Heresy Outcome

[SkimaskMohawk]

But that line of thought is flawed.

 

The dark of age of technology was the pinnacle, not the crusade. And the age of strife didn't lead to the rise of the emperor; he was planning beforehand and was enabled by slaanesh's birth blowing out the warpstorms. And the return of guilliman is literally in the biggest calamity ever for the imperium; the warp has taken over about half the Galaxy...imo impossible to turn into "good times".

 

The plot for 40k isn't repeating cycles like dark souls. It's stagnation vs change; imperium vs chaos.

 

The emperor tried to save mankind from that, but he himself was quick to point out how unreliable foresight was due to having so many variables in any given future. That's why he didn't know do all the suggestions you've made; they didn't lead close enough to success or the variables they presented didn't seem conducive to achieving his particular future.

[bluntblade]

I find that the moratorium on swearing really refreshing. Helps keep things civil when they get heated.

[Slips]

 

Off topic but why does bolter censor swearing?  I'm Aussie we swear heaps eg. depending on the context the C word is the greatest term of endearment you can call a bloke or the worst insult.  All my mates call me a crazy mad & I don't get offended as this is a show of affection/friendship etc in this context.  I guess you can't convey the tone it's said in writing.  I still think you are all a bunch of prudes for not swearing as much as we do.

 

Because its a family friendly board and those are the rules you agreed to follow when you signed up here. Outside of here, do whatever you want. I sure as hell swear magnitudes more outside of the B&C but since I agreed to follow the rules when I signed up here, I don't when posting.

 

Also, you're literally the first Aussie I know of to have brought it up as being an issue; not even our Aussie mods have a problem with the rules.

 

Speaking of which, do not attempt to bypass the swear filter because thats against the rules.

 

Now lets get back on topic and remain there lest this thread has fully run its course in which case I'll just shut it down.

[The God Empress Of Mankind]

But that line of thought is flawed.

 

The dark of age of technology was the pinnacle, not the crusade. And the age of strife didn't lead to the rise of the emperor; he was planning beforehand and was enabled by slaanesh's birth blowing out the warpstorms. And the return of guilliman is literally in the biggest calamity ever for the imperium; the warp has taken over about half the Galaxy...imo impossible to turn into "good times".

 

The plot for 40k isn't repeating cycles like dark souls. It's stagnation vs change; imperium vs chaos.

 

The emperor tried to save mankind from that, but he himself was quick to point out how unreliable foresight was due to having so many variables in any given future. That's why he didn't know do all the suggestions you've made; they didn't lead close enough to success or the variables they presented didn't seem conducive to achieving his particular future.

 

The Dark Age was one peak, this doesn't mean the next one will have to be as great, I disagree I find it Cyclical, even during the time of the Imperium there was cycles, after the Scouring etc, then the war of the beast.

 

 

Off topic but why does bolter censor swearing?  I'm Aussie we swear heaps eg. depending on the context the C word is the greatest term of endearment you can call a bloke or the worst insult.  All my mates call me a crazy mad & I don't get offended as this is a show of affection/friendship etc in this context.  I guess you can't convey the tone it's said in writing.  I still think you are all a bunch of prudes for not swearing as much as we do.

 

Because its a family friendly board and those are the rules you agreed to follow when you signed up here. Outside of here, do whatever you want. I sure as hell swear magnitudes more outside of the B&C but since I agreed to follow the rules when I signed up here, I don't when posting.

 

Also, you're literally the first Aussie I know of to have brought it up as being an issue; not even our Aussie mods have a problem with the rules.

 

Speaking of which, do not attempt to bypass the swear filter because thats against the rules.

 

Now lets get back on topic and remain there lest this thread has fully run its course in which case I'll just shut it down.

 

 

All good from a small town in North Queensland we are a bit different to the rest of the country.

[Kinstryfe]

I think 40k and the heresy is nearly unique in what sci-fi I've experienced because it's an absolutely epic undertaking of reverse engineering a story from its ending. So in the real world reckoning the story often plays out how it does because it had already been established where the story had to end. The Emperor is interned in the golden throne therefore he had to somehow end up there. Horus injured The Emperor therefore there sorry necessitates that outcome no matter how questionable the process may be.

 

In universe there are only a couple of explanations I can come up with that don't make The Emperor look fairly stupid. I've seen the same basically said already but I think that His plans likely suffered from being ultimately too complex and rigid, coupled with a general underestimation of the Chaos gods. He knew that he needed outcome A to happen for his plan to be successful and given what we know of The Emperor I think he had to have thought he had a very high chance of success or he wouldn't have risked failure. I think that Horus' betrayal was more or less irrelevant, especially at first, because he had already moved his attentions on from the crusade. Two Legions had already been purged, and Sanguinius' concerns about his flaws show us that at the least the Primarchs believe that they may not be the last. So a few more Legions ultimately having to be destroyed probably did not concern Him all that much. That is, until Magnus destroyed the protections around the palace and singlehandedly all but destroyed His plans. In my opinion this is when The Emperor's plans fell apart in a way that there was no clear solution. There were 20 Legions and more military at his disposal. There were a million worlds. But there was only one webway gate on Terra. Of all the myriad pieces over millennia that played into The Emperor's plans there was exactly one that was effectively irreplaceable, and losing it is where things started to go horribly wrong. At that point I would almost theorize that it didn't matter if Horus won, if The Emperor died, or if the Imperium endured. The war against Chaos was one that humanity couldn't win without being able to abandon the warp, and the only chance humanity had for that was taken from them and everything that happens after is just different forms of stalling before the inevitable happens.

 

Basically Horus was irrelevant except as the playing piece that forced Magnus to act and doom humanity.

[Excessus]

The Alpha Legion's plan is still on track though...we'll get the Imperium sorted out...sooner or later...

[Arkangilos]

It’s easy for us to judge with hindsight that his plans are stupid, but in universe they worked for over 200 years.

 

He didn’t account for Magnus destroying the walls in his tunnels with his spell. How many of you would have thought that a son, who has yet to break a major rule from the council, would happen to do so after decades of complying, in that one critical moment?

 

You have to remember, at this time the thought of them breaking their oaths was foreign because they had 200 years of loyalty backing them up.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

But that line of thought is flawed.

 

The dark of age of technology was the pinnacle, not the crusade. And the age of strife didn't lead to the rise of the emperor; he was planning beforehand and was enabled by slaanesh's birth blowing out the warpstorms. And the return of guilliman is literally in the biggest calamity ever for the imperium; the warp has taken over about half the Galaxy...imo impossible to turn into "good times".

 

The plot for 40k isn't repeating cycles like dark souls. It's stagnation vs change; imperium vs chaos.

 

The emperor tried to save mankind from that, but he himself was quick to point out how unreliable foresight was due to having so many variables in any given future. That's why he didn't know do all the suggestions you've made; they didn't lead close enough to success or the variables they presented didn't seem conducive to achieving his particular future.

The Dark Age was one peak, this doesn't mean the next one will have to be as great, I disagree I find it Cyclical, even during the time of the Imperium there was cycles, after the Scouring etc, then the war of the beast.

Well first of all, a mountain only has one peak; it's the highest point.

 

You might have also heard this quote about 40k "in the grim, dark future of the 41st millennium there is only war" . Its perpetual, it's unchanging; the imperium is always at war with something. That's part of its stagnation. There's no return to the dark age of technology at any point in the timeline, or anything close to it. The crusade was highly advanced and innovative compared to the current imperium, but it was far removed from the dark age. It also wasn't even the end result, just a driving force to achieve unity (as others have mentioned).

[The God Empress Of Mankind]

Don't mean to be pedantic but a mountain has multiple peaks but one summit.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Don't mean to be pedantic but a mountain has multiple peaks but one summit.

Got me there; the rest of my post is likewise wrong.

 

Or not, because the two are synonyms for all intents and purposes.

[The God Empress Of Mankind]

I just like a bit of brightness in my 40k.

[Slips]

Thats fair enough and well and good but kinda decidedly not the point.

[Kizzdougs]

This is how I see it. Sorry if this has been covered by other people. I didn't have time to read all of the comments.

 

Basically, the Webway was everything.

So I can't understand how the Emperor stuffed up stopping horus, see below some of his options/mistakes, I'm sure I can think of more. 

 

1) He had the gene tech he gave Corax, why didn't he sent Valdor & the Custodes (eliminate possibility of Alpha Legion operatives interfering) to retrieve it & use it to pump out as many Astartes of the loyal legions as he could, they would run out of power armour before warriors with this.

Because they (Valdor and the Custodes) were busy with the Webway.

 

2) Why not recreate the Thunder Warriors & bring Arik Taranis back (the return of Arik might happen in one of the books)?

Because the Emperor was too busy with the Webway and by the time it was sealed off he wouldn't have had enough time.

 

3) Why did he not immediately withdraw from the webway and close the portal, rather then try and fight a hopeless war and lose 9/10s of the custodes for nothing, only then have to close it anyway.

Because the Webway was too important to just give up on. It was at the very centre of the Emperor's plan for humanity.

 

4) Turn every guardsmen into a terminator style cyborg, ie. into servitors/skitarri without being mind-wiped.

Because they already had millions of servitors/skitarii and because he was too busy in the Webway.

 

To me these the 1st 2 are glaring options he had that Horus had no counter to & the 3rd was just common sense.  Why the hell he chose to access the webway from Terra is idiotic anyway.  - To clarify, don't put your first gate on Terra put it on some backwater, for 2 reasons, it goes pear shaped it's no loss & security would be far easier.

It would have been incredibly difficult to get the ridiculous amount of resources needed for the Webway project to some backwater world. It would have needed to be kept secret and the concentration of that many forces/resources on some backwater world would have been impossible to hide. Also, the Emperor did experiment with Wbway related technology in hidden parts of the Galaxy (as described in Path of Heaven), but Terra was the most secure and logical location.

The Webway was the most important battle ground/front of the Heresy. It is at the very heart of the Emperor's plan for humanity. If the Emperor is successful with his Webway project, humanity will be separated from the warp. Cut off, beyond the reach of the Gods.  So the war in the Web-way is paramount. It is the battle for humanity’s future and survival. The war against Horus is a secondary front, engineered by the Chaos Gods to divide the Emperor's forces and distract him from the most important war. The battle in the Webway.

 

The war in the Webway is crucial because even if the Imperium wins the war in the material galaxy but loses the Webway, humanity will be doomed to a long slow death ie. Warhammer 40k…

 

This long slow death was one of the possible outcomes foreseen by the Farseers of the Cabal and presented to the twin Primarchs in ‘Legion’. It was the outcome most favourable to the Primordial Annihilator, as the Cabal refer to Chaos, and the outcome most feared by the sentient species of the galaxy. Of course Cabal was willing to sacrifice humanity to defeat Chaos, but the Emperor was more than willing to sacrifice any number of Xenos races to secure his vision for humanity. It’s all about species survival.

 

So with the concept of the long slow death, even if Horus is defeated, without the Webway humanity is doomed and the Chaos Gods are victorious. There will be “no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting Gods” as the well-known line goes.

 

So yes, it is a war on two fronts, but the War in the Webway is the more important as far as the whole Emperor vs Chaos and the future of humanity struggle is concerned.

 

It might take 10k+ years but without the Webway (and a fully functional Emperor) humanity is doomed. Perhaps the Emperor could have found another way if he had properly survived his confrontation with Horus, but it seems unlikely. Achieving a galaxy wide Imperial Truth seems unlikely and it was probably just a ploy to limit the influence of Chaos while the Emperor worked on severing humanity from the immaterium. Even if the Emperor could have found another way he might not have had the necessary resources, especially given the resurgences of many Xenos races in the wake of the Heresy.

 

I felt that this sense of hopelessness and despair was conveyed really convincingly at the end of The Master of Mankind when the Emperor sealed off the Webway. I was really struck by the Emperor’s conversation with Diocletian after the Webway portal was closed when he said: 

     "The war is over, Diocletian. Win or lose, Horus has dammed us all. Mankind will share in his ignorance until the last man or woman draws the species' last breath. The warp will forever be a cancer in the heart of all humans. The Imperium may last a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand. But it will fall, Diocletian. It will fall. The shinning path is lost to us. Now we rage against the dying of the light." ADB, The Master of Mankind, pp. 395-6.

 

And in ADB's Afterword he writes:

     "The war is over. Humanity has lost. Warhammer 40,000 - in all its Gothic, towering Cyclopean, decrepit, doomed, rotting Byzantine majesty - has taken its first irrevocable step. Oh, the Horus Heresy isn't quite over yet. Horus's ambitions haven't dried up and vanished, and the Imperium still has to deal with the Chaos-deluded primarch making his way to Terra, but the malignant forces of the warp have achieved their ultimate aim. Humanity's chance to free itself of the warp has been lost. No matter what happens from now on, no matter how hard the Imperium fights against itself, against its enemies, the laughter of mad gods will echo behind the veil." ADB, The Master of Mankind, p. 399.

 

The war for humanity was lost well before Horus reached Terra. I believe that it was lost even earlier, when Magnus breached the psychic barriers of the Imperial Palace. The dream is dead.

 

So yeah, the Emperor and the Custodes were too busy in the Webway to do much of anything else. Horus' war just a side show.

[Marshal Rohr]

I wouldn’t call it a sideshow ;). I think Chaos knew they had to launch a two pronged assault against the emperor. In the webway where they could use their powers more easily, and in the real world to erode the resources the Emperor could commit to the webway, since the webway is kind of like a ‘middle ground’ where the material and immaterial can meet.

[Kizzdougs]

I wouldn’t call it a sideshow . I think Chaos knew they had to launch a two pronged assault against the emperor. In the webway where they could use their powers more easily, and in the real world to erode the resources the Emperor could commit to the webway, since the webway is kind of like a ‘middle ground’ where the material and immaterial can meet.

Yeah, describing the greatest conflict in humanity's history as a 'sideshow' was a bit flippant, but I just wanted to express my opinion that the war in the Webway was a far more pressing priority for the Emperor and that the war against Horus was an attempt by the Chaos Gods to split the Emperor's forces/attention. The Webway is the primary front and the war against Horus is a secondary/diversionary front.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

I wouldn’t call it a sideshow . I think Chaos knew they had to launch a two pronged assault against the emperor. In the webway where they could use their powers more easily, and in the real world to erode the resources the Emperor could commit to the webway, since the webway is kind of like a ‘middle ground’ where the material and immaterial can meet.

Yeah, describing the greatest conflict in humanity's history as a 'sideshow' was a bit flippant, but I just wanted to express my opinion that the war in the Webway was a far more pressing priority for the Emperor and that the war against Horus was an attempt by the Chaos Gods to split the Emperor's forces/attention. The Webway is the primary front and the war against Horus is a secondary/diversionary front.

I was just teasing, I figured that’s what you meant :D

[Leif Bearclaw]

Yeah, describing the greatest conflict in humanity's history as a 'sideshow' was a bit flippant, but I just wanted to express my opinion that the war in the Webway was a far more pressing priority for the Emperor and that the war against Horus was an attempt by the Chaos Gods to split the Emperor's forces/attention. The Webway is the primary front and the war against Horus is a secondary/diversionary front.

 

 

 

Doesn't that rankle a bit though? We get piles of novels and FW Black Books covering the Heresy, only for one book to come along and say 'nope, none of that really mattered, everything was already ed'?

 

The entire Webway plot arc just seems short sighted and kinda moronic of the Emperor's part imo. The project was so vital is was the most important thing in the Imperium, yet so secret that the only forces committed were the most elite, hard to replace assets the Emperor had? The Legions can't be trusted but the Mechanicum can, even though both were in open rebellion at the time? It's especially frustrating that it seems (not having read MoM myself, rapidly lost interest once the spoilers started to come out, so if I've got something wrong I apologise) that the plan of 'get all the Talons slowly killed off for 5 years to hold one city' was never going to work, it seems no/little progress was made in that time actually fixing anything. Plus the war was lost either when Drach'nyen the super Daemon turned up (in which case the entire fight was always pointless, if the Imperials couldn't hold against the big guns, they were doomed from the start) or when Marines and Titans from that 'diversionary' other war turned up. I dunno, it just seems that fighting in the webway was a bad idea, with no 'win condition' for the Imperials. Whereas, while keeping the portal on Terra sealed would take Empy out of the Heresy, it would have freed up the most powerful forces the Imperium had to fight the Heresy, as Horus winning would doom the Imperium as readily as the portal being overrun. Then, with the 'Horus front' dealt with, Imperial attentions aren't divided, and Empy has plenty of time to find an actual solution to the webway problem, as well as more forces to commit to the issue.

 

Imo a better version of the story would have the Imperials slowly winning in the webway, no Drach'nyen (really bad fluff addition that), no Legio Audax etc. However this changes when Horus arrives, forcing the Emperor to pull back from the webway and deal with him, but afterwards Empy isn't in any condition to continue the project, so he's ensconced on the throne to hold the portal, as nobody left knows enough to do anything else. Same result, but Horus remains a key player and less of a nihilistic 'this was all pointless from the moment Magnus was an idiot' vibe.

[Gorgoff]

 

 

Yeah, describing the greatest conflict in humanity's history as a 'sideshow' was a bit flippant, but I just wanted to express my opinion that the war in the Webway was a far more pressing priority for the Emperor and that the war against Horus was an attempt by the Chaos Gods to split the Emperor's forces/attention. The Webway is the primary front and the war against Horus is a secondary/diversionary front.

 

 

Doesn't that rankle a bit though? We get piles of novels and FW Black Books covering the Heresy, only for one book to come along and say 'nope, none of that really mattered, everything was already ed'?

 

The entire Webway plot arc just seems short sighted and kinda moronic of the Emperor's part imo. The project was so vital is was the most important thing in the Imperium, yet so secret that the only forces committed were the most elite, hard to replace assets the Emperor had? The Legions can't be trusted but the Mechanicum can, even though both were in open rebellion at the time? It's especially frustrating that it seems (not having read MoM myself, rapidly lost interest once the spoilers started to come out, so if I've got something wrong I apologise)

Read the book.

Then answer will come.

First of all it is one of the best in the series (ADB is just the man)and then it is not so easy like you think it is.

Read it and you'll know.

Actually it went really well until Magnus screwed up big time.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well, you've certainly missed a lot of detail and context by not reading the book you're critiquing.

 

The unifiers and talons made tremendous gains in the webway in the 5 years; they pushed to and seized calastar, then started pushing out of the city. The book starts with the imperial forces taking a decisive and surprising loss, precisely because there were massive amounts of traitors also in the tunnels.

 

Included in the dead was the unifier general, who was more loyal to the webway project than to Mars according to the fabricator general. Literally everyone was devoted to the cause in the webway project; the legions were not.

 

Drachnyen isn't decisive at any point in the loss of the webway, it was ending one way or another. The traitors committed an enormous amount of forces to it.

[Marshal Rohr]

The webway conflict originated in Collected Visions, not MoM.

[No Foes Remain]

Well, you've certainly missed a lot of detail and context by not reading the book you're critiquing.

 

The unifiers and talons made tremendous gains in the webway in the 5 years; they pushed to and seized calastar, then started pushing out of the city. The book starts with the imperial forces taking a decisive and surprising loss, precisely because there were massive amounts of traitors also in the tunnels.

 

Included in the dead was the unifier general, who was more loyal to the webway project than to Mars according to the fabricator general. Literally everyone was devoted to the cause in the webway project; the legions were not.

 

Drachnyen isn't decisive at any point in the loss of the webway, it was ending one way or another. The traitors committed an enormous amount of forces to it.

 

This, plus the Webway project was fine until Magnus went all Kool-aid-man on it and would have been fine and successful.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea, basically the emperor lost because he underestimated the chaos gods and believed he had already won.

 

You think he would have predicted that after nikea, the palace and webway wards would be breached by a Tzeentch assisted magnus, to such an extent it would require Him to drain himself on the Golden Throne for years? No, there was no plausible way for those wards to have been breached.

[No Foes Remain]

Yea, basically the emperor lost because he underestimated the chaos gods and believed he had already won.

 

You think he would have predicted that after nikea, the palace and webway wards would be breached by a Tzeentch assisted magnus, to such an extent it would require Him to drain himself on the Golden Throne for years? No, there was no plausible way for those wards to have been breached.

 

I did read a thread on reddit that Nikaea was a stop gap measure to keep certain primarchs on side (Mortarian and Russ for sure) and he wasn't really bothered if the libarius continued or not, he just needed time to get the Webway project to near completion. That sounded like a solid theory and became my headcannon. I shall see if I can find it.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

Yea, basically the emperor lost because he underestimated the chaos gods and believed he had already won.

 

You think he would have predicted that after nikea, the palace and webway wards would be breached by a Tzeentch assisted magnus, to such an extent it would require Him to drain himself on the Golden Throne for years? No, there was no plausible way for those wards to have been breached.

I did read a thread on reddit that Nikaea was a stop gap measure to keep certain primarchs on side (Mortarian and Russ for sure) and he wasn't really bothered if the libarius continued or not, he just needed time to get the Webway project to near completion. That sounded like a solid theory and became my headcannon. I shall see if I can find it.

Well, practically it didn't matter in terms of the librarius. Basically none of the soon-to-be traitors bothered following it. Neither did the scars.

 

But the thousand sons and magnus were told no more sorcery. Without magnus, do we think there's another psyker able to breach the palace wards? I doubt it. It took magnus+a ritual giving him power+tzeentch to bust through.

 

So basically for the emperor, there should have been no way for things to go that badly imo

[rendingon1+]

I still don't know what Emperor's plan actually was:

1. Taking human nature into account, Imperial Truth was just laughably impossible to implement. People just NEED to believe in something and you just cannot erease concept of soul from human mind + even if IT was enforced, it is just impossible to monitor every human being on every planet for any signs of religious activity. Not to mention hiden cults etc.  

2. Unless Emperor's plan was to hide all humans in the Webway I can't see how Webway Project and getting rid of psykers would succeed in denying Chaos gods. I mean, they don't really need psykers to influence humans or to manifest in reality.

 

So?