, who would gladly side with the imperium and if he did he would be dead in a heart beat. These are humorless killing machines who gave their all to the imperium to do what they believed was best for mankind, even if the ignorant mortals didnt like it. And what do they receive in return? Scorn and hatred by the one true master they fought for. The emperor and the more stuck up primarchs tossed nothing but insults in their faces even though the Night Lords were used as the imperium's greatest threat and attack dog to those who stepped out of line. This, however didnt push Curze over the edge until Dorn's pompous verbal rampage sent the Night Lords Primarch into a frenzy and perhaps in that frenzy as Dorn's blood dripped from his finger tips, he realized that the Emperor was wrong.

 

Although some of the sadism may have bubbled on the inside of the legion, it had not come to full fruition and it had in no way affected the Primarch in any way. He had no doubt in his mind of what his creed was and what he had dedicated his life to. It was only after the destruction of Nostramo that the legion really descended into hell. The Night Haunter himself was corrupted by the mass genocide and the orchestation of death. His body was literally mutated by the warp and this is a fact shown in both the Index Astartes and Soul Hunter. Night Haunter had literally become the thing he hated most, a mass murderer who had lost his creed in the sea of death and the ecstasy of fear. Something changed though. I suppose it might have been on tsugualsa when it happened but his eyes finally opened to the horror of what he had done. He saw the corrupt monster he had become and knew there was only one thing his kind deserved. Punishment. He had chosen the assassin to be his executioner and his throne to be his gallows. But also, I think, was that the he was just exhausted. He was tired of the relentless visions, the unending pain and hatred that had plagued his entire life, and the scorn of his father. He was tired and he wished for peace.

 

(this next part is pure theory)

But he was not the only one deserving of punishment. His own legion, his sons, had been twisted into mindless killing machines with not but hate and the need for revenge and the fear of others to fill their hearts and cloud their wisdom. And still their was his father who fancied himself a god and his empire of lies and ignorance. He would punish them both in one fell swoop. He saw the future proceeding his death and gladly sent Sahaal, the greedy cowering inbred, to his own demise with the sweetest of lies that would make the teet sucking raptor giggle with delight and scattered the rest of his legion apart through the massive power vaccum and cast his sons to the eternal punishment of a never ending war that they couldn't possibly win. I doubt he did this without some form of regret to punish his own children who had followed him with stout loyalty for centuries but in the end they had become the same scum he had preyed upon in the streets of nostramo. And so The Night Haunter used his own legion to bring one final, eternal punishment for both the Night Lords and the imperium. This punishment has lasted for over 10 millenia and its still going strong.

[Bulwyf]

I'm assuming most of your post noctus was written in character but well done. I'm not counting Sahaal's account for a Terran Marine because he's been established as an unreliable narrator. I'd like to see a more neutral account as well as answers as to what happened to the Terran Marines. I don't doubt they probably would have been forced to go renegade or else die by their fellow Marines hands but it has never been said what happened. I absolutely do not buy that so many Terran Marines died that normal recruitment from Nostramo would have completely subsumed the entire Legion into psychotic killers as has been suggested.

[Noctus Cornix]

In character?... ^_^ I didnt intend to but after reading over it again i suppose i did. Appologies if that thats a problem. I'll edit it if you need me to.

 

 

As far as the Terran marines are though, it is explained what hapened to them. If you read the index astartes, it states 'Over the first few years of his rule as Primarch of the Night Lords, his legion utterly destroyed heresy with the fanatical thoroughness of witch hunters. Night Huanter moulded his sons into an efficient, humourless force of warriors to whom killing was second nature, achieving their goals by any means necessary. '

 

It is obvious by this quote that the gene-sons of Curze truly believed in the creed of their Primarch and followed it with the utmost dedication and loyalty. They would have essentially all become cold ruthless veterans who would've followed Night Haunter to the end before new recruits from Nostramo were even necessary.

 

I also dont see Curze as one to force those extremely rare few of his own legion into following him. I feel him as one to be 'either you're all in or you're all out.' He wouldnt want weak minded fools who dont have the stomach to do what is necessary (i think i just unintentionally quoted Dark King) to preserve mankind stinking up his ranks but thats just my thesis.

[Lexington]

There had to be some that actually had a motive for why they did it outside of "Chaos and Horus = good!" and with the Night Lords you have a Legion that did the dirty work, was reviled, and eventually cast out.

While it's true that, for a long time, many of the Traitor Legions had no given reason for their betrayal of the Imperium, I've always fond it irksome how the Index Astartes articles took pains to make the Primarchs into tragic figures who were either somehow wronged by the Emperor, or tricked into Chaos worship by some mustache-twirling Lieutenant within their Legion's ranks (or, in one particularly wretched case, literally said "the Daemon Sword made 'im do it!"). It's much more powerful, to me anyway, for mythic characters like Lorgar, Kurze and Horus to see with clear eyes the path that they choose, and willingly do so for whatever ideals inform the kernel of their personalities.

 

In this specific case, I find it much more satisfying to think that the Night Lords' genocidal acts were done at Kurze's behest because he believed that all authority was derived solely from the threat of death, and that any other claim to power was deluded sophistry. It makes him an interesting character, whose motivations are rooted in a real-world political philosophy that runs all the way from Hobbes to Mao, and gives the full meaning to his chilling final quote.