My theory about the two missing Primarchs

[Greyall]

Careful with real life cases and morals, guys, you'll start a fire...

Curze did administer pretty much the same sentence to everyone he saw as guilty. Perhaps he was a bit more cruel to one or another especially violent bandit, but he was more about retribution than justice.

@Cormac: I see your point, every person would be able to see the game, therefore = equality, right? But I think the point of the pictures is to talk about the distribution of resources. It works within the context of Curze and justice, since per the common concept of justice you can't just say that if all the guilty get punished, regardless of the crime-punishment equivalency, then that means justice works.

[ChaosLord Leon Enaek]

Curze never understood the concept of justice - of society being improved through the immutable eye of the law - because he was never exposed to a source of justice from which to draw inspiration. As such his natural desire for justice (which he clearly had) was based on what he DID see - the cut-throat gangs of Nostramo. He saw death all around him and so came to believe that death was the only punishment worth issuing.

As time went on and Curze met other Imperials, perhaps he began to realise that he was not justice but had instead been warped into vengeance - and if he was not just then his killings, even if in service of the Imperium, were crimes themselves. This his willingness to die at the hands of M'Shen - he had killed criminals and monsters but had become a monster himself, so if he was killed by the imperium he was vindicated - punished with death for being a monster, but at the same time clearing him of his crimes by acknowledging that killing can be justice.

[Greyall]

Very true, Enaek, although his willingness to die was also a way to prove that the Imperium was equally ruthless at dispensing the Emperor's vaunted justice, and that, while he was a monster, he was far from alone.

 

Of course, his betrayal of the Emperor does take away some of the point (which would other be more or less correct), since the punishment for treason is usually extremely harsh in almost every country/empire. If you're at war, then it's a guaranteed death sentence.

[High MarshalGR]

See to me we have a limited understanding to just and equality.

 

A man drink driving kills a mother gets 5yrs improsenment

A beater kills a mother gets life.

 

The end result is the mother dies,

To me they both should have had life imrisonment as it's the same result.

 

A drink driver can have remorse but be still killed a human.

A beater if shown remorse still gets a Life sentence

 

At the end of the day it doesn't matter about mental stability or alcohol it comes to that both made the choice to drink drive or kill they both may not have been thinking correctly but it's the same result so why show lenience.

 

Just my personal view and comparison

 

I'm not saying at all the justice system we have now works totally nor that I am in agreement myself in every case, but it's punisments scale in a widely accepted upwards manner. For example, parking against the law isn't punished by death. Theft isn't punished by a ticket. In the 40k universe, Curze punished all with the same punisment for every single crime. He was equal, but I don't know about just. Would you like to die because you installed an airconditioner without getting the legally required building permit (in Greece it is required even for that, Idk about other countries)? That's what Curze did.

 

Another example for you mainly Cormac: Let's say you and I are citizens and under the current tax system we both pay 700 $ per year, but your income is 20.000 $ and mine is 7.000 $. This is the picture of equality. You are taller (economically) them me, but our taxes are exactly the same (the same measure boxes below us), which further estabilishes your economical domination over me.

But when, in the same scenario, I pay 700 $ and you pay 2.000 $ our taxes are 10% of our total income, which puts "different boxes" under our feet depending on our "height". That's a way to view the image.   

[Conn Eremon]

It's the same example. I suppose I just attribute fairness more to equality than I do justice. Equality has to be fair or it isn't equality. Justice doesn't, though that can be considered the ideal.

[Greyall]

Well put.

[FashaTheDog]

Fairness is killing everyone on a planet, justice is freezing all life to death .

[High MarshalGR]

It's the same example. I suppose I just attribute fairness more to equality than I do justice. Equality has to be fair or it isn't equality. Justice doesn't, though that can be considered the ideal.

 

A fair and efficient goverment was one of the passions Guilliman had. He took great care of creating it. But on the subject, one side of Kurze did seek out justice the best he could. His other side was in a disagreement me thinks.

[jeremy1391]

I wonder what would have happened if Kurze landed on Maccrage and Guiliman landed on Nastramo.

 

I think the Kurze version of ultramarines would be valiant and just if not somewhat loose organizationally.

 

And the Gulliman night lords would be a lot like the SS regimented, effective, brutal, cold, more terrifying than the Kurze night lords

[Onisuzume]

Now, for all the justice and equality, you lot have kinda drifted off-topic.

[TheAurelian]

The Lost Primarchs are referred to as the lost and the purged obviosly one was purged. i.e. it is mentioned that russ is the exicutioner and "has done it beore". one primarch fell to chaos and the other is lost but still alive. 

evidence from lexicanum

• The Emperor created 20 Primarchs, who were snatched from Terra by a Chaos vortex and scattered around the galaxy.^[1]
• The 20 incubation capsules drifted through the warp for decades or even centuries, until finally coming to rest on human-inhabited worlds throughout the galaxy,^[4] "where they were variously adopted by human parents."^[7]
  • The only exception to this is the Primarch Konrad Curze, who survived utterly alone (and whose background, in any case, was only described in later material).
• In the listings of the 20 Legions in Imperial records, Legions II and XI are stated as having "all records expunged from the library". Earlier background (Codex Imperialis and second edition's Ultramarines codex) less ambivalently states that the records for these two Legions were deleted following the Heresy. Considering that the Traitor Legions are simply listed as excommunicate traitoris but still included in these same lists would mean that the records were deleted deliberately and for a reason only known by those who perpetrated the action.
• Of the various abilities possessed by the Primarchs, one was "invisibility".^[7]
  • If this is taken literally, this presumably refers to one of the missing Primarchs, as invisibility is not a power possessed by those known. It could also mean this Primarch was a blank as such individuals are said to be invisible to psykers.
  • This could also be referring to Corax who is said to have effective invisibility, whereby he could walk among people without them noticing him. It is also said that only the Emperor knew this about the primarch.^[17]
• The Emperor met each Primarch in turn, and each Primarch had risen to a position of authority within the cultures they had found themselves in.^[1]
• 20 Legions took part in the Great Crusade, each led by their own Primarch.^[8]
• Alpharius was known to be the last Primarch to be found, a fact which even earned him the nickname "The Last". This suggests that all the other Primarchs had been found already.
• 20 statues of the Primarchs were erected in the Imperial Palace on Terra. By the time of the Horus Heresy, plinths II and XI "...had been vacant for a long time. No-one ever spoke of those two absent brothers [and] their separate tragedies."^[9]
  • This suggests that the two unknown Primarchs had been found previously and that something tragic had happened. The two Primarchs were "absent" but not referred as "dead".
• All Primarchs were tempted by Chaos and "fully half" of them failed that test.^[5]
  • This suggests that possibly 10 Primarchs were, in some way, corrupted by Chaos influences. The known traitors are nine (Fulgrim, Perturabo,Konrad Curze, Angron, Mortarion, Magnus, Horus, Lorgar, and Alpharius). Whether an additional Primarch was corrupted or not is unclear.
  • Prior to sending Sigismund and his Imperial Fists to Mars during the Heresy, Dorn muses to Malcador the Sigillite on the loyalist support of two legions, possibly the two unknown legions, during the Heresy. Malcador quells the Primarch's thoughts, stating that "They are lost to us forever."^[15]
• Horus convinced "no less than 9" Space Marine Legions to side with him at the onset of the Heresy,^[2] a number also referred to as "fully half" of the legions.^[6] When he assaulted Terra, this number was given as 9.^[10]
  • This also implies, but does not categorically state, that the 9 known traitor legions are all of the legions that followed him into rebellion and that 18 legions were the total number of legions active at the time. A passage detailing Horus' plans for the various legions at the outset of the Heresy mentions by name all 18 known legions^[11].
• "Of the original 20 Primarchs only 9 survived the Horus Heresy. The remainder were either killed in the fighting (like Horus) or fled with their [Legions] into the Eye of Terror. The survivors helped [to rebuild] the Imperium."^[7]
  • It is currently accepted that 3 Primarchs died during the Heresy (Ferrus Manus, Sanguinius, and Horus) and 6 are known to have fled into the Eye of Terror (Fulgrim, Perturabo, Angron, Mortarion, Magnus, and Lorgar). The fates of the other 11 are open to multiple interpretations.
  • Two traitors, Konrad Curze and Alpharius, did not flee into the Eye of Terror and were killed later on. 7 loyal Primarchs seem to have survived. It is possible that Curze and Alpharius were counted as part of the 9 survivors. However, in the novel Betrayer it mentions the "18 Legions", a clear statement that the unknown legions disappeared before the Heresy, and played no part in them.

[Wade Garrett]

Russ? The Executioner? What kind of Executioner runs away from the World Eaters and needs Constantin Valdor backing him up to take on the Thousand Sons?

[GhostMalone]

^{and runs from the alpha legion}

[Demus Ragnok]

Russ? The Executioner? What kind of Executioner runs away from the World Eaters and needs Constantin Valdor backing him up to take on the Thousand Sons?

 

This.

[FashaTheDog]

I was thinking about this driving today and wondered what could be so bad that all records of you and your Legion need to be deleted when open rebellion wasn't enough to warrant such (granted the Horus Heresy was a wee bit much to cover up and then there's those pesky surviving traitors). The only thing I could think of that would be plausible was if one of them was raised by xenos (or perhaps xenos and humans living in harmony) and didn't take too kindly to the Emperor's "purge them aliens" attitude and so to prevent his Legion from coming to blows with his brother's that Primarch chose exile sailing off into the great beyond...and maybe ended up being nom'ed by the Nids as an inflight meal to the Milky Way . Either that or the basis for a series of crossover fanfics, of varying qualities, where an entire Great Crusade era Legion arrives in the Star Wars/Star Trek/Babylon 5/Sesame Street universe and begins to lay down a whole lot of mayhem. "Use the Exterminatus, Luke!"

Also I still think the other one is living in the Emperor's basement on the Imperial Couch. See Primarch Carl above.

[Wade Garrett]

Let me be clear:

 

I'm not saying that Russ isn't a pretty cool dude with a Legion of cool dudes he hung around with, but they didn't go around casually killing off other Legions whenever they felt like it. And neither did any of the others.

 

If the Emperor wanted a Legion dead at the very least he'd send another Legion plus Custodes plus a force tailor made to exploit the condemned Legion's weaknesses (Sisters of Silence vs Thousand Sons).

 

Or he'd do something like Isstvan V, which was supposed to be four Legions against seven.

[Conn Eremon]

Russ? The Executioner? What kind of Executioner runs away from the World Eaters and needs Constantin Valdor backing him up to take on the Thousand Sons?

The kind who fancies himself a commander rather than a stage-hand with a hood.

[Saul Invictus]

I favour the theory that on of them outright refused to follow the Emperor and took his own life upon seeing his legion in action.

[Sviox]

Considering all the things we have been told about the two, I think one of the must have somehow revolted, but not as openly as Horus nor allying with chaos though. I like the theory that he was sympathetic towards xenos race(s), such as the eldar, which led to his deletion from the recods. Perhaps Russ was sent to execute him and purge his legion before 'the word got out'.

 

The other one is trickier. He's he "lost" part of the "lost and purged". Perhaps he was killed in action and as primarchs were considered godlike beings of hope at the time, all information about this unfortunate tragedy and the legion involved was declared "never to be spoken again". It would also be logical that after an epic war failure with a dead (but loyal) primarch, the remnants of the legion would be transferred to serve under another legion (Ultramarines, as hinted on the books).

[Wade Garrett]

Which is of course why Rogal Dorn, in "The Lightning Tower", looks at the two empty plinths and wishes his brothers were here with him. Because when one thinks of Rogal Dorn, one thinks of a Primarch who was willing to forgive those who rebelled against the Emperor.

[FashaTheDog]

Which is of course why Rogal Dorn, in "The Lightning Tower", looks at the two empty plinths and wishes his brothers were here with him. Because when one thinks of Rogal Dorn, one thinks of a Primarch who was willing to forgive those who rebelled against the Emperor.

"That Horus.  He's such a kidder, besieging Terra.  What will that wacky guy think of next."

[Wade Garrett]

"Guys, now that the Siege is over, I'm gonna go talk to Perturabo. I'm sure this was all one big misunderstanding, and we can work through all our problems and be friends again."

[Conn Eremon]

Suddenly the Iron Cage incident sounds all the more tragic. :(

[FashaTheDog]

Suddenly the Iron Cage incident sounds all the more tragic.

Or hilarious if you're from the Iron Warriors' point of view.

[The_son_of_Dorn]

Not this old chestnut , well as we all know 2 legions are deleted, why or what for we have no idea, and that any number of theories or rumors could be correct until GW decide to say 'sod it, we need a new angle and more money' Any theory could be proven right or wrong.

 

For all we know the Chapters could of been removed and word of their terrible actions falsified in order to for the big E to dupe his sons into not realizing there was a secret legion ready to intervene at a moments notice from out of nowhere (if hes able to make the moon of titan vanish and re appear with an army of Grey knights then anything is possible) 

 

Or who's to say that Horus was actually the genuine first son to be found? Maybe one of the Unknown Primachs was not scattered across the Galaxy and actually remained on Lunar, being affected and tainted by warp entities from infancy then for all we know locked away so that the Emperor could better examine the effects. 

 

For all we know until any new information is bought to us listing, Primarch, place of discovery (if at all) and legion records are all gone, then that's exactly what they are, GONE.

 

We can speculate on what happened, but that's all it is, pure speculation.