Zso Sahaal

[Bulwyf]

In character?... :huh: 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.

 

I don't have a problem with your post in the slightest! ^_^ It just read as if you were writing in character as a member of the Night Lords with some of the word choice. It was a good post.

 

I have that index but if you've been keeping up on what some others like Legatus are saying the fluff/lore suggests that over time so many Nostramo recruits who are all inherently evil and flawed joined the Legion that is devolved into a rampaging horde that Night Haunter grew to hate and he destroyed Nostramo specifically to stop the recruitment from that world. It is not said that Curze through force of personality convinced the formerly VIII Legion to all go crazy (just to sum it up) together with him in some kind of collective kill spree through the eastern quadrant of the galaxy.

 

That is what I've been pointing out in my last few posts. If the lore says that so many Nostramo recruits spoiled the pot for the entire Legion then what in the heck happened to 10,000 or so Terran Night Lords? It was not said that older Night Lords were going bad it specifically is the Nostramo recruits who were. I hope that clears my point up some.

[Ashur]

(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.

 

My thoughts exactly. Curze could have planned the demise of his legion by lying to his lieutenants, telling each one a different story to ensure their division and their punishement, as much as his own.

[Noctus Cornix]

I do see your point but i suppose the fact is that they died for the most part. For example, look to The Luna Wolves. Normally one would expect the majority of the captains, the strongest and most experienced of all the astartes in the Legion, would be mainly filled with Terran Marines but in fact only one of the named captains. (and they name alot) is a terran marine. The rest were younger recruits from their home world. The unfortunate matter is that a majority of the original marines would be dead by this time and slowly but surely they were replaced by Nostramians until i would say only about 5 or 7 thousand or so of the Night Lords were still Terrans. You must remember that the Great Crusade was a few hundred years at the least. The death toll may be few per war but in the end that will accumulate into a dramatic number. Plus you must take into account those few occassions in which a great number of astartes were slain against powerful xenos such as the megarachnid for example. Im not saying that such a situation has actually happened to the Night Lords but it isnt out of the realm of possibility.

[Bulwyf]

I do see your point but i suppose the fact is that they died for the most part. For example, look to The Luna Wolves. Normally one would expect the majority of the captains, the strongest and most experienced of all the astartes in the Legion, would be mainly filled with Terran Marines but in fact only one of the named captains. (and they name alot) is a terran marine. The rest were younger recruits from their home world. The unfortunate matter is that a majority of the original marines would be dead by this time and slowly but surely they were replaced by Nostramians until i would say only about 5 or 7 thousand or so of the Night Lords were still Terrans. You must remember that the Great Crusade was a few hundred years at the least. The death toll may be few per war but in the end that will accumulate into a dramatic number. Plus you must take into account those few occassions in which a great number of astartes were slain against powerful xenos such as the megarachnid for example. Im not saying that such a situation has actually happened to the Night Lords but it isnt out of the realm of possibility.

 

I can not agree with that, my fellow Night Lord fan. Konrad was not one of the first Primarchs found so his VIII Legion would have been routinely replaced with Terran Marines until he was located. It is said in lore that the Night Lords were primarily used to attack worlds/systems that had been taken over by the Imperium and then lapsed. The Night Lords were used to bring them back into compliance. That is not a war of attrition. The Night Lords methodology of warfare IMO would not lead to great casualties. They used fear more than naked warfare to force worlds into compliance.

 

Unless our friendly neighborhood BL writer wants to clarify this query there is nothing that suggests some great catastrophe or war took out almost all the original VIII Legion so that after recruitment almost the entire Legion would be from Mafiaworld. This is the timeline where things need to addressed (I hope);

 

Emperor starts Great Crusade

Emperor starts up VIII Legion using its Primarch's geneseed on Terran recruits

VIII Legion campaigns until Night Haunter is found replacements still coming from Terra

Night Haunter found

Night Haunter recruits from Nostramo and renames VIII into Night Lords

Night Haunter learns warfare under Fulgrim

At some point Night Lords operate independently from Emperor's Children

Night Lords build reputation that eventually forces systems/worlds to capitulate just on their arrival

???? at some point so many recruits are from Nostramo that it starts to corrupt the Legion

Night Lords become so corrupt that Night Haunter wipes out Nostramo

Curze goes on a rampage in the eastern quadrant

Curze assassinated and Legion effectively dissolves

 

What we need to know and hopefully is addressed in Blood Reaver or another BL novel is what happened to cause the ???? listed above to happen. I can not believe a Legion that was used primarily in mop up operations and grew so good at it that it didn't even need to deploy would suffer almost one hundred percent attrition to force almost the entire Legion to be replaced by recruits from Nostramo.

[quiethood]

Ok, I just read The Dark King and I think it gives a great look into the Night Haunter's personality. He uses fear, yes, but I think the big thing you get to see about him is that he believes in consequences. He believes in strongly punishing those that show weakness of character and disobedience. Fear is just the product of the actions that further serve to reinforce "lessons" of compliance. Night Haunter and his legion are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. The other primarchs, Dorn in particular couldn't justify the use of such extreme behavior, thus they were called to account for the "methoods"

[Legatus]

That is how the Night Lords started, yes. They were not being cruel and ruthless because they were enjoying it, they did it because they were convinced that it was neccessary to keep millions of human worlds in check. Make an example of dissidents, and no one else will dare to rebel. That was what the Night Haunter had learned on the world Nostramo and what he was teaching his Legion. However, as the Legion got infused with more and more criminals from Nostramo, unjustified incidents started to mount. These new batch of Night Lords was enjoying what they did.

[quiethood]

I know the new recruits were degenerates, but I think that the Night Haunter himself was still dedicated to his original beliefs. Night Haunter doesn't disallusion himself with political correctness/kindness. I think what you see after the heresy was an attempt of the Haunter to stim the cancer of his legion through attrition. He believes that Horus is the only one with the strength of will to do the necessary evils for humanity to become compliant, and in the process of helping Horus, his legion is going to take heavy casualties.

Nostromo is gone, so no more of the "bad" recruits, and those that were left would be totally loyal to the Haunter's vision. But the Heresy fails, and all that's left seems to be about a 50/50 mix of "good"/"bad" Night Lords, thus the Night Haunter loathes what is left, and the only thing to do is to fullfill his death vision to vindicate his moral code. I also think that is why the Night Haunter seems to contradict what he tells different Night Lords. He tells them what they need to hear. Why? Well, maybe he's seen a chance for the legion to redeem itself, or maybe he knows they'll do what they want to anyway, and he's putting them closer the their destiny. I think we'll always be in the dark on the real reasons.

As for the Night Lords that enjoyed the fearmongering and genocide, that is antheme to Night Haunters philosophy,so sure he hated them. But he needed them if he was to turn on the Imperium. Night Haunter never saw those things as rompin' good time, an evil act that had to be done for order to prosper maybe, but never the fear for fear's sake, and that's what mad Sahaal such a good character. You see some of Night Haunters keenist philosophies through his trial.

[Rain]

It's funny that in all of this nobody has brought up the fact that Curze had something of a split personality. He is like the guy that mugs someone to get money to feed his habit and then feels bad about it after the high was worn off. He still enjoyed the drug, and you can bet he'll do it again, but he will mope about it for a while afterward, it's basically a cheap defense mechanism to come to terms with the fact that you're an awful person. Which Curze was. Honestly it's nice to have some actually bad Chaos marines for a change, I for one am sick of all of the "misunderstood heroes" stuff, sadists and megalomaniacs exist in real life, so why not 40k, especially as the setting is not all bunnies and rainbows anyway. Actually, besides the unintentionally funny scene from the point of view of a land raider, this was my main issue with Soul Hunter, but it seems that it's all part of A D-B's master plan. Well played sir, well played.

[quiethood]

Misunderstood hereos.. Well, half a Haunter is. :whistling: I can't wait for some flash back of Curze arguing with the Night Haunter. In "the Dark King" it more portrayed Konrad Curze as the persona, and the Night Haunter as the "actual" personality. Yes, very Bruce Wayne/Batman kinda thing. The Night Lords version of the Night Haunter tends to be very perspective based. I don't know that the Haunter has a split personality, and neither does anyone else kinda thing. You get the whole exchange between Sahaal and Acrebus, and I don't have the IA (and it's been years since I read it), so I don't know exactly what it says about the dual personality thing. I know it's heavily hinted at somewhere.

[Brother Nihm]

???? at some point so many recruits are from Nostramo that it starts to corrupt the Legion

That is covered in the IA article.

[Bulwyf]

???? at some point so many recruits are from Nostramo that it starts to corrupt the Legion

That is covered in the IA article.

 

I haven't read that in years, what does it say happen? I'm assuming you are talking IA II?

[Mykra]

???? at some point so many recruits are from Nostramo that it starts to corrupt the Legion

That is covered in the IA article.

 

I haven't read that in years, what does it say happen? I'm assuming you are talking IA II?

 

It basically said that as losses started to pile up he ordered new recruits brought in from Nostromo itself because he could trust his former people to obey his orders without question and to work tirelessly towards the greater good as Night Haunter himself was, never knowing that his people had relapsed into decadence and cruelty from the moment he left. Instead of getting the end justifies the means anti-heroes he wanted, they basically shipped Planet: Death Row to him.

[Bulwyf]

???? at some point so many recruits are from Nostramo that it starts to corrupt the Legion

That is covered in the IA article.

 

I haven't read that in years, what does it say happen? I'm assuming you are talking IA II?

 

It basically said that as losses started to pile up he ordered new recruits brought in from Nostromo itself because he could trust his former people to obey his orders without question and to work tirelessly towards the greater good as Night Haunter himself was, never knowing that his people had relapsed into decadence and cruelty from the moment he left. Instead of getting the end justifies the means anti-heroes he wanted, they basically shipped Planet: Death Row to him.

 

I thought that's what it said. That does not even come close to answering the timeline I presented. There would have been a catastrophic loss of 100k or so Terran Marines to have almost the entire Legion replaced with Nostramo recruits in such a short time. Between Night Haunter's independent campaigns from Fulgrim to when he started to go rogue we aren't talking even a hundred years time IIRC. There is no way the Night Lords lost that many men in mop up campaigns.

[Mykra]

[

I thought that's what it said. That does not even come close to answering the timeline I presented. There would have been a catastrophic loss of 100k or so Terran Marines to have almost the entire Legion replaced with Nostramo recruits in such a short time. Between Night Haunter's independent campaigns from Fulgrim to when he started to go rogue we aren't talking even a hundred years time IIRC. There is no way the Night Lords lost that many men in mop up campaigns.

 

I always took it as a read between the lines thing myself, but I guess if you leave something open like that it is fair game to personal opinion. Even if they only brought in 10% new, corrupted recruits, I would think that the OG Lords were already on the edge of going into full-out sadism and the new recruits pushing them or putting them into bloody situations was the domino that started it all on the way to Hell.

[RapatoR]

The whole think is built on idea, that noone of Terra - born NLs could never ever change their mind. The line between "Terran" and "Nostraman" view is thin and as ADB said war changes people.

[quiethood]

War changes people yes, but I think it's more of Primarchs change Astartes. The influence of the gene-father seems amazingly huge.

[Bulwyf]

Regarding the last two posts I just can't agree. There is nothing in lore/fluff that suggests Night Haunter by force of personality convinced his entire Legion no matter where they were from to go rogue with him. Every Legion that went traitor had loyalists in it. With the Night Lords in particular it was being argued recently by Legatus and someone else that it was the Nostramo recruits that brought about the change. Not existing VIII Marines from Terra mind you.

 

I'm hoping we see more insights from what happened to the Legion in A DB's trilogy from before they found Curze to when the Legion effectively fell apart after his murder. I think it is reasonable to assume a good number of Marines believed Curze was some sort of martyr and others believed he was evil. That gives reasonable arguments as to why the Night Lords had no loyalist purges. The loyalists like Sahaal we assume believed in roughly the same things he did about Curze and followed him for those reasons while people like Krieg followed the other personality of Curze for their own sadistic reasons.

 

That is practically the only explanation that would answer why the Night Lords had no purges. Of course A DB can answer this and blow this assumption to pieces. :lol: