First Heretic

[khurdur]

Well fellow traitors, after finally having read First Heretic to end the debate.....who was right? Chaos or the emperor?

 

Whoever hasn't read the book, stop here.

 

"SPOILER ALERT"

 

 

 

It appears to me that chaos was in the right. The primarch gestation pods had colchisite runes on them, therefore the emperor made benedictions to chaos...He couldn't have made the primarchs otherwise. So, all space marines have their genetic creation based in the same blood magic and rituals they are fighting to stop ?

After using chaos benedictions to create the primarchs, he used a geller field to protect them. Sounds like he knew about chaos, and used it to his advantage, and lied.

 

 

 

 

What do you think?

[Legatus]

Well, here is a bit about the creation of the Primarchs from an ancient source:

"The Primarchs

The Emperor never made the mistake of underestimating the threat of Chaos, and in order to meet that threat he put the best scientific brains on Earth to work. Weapons and spacecraft poured out of the Martian factories to bolster beleagured forces throughout the Galaxy.

The Emperor's most long-sighted plan to counter the insiduous influences of the Chaos Powers was the creation of the Primarchs: genetically engineered super-humans with god-like powers. The Emperor's intention was to create a whole race of super-humans from the genetic blueprint of the Primarchs. By making them loyal and strong he hoped that they would prove immune to the malign psychic influences of Chaos.

The Primarchs were to be shining examples of humans free from the taint of corruption. The energy of the uncorrupted warp would flow through them as it flowed through the Emperor himself, invigorating them and confering special powers such as were possessed by the shamans of old.

Unfortunately, things did not go quite according to plan. Despite the Emperor's best attempts to shield the project from the permeating eyes of the Chaos Powers they still managed to learn of it. The Primarchs were still in their foetal stage, growing in special amniotic fluids, when the Chaos Powers combined their energies to spirit them away in an unexpected bold move.

Even for the Chaos Powers this kidnapping represented a colossal expenditure of energy. The Primarchs were sucked through the warp and scattered on separate human worlds in distant parts of the galaxy. The Chaos Powers did not have the resources to destroy the Primarchs, but they did the next best thing which was to hide them from the Emperor. They were to remain hidden until after the waking of Slaanesh."

(1st Edition, 1990, Realms of Chaos - The Lost and the Damned, p. 177/178)

Now, fluff from 1st Edition has to be taken with a grain of salt, since much of the lore had changed with the released during late 1st, early 2nd Edition. But the story about the creation of the Primarchs and their stealing by the hands of Chaos has remained. The later descriptions are just not quite as detailed, especially in the motivation of the Emperor, which had been to specifically oppose the forces of Chaos.

 

The question is not so much "who is right". Chaos wants to consume and corrupt the entire mortal realm and bring suffering to all living beings, and the Emperor wanted to oppose Chaos. If you personally find that the Chaos Powers have the more worthy endeavour, then have at it.

[Kol Saresk]

I think Legs hit this one right on the head. There is no true right or wrong. Now, did the Emperor use the warp to create the Primarchs? Yes. Was Magnus right when he said there was more to the warp than just the powers of Chaos, that there were good and neutral aspects of it? Yes. Is this where the Emperor drew the power from the Warp? Nothing says he didn't. I have noticed something about the fluff and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't guilty of it and so would anyone else. We the fans tend to see things were there usually isn't. And as a result, we tend to shift the perspective of the fluff to match our views. There are several examples of this in open and closed threads just throughout this forum. The most recent one I believe is the one about the Lion in the Heresy subforum. Or it might be the Fulgrim one in the Slaanesh subforum. Not too sure. But this has apparently persisted since the beginning of the fluff. Like when I came to the fluff seven years ago, Periclitor was strongly believed by the fanbase to be a Night Lord. And there were a few, very few, things printed by GW that said he was a Night Lord. That is no longer the case.

 

Another example is this right here. The original fluff is that the Primarchs were created to be pure, but somehow they were corrupted. I guess they weren't as pure as the Illuminati. Now, we see an example of a vision provided by Chaos is saying that heavily implies that the Chaos Gods were directly involved in the creation of the Primarchs. And the fact that it actually coincides along the same "time" as Horus' vision of the same thing, does give credence to the powers of the Dark Gods. At least in misdirection. But this belief has existed for a while, before BL even began to write the Heresy series. Or at least before they published it. I was first exposed to it back in the old BL fanfic forums. It was the general consensus. Then because we the fans viewed it that way, and BL was aware of it, they threw it in there. But not in so many words. Looking back, just about everything that is "fact" is actually "majority opinion." The Space Wolves are the biggest example. Those specific groupings of fans had a field day with that even though it wasn't proven or said outright by anyone who had authority, but it was hinted at in another book. I kind of love A-D-B's slap to the Space Wolves were he put up two quotes that said the only reason the Wolves were the executioners was because they never strained at their leashes. But everything in the 40k universe is ultimately grey, muddled, dirty and for every half-truth there is a whole lie.

[redmapa]

The Emperor is Prometheus, stealing the fire of the gods to brighten the future of men, thats why the demons kept saying that the emperor tricked the gods because he used the warp to give life to the primarchs and someone being the master of the warp and use it to its own ends without permission (like pacts) is something that the gods do not like at all since they dont see themselves as forces of nature like the warp actually is, they see themselves as righteous rulers of all creation and sole sovereigns of the warp.. I think the HH books are trying to do some sort of greek tragedy with all of this, which sounds like fun..

[Chaos Lord Shamrockius]

It's always struck me that the Emperor was a hypocrite. At Nikea, he decreed that only he could use his psychic powers, that none of his creations could be trusted with it. His knowledge of Chaos was clear and evident on undertaking the Primarch Project and this is just kind of underlines it. Obviously we are only knowing this story from one side, and at best, a daemon has an agenda, but the tale does fit the blanks.

When I first heard of the ghosting away of the Primarchs, my question was, as it usually is, "why?". It's always bugged me. The concept arguement of "they saw them as their biggest threat" seemed a little hollow. Yes, it probably is true, but if Emp him self had protections on his lab, how did they get in? How did they know where they were? How did they know of the project? It always seemed as if there were more questions than answers. I'm going to guess that we will never know for definite and that's probably half of the draw (thinking Lost now... and anger rises) to the game, the story and which "side" of the divide you sit.

That's fine, have the non-questioners sit on the loyalist side... I'd rather be quizzicle than ignorant. Even if it does give me worse wargear, means I have to put spikes everywhere to show what side I'm on, and if it means that I have to paint trim...

[Legatus]

It's always struck me that the Emperor was a hypocrite. At Nikea, he decreed that only he could use his psychic powers, that none of his creations could be trusted with it. His knowledge of Chaos was clear and evident on undertaking the Primarch Project and this is just kind of underlines it.

Well, originally the Edict of Nikaea only forbid the use of sorcery, but allowed the use of trained psychic powers. And in previous sources, the Great Crusade was rather openly directed against the influence of Chaos over the worlds of humanity. But in recent years GW/BL decided that the background would be more exciting and interesting if it made less sense.

[Excessus]

Nikea banned psychic powers as well, look at the former librarian made into an ordinary squadmember in Deliverance Lost...

[Legatus]

Nikea banned psychic powers as well, look at the former librarian made into an ordinary squadmember in Deliverance Lost...

That is why I said "originally". In the Index Astartes article of the Thousand Sons, the first one to establish the lore for the Council of Niakea if I am not mistaken, it was specifically said that a compromise was reached, due to the spirited orations of several Legions' Librarians who wpoke in favour of the Librarium project. After considering their words, the Emperor then had decreed that those Marines with psychic abilities should be carefully trained so they would be no threat and their powers could be put to good use, while sorcery was outlawed.

In the Horus Heresy books, they changed it so that the Emperor outlawed any kind of psychic ability use.