A sense of humor

[Kol Saresk]

So, pretty much these are my top two revelations drawn from Forgeworld's Betrayal with one BL reference that supports one of the Forgeworld.

 

1.) Angron was worshipped as the Omnissah. Pretty funny, I know. But apparently when he freed the forge-world Sarum from the abhuman Brotherhood of Ruin, the Crimson Priests of the Redjak saw him as an avatar of the Omnissiah's wrath. Pretty funny to me as it gave the World Eaters a permanent(at least until it was destroyed) source of weaponry and technological resources, such as the Ursus Claws and the Sarum-pattern mouthpiece.

 

2.) The War Hounds were implied to be the original "Emperor's Executioners." We even see an example where they seemed to fulfill that role by destroying an insurrection of a rebelling mining colony that was being aided by some Thunder Warriors.

 

Now, I am not insinuating that the World Eaters are the Executioners. Just that when they were the War Hounds there was(how did Forgeworld put it?) "veiled evidence" that they were the Executioners.

 

Of course, this makes the quote from A D-B's Betrayer make a bit more sense. Let's go back to that quote:

 

"Because we couldn't be trusted. The Emperor needed a weapon that would never obey its own desires before those of the Imperium. He needed a weapon that would never bite the hand that feeds. The World Eaters were not that weapon. We've all drawn blades purely for the sake of shedding blood, and we've all felt the exultation of winning a war that never even needed to happen. We are not the tame, reliable pets that the Emperor wanted. The Wolves obey, when we would not. The Wolves can be trusted, when we never could. They have a discipline we lack, because their passions are not aflame with the Butcher's Nails buzzing in the back of their skulls.

 

"The Wolves will always come to heel when called. In that regard, it is a mystery why they name themselves wolves. They are tame, collared by the Emperor, obeying his every whim. But a wolf doesn't behave that way. Only a dog does.

 

"That is why we are the Eaters of Worlds, and the War Hounds no longer."

The bold emphasis is mine. The first read through without knowledge of Betrayal, I just assumed that Khârn was saying that the World Eaters were never chosen because they're too out of control, although I was curious about why he made the distinction between the World Eaters and War Hounds. In a way, I thought he was just blaming Angron.

 

But with Betrayal, everything clicks into place like before, but in differet ways. One of the themes of Betrayer was to highlight just how far the World Eaters had fallen and how much further they still had to go. Knowing both of those pieces, the quote also serves another highlight, specifically some of the consequences falling from the War Hounds to the World Eaters. When they chose to no longer be the Hounds of the Emperor and became the Sons of Angron, they just didn't lose their sanity to the Nails. They lost their prestige as the most trusted of the Emperor's Legions. True, they were monsters before they became the World Eaters. But when they were the War Hounds, they were monsters on a leash. Angron took that leash, stomped on it, carved it up with a chainaxe an then lit it on fire. And it was the World Eaters who handed it over. And thus, began their fall.

[[TA]Typher]

Yes. I agree with what your saying, but I'd add a few points.

 

1) Crimson Priests seeing him as the avatar of the Omnissiah isn't that odd. If anyone could see the genius in Angron's construction it would be adepts of a forgeworld. How complicated is his DNA? It must look like a ballet of inconceivable lattice spirals. Just imagining it brings an intense mechanical image to my mind that doesn't exist in nature. It seems pretty clear that they could think this.

 

2) The substance of this topic was very well written. Perhaps the Emperor originally wanted two extremely faithful legions and upon finding Angorn's damaged form gave up on that idea? Ahriman in the book a thousand sons tells a story about how his legion was wracked with a destructive gene-code that almost wiped them out. He states that upon finding their Primarch, Magnus was able to stop it and save them, leaving roughly only a thousand of them left. When asked how the Emperor knew to name them Thousand Son's decades before he states that there are no coincidences, implying that the Emperor knew what would happen. If this was the case, he seemed to have missed Angron's future.

 

It's also noteworthy to add the Wolves perspective on what the other Legions view as their unquestionable loyalty. In the book Prospero Burns a long fang talks about how each legion and their primarch were build for different things. He states that was was build to lead the armies, one was built to be a politician, one to defend the hearth, one to administer the logistics...etc etc, and that each legion reflects that. When he gets to the Wolves he says that they were built to do the jobs no one else would, to be executioners. I didn't view this as being an executioner against other Astartes (althought they obviously would), but as a Legion that would commit a course of action if asked, even if it was unpopular and to do it without investing emotion. This would imply that they were just built with that innate ability to respond to whatever unpopular task that needed to be done, must like Magnus's legion's innate ability to wield the warp, or Corax's legion to be stealthy.

 

The Long Fang's logic obviously makes sense from just looking at the undamaged primarchs. But, you have to think about the damaged ones. Curze, The Lion and Angron are examples.

 

Curze is a tough one, but it would probably have to do with his precognition of events. I would have to think that if the Emperor had been with him from the beginning this gift wouldn't have been corrupted by chaos and used to twist him into the emo mess he became.

 

The Lion is very similar to Curze, but seems to have gotten himself back on track. Sure he seems to dip back into the darkness on rare occasions, but he doesn't live and wallow in it like his goth bother. His gift would have to be the general.

 

Angron is hard to figure out. Was he to be a brawler like Russ? A 2nd extremely faithful legion? Perhaps a different brand of warrior Legion. One based on individual prowness, like the custodes, instead of the teambased organization of the rest of the legions? Either way it's a moot point as the Nails altered him to the point of being a sub-primarch. I don't mean that with disrespect. He's a amazing fighter, but he's not a leader. He lost the ability to inspire awe in the astartes like the other Primarch's can. Sure, he can cause fear, but awe and fear are different things. The Blood Angels have suffered for 10 thousand years the painful backlash of their primarch's death. The world eaters wouldn't have cared much is Angron would have died.

Sadly, Angron refused whatever ability that was suppose to be his, embracing the nails and their mind altering agenda.

[Kol Saresk]

1.) Part of their background is that they had always been a militant sub-faction of the Mechanicus that had just been cut off basically forever and were militant besides that. When Angron saved them, the Redjak had been under siege for a while. They were hiding underground and they didn't have much time left. He came in an shattered the horde completely and utterly and they came out from underground and fought alongside the World Eaters and Legio Audax. So it was like a mixture of what he was combine with him being their saving grace.

 

2.) It has and hasn't. This wasn't and still is not meant to be a "Who are the real executioners?" discussion. We first found out in Prospero Burns that at least the Wolves consider themselves to be the Emperor's personal executioners. The Outcast Dead further amplifies the Executioner aspect by suggesting that the Wolves had been unleashed at least once, but the details were not made clear on what exactly they had been unleashed on. Then we get Betrayer from A D-B. it doesn't just enforce the Executioner aspect, but fully enforces it although it leaves an open question whether the Wolves were ordained to be the Emperor's Executioners, or it was a duty that Russ took up on his own. But, either way it points to the duty being given to Russ, not the Space Wolves.

 

Now, IIRC, between The Outcast Dead and Betrayer(maybe before both) came Forgeworld's Betrayal, which says everything I pointed out before. My theory is this.

 

The War Hounds are the original Executioners. The Emperor held them in reserve for the most part, which resulted in a low attrition rate while they continued to draw in recruits, growing bigger and bigger while reinforcing other various fronts from time to time. One of their first famous actions is to put down a rebellion on an asteroid. The most interesting thing about that rebellion was that it was being aided by a group of Thunder Warriors.

 

As time went on, they eventually reunited with their Primarch and they became the World Eaters. They steadily became worse and worse and eventually lost any faith the Emperor had in them. Obviously Russ had been found somewhere in this time frame and had taken charge of his own Legion. Somewhere between the XII ceasing to be the Executioners and the VI Legion picking up that duty, the Night of the Wolf happened. For all we know, the Night of the Wolf is the event everyone thinks about in The Outcast Dead.

 

But that is just a theory and a theory is nothing more than a personal interpretation of the data presented.

 

The reality is that while it is a subject that appears in many sources, like the Missing Legions the topic itself has very little to no substance.

[Sgt.Sangha]

interesting interpretation brother

[Wade Garrett]

I'm skeptical of the Long Fang's logic, myself.

 

I mean, what was Corax's ordained role?

"He's just like Curze...only less pee on yourself terrifying!"

 

Mortarion?

"This guy baths in toxic waste for fun. He'll be the janitor Primarch!"

 

Lorgar?

"I hate religion. Let me make a preacher Primarch anyway."

 

Fulgrim?

"You know what this family needs? A prima donna perfection obsessed narcissist! He'll be the fashion designer for the whole Imperium!"

 

Ferrous Manus?

"He shall have metal hands. His Legion will be called the Metal Hands. And his name shall be...METAL HANDS!"

 

Emperor, go back to the Palace. You're drunk.

[Raven Angel]

Curze was suppose to be the police man but became evil batman

 

Mortarion was suppose to be the environmental expert and we got the Toxic Avenger gone bad.

 

Logar was definitely suppose to be head iterator, just look how far his Emperor worshiping religion has got in 10,000 years.

 

I think Fulgrim was suppose to be a champion of cultural equality and education. intended to make sure the Imperium didn't become what it became.

 

Ferrous Manus I think was intended to be a bridge between the humans of the Imperium and the tech Priest of Mars; to help the Mechanicum understand the humans that he would serve and teach.

[Conn Eremon]

Reading that passage, I assumed it was nothing more than happenstance that the War Hounds were used in that capacity. The Legions left at different rates, apparently. When he needed to throw a Legion at some insurrectionists, the War Hounds were simply at hand.

 

Of course, once used in such a manner it would make it easier to use them for similar purposes later on, so it doesn't necessarily invalidate your point. Puts the Night of the Wolf event in a new light.