Mixed Loyalties

[The Shadow Guard]

One of the facts that many of us tend to overlook is the time it takes to develop a fully fledged treacherous act. Very few people would suddenly wake up one morning with an epiphany and decide to turn traitor. Treason occurs slowly and in slow incremental steps.

 

As we will find out in "The First heretic" from the time Lorgar truly turned it took him and his cohorts nearly 47 years to achieve the Istvaan IV massacre. Even in that time Lorgar had periods of reservation and which Kor Phaeron and Erebus persevered to maintain his focus.

 

Erebus spent a long time with Horus and the wordbearer chaplains spent a lot of time with the traitor legions. I think it appears that they may have manipulated the uprising in the homeworld of the Iron Warriors forcing the latter to turn on their own people... and forcing the IW in to a position where they could no longer be in the emperor's grace.

 

The loyalist legions are those which just happened to be out of their potential influence either due to the primarch's nature or the sheer distance that separated the legions.

[Legionator]

There was no reson for a member of a loyalist legion to betray. In the traitor legions the dilemma was basically this: do you believe in the Emperor or in your Primarch? This dilemma caused a great schism in traitor legions, some legions lost their nearly half strenght at the beginning of the heresy. But in the loyalist legions everything was clear. How can a marine defy the Emperor, ideals of the Imperium and honor? Only with a really strong influence. For a legion this source of influence could only be their own primarch. No matter how charismatic was Horus; he didn't have such power in other legions. Some legions (Space wolves, Raven Guard etc.) hated him even before his treachery.

 

The sole exception in the Loyalists were the Dark Angels.

[Brother-chaplain Astador]

There was no reson for a member of a loyalist legion to betray. In the traitor legions the dilemma was basically this: do you believe in the Emperor or in your Primarch? This dilemma caused a great schism in traitor legions, some legions lost their nearly half strenght at the beginning of the heresy. But in the loyalist legions everything was clear. How can a marine defy the Emperor, ideals of the Imperium and honor? Only with a really strong influence. For a legion this source of influence could only be their own primarch. No matter how charismatic was Horus; he didn't have such power in other legions. Some legions (Space wolves, Raven Guard etc.) hated him even before his treachery.

 

I agree with this completely.