Just what exactly was so wrong about Imperium Secundus?

[Ishagu]

Oh I don't think the DA were traitors. Elements of the Legion fell during the Heresy and were destroyed.

What makes them heretics in the current setting is that they abandon the interests of the Imperium and will let their allies down to pursue their own agendas. Guilliman should censure the chapter or put them on watch until they can be trusted.

[StruManChu]

The tl;dr version of this thread is basically just 'Ishagu gonna Ishagu'. 

 

The main point of contention as far as I can see with Imperium Secondus is that, while Guilliman's loyalty is to the Imperium, his motivation and his focus is more divided than his brothers.

 

It's my belief that any other loyal Primarch, had they seen their home sectors been attacked as ruthlessly as the 500 worlds were, would have stayed to defend them. That's obvious. I also think that after this initial attack is dealt with and the bulk of the traitor force seen off, they would take their forces towards Terra. The only reason half of the forces end up anywhere near Macragge is because they were following the light of the Pharos as if it was the Astronomican, and they got off course. This includes the entire BA fleet after Signus, IIRC.

 

Why this rush to Terra? I belief it's because in the eyes of the other legions, Terra is by far the most important place, and the Emperor the most important person, in the entire Imperium. It's the birthplace of humanity, the throneworld. If another takes the throne, then in the eyes of the wider galaxy, they assume the authority to rule. For the remaining legions, everything is expendable as long as Terra stands.

 

Guilliman and the XIII don't have this worldview though, Guilliman especially. In the 500 worlds of Ultramar, he has something that stands apart, something unique and something to be protected. So even though his loyalty to the Imperium is absolute he, unlike his brothers, considers the Imperium to be greater than Terra. In Guilliman's mind, the loss of the 500 worlds is too great a price to lay down for the security and safety of Old Earth. And we see this after the attack on Calth and the Shadow Crusade. Guilliman's arguments are not that the Lion or the Angel should try to get back to their own worlds to protect them in the same way that he is protecting his, but it's effectively that Caliban and Baal should be sacrificed in order to protect Ultramar.

 

There's definitely pragmatism there, because you have to make your decisions based on the information at hand, but you cannot tell me that any of the other loyal Primarchs would have done the same, and therefore you cannot tell me that Guilliman didn't have two horses in this race.

[Zuvassin]

I think to add to that, something that hasn't been super spelled out but I think is true nonetheless is that Guilliman's weakness isn't that he's boring or not the very best at something like a lot of his brothers are, but that his 'pragmatism' can go too far.

 

As others have said, even the Imperium of the Imperial Truth still held to an absolute loyalty and obedience to the Emperor that RG's actions would on the surface appear to violate. He's like someone well-versed in theology to the point of wanting to take a particular theological point to its ultimate conclusion regardless of how obviously heretical or problematic it would be to anyone less driven to literally think through every possibility and permutation.

 

The fact that Ultramar is this quasi-unique part of the Imperium certainly doesn't help his case, but it's almost irrelevant as it's really more just his personality. In a way, he's like Lorgar or Magnus - they 'fell' because their own curiosity drove them beyond the obvious (and then bluntly proscribed) limits of the fields they obsessed over, and in a way, Imperium Secundus is the result of RG's own version of that same hell-bent need to cover every possibility.

[karden00]

The tl;dr version of this thread is basically just 'Ishagu gonna Ishagu'. 

 

The main point of contention as far as I can see with Imperium Secondus is that, while Guilliman's loyalty is to the Imperium, his motivation and his focus is more divided than his brothers.

 

It's my belief that any other loyal Primarch, had they seen their home sectors been attacked as ruthlessly as the 500 worlds were, would have stayed to defend them. That's obvious. I also think that after this initial attack is dealt with and the bulk of the traitor force seen off, they would take their forces towards Terra. The only reason half of the forces end up anywhere near Macragge is because they were following the light of the Pharos as if it was the Astronomican, and they got off course. This includes the entire BA fleet after Signus, IIRC.

 

Why this rush to Terra? I belief it's because in the eyes of the other legions, Terra is by far the most important place, and the Emperor the most important person, in the entire Imperium. It's the birthplace of humanity, the throneworld. If another takes the throne, then in the eyes of the wider galaxy, they assume the authority to rule. For the remaining legions, everything is expendable as long as Terra stands.

 

Guilliman and the XIII don't have this worldview though, Guilliman especially. In the 500 worlds of Ultramar, he has something that stands apart, something unique and something to be protected. So even though his loyalty to the Imperium is absolute he, unlike his brothers, considers the Imperium to be greater than Terra. In Guilliman's mind, the loss of the 500 worlds is too great a price to lay down for the security and safety of Old Earth. And we see this after the attack on Calth and the Shadow Crusade. Guilliman's arguments are not that the Lion or the Angel should try to get back to their own worlds to protect them in the same way that he is protecting his, but it's effectively that Caliban and Baal should be sacrificed in order to protect Ultramar.

 

There's definitely pragmatism there, because you have to make your decisions based on the information at hand, but you cannot tell me that any of the other loyal Primarchs would have done the same, and therefore you cannot tell me that Guilliman didn't have two horses in this race.

 

Regarding the bolded portions....

 

Except that as a poster above noted, as soon as he had intel on Terra and the Emprah's living status, he said "Time to go home..."

 

So that doesn't really carry, does it? 

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

“Jeez, this fog is terrible, I can’t see a damn thing. I know my capital ship is out there somewhere under duress but let’s stay right where we’re at and see what happens.”

 

- Commodore Robert Gillman, c. 1798 excerpt provided as evidence at Admiralty dereliction of duty board

 

"Jeez, this fog is terrible. It's coming to life and eating ships and worlds whole, my capital ship is lost in it with no sign of its return, maybe I'll fortify what I have rather than throw resources away"

 

That's very true. We can't really criticise RG when Russ literally had Horus on his knees and could have killed him before the Siege, but didn't do it

 

sigh

I really hate the fact that this scene went through multiple people and nobody flagged it. 

 

 

back on topic, IMO, Guilliman did nothing wrong. All the evidence he had pointed to the loss of the Emperor and Imperium and he had psychos rampaging through Ultramar. He'd be criminally negligent if he did nothing about it.

 

JKC

 

[Kinstryfe]

Oh I don't think the DA were traitors. Elements of the Legion fell during the Heresy and were destroyed.

What makes them heretics in the current setting is that they abandon the interests of the Imperium and will let their allies down to pursue their own agendas. Guilliman should censure the chapter or put them on watch until they can be trusted.

I think a big part of what makes 40k 40k is the sheer irony in almost everything. Russ cultivated a persona of a barbarian, but at one crucial moment his bonds of family won out. The Emperor fostered familial bonds in the Primarchs to better control them, which ended up leading to his own demise. The Dark Angels spent ten thousand years obsessed with covering up a secret that's actually no worse than most other Legions to the point that the cover up is worse than the crime. Guilliman is the ultimate empire builder, in some ways possibly better at it than even The Emperor, but his pragmatism is both a boon and a curse. Even noble Sanguinius, most beloved of all the Primarchs, is plagued by the same self-disgust that all mutants in the setting feel, because today's angelic lord is tomorrow's mutie freak. Even Vulkan, known to be the most "human" of the Primarchs is like The Emperor fated to stand forever apart. Every Primarch has these little failings which make them both impossibly human in intent but superhuman in scale, and their every mistake is magnetized because it not only has bigger effect than most humans, but darn it they're supposed to be better than human.

 

This irony is also why fandom takes things so to heart and argues so passionately about it. It's meant to be deliberately contradictory, with the story having many facets. That's why the modern Imperium is as influenced by Magnus and Lorgar as it is Guilliman and Dorn. The whole setting is inherently full of contradictions, and it wouldn't be the 40k we love without it.

[Kasper_Hawser]

 

Oh I don't think the DA were traitors. Elements of the Legion fell during the Heresy and were destroyed.

What makes them heretics in the current setting is that they abandon the interests of the Imperium and will let their allies down to pursue their own agendas. Guilliman should censure the chapter or put them on watch until they can be trusted.

I think a big part of what makes 40k 40k is the sheer irony in almost everything. Russ cultivated a persona of a barbarian, but at one crucial moment his bonds of family won out. The Emperor fostered familial bonds in the Primarchs to better control them, which ended up leading to his own demise. The Dark Angels spent ten thousand years obsessed with covering up a secret that's actually no worse than most other Legions to the point that the cover up is worse than the crime. Guilliman is the ultimate empire builder, in some ways possibly better at it than even The Emperor, but his pragmatism is both a boon and a curse. Even noble Sanguinius, most beloved of all the Primarchs, is plagued by the same self-disgust that all mutants in the setting feel, because today's angelic lord is tomorrow's mutie freak. Even Vulkan, known to be the most "human" of the Primarchs is like The Emperor fated to stand forever apart. Every Primarch has these little failings which make them both impossibly human in intent but superhuman in scale, and their every mistake is magnetized because it not only has bigger effect than most humans, but darn it they're supposed to be better than human.

 

This irony is also why fandom takes things so to heart and argues so passionately about it. It's meant to be deliberately contradictory, with the story having many facets. That's why the modern Imperium is as influenced by Magnus and Lorgar as it is Guilliman and Dorn. The whole setting is inherently full of contradictions, and it wouldn't be the 40k we love without it.

 

 

Well said. that being said, I think the contradictions are getting overboard after 30 years (or maybe the last 2 years of intense retcon) of constant changes the story. So for my part, I wish GW would make up its mind on at least a few things, rather than constantly make EVERYTHING murky. 

 

Ironically, one of the few things that GW made unmurky was the Lion's loyalty. And yet we still argue about it (and in a sadomasochistic way, enjoy torturing ourselves discussing that with brimstone and fire).

 

Imperium Secundus in a way, reminds me of the unnecessary (story wise, commercially speaking the producers needed to give more time to the author for his writing) Naruto filler episodes leading up to Shippuden. An unnecessary if still entertaining and depth inducing character development for Guilliman, filler episode of the HH leading to Siege of Terra.

[b1soul]

@ Ishagu

 

"That's very true. We can't really criticise RG when Russ literally had Horus on his knees and could have killed him before the Siege, but didn't do it"

 

The whole Emperor's magical "soul-illumination" spear subplot was the most unnecessary and baffling plot complication of the Heresy series.

[bluntblade]

Russ's desire to fight Horus could have been dealt with far better in general. And I do think that after Wolf King they could have done a bit more to keep him plausible as a threat to the Traitors.

[Charlo]

I really enjoyed Wolf King... And Imperium Secondus! 

[Marshal Rohr]

The way IS is handled in the Black Books is much better than the novels. It’s essentially surrounded and besieged, and the loyalists within manage to maintain some facsimile of normal order and safety beyond the front lines. It’s reminscent of a World War Two UK.

[carlisimo]

The way IS is handled in the Black Books is much better than the novels. It’s essentially surrounded and besieged, and the loyalists within manage to maintain some facsimile of normal order and safety beyond the front lines. It’s reminscent of a World War Two UK.

It hasn’t been covered in a black book yet, has it?

[Marshal Rohr]

Retribution covers lots of information about different forces operating in and around Ultramar during the storm.