What happens if Magnus does not go to terra ?

[godking]

What happens if Magnus decided against recklessly going to Terra to warn the emperor but used conventional methods like Psykers to try to warn the Emperor ?

 

Obviously the Wolves dont sack Prospero in this scenario

 

The wards on Terra are not destroyed meaning  that the emperor migh have taken a more active role in the battle against Horus

 

The deal magnus made with Chaos would be voided probably meaning that the thousand sons would be mutated by their use os warp energy.

 

Magnus would by far be Horus and Lorgars most dangerous opponent.

 

How do things progresss in this scenario ?

[Lonewolf86]

An interesting question. without the sacking of prospero the wolves wouldn't have been mauled and would be at stronger and able to have a bigger role. The T sons would also probably be sided with the loyalists. I would think it would mean the traitors being defeated more easily without the death of the emperor. Horus would probably not have been able to force the duel with the emperor so maybe he too would have survived, with the traitors being pushed into the Eye?

[Brother Captain Ming]

Wait, I'm confused... Magnus went to Terra?  I thought he used sorcery to send a message to the Emps, similar to an Astropath's message, but well, more Chaos-y.
Did that make sense?
I think if he actually did try to get to Terra things would have worked out better, but Tzeentch had Magnus marked out as his since Magnus was in the capsule.
So if Magnus had tried to go to Terra Tzeentch traps him in the Warp, if he uses Astropaths Tzeentch corrupts that message (somehow) and Magnus gets Russ sent after him anyway.
I think Magnus' only salvation would have been to be soul-bound after his physical discovery 

as he is in The Dornian Heresy

 

[godking]

Wait, I'm confused... Magnus went to Terra?  I thought he used sorcery to send a message to the Emps, similar to an Astropath's message, but well, more Chaos-y.

Did that make sense?

I think if he actually did try to get to Terra things would have worked out better, but Tzeentch had Magnus marked out as his since Magnus was in the capsule.

So if Magnus had tried to go to Terra Tzeentch traps him in the Warp, if he uses Astropaths Tzeentch corrupts that message (somehow) and Magnus gets Russ sent after him anyway.

I think Magnus' only salvation would have been to be soul-bound after his physical discovery 

 

as he is in The Dornian Heresy

 

He used sorcery to send himself to Terra destroying the golden throne and the wards keeping Chaos out of the the imperial palace forcing the emperor to fight an never ending tide of daemons trying to invade Terra meaning that he could not actively fight the Horus Heresy until the end.

 

That is what angered the emperor the most that Magnus destroyed Terra's defenses in his hubris.

 

I dont see the Emperor sending Russ after Magnus on the basis of a corrupted astropath message remember that he still needs Magnus to occupy the golden throne in a scenario where the golden throne was not destroyed.

 

I can see tcheentz voiding the deal made with Magnus and his Thousnads sons horribly mutating when they attempt to use their warp magic.

[Brother Captain Ming]

Ahh, now I get it.

I dunno, I can see Tzeentch getting chaos slime-stuff all over an Astropath message. It gets to Terra, tainted, and the Emp or Dorn believe that if the Astropaths are corrupted then the population might be, if the population is then the Legion recruiting from said population might be. Are Astropaths being soul-bound right now? I think so, so would an Astropath's message even get corrupted? If no-one thinks it's possible they may assume that Prospero doesn't have any sanctioned pyskers anymore and Magnus used a rogue psyker(s).
I forgot about the flesh change deal he made though... and I can totally see Magnus' fleet exiting the warp, and as they do every single Thousand Son starts to mutate horribly, leaving the Imperium no choice but to purge the Legion.
And we're talking about Tzeentch here, so he's probably got 50 bazillion different schemes to make sure Magnus joins him.

[Peter the Hermit]

Never mind, TS and Magnus were time ticking bomb from the moment cyclop's made a deal with Tzeench...They would turn sooner or later....

[godking]

Ahh, now I get it.

I dunno, I can see Tzeentch getting chaos slime-stuff all over an Astropath message. It gets to Terra, tainted, and the Emp or Dorn believe that if the Astropaths are corrupted then the population might be, if the population is then the Legion recruiting from said population might be. Are Astropaths being soul-bound right now? I think so, so would an Astropath's message even get corrupted? If no-one thinks it's possible they may assume that Prospero doesn't have any sanctioned pyskers anymore and Magnus used a rogue psyker(s).

I forgot about the flesh change deal he made though... and I can totally see Magnus' fleet exiting the warp, and as they do every single Thousand Son starts to mutate horribly, leaving the Imperium no choice but to purge the Legion.

And we're talking about Tzeentch here, so he's probably got 50 bazillion different schemes to make sure Magnus joins him.

Tzeentch has a billion schemes but only one scheme would ensure the destruction of the wards on Terra keeping the emperor out of the fight with Horus . If Magnus does not go to Terra destroying the wards at best the thousand sons are destroyed by mutation.

I dont see a scenario where the emperor decides to bring Magnus in one the basis of a corrupted astropath message.

Magnus destroying the wards and the golden throne is one of the pivotal moments of the Heresy since it basically kept the most powerful psyker in the universe out out of the game and pushed the second most powerful psyker to the side of chaos . Destroyed one legion and badly mauled another.

[godking]

Never mind, TS and Magnus were time ticking bomb from the moment cyclop's made a deal with Tzeench...They would turn sooner or later....

 

Maybe but Magnus not destroying the golden throne and the wards on Terra is a huge game changer.

 

It means that the most powerful psyker in the universe is free to activelly take the fight to Horus.

[AllHailTheMachine]

Tzeentch would get him one way or another as he had already made his ill advised bargin to save his legion.

 

Still when he returns to Prospero with his legion after nikea, he was at his lowest and most vulnerable. I would like to think if he did not fail by sending his message to terra his fall may have been slowed enough for him to see chaos for what it really was as the heresy develops.

 

Knowing this may have been enough for him to change his path, but his legion may already have been damned by the bargin with the chaos powers he made. It would be interesting seeing him tell his sons they can't have tutaries any mire as they are actually filthy daemons!

[Kol Saresk]

What happens if Magnus decided against recklessly going to Terra to warn the emperor but used conventional methods like Psykers to try to warn the Emperor ?

One problem, he did use Psykers...

 

Unless you mean Astropaths. Well, if that happened, the Outcast Dead wouldn't have happened, meaning the Emperor wouldn't foresee how he was going to end the Heresy. I don't think the Sacking of Prospero is not an event that would be negated in this scenario.

 

Let's look at it. From what we see of the time line in A Thousand Sons, Magnus tried to warn the Emperor of Horus turning traitor well before Istvaan III. It was like right after Davin IIRC. If my estimation is correct, the Razing was happening right at the overlap of the end of the Auretian Technocracy campaign and the beginning of Istvaan III. Meaning that Magnus would have been "unjustly" accusing not just one of his brothers, but the brother who happened to be the Emperor's most treasured son and happened to carry the title of Warmaster to prove it. Which ultimately means that it would come out that in order for Magnus to discover this, he still broke the Edict of Nikea. So it is very likely that the Wolves still would have been sent after him to bring him to Terra for punishment and that Horus still would have manipulated events so instead of "Come out into the open with your hands up!" from the Wolves, there still would have been the opening orbital bombardment and that would still lead to the Razing.

 

The interesting note would be that instead of the mainstream version where Magnus is constantly being led by his hubris, in this scenario he would have started taking steps to overcome that shortfall when he decided to use "approved" methods of contact instead of trying to show how much of a know-it-all he was. It may even be enough for him to recognize his arrogance that maybe, just maybe, he could have halted or even prevented the Razing by presenting himself to Russ instead of just bowing his head to the executioner's ax. The question would be if that gesture would be enough to halt Russ.

 

And yes, Astropaths' messages can always be corrupted. They have to travel through the warp. Anything involved with the warp can be corrupted. All soul binding is supposed to do is keep astropaths from being possessed and make a "psychic network" out of them all. That's why they always die when the warp gets "antsy." The power can't manifest so it simply overloads their brains. However, one message being corrupted would not cause the entire astropath population to come under suspect as it was an event that was logged in somewhere. may not be common, but it would be known. Just like ships being lost in the warp was a known fact.

 

After that, I'd rather not speculate. Although in the case of the Golden Throne, it is a game changer yes. The question is, how? We have two very plausible options happening with way too many minor ones.

 

1.) The Emperor continues trying to forge a human webway system to the point he doesn't notice the Heresy start. Not the likely occurence, but one nonetheless. In that case, it would proceed just like the Heresy we know and love with the exception of Magnus either remaining loyal or dead(as everything would have most likely happened before Garro reached Terra) and no daemonic assault on the Palace.

 

2.) Depending on how long away he can be from the Golden Throne before the daemons start to burn through the wards, the Emperor does personally take the fight to Horus. This could wind up with a premature ending similar to the current with both Horus and the Emperor taken out of the game or either the Emperor winning because Horus doesn't have enough daemonic power or Horus winning because his rather "pure"(when compared to the Siege-universe Horus) humanity giving him the advantage of causing empathy or some other, similar emotion to confound the Emperor. The ramifications would be that depending on how long it took for the showdown to happen, Angron and Fulgrim may not be daemon princes, Magnus may or may not have turned traitor(it would depend on his actions at Prospero in this timeline) as well as a number of alternatives. Perhaps one even being that the Emperor personally led the Istvaan V campaign and was able to either deal with or prevent the Massacre in a better manner than it happened. The possibilities and ramifications do truly become endless.

 

No, Magnus' biggest problem would still be that he broke the Edict. He may not have gone as far and caused as much damage, but he still would have done it.

[daveNYC]

Without the message to Terra, Prospero might still be intact, but not likely.  Horus could try and send the Wolves against them, but that becomes a slightly harder sell without the Emperor getting the ball rolling.  Horus convincing Russ to be more aggressive than the Emperor requested is pretty different from Horus just straight up trying to talkin Russ into attacking Prospero because 'his sources have found out some disturbing information' or some such.  Horus wasn't that big of a fool, even if he couldn't convince a loyal legion to do it, he'd have had to do something to deal with a legion of psykers who already know what he's up to.  That's the sort of thing that can really throw a spanner in the works.

 

If Magnus hadn't sent the message (technically he didn't just send a message, he projected himself into the palace), the wards on the webgate in the throne wouldn't have been an issue.  The whole astral projection thing relied on Magnus breaking from the warp into the webway passage that led to that gate.  That hole in the web passage is what allowed all the daemons to get in there and threaten the throne room.  No message, and not only is the throne intact, but the web passage doesn't have a gaping hole that allows all the minions of hell to stroll up to the main door and come knocking.

 

And the deal that Magnus made to stop the mutations?  Personally, I think the only thing that Tzeench got out of that deal was that Magnus believed that he had made a good deal and that the forces in the warp weren't all malevolent.  All just to set him up to accept Tzeench's assistance in busting the webway open.  Who needs to buy a soul when with enough good will you can convince someone to just give it to you.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

If this had happened, the Custodes and Sisters wouldn't have had to fight against a daemonic horde in the Webway in the first place.  Remember, Magnus busting into the Palace via the Webway was Part 2.  Part 1 was when Magnus ripped a hole into the Webway from the Warp.  THAT is what allowed the daemonic incursion into the Webway in the first place, followed by him ripping through the wards protecting the Golden Throne's gateway which THEN allowed said daemons into the palace.  So if Magnus never tries sorcery to warn Daddy in person, then there are no daemons running amok in the basement.  This in turn means that the Emperor isn't spending the entire Heresy fighting to keep the portal closed.

 

Ergo, he can come out of the basement -- and bring his personal army of Custodians with him -- to put down the Heresy before it rips half of the Imperium apart.

[godking]

 

What happens if Magnus decided against recklessly going to Terra to warn the emperor but used conventional methods like Psykers to try to warn the Emperor ?

One problem, he did use Psykers...

 

Unless you mean Astropaths. Well, if that happened, the Outcast Dead wouldn't have happened, meaning the Emperor wouldn't foresee how he was going to end the Heresy. I don't think the Sacking of Prospero is not an event that would be negated in this scenario.

 

Let's look at it. From what we see of the time line in A Thousand Sons, Magnus tried to warn the Emperor of Horus turning traitor well before Istvaan III. It was like right after Davin IIRC. If my estimation is correct, the Razing was happening right at the overlap of the end of the Auretian Technocracy campaign and the beginning of Istvaan III. Meaning that Magnus would have been "unjustly" accusing not just one of his brothers, but the brother who happened to be the Emperor's most treasured son and happened to carry the title of Warmaster to prove it. Which ultimately means that it would come out that in order for Magnus to discover this, he still broke the Edict of Nikea. So it is very likely that the Wolves still would have been sent after him to bring him to Terra for punishment and that Horus still would have manipulated events so instead of "Come out into the open with your hands up!" from the Wolves, there still would have been the opening orbital bombardment and that would still lead to the Razing.

 

The interesting note would be that instead of the mainstream version where Magnus is constantly being led by his hubris, in this scenario he would have started taking steps to overcome that shortfall when he decided to use "approved" methods of contact instead of trying to show how much of a know-it-all he was. It may even be enough for him to recognize his arrogance that maybe, just maybe, he could have halted or even prevented the Razing by presenting himself to Russ instead of just bowing his head to the executioner's ax. The question would be if that gesture would be enough to halt Russ.

 

And yes, Astropaths' messages can always be corrupted. They have to travel through the warp. Anything involved with the warp can be corrupted. All soul binding is supposed to do is keep astropaths from being possessed and make a "psychic network" out of them all. That's why they always die when the warp gets "antsy." The power can't manifest so it simply overloads their brains. However, one message being corrupted would not cause the entire astropath population to come under suspect as it was an event that was logged in somewhere. may not be common, but it would be known. Just like ships being lost in the warp was a known fact.

 

After that, I'd rather not speculate. Although in the case of the Golden Throne, it is a game changer yes. The question is, how? We have two very plausible options happening with way too many minor ones.

 

1.) The Emperor continues trying to forge a human webway system to the point he doesn't notice the Heresy start. Not the likely occurence, but one nonetheless. In that case, it would proceed just like the Heresy we know and love with the exception of Magnus either remaining loyal or dead(as everything would have most likely happened before Garro reached Terra) and no daemonic assault on the Palace.

 

2.) Depending on how long away he can be from the Golden Throne before the daemons start to burn through the wards, the Emperor does personally take the fight to Horus. This could wind up with a premature ending similar to the current with both Horus and the Emperor taken out of the game or either the Emperor winning because Horus doesn't have enough daemonic power or Horus winning because his rather "pure"(when compared to the Siege-universe Horus) humanity giving him the advantage of causing empathy or some other, similar emotion to confound the Emperor. The ramifications would be that depending on how long it took for the showdown to happen, Angron and Fulgrim may not be daemon princes, Magnus may or may not have turned traitor(it would depend on his actions at Prospero in this timeline) as well as a number of alternatives. Perhaps one even being that the Emperor personally led the Istvaan V campaign and was able to either deal with or prevent the Massacre in a better manner than it happened. The possibilities and ramifications do truly become endless.

 

No, Magnus' biggest problem would still be that he broke the Edict. He may not have gone as far and caused as much damage, but he still would have done it.

I meant Astropaths.

 

And i think the biggest issue that the Emperor had with Magnus ''warning'' is that he destroyed the Golden throne and the wards of the imperial place to do it.

 

In a scenario where Magnus sends the warning through an Astropath  corrupted or not  i dont see the emperor angry enough to send Russ though he might send Dorn or maybe Sanguinus to bring Magnus in.

 

I agree with the two possibilities for the emperor in a scenario where the wards are not destroyed

[Kol Saresk]

The problem I see with that is what the Emperor said about any who broke the Edict of Nikea in A Thousand Sons. I don't have my copy on me so I can't quote word for word, but IIRC, the Emperor didn't set any degrees of breaking. He said that any break in the Edict would be met with punishment. That includes how Magnus found out about Horus turning Traitor, the fact that he never obeyed the Edict and that he is accusing Horus treachery around the same time that Horus is recovering on Davin from an almost fatal injury. It's like that one movie with Tom Cruise, you can't accuse people of murders they have yet to commit. Horus hasn't "fully" turned Traitor yet and as much as we all like to think the Emperor is all-powerful, he's not. He was almost strangled by an Ork Warboss remember? What will or will not happen in alternate scenario is unclear, but these are all facts that have to be taken into account. There is more evidence leading towards some form of punishment towards Magnus simply because he broke an Edict and we have yet to see any evidence of the Emperor forgiving Traitors.

[Lord_Caerolion]

The thing is though is that the whole reason Magnus uses his sorcery is because the traditional methods wouldn't have worked. Astropathic messages take time to arrive, and are subject to distortion, and he needed his message heard now and clearly. For all he knew, sending an Astropathic message would have had the message arrive far too late to warn the Emperor.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

More importantly, he knew that the big Four were keying in on the Heresy and Horus, and would've likely screwed with the astropathic message. If he had simply decided to relay the message via other means, a la traveling super quickly via Warp, taking as many Navigators as possible and just running them way into the ground, then I doubt Horus ever reaches Terra. TS and SW both Loyalist? Traitors would've had to have serious talks about rethinking the march on Terra.

[Peter the Hermit]

Hm, don't forget that "kindred" spirit who gave him a nod during his warp travel....If it wasn't for that - Magnus wouldn't make it...

[Kol Saresk]

The "kindred spirit" was a being made of benevolence that sensed Magnus was in a hurry IIRC. The being is as pure as The "Fenris" that the Wolves' Rune Priests draw their power from. Granted, a benign being existing in a dimension that is made of the very stuff of the "entire" emotional spectrum. Besides, it's like the old saying "No good deed goes unpunished."

[Peter the Hermit]

Don't say - you don't think Tzeench had anything with that....???

[Kol Saresk]

Don't know. Not enough is known about the benevolent entity. The warp is a dimension that is a reflection of the emotional psyche of all psychic species, whether those emotions be good or bad. So it actually is possible that something existed in the warp that is benevolent.

[Peter the Hermit]

Huh !? I thought this was evident...I mean, I' ve read on other forums, majority of people are inclined to belive that was Tzeechian push else I' dont see the point of that "benevolent entity" in the book chapter....

I' mean who gains the most if Deamons invade Imperial palace? Who will gain the most if webway goes to hell? Who will get sanctioned after that mess?

Accident? Hell no! Tzeench is the dude who pushes when someone needs a push...

[DarthMarko]

QFT^

If Magnus didn't reached Terra, Tzeech's plan would probably fail"

Isn't this like 2+2 = 4 = Tzeench

 

@Kol don't say you didn't suspected anything?

[Wade Garrett]

Ahem.

No one else caught a Whee hint of irony in "as pure as the Fenris the Wolf Priests draw their power from"?

[Peter the Hermit]

^You mean that lame attempt of sarcasm...no...but that Fenris power theory is so much chewed  on this forum that is starting to be very boring and annoying...

Anyway this is about Magnus reaching terra and unintentionally fething the IoM 4life (or not) topic so stick to that....

[DarthMarko]

Ahem.

No one else caught a Whee hint of irony in "as pure as the Fenris the Wolf Priests draw their power from"?

IIRC Topic is "What happens if Magnus does not go to terra" ? Don't make this another "How the SW use warp" rant...

 

on topic - I don't remember, did Magnus told anyone about the webway after he broke it:-)?