Hypothetically Dorn destroys Mars during the Heresy

[Moonreaper666]

There is this Short Story in which Dorn contemplates destroying Traitor-occupied Mars but doesn't. I wonder what if Dorn actually orders the Red planet to be blown to bits?

 

-How long would the Imperium survive without Mars? Is it worth destroying the planet to decimate part of the Dark Mechanicum?

 

-Would the destruction of Mars awaken the Void Dragon/True Omnissiah? If so, effects on the Imperium during and after the Heresy?

 

-Effects on the Loyal Mechanicus and Dark Mechanicum outside of Mars?

[Kraken]

Destroying Holy Mars would start a war with the Mechanicus.

And starting a war with the guardians of knowledge and technology is not a smart move.

[MajorNese]

Destroying Holy Mars would start a war with the Mechanicus.

And starting a war with the guardians of knowledge and technology is not a smart move.

That's too simple considering the situation - Mars was conquered by the traitors, and the remains of the still sane Mechanicum was in exile. Mars was not populated by the guardians of knowledge, unless you mean the knowledge to corrupt, destroy or possess any machinery. But it still had immense symbolic value.

 

The Mechanicum was divided at that time - many loyalists wanted (or tried) to reconquer mars, and were not happy at all to get turned into an Adeptus, instead of being their own entiy. Blowing up Mars may have been accepted only by a few pragmatists, but most likely it would have led to open rebellion of the until-then loyalists, or further exile. Since the loyalists had a considerable number of titans and other forces on Terra and guarding the palace, that would have been effectively suicide - the titans might not destroy all of the palace and its defenders instantly, but the damage by rebels would be immense, and the lack of forces due to exile would have tipped the balance in favor of Horus. The whole Beta Garmon thing - Titandeath - was to thin the ranks of Horus' titan legions. If that wouldn't have happened due to rebellion/exile of loyalist titans, the war would have ended there and then with the palace blown up by massed titans.

 

If that would not have been enough to break the imperium, the freed C'tan shard would have settled things - by taking control of machinery, feeding on the sun, or taking revenge on the emperor. But amidst the whole rebellion and siege thing, that wouldn't even be necessary to include.

 

So yeah - as much as traitor-conquered Mars was a thorn in the side of Dorn, blowing it up would have been outright suicide.

[DanPesci]

- During the Heresy, you could argue that destroying mars would deny the rebels as much as the imperium would lose resource wise, but destroying mars would give any current 'on the fence' titan legions/mechanicum forces all the reason they need to defect to Horus, (possibly seeing a full scale defection).

 

- After the Heresy, even if the emperor were still to turn back Horus at Terra without Mechanicum support (unlikely to impossible), the Imperium war machine would quickly fall apart unless they could quickly retake forgeworlds (most of which would now be chaos aligned)

 

 

 

 

Ive just finished Titanicus by Dan Abnett, and although from a 40k point of view goes into some speculation about an imperium/mars schism (well worth a read)

Edited June 16, 2020 by DanPesci

[Prot]

- I think the point that the traitors -had- to conquer Mars is reason enough to leave it standing. That's a difficult thing to do and costs resources that would have been better spent going after terra.

 

- Even if Mars is full of... dissent, and disagreement, a very, very considerable sum of the Imperium's War Machine has been confirmed to be backed up, and participated in by the resources of Mars.

 

I think the sad thing overall here is that the Mechanicum in general are basically skimmed over in most of the critical parts of describing this war and it makes it extremely difficult to realize the positives (and some of the negatives) that they provided.

 

I do think it's very possible that Dorn just out right making an enemy of -Mars- by show of force could have been catastrophic for Terra. 

 

I think we saw this best summed up in the First Wall when Sanguinous must try to patch things up, and make a concentrated effort to bring Mars into the war. You can tell it's a difficult thing for him to do, but it's something he realizes must be done.

 

If that moment doesn't happen.... well we will never know. It may have had nearly the same effect as Dorn deciding to declare war on Mars.

[MegaVolt87]

Destroying mars would be incredibly stupid at that point. There was still a lot of mechanicus on terra even after Mars fell. Also at the point Mars was discussed as being destroyed, there were a boat load of titans on terra, as they haden't been shipped off to Beta Gammon (?) yet. And even if they did ship out, a lot of them would be   and join Horus most likely as a result. So Horus would end up with more titans to take with him to terra as a result. I still think between when the Khan and Russ got to terra, along with dorn and the ad mech on earth and all those titans, Mars could have been taken relatively quickly. Most of the turn coat titans were with horus and friends I believe also, so the loyalists would have had an advantage there. 

[Lord_Caerolion]

Plus, think of the data stored on Mars. Even if they had still made it through the Heresy, they would have ham-strung themselves in regards to what technology they still have access to.

[Lucerne]

Horus wins.

[Azekai]

There is a reason Dorne doesn't destroy Mars... and it isn't mercy.

[bluntblade]

Dorn's internal monologue in The Lightning Tower gives the reason why this was never an option. Purging Mars was attempted, but its outright destruction wasn't an option.