How was Nostramo allowed to degenerate so?

[Kol Saresk]

I didn't mean you, I meant something godking I can think posted earlier in the topic.

 

As for your topic, I honestly have no idea. And no one knows. For all we know there was an Astartes presence but it did nothing.

[Memento Of Prospero]

For all we know, Nostramo was garrisoned with Night Lords that enflammed the rebellion out of spite for being left behind. They were subsequently hunted down has the fallen, but instead of behind interrogated and executed, Curze walked up to them and gave them a stellar brofist for their feat.

 

"That was total rad dudes, I always wanted a reason to skin and flay my own people. Someone has to one up Perturabo!"

[Augustus]

Moratarion didnt't get rid of all the Overlords. He needed Big E's help.

[GhostMalone]

The big E killed his foster father mort stumbled as he went to take him alone to try one up the big e

[Wade Garrett]

Moratarion didnt't get rid of all the Overlords. He needed Big E's help.

It was very helpful, the way the Emperor taunted and insulted the Death Lord until he charged up the mountain to take on the last necromancer all by himself.

 

A heartwarming display of fatherly regard for a lost son.

[Phoebus]

And Curze didn't tell Nostramo to slide into a hellhole. Its something the population did. After Curze made it into a prosperous, ordered society with virtually no crime rate. Paradise it was not, but it was a sight better than some of the third world countries of today.

 

I'm just saying that if we blame Curze for how each world eventually turned out, then we have to blame those Primarchs as well.

 

Like I said, I didn't make the stipulation. I'm just saying that if we play by it, that's what we have to do. Look at each homeworld an its ultimate outcome.

 

I don't see how your comparisons work, though.  You're essentially saying that if we blame Curze for choices he made, we have to also blame other primarchs for the choices made by third parties.

 

Nostramo slid back to the horror-show it was because its "improvement" was contingent on fear of consequences:  fear of upsetting the Night Haunter.  There was no great, fundamental change of the social landscape.  Terror, collective punishment, and draconian measures that didn't just target criminals but all citizens ensured that Nostramans simply complied out of fear.

 

The Lion (to use one of your examples), on the other hand, did fundamentally change Caliban.  Even if the Emperor had never found him, he had introduced meritocratic practices in the Order and shaped it into the most powerful political and military body on Caliban; he had eliminated the most prominent threat to Calibanite society; and he was in the process of unifying the planet's remaining knighthoods and governing bodies.  Members of the ruling feudal aristocracy or of knighthoods that didn't necessarily want to be part of the Lion's "umbrella corporation" might not have been thrilled at the prospect of one man/knighthood ruling everything, but the average Calibanite (who had always been subservient to someone to begin with, and who had never been as safe as he had been before) was at worst a combination of neutral and relieved and at best ecstatic.

 

Back on Nostramo, the second the Nostramans realized that overlords* the Night Haunter had left behind were as prone to crime as their gangs and crime syndicates had once been, and that there was no repercussion for crime, their society reverted to what it had been.  No real surprise there; Curze's methods might have succeeded in compliance by way of intimidation, but they also dehumanized his subjects and made them far more likely to abuse others as they had once been abused:  Curze's rule, after all, had been predicated on might makes right.

 

Caliban, on the other hand, didn't collapse because of the Crusade against the Beasts or because the Lion had introduced the concept that anyone could be a knight.  It went it revolt because Luther was corrupted by Chaos and believed that the Lion and the Imperium were responsible for the conditions that had led to the rebellion that he faced in Fallen Angels.  

 

*  I can't imagine that the Night Lords has a recruiting and training program that didn't use Space Marines to, well, recruit and train Space Marines.

[Memento Of Prospero]

Erm, your assumptions about the motives of Caliban are flawed brother. They are exactly the as as those of the people of Nostramo. They rebelled because the Imperium was destroying the old ways and demanded restoration. The population began it's own rebellion before Luther began to slide...

[Phoebus]

Erm, your assumptions about the motives of Caliban are flawed brother. They are exactly the as as those of the people of Nostramo. They rebelled because the Imperium was destroying the old ways and demanded restoration. The population began it's own rebellion before Luther began to slide...

 

Wait, wait, wait.  In what way did the Nostramans rebel because "the Imperium was destroying the old ways and demanded restoration"?  That has zero to do with what we've seen in Index Astartes articles, novels, novellas, etc.  The Night Haunter landed on a planet beset by terrible crime.  To correct this, he embarked on a campaign of terror and violence that targeted anyone guilty of any crime - however meaningless.  The Nostramans were put into submission, a brutal order reigned, but the price for that was that the people themselves feared the Night Haunter and had no love for him.  When the Night Haunter left, the Nostramans went right back to their status quo.  You're making the most tenuous of connections:  you're misreading a slide back into lawlessness as some sort of revolution to take something back.  That wasn't the case.

 

Either way, though, this is off topic.  The sticking point was this exchange:

 

 

If we all the advantages that a primarch has you can't leave your world behind better then you found it then you are a failure.

 

 

so Angron, Perturabo and the Lion are all failures as well?

 

 

The Imperium had what we would consider to be a negative influence on most of the Legion homeworlds - by 21st century standards, at any rate.  It did little beyond ensuring that the planet in question could function as a recruitment and supply depot for its Legion.  Chemos, Inwit, Ultramar, and Prospero didn't suffer the ecological and social damage this process involved because they were already advanced worlds capable of meeting the needs of their Legion.  We can probably add Olympia and Nocturne to this list, as well.  Deliverance is unique in that their former oppressors ended up bearing the brunt of Compliance and producing materiel for the Raven Guard.  Nostramo was unique in that it was already an oppressed dystopia before the Imperium got there, and thus no one had to be pressed into unwanted servitude - they were already there.  I'm going to guess Medusa's clans also possessed the technology needed to serve the Iron Hands.

 

About half of the known Primarchs were raised on planets that relied on the Imperium to become viable recruiting and manufacturing centers for their Legions.  It thus becomes kind of disingenuous to pass judgment on what their adopted homeworlds became after the Imperium showed up.  We can't automatically assume that Sanguinius arbitrarily chose to leave Baal Secundus as an irradiated setting for Mad Max and Fallout sequels.  We can't automatically assume that the same Lion who fought tirelessly for the well-being of the Calibanites thought forced assimilation into arcologies was the best course of action.  What we can do, however, is judge the primarchs for the choices they made as they rose to become the preeminent beings of the planets they landed on:

 

The Lion was beloved and popularly acclaimed by the Calibanites for knocking down the status barriers of the knighthoods, for uniting all the knights, and for destroying all the Beasts of their planet.  If the Imperium had never shown up, he would have been the greatest hero Caliban had ever known.

 

Perturabo is not a primarch whom I will defend.  He appears to have been content to sit by the sidelines until the Imperium arrive.  We never hear of Perturabo unifying Olympia, or fighting at the behest of his adopted father.

 

Leman Russ earned respect and acclaim as a leader.  The worst one can say about him is that he didn't change the status quo before the arrival of the Imperium.  So what, though?  Neither Russ nor his people possessed technology worth mentioning - certainly nothing that could fundamentally change their environment or how they co-existed with one another.  Competition for resources defined conflict on Fenris; it's not as if Russ was a warlord for the sake of being one.

 

Could Sanguinius have desired for Baal Secundus to serve as a crucible of sorts that would provide worthy recruits for his Legion?  Maybe, and that would be a brutal choice for him to make.  His desire to protect his adopted people, however, appears to have been genuine.  The love they had for him appears to have been genuine as well.  At worst, he would appear to be a more benign parallel to Russ on Fenris.  If I had to chose between Sanguinius choosing to leave Baal Secundus as an irradiated hellhole or the Mechanicus not making it a priority for them to fix it, I'd go with the latter.

 

Ferrus Manus strikes me as the one primarch who comes close to being as cruel as Curze.  He seems indifferent to the value of human life.  Strength and survival seem to dominate his priorities.  Unlike Curze, though, he is more of a "force of nature" type than someone who at some point decided that justice and order entailed actively abusing people.

 

Angron gets a pass in my opinion.  In many ways, he's worse than Curze.  One cannot forget, however, to what extent Angron was victimized, or the fact that his mind is not truly his own.  By contrast, Curze was always a predator who took pleasure at what he did.

 

Mortarion might have ultimately failed in trying to defeat the very last of the horrid tyrants that plagued Barbarus, but even so he recognized right from wrong even in an environment that prized evil; he acted selflessly; he won the trust of the people he sought to protect; he waged - and almost won - a war to win the freedom of oppressed, brutalized people.  He can't be blamed for the fact that the ecology of Barbarus itself wasn't cleansed; that was beyond his power to affect, just as Russ couldn't make Fenris more temperate and stable.

 

Magnus eliminated the primary threat against the people of Prospero, united its various cabals, and made the Tizca into a utopia by the standards of Warhammer 40k.

 

What this all comes down to is that, absent the influence of third parties - the Imperium being most prominent - how did these primarchs act when they landed on their adopted homeworlds?  What choices did they make?  It's very hard for me to see how most of the primarchs Kol_Saresk mentions failed in the way that Konrad Curze did.  His planet slid back into lawlessness and rebellion because of his policies, which could only be sustained while he was there.

 

Bottom line, if the Emperor had whisked away the Lion, the Khan, Sanguinius, Mortarion, or Magnus at the moment when they completed their "Big Deed", and the Imperium had nothing to do with those planets from that point on, would we be able to say that their homeworlds were left better than they had been found?  Absolutely.  For all the reasons listed above.  But not Curze's.  Caliban would have been home to very dangerous flora, but an egalitarian knighthood would have provided security over a society that could begin reconnecting without the Beasts terrorizing everyone.  Chogoris would be free of a tyrannic empire that hunted perceived social inferiors and outsiders for sport.  Baal Secundus would be free of cannibal mutants that terrorized human beings.  Barbarus would be free of sadistic, murderous enslavers.  Prospero would be a utopia by 40k standards.

[Kol Saresk]

Congratulations Phoebus. You saw the futility. No really, I was playing Devil's Advocate the whole time. The reality is, Curze cannot be judged by what the people of Nostramo did no more than the Lion can be judged for Luther, Angron can be judged for his homeworld or Perturabo can be judged for Olympia. But, if we were to judge Curze for the actions of a third party(the people of Nostramo) then we have to judge the others according to the standard that Curze is being judged for, which honestly I don't know what those standards are as I did not set them. The only Primarch to truly affect his Homeworld in a truly negative way would be Magnus, because he decided to wait for the Wolves' retribution and then played it out the way he did. The Razing could have been avoided every step of the way.

 

And recall, Curze actually did leave Nostramo as a crime-free, rich and prosperous world that was at the center of trading. True, the population lived in fear. But no worse than the people who lived in Dodge City while Wyatt Earp was around. It wwas after Curze left that the people of Nostramo decided to become what they once were, and it took until his memory faded, so at least one generation.

 

But Godking didn't just judge Curze for the people of Nostramo being who they were, but the destruction of Nostramo as well. So, how many Primarchs were involved in the destruction of the homeworlds? I think it comes to nine, since Alpharius was the only traitor who didn't have a registered homeworld. So, do the other eight get judged differently because their populations were "reclaiming the old ways" and weren't massive mega-populations of murderers and rapists?

[Memento Of Prospero]

 

Erm, your assumptions about the motives of Caliban are flawed brother. They are exactly the as as those of the people of Nostramo. They rebelled because the Imperium was destroying the old ways and demanded restoration. The population began it's own rebellion before Luther began to slide...

 

Wait, wait, wait.  In what way did the Nostramans rebel because "the Imperium was destroying the old ways and demanded restoration"?  That has zero to do with what we've seen in Index Astartes articles, novels, novellas, etc.  The Night Haunter landed on a planet beset by terrible crime.  To correct this, he embarked on a campaign of terror and violence that targeted anyone guilty of any crime - however meaningless.  The Nostramans were put into submission, a brutal order reigned, but the price for that was that the people themselves feared the Night Haunter and had no love for him.  When the Night Haunter left, the Nostramans went right back to their status quo.  You're making the most tenuous of connections:  you're misreading a slide back into lawlessness as some sort of revolution to take something back.  That wasn't the case.

 

Either way, though, this is off topic.  

 

When the Lion left, the Calibanites began fomenting rebellion - they had little  love for him either after what he had done in their eyes. He had effectively enslaved them to the Imperium, without consultation or vote. The people of Nostramo where far worse as a society sure and they regressed back to what they were. The Calibanites might have been a better society at large, but they decided to shunt the rule of the imperium all the same and return to their foundations. Both are failures in compliance, plain and simple. When it comes to the failure of a primarch, The Lion failed to upkeep this society after leaving regardless of the means employed to do so, just like Perturabo and Curze.

 

So in the original question, of improving and failing to maintain it, he failed as well. Just not as poorly.

[Phoebus]

The reality is, Curze cannot be judged by what the people of Nostramo did no more than the Lion can be judged for Luther, ...

 

Again, that comparison is neither here nor there.  The Lion's choices and policies on Caliban prior to the arrival of the Imperium played no valid role in Luther deciding to rebel against the Imperium.  The seeds of envy got into Luther because of the man's own moral weakness.  By contrast, Konrad Curze embarked on a reign of terror that targeted everyone indiscriminately and eventually punished any infraction horrifically.  That's bound to have a profound effect on people.  Remember the old study wherein half of a test group were "prisoners" and the other half were "guards", and the abuse of power that ensued?  Remember what the study found when the test groups' roles were reversed?

 

... Angron can be judged for his homeworld ... 

 

Angron doesn't even fit in the same category as Curze.  I'll gladly grant you that Angron can be seen as curiously inept compared to Curze; the latter single-handedly terrorized his city and his planet into submission, whereas the former was forced into a guerrilla struggle.  We thus never get to see what Angron would have done with the planet he landed on.   Even if we did, though, we would have to remember that the Butcher's Nails had a profound and altogether negative effect on Angron's morality and decision-making ability.  Curze doesn't share that handicap.

 

The only Primarch to truly affect his Homeworld in a truly negative way would be Magnus, because he decided to wait for the Wolves' retribution and then played it out the way he did. The Razing could have been avoided every step of the way.

 

Even if we were to go by this standard, Magnus is a distant second to Curze and Perturabo, both of whom destroyed their own planets.  By contrast, Magnus left it to others to engage in indiscriminate warfare against his people.  That doesn't absolve him, by any means, but it's a different animal altogether from pulling the trigger himself.

 

And recall, Curze actually did leave Nostramo as a crime-free, rich and prosperous world that was at the center of trading. True, the population lived in fear. But no worse than the people who lived in Dodge City while Wyatt Earp was around.

 

I think that's too simplistic a view.  The idea of prosperity assumes wealth, but, more importantly, comfort, and well-being.  "Prosperity" in Nostramo was productivity under duress.  While a reward in shared wealth is implied in the background material, the existence of the Nostramans is qualified as being joyless.  Not joyless in the sense of "Oh, no, we can't steal, beat, and murder anymore!", but joyless in the sense that their lives were ruled by horror.  "Not happy" is a colossal understatement where the psychology of the Nostramans is concerned.

 

Before you compare this to the obviously worse alternatives of being robbed, murdered, or worse, though, please read on.  :)

 

So, how many Primarchs were involved in the destruction of the homeworlds? I think it comes to nine, since Alpharius was the only traitor who didn't have a registered homeworld. So, do the other eight get judged differently because their populations were "reclaiming the old ways" and weren't massive mega-populations of murderers and rapists?

 

See my reasons above.  Context is central in this argument.  Ownership of action is just as important.  This is why I focused as much as I did on the primarchs' decisions prior to the Imperium arriving.  The obvious answer is that Curze "improved" Nostramo before the Imperium arrived - in terms of order, manufacturing numbers, and overall security.  The equally obvious answer, though, is that improvements that are gained by brutalizing and terrorizing the population are not going to be permanent and are going to lead to further brutality and terror once the current authority vacates their position.

 

Hence why I contrasted the other primarchs against Curze regarding what would happen if they had all disappeared after achieving their "Big Deed".  Nostramo, as we see, would quickly have devolved back into lawlessness.  Caliban would merely have been a dangerous place whose people were protected by altruistic knights.  So on, so forth.

[Kol Saresk]

Nonononononononononono. When quoting me, please quote the context. I said:

The reality is, Curze cannot be judged by what the people of Nostramo did no more than the Lion can be judged for Luther, Angron can be judged for his homeworld or Perturabo can be judged for Olympia.

Not

Angron can be judged for his homeworld

It's a pet peeve of mine, but too many times have I been misquoted, both on accident and on purpose.

 

As for your test study, that would be valid in this case except for one problem: It was the generation that didn't live under Curze that returned to the old ways of murder and beat. So basically, it'd be "how would the children of those prisoners turn out when there were no guards?"

[Phoebus]

Kol_Saresk, I separated them because they can't even be compared properly.  Angron is to Curze as apples are to oranges.  You can't compare a man whose slave rebellion was hunted down almost to extinction with a man who managed to gain uncontested control over a planetary domain.

 

Beyond that, assuming Angron was a valid comparison, I don't see how quoting him separately ignores the context of your argument.  Unless you feel Curze's conduct needs to be compared to the sum of the three primarchs you compared him to, then he absolutely can be compared to each of them individually.  It's very early in the morning here, though, so if I'm missing something obvious please let me know!  :)

 

Where the Nostramans are concerned, Curze's choices absolutely could have an effect on subsequent generations.  On a micro scale, if a child is abused, it is more likely to abuse its own children - regardless of the reasons of why it was abused.  The presence of its own abusive parent is not a requirement for it continue the chain of abuse.  If psychological abuse and horrific violence are the basis for a society's law, order, and security, what effect is that going to have on the society in question?  Certainly nothing positive.  The social regression of Nostramo is hardly surprising.

[Conn Eremon]

The Lion (to use one of your examples), on the other hand, did fundamentally change Caliban.  Even if the Emperor had never found him, he had introduced meritocratic practices in the Order and shaped it into the most powerful political and military body on Caliban; he had eliminated the most prominent threat to Calibanite society; and he was in the process of unifying the planet's remaining knighthoods and governing bodies.  Members of the ruling feudal aristocracy or of knighthoods that didn't necessarily want to be part of the Lion's "umbrella corporation" might not have been thrilled at the prospect of one man/knighthood ruling everything, but the average Calibanite (who had always been subservient to someone to begin with, and who had never been as safe as he had been before) was at worst a combination of neutral and relieved and at best ecstatic.

Technically, he didn't introduce meritocratic practices in the Order. The Order already had that, which was what made it unique and so opposed by the other orders. All the Lion did, as far as that goes, is increase its power more quickly than it otherwise would have done. And by "more quickly," I mean "only a few years sooner." Luther was also part of the Order, and without the Lion would have still caused the Order to rise to prominence on Caliban. What we see happen on Caliban was what would have happened within a generation or two regardless. We simply see it happen on a much quicker timetable because it was a Primarch making it happen, rather than the greatest legendary hero to have ever lived on Caliban, after the Lion.

 

Considering the involvement of the Imperium was due to happen regardless of whether or not a Primarch was there, it would have likely happened even sooner than Luther could have made happen anyways. Poor Luther. Imagine if his lifespan had occurred just prior to the Lion's landing. Everything the Lion would have done, would already be nearing completion.

 

So what the Lion did on Caliban was make events happen a few years earlier than they otherwise would have.

[Kol Saresk]

Let me put it this way then Phoebus.

 

When you just take out the rest of the sentence, the quote says Angron can be judged for his homeworld. When you leave the whole sentence together in its context, it says that Angron cannot be judged for his homeworld.

[GhostMalone]

.

[Augustus]

It was very helpful, the way the Emperor taunted and insulted the Death Lord until he charged up the mountain to take on the last necromancer all by himself.

 

A heartwarming display of fatherly regard for a lost son.

Hey. That's neither here nor there. I'm just saying Mortarion left the most powerful Necrolord dude with no rivals to compete with and needed the Emperor to save him and finish they guy off. Leave the parental advice for Doctor Phil ;) :D

[Phoebus]

Technically, he didn't introduce meritocratic practices in the Order. The Order already had that, which was what made it unique and so opposed by the other orders.

You are correct! Apologies for such an obvious blunder!

All the Lion did, as far as that goes, is increase its power more quickly than it otherwise would have done. And by "more quickly," I mean "only a few years sooner." Luther was also part of the Order, and without the Lion would have still caused the Order to rise to prominence on Caliban. What we see happen on Caliban was what would have happened within a generation or two regardless. We simply see it happen on a much quicker timetable because it was a Primarch making it happen, rather than the greatest legendary hero to have ever lived on Caliban, after the Lion.

That, however, sounds suspect.

No indication is given that the Order would have grown as it did until the Lion arrived. From as early as Codex: Angels of Death, it is made clear that it was the combination of the Lion's brilliance and Luther's charisma that led to the Order's reputation rising accordingly and its size increasing correspondingly.

Luther will have gone on to be a great hero without the Lion, but he did not possess the superhuman genius of his friend. The planning and strategy behind the Crusade against the Beasts was Jonson's alone.

Does the reverse hold true, though? Certainly Jonson would have found it harder going to convince the various knighthoods to accept his plan, for he was, indeed, taciturn and temperamental. His rise through the Order would not have been stopped, though. He was a peerless warrior on Caliban, and possessed an unmatched intellect. His rise to the position of Supreme Grand Master was inevitable. Without Luther, however, he will probably have had to resort to Machiavellian stratagems and war against other orders in order to get everyone in line with this plan. Without Luther, the cleansing of Caliban will have been an altogether more violent affair, perhaps more reminiscent of the Khan's own upbringing in Chogoris. It would have happened nonetheless, though.

Let me put it this way then Phoebus.

When you just take out the rest of the sentence, the quote says Angron can be judged for his homeworld. When you leave the whole sentence together in its context, it says that Angron cannot be judged for his homeworld.

Yes, but in no way can one be taking you out of context, though. Especially when I clearly wasn't arguing that Angron couldn't be judged for his homeworld. At best, I would be at fault for making an absurd counterargument to an argument that didn't exist. I get the point you're trying make, but I don't think it really applies here. As a general guideline, though? Sure! :)

[Wade Garrett]

Actually, without Luther, it's possible Lion would never have been taken in by the Knights, lived his whole life in the forests, and ended up as some variation on "Hillbilly Konrad Curze".

[Conn Eremon]

It was not just Jonson planning and strategizing the campaigns against the Beasts. It was Jonson and Luther, who was often described as the reason behind the Lion's successes. The two of them together. You are right that without Luther, the Lion would have likely conquered his way through it all. Last order standing, ignoring the obvious flaw Wade pointed out.

 

Luther is the reason why Caliban was unified. Not the Lion. The Lion's abilities galvanized the process. But it was Luther's abilities that allowed the process to occur at all.

[Phoebus]

 

It was not just Jonson planning and strategizing the campaigns against the Beasts. It was Jonson and Luther, who was often described as the reason behind the Lion's successes. The two of them together. You are right that without Luther, the Lion would have likely conquered his way through it all. Last order standing, ignoring the obvious flaw Wade pointed out.

Luther is the reason why Caliban was unified. Not the Lion. The Lion's abilities galvanized the process. But it was Luther's abilities that allowed the process to occur at all.

 

Codex: Angels of Death and Codex: Dark Angels (4th and 6th editions) describe Luther as "rash and emotional", and Jonson as "a brilliant strategist and unstoppable once  decided upon a course of action."  Luther's oratory is instrumental in convincing the Calibanites to join in the Crusade against the Great Beasts, but it was Jonson's "supreme ability at planning and organization" that provided the strategy itself.

 

Insofar as the Crusade is concerned, there is, in fact, no indication that Luther was anything more than Jonson's "public relations" arm.  No role is attributed to him regarding the strategy and planning of the Crusade.  That point is hammered in by the fact that it was Jonson who was proclaimed Supreme Grand Master following the end of the campaign.  There's never even a hint that Luther was considered for the position.

 

And why would he have been?  By the end of the Crusade, it would have been obvious to anyone that the Lion possessed superhuman qualities leagues beyond even Luther's supreme oratory.  We sometimes take it for granted that only Guilliman (to name an easy example) can juggle myriads of pieces of data and coordinate incredibly complex operations.  That's not true, though.  Almost all the primarchs (see last paragraph for the obvious caveat) possessed superhuman intellects in their own right.  You need only recall the detached, almost disinterest fashion in which the Lion dispatched the Sons of Horus fleet on Diamat, in Fallen Angels.  To a being that can perform "hyperspatial calculations" without mechanical aid and can mentally compute the attack vectors of multiple warships and the rates of speed of their projectile weapons, the logistical challenges of the Crusade - which would have been a monumental obstacle for normal human warlords - would have been a breeze.

 

That's not to say that Luther wasn't heroic in his own right.  I just take it with a grain of salt when Sar Daviel says that he could have unified Caliban like the Lion had.  On what grounds?  Again, I'm not trying to dismiss Luther:  it is precisely because he was such an exceptional that he was able to go stride for stride with his best friend.  But Descent of Angels nails the relationship between the two:

 

 

“It was clear that Luther was a remarkable man, perhaps more so even than most people gave him credit for. He possessed phenomenal talent in a number of fields, not least as a leader, a warrior and a huntsman. ...

In any other era, Luther would probably have been acclaimed as the greatest hero of his age. ... It had been Luther’s tragedy to be born in the same era as a man against whom all his endeavours would be judged and forever found wanting in comparison. From the day he had encountered Jonson in the forest and decided to bring him to civilisation, Luther had sounded the death-knell of his own legend.”

 

Excerpt From: Mitchel Scanlon. “Descent of Angels.” iBooks.

 

Bottom line, it was the Lion that made the unification of Caliban possible.  His plan, his strategy, his genius - and, in no small way, his peerless combat prowess.  Luther's oratory and charisma ensured that the Calibanites came to Jonson's side willingly.  His own courage, prowess, and intellect undoubtedly played a role in the success of the Crusade.  It's disingenuous, however, to argue that he was integral to the Crusade, or that he himself could have masterminded and orchestrated the Crusade.  The idea that the Lion could not have impressed, coerced, or outright intimidated the various orders of knighthood into joining his Crusade flies in the face of what we've seen for virtually every primarch that didn't have his brains scrambled by cybernetic parasites.

[Xin Ceithan]

In some very twisted Way, Curze is a pretty good judge of the basic human condition:

Self serving, often ignorant and prone to relapsing into old behaviourial patterns. In need of strong incentive as Motivation for change...

 

Konrad is THE classical behavioural therapist:

Carrot -- " don't do this - you live"

Stick --"you die"

Fail hard enough, often enough:

REALLY Big Stick ---You all die

 

Being a misantropic bastard and increasingly mad might not help either

[Brother Nihm]

One possibility could be that he knew and (his "alter ego" ?) let it happen. He did know early on that his world was going to die.

Index Astartes

At times, in raptures of pain, I saw what was to occur laid out before me. In these waking dreams, I took countless lives with my bare hands, heads taken as trophies. I died again and again at the hands of my father. My sons butchered and maimed their brothers. My name was to become synonymous with dread. But most vividly and with most frequency, I saw my world pierced by a lance of purest light, splitting it, shattering it into dust.

Of course, the same source also indicate that he didn't know that the people of Nostramo had fallen back into its old ways, but such is the way with history and preserved records.

His actions later in the Crusade seem to reinforce that he knew full well that his recruits were cold-blooded murderers, as he set the Legion upon "innocents" several times before he was called to account for his actions.

Surely a latent psychic / powerful seer wouldn't be blind to this, much less a superhuman/god-like being like a Primarch.

(Plus, wouldn't it be so much cooler? )

[Wade Garrett]

Being a powerful psyker/seer does not make one omniscient or infallible, see:

 

Half the things the Emperor, Eldrad, and Magnus have ever done.

 

Also, I need a citation on Konrad being a latent psyker. Of course, given that every major character from Abaddon to Sigismund is now a latent psyker because it was cool when ADB did it with Sevatar, why should Konrad be any exception?

[Kol Saresk]

Umm, Wade, ever since time immemorial when the IA articles were forged from the very stuff of the primordial universe, Curze has been written as being precognitive. I could be wrong, but precognition is a trait of being a psyker. So... :whistling: