The Horus Heresy and irony.

[Brother-Chaplain Corleth]

Throughout most of the (usually, better) horus heresy novels; and story as a whole there a number of quite poignant and/or wryly humorous ironies.

 

The most notable being in my opinion - the whole Heresy coming to be due to; in some way, the Word Bearers being chastised for a form of worship for the Emperor that I would say is a lot less zealous than that of the Imperial Creed in 40k... Could you imagine the reaction of the great-crusaders to the Black Templars?

 

Has anyone else noticed any ironies of note?

[Son of Rawl]

What I find most ironic is that we know whats going to happen in the end but still pay £7.99 to read about it

[Valkyrion]

Irony is ten thousand imperial guardsmen when all you need is a space marine.

 

attributed to Alani'smor Isette, M31.

[The emperors chosen]

What I find most ironic is that we know whats going to happen in the end but still pay £7.99 to read about it

Well played Sir, well played...

[Tutteman]

Or how many of the Traitors feel betrayed because they're being replaced by civilians and how they think they will be left without wars to fight. But then none of them stop and wonder "Well what did I THINK I was fighting for in the first place?"

[Billuriye]

The series begins with the irony: "I was there when Horus killed the Emperor."

[Midgard]

Or how many of the Traitors feel betrayed because they're being replaced by civilians and how they think they will be left without wars to fight. But then none of them stop and wonder "Well what did I THINK I was fighting for in the first place?"

 

In all fairness, this is addressed in the series by

Sigismund

, who did not believe that the war would ever end. Instead, he surmised, the Marines would fight to keep the Imperium they have conquered for as long as the Imperium existed. Even without the benefit of hindsight, this is probably why there were not many Marines who could even think about what would happen after the Great Crusade was over.

 

Plus, there is the saying that power corrupts, and there is no greater power than the power of life and death. With this kind of power in their hands, the Legiones Astartes have grown used to being more powerful than pretty much any other Imperial organization. Even if they started out by truly believing they were fighting for the Imperium, it did not take long for them to see themselves as the representation of the Imperium, because they held the power of life and death over those they attempted to indict into the ranks of the empire. Considering the lack of connection between the Marines and the ordinary humans, and the purposeful detachment of the Marines from everyone they supposedly fought for, is it any surprise that they ended up fighting for fighting's sake, and fighting for power, wherever applicable?

 

And then there is another thing. The original Terran Marines might have been indoctrinated to the Emperor's vision, such as it was. By the time the Primarchs were discovered, the main focus of recruitment shifted to the Primarchs' homeworlds, and Marine motivation was quite possibly altered. Whereas a Terran warrior fought for the Emperor's vision and humanity, a warrior recruited from elsewhere fought for his Primarch, guided by ideals and vision of his own homeworld. The underlying motivation might have had more to do with whatever motivated the cultures the Marines were recruited from - for example, cultures with strong warrior ethos and, for the lack of better word, macho values would be fighting to show their prowess in battle because it increases their personal prestige and self-image. A devout culture, such as that of Colchis, would fight to spread its faith, and as such the Word Bearers would end up fighting because their belief dictates them to, and to spread the faith in their chosen deity, which they believe to be the true salvation of humanity - they are not fighting for the Emperor's secular truth by any means, and their particular mission would not end with the conquest of the galaxy, since protecting and spreading the religion does not necessarily entail the end goal.

 

Finally, even though the Imperium straddles the galaxy in the "present" time of M41, I recall it being alluded to in the background materials that the Imperium controls only about 1% of the galaxy. The remaining 99% are still terra incognita, and might include anything from lost empires of humanity to xenos threats to, well, anything else you can think of. Even if 90% of that is uninhabitable/empty space that is unusable, there is still much ground to cover. Even if the Imperium was several times its "present" size at the height of the Great Crusade, there was still enough of the galaxy to conquer to where the Marines were unlikely to seriously consider what would happen after the Crusade was over. The frustration many have shown with the increased role of civilian authorities had to do with the civilian authorities taking over while the Great Crusade was still ongoing. With these factors in mind, I can definitely see how the above dichotomy could be resolved.

[Olis]

Indeed, and considering the Milky Way is currently estimated (at the VERY conservative end) to be well above 100 billion stars (I've heard numbers upwards of 400 billion if you factor in faint dwarf stars) then the fact that the Imperium controls 1% or less (the commonly stated number of Imperial worlds is around 1 million) of the actual galaxy should be rather elementary and it is then also hardly a surprise there are aliens hiding or having pocket empires BLOODY EVERYWHERE. :lol:

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

Don't forget that not all stars have inhabitable worlds, worlds at all, aren't dying stars, etc. 1% is actually quite a good portion of inhabitable systems.

[Lord Ragnarok]

What I find most ironic is that we know whats going to happen in the end but still pay £7.99 to read about it

 

You can take many paths to arrive at the same destination. Some can be mundane, some ugly and some gorgeous. Sometimes arriving there is not as important as the journey.

[Something Wycked]

What I find most ironic is that we know whats going to happen in the end but still pay £7.99 to read about it

 

You can take many paths to arrive at the same destination. Some can be mundane, some ugly and some gorgeous. Sometimes arriving there is not as important as the journey.

The same reason we go see movies.

 

How does the vast majority of movies end? The good guy winning and getting the girl. I can't remember the last non-Shakespearean movie I've seen that was a tragedy instead of the above formula.

 

There might be uncountable variations in how the movie progresses and ends, but one fact remains the same: we go to see a story told well.

[Olis]

Don't forget that not all stars have inhabitable worlds, worlds at all, aren't dying stars, etc. 1% is actually quite a good portion of inhabitable systems.

 

Indeed it is but 1% of 100,000,000,000 is, although a large number, still leaves 99 billion stars. Say 1% of the galaxy's stars (for argument's sake) has habitable planets that number is severly reduced to 1,000,000,000 and 99% isn't under Imperial control. That's operating one decimal place ahead of the quoted number, we'd need to go to 0.1% for the quoted number to fit.

 

I know this is probably information you already knew or could work out quickly enough, and I also know this post sounds a bit condescending but it's not meant to be. I'm just cack handedly pointing out one million worlds, 1% of the habitable planets or not, is a relatively small amount of territory in galactic terms and there's plenty of room for xenos, undiscovered humans, subsequently lost humans, chaos, the unknown, yadda yadda yadda.

 

Edit: Typo.

[dcye]

Irony is ten thousand imperial guardsmen when all you need is a space marine.

 

attributed to Alani'smor Isette, M31.

 

I lol'd. Kudos.

[Brother Immolator]

Remember that the imperium doesnt need habitable planets only,they can terraform what they need and they keep death and dead worlds as they are for other reasons.

 

The irony of the heresy for me was that horus felt betrayed(from what he seen on his visions on Davin)by the emperor and at the start he thought he was right.

He began a revolution to stop the emperor from becoming a god and then it was horus who wished to become one eventually.

[The_son_of_Dorn]

I found massive Irony in the fact that it was the word Bearers who bought about Chaplains in all the legions, who preech loyalty and dedication to the emperor were the first ones to turn, I also find it more alarming that Horus the warmaster, a being of unmatched intelligence (besides Magnus obviously) was able too be a victim of his own pride and honour and was not able to think things through clearly when he had the mourvial, and all because Erebus provoked him a tad at the war council.

Granted Erebus had had access to Horus before but surely Horus was not that moronic.

 

Such a titan of a man bought down by so little. (that and a horrific force of plauge zombies lol)

[Lord Ragnarok]

I found massive Irony in the fact that it was the word Bearers who bought about Chaplains in all the legions, who preech loyalty and dedication to the emperor were the first ones to turn, I also find it more alarming that Horus the warmaster, a being of unmatched intelligence (besides Magnus obviously) was able too be a victim of his own pride and honour and was not able to think things through clearly when he had the mourvial, and all because Erebus provoked him a tad at the war council.

Granted Erebus had had access to Horus before but surely Horus was not that moronic.

 

Such a titan of a man bought down by so little. (that and a horrific force of plauge zombies lol)

 

Hubris can blind the strongest of minds to dangers standing in front of them.