Missing primarchs : A simpler than expected answer ?

[kabouri]

Hi guys,

 

   I was reading Angel Exterminatus and there is a moment where Perturabo recalls the moments back in Terra,the last night on earth before the departure for the crusade, when the primarchs ascent ( to a mountain ?) to take their Oaths in front of their father, the emperor. He says that not all of them made it.

 

I know that in several cases there are strong evidences that the missing legions where exterminated along with there primarchs. Is it possible that the above, their failure to reach the top of the mountain ( metaphorical i beleive), is the real reason why they are erased from memory ?

 

BR

[Mantras]

This was my initial thought when I read that passage. The question being, if several failed, it would kind of defeat the point of the test if they were still given control of their Legions

[Nehekhare]

IIRC, Angron didn't take the oath...

[Raulmichile]

And that makes me think:  Would you grant one of the twenty most potent weapons the galaxy has ever known (a Legion) to a general who doesn't take the oath of fealty to you????????????

 

Mmmmhhhh.....  don't ask why things don't go as planned 200 years later.....

[Grimdarkness]

Angron was one of nine primarchs to renounce the oaths. I doubt all the primarchs where every on terra the ones found during the crusade later part for example.  

[Nehekhare]

angel exterminatus, p. 96: Perturabo and his brother primarchs had each made that climb to the crenellated peak of the Astartes Tower to swear their oaths [...] Not all of them had passed the test.

[Sentinalsam87]

You all seem to be skipping over a fact. It wasn't just the primarchs that were wiped, it was the entire legion. Don't forget that the legions were already built before the emperor found the primarchs. Ferris Manus refers to the tale as a tragic lesson. I believe one had attempted peace with aliens or worked directly with them. And I think the other refused to bow to the emperor.

[Billuriye]

It's one of those bits trying to mystify the setting that McNeill likes to throw in. Like he did with Thousand Sons = Blood Raven implication. Or that Iron Hands' obsession of mechanization coming from Asirnoth. Wouldn't bet my money on that. 

[Veteran Sergeant]

And that makes me think:  Would you grant one of the twenty most potent weapons the galaxy has ever known (a Legion) to a general who doesn't take the oath of fealty to you????????????

 

Mmmmhhhh.....  don't ask why things don't go as planned 200 years later.....

Trying to figure out why Angron wasn't also one of the purged Primarchs is a waste of time, lol. 

 

I'd joke that half the reason GW won't tell us what the deleted legions did is because they'd have to come up with a scenario that was worse than handing Angron the reigns of a Space Marine Legion.

[Nehekhare]

It wasn't just the primarchs that were wiped, it was the entire legion.

Not necessarily wiped, maybe just allocated - think about the "rumor" that Argel Tal comes up with in the first heretic about the Ultramarines' numbers dramatically increasing incindentially during the exact time of those two Legions disappearing...

[Brother Captain Ming]

The rumor was just that, a rumor. Man, that's getting to be about as annoying to me as the DA fence sitting theory.

And for the record, Veteran Sergeant actually has the whole reason for it. There never was, nor will there ever be, any more concrete evidence other than what we know: They were found, given their Legions, participated in the Great Crusade, they were destroyed, and then wiped from history (although the last two events might have happened the other way around).

And I like it like that. I hope they never, ever, ever reveal more than they already have. They can write whatever rumors, recollections, musings, ideas, and what-not, just no more facts. I want to be able to create the 2nd Legion, The Warp Wasps, with Primarch Stein of planet Pilsner, located in the Barley Cluster of the Cask Nebula.

Even GW doesn't have any more info on them, hidden in a file that is stored under a desk drawer kept in the Removed by order of the Inquisition. What we know is what they know, and everything else is just rumor and/or conjecture, dropped into stories as the authors fancy. Like Dorn's musings in The Lightning Tower, Argel Tal's rumor-mongering in The First Heretic, and even Perturabo's recollections in this book, they may or may not be true, this is just what those characters believe.

Oh, snap, I just remembered that they did change some of the fluff for the two missing legions: They were wiped out before Corax was found. I think that was new. I think it was unconfirmed that they were wiped out during the heresy in older editions, then sometime during 4th ed they were revealed to have been destroyed before the heresy, now it's before Corax was found. Is that right? Well, that may just invalidate my earlier paragraph. Now I have a sinking feeling that we actually may end up knowing who and what happened to the lost legions, even if we don't "see" how it happened.

Now, I haven't read the book, so if I am way off, or there is more to the set-up that I'm not aware of feel free to cite it or PM me.

Having said that, there are 8 (9 if you count Alpharius and Omegron as separate) other Primarchs that have turned traitor with Perturabo, and he could be talking about them. Does Perturabo know when the rest of his brothers turned? Does he know that Horus, Fulgrim, Mortarion, and Angron were purging their Legions when he was on his way to/putting down the rebellion on Olympia? He might have been commenting on that.

Actually, I think I might be missing some set-up and what-not, so feel free to ignore whatever didn't make sense in my post. Or my whole post.

[Nehekhare]

‘Those are just rumours,’ Torgal grunted. The assault sergeant didn’t sound particularly certain.
‘Perhaps, perhaps not.

The Thirteenth definitely swelled to eclipse all the other Legions around the time the Second and Eleventh were “forgotten” by Imperial archives.’

[Brother Captain Ming]

The author of The First Heretic confirmed that those are just rumors.  They are pretty juicy ones, but they are also not true.  I wish I had saved a link to that thread.  If I find it I'll edit my post to include it, and I'll try to link it in my sig, just because it'll be handy to have.  (If anyone happens to see this and have that link handy and would mind PMing it to me, I'm sure that would save me a lot of time.  The Search-Fu is weak with this one.)

Is there any more info on the Tower and the Oath, or is what Nehekhare quoted in post #6 all there is (I mean, from this book and any other source/book/short story)?

[Nehekhare]

Interesting. Did ADB debunk the rumors (II+XI assimilated) or the facts (simultaneous UM swell) part? And if so, why did he feel the need to? It's certainly an intriguing narrative lost there...

[Brother Captain Ming]

I'm currently digging through 11 pages of topics to find the exact quote, but it was the assimilation part that was debunked.  There are no Marines from the 2nd or 11th Legions in the 13th Legion.  ADB said something like "Consider who is talking, who he is talking to, and what he is claiming.  Also consider that we have established facts for why the Ultramarines swelled in numbers."

Like I said, I'm still looking for the exact quote, but I do remember ADB confirming that it was not true, and trying to have it help illustrate what the Word Bearers thought of the Ultras.

Found it, and sooo not where I thought, lol.  Post #28.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/211829-ultramarines-references-in-the-horus-heresy-series/page-2?do=findComment&comment=2526272

[Deus Imperator Vult]

Yeah you've gotta remember exactly what the Word Bearers thought of the Ultras even before their little trip into the eye they full on despised them. But at the same time you need to think what sort of thing would a Primarch have to do to earn that sort of rage from the emperor? I mean Lorgar didn't get it even though he attacked Gulliman and Sigilite. Even Magnus got a fair few slaps on the wrist before the Emperor reacted and even then wasn't Russ supposed to chastise him and bring him to Terra until Horus manipulated the orders? (I've not read Prosporo Burn's since it was released so I may be misremembering.) So you've got to think if the Emperor tollerated Primarchs like Curze and Angron at the heads of legions unchecked how bad must these two Primarchs have been to warrent being killed?

 

Didn't Dan Abnett say in Know No Fear that the reason the Ultramarines were so numerous was that Gulliman had a huge army when the Emperor had found him and he had 500+ worlds which he could draw new recruits from. To my mind that explains the disparity in numbers between the Ultramarines and say the Ravan guard who just had Deliverance and Kiavahr to recruit from.

 

I think one of the most interesting theories I've read in regards to the lost legions (this was on another forum and is lightyears away from cannon so nobody get mad at me.) was that, atleast one of the legions, had been sent straight into the warp to fight chaos. We know both the Emperor and Malcador know about the existance of the Chaos gods long before the Primarchs do. Horus thinks the Emperor has returned to Terra to study the warp but he wouldn't tell him how or why. So, if that's the case and he wanted to keep Chaos a secret from the rest of the armies but still maintain some form of vanguard against them he would have to list that Primarch as missing or KIA so the other Primarch's didn't get inquisitive.

 

[Rime]

Is there any (recent) fluff that says the Emperor actually killed Both unknown Primarchs? Is it possible he has one of them locked away in their room in the Palace for misbehaving.

[Kol Saresk]

Is there any (recent) fluff that says the Emperor actually killed Both unknown Primarchs? Is it possible he has one of them locked away in their room in the Palace for misbehaving.

Nothing says they were killed or otherwise. Just that they and their Legions were struck from Imperial History to the point that no average citizen even knows of their existence. The Astartes know of them, but not what happened to them. That was obvious from a couple of Word Bearers speculating that the Two Unknown Legions had been integrated into the Ultramarines. To be honest, I think they'll just keep driving us in circles with this. And it's a good thing. It lets us imagine what happened. And it leaves room for the Hobbyists to have their own DIY Legions.

[Nehekhare]

Is there any (recent) fluff that says the Emperor actually killed Both unknown Primarchs?

pretty obvious:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/8/81/The_Sigillite_clean.jpg/300px-The_Sigillite_clean.jpg

[Saul Invictus]

Aren't they a bit small for Primarch skulls though? I do like the idea of Malcador, the Ezio Auditore of the 31st millennium, having a hand in their downfall though.

[Iron Man I]

I just want to know what they did that was so horrible, they were erased from all history, while the guys who tried to overthrow the Imperium were sent packing and a warning not to come back. I mean were the two primarchs selling knock off Emperor blessed artifacts? Did they Tell the Emperor that it was ok the Greedo shot first?

[Valkyrion]

IIRR, ADB had a bit of a Gav Thorpe moment in terms of slightly regretting what he said and the snowball effect that followed. I'm sure he's said on here more than once that it's just a malicious rumour propagated by a legion that didn't like the Ultramarines and that rumour was only uttered between members of that legion. There was no breaking of the fourth wall moment - the reader was reading a conversation, not narrative 'fact'.

 

If ADB had written something like '...contemplated smashing the pod thereby denying the Ultramarines a large swell of reinforcements as the II legion was absorbed into the XIII...' as narrative rather than dialogue then that could be taken as 'fact'.

[Marshall Bretton]

lol i hadn't actually spotted that one.

 

on this subject i finished prospero burns last night and the second last page where russ is talking to hawser had some interesting bits on it. can't remember exactly what it said but paraphrasing it went like this:

 

russ: i won't always be around to guide my wolves

hawser: don't be absurd, a primarch can't die!

russ: there is a first time for everything

hawser: un precedented things like astartes fighting astartes, like the wolves being called to execute another legion?

russ [described as sad and regrettful]: those things? no they are not unprecedented, they have happened before

 

this seems to imply that the wolves have executed at least 1 legion before, however it also implies to me that a primarch has never been killed before, so maybe they are still running around somewhere, or maybe rotting in a cell in the emperors dungeon

[Veteran Sergeant]

I just want to know what they did that was so horrible, they were erased from all history, while the guys who tried to overthrow the Imperium were sent packing and a warning not to come back. I mean were the two primarchs selling knock off Emperor blessed artifacts? Did they Tell the Emperor that it was ok the Greedo shot first?

You have to remember context.  The Horus Heresy was so massive in scope it was impossible to conceal.  Especially from all the factions that took part, and continued existence of the traitor Marines.

 

Plus, striking the two Deleted Legions was done by the Emperor.  The Emperor may well have decided to delete the Traitor Legions too, had he not been confined the Golden Throne after the Heresy.  He was in a position to do such a thing back during the early days of the Crusade, but not after the Heresy.

 

Whatever happened to the Deleted Legions happened while there was the ability to sweep them under the rug.

[Demus Ragnok]

lol i hadn't actually spotted that one.

 

on this subject i finished prospero burns last night and the second last page where russ is talking to hawser had some interesting bits on it. can't remember exactly what it said but paraphrasing it went like this:

 

russ: i won't always be around to guide my wolves

hawser: don't be absurd, a primarch can't die!

russ: there is a first time for everything

hawser: un precedented things like astartes fighting astartes, like the wolves being called to execute another legion?

russ [described as sad and regrettful]: those things? no they are not unprecedented, they have happened before

 

this seems to imply that the wolves have executed at least 1 legion before, however it also implies to me that a primarch has never been killed before, so maybe they are still running around somewhere, or maybe rotting in a cell in the emperors dungeon

I think the astartes fighting astartes that is mentioned here is dealt with in one of the newest novels, Betrayer I think but Im not sure. And no Russ wasn't set loss on of the lost and forgotten. At least not that have been told of...yet.