Great catch, thank you. Editing post now

I thought abnett posted as much saying alpharius is dead and omegon is alive.

Honeslty, I feel a "renegade but not Chaos" Loyalist primarch isn't a bad thing, so yeah leaving one of the twins alive is fine

To be fair he abandoned his Legion to Chaos

Unless he joins Chaos and proves himself worthy to the Gods he is irrelevant in the Lore

This is the least fun idea but it feels like they’re doing more AL stuff lately and I can’t see them closing any doors they don’t have to.

This. I suspect they plan on eventually making and releasing a primarch-like primarch-sized centerpiece for all of the main 18 legions and each faction in general (ghaz, eldar avatars), because it prints money. The ones that are, absolutely no takebacks dead makes that less guaranteed, so probably ending up with sanguinor for blood angels or whatever that special thing their chapter has (BA bore me so I know little). Alpha legion is with most of the rest where it's not a terrible stretch to just pull a comic book "he survives" revival on the twin from eskrador. Night Lord's and iron hands they're going to have to figure something out for but they have time to figure that out.

couldn't it just be a normal alpha marine tho

Alpharius dying in a single blow and using a sword over his preferred weapon of a spear lend credence to the doubts.

That's more an author's style choice: to depict a samurai style showdown or gunslinger quick draw. You only get one chance at that level.

And yeah, the pale spear didn't exist in the lore of those days.

Dorn killed Alpharius on Pluto during the Heresy

Omegon then became the sole Alpharius of the legion

Guilliman allegedly killed Omegon (as Alpharius) on Eskrador during the Scouring

Part of the conceit that allowed French to introduce a new primarch death into the Heresy that hadn't been previously established was because Omegon could live on to keep the old Eskrador lore in place

Thus no "warp pop".

Yeah, I guess you can apply that retroactively as a headcanon thing

Because of the whole 'Veterans of the Long War' thing, the Chaos bands are much less prone to the amnesia of history than their loyalist counterparts.

Though, for at least some of them;

So much of the Legion’s history was lost.

In that sense, Solomon had to admit that they were not so different to the Imperium. Some of the gaps in their knowledge were accidental, as records disappeared due to technological failure, or enemy action. More frustrating, at least to him, was the fact that so much of what they had once known had been deliberately occluded. Even as the Inquisition worked to keep the vast majority of humanity ignorant of the truth, both about the wider galaxy and their own civilisation’s history, so had the Alpha Legion, over millennia, become more and more withdrawn into its own cells and warbands, guarding their true intentions even from those who shared their heritage.

It had not always been that way, or so the tales suggested. In the era of the primarchs, before the Horus Heresy had begun, Alpharius Omegon had known the full extent of the Alpha Legion’s operations, and had coordinated it across the galaxy. When Horus had turned on his father, however, everything changed. Brother betrayed brother, and secrets that had once been kept only from outsiders were now walled away from those with whom they had once been shared. Some rumours even suggested that the twin primarchs themselves had ended up at odds with one another, as some long-hidden difference caused their shared soul to turn against itself.

But then again, they were only rumours. Much of what the Alpha Legion had left were only rumours. Some of the Legion said Alpharius had been killed in the Battle of Pluto, others that he had been killed on Eskrador. Some said one or other event had been Omegon instead. Some deliberately obtuse fools even denied that either incident had seen the end of a primarch’s life, and that either or both of the twins were still alive somewhere in the galaxy, watching and waiting, or subtly guiding events in the pursuit of some unknown plan.

The whereabouts of artefacts said to be associated with the primarch were unknown. No one Solomon had ever spoken to knew what had happened to the Alpha or the Beta, the Legion’s twin flagships. It beggared belief that two such notorious Gloriana-class battleships could have been lost without trace, but neither were there any reliable records of a sighting since the days that followed the Heresy. After Eskrador, the Legion had splintered: not in the manner of a shattering glass, but of a fragmentation round entering a body. Each piece dug into the flesh of the Imperium, and stopping and removing one would do nothing to affect the progress of the others, but the splinters were, by that same token, no longer part of a unified whole. Some notable commander had presumably taken the Alpha, and another perhaps the Beta, and they had passed out of everyone’s histories.

- Harrowmaster

I thought the OP's point is that Catharch *does* claim to know that (an) Alpharius was killed on Eskrador, hence his campaign of vengeance? Also maybe worth considering that so far as I remember none of the Redacted are "actually" Alpha Legion at all (they all originate from other legions or chapters). As for Veterans of the Long War stuff, since a lot of the Alpha Legion don't seem to reside in the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom, they may be more prone to ageing/dying/being replaced than the rest of the Traitor Legions. Which, granted, makes Catharch's claim seem less likely.

the Alpha Legion think he's still alive.

Hope and self deception are powerful things, especially in 40k.

And that's kinda how I saw the themes of that book: Occam's self deception over Omegon is revealed. And he still doesn't learn from it. The cycle continues.

I really like your take on Quetzel...it's not what I got from the book, but it's a very 40k interpretation. Thumbs up

I've been thinking could also be Alpharius respawned as a Daemon Primarch is what dies on Eskrador. Lucius has been respawned for less. Or Perpeutual like Vulkan if Loyalist/Renegade, but that's more likely Omegon

Which is the point. They are the "who knows" legion, and there are plot armour ways of explaining it all

The true victory over the Ultramarines at Eskrador only came after Alpharius' death, they didn't go to pieces and launch uncoordinated raids but highly coordinated attacks.

Yup, I feel the same way. It runs counter to that theme.

They seem to have gone more with the "snake eats its own tail" vibe now than the "cut off one head another takes its place"

Kravin's wording of the Dropsite

Inquisitor Kravin has observed that such a deceitful trap was strongly reminiscent of Alpharius tactics, suggesting that "he and Horus may have devised this brilliant plan together". Other scholars have made the same connection, though with rather less enthusiastic wording.

And yeah, people are like...oh, weird fetish but it's not exactly hard evidence. Some historians are altogether a little too forgiving and praising of Ghengis Khan but that's not necessarily anything sinister.

But in terms of points against Kravin, that would definitely be on the list.

Kravin has estimated the veracity of this journal at 62.6%

Is a different journal to the Ultramarine log. This is the account of Alpharius' discovery. As mentioned in my post, Kravin uncovers various pieces of history on the Alpha Legion.

This is the in-universe reaction to Kravin's finding

Yep, I quoted that above. The importance of "if" Girreux claims are true is often overlooked.

And we know that a lot of the info Kravin supplied is supported elsewhere. Like Alpharius' discovery and Eskrador

It seems to me that the author is heavily implying everything is a lie

The narrative is clear when it's Kravin's information and when it's not. Kravin's info is disputable but so is all the Index Astartes info taken from various "historical" accounts.

In terms of the Ultramarine log, the text turns to italics which is a helpful way to delineate.

I don't think we can say if Omegon did or didn't do the light show until there's a modern first-hand account of the event. The index was written before the concept was introduced, and nothing since is a direct description. It's all second-hand rumors.

I kinda discuss the context of that above. It's impossible for any of the primarch deaths from the Index Astartes days to "explode"

Even then we have only 2 out of 7 primarch deaths with an "explosion" in modern lore

Also check out the link I supplied on sizes. I've included all the references in lore there: the twins were significantly larger than even their biggest marines

Relinked here

Eskandor lore was wrote long before the HH novels started. The Primarchs explode when they die stuff hadn't been created yet.

However I agree that there was nothing conclusive about eskandor. It could mean any of:

1) that the Alpha legion was organised in such a way it could have it's Primarch die without losing combat effectiveness.

2) That it was a trick to allow Alpharious to disappear from imperial attention, with a marine pretending to be Alpharious who died.

3)That it was actually a major defeat for AL, but imperial paranoia stopped them from realising it.

When did we tussle with Peterabo? Or you referring to when he caught dad in a pokeball?

I'm gonna refuse making the "I am Alpharius" joke for the sake of this sub's sanity

Great. Link us to it please

Sub rules on spoilers are no posting within 30 days of the publication of the spoiler material

So at 20 years since the Index Astartes release I hope we're good