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The end of Corax


Ratboy1664

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Origional HH fluff had Corax sitting in the Ravenspire for a year and then nipping off to the EoT a la Russ and the Khârn never to be seen again. I think this is pretty bland and boring so I propose a new ending for Corax:

 

He commits suicide.

 

Why? Because he is a tragic figure. Decieved and nearly destroyed by his brothers at Isstvan, he then starts altering his Legion's gene-seed with catastrophic results. With only a few marines he is powerless to help his father who winds up virtually dead. He feels guilt and self loathing for being decieved twice and after a year's meditation commits suicide as his atonement to his father.

 

What do you think?

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Magnus' death at the hands of Leman Russ as a gesture of true penitence would be the only acceptable form of suicide. If they have any Primarch just simply kill themselves, I will rage. Corax is supposed to have a conflicted soul, but suicide would be going way too far.

Whilst Corax is haunted by the knowledge that he has failed, ruined his Legion and watched helplessly from the sidelines as his father and the Imperium have been casually ripped asunder, my impression of him from Deliverance Lost is that he is aware of how truly unique and potent the Primarch are: he knows better than most the artistry and time that went into them and I don't believe that in the face if such losses to the Imperium he would squander his life like that, knowing what it was worth and that there are only 14 Primarch left at that point. Instead I see his 'Nevermore' quest as similar to a Dwarf Slayer - he craves atonement through death and yet he can't end his life without good cause, so he strides voiceless and alone into the the Eye of Terror with the plan to kill every Traitor there until he is redeemed or he is absolved - victory or death at the hands of a daemonspawn. Emo, but still befitting the gene-labs of the Emperor.

quick follow up question: IF he did commit suicide what would happen to his soul? The HH books are confusing (to me) as to what energy/soul/whatever goes where. Could he decide to use his Primarch's soul to try and save the big E from his neverending death on the golden throne, or would it draw too much attention from the chaos gods and be used by them?

Erm, guys.. Corax comes from a guerrilla fighter background. Mere humans of such backgrounds just don't give up when things go horribly wrong if their beliefs are ingrained deeply enough, and his were practically written into his genes. A Primarch essentially giving up by taking his own life, especially after being so accustomed to enacting ugly necessities would be simply inaccurate with what a guerrilla fighter is. Worse of all, it would be a dereliction of his duties to the Imperium in its weakened state to refuse lending it his abilities.

Or you could say that guerilla fighters, operating on their own with little operational support or supervision are under the most mental stress and so are in fact the most likely to crack mentally. Even belief in the cause does not prevent soldiers from ending their own lives in suicide. In fact during WW2 the Japanese relied on an individuals fanatasism to the cause to persuade them to undertake kamikaze missions, and before that the Samurai had a martial code of ritual suicide following failure. In fact Corax is the most likely Primarch to commit suicide.

 

Plus I fail to see how sitting in your room for a year and then disappearing into the EoT is not a dereliction of his duties to the Imperium.

Magnus didn't die at the hand's of Russ, his body is broken, but he still fought to protect his sons, for no matter how much he didnt want to fight his father's forces, he was not able to just give up, so suicide for any of the primarch's (with the exception of Kurze who hates himself) is just not a reality.

If IIRC the lore was changed from Corax messing with the geneseed and making monsters to the Alpha Legion swapping it out for a corrupted one, at the end of DL Corax simply stated that they will have to take the long way to build his legion. Only a small number of recruits were affected by the corrupted gene seed.

Corax pretty much commited sucicide by going in the Eye of Terror after throwing a "Never more".

His goal was to end it once and for all, clearly.

Now, how we're going to get from the Reasonable Corax we saw at the end of Deliverance Lost to death seeking whackadoodle post Heresy is up in the air.

Magnus didn't die at the hand's of Russ, his body is broken, but he still fought to protect his sons, for no matter how much he didnt want to fight his father's forces, he was not able to just give up, so suicide for any of the primarch's (with the exception of Kurze who hates himself) is just not a reality.

How can you say this? Each brother is an individual otherwise by this stupid logic the heresy would never have happened as Dorn won't turn so it is just not a reality.

 

 

Corax pretty much commited sucicide by going in the Eye of Terror after throwing a "Never more".

His goal was to end it once and for all, clearly.

Now, how we're going to get from the Reasonable Corax we saw at the end of Deliverance Lost to death seeking whackadoodle post Heresy is up in the air.

Failure to save his father

BL can do everything.

They can, true, but should they?

SHOULD THEY?

 

Jumping rails:

I personally find it hard to believe Corax would take the blame for the Emperor's death the way Dorn did, given that the Praetorian fortified Terra and commanded at the Siege, so what he did/didn't do had a direct bearing on Emps winding up stuck on the Golden Throne, whereas the Raven was stuck on the other side of the galaxy for the whole thing.

 

BL can do everything.

They can, true, but should they?

SHOULD THEY?

 

Jumping rails:

I personally find it hard to believe Corax would take the blame for the Emperor's death the way Dorn did, given that the Praetorian fortified Terra and commanded at the Siege, so what he did/didn't do had a direct bearing on Emps winding up stuck on the Golden Throne, whereas the Raven was stuck on the other side of the galaxy for the whole thing.

The original fluff had Corax commiting suicide. If BL wants to retcon it, they will, even if it would suck balls. I call it the "Lucius treatment".

Or you could say that guerilla fighters, operating on their own with little operational support or supervision are under the most mental stress and so are in fact the most likely to crack mentally. Even belief in the cause does not prevent soldiers from ending their own lives in suicide. In fact during WW2 the Japanese relied on an individuals fanatasism to the cause to persuade them to undertake kamikaze missions, and before that the Samurai had a martial code of ritual suicide following failure. In fact Corax is the most likely Primarch to commit suicide.

 

Plus I fail to see how sitting in your room for a year and then disappearing into the EoT is not a dereliction of his duties to the Imperium.

The japanese were not Primarchs; their culture encouraged suicide as a form of atonement; a kamikaze mission performed to ensure the remainder of the army meets its objective differs in spades from taking too many sleeping pills; Corax is closer in mentality and MO to Ninja than Samurai, and the former did not commit seppuku nearly as often. Indeed, their greatest asset was ENDURING, which is the true meaning of the character 忍. Endurance against that which would destroy one in body and mind.

 

There's a sea of difference between forced introspection leading to whatever mission Corax assigned himself and giving up altogether...

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