Opinions Wanted: My Barebones Rewrite of the Heresy

[WolfLogic]

I dislike that GW decided to make the 30k Imperium basically the same horrible place to exist as the 40k Imperium.

 

It would have been so much more tragic if the Imperium during the Great Crusade wasn’t so grimdark for humans, baseline humans at least.

 

They could have had the Imperium spreading across the galaxy freeing slaves, restarting social programs, and rebuilding decrepit/destroyed infrastructure on the planets they brought into the fold. Shown that hope and science were once again on the rise and that it was a golden age for baseline humans.

 

You could have easily contrasted that, and hinted at the dark direction to come, with pogroms for mutants and abhumans, the xenocide of all xenos species the Imperium came across (yes even the peaceful ones), and the distress of having to give up ancestral religions and belief systems for the oppressive Imperial Truth.

 

Have the Heresy start because the Imperial citizens have been so indoctrinated against anything not baseline human that they there are whispers about purging the Astartes and their Primarchs.

 

Have Horus descend into rebellion because of bizarre friendly fire accidents where the Imperial Army takes out squads of Astartes, rumors that the Legions time is coming to an end, and the Emperor not granting the Primarchs a say on the running of the Imperium.

From there Chaos could worm its way in by offering Horus and his fellow Rebels an ally against the Emperor, who Horus knows is too powerful to take on his own.

 

Have Horus orchestrate situations like he did with Sanguinius at Signus Prime in canon where Primarchs fall to Chaos because it was that or die.

 

And then over the course of the Heresy the original purpose is lost because Chaos is so self-destructive. Show how these monsters, that were once shining paragons of humanity, broke the Imperium with their hatred and madness.

 

I’m curious how you all would feel if this was the direction GW had went in 2006 with the publishing of Horus Rising. Let me know what you all think!

[Karhedron]

I think the 30K universe is more optimistic than the 40K one, at least prior to the Heresy.  What you have to remember though is that the Great Crusade was preceded by the Age of Strife, a period which apparently was even worse with humanity being nearly wiped out by xenos, enslavers, daemons emergent psykers and their own rampaging AIs. The Great Crusade was an attempt to rebuild but it is still very much a civilisation on a war footing. The idea was that once the Great Crusade was finished, the Legions would be disbanded or scaled back and humanity would transition to a civilian government. The tragedy is that it never happened and the HH made sure that the Imperium got stuck in a war footing for the rest of its history until the majority of humanity has forgotten that there is any other way to exist.

[Etruscan]

I'm afraid I have to disagree. My reasoning is that if the 30k Imperium had an alternate take where they were basically this massive force for good, then it would feel like a thousand other stories out there ie. a well trodden cliché. Besides, the Emperor was conceivably on the edge of ushering in a golden age for humanity if his plans had not been interrupted/thwarted. 

 

6 hours ago, WolfLogic said:

 

You could have easily contrasted that, and hinted at the dark direction to come, with pogroms for mutants and abhumans, the xenocide of all xenos species the Imperium came across (yes even the peaceful ones), and the distress of having to give up ancestral religions and belief systems for the oppressive Imperial Truth.

 

The above are all things which are more or less in the 30k setting already.

 

The reason that the 30k setting (on the occasions when it is well written) is so compelling is that for most it is a bleak and unrelenting existence but in most respects that existence is better than most of the alternatives out there (the main 'alternatives' being taken over by Chaos, Orks, Dark Eldar etc.). The 30k setting is truly tragic enough as it is and that is what makes the best examples of the stories equal parts gripping, disturbing, hopeful, at times humorous and most of all, tragic.

 

Personally I think for the most part the setting is fantastic and the stories are generally really good too. I like it the way it is.

[Noserenda]

I think the 30k setting initially does have that bright potential, but the problem is the Primarchs, the pro/antagonists of the setting spreading their influence on the setting, with half of them (not all traitors) pretty consistently leaving their targets a worse place than when they arrived for various reasons. These reasons sow the seeds and ultimately becomes the Heresy rebellion whereupon the Imperium rapidly becomes the beta version of Imperium of 40k with things rolling downhill even further over the intervening 10k years. 

Im not sure you can change that much without radically changing a bunch of Primarchs and more importantly, robbing all of them of agency.

[MegaVolt87]

RG and Dorn were the only two loyalist primarchs to actually leave their conquests in a better place during the GC era. The others were just doing as they pleased to get their primary directives done- re-unify humanity. Emps was a results guy, look at how he overlooked problem primarchs like Konrad or Perty's skimming logistics and supply from officially Imperial worlds as the carrot to leave a Legion garrison etc. The method was not important to him if it put Emps closer to his goals. If that means warcrimes, systemic corruption etc then so be it. 

[Pearson73]

I echo the others. Obviously there were some lovely places in the Great Crusade era Imperium (Prospero sounded pretty excellent), but overall things might have been pretty tough BUT they were all pulling together to achieve a brighter goal, which if achieved, would have allowed the hardships of the war-footing to be alleviated. In 40k there is no goal but survival, a perpetuation of the horror. 

[Brofist]

Yeah, to me part of the appeal is that this is the worst possible future imaginable. It is the death of hope, of reason, of ourselves. 30k is the time when titans and people of legends walked and tried to make it better, but it turned out like always.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

37 minutes ago, Brofist said:

Yeah, to me part of the appeal is that this is the worst possible future imaginable. It is the death of hope, of reason, of ourselves. 30k is the time when titans and people of legends walked and tried to make it better, but it turned out like always.

To me the Horus Heresy is just an allegorical reference to the biblical feud over man's soul. 

 

To the OP; I think if you go back and look at what you are asking you will see there was tons of hope, beauty, and love that turned towards the grimdark future.

 

You still have the 500 worlds, even today they are the outlier against the grim dark.

 

Look at Colchis, it was the symbolized perfect world, they just wanted to believe the Emperor's existence was omnipotent, and thus they were damned for it.

 

Prospero was a world of beauty, equality, and knowledge. It was a pearl of hope amongst the cosmos, and a beacon of what could be with the pursuit knowledge prior to Horus' betrayal, to the galaxy and most importantly them.

 

Caliban once conquered was a world of green and beauty. While the Emperor brought untold wealth and prosperity to the world, many resented the industrial revolution etc.

 

There are loads of references that don't show the grimdark setting of 40k.

 

Though instead of banning religion and the practice of sorcery, the Emperor could have just explained Daemons and the Dark gods as a different type of xenotic race.

[jaxom]

One thing to note is we don't see much of the Imperial heartland. We see the fringes, the newly conquered areas, because conflict is a better story. We do get glimpses. Valdor: Birth of the Imperium is great because it shows how good things are (relative to the Age of Strife) while still showing the hints that all is not as it seems in the Imperium. Horus Rising has the negotiations with the Interex, at least before Erebus pulls a... well, an Erebus. If I recall correctly, in one of the books someone is talking about Horus' charisma and notes that most of his compliances were non-violent. Mortarion acknowledges that non-violent or at least restricted forms of war are very useful, but just not his style.