Lorgar's Split

Suppose Horus hadn't turned to Chaos?

Suppose he went to that tent, all feverish and ill, but managed to fight off the Ruinous Powers and conclude his dad was probably just really busy. Nope, no Heresy here. I'mma stay loyal. Fuck off guys. Kill Erebus too because fuck that guy.

Right away, a whole bunch of things go off in an anticlimactic little fwup: Magnus would've had no reason to accidentally the Emperor's webway project, Fulgrim probably would've been okay since he was directly turned by Horus, and as such Ferrus Manus would've survived as well (along with a whole bunch of Marines and other redshirts, but who's counting).

But Lorgar, the little shit, had already turned. Angron would go along with him because Lorgar's literally his only friend. Perturabo would join in just to spite Dorn. Mortarion would take this opportunity to secede from the Imperium he saw faulty and unworthy. Curze's little disagreement with Dorn would've gone just the same, prompting him to go along with the secession.

So Lorgar becomes the champion of Chaos Undivided instead. But he probably wouldn't have the interest to really stick one to the Emperor's ass, not without some heavy goading from his masters – who wouldn't care either, being too sulky for losing Horus and getting this asshole instead.

As such, him and his traitors would just split off and look to carve a bit of galaxy all for themselves. A holy Chaotic empire, if you will. If anything, it's likely the Imperium would instead come to them, and the whole war would've had a completely opposite perspective.

There's out premise for this thread: only five Primarchs, all of them second-rate and not especially formidable, leave the Imperium. The Emperor gets to keep the rest and will also have a functional webway soon. A whole lot of worlds remain unburned, at least for the time being.

Immediate questions arising from this scenario:
A) Where do the secessionist go to start over? What corner of the galaxy would fit them the best?
B) To whose side does Alpharius (and Omegon) throw his lot?
C) Will Leman Russ go Khorne instead, having no reason to rethink his way at the wake of Prospero?
D) What happens to the Emperor and Sanguinius? The former's death is at the very premise of the story, and can't go unchanged. The latter is Space Jesus and thus must die for our sins.
E) Is this the lamest and most anticlimactic Heresy AU ever conceived?

>Angron
>Second-rate

Bitch please, Angron would keep this rapetrain going on all by himself.

He probably killed Sanguinius in this scenario.

>To whose side does Alpharius (and Omegon) throw his lot?
Yes

Fair enough.

Probably going to go rogue and sell their services to the highest bidder, then betray them and turn coats again.

Angron isn't second rate I agree, but he still wouldn't have been able to do much without direction. He was too volatile, the only reason he was useful in the Hersey was because Horus was able to make him useful.

I figure that even if Magnus doesn't betray the Emperor, the webway fuckup still needs to happen to keep things moving in a canon-wards direction. Maybe something along the lines of "Hey dad, Lorgar just turned traitor and I don't know who to trust so I'm sending this message to you through the warp!"
"Oops"

It would be a far less urgent situation, and involve someone that was never the Emperor's favorite. I'm not sure whether Magnus would ever risk revealing he's been messing around with Chaos sorcery just for that.

Point him at the worlds they're conquering for their own little empire, then later at the Imperium when it comes knocking, and he'll single-handedly carve them a nation and keep it independent.

Doubt it. I only split from the Imperium because the prophecy included Horus.

I dunno, 'there's treason amongst the Primarchs' still seems like a big deal, even if it's not Horus himself.
Some also depends on how Magnus feels about Lorgar and the other remaining rebels, which I can't quite remember. (I know he was friends with one of the tech-heads, but can't remember if it was Ferrus or Pert.)

But neither side would buy their services, because both will be motivated by zealous fanaticism more than anything else - there's no space for mercenary thinking there.

No, they'll become ork freebooters.

Perturabo wasn't that petty. He turned against the Imperium because he realized that he fucked up and broke the Emperors wishes, kind of like Magnus. While don't know for certain what would've happened, he did join the Horus Heresy because Horus condoned and pardoned his actions.

Magnus was friends with Perturabo

>He turned against the Imperium because he realized that he fucked up and broke the Emperors wishes, kind of like Magnus

Which was probably engineered by Horus to begin with, so.

That said, he'd probably still secede because then he'd have the opportunity to build his own impenetrable palace for Lorgar.

depends if Olympia still happens in this form

Remember Horus wasn't squeakly clean before his corruption, most prominent moment of dickery being demanding the Raven Guard launch a full frontal assault he knew would cause heavy casulties, when he could have used the Space Wolves or Iron Warriors who were also present, just because he didn't like the way Corax lead them.

Sure, but maybe barring Vulkan, none of the primarchs were exactly the saints they were supposed to be. They all had their share of questionable and outright awful shit, but some still managed to stay loyal.

I'd imagine that Magnus would instead tryto take matters into his own hands. He never likes Lorgar much to begin with, and after Nikea he would probably view this as an opportunity to get back in his father's good graces and try to persue and capture Lorgar himself.

Plus he would probably not be too worried about fighting Lorgar since Lorgar admitted to not being a soldier at heart, and MAgnus was the one who basically bitched him out saying someone who isn't a soldier has no purpose leading an army.

He could then try to convince Pert to not side with Lorgar and ask him to aid him in taking him down.

So, we have Magnus and Pert vs Lorgar and Angron. Honestly a pretty thematically fitting fight.

So who would win?

I think the Dornian Heresy goes into this pretty well. And the latter parts of the Roboutian Heresy as well.
Yes, they are fanfics but I swear they're actually really well written

Depends if Lorgar can initiate Angron's ascension into a daemon prince

I'd say Magnus would be a decent match for him even if he did. Unless Angron blinds Magnus with his blood after having 3 World Eater scrubs distract him he should be fine, since Angron is generally a less skillful fighter than Leman

>So who would win?
Magnus and Perty.World Eaters are literally the worst match for Iron Warriors,and Magnus would try to learn how to imitate the Emperor's powers to impress him.

>World Eaters are literally the worst match for Iron Warriors
>"Now, we shall hold our position for a few weeks while I build this demonic fortress for us to-"
>"ALL RIGHT, BROTHERS, I'M BACK! LET'S DO THIS!"
>"Oh my Chaos he just went in."

Better question. Since I do agree this all comes back to lorgar; why the fuck did Big E not take one look at Erebus or KorPharon and immediatly melt the brains of what were clearly chaos worshippers. They weren't psykers (not that it would have helped them hide the fact that their planet wide "Old faith" was basically chaos: low sodium version)

Never got how this was allowed to stand. Unless it's what he wanted...

Wut? Russ is a better commander and at least has passive control of his latent psykerey ( not wanting to get into special debris totally-not-chaos shaminism) but Angron can, and did, best him during the crusade one on one.

The Emperor couldn't be bothered with single people unless they were Primarchs, Custodes, or Malcador - and even then only just barely. He had his eyes set far too far to see anything up close, which probably caused this whole mess as much as anything else did.

>A) Where do the secessionist go to start over? What corner of the galaxy would fit them the best?
Northern section somewhere, far from Terra and from other races doing their thing.

>B) To whose side does Alpharius (and Omegon) throw his lot?
Probably loyalists, since Horus is there to keep them in line and they never seemed to throw down with Lorgar much.

>C) Will Leman Russ go Khorne instead, having no reason to rethink his way at the wake of Prospero?
Maybe. This is interesting, but it is likely that again, Horus will keep him in check. That was Horus's great role.

>D) What happens to the Emperor and Sanguinius? The former's death is at the very premise of the story, and can't go unchanged. The latter is Space Jesus and thus must die for our sins.
I'm not actually sure that the Emperor dies from this. I think he dies doing something else, like fucking with the Webway. It goes to shit and he bites it to some eldritch thing coming out and fucking him up. Only his sacrifice defeats it and he is interred in the Throne to keep the doors sealed, same as before.

Sanguinius doesn't actually *have* to die. Could just have him survive and have to deal with the Red Thirst and all that shit.

>E) Is this the lamest and most anticlimactic Heresy AU ever conceived?
Yes. Have some lame answers accordingly.

Pert would probably need the WE sedated until a breach was about to occur/was occurring. Otherwise they are just flat out useless bar a stop-gap for more time.

Sangy was also pretty good on that front (hiding his corruptions was more out of fear than anything else.)

I get that and its a good foil for Emps being a tragic hero/manic despot. But the ostensible point of the imperial truth was to protect/guard against knowledge of chaos.

Even if lorgar had waged a war to denounce said religion, it existed and was a thing. The Emperor had time to destroy every church and priest on terra, why would he take at face value that one of his weaponised ubermench/demon/incarnations was literally raised by at best reformed chaos worshippers? For a mind like his it had to be more than obvious what was going on in colchis's history

Sanguinius kicked his ass along with the rest of the World Eaters at Terra.

What if Horus died on Davin instead of being corrupted, and Magnus rushes back to Terra via the warp to warn the Emperor. In his desperation makes a deal with Tzeencht and smashes the webway.

Fulgrim would have turned, he had already been lightly possessed by the Laeran blade for some months before he ever had his chat with Horus.

Lorgar still would have turned, but would also not have stopped trying to corrupt Horus. He might have failed once, but that doesn't mean he'll just give up and walk away.

Perturabro would have turned, as would Curze, because they're both just angry and like killing.

Angron would have turned, but without being elevated to daemon princedom, would have died from the Butcher's nails.

Alpha Legion probably wouldn't turn, as the Cabal would still approach them but wouldn't be able to sway them.

>without being elevated to daemon princedom, would have died from the Butcher's nails
But he's got the guy that did the deed on his side, though?

Works well enough. Honestly, if Horus isn't going to get corrupted, he probably would just have to die.

It'd split the Primarchs up well and good. He was kind of holding them together.

>Have some lame answers accordingly

Honestly these were actually pretty good.

Iron Warriors and Space Wolves also took part in the costly frontal assault if I recall. The worst thing you could say about Horus during that battle was perhaps personal glory. The world was one of the first that Horus conquered but it was overtaken by xenos parasites that mind controlled people. Just a Corax was about kill the enemy leader, Horus beat him to it. Maybe Horus just used the other legions as cannon fodder so he could take personal revenge but there is nothing explicitly showing any signs of malevolence from Horus.

Yes but we are talking about Magnus trying to show his full potential, without Sisters of Silence supressing his psychic effects. So angron is getting debuffed hard by Magnus, while Magnus is flexing and stretching his full magical might. Angron might be better than Russ, since Russ won't try to kill his brothers unless ordered to. But he can't beat Magnus with full power up and unhindered.

Angron and his dumbass legion couldnt even finish off Corax and his shattered legion on Istvaan despite having literally months to do so, 100-1 numerical superiority and the RG being entirely on foot with no transports or armor support.

World Eaters are absolutley one of the least competent legions.

Olympia was more or less inevitable, as was Perty's dramatic course of action. Of course, this puts the ball for Perty's behavior squarely in the Emperor's court as Guilliman came up to Big E's face and outright said that the purge of Iron Warriors needs to be stopped.

This comes back to the general problem that the behavior of many primarchs could have been corrected if the Emperor actually took the time to teach them in internships, as opposed to dropping off their legions like Fedex.

Mortarion and his Legion were known to be the tankiest tanks who have ever tanked. Their first conquest in the crusado was a massive redrumfuckrapegrimdarkmurder for everyone involved except the biggest emos ever. So yeah, not quite second rate, even though he didnt do shit and a half during heresy.

I always thought that if not horus, Lorgar, Mortarion or Angron would be the leaders in the heresy. Mortarion alredy had deemed the emperor a motherfucker lying shit, angron was just pissed for being pissed ( and the fact that emps killed all his friends) and lorgar was the first to fall to Chaos. But in any event, Lorgar wouldnt get too far. Imagine Lorgar fighting sanguinius........If space caesar beat lorgar´s shit imagine what would space jesus do

crussade*

His losses were horrific, though; and he was only able to keep up with the rest of the crusade with widespread deployment of rad and chemical weapons. Sure, the run of the mill marine can take more punishment than the average Astartes; but that didn't translate to results when fighting the toughest enemies.

A successful heresy more or less depends on a strong charismatic leader. So thats basically Horus or Sanguinus. No one else can take the mantle and not have his rebellion immediately devolve into infighting or get righteously curbstomped in the outset of the war.

You said it, they could take more punishment than an average astarted. And now, it is obvious that their numbers have replenished, and even grown. Imagine if mortarion led the deathguard aganist some loyal primarch and his legion. Say, guilliman, or the Lion once he stops napping. How would that go? They managed to, as you said, keep going in the crussade thanks to the chemicals, and now this weapons have likely been enhanced thanks to papa nurgle. Combined with their increase in numbers would make the Death guard and the Death Lord a fucking bitch to kill

astartes* God I have to type slower.

Guilliman would MAYBE do the trick, with him being ''diplomatic'' and all. Also, everyone liked Vulkan

Sad to say but Emps was, in many, many ways, a colossal fuckup. He was at least 50% responsible for the Heresy to begin with.

>The former's death is at the very premise of the story, and can't go unchanged.
>the webway fuckup still needs to happen to keep things moving in a canon-wards direction

Do you guys not get the concept of alternate history? It means "what if X happens instead of Y, in what way will events subsequently unfold in a different direction."