Why wheren't the Wolves at Isstvan

[Raven Angel]

Just got caught up on the HH books and I have wondered ever since Outcast Dead why the VIth Legion was not sent to Isstvan as part of the strike force? It is clear most of the Legions considered them little better then the XII and they (the World Eaters) had already sided with Horus. You would think Dorn would have sent Russ specifically to counter Angron and his boys as the IX (Blood Angels)where out of contact at Signus Prime. Any thoughts?

[Kol Saresk]

Because the Wolves had gone to Prospero and were stuck in that part of the galaxy due to Warp Storms most likely.

[Raven Angel]

Outcast Dead is pretty clear that the Wolves are sent AFTER the Dropsite Massacre, not before. Why didn't Dorn send them and hold back one of the smaller Legions like the Salamanders or Raven Guard?

[Jehoel]

But Outcast Dead messes with the timeline in that all other sources state that the Wolves were sent before Isstvan III, and thus were unavailable for the Dropsite Massacre fight.

[Raven Angel]

I would argue that sources outside of the HH books are written latter after much of the information was lost. Are the any in the HH books that specifically contradict Outcast Dead?

[Kol Saresk]

Outcast Dead is chronologically after Istvaan V. A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns take place before Istvaan III and are stated to be in that period of events within the book. So yes, it is contradicted. Which is why I came up with this THEORY.

[Chaplain ChonkE]

It is a good theory by the way and makes sense given the nature of the Warp and communications through it. Outcast Dead mentions that the razing of Prospero is going on as the news of the Dropsite Massacre is being relayed. This is shown by the skeleton crew of Custodes jailers using human guards to supplement the missing Custodes who were out enforcing the Emperor's edict.

 

The big hink about this whole timeline issue is that it would take alot of time for a fleet from Fenris to muster, coordinate with the forces from Terra and proceed their way to Prospero. That would take quite some time and quite a few assets but the message from Magnus did not arrive till after the Dropsite Message arrived. It is very clear that Magnus' sorcerous message took only a few days to reach Terra and it was mentioned that astropathic communications were slow and unreliable (whether this is just Magnus justifying his spell or the truth at the time...) which lines up nicely with all the old fluff/Know No Fear creating warp turbulence capable of stranding fleets and leaving realms isolated. Still, that would mean the Space Wolves/Custodes/Sisters retribution force were sent before the wards on Terra were broken which was the reason they got sent in the first place. Horus was said to have tricked Russ into going all-out against the Thousand Sons in fluff past. Perhaps the fleet got sent off as a approbation force to make sure the Thousand Sons were 'in-line' or were being set to watch over the Legion ala The Word Bearers in First Heretic and Horus changed the orders. Perhaps those orders were upgraded to officially sanction the 1kSons after the breach. I love that book but a few things are messy in it :P

[Raven Angel]

Outcast Dead is chronologically after Istvaan V. A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns take place before Istvaan III and are stated to be in that period of events within the book. So yes, it is contradicted. Which is why I came up with this THEORY.

 

I is an interesting theory however it does not seam to take into account all of the evidence. While I am still combing through other books and stories for more evidence I will purpose a variation of your theory that is I think neater and better supported by the available evidence.

 

It is clear that some kind of warp spawned temporal shenanigans are at work but it need not be the overly complex version you purposed. Consider the following; If the message is not out of phase, that is to say it arrives when it was sent, then Magnus was already too late when he tried to stop Horus from turning on Davin and this, not the warning, is where time got messed with. I seams more logical that the time travailing experience of Horus would be the source of the temporal anomaly in the calculations.

 

Outcast Dead provides a fixed point int the timeline with the arrival of the message and the sending of the Wolves. The truth of this is reenforced by information found in Aurelian, Rebirth, and Deliverence Lost. A Thousand Sons notes that the message was sent 2 days after Magnus attempts to save Horus and provides additional information about warp space conditions that are indicative of warp space after the bombing of Isstvan III. Aurelian in particular further supports the post massacre timeline with Magnus admitting only days have passed since the Burning of Prospero even though we know those parts of the story are happening more then 80 days AFTER the Dropsite Massacre. In Deliverance Lost Corax is specifically ignorant of Magnus' actions until Dorn informs him of everything but notes that no word from Russ has been received about the outcome of the battle.

 

Taken together there is only one logical conclusion; when Magnus made his attempt to save Horus almost 2 years had passed in real space since the events on Davin that Magnus was attempting to intercede in. First Heretic provides evidence that Horus did indeed travel in time during those events. With all the other deception Tzeench was weaving around Magnus it is not unreasonable to conclude that these events where hidden from Magnus until it was to late for any warning to make a difference in the outcome of Horus' actions. It also explains why Magnus didn't try and go after Horus himself. If this had been immediately in the aftermath of Davin there would still have been time to make a difference. But if it was after the Dropsite Massacre it was already to late to change anything and prevent the war.

 

So with this core of evidence I can conclude with reasonable certainty that Magnus was not yet considered a traitor before Isstvan and this leads me back to my original question. If Russ was not already actively tiring to kill Magnus as the evidence suggests why didn't Dorn send him to Isstvan?

[Emperor's Furor]

Anything to do with The Outcast Dead, gives me a headache.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Because fluff that is nearly 20 years old said the Sallys, Ravens, and Hands went to Isstvan, and the Wolves didn't.

 

 

You can't really put too much thought into this. The Black Library cats are working with some fixed material. They can only make nonsensical changes to so many things before it starts ludicrously contradicting itself. Just like some things happened because the models were already that way, these books are written because the story was already that way. And when those stories were written, the Heresy wasn't as fleshed out.

 

Chalk it up to a poor editorial vision for the series, honestly. Not enough time is/was spent deconflicting the various novel concepts.

[DarKnight]

Vet Sarge has a great point. The authors had to work with what they had from decades of previous work. I think I'm in the minority who would not have a problem if there happened to be a large scale retcon of the heresy, in terms of things like continuity and the timeline of events. There are many fans who don't even want the Emperor or Primarchs to even be written about in detail and degree that they have been so that's what gets you issues like this. As far as a in-universe answer, I don't think 1. Ferrus Manus would have been in the mood to wait for additional Legion support and 2. the traitors were already controlling the warp so they would have only allowed the Legions they wished to make it to Istvaan successfully.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I mean, personally I liked the Heresy as this "Well we sorta know what happened" event. But come on. The thing is a cash cow. The books have been getting progressively worse, and they still sell a ton of copies, and manage to sell limited edition novellas for like $100 a copy, haha. Plus it has revitalized Forgeworld. So I get why they did it.

 

I had called for a major revision to the Heresy lore though. Make it darker and grittier. Kill off some more of the Primarchs. There are a lot of characters who factor very little into 40K, or the timeline past the Heresy, and just sorta vanished after the Heresy was over. Mortarion, Lorgar, Vulkan, Corax, Khan... I mean, there is very little damage done to the continuity if you kill these guys off. Give us some epic Primarch on Primarch battles. I mean, you can't kill off Guilliman, or Dorn, or Angron. You know, the guys who play a part in the Post-Heresy storyline. But can you imagine Lorgar and Guilliman in a showdown where Guilliman gets his revenge for Calth and Lorgar gets his comeuppance? What about an epic battle to the death between Dorn and Mortarion or Corax and Angron on the walls of the palace?

[Brother Immolator]

Werent they supposed to be on the other side of the galaxy with the DA?

[Hasphexia]

I had called for a major revision to the Heresy lore though. Make it darker and grittier. Kill off some more of the Primarchs. There are a lot of characters who factor very little into 40K, or the timeline past the Heresy, and just sorta vanished after the Heresy was over. Mortarion, Lorgar, Vulkan, Corax, Khan... I mean, there is very little damage done to the continuity if you kill these guys off. Give us some epic Primarch on Primarch battles. I mean, you can't kill off Guilliman, or Dorn, or Angron. You know, the guys who play a part in the Post-Heresy storyline. But can you imagine Lorgar and Guilliman in a showdown where Guilliman gets his revenge for Calth and Lorgar gets his comeuppance? What about an epic battle to the death between Dorn and Mortarion or Corax and Angron on the walls of the palace?

 

 

I'd like it darker and grittier too, but not at the sacrifice of the Primarches. It would really put a dampener on the whole 40k "Mythology" of the Lore if you know matter of fact what happened. Some epic fights and a darker more serious tone and less of the "Micheal Bay" silliness would be appreciated though.

[Kol Saresk]

Outcast Dead is chronologically after Istvaan V. A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns take place before Istvaan III and are stated to be in that period of events within the book. So yes, it is contradicted. Which is why I came up with this THEORY.

 

I is an interesting theory however it does not seam to take into account all of the evidence. While I am still combing through other books and stories for more evidence I will purpose a variation of your theory that is I think neater and better supported by the available evidence.

 

It is clear that some kind of warp spawned temporal shenanigans are at work but it need not be the overly complex version you purposed. Consider the following; If the message is not out of phase, that is to say it arrives when it was sent, then Magnus was already too late when he tried to stop Horus from turning on Davin and this, not the warning, is where time got messed with. I seams more logical that the time travailing experience of Horus would be the source of the temporal anomaly in the calculations.

 

Outcast Dead provides a fixed point int the timeline with the arrival of the message and the sending of the Wolves. The truth of this is reenforced by information found in Aurelian, Rebirth, and Deliverence Lost. A Thousand Sons notes that the message was sent 2 days after Magnus attempts to save Horus and provides additional information about warp space conditions that are indicative of warp space after the bombing of Isstvan III. Aurelian in particular further supports the post massacre timeline with Magnus admitting only days have passed since the Burning of Prospero even though we know those parts of the story are happening more then 80 days AFTER the Dropsite Massacre. In Deliverance Lost Corax is specifically ignorant of Magnus' actions until Dorn informs him of everything but notes that no word from Russ has been received about the outcome of the battle.

 

Taken together there is only one logical conclusion; when Magnus made his attempt to save Horus almost 2 years had passed in real space since the events on Davin that Magnus was attempting to intercede in. First Heretic provides evidence that Horus did indeed travel in time during those events. With all the other deception Tzeench was weaving around Magnus it is not unreasonable to conclude that these events where hidden from Magnus until it was to late for any warning to make a difference in the outcome of Horus' actions. It also explains why Magnus didn't try and go after Horus himself. If this had been immediately in the aftermath of Davin there would still have been time to make a difference. But if it was after the Dropsite Massacre it was already to late to change anything and prevent the war.

 

So with this core of evidence I can conclude with reasonable certainty that Magnus was not yet considered a traitor before Isstvan and this leads me back to my original question. If Russ was not already actively tiring to kill Magnus as the evidence suggests why didn't Dorn send him to Isstvan?

Have you read Prospero Burns yet? When Hawser says to the Wolves that it is possible that the warning was actually sincere, Russ responds by telling him that Magnus wanted to have the Edict reversed so badly that he manufactured a lie about Horus turning traitor in the future. Meaning the Wolves were unaware of the events on Istvaan, because they had not happened yet. In A Thousand Sons, it took I think a hundred or so days after Magnus attempted to keep Horus from turning at Davin to get ready to send his warp-spirit to Terra and it took three days I want to say for him to return to his body. Three months after Davin is well before Istvaan III as False Gods has the Sons of Horus heading to the Auretian Technocracy. Ignoring the time it took to travel there as it was not stated, on page 339 we know that the war there took at least nine months. That's six months after Magnus sent his message. Combine that with the travel time to Istvaan III as well as coordinating four whole Legions into one system, Istvaan III happened well after Magnus sent his message and after the Razing of Prospero.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I mean, personally I liked the Heresy as this "Well we sorta know what happened" event. But come on. The thing is a cash cow. The books have been getting progressively worse, and they still sell a ton of copies, and manage to sell limited edition novellas for like $100 a copy, haha. Plus it has revitalized Forgeworld. So I get why they did it.

 

I had called for a major revision to the Heresy lore though. Make it darker and grittier. Kill off some more of the Primarchs. There are a lot of characters who factor very little into 40K, or the timeline past the Heresy, and just sorta vanished after the Heresy was over. Mortarion, Lorgar, Vulkan, Corax, Khan... I mean, there is very little damage done to the continuity if you kill these guys off. Give us some epic Primarch on Primarch battles. I mean, you can't kill off Guilliman, or Dorn, or Angron. You know, the guys who play a part in the Post-Heresy storyline. But can you imagine Lorgar and Guilliman in a showdown where Guilliman gets his revenge for Calth and Lorgar gets his comeuppance? What about an epic battle to the death between Dorn and Mortarion or Corax and Angron on the walls of the palace?

Along those lines, I loved how

Fulgrim did get killed in Angel Exterminatus but then that was the catalyst to his ascension to Daemon Princehood.

Things like that don't do a lot to the overall story as far as canonicity goes, but it certainly spices things up.

[Raven Angel]

Have you read Prospero Burns yet? When Hawser says to the Wolves that it is possible that the warning was actually sincere, Russ responds by telling him that Magnus wanted to have the Edict reversed so badly that he manufactured a lie about Horus turning traitor in the future. Meaning the Wolves were unaware of the events on Istvaan, because they had not happened yet. In A Thousand Sons, it took I think a hundred or so days after Magnus attempted to keep Horus from turning at Davin to get ready to send his warp-spirit to Terra and it took three days I want to say for him to return to his body. Three months after Davin is well before Istvaan III as False Gods has the Sons of Horus heading to the Auretian Technocracy. Ignoring the time it took to travel there as it was not stated, on page 339 we know that the war there took at least nine months. That's six months after Magnus sent his message. Combine that with the travel time to Istvaan III as well as coordinating four whole Legions into one system, Istvaan III happened well after Magnus sent his message and after the Razing of Prospero.

 

I have read it and double checked the relevant passages and while I agree that Russ had no knowledge of Horus' treason neither book specifically states that it s because these events have not yet happened. You are assuming facts not present. At the time the books where written the appeared to repeat the older fluff as to when these events take place however this is merely the inference of the reader because of the fluidity of the narrative. In fact neither book confirms or denies the old timeline except to repeat the order of these events. No information allowing for an accurate temporal coordinate reference is given. At the time they where released we all made that assumption of the old time line simply because no other information existed. That is no longer the case and you must include the new and more precise information in order to produce a more accurate picture.

 

Fact 1 Magnus' warning arrives roughly 5 days after the Dropsite Massacre. - Outcast Dead

Fact 2 Magnus confirms to Logar that Prospero was destroyed no more then 2 weeks before their meeting which is 4 days after the end of hostilities on Isstvan V. - Aurelian

Fact 3 the Isstvan V campaign lasted 98 days. - Deliverance Lost

Fact 4 Corax still considered Magnus Loyal after Isstvan but before speaking to Dorn on Terra. - Deliverance Lost

 

While 98 days is a tight time frame to stage and execute the Prospero attack A Thousand Sons notes the Wolves where unhindered in their warp travel making the trip possible. Russ' ignorance of Horus' treason while disturbing is by no means unique. Guilliman remained fully ignorant of the extent till after the battle of Calith which happened months after Isstvan. Also there is the simple fact that if Magnus had been declared renegade years befor Isstvan All the other primarchs would know making Coaxes ignorance very telling as to the when of this.

 

Now consider if you will the full implications of the revised timeline. In the old timeline Magnus' warning went unheeded. Now A Thousand Sons says that in the moment their minds meet Magnus learns everything. Imagine the additional soul crushing horror of learning that on top of everything else learning that it was all for nothing. The Emperor already knew and it was too late to stop Horus from ripping the galaxy apart. And as if that not enough in tiring to help you may have destroyed the one chance they had of defeating Horus away from Terra. You guys wanted more grimdark; it don't much darker than this.

[Kol Saresk]

You skipped a fact. The war on the Auretian Technocracy that took at least 9 months. I did supply the page number from False Gods by Graham McNeill. It has a fixed time point.

 

EDIT: Also, I would not use Magnus' point of view after Prospero for one reason:

 

Aurelian, page 75, Hazjihn of the Thousand Sons speaking

 

Some of us insist it has been months. Others claim mere days have passed. We cannot record the time accurately, for it flows in all directions. Chronometers dance to tunes of their own devising.

 

Now, it does say that Magnus believes mere days have passed in the material realm around the time Lorgar future-walked to him, although I do not know how long one "mere days" is, much less how long two of them are.

 

Also, in A Thousand Sons tells us that Davin happened five months(page 359) and nine days(pages 424-425) after Nikea. Not really important, just establishing "where" in the timeline. And then I was wrong because on page 433, only two days had passed since Magnus "went" to Davin. That would end up being the first two days after Horus was healed. That is before the Auretian Technocracy and well before Istvaan III. So A Thousand Sons does have the time line established and does present a "time stamp" of when it happened saying that it happened before Istvaan III, so much so that whatever reason the Wolves have for not being even at Terra needs to be a good one.

 

And also contradicts the statement of "mere days" presented in Aurelian funnily enough.

[Jehoel]

There is one major point that Raven Angel is missing. There is no rigid timeline for the events of the Heresy because GW has not issued an "Official Canon" of what the timeline is and they will not do so because they love the "loose canon" system that they have created. Yes, there are confusing inconsistencies in the BL books. And that is just fine as far as GW is concerned. All we can do is to try to pull some form of system together, but it will never be precise or without flaws. Some books just will not match up with the others. The reference to "facts" that Raven Angel makes assumes that there is an "official" timeline and we all know that there isn't one. Sorry Raven, not trying to pick on you. You just happen to have triggered my desire to post. B)

[DarthMarko]

Guys I' don't know why the timeline is so important? We have storyline...They messed up...simple...

[Raven Angel]

Here is where we differ in the interpretation. You see it as pinning down Davin to a fixed point and I see it merely pinning down the time of Magnus' action. Because of the vagaries of the warp this can be broken down to 2 separate events. The only way I see to test this is to establish the temporal relationships of Nikea, Davin, and Isstvan independently of the A Thousand Sons account and compare them.

 

It is obvious to me the Logar and the Word Barers where working against different Legions before Davin. The Imperial Fist being trapped in the warp since between Ullanor and Isstvan III is one example. It is possible the ignorance of Russ, Gilliuman, and Sanguinius are others.

 

I think Magnus was played by Tzeench and Erebus. I think they let Magnus think he had caught Horus just in time when in truth he was years too late. Exactly how they did this is not yet apparent, but this is clearly the kind of thing Erebus is good at.

[Dusktiger]

y'all are missing the simple truth of it. the wolves didn't go, because, as you pointed out, they would have tipped the battle in favor of the loyalists. the clear and simple of it is this; the authors didn't want us to win; they wanted that to be a victory for the traitors. so sending a loyalist force that could have prevented that from happening would have been a poor call. and if the wolves went and still lost, then the readers would call B.S. and say how's that even possible?! the massacre is meant to be a massacre where we lose. there's no other big mystery as to why the wolves didn't go there.

 

y'all also point out, the loyal legions sent there were considered smaller in comparison to other loyal legions. if you're specifically plotting a campaign to wipe out your opposition, you dont pick the big power players first; you knock out the little guys so they cant support the bigger ones while your kicking their butt. tactically speaking, it makes more sense, since those sent were told to go by Horus, yes?

[Kol Saresk]

Why would the Wolves have turned the tide? It still would have been 8 Legions versus 4 with the 4 Loyalists being attacked from the front and the rear. As it was, it was a tactical miracle that the 3 who were already there survived, and even then only just. The Salamanders have never recovered from the depleted numbers. The Iron Hands lost their Primarch and the Raven Guard went Rambo and in the process almost destroyed their own gene-seed trying to replenish their depleted numbers.

 

Besides, the Wolves were probably in the same boat as those three after Prospero.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

That doesn't work out either, Dusktiger. The Wolves might have tipped things further in the Loyalists' favor at Istvaan, but in the end the result would have been the same. We're talking about a fight where there's 8 vs 2.5 (only a fraction of the Iron Hands were present). Making that 8 vs 3.5 (or even 8 vs 4 if the entire Tenth Legion was present) buys the Loyalists some time, but the disparate number of troops and especially of Primarchs would still see through a Traitor victory at the Drop Site.

 

And besides, you have to remember what the original situation of the Heresy's beginning was before the Black Library started to fuddle with the timeline. Prospero and Istvaan V were supposed to have been basically simultaneous, and it was -- as planned by Dorn, Malcador, and the Big E -- a fairly solid strategy. Hit Horus and his four Traitor Legions with nearly double the enemy force. Magnus, while not an admitted rebel, broke the Emperor's laws and needed to be brought to justice; after all, if he broke one, he could break more and might even be tempted to join Horus' side. In that light, the Wolf attack on Prospero was also part spoiling attack to ensure that Magnus was kept from coming to Horus' aid. WE, the omniscient readers, know that it wouldn't have happened -- but in-character, the Emperor and his advisors couldn't know it.

[Kol Saresk]

Well to be fair to Black Library, the timeline was already kind of fuddled. The Heresy is supposed to be spread out over 7 years yet the impression GW's account gives, everything seemed virtually simultaneous even though it was supposed to be spread out. A prime example is that for the longest time(since at least 2004 as far as I an recall), it was believed that the Word Bearers Legion had been split in half during the Heresy. One half fought at Calth and the other half marched on the Eternity Gate. But that's been sort of "rectified" since Calth happened at the beginning of the Heresy and Terra happened at the end. The fan's perceived belief of the Legion being split in half was no longer necessary because a timeline was actually being given to the Heresy. Unfortunately, it has created ripples, such as this right here. But since Graham McNeill is the one who wrote False Gods, A Thousand Sons and The Outcast Dead, it's not just an editorial issue but the issue every author who writes series must contend with: overlooking their own work.