Victors of the Heresy

[Dammeron]

It's fairly clear to me, given what we know of the 40K universe ten millennia on from the Heresy, that several primarchs and lesser characters involved got precisely what they wanted out of it, whereas others of course were duped, deceived and ultimately destroyed. Here are the victors as I currently see them: 

 

1. Lorgar: Lorgar began existence as a seeker after metaphysical truth; some absolute condition by which he could direct his existence and lend it some measure of poetry and meaning. He not only finds it, but finds a means of becoming one with it; transcendence to a condition of demi-godhood; a condition of metaphor in which he is reshaped with regards to his own ideals and those of the powers he serves. Furthermore, through his actions, he ushers in a period whereby the powers of Chaos are sustained by constant conflict, suspicion, paranoia, repression; he provides them their ultimate servants in the forms of the Traitor Legions, reduces the Imperium to a hollow mockery of all it originally stood for. I'd say that the last ten thousand years have been pretty damn good for the Urizen. 

 

2. Night Haunter: Ostensibly an odd one, in that he dies at the end, but in death, he finds ultimate vindication of all he ever did or proclaimed, in that the visions that bedevilled and directed his life all found themselves fulfilled. Night Haunter is the ultimate fatalist, in that he abandons all responsibility for his actions to predestination, and with fairly weighty reason: every single one of his prophecies comes true, though whether this is as a result of his capitulation to them or because they were always inevitable is a matter of debate. He dies a martyr to his cause, which is all he ever wanted and the best he could have ever hoped for. 

 

3. Fabius Bile: You have to question how Bile managed to become a Space Marine in the first place; from the first instance, it's very clear that his interests lie outside the general purposes of his legion, not to mention the Space Marines as a whole. Routinely transgressing beyond his allotted functions, Fabius finds in the heresy and his own legion's degeneration/enlightenment the freedom necessary to follow his own peculiar obsessions; to conduct research that continues into the Imperium's present day. It's arguable that, had the legion remained loyal, Fabius would likely have been convicted of treachery anyway, since it's very clear that his loyalties lie to his own curiosity concerning genetic manipulation and the infliction of pain, and little else. Through the Heresy, he finds the freedom to conduct experiments outside of all moral constraint, as well as an endless supply of raw materials. His retreat to the Eye of Terror and the experiments he has performed on himself have also allowed him time that he otherwise likely wouldn't have had to continue his researches, establishing himself as an alternative Emperor figure in terms of the genetic know-how at his disposal. Bile really couldn't have hoped for better than he got. 

 

4. Mortarion: Another slightly odd one, in that his fall to Chaos is a matter of coercion rather than conscious choice, but what is clear through Mortarion's surrender to Nurgle and his subsequent actions is that, buried beneath the endurance and resilience he has spent a lifetime fostering, is a sublimated urge to surrender; to simply abandon himself and let whatever may be be. This is what Nurgle capitalises on to gain his loyalty, and which Mortarion himself evinces again and again after he becomes a Daemon Prince. Take his reshaping of the Plague Planet to resemble his homeworld of Barbarus as an example: this is symptomatic of the conservative sentimentality and surrender to despair that Nurgle is the very embodiment of in one respect; Mortarion seeks the comfort and the trappings of the familiar, and finds not only that, but the justification necessary to surrender to them in the relentless erosion of all contrivance and defence that Nurgle manifests. In the words of the Death Guard I.A. article, Mortarion "...comes home." 

 

5. Fulgrim: Another odd one, in that he is, again, initially coerced. However, through his experiences with things beyond the veil, Fulgrim learns that he has scope and capacities far beyond those he would have been allowed to experience in service to the Emperor. Interestingly, he seems to seek after the same transcendence as Lorgar, but via different means: whereas Lorgar does so through surrender and obeisance to the Warp, Fulgrim utilises transgression as a means of transcending himself, finding the very embodiment of that notion in the form of Slaanesh. As a result, Fulgrim is reborn into a condition of semi-divinity; a state of immortality through which he can exist and experience in perpetuity; the very perfection he sought to embody from the beginning of his existence. 

 

6. Typhus: Clear cut: Starts out with ill intentions, fulfils ill intentions, gets what he wants, gets rewarded, lives for another ten millennia doing what he wants. 

 

 

 

Anyone have any other suggestions? 

[Kol Saresk]

Not really a suggestion, but as a comment, I always found it ironic that Mortarion spent a whole war fighting the powers of Nurgle and then going on to hate the powers of the warp only to not just fall to those powers, but to become such a devoted servant of the very god he started fighting.

[Legionator]

I think at the end only major victor is Lorgar. If any other traitor primarch could have seen what he will become after the Heresy, probably he wouldn't rebel against the Emperor.

[Vesper]

I think at the end only major victor is Lorgar. If any other traitor primarch could have seen what he will become after the Heresy, probably he wouldn't rebel against the Emperor.

Curze and Angron would have. Mortarion would have too, as he hates tyrants and just want every single one of them dead.

Alpharius who freaking knows. Was he even loyal at some point ? Was he really a traitor ?

Perturabo, Fulgrim and Horus probably not. Well maybe Perturabo if Dorn kept being the arrogant douche he was.

[Cerbero666]

I would say Erebus and Kor Phaeron...was their plan after all

[Artein]

I'm not sure about Lorgar. He wanted to save humanity. He believed that in Chaos there was a salvation for our race.

[Wade Garrett]

Considering Erebus was moving Heaven and Earth for a Traitor win at Terra and what he got was "Quick! Everyone run away and hide in Hell!"...yeah.

 

Also, did anyone else read his rant in Betrayer about the Primarchs screwing up his carefully laid plans because they won't just shut up and play their d****d roles and imagine the Emperor nodding in sympathy?

[Veteran Sergeant]

I don't know if anyone "won" the Horus Heresy aside from the Chaos gods.  The traitor primarchs became slaves to Chaos, having been suckered into a war they didn't understand. Most of them were horribly corrupted and mutated, and others like Lorgar went insane. 

[[TA]Typher]

I wouldn't count the Curze as a winner. The only reason his visions came true was because he worked to make them true. Saying "my father is going to have me killed" and then actively working to make that happen isn't a win to me. It's like saying that that u had a vision you would lose a 40k match and then go about to actively lose. Is that considered a win because your vision came true? I wouldn't think so.

 

Curze had a choice. He chose to kill himself. Claiming any sort of victory because he engineered his own demise sounds like a stretch.

 

As for the other traitor primarchs I'd not call any of them winners. Being enslaved to other powers, no matter how much power they have lent you is still slavery. They are goldfish in a bowl. They are billionaires stuck on a deserted island. Wasted potential, bound to alien powers that lack any defined direction.

 

Was the Emperor a murderer? Sure. It would be impossible to unite humanity without breakage. But at the end of the day they would have much more freedom to manage themselves, and go where they wish.

 

IMO the only real winners are the chaos powers and humanity themselves.

 

Chaos wins for obvious reasons, unending war and conflict. Pain, suffering treachery etc etc..

 

Humanity wins because they still exist. If horus would have won it would have been a holocaust on a galactic scale and according to "legion" mankind would have perished. While it's not a perfect situation for them, humanity still came out in a good position.

[Legionator]

 

I think at the end only major victor is Lorgar. If any other traitor primarch could have seen what he will become after the Heresy, probably he wouldn't rebel against the Emperor.

Curze and Angron would have. Mortarion would have too, as he hates tyrants and just want every single one of them dead.

Alpharius who freaking knows. Was he even loyal at some point ? Was he really a traitor ?

Perturabo, Fulgrim and Horus probably not. Well maybe Perturabo if Dorn kept being the arrogant douche he was.

Mortarion is one of the most tragic primarchs. I don't think if anybody had said "Hey Morty! You will become a herald of dark powers, a creature of night which makes the humanity afraid, a slave without hope to a dark god." he would accept.

 

Curze is a case of self-fulfilling prophecy as Typher said. He had a choice, but he wasn't aware of it. If he had been aware of the fact that he could have changed the destiny, things could be different.

 

Angron become a daemon primarch without his will.

 

BTW, Roboutte Guilliman can be considered as a victor of Heresy. Sit tight on your planet, be the Lord Commander of Imperium after Heresy, dictate your codex to everyone. Not bad.

[Kol Saresk]

I wouldn't count the Curze as a winner. The only reason his visions came true was because he worked to make them true. Saying "my father is going to have me killed" and then actively working to make that happen isn't a win to me. It's like saying that that u had a vision you would lose a 40k match and then go about to actively lose. Is that considered a win because your vision came true? I wouldn't think so.

 

Curze had a choice. He chose to kill himself. Claiming any sort of victory because he engineered his own demise sounds like a stretch.

It's sort of a yes and no. The pivotal moment of Curze's life wasn't the vision of the Emperor killing him, it was the vision of a searing light destroying Nostramo. From what we've seen of the IA articles and the rest of the fluff, it is apparent that Curze took it in the figurative sense that most visions take form in. In this case, the light of righteousness would destroy the world of darkness. So instead he sought to save Nostramo a different way. By becoming the darkness that others would be too afraid to approach. By making them become the light so only he would have his hands in the filth. Rather self-destructive.

 

IIRC, the IA articles say how the visions of the Emperor killing came later, towards just before the Heresy. He was troubled by them so he tried to talk to Fulgrim and Fulgrim said something to Dorn and that's how that episode happened. By then, it was already too late. Not only had Curze achieved exactly what he wanted by becoming the very filth he chose to become, but due to the administratum being rather lax in its duties, the citizens of Nostramo and by extent the VIII Legion had fallen back into that darkness and filth. So in a literal form of one of his earliest and most pivotal visions, Curze brought the "righteous" light of purity and justice to Nostramo, once and for all cleansing it of its filth, corruption and immorality.

 

Lorgar did want Chaos and Reality to merge into one entity. What he achieved isn't exactly far off. For the most part, the Imperium isn't that different from the Traitors they fight. "Necessary measures", sacrificing lives in the name of a "false god", claiming "righteousness" when slaughtering "innocents" and all that jazz. The Imperium does as much to perpetuate Chaos as the actual Traitors do. Humanity feeds Chaos and Chaos is feeding Humanity. That is exactly what Lorgar wanted. He wasn't as foolish as Erebus to believe that winning the Heresy would achieve his goals. If anything, he realized that the Heresy was simply a battle on the galactic scale and that in order to "win the war", he would have to throw the battle so everything would be place for victory. But like any good Primarch, he would have to throw his weight into battle to not only keep up appearances, but make sure the outcome he wanted came about.

 

For Angron... Angron didn't even choose to be a Primarch. Heck, he didn't even choose to be a gladiator-slave and have the Nails hammered into his skull. However, becoming a daemon primarch did give him the one thing he always wanted: peace from the Nails. Just looking at him as a Primarch in Betrayer, we see that he was constantly in pain and the only time he wasn't was when he was in full swing with the Nails. But then he becomes a Daemon Primarch and he is calm, controlled and collected. He is at peace. Lorgar had two purposes in changing him, 1.) so there would be a Primarch who could take down Sanguinius and 2.) to actually grant him the peace that he had sought for most of his life. It may not have been a choice to be a winner, but unlike when he didn't have a choice in becoming a Primarch or a gladiator-slave before that, at least he got something out of this change. How much benefit that is depends on what side of the fence you're on, but that's a different debate entirely.

 

Erebus, I would consider a loss because he wanted the Heresy to be a win. He wanted to be the Scion of Chaos, not the Legionnaire of the Scion. In that aspect, he failed miserably as all he is trying to do is just "relive the glory days" by trying to create another Heresy in the form of the Thirteenth Crusade.

 

Guilliman..... considering what the Imperium turned into, if that's a victory then it isn't a victory I would brag about, just like Lorgar wouldn't consider Calth a victory.

[Aegnor]

Curze's vindication wasn't that his visions came true. It was that the Emperor resorted to lethal violence to censure him breaking the rules. That had been Curze's tactic and what he felt he had been unfairly condemned for.

 

The Emperor deciding that Curze was irredeemable and better destroyed than allowed to exist in his debased form exactly mirrored Curze's decision regarding Nostramo. He felt that decision vindicated his entire approach to and obsession with enforcing justice.

[Skylifter]

Is there some additional info about Fulgrim later in the series? I've only read up to A Thousand Sons so far, but at that point he definitely isn't a winner at all, he is a soul lost in its own, daemon-controlled body.

[Blindhamster]

reflection cracked and angel exterminatus are the books you need to read Skylifter

[Wade Garrett]

Primarchs enslaved to the will of a mad god?

 

Sounds like Dorn and Guilliman to me, blindly following the designs of a dead father with no real idea what the endgame was beyond "Humanity must survive!".

 

Of course, there are plenty of humans doing...about as well as the average Imperial citizen in the Maelstrom and the Eye of Terror, so really what the loyalist Primarchs have done is set up a "the cruelest and bloodless regime imaginable" so the High Lords of Terra and Dad's corpse can stay in their big comfy chairs.

[Artein]

I liked how in Angel Exterminatus Fulgrim was doing everything (even sacrificing his own brother) to become a Daemon Prince while in Betrayer Lordar was doing everything so that Angron would turn into a Daemon Prince, just to save his life. Of course we could argue that Angron became a slave of Khorne but back then in Lorgar's eyes it was salvation.

[Kais Klip]

Despite my feelings towards him, I feel like I should defend Fabius a little bit on your accusation that he deliberately seeks to inflict pain on all his subjects, Dammeron. On the contrary, the vibe I got from the recent HH books is that his primary goal is to achieve "pure" biological immortality for himself, with that attribute being just one advantageous by-product of his ambitions goal of creating an even biologically superior line of Astartes/Semi-Primarchs.

 

At the heart of the matter, Fabius has simply discarded any caution towards sating his profession's ambition and curiosity, both of which are mirrored by many of his Apothecarion counter-parts, both loyalist and traitor, as shown by their scientific fascination, emotional disgust or not, with many of Fabius' creations during the Heresy. Put simply, Fabius' goals are the biological-science counterpart to those of the Dark Mechanicum; in more aspects than not, what they were doing before the Emperor/earlier counterparts came along and placed restrictions on their work. 

[Kol Saresk]

Fabius Bile reminds me of that one Nazi scientist who expiremented on twins at the death camps. He, is an example of "science without morality." Fabius Bile is no different. Neither is a sadist. They are "amoral" scientists who simply are sating their curiosties to the fullest limit and taking joy in any and all results, regardless of what happens to the subjects.

 

In essence, I do agree with Kais Klip but I also agree with Dammeron as Fabius Bile has most likely done expirements just to cause pain and see what happens in certain scenarios.

 

EDIT: Josef Mengele, that's who I was comparing Fabius to.

[godking]

 

 

I think at the end only major victor is Lorgar. If any other traitor primarch could have seen what he will become after the Heresy, probably he wouldn't rebel against the Emperor.

Curze and Angron would have. Mortarion would have too, as he hates tyrants and just want every single one of them dead.

Alpharius who freaking knows. Was he even loyal at some point ? Was he really a traitor ?

Perturabo, Fulgrim and Horus probably not. Well maybe Perturabo if Dorn kept being the arrogant douche he was.

Mortarion is one of the most tragic primarchs. I don't think if anybody had said "Hey Morty! You will become a herald of dark powers, a creature of night which makes the humanity afraid, a slave without hope to a dark god." he would accept.

 

Curze is a case of self-fulfilling prophecy as Typher said. He had a choice, but he wasn't aware of it. If he had been aware of the fact that he could have changed the destiny, things could be different.

 

Angron become a daemon primarch without his will.

 

BTW, Roboutte Guilliman can be considered as a victor of Heresy. Sit tight on your planet, be the Lord Commander of Imperium after Heresy, dictate your codex to everyone. Not bad.

In regards to Curze bull:cuss he knew he had a choice . But stubborn bastard that he was he activelly chose to stay with what he knew and did nothing to change his fate.

[Wade Garrett]

I'm not sure where the "Curze had a choice" arguement comes from.

 

While Malcharion did state that his visions were sometimes wrong and Sevatar sneers at the idea of a fixed destiny, the fact remains that every vision of Night Haunter's we've witnessed so far (Fulgrim and Lorgar's ascension, Ferrous and Dorn's deaths, his own fate) has played out exactly as he saw it.

[Kol Saresk]

Whenever it comes to prophecy, I like to think of these two quotes from the Malus Darkblade series:

 

"A prophecy is a likely outcome - a consequence of a sequence of events that could occur a year, or ten years, or a thousand years from now. They can happen of their own accord - or be fulfilled by design, if one has the foresight to orchestrate them."

 

"When a man's actions are shaped by events around him, he is acting according to fate."

 

Curze's path was shaped by his vision of Nostramo, not the Emperor killing him. That was simply a view of just one of the consequences that would result from the life he ha already lived. Most likely, no matter what had happened Curze would have died at the hands of an Imperial, and thus the Emperor by extension.

 

So there was and wasn't a choice. By the time Curze got his vision of receiving retribution, his bed had already been made and the sheets were wrapped around his shoulders. All was left was to fall asleep.

[W0lfie]

I agree with Lorgar, Bile and Typhus.

 

As for the Haunter, I disagree entirely.  He saw his Legion degenerate to little better than the scum they were when he recruited them, watched his life's work on Nostramo completely undone and had to destroy his home.  Then, he got brutalized by the Lion, twice, and killed by a Human.  I can't help but feel that his martyrdom was simply the "least terrible" path he could take; a poor consolation prize.

 

As for Mortarion, being strong-armed into subservience by Nurgle would wound him more than most primarchs; he had his adopted father try this same crap on him, and then had the Emperor do the same thing.  Everything he fought for, both on barbarus and in the Great Crusade, was for the sake of taking Tyrants down a peg.  Being forced to watch himself, to watch his sons become something hideous...no, Mortarion was not a winner in the Heresy.  There were dead Primarchs who came out of this in a better state (i.e. Sanguinius would have gladly died to combat the evil of the Heresy, vs. Mortarion being a miserable survivor).

 

And Fulgrim...he's been possessed by a daemon.  There is no winning in that scenario.  He has to watch his body acting independant of his will, watch his sons pay fealty, unknowingly, to the creature who enslaved their primarch.  Sounds like a living hell.

[Wade Garrett]

Any discussion of Fulgrim's status would involve great big piles of spoilers for Angel Exterminatus, but suffice to say "Alas, poor Fulgrim. He was possesed." is a bit inaccurate.

 

Also, Curze was brutalized by the Lion TWICE? The Haunter came in a poor second in their fight right before "Prince of Crows", but unless you think Lion's mighty neck muscles have the upper hand against Curze's claws I don't see how you can spin "Savage Weapons" as a triumph for Johnson.

[Kol Saresk]

Well, he did have a sword shoved through his back in the first battle, but a regular Dark Angel did that, not the Lion. And there's been no word that I know of on how the third round went and any speculation is just that, speculation.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

Any discussion of Fulgrim's status would involve great big piles of spoilers for Angel Exterminatus, but suffice to say "Alas, poor Fulgrim. He was possesed." is a bit inaccurate.

 

Any discussion of Fulgrim's status would involve great big piles of spoilers for Angel Exterminatus, but suffice to say "Alas, poor Fulgrim. He was possesed." is a bit inaccurate.

I don't think so.

Most people will agree with you and say Fulgrim found a way to turn the tables and take control.  What is in control of the Primarchs body is unclear.  I say the Deamon in the second sword given to him, kicked the first out