Which Primarch had the worse Impact on his Legion?

[DarthMarko]

 

captain Picard nailed it...

 

there is that example when Kirk finds greek/roman gods who are feeding on emotions also....

 

Btw you can compare chaos gods with mythic gods, yes - but there aren't clear defintions of god in 40k, just what people belive...

 

P.S.

I can't belive how many heretics on this forum would sold they arse to chaos :) (just jesting )

[Veteran Sergeant]

As for "The Primarchs should have done whatever the Emperor wanted because he made them"? Just because you fathered sons doesn't give you the right to enslave them. Lorgar wanted to be a priest, not a general. Curze was far more comfortable as a judge and vigilante than as a warlord. Angron would rather have died with his men. What gave the Emperor the right to force them to walk his path?

And yet, none of them turned down being a Primarch and general. Even Angryon, the two dimensional cardstock villain who only wanted to die being angry.

 

None of them were slaves. Most of the traitor ones are slaves now, lol. The ones that aren't are dead.

 

The real problem is that a lot of these guys are very flimsy characters who have had way, way too much depth added to them by this book series. Their motivations don't always line up because their actions were predetermined when it didn't matter that your name was Angron because you were angry all the time. Or that your name was Mortarion because you were a giant daemon price that looked like the grim reaper. Curze's name is right out of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and his death is ripped right out of Apocalypse Now (because M'shen has nothing to do with the actor Martin Sheen, lol).

 

Lorgar didn't want to be a priest, by the way. What he wanted to do was make Daddy happy. And he knew he wasn't a very good general, so he thought if he built some churches and made himself into a priest devoted to worshiping his Dad, that the Emperor would appreciate him. The priest thing was a reaction to his insecurities mated to his upbringing. Most of his brothers were warlords, or kings. Heck, Guilliman was an emperor, when the Emperor found him. Lorgar never learned any of those skills as a youth. But he'd accepted his role as leader of a Legion. It bothered him that he wasn't as good at being a general as everyone else. He thought that his calling was to make up for his deficiencies as a general by also being the leader of a faith dedicated to the Emperor. But not once did he say "Being a Primarch sucks. I wish I was a priest instead." He fully embraced being a holy warrior. It was when he was told that his warring wasn't holy that he broke.

 

The funniest part of this is, that often times people talk poorly about the Primarchs like Sanguinius and Guilliman as being lame because they "don't have any flaws" (which is totally not true, but it doesn't stop people from saying it). And yet, when we want to point out how the Traitor Primarchs who fell were all fatally flawed, suddenly nobody wants to just accept that fact. There's a reason why they fell from grace and led mass murder campaigns to destroy reality. And it's not because Chaos offered them the 'truth". :)

[daveNYC]

That's what I was trying to get at, The Emperor demanded they do as he said because he created them, he played god and then demanded they do as he told, and he wasn't even a true god, so when the chaos gods said hey you can do what ever you want and you'll be immortal, then it's no wonder some went with them, heck Primarchs are partly made out of chaos as well, so the Emperor didn't even create them by himself.

 

The various Primarchs were gobs of raw energy packed into exotic giblits all wrapped up in a think wrapper of skin, but I'm not sure why people keep treating the statement that the Ruinous Powers had anything to do with their creation. AFAIK, the only source for that is from the mouth(s) of the daemon in False Gods. Maybe the daemon in First Heretic said something similar, but you've got to consider the source.

[Wade Garrett]

Eh....on the one hand I sort of get what you're saying (some of us, I'll go farther, I am a bit wrapped up in my little plastic daemon worshippers) but on the other hand, you can sling those accusations at just about any fictional setting. Batman is Zorro with boomerangs, Superman is Hercules and Sampson as a boy scout, Game of Thrones is a grimdark JRR Tolkien, Tolkien is Greek and Norse mythology with elves, and so on. Derivative does not have to equal "bad".

 

As for Lorgar and the XVII, I really think you have to read Know No Fear with The First Heretic. Yes, they were scorned, yes, they rose above it to be born anew in the service of gods..but it cost them. Compare the Serrated Sun searching Khur for refugees from Monarchia with way the Dark Host treats their fodder on Calth. "What profiteth it a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul" indeed.

 

While Lorgar has his flaws, he was NOT the petulant brat he gets made out to be...which is why his ascension to Arch Zealot of Chaos is both triumph and tragedy. The humane orator who sought to bring the truth to humanity is dead.

 

My favorite moment in TFH is when he attacks Cobra on Isstvan. He knows he can't win, he knows that even the souls of his own sons are food for the thirsting gods, and yet "We worship the gods..but we are not their slaves." *Swings Illuminarium*

 

Lorgar's greatness and his flaws, all wrapped up in one scene.

[Emperor's Furor]

That's what I was trying to get at, The Emperor demanded they do as he said because he created them, he played god and then demanded they do as he told, and he wasn't even a true god, so when the chaos gods said hey you can do what ever you want and you'll be immortal, then it's no wonder some went with them, heck Primarchs are partly made out of chaos as well, so the Emperor didn't even create them by himself.

 

The various Primarchs were gobs of raw energy packed into exotic giblits all wrapped up in a think wrapper of skin, but I'm not sure why people keep treating the statement that the Ruinous Powers had anything to do with their creation. AFAIK, the only source for that is from the mouth(s) of the daemon in False Gods. Maybe the daemon in First Heretic said something similar, but you've got to consider the source.

 

Also have to consider what was going on when Ferrus had his head lopped off.

[Chaplain ChonkE]

Thousands of psyker souls are stolen to power the Astronomicon, send emails across the galaxy, swallowed by daemons in the name of service to the Imperium. This is not a choice. Trillions are sacrificed on worlds just to keep the truth from being found; that there are other powers in the universe as great as the Emperor on His Throne. All in the name of an eternal stalemate in the hopes that man will evolve its psyker potential. That blue pill doesnt seem so different to me. Slavery is just as effective when a sword of Damocles is balanced above the head of every soul living in the Imperium and the Imperium and Emperor arent nearly as forgiving as Dionysus.

 

Wade you are right on with your assessment about Lorgar and his ascension. He is the first to realize he is an individual and not a war machine; Argel Tal calls the Emperor's sanction and placing the Legion on its knees "slavery". Slavery is apt because there is no choice for the Primarchs. They are not allowed to foster their talents in other directions. Thunder Warriors were war machines. Primarchs could be so much more and Lorgar knew this and believed it. The others resigned themselves to their caste positions or championed them.

 

The Imperium of the 40k era is a shade of Lorgar's actions; his religion and religious works are the predominant force in the Imperium. Priests and Ecclesiarchs wield fantastic power in the name of the God-Emperor. Millions die using the Emperor's name as a death chant on their lips and the ultimate absolution when they give up their lives. Entire worlds are temples built in His Name. These are not the goals and intentions of the Emperor as we know them (at the moment).

 

So whose legacy casts the longer shadow? It is not Guilliman and his failed Byzantium or the pale specter of the Imperium he tried to rebuild. It is not Sanguinius and his sacrifice (yeah he has a great mural). It isnt Dorn and his failed attempt to defend Terra, preserve the Imperium and protect the Master of Mankind. Corax? Angron? Magnus? Even Horus could just be considered a chemical reaction to the substrate that was Lorgar. Lorgar sought out the 4-Powers and willingly, although sometimes reluctantly, changed the galaxy into the one we are familiar with in the 40k timeline. No other character's actions were as far-reaching. No other character's actions pervade every aspect of Imperial society and the power structures in it. It really all comes back to him after all.

 

Speculation only somewhat believed by myself, playing the Devil here... Why do we revere the Emperor so much? Is it because he is powerful? There are plenty of powerful men in the timeline. There are some in the background who seemed to have approached the power of the Emperor enough to become a threat (Dume) but obviously not as powerful as the man we know as the Emperor. What if the Emperor was just another petty warlord from the Age of Strife and not some paragon of humanity's psychic potential born into the body of one man? The last great psychic/cognosynth of the Psi-Wars. A man of psychic might and technological genius but not even a special "I was born from the souls of thousands of shaman" man. A man who patterned himself after the great warlords and leaders of the past, who gathered up the scientific might and resources of the Solar System which had enough power collectively to conquer a galaxy. This man lies to his subjects, lies to his creations, is callous and cold while trying to garner sole ownership of the galaxy to the human race by annihilation (whether military or the destruction and reeducation of cultures) over which he is sole guardian and controller. A man with such power can manipulate history, manipulate entire populations with his psychic might alone. Maybe he was even a "Primarch" of sorts who overthrew his creator, the Horus of His time. The denizens of the 30k timeline know little to nothing of the Emperor prior to his conquest during the Strife/Psi-War period. The Emperor controls everything. There is no freedom but a system of caste and forced servitude which is twisted into "doing your duty for the Emperor." It is funny that in a universe where everything is a lie we accept the "truth" of the Emperor so readily.

[Brother Amarel]

None of them were slaves. Most of the traitor ones are slaves now, lol. The ones that aren't are dead.

I'd suggest that those on the side of Chaos have a lot more freedom than those that aren't...

[Emperor's Furor]

To be fair chaos do call the Emperor the Anathema, must be pretty powerful if the chaos gods call him that, equally I looked up the definition of Anathema and it came up instantly with two meanings.

 

1.Something or someone that one vehemently dislikes.

2.A formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunicating a person or denouncing a doctrine.

 

Now the first could easily the answer, but what if the second was true, what if the Emperor is a God that was cast out by the chaos gods and in revenge has used humanity to declare war on them or something like that.

[Veteran Sergeant]

The Imperium of the 40k era is a shade of Lorgar's actions; his religion and religious works are the predominant force in the Imperium. Priests and Ecclesiarchs wield fantastic power in the name of the God-Emperor. Millions die using the Emperor's name as a death chant on their lips and the ultimate absolution when they give up their lives. Entire worlds are temples built in His Name. These are not the goals and intentions of the Emperor as we know them (at the moment).

I know this is a popular thing to regurgitate, but it's really not a victory for Lorgar at all. Especially since it didn't actually happen until long after the end of the Heresy, and Lorgar's vision has long since changed, so he'd take no pride in it anyway. The rise of the Ecclessiarchy had nothing to do with Lorgar (mostly because it already existed as a concept in the game before Lorgar did, lol), but instead because religious institutions are great ways to influence and control people. Attributing the Ecclessiarchy to some kind of "success" for Lorgar is ridiculous misinterpretation, lol.

 

So whose legacy casts the longer shadow? It is not Guilliman and his failed Byzantium or the pale specter of the Imperium he tried to rebuild. It is not Sanguinius and his sacrifice (yeah he has a great mural). It isnt Dorn and his failed attempt to defend Terra, preserve the Imperium and protect the Master of Mankind. Corax? Angron? Magnus? Even Horus could just be considered a chemical reaction to the substrate that was Lorgar. Lorgar sought out the 4-Powers and willingly, although sometimes reluctantly, changed the galaxy into the one we are familiar with in the 40k timeline. No other character's actions were as far-reaching. No other character's actions pervade every aspect of Imperial society and the power structures in it. It really all comes back to him after all.

Certainly nobody diminishes Lorgar's role in the shaping of the universe. But, then again, what do you want your legacy to be? "Weak-willed fool who ruined it for everybody?" Or like, say Guilliman "Tried his best to create utopia, but it was ruined at the hands of greedy humans?" Yeah, I mean Lorgar is probably, in the end game, the most important figure in 40K. But not for any admirable reasons.

 

 

I'll leave the last part alone because I dare not tread into areas where first person pronouns are used, lol.

[Chaplain ChonkE]

VS:I wouldnt call it a victory for Lorgar, just a consequence of his actions. The "lie" that he originally believed in and the Imperial Truth have reversed their binary and now Lorgar's lie is the "Truth" of the new Imperium of mankind. It is more ironic than anything else but it does show the extent Lorgar's actions had. I never called it a victory. That is misrepresentation. 40k WBs probably hate the Ecclesiarchy above any other organization in the Imperium (Reynolds has some good short blurbs on this in his WB novels).

 

Weak-willed is a bit strong in my opinion. Was Lorgar manipulated at times? Sure, but all of the Primarchs were at some point or another. Lorgar sojourned for truth and found it when everything he was told was a lie barring the Emperor's divinity. The truth was ugly and unpalatable but it shook the foundations of the galaxy, and it was what Lorgar and his Legion were searching for all along. It gave them identity.

 

WoT: Yeah, I was thinking about that really hard as I wrote that ramble :D It is why I say it is only partially believed. Lets face it though, the Emperor is a human supremacist who likely will accept nothing short of annihilation of any who oppose or do not "bend the knee" to his throne. He founds his empire on a false premise to try and undermine the powers of the Warp and his "New Man" theory (supported in the RT book and Abnetts Legion) could be dangerous to Chaos if Mankind was able to harness their psychic potential to a point where the influences of the Chaos powers acting upon the material plane would be more or less nullified. Like every human is a living Gellar field.

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

The Imperium of the 40k era is a shade of Lorgar's actions; his religion and religious works are the predominant force in the Imperium. Priests and Ecclesiarchs wield fantastic power in the name of the God-Emperor. Millions die using the Emperor's name as a death chant on their lips and the ultimate absolution when they give up their lives. Entire worlds are temples built in His Name. These are not the goals and intentions of the Emperor as we know them (at the moment).

I know this is a popular thing to regurgitate, but it's really not a victory for Lorgar at all. Especially since it didn't actually happen until long after the end of the Heresy, and Lorgar's vision has long since changed, so he'd take no pride in it anyway. The rise of the Ecclessiarchy had nothing to do with Lorgar (mostly because it already existed as a concept in the game before Lorgar did, lol), but instead because religious institutions are great ways to influence and control people. Attributing the Ecclessiarchy to some kind of "success" for Lorgar is ridiculous misinterpretation, lol.

It is a success for Lorgar. Why? Because it's not what the Emperor wanted and it was brought about by Lorgar's actions. And in ten thousand years, you know what has happened to the Emperor's Imperium? Lorgar's work has only grown.

 

Tell me what Vulkan will think, should he return, and he finds the people of the Imperium worshiping him. Tell me what Guillimann will say, should he heal, when he finds his empire a model of what he destroyed on Monarchia. Tell me what Russ will do, should he indeed come back from the grave to find the Inquisition questioning him on the heresy that is happening on his homeworld. Tell me all these things, and then tell me again that this is not a resounding success for Lorgar.

[Chaplain ChonkE]

Oh there would be some seriously cheesed off Loyalist Primarchs ^.^

[Wade Garrett]

*Reads Dark Apostle Thirst's post*

*reads it again*

Bloody brilliant. I doff my cap to you, sir.

[Legatus]

Off Topic (but fundamental):

Why do we revere the Emperor so much?

Because without him mankind would be long since gone. And because he has remained immovable, bound to the golden throne for the past ten thousand years, an unimaginable time span for us, just to allow humans to be able to travell and to communicate, to survive.

 

 

On Topic:

It is a success for Lorgar. Why? Because it's not what the Emperor wanted and it was brought about by Lorgar's actions. And in ten thousand years, you know what has happened to the Emperor's Imperium? Lorgar's work has only grown.

 

Tell me what Vulkan will think, should he return, and he finds the people of the Imperium worshiping him. Tell me what Guillimann will say, should he heal, when he finds his empire a model of what he destroyed on Monarchia. Tell me what Russ will do, should he indeed come back from the grave to find the Inquisition questioning him on the heresy that is happening on his homeworld. Tell me all these things, and then tell me again that this is not a resounding success for Lorgar.

Since the Emperor is no longer alive to lead mankind, the belief in his divinity is neccessary to focus the minds of the human population. Without a focus on the Emperor, their minds would be free to wander and to be lapped up by other deities. Mainly by the evil space gods of Chaos, since the non-chaos deities are not particularly interrested in human followers. Hopefully any returning Primarch would recognise that.

(And this was of course a non-issue in 2nd and 3rd Edition, where the Imperial Cult had already existed during the Great Crusade, and Lorgar had merely been a particularly pious follower of that cult, not its founder.)

 

Edit: (To make this relate more to the topic) But regardless of whether the current state of the Imperial Cult can be seen as an achievement of Lorgar (which I would object to), I think that the question of how bad an influence a Primarch was upon being introduced to his Legion should ignore the Heresy. Of course objectively any of the traitor Primarchs would ultimately end up condemning their Legion, so they were all pretty harmful in that respect. But there were some, like Curze or Angron, who had a negative impact on their Legions even without the Heresy.

There were even some Primarchs on the loyalist side, like Manus or Jonson, whose influence may not have been entirely healthy, even if they were spirited and gifted commanders. Corax ultimately had a damning influence as well, but that was sort of as a result of the Heresy, so I am not sure if I am not ignoring my own definitions if I count him. But he did not lead his Legion into damnation, so I guess that is not the same.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Tell me what Vulkan will think, should he return, and he finds the people of the Imperium worshiping him. Tell me what Guillimann will say, should he heal, when he finds his empire a model of what he destroyed on Monarchia. Tell me what Russ will do, should he indeed come back from the grave to find the Inquisition questioning him on the heresy that is happening on his homeworld. Tell me all these things, and then tell me again that this is not a resounding success for Lorgar.

I think you're confused.

 

The Emperor said he shouldn't be worshiped as a God. The Primarchs just went with his will.

 

I imagine if the loyalist Primarchs came back, the smarter ones, would just look at the situation and shrug their shoulders, and say "Eh, that makes sense." I don't think any of them would even bother dismantling the Eclessiarchy, because they would understand it's value in a galaxy devoid of the Emperor's cult of personality. Maybe they would. But the state of the Imperium today is only indirectly connected to Lorgar. His only "success" was that ultimately, he got his revenge against Daddy and Daddy is now stuck in a golden chair being spoon fed the souls of baby psykers.

 

I think you're looking at this from entirely the wrong angle. I mean, yeah, the Imperium sucks today, lol. Yeah, a lot of it is Lorgar's fault. Okay. But you're confused on Lorgar's intentions. He believed that worshiping the Emperor would be something the Emperor wanted. He gave up on that idea the second the Emperor ordered Monarchia destroyed. He never had some all-consuming desire to turn the Imperium into a theocratic state. He had an all-consuming desire to be loved by Daddy, and the only thing he knew was how to build churches and religions, so he did that, thinking that would be his contribution. He wanted to believe in the Emperor as a God, because all he knew was religion and worship. That's why he was so utterly broken after Monarchia.

 

The second the Emperor rebuked him, he slunk off looking for something else to worship because he was now convinced the Emperor was not a god. If anything, the Imperial Cult gaining such extreme power is an utter failure for poor Lorgar, as it represents everything he came to believe was untrue. He sits in his tower, writing his book that nobody will read, because it's still all he knows how to do. His desire is/was to build the "right" faith. Not just any faith.

[Emperor's Furor]

I'm rereading the first heretic atm, specifically the first several chapters that relate to the sanction and Lorgar's reaction to it, I can completely see his point, I think he's being pretty logical, if the Emperor isn't a god then in service of humanity he should do his best to find them, even if they don't sit right with him as ascension in any form is better than living for a short while doing achieving things that in the long run mean nothing.

[Watch Commander Danek]

The real problem is that a lot of these guys are very flimsy characters who have had way, way too much depth added to them by this book series. Their motivations don't always line up because their actions were predetermined when it didn't matter that your name was Angron because you were angry all the time. Or that your name was Mortarion because you were a giant daemon price that looked like the grim reaper. Curze's name is right out of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and his death is ripped right out of Apocalypse Now (because M'shen has nothing to do with the actor Martin Sheen, lol).

 

 

There is a TON of truth here. A TON. The Primarchs were, like the Emperor, not meant to be put under a magnifying glass. They were meant to be held in awe and mystery like the Eldar gods and the Chaos gods. The closer you look, the faster it all unravels. They were meant to be inspirations for YOUR creations. To spark YOUR imaginations. They were never meant to be biographied and spoon fed to the masses.

[Billuriye]

There is a TON of truth here. A TON. The Primarchs were, like the Emperor, not meant to be put under a magnifying glass. They were meant to be held in awe and mystery like the Eldar gods and the Chaos gods. The closer you look, the faster it all unravels. They were meant to be inspirations for YOUR creations. To spark YOUR imaginations. They were never meant to be biographied and spoon fed to the masses.

 

Not really. Horus Heresy fluff was established as a result of Primarchs acting according to their human trappings from the day one. Only Emperor fits the "indecipherable" bill and that's why you are never going to see Emperor POV.

[Watch Commander Danek]

Except you are. ADB is working on a book from the Emperor's perspective. And while human trappings and vulnerabilities played a part in the fall of the traitor primarchs, You'll notice before this whole HH BL run that the Primarchs were viewed with a very wide lense. Their vulnerabilities were there for view only to mirror the sins that caused the rebel angels to revolt, show the ramifications of the choices they made or allow some creative bridge for our imaginations through inspiration. The very successor chapters and the reasoning behind them is for US to create. Or was. As such we were given divine figures yet tangible enough to draw from as a basis for our hobby. That is why anyone in the hobby for a long period was shocked when the books were announced and moreso when FW announced rules for the primarchs.

[Billuriye]

Except you are. ADB is working on a book from the Emperor's perspective.

 

When he's asked if it'll have Emperor POV, he said he wasn't stupid.

 

And while human trappings and vulnerabilities played a part in the fall of the traitor primarchs, You'll notice before this whole HH BL run that the Primarchs were viewed with a very wide lense. Their vulnerabilities were there for view only to mirror the sins that caused the rebel angels to revolt, show the ramifications of the choices they made or allow some creative bridge for our imaginations through inspiration. The very successor chapters and the reasoning behind them is for US to create. Or was. As such we were given divine figures yet tangible enough to draw from as a basis for our hobby. That is why anyone in the hobby for a long period was shocked when the books were announced and moreso when FW announced rules for the primarchs.

 

You are right but Horus Heresy is the biggest event in the franchise and GW had to flesh that event out one way or another. And you can't do that without having Primarchs in the spotlight with their mentality and such. If Primarchs were just some Emperor like unapproachable entities, the event wouldn't be interesting.

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

I imagine if the loyalist Primarchs came back, the smarter ones, would just look at the situation and shrug their shoulders, and say "Eh, that makes sense."

 

...I think you're looking at this from entirely the wrong angle...

 

The second the Emperor rebuked him, he slunk off looking for something else to worship because he was now convinced the Emperor was not a god. If anything, the Imperial Cult gaining such extreme power is an utter failure for poor Lorgar, as it represents everything he came to believe was untrue. He sits in his tower, writing his book that nobody will read, because it's still all he knows how to do. His desire is/was to build the "right" faith. Not just any faith.

To the first point I left. No. Just no. Every single primarch wiped out numerous cultures in their entirety, just for worshiping instead being athiestic, even if they were human. Guillimann is often considered the most logical and possessing the most common sense of the primarchs - even Alpharius did things his own way just because he could, often costing time and the lives of his allies. After being dictated by the Emperor himself to crush his own brother's crowning jewel of his empire over worship. If anything his own brilliance will tell him that if and when the Emperor comes back - and I trust there is no doubt that all the loyal primarchs will try and do everything possible to bring back the Emperor - he will be utterly merciless to anyone who dared let the Ecclesiarchy live past five minutes. I can't imagine what the Emperor will do to Vulkan when he finds out that he's been around and not done anything to halt the spread of the Imperial Cult to what it is now.

 

The second point. Let's agree to disagree. It is enough to say I think that Chaos considers any defeat of the Emperor's a victory to them, and that Lorgar sees things the same way.

 

Final argument. One, you contradicted yourself - you said that he was only searching for a way to please his father, and then you said he was trying to find out the truth. Which is it? Two, he actually didn't look for something else to worship. It was brought to him by Erebus and Kor Phaeron. Three, he does know things past writing books - he was clearly a good enough war leader that he brought his tally of victories pretty close to both Guillimann and the Warmaster over a relatively short period of time. He was also the only one who came close to Magnus in the understanding of the unexplored field of the Warp as a loyalist. But, you know, it's easier to assume that Lorgar was useless except as the catalyst for the Heresy :)

[Legatus]

As I have pointe dout earlier, Guilliman and Dorn were still around when the different forms of Imperial Temples developed on the different worlds. Granted, that is older material, but I don't suppose that that GW/BL will rewrite the background so that it took hundreds of years for cults around the Emperor to form instead of mere decades. But then maybe they will. It would certainly be required to remedy the whole "all worship is bad" mess of the Horus Heresy series.

 

But even if Guilliman and Dorn hadn't personally witnessed the spreading of the Imperial Cult post Scouring, the "discovery" of Chaos must be considered an absolute game changer. (Let's assume for the purpose of this argument that the newer material is accurate and the Primarchs knew nothing about Chaos before the Heresy.) During the Great Crusade it may have seemed sensible to promote a message of no belief in the supernatural. But after the the discovery of Chaos, and the continuing activities of heretic cults after that, such a message simply is no longer viable. Now the doctrine has to be "yes, there are supernatural creatures, but they are all bad, and you have to stay true to the holy Emperor". Because if the Imperial authorities were to promote an entirely secular doctrine, then all a Chaos cult needs to do is to demonstrate even a minor supernatural miracle to convince the populace that the Imperium is wrong and that Chaos can offer them so many pretty new things. But if the Imperial populace believes in the supernatural and in the divinity of the Emperor, then when witnessing heretic miracles they can still say "we knew such stuff existed, and we were told it is bad".

 

(I am of course not saying that the Imperial population is taught about Chaos specifically. Just that there are evil and heretical supernatural things, and that the Emperor is their salvation.)

[Kol Saresk]

And Lorgar also orchestrated Calth and launched the Shadow Crusade into Ultramar.

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

'snip'

I disagree, for reasons already stated, but I'll reiterate it just for sake of clarity. The Emperor has already shown a complete lack of any leeway towards any form of religion, especially in his honor. To think that the primarchs would be foolish enough to risk his wrath is not really likely. Also, you have to realize the last time a primarch had promoted worshiping the Emperor for them led to the Heresy. Again, not exactly they want to support.

[Kol Saresk]

Legatus, the Imperial Cults have already been developing. They've been developing ever since Lorgar started them with the Lectitio Divinatus.