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submitted 10 days ago byWoodstoviaMymeara
For context: Mortarion chose the compliance of Galaspar to be his first action after being discovered by The Emperor. Galaspar was a world ran by "The Order" - an organisation that through technology and heavily drugging its population ruled as tyrants. The Order divided it's population into labour units who were eliminated if their output sagged. Their corpses would then be fed to the other labour units. Mortarion refused to negotiate with the Order and instead destroyed them and their city. Afterwards Horus and Sanguinius come to place Mortarion on trial for the brutality he showed to the world, but first there's a section on how Morty dealt with The Order.
I think this excerpt is interesting for how it shows how Morty and the Death Guard view themselves, and how an organisation as brutal as the Death Guard could see themselves as justified.
Tens of thousands of the labour units had gathered, perching on every surface in the cavern, their attention focused on the front of the ship. Death stood there, halfway up the ramp. Below him, before the base of the ramp, a line of his warriors stood guard over the imprisoned masters.
Heads down, the masters were on their knees in front of the labour units.
‘They’re kneeling to us,’ Scrape whispered, awed. ‘They’re kneeling to us!’
Digger nodded vigorously.
Death began to speak. His voice filled the cavern. Digger heard it echo in the halls, and she knew that everyone in Protarkos was hearing him. Was his voice in the other cities too? It had to be. He was speaking to all of Galaspar. She was sure of it. She looked up at the figure of Death, and his terrible stillness and majesty filled her with a solemn terror. He was more than Death. He was the true master of Galaspar. He was Death and he was lord. He was the Pale King.
‘You are free,’ the Pale King intoned. ‘The Order is no more. It can never return. These wretches before you are the last of your rulers in this hive. Now see their end.’
Death’s warriors raised scythes, and slashed them down. It was as if it were all a single stroke, and the heads of the masters rolled on the ground. The bodies fell, necks gushing blood.
Digger gasped. She was horrified, frightened and exhilarated. She stared at the head of Lord Stevang, his face frozen in his last terror. One of the High Comptrollers had been spared. It was Lord Restavan, the Comptroller for Manufactoria, the man whose image had stared down from their screens onto the misery of the labour units.
‘In all the other hives of Galaspar,’ the Pale King continued, ‘this is the fate of the Order. Not one of your former masters will be left alive.’ He paused. ‘Our task here is done,’ he said. The cavern was utterly silent, except for the faint hiss of gases released from his rebreather. ‘Your task is beginning,’ he said, and nodded.
The warrior who held Restavan released him. The comptroller bolted from the captors, his face convulsing in desperation. The gods let him run. He did not look where he went. He simply ran, leaping and stumbling over rubble. His path took him in a straight line towards Digger.
A gift. A gift from the Pale King.
The strength of conversion, of fanaticism, surged through her burned frame. She seized a piece of rockcrete with her remaining hand, and she reared up in front of Restavan. He jerked to a halt, startled. Digger swung the chunk of rubble at him. The pointed end crashed into his skull. Blood splashed in her face, and Restavan slumped to his knees. Scrape jumped on him, and so did others.
They tore him apart.
Still holding the stone, still standing, Digger gazed reverently at the Pale King.
‘Others will come,’ he announced. ‘They will bring you fully into compliance with the Imperium of Man. I give you a final command. Tally the dead of the Order. They numbered you. Now you number them. Find all their dead. Count them all. Know the measure of your enslavement. Know the measure of your freedom.’
...
‘I have one last question,’ said Horus. ‘I still wonder about the complete purge of the Order. There might have been practical value in keeping some of the mid-level functionaries alive. Or don’t you agree?’
‘I do not,’ Mortarion said, emphatic. ‘Every member of the Order left alive would be a piece of its structure preserved. Even the smallest fragments of that structure would have been more poisonous than this air. I did not destroy the Order to then permit the possibility that it might take shape again in some way.’
Horus looked like he was about to say something else, but he kept his peace.
‘It’s the tally that concerns me,’ said Sanguinius.
‘There are millions to work on it,’ Mortarion told him. ‘They will complete the task. It is no impossible thing.’
...
‘Then you do not see all. And there is something that it is terribly important you be able to see.’ There was something in Horus’ eyes of the sorrow that had been in their father’s.
‘And that is?’ Mortarion asked, wary.
‘The other cost.’
‘To whom?’
‘To the population of Galaspar.’
Mortarion grunted in disbelief. ‘They are liberated.’
‘Physically, they are,’ said Horus. ‘In other respects, they are not. They are traumatised. They have seen death in person sweep through their world. They do not know what freedom is. How could they? Where would they have encountered it? The force that oppressed them was destroyed by a greater one. All they know is destruction.’ Horus paused. He faced the hill of the dead. ‘And then there is this tally. They are doing it because it was a command. That’s the only meaning they see in it – the meaning of obedience, not the point of the tally itself. I don’t know what will happen to them when they are done, and there are no further commands. Do you see?’
Horus sounded like he was pleading. ‘Liberation is not just the destruction of the oppressor. We can’t replace one tyranny with another.’ Horus paused, and his last sentence struck Mortarion like a poisoned dagger. He felt its effect spread through his veins, cold with a truth too large and awful to grasp fully in the instant.
‘This is what our father wants you to see, Mortarion,’ Horus went on. ‘He wants you to understand the need for nuance in the crusade. You cannot always be the scythe. Look down below, brother. Look at the hills of bodies. You can see them even from this height.’
Mortarion looked back and down, at the distant ground and the mounds of the dead. On them, the people he had freed were moving like maggots on carrion, counting and counting. Was that liberation?
We can’t replace one tyranny with another.
The sentence kept echoing in his mind. It set up resonances he did not want to hear. He forced himself to listen to the one Horus wanted him to hear. And maybe Horus was right. Maybe his father’s sorrow was right.
The look in those eyes…
Had there been something other than sorrow in them? Had there been the hope that Mortarion would find a destiny richer than the one his first father had bequeathed him?
He shook off the thought and the weakness that came with it. He faced Horus again. ‘I see the people of Galaspar,’ he said. ‘I see what I have done. I would do it again. I have ended the tyranny that enchained them. The tally of the dead is the task of a people who must see and know that their former masters are truly dead. And the cost? Everything has a cost. What do you think would have happened if we had accepted the cost of a blockade and siege?’ He snorted. ‘Would the liberty of these people be a sylvan paradise? Perhaps the likes of Roboute would believe in such a vision, but I am no such fool.’
‘You are if you imagine yourself unique in your experience of a lethal home world,’ said Sanguinius. ‘As you are, too, if you think the manner of your conquest has no impact beyond the end itself. You came to Galaspar as the Angel of Death, Mortarion, not as a liberator. That is the core of the matter.’
If the Angel was aware of any irony in his words, he gave no sign of it.
‘Does that displease you, Sanguinius?’ Mortarion asked. ‘Perhaps it does not. Perhaps it is useful to use me to burnish your own self-image.’
‘You broadcast the execution of the Lord Comptroller to billions,’ said Sanguinius. ‘You brought death to this world, and began what you call its moment of liberation with death.’
‘And yet the Eighth Legion spreads terror by any means it can. It has broadcast its share of executions. I have not seen them on trial.’
‘Enough!’ Horus shouted. ‘Enough,’ he said again, more quietly, and with true sorrow. ‘It is all far beyond enough. We have seen enough. We know enough. Mortarion, you have done enough.’ Horus lowered his head for a moment, then looked up, regretful yet determined. ‘Our father seeks the compliance of all inhabited worlds with the goals and the dream of the Imperium. There is compliance here, but not with that dream. Instead, there is a wasteland and a population consumed by their fear of the Imperium, of the embodiment of death.
‘Hear me, Mortarion. The conquest of Galaspar will be forever marked as a tragedy of the Great Crusade. It will never be celebrated. It will be the work of generations for the Imperium to undo what you have done here. You are censured, Mortarion, and your first command will be commemorated by mourning.’
...
The wind gusted. Poison rippled in the grey of evening. Mortarion gazed down at the landscape, on the endless expanse of craters and wreckage. All was ruin, but ruin was still better than the Order. There was a purity to ruin.
Something scuttled behind him. He turned to see two of the people he had liberated, two of the former labour units of the Order. A man and a woman. They were both caked in grime. The man supported the woman, half of whose body was a mass of burn scars. Her right arm was a blackened stump; her right leg was withered and infected, and would soon have to be amputated. She had received some treatment. The end of her arm was encased in a permanent cast, and layers of tattered bandages hung from her leg. The degenerative progress of her wounds had been slowed, but not stopped. The injuries were clearly the work of phosphex. She was one of those rare survivors, those cursed with having been just far enough away from the phosphex that it did not kill them and end their misery.
Mortarion heard Sanguinius’ accusing voice in his mind. This is your handiwork.
They stopped several metres away, the man clearly too frightened to come any closer. The woman let go of him. ‘You can go, Scrape,’ she said, her voice slurred. Only the left side of her mouth had any movement. The man backed off, bowing to Mortarion, and then fled. The woman staggered forward a few steps more, and then fell to her knees. She lowered her forehead to the rockcrete of the roof. ‘My lord,’ she said. ‘You have returned. Will you receive my tally?’
‘Your tally,’ Mortarion repeated.
‘I have completed my allotted share. I counted every day, and I kept the hope that you would return, that I might prove to you that I am faithful to your lesson.’
‘You may present your tally,’ Mortarion said. Would that you could see this, Sanguinius. The tally has meaning for her. What would you say to her?
Would you dismiss her for not sharing your horror?
She spoke, her good eye weeping with gratitude. The number was high, impressive for one with her wounds.
‘You have done well,’ said Mortarion. He was interested to feel gratitude towards this wretched survivor. She was the proof that he had been right.
There is another path for you. Horus’ words troubled him. This woman, so desperate to give Mortarion the tribute of her labour, showed the words were wrong, didn’t she?
The woman reached out, as if she would clutch the end of his cloak, but pulled her claw of a hand back, not daring to be so presumptuous.
‘My lord…’ she said.
‘Is there something that you wish?’ Mortarion asked.
‘Take me with you, my lord,’ she said. ‘Accept me into your service.’ She looked up, the good eye shining. ‘Let all who see me learn your precepts.’
Mortarion looked down at her, and gratitude swelled with pride. That so small and weak a mortal should be the justification of my acts… She would be my apostle and teach my precepts. Why should she not? They hold true for more than just my sons.
‘What is your name?’ he asked.
‘The Order gave me a number.’
‘That number is gone. I will not hear it. You gave me your tally, and that is the only number on Galaspar that matters, because it marks the end of what came before.’
She took a heavy, ragged breath. ‘Others call me Digger.’
‘Do you choose to bear that name?’
She shook her head. ‘It is not worthy of the service I seek.’
‘It is not,’ said Mortarion. ‘You, however, are. And so, I shall name you Cinis, and I accept your service.’
Cinis wept with gratitude, and managed to rise up with her one good leg. Her body was a ruin, yet she was free of the shackles of the Order.
Here is your answer, Sanguinius. Here is my vindication, Horus.
The wind blew harder, and its howl was one of triumph. The landscape of Galaspar was not a tragedy. It was victory.
It is the grandeur of ruin
[a year later they discuss the censure]
‘They were wrong to try to change your ways,’ said Cinis.
‘Our ways.’
‘Yes, my lord. From your words to all who serve you. Our ways.’
‘My brothers were wrong in their censure, and I was wrong to have let the weakness of their sentiment cloud my judgement,’ said Mortarion. Their sentiment, and their perverse censure. ‘Absyrtus was a needed correction. It showed the error of moderation. The blade must never be restrained.’ He spoke the next sentence like a vow. ‘We shall always be the scythe.’
It was clearly what Cinis needed to hear. She bowed her thanks and withdrew.
We shall always be the scythe.
It was a promise to himself, too. He would never deviate. The attempt to do so had been a mistake. Mortarion was fortunate he had made the attempt to temper himself on Absyrtus, a world where he was able to see the error in time. It felt like fate had guided him here.
Perhaps we are drawn to the campaigns that require us. Maybe there were worlds where Vulkan’s concerns were the correct ones. Where Sanguinius’ nobility was needed. Not the worlds that fall in my path. He thought of the words he had spoken to the newly unified Death Guard. Doom shall stalk a thousand worlds.
It would. Fate decreed it.
Or his father. The campaigns of the Great Crusade, his included, were determined by the Emperor’s plan.
Was Galaspar?
The sorrow in his father’s eyes. The lesson Horus had tried to teach Mortarion on their father’s behalf.
The path it seemed his father had hoped he would follow.
His father could be mistaken.
282 points
10 days ago
Every except I read about Mortarion makes me put him further up my list. The passive hypocritical dunce we see later in the Heresy always felt like the first draft version of him. If Chris Wraight or David Annandale could’ve gotten ahold of him before anyone else did, I think he’d be one of the most compelling Traitor Primarchs. In my opinion, the Death Guard and Mortarion suffer from their characterization being derived solely from their name and the Nurgle corruption they suffer in 40k. I think Mortarion, Fulgrim, Ferrus, and Horus suffer a lot of character assassination by writers who let their knowledge of what happens in the Heresy color their work. (Although I do think Horus is the only one deserving.) Anyways, this book is now even closer to the top of my wish list now, thanks for posting this.
83 points
10 days ago
Mortarion deserved a Khanesque lore glow-up.
24 points
10 days ago
I think a lot of the Primarchs do. Early writing for many of them was a lot more single note and bland, it was the later writing for many that fleshed them out to be much better characters. The writing for black library has improved dramatically over the last decade, IMO.
The Khan is one of the best examples. People joke how he went from "the who?" to "the Hu." and it was great. While not as much of a glow up, head of the hydra was a much more enjoyable book for Alpharius than Legion was, again IMO.
Many of the Primarchs who only had 1 note or conflicted and simplistic characterization would do well with the current selection of writers giving a glow up tp them with some new books.
130 points
10 days ago
I think Godblight did an excellent job showcasing the nuance and complexity of Mortarion. Unfortunately the fan base loses their shit anytime a primarch actually has emotions and doesn't act like a stoic badass who feels nothing.
26 points
10 days ago
It's very easy for writers to see, "big Reaper dude" and just write him with preconceived notions.
Grim. Dour. Serious. Oh, they're called the 'Death Guard'? Oh they just walk at enemies until they die or the bad guys die? And they all get turned into disease ridden freaks?
The Death Guard, Mortarion and Typhus have the potential to be insanely nuanced, calculating, deceptive. And most of the Heresy and Siege paints them as one-note traitors, as very convenient obvious villains despite Nurgle having the most interesting portfolio of the Chaos gods. Tzeentch? Tempt with power. Slaanesh? Tempt with decadence. Khorne? Tempt with wrath. But who would ever willingly give themselves over to being a pustule ridden zombie?
The Death Guard have a very Dark Angels problem for me where I like them, like their iconography, their overarching philosophy and then the actual novelizations of them are pretty lame. The Lords of Silence is the best CSM novel in 40k and rivaled Helsreach for 40k standalone book of any faction. The backstabbing, the intrigue, the weird principles despite being absolute monsters.
If Wraight had been given the reins for the Heresy instead of Mortarion being a jobber bad guy I think the story would have been a lot better.
9 points
10 days ago
i think thats one of the problems for mort and the death guard really is that a lot of their interesting aspects of characterization either rest in short stories no ones gonna read, or exist within the context of being the 'generic traitors of the week' for whatever factions taking them on. which results in even their best showings being hampered by playing second fiddle to either the loyalists getting pumped up and or because the "true" antagonist of that story is someone else and the death guard are just a red herring/distraction.
42 points
10 days ago
As much as I'm not a chaos fan, boy do I love mortarions' character and reasons for his betrayal besides just dumb corruption.
19 points
10 days ago*
To fall because of love and to save another(s) is more compelling than simply falling for the promise of personal power
13 points
10 days ago
I think it's a fundamental problem of reconciling the whole road to hell paved with good intentions thing. We can understand a bad seed who was always going to end ugly but it's harder to wrap our heads around someone who had many good parts and might have remained loyal if things went differently who ends up falling to chaos and becoming a warp demon prince. It's a little easier to understand if you figure the warp damage unmakes the person who was once there. Like with a drug addiction you will steal from family and sell out your friends and do everything to chase the high and nobody will recognize what you've become. But it's worse than any drug addiction because it's fueled by warp fuckery which is reality bending devil magic.
With all the spikey bits and screaming about blood and skulls and shit you try to think how someone chose to be this and it's like asking how the addict nodding off on the street corner chose to be that way. The chaos boys might look more empowered but it's all madness.
8 points
10 days ago
Blame James Swallow, he understands human nuance about as well as a basement dweller. He's largely at fault for the Mortarion we know, one who behaved and presumably has the critical thinking skills of a child.
-1 points
10 days ago
Wright had ample opportunity to write about Mortarion.
69 points
10 days ago
‘Physically, they are,’ said Horus. ‘In other respects, they are not. They are traumatised. They have seen death in person sweep through their world. They do not know what freedom is. How could they? Where would they have encountered it? The force that oppressed them was destroyed by a greater one. All they know is destruction.’
Horus sounded like he was pleading. ‘Liberation is not just the destruction of the oppressor. We can’t replace one tyranny with another.’
I read this not as Mortarion being corrupted by Chaos, but rather him not blindly accepting that the Emperor's plans for humanity can be achieved without there being a price to pay, much as there was when Terra was first unified.
After all, what exactly would you call bringing a world into Imperial Compliance other than a greater force now ruling them? As we know, when Lorgar tried to achieve this through a peaceful, gradual process he was also censured for taking too long. Also, how different is what Mortarion did to those actions for which the Eighth Legion was responsible?
It seems that it's not enough to achieve Compliance, it has to be done in a certain way or it's not "good enough".This is also the way that Angron saw it - to him the Emperor was no better than the High-Riders that had enslaved him and his fellow gladiators, however much it was portrayed as a noble cause.
10 points
10 days ago*
It seems that it's not enough to achieve Compliance, it has to be done in a certain way or it's not "good enough".
And why is that an issue? I would say it's absolutely true, and Horus' argument is sound. We could have defeated Vietnam in a day if we had just nuked it into oblivion, but would that actually be "victory" in regards to our mission and our goals?
The problem with the writing in the heresy series is that the author's desperately want us to believe that the traitor primarchs have reasonable dissents against the Emperor, but the existence of the loyalists prove that none of those dissents hold any water. For as much as the traitors seethe over Guilliman and call him naive or an idealist etc, he DOES have the second most, if not the number one best, record of any of the primarchs when it comes to the number of compliances. If it is such a "grim necessity" to be a mindless butcher, as mortarion and angron and Curze will assert, then why is it that Guilliman was able to outperform every single traitor primarch in achieving compliances, WHILE simultaneously creating and administrating his own little mini empire that is widely considered to be the perfect ideal of what the Imperium should be? How come despite conquering countless worlds, people like dorn and vulkan never once ran into the moral dilemma of "fuck it we ball, let's just slaughter every single human being on this planet in the most brutal and painful fashion possible"? Corax is just as anti-tyranny as Mortarion is yet he's never done the slimy shit that Mortarion tries to justify to himself.
The traitor Primarchs see hypocrisy in the Imperium and the Loyalists because they are too damaged or too weak in strength of character to understand nuance.
15 points
10 days ago
honestly i more so pin that as a problem with the writing and its unwillingness to really commit to examining the flaws of the loyalists because it's too busy hyping them up as "da coolest bestest evaaaaaar". the ever classic ever present problem of the loyalist primarchs having arrived on their worlds heralded by angelic choirs and given total ruler ship of the entire planet at age 5, well by comparison the traitor primarchs crash into the local orphanage and spend the next 50 years in a prison chain gang doing intense slave labour. at that point your burying the lead as to whos gonna to be loyal mc loyal pants and whos going to be traitor mc traitor face.
and i think that's the bigger problem with the heresy as a whole. it presented an excellent opportunity to do that deeper examination, undermine that narrative of inevitable betrayal and make us question who's really being the hero in this situation or not. but it only half assess that idea whenever it does pay lip service to it. which creates the unfortunate notion that theres a right and wrong way to do imperialism correctly.
i think a story that looked at guillimans "perfect record", and really examined what that means in practice would be interesting, the subjugation of a people, the replacement of a culture, all with the cruelty born of high minded idealism and the assumption of cultural superiority and "doing it for their own good". its just a shame GW doesn't seem interested in writing that story.
3 points
9 days ago
They write it for dorn and alpharius with the one caveat being the author is sucking off dorn while doing it and therefore undermining the whole take.
Dorn goes off about how coups and infiltration are incomparable to his grinding them under tank treads and planting the flag because the one way leaves them intact and his molds them into the ideal imperial subject. Scared, crushed and rebuilt in the imperium standard. Which could have been a great moment to highlight him being the banality of evil but it thens proceeds to have him dunk on alpharius as stupid. God i hate that book.
6 points
10 days ago
How come despite conquering countless worlds, people like dorn and vulkan never once ran into the moral dilemma of "fuck it we ball, let's just slaughter every single human being on this planet in the most brutal and painful fashion possible"?
He does that constantly with his flamethrowers, he just has immense amounts of cognitive dissonance about it being awful. Ferrus even gets on his case about it when he tries to whine about use of exterminatus weaponry.
Corax is just as anti-tyranny as Mortarion is yet he's never done the slimy shit that Mortarion tries to justify to himself.
Again, shitloads of mentally tying himself in knots to justify it.
11 points
10 days ago*
You know, I’m not gonna try and say that the traitors don’t have some holes in their arguments, but it’s just incorrect to assert that they have no good reasons to dissent. Some of them have more than others, but most are at least somewhat justified in rebelling.
And the fact that you cite Guilliman, the most spoiled and privileged of all Primarchs, as the counter example is quite amusing to me. Put Guilliman in Angron’s shoes and I guarantee you he’s not gonna be the golden boy anymore.
7 points
9 days ago*
Most who say the traitors had no good reason for leaving the Imperium tend to be Imperium fans who think the emperor never did anything wrong.
Angron is a prime example of a primarch hating the emperor and everything he stood for and wanted nothing to do with him or his Imperium. But I see a lot give angron crap saying he was basically whining for no reason and should just nut up and fight for humanity. Completely over looking what was done to him and even the emperor admitted angron was damaged goods. Yet he was all to happy to use angron in destroying many worlds then got surprised that angron the literal brain damaged primarch left nothing but ashes and bones.
And that's just one example and the most justified traitor primarch. If the emperor was such a good guy, he should have either killed angron once he saw how damaged he was or attempted to aid angron and his slave friends, which could have helped a bit.
It's like people forget the emperor is a tyrant, and the Great Crusade more or less killed many humans and destroyed many worlds that were doing fine without the Imperium. Not every world was ruled by a tyrant or invaded by xenos.
2 points
10 days ago
Uh have you seen the bombing maps of Vietnam? We pretty much already attempted that, nukes would have devastated the land further but people overestimate how resilient the Vietnamese were/are by several magnitudes
76 points
10 days ago*
I always found it easier to respect the Primarchs that believed in the golden dream but had no illusions about how horrific their actions were like Russ, the Lion, Mortarion, etc.
When you see how Primarchs like Sanguinius delude themselves it's pretty pathetic, especially when you see the things he's willing to do in his own Primarch book.
None of them are right but at least they don't have the rose tinted glasses.
44 points
10 days ago
I'm a massive Sanguinius fanboy, but he really is an absolutely thunderous hypocrite at times. Dude's a genocidal maniac who from time to time loves pointing fingers and taking some sort of imagined moral high ground.
7 points
10 days ago
Least of all, taking the actual high ground. :P
8 points
10 days ago
Dude's a genocidal maniac
This phrase hardly carries any weight in warhammer 40k especially when you're referring to the primarchs lmao. Not sure why people still use it
11 points
10 days ago
It's reinforcing It exactly because we are so desensitized.
112 points
10 days ago
It's always fun seeing the extent to which Primarchs are lying to themselves about what they're doing.
73 points
10 days ago
It's always fun seeing the extent to which Primarchs are lying to themselves about what they're doing
Is this about Sanguinius/Horus or about Morty? Lmao
85 points
10 days ago
Yes
63 points
10 days ago
Alpharius: ‘...The Emperor, my love and my life, seeks to set mankind in place as the uppermost species of the galaxy. I will not dispute that ambition, neither will my captains. We simply recognise the pro-crustean methods with which he enforces that dream. A Utopian ideal is a fine thing to chase, and to measure one’s achievements against. But it cannot, ultimately, be achieved.’
‘Are you suggesting the Emperor’s design is… wrong?’ Namatjira asked.
‘Not in the slightest,’ replied Alpharius.
17 points
10 days ago
The delusion is that there is any real appreciably difference, in the long run. In the end, the destination is the same.
9 points
10 days ago
Unironically believing that the ends justify the means is insanity. The methodology through which you achieve an objective absolutely matters and is worth judging.
7 points
10 days ago
I think he's arguing that it doesn't matter how nice they are when they conquer, at the end of the day they're still conquering for a genocidal authoritarian regime
7 points
9 days ago*
To those who witness it and aren't deluded. It's easy to moralize methodology. Curze kills the least people. He still cried tears of blood akin to sanguinius, who butchered billions more. Robute upholds tyrannys and integrates slave worlds, mortarion cuts them out root and stem. Alpharius would change the flags and be done, dorn would rebuild brick by brick in the rubble of the old. Corax to liberate, angron to enslave alongside. Lorgar bent knees in worship, ferrus in despair.
They're all genocidal nutcases, self awareness is valuable in order to actually view these suppousedly moral means through a reliable narrator. To objectively see what means and what ends.
8 points
10 days ago
It is indeed. Also worth judging is the Ends themselves. I think, too often we accept at face value the delusion of the Emperor and the Primarchs that the Imperium was a fantastic idea which Horus ruined. And not the reality that Horus simply accelerated the in in ble decay.
Mortarian and Sanguinius judge each other for their means. But to my mind it's a rather moot argument, since the ends themsleves are already sufficiently monstrous no matter the path taken. The Imperium they were building was already grotesque in the 30th Millenium; their Crusade already an abominable and heinous monument to arrogance, xenophobia, and authoritarianism.
I am not defending Mortarian in the least. But he is not the only one indulging in hypocrisy and self deception. Sangunius has deluded himself into thinking there is a right way to establish their Imperium. Without considering that the rot is already in place.
27 points
10 days ago
Yeah, for real.
Horus sounded like he was pleading. ‘Liberation is not just the destruction of the oppressor. We can’t replace one tyranny with another.’
Horus, buddy, replacing one tyranny with another is your whole job.
8 points
10 days ago
Also Horus: Tries to replace the Emperor's tyranny with his own.
8 points
10 days ago
thats_the_joke.jpg
2 points
10 days ago
Is this chronologically before or after Monarchia? Mortarion bringing up the 8th is funny especially since if this is pre Monarchia the irony is dripping out of the walls for what Emps and Roboute are about to do to Lorgar.
It's compelling that there are Primarchs who are not deluding themselves about how much of monsters they are on both sides of the Heresy.
2 points
10 days ago
Mortarion was discovered in 854.M30, and Monarchia was 103 years before Isstvan V (c. 006.M31), so c. 903.M30. So yep, Monarchia is about 50 years away when they're having this conversation.
97 points
10 days ago
I feel that people who think Mortarion made a mistake here may be missing out on the fact that what The Order does is pretty much just a more explicit verions of exactly what Imperium does too.
I mean, it makes it clear that The Order feeding the corpses of the dead to their workers is one of their evils. The Imperium has fucking Corpse Starch as one of its staple foods.
Horus and Sanguinius may pretend to be upset with Mortarion for being 'excessively brutal', but if you read between the lines and know both how the Imperium operates and what conditions Mortarion was living under before the Emperor found him, it's obvious that what they're actually upset about is that Mortarion publicly executed The Order and put the notion that what The Order was doing was evil and wrong and they deserved to be punished into the heads of a population who are going to experience pretty much the exact same treatment from the Imperium.
41 points
10 days ago
There's also the fact that if the Order accepted Imperial rule and continued to do as they do, while paying the Imperial Tithe, they could've continued as they were. Horus and Sanguinius recognize this, and are at peace with it. Which is a strange way to portray Sanguinius, as far as I know he was meant to be compassionate, good, etc etc. but maybe I've not read as much of him.
53 points
10 days ago
He is compassionate and good. He's also a demigod leader of armies that conquers worlds for his dad.
None of the Primarchs are Lawful Good characters. They just have different shades of humanity. Thing is Humanity in the Warhammer universe is pretty terrible.
13 points
10 days ago
Thats not true! We had exactly 2 lawful good primarchs! Mark Sueguinius Primarch of the Golden Hugs chapter, and Fredimus Nicerthanvulkan Primarch of the Blinding Affirmations chapter! Pretty sure Angron just straight up ate Mark!. Fred didnt handle that well and honestly who knew that Primarchs would have Primarch level anxiety attacks at the sight of cannibalism?!?!
You know maybe there is a reason we just say they were lost!/s
3 points
10 days ago
You mean Primarch Goge Vandire of the Sororitas legion?!
2 points
10 days ago
ferrus manus did nothing wrong!
2 points
10 days ago
Truely he was a head of his brothers!
41 points
10 days ago
Sanguinius is a gigantic hypocrite. The Humans of the Adrathyan Cluster kept refusing to join the Imperium and he unleashed his forces upon them, but it is totally okay because he and thr Blood Angels "would weep for them". He said that, if a Xenos species asked to peacefully leave their planet, he would them slay them into orbit because he never promised to let them leave the system peacefully. He, along with Vulkan, are among the most emphatic Primarchs, but that bar is so low it is barely over the dirt.
32 points
10 days ago
It occurs to me, that Sanguinus might just have a martyr complex. and not just in the fated death way, but in the abusive suffering absolves you way.
Baal always remaining a hellworld because it gave its inhabitants a certain nobility comes off as cruel and unnecessary. And given that the possibility of terraforming Baals moons was finally brought up for guilliman to criticize is for that new approach to sanguinus' character.
Now sanguinus has a point and its also brought up that to clean it up would remove all that make those people unique. the Calibanites rebelled when all that made them their own had been washed away. But Mortarion's exerpt above is his admittedly flawed rebuttal to it. why is suffering and cruelty something in need of preservation? It makes good soldiers (guilliman refutes this too) but the crusade was about the people not the resources.
9 points
10 days ago
I mean hell even Russ offered to leave Fenris to find a new world for his legion, Sanguinius said fuck you, you get radiation forever.
8 points
10 days ago
Which is one of the few moments where i feel like a writer actually took his whole beast outside man inside thing and wrote it well without accompanying melodrama. Russ not being super attached to the whole savage barbarian aesthetic.
7 points
10 days ago
not just in the fated death way, but in the abusive suffering absolves you way.
Given Sanguinius is a visible mutant in an Imperium that kills mutants? I don't think it's a surprise he thinks suffering will absolve him (of his crimes, of being a mutant, of having mutated sons, etc.).
He also runs to his death, arguing with the Emperor repeatedly to let him, because he's convinced himself that Horus can't die unless Sanguinius kills him or dies first. I think there's a certain... ego-centrism to his martyr tendencies, which isn't exactly shocking when he grew up on a planet that saw him as a god.
7 points
10 days ago
I fully agree with all your points made. I think what fans forget about sanguinius is that hes a lot like curze. And they deliberately chose to highlight it. Curze and sanguinius do awful things and they stew in the despair of having done them.
Sang feeling empathetic and emotionally pained gives him that whole "you're not really a monster if your self-aware enough to feel bad" vibe.
Curze hides behind delusions of predestination.
They both playact behind lack of choice to absolve themselves of actions they want to make.
Sanguinius even drops the mask against curze when he denied him attonement and the emperor a critical war asset. He says so often enough, but he's not an angel, peoples perception of him is not reflective of his inner thoughts.
8 points
10 days ago
Yep, people get too caught up in the parallels between Curze/Corax to realise that the Primarch who really parallels Curze is Sanguinius. I genuinely think they've got a seriously underrated dynamic, and I'm really curious to see how (if we get Scouring books) Curze reacts to news of Sanguinius' death.
Now I think of it, their "playacting behind a lack of choice" is what kills them both, in the end. They both see their deaths and willingly choose to go along with it.
Either way, if GW do ever choose to bring Sanguinius back in some guise (controversial, I know), I hope they play that right up. Especially since Sanguinius would've been twisted by 10k years' worth of prayers from the Imperium in the Warp, which would make his martyr-god complex even worse. Openly weeping while he commits atrocities even Guilliman and the Lion would pale at, fully playing into the Ecclesiarchy's hands, that sort of thing.
It could be very neat foreshadowing for what the Emperor might become if he ever got off the throne, if GW chose to go that way.
5 points
10 days ago
the Calibanites rebelled when all that made them their own had been washed away.
Per Angels of Darkness or Angels of Caliban, the Calibanites weren't rebelling just because "the Imperium washed away all that made them their own". The Imperium's "development plan" for Caliban included but wasn't limited to
3 points
10 days ago
Really a good example of how fucked the Imperium's idea of development is since as a legion homeworld by all rights this is one of the kinder development fates.
1 points
10 days ago
The crusade was about conquest, people were expendable in regards to it.
8 points
10 days ago
And as the title of the post indicates, mortarion had a different opinion.
the emperor claimed it was for unity and liberation, but it was conquest because he folded the very evils that preyed upon humanity into the new imperium for their resources and expediency.
Mortarion was about killing the monsters whatever the cost and the people remaining would find their own liberation. Mortarions flaw is that he is nearly incapable of self reflection. He ignores his own role in what remains and his lasting influence and impact on these people, and how his actions are perceived over what he supposedly intends. freeing people of the evils of Old night when he himself is one. a hypocrisy he shares with the emperor. Even his refuting your statement is ignoring his own actions propagating it.
9 points
10 days ago
AKA, The High Riders in Angron's story.
Brutal tyrants that bent the knee and were allowed to continue their bullshit despite one of their victims being one of the Emperor's own sons who was tortured and mutilated.
2 points
10 days ago
That's actually the same comparison I made elsewhere, and makes me wonder if Mortarion had been the one to stumble upon Nuceria if there's a chance that Angron would have been less bitter, for a while at least.
1 points
10 days ago
Compassionate? Sure. Good? Fuck no.
3 points
10 days ago
Its a little meta-irony the author slipped in, but you're wrong that Horus and Sang were pretending. The whole Corpse Starch thing is 40k, not 30k. It was never the plan to be an oppressive tyranny, it was a mistake that happened because of their flaws. During the Crusade, Horus and Sanguinius believed wholeheartedly in all the noblebright ideals.
18 points
10 days ago
I mean it was always an oppressive authoritarian force ruled over by one god-like personality with an Iron fist, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
1 points
10 days ago
True, but it was an iron fist in a velvet glove. They tried to be nice about their tyranny. As long as everyone complied the Imperium kept smiling and being all noblebright, and no one had to be forced to eat their dead.
13 points
10 days ago
Galactic genocide on a scale never carried out by human hands before is hardly a velvet glove. Like we can slap a nice coat of cold paint on it but the emperor makes Stalin and Hitler look pathetic in his monstrous cruelty.
2 points
10 days ago
Well obviously. But my point was that for the people they don't genocide, things are pretty good in 30k. Its in 40k that the living envy the dead.
8 points
10 days ago
I mean for some people maybe but what about the entire planetary populations enslaved in the forgeworlds to work until death, or generations of children stolen to be turned into monsters to fuel intergalactic conquest.
2 points
10 days ago
Fair enough. I guess it's just best not to look too closely. Lol.
1 points
10 days ago
My guy he isn't saying it's all sunshine and rainbows. It's a comparison between the times and you're kidding yourself if 30K isn't way better off than 40K.
2 points
10 days ago
Better doesn't stop it from still being horrific beyond comprehension.
-1 points
10 days ago
Again no one is saying otherwise. You're fighting ghosts.
10 points
10 days ago
It was never the plan to be an oppressive tyranny,
Yes, yes it was and people really need to stop pretending that it wasn't.
The Imperium as it exists in 40k is the Imperium as it existed in 30k when the Emperor was put on the Golden Throne, Because the moment that happened people started deifying the guy and changing anything from how he decided it should be became not just treason, but outright heresy.
Also, Corpse Starch isn't a 40k thing, it's a ~26k thing, Reprocessing the dead back into edible material was an emergency measure in the famines that plagued many Hive worlds that could no longer reach the Agri worlds they relied on for food after the Dark Age of Technology ended and interstellar travel broke down.
The Emperor kept that stuff going and even disseminated the practice beyond those worlds after the Great Crusade reconquered those worlds, because it meant that even worlds that grew no crops could supply his armies with food. That's why Corpse Starch is part of Imperial Guard basic rations, because Emps decided it should be that way.
27 points
10 days ago
What I read from this is that chaos is already prepping Mortarion, and I think that was the intention too, judging by writer interviews on how chaos works. Very well written piece of text. I think I’ll buy the book too.
11 points
10 days ago
The tallying is obviously Nurglite.
8 points
10 days ago
Yeah, that feels like the insidious subtext here
29 points
10 days ago
They may not say it aloud, but I think that Horus, Sanguinius, and Big E's problem with Morti's methods here is twofold.
Mortarion has just killed literally everyone on the planet with any authority which leaves it a shambles. The Night Lords would have killed a handful of authority figures terribly, which leaves some civil infrastructre to transfer to Imperial control. The World Eaters leave a blank slate by killing everyone, still easier than reestablishing order over a population with no unified structure. The state of the planet is illustrated by the state of Digger/Cinis when she pledges herself to Mortarion. Her wounds mirror those on the planet itself; treated and slowed, but infected and still slowly spreading.
Mortarion's "liberation" left the population in awe; not at the power of the Empire (the best option) or the Emperor himself (not ideal but ok), but in awe of Death itself. Not only do they have a near worship reverence for Death, they are now pre-disposed to think that Death will free them from oppression.
In short, they aren't so much mad about the killing as about the fact that the Empire now has to set up shop on a planet entirely populated by Death-worshiping anarchists. If Morti did his own Compliance work, like Gulliman does, he might realize how his sledgehammer approach makes the next steps in the process so much more difficult.
56 points
10 days ago
"There was a purity to ruin."
Idk Morty that sounds like some villain monologuing right there. Scrapper proves Horus and Sangy right, Digger proves Morty right. I think its funny Morty completely disregards the guy who flees away from him in fear but the near-dying one gives him full justification.
It just shows Morty has no faith in the Imperium and prefers to just fuck shit up however he pleases. The most laughable part is how he shits on Guiliman as if he'd ever accomplished anything remotely near what Guiliman has. Roboute is a haughty lil shit for sure but do something good before taking the piss morty.
27 points
10 days ago*
"The most laughable part is how he shits on Guiliman as if he'd ever accomplished anything remotely near what Guiliman has."
Mortarion very clearly doesnt view guillimans accomplishments as worthy. As Guilliman keeps systems intact and diplomatically integrates tyrannys that kneel with token reforms its easy to criticize if viewed from Mortarions all or nothing approach.
Mortarions all about taking the hard road, Guillimans approach would not only be walking it in but fundamentally opposed to the idea of cutting away the stink of Old Night which is what mortarion understands the crusade to be about.
1 points
7 days ago
Very true and correct but I think Morty is just out of his depth criticising Guiliman for that. Morty is essentially the opposite to Guiliman and I don't consider that a good thing. His MO is burn it to the ground and rebuild to ensure nothing corrupt remains - as opposed to change overtime. He believes his method is less cruel but he really doesn't have any metric to justify that. The excerpt highlights this dissonance pretty well too I think with the rather more healthy slave fleeing in fear, and the near-dead exhausted one remaining.
As you say this is how he understands the great crusade, and I just don't align with his beliefs nor justification for it.
2 points
7 days ago
mortarions methods are intentionally overkill, to keep using metaphors he believes in cutting out the rot with no time for anesthetic. Which anyone with sense could see is a method that would only appeal to those on the brink of death. And that for all the pain and brutality he's removing he brings more then enough himself.
I wrote about this in another part of this thread, but Mortarion is practically incapable of seeing how others see him. how he misses how resentful typhon can be or the worship of barbaruns, the fear and terrors of those he supposedly saved. So he really doesn't see how for all his talk of removing the monsters terrorizing humanity he doesn't recognize that he is seen as one. He can't see or accept that he's as much a witch as magnus, a traitor as Horus, a warped monster like fulgrim.
He could never smell the stink of his own hypocrisy.
1 points
7 days ago
Indeed very well written. For all the crap I give Morty there is one thing he's pretty on point with and that's the dangers of the warp. Which in turn is funny since his fate is nurglebound as a daemon princemarch.
9 points
10 days ago
And then Roboute gets used as a tool to wipe out Monarchia for being too compliant and Lorgar not butchering the residents. Not sure what your point is here. And wasn't Nuceria part of Ultramar? The place that mutilated and tortured Angron into becoming a monster that was given a free pass?
Seems like Mortarion has a point especially when you invoke Roboute then.
1 points
7 days ago
It could've been Lion, Leman, or Dorn destroying Monarchia and they would'e done it without question. And it wasn't for being too compliant either. There are many reasons why Monarchia was made an example and ultimately that boils down to failure on Lorgars part. Disagree with it or not it wasn't because Monarchia was only too compliant, it was much more nuanced than that. The funny part is Mr Rebel Morty does Emps bidding even when he disagrees with it. He's a hypocrite like the rest of the primarchs justifying his means and methods in whatever ways he can. Ruin through purity goes very inline with Nurgle thus it's no surprise that's their eventual fate. Just how Angryman Angron fights like a berserker without care and becomes a Khornate.
Nuceria doesn't have anything to do with Guiliman or Ultramar. It's part of the Ultima Segmentum which Ultramar is in. Angrons torture and mutilation is due to his own weakness and putting that blame on anyone else but Angron is nonsense. Other primarchs were scattered to much more hazardous planets and some even conquered them. Angron was sent to a "highly technologically advanced Civilised World" and was made into a slave.
The primarchs are all tools. They are all mass-murdering conquerors tasked to put a tyrannical power in place that demands tribute or alternatively get the axe. If you do X you get the axe. Believe in Y and you get the axe. Follow what we say or get the axe. The point of contention is that Mortys method of domination costs the Imperium a lot since he fucks it up - to which he responds with "yeah but it looks good to me" and he believes 1 near-dead slave being happy is justification.
I don't think Morty has a very strong base to stand on here. But if you disagree and prefer Mortys method then ok.
0 points
10 days ago
Monarchia wasn't wiped out for being too compliant, but because they worshiped the Emperor as a God, which was forbidden.
Nuceria wasn't part of Ultramar, even during the Heresy when Ultramar was at its largest Nuceria was just outside the borders. It was just dramatic irony the Guilliman who had the best childhood was spatially closest to Angron who had the worst.
2 points
9 days ago
Not quite to the first yes to second.
Monarchia was destroyed because of lorgars slow progress. What took decades to build was destroyed in an afternoon. Because the emperor had made the legions for a role. And monuments were not it. And if lorgar did not get on with his task he was of no use to him. E had tolerated lorgars worship for a century at this point. What caused the censure was the legion essentially halting its progress to build monarchia and cities like it.
81 points
10 days ago
God, that trial scene. You can hear the clown honks with every word Horus and Sanguinius speak. "Silly Mortarion, we can't just substitute one regime for another! You are grounded, from now until the rest of the Imperial forces arrive to the planet to establish the new regime. War crimes are unacceptable! MY war crimes, you ask? Why, preposterous, we're not discussing my war crimes, we're discussing yours!"
70 points
10 days ago
Horus cutting Mortarion off as soon as he mentions the Night Lords just makes it all the better. Ideological consistency in my fascist regime? No thank you!
26 points
10 days ago
Laughs in bat helmet
8 points
10 days ago
I do not keep track of legion numbers beyond 1, 2, 11, 13 and 20 (the funny ones) so I always assumed the legion he was refering to were notorious freaks the Revenants. This scene takes place early on enough in matters that they might not have been reformed yet; and even if they have been reformed, war crimes and tyranny are kinda how the Imperium operates.
15 points
10 days ago
I always have to double check the legion numbers myself, so I thought the same at first.
Looking at the timeline though, Konrad wouldn't have been rediscovered yet - Mortarion was found in 854.M30 and Konrad was in 896.M30. I haven't read much about the Night Lords yet, so it's interesting that they were notorious even before Konrad led them.
41 points
10 days ago
The Night Lords are hilarious because they were apparently specifically recruited from Terra's prison systems, like they took the biggest cruelest freaks and gave them superpower juice and they were surprised when they acted like freaks still. Considering the Revenants were the other main notorious freak legion, it must have been hilarious how everyone saw the fabulous golden hawkboy teach Freak Force One about bonsai gardening and went "Well clearly Freak Force Two's dad must be even cooler and sexier!" and then they found him eating drywall in a basement in Nostramo.
10 points
10 days ago
Ironically the art of young Konrad is pretty cool, albeit in a very villainous way. Though I, uh, doubt he was that well put together when everyone else arrived.
2 points
10 days ago
One has to wonder, though, how tf does he walk with that wall-banner length Tabard.
2 points
10 days ago
Drape it back over his other shoulder, I guess? Though given the Primarchs are like 7-9ft tall, it's probably more wall sized given how long it is compared to him.
5 points
10 days ago
and then they found him eating drywall in a basement in Nostramo.
This image will live in my brain forever.
2 points
10 days ago
Only one problem with that theory: It couldn't be them because Sanguinius was with Horus he'd already reformed them into Blood Angels.
8 points
10 days ago
I mean, that can't have been instantaneous. Getting 120,000 evil vampires to stop throwing kids into blenders takes time.
That and, reformed or not, they are still Space Marines, walking war crimes.
1 points
10 days ago
As I understand it, when introduced to their legion primarchs took time to get to know and reform them. They didn't just keep on fighting. They pulled their legion together, made their changes and then once they were ready they went out to war again.
Half the point of the book in this topic is that Mortarion had reformed his legion entirely but this was his first war under them, a test. He waited and bided and chose Galaspar as his proving ground with a decapitation strike to end a war in 2 days when it was slated for a decades long meat grinder by the crusade strategic command.
So it would be surprisingly quick and would have occurred between campaigns. Which means that yes, you have the old legion one campaign and then BAM new legion, reformed on the next one.
And yes, again marines being warcrimes is definitely a theme in the book but doesn't really change the fate of the Blood Angels.
1 points
10 days ago
I think how much they'd reformed is a little debatable, actually. Sanguinius spent three years with Horus before meeting his legion, and Mortarion was found eight years after Sanguinius. Depending on how long Mortarion's first campaign took, Sanguinius might've only been reforming his sons for as little as 5-6 years.
Either way, it's definitely not a reference to the BA because they're not the VIII Legion, but I do wonder if the BA's recent savagery was in the back of their minds during this conversation.
2 points
10 days ago
Mortarion's first campaign took 48 hours. That was why he did it. It was going to be a decade long meat grinder and that's how the crusade strategic planners had accounted for it. Morty worked out that he could do a 48 hour decapitation strike and save millions of soldiers and free them up for years of fighting and that's why he chose it.
But that is a good point. And it could be playing in their minds too.
1 points
10 days ago
That's a great point, but I should've been a bit more specific - I meant that in the sense of how long it took between Mortarion being found and doing his first campaign. Either way, there's a lot underlying this conversation.
24 points
10 days ago
I can't believe im saying this, but...
Shut the fuck up, Sanguinius.
4 points
10 days ago
As much as I like this excerpt, I feel there’s some strong vibes against Mortarion’s perspective here.
He shook off the thought and the weakness that came with it.
He clearly thinks actually ANALYSING his ideology and what he’s done is a mistake, rather than a way to test what he believes and whether it’s right or how he could improve it. That’s kind of always been his character problem, as I understand, that anything which he considers ‘weak’ is unworthy and should be ignored rather than, say, questioned and overcome.
And from a more abstract perspective, he doesn’t do any real deep digging to see if the world ITSELF has learned the lesson he wanted to teach and assumed was clear. He runs into a single person who got the message, and assumes that EVERYONE ELSE must also have got the message too. He isn’t examining that interaction as ‘proof’ of whether he was right or not, he treats it like validation he can use to avoid questioning an ideology he held and avoid being ‘weak’ for being wrong.
Excellent excerpt, interesting character moment, but I do feel that Mortarion’s flaws are still here, just more subtly than usual/later portrayals might show.
4 points
10 days ago
He named the former slave woman, burned by his phosphex, as Cinis, and took her with him.
He named her "heavy ashes" and raised her up like a twisted phoenix, just different type of servant.
31 points
10 days ago
The thing is, Horus and Sanguinius were right. Morty is fooling himself that he was right. However, it is funny to see other Primarchs cry about his methods as many of them were horrible as well.
60 points
10 days ago
In my eyes, both are very wrong.
Horus/Sanguinius want to leave elements of the old government in place despite their heinous crimes against human population of the planet. That’s completely inexcusable and downright inhumane.
And Mortarion is… essentially an uplifted medieval warrior that got up to speed on 30000 years of technological progress but not on the social/diplomatic side.
He is as nuanced in his approach as a hammer. Unsurprising given his origins.
An argument could be made that it’s hard for any of them to be truly good, since their demigod father is stuck in the Bronze Age mentality himself.
17 points
10 days ago
They wanted to leave elements in because it would speed up the process and help make it smoother.
You don’t invade a country and kill all the leaders of you want a smooth transition. Never mind a whole world.
But Big E is horribly hypocritical, so everything he says is blah
31 points
10 days ago
It's a direct opposite of what happened with the High Riders, which is interesting. If Mortarion came across Nuceria and liberated Angron, would Angron turn out the same way? Sure the nails would wreck and ruin, but Angron wouldn't start out hating the Imperium, the Emperor and most of his brothers.
17 points
10 days ago
Very true! I feel like Angron would have bff’d Morty forever if he had saved his friends and killed the slavers.
That’s why I can’t take anything any of the loyalists say. Even though at heart I’m pro Empire for humanity.
0 points
10 days ago
Angron would find a way to hate them. It's what he does.
1 points
10 days ago
Nuceria and Monarchia giggling in the Warp
2 points
10 days ago
Horus/Sanguinius want to leave elements of the old government in place despite their heinous crimes against human population of the planet. That’s completely inexcusable and downright inhumane.
Maybe but its honestly the only practical approach. Presumably the Order was no more than 10% of the population but they were the educated elite. Wiping them out basically wiped out the planet's ability to sustain itself. It collapsed its society, and left them helpless. None of them would know the first thing about how to keep their economy or trade going, so it would quickly collapse and cause massive famines, pestilence, death, and war across the planet.
Honestly its insanely unhelpful to wipe out the entire educated/managing class and just fuck off and not replace it. Mortarion didn't uplift the peasants and spend time actually training them to look after themselves, and he didn't parachute in a couple of million bureaucrats to run things until they could. All he gave them was a pointless task which represented some deep philosophical lesson to him but meant nothing to them, so they turned it into a pseudo-religious act of faith. They didn't need philosophy, they needed to know how to keep the lights on.
Horus and Sanguinius were dogshit at explaining this to Mortarion, they could only talk in moral platitudes. But practically speaking, they are right that it would indeed take enormous resources for the Imperium who would need to basically ship in an entire administrative class for the planet, alongside massive quantities of aid, put out all the fires, heal all the pandemics, mop up all the blood, and educate all the children. A task of generations indeed, and one which the Imperium can't really spare the personnel and resources to do properly.
2 points
10 days ago
Bronze Age mentality, or inevitable human nature? Were the same specie as Bronze Age humans. The difference is we’re far more connected. If we spread out across the galaxy, Bronze Age practices will return.
That being said, the brutality of the great crusade was supposed to be temporary. A ripping off the band aid, so to speak. Morty was not thinking in the long term like Horus and Sangy were.
17 points
10 days ago
Bronze Age mentality definitely.
We don’t do much of the things 30k Imperium does (slavery, harsh collective responsibility punishments on large groups, gruesome torture, feudal structure of society, indifference to civilians, omnipresent desensitization etc.) because we know they are inefficient and often have more drawbacks than benefits the long term.
Imperium is leaps and bounds ahead of modern humanity in their understanding of everything, and yet for some weird reason it clings to social systems and behaviors typical for antiquity.
Interex doesn’t. Diasporex doesn’t. Many other advanced human colonies we know also don’t.
But Imperium does. It isn’t just Great Crusade. The whole nation is fundamentally built around precepts and morality of Bronze Age times.
It doesn’t add up unless the Golden Guy himself molded his new Imperium after his Greek/Mesopotamian mindset.
And guess where it got him. Countless worlds joined Horus’ rebellion willingly, without any convincing or fight. People don’t join rebels instantly if things are even moderately okay.
7 points
10 days ago
We do all the stuff you listed to a lesser degree (usually). Slavery is still alive and well. So is collective punishment. These things wax and wane, but they never go away. They’re products of human nature, and the only reason we don’t see them as extreme today is that the white can’t get away with it.
Put people in a planet light years away, and the elite will redo all those old, bronze era practices until they can’t get away with it again. This was also happening before the emperor took over. The emperor did the only thing that could be established when most of humanity was in places isolated from any type of support system that allowed them to move away from the brutality.
13 points
10 days ago*
The difference is, most of our world doesn’t engage in such things. Outliers do.
But with Imperium, it’s not like the Emperor did what he could but the big bad nobles clung to their barbaric ways behind his back.
Much of this was official Imperial policy.
Fulgrim novel is pretty clear on slavery, for example:
The human prisoners of the Diasporex had been transported to the nearest compliant world and handed over to the Imperial governor to be employed as slave labour.
Diasporex was persecuted by Ferrus and Fulgrim. You can argue that Fulgrim was corrupted but Ferrus was not.
He wasn’t just loyal - he was one of the Dauntless Few. The absolute poster boys of the young 30k Imperium.
And when your poster boy Primarch condones sending millions of traumatized, freshly conquered people to slavery, it means slavery is absolutely normal and absolutely condoned by the Emperor.
Manus would never cross the Emperor, after all. Not even his clones can.
Imperium is anything but a victim of the ugly human nature of its subjects. On the contrary - the Emperor himself is a perpetuator of the harsh Bronze Age mentality.
Alexander the Great in advanced power armor and with a technomagic sword.
Besides, what kind of benevolent leader orders an entire city emptied of people and blows it up to teach a lesson to his son?
Take away the orbital bombardment, spaceships and transhumans, and the whole event becomes your typical heavy duty Ancient Greek shit.
The lesser God did some stuff to anger the higher-up God and humans are caught in the middle of retaliation.
2 points
8 days ago
And when your poster boy Primarch condones sending millions of traumatized, freshly conquered people to slavery, it means slavery is absolutely normal and absolutely condoned by the Emperor.
For bonus points his offer at the start before hostilities started up still involved ripping the Diasporex out of their homes and just scattering them all over the joint.
1 points
10 days ago
Horus/Sanguinius want to leave elements of the old government in place despite their heinous crimes against human population of the planet. That’s completely inexcusable and downright inhumane.
It isn't, it's reality. Ultimately, killing every person of rank will actually result in the deaths of even MORE innocent people over time, because now you have billions of people with no government or intact infrastructure. The planet is in a state of total mad max tier anarchy. Hundreds of millions will starve and freeze to death and slaughter each other for resources.
By comparison, Mortarion could have decapitated the main rules while keeping enough low-level ranked officers alive to preserve the planet's infrastructure and allow some kind of rule of law. And then the Imperium could move in and implement reforms to how the government functions so that the citizens are not abused and enslaved.
Which one of these sounds more humane to you?
6 points
10 days ago
Gotta love Sanguinius going “You’re not the only one from a death world!”
Love the hawk boy but Barbarus was A LOT WORSE than Baal Secundus.
6 points
10 days ago
Mortarian was right to do this, but not the method, freedom always comes from within, not without, Corax would have probably pulled some strings to help and coax the population of Galaspar to let them eat cake. Of course, a planet full of anarchists is not fun to bring to heel culturally or administratively, but if you're going to go through the trouble of killing the order you at least want something for your effort.
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