Another theory post.
Here's my theory on why I believe Roberto Guilliman is actually the 3rd biggest heretic in the Imperium, behind Logar and Horus. I admit here that I haven't read the Forge World books, but I'm up to date on the Black Library books.
Minimum Impact on The Great Crusade.
In the Heresy so far there isn't much reference to Ultramarines Complience Fleets, the 2 I'm aware of are the fleet that castigated Logar and basically kicked the whole heresy off and the second fleet put an official complaint in regarding the World Eaters and Sons of Horus, after the Ultras had requested support from specialist assault factions from both Legions because they were struggling to break a siege. What was he doing while his brothers conquered the galaxy?
Betrayal At Calth
The first big conflict that the Ultras feature in, must be about concurrent with Isstvann V. The majority of his Legion is gathered at Calth with arms and material to reinforce the Word Bearers and take the fight to some Xenos, so Kor Phenon takes the elements of the Word Bearers that Logar wants shut of and attacks the Ultra. Numbers aren't mentioned but the Ultramarines have a numerical advantage, access to fleet level supplies and the advantage of knowing the ground they are fighting over, the Word Bearers have surprise. It still takes the Ultras a surprisingly long time to get the upper hand and enough Word Bearers escape to the Malestrom to keep causing trouble for the Imperium for 10,000 years. And what does he do after the attack, he consolidates the 500 Worlds, only pushing the Word Bearers out of his space.
The Ruin Storm
Or how Logar comes and plays him like a fool.
So 2 legions come with intention of raising hell, by every measure of this it's a major success for Logar, the Ultras are playing catch up all the time and Logar succeedes in getting Angron ascended to Dæmon Primarch, before pulling both armies out the other side of the 500 Worlds.
Does he chase them? No he once again consolidates in the 500 Worlds
He then sits in his palace and gathers the stragglers that turn up together and defends his own domain. He manipulates The Lion and Sanguinious into the Imperium Secondus, declaring Sanguinious as Emperor. And then when it's proven that the Emperoris still alive, he is the only one of the Trimulative that doesn't go and make a move, he once again consolidates the 500 Worlds. Even Sanguinious looks sheepish and makes preperations to move out.
The Seige Of Terra
Not there, not even moving to relieve the Seige.
Only after The Lion and Russ have chased the traitors off from Terra does Girlyman bring his, surprisingly well supplied and very strong numerically, Legion in to play "rescuing" the Imperium, after the majority of the hard work has already been done and all the other loyalist legions have had the crap knocked out of them and are down on numbers. He then instigates a system where all the other Legions are patterned on his and stations chapters all over the Imperium, one could almost use the word "garrisoned", and ensures that his Legion is the main one that the High Lords of Terra, an institution that he puts in place, pick his legions gene seed first when it comes to founding more marines.
In conclusion,
His bombing of Logar's perfect city is the trigger event of the whole heresy.
Pretty much ever other Primarch did more in the Crusade.
Set up his own Empire.
Didn't defend Terra.
Only moved his forces into play after the majority of the fighting was done.
Set up a puppet regime.
Garrisoned the Empire with his troops and ensured his troops are the prime source of reinforcements.
Thoughts?
Here's my theory on why I believe Roberto Guilliman is actually the 3rd biggest heretic in the Imperium, behind Logar and Horus. I admit here that I haven't read the Forge World books, but I'm up to date on the Black Library books.
Minimum Impact on The Great Crusade.
In the Heresy so far there isn't much reference to Ultramarines Complience Fleets, the 2 I'm aware of are the fleet that castigated Logar and basically kicked the whole heresy off and the second fleet put an official complaint in regarding the World Eaters and Sons of Horus, after the Ultras had requested support from specialist assault factions from both Legions because they were struggling to break a siege. What was he doing while his brothers conquered the galaxy?
Betrayal At Calth
The first big conflict that the Ultras feature in, must be about concurrent with Isstvann V. The majority of his Legion is gathered at Calth with arms and material to reinforce the Word Bearers and take the fight to some Xenos, so Kor Phenon takes the elements of the Word Bearers that Logar wants shut of and attacks the Ultra. Numbers aren't mentioned but the Ultramarines have a numerical advantage, access to fleet level supplies and the advantage of knowing the ground they are fighting over, the Word Bearers have surprise. It still takes the Ultras a surprisingly long time to get the upper hand and enough Word Bearers escape to the Malestrom to keep causing trouble for the Imperium for 10,000 years. And what does he do after the attack, he consolidates the 500 Worlds, only pushing the Word Bearers out of his space.
The Ruin Storm
Or how Logar comes and plays him like a fool.
So 2 legions come with intention of raising hell, by every measure of this it's a major success for Logar, the Ultras are playing catch up all the time and Logar succeedes in getting Angron ascended to Dæmon Primarch, before pulling both armies out the other side of the 500 Worlds.
Does he chase them? No he once again consolidates in the 500 Worlds
He then sits in his palace and gathers the stragglers that turn up together and defends his own domain. He manipulates The Lion and Sanguinious into the Imperium Secondus, declaring Sanguinious as Emperor. And then when it's proven that the Emperoris still alive, he is the only one of the Trimulative that doesn't go and make a move, he once again consolidates the 500 Worlds. Even Sanguinious looks sheepish and makes preperations to move out.
The Seige Of Terra
Not there, not even moving to relieve the Seige.
Only after The Lion and Russ have chased the traitors off from Terra does Girlyman bring his, surprisingly well supplied and very strong numerically, Legion in to play "rescuing" the Imperium, after the majority of the hard work has already been done and all the other loyalist legions have had the crap knocked out of them and are down on numbers. He then instigates a system where all the other Legions are patterned on his and stations chapters all over the Imperium, one could almost use the word "garrisoned", and ensures that his Legion is the main one that the High Lords of Terra, an institution that he puts in place, pick his legions gene seed first when it comes to founding more marines.
In conclusion,
His bombing of Logar's perfect city is the trigger event of the whole heresy.
Pretty much ever other Primarch did more in the Crusade.
Set up his own Empire.
Didn't defend Terra.
Only moved his forces into play after the majority of the fighting was done.
Set up a puppet regime.
Garrisoned the Empire with his troops and ensured his troops are the prime source of reinforcements.
Thoughts?
posted from Bloggeroid
2 comments:
ehhh, the emperor bombed Logar, and brought along the ultras as an act of shame. I'm pretty sure it was a move to bring the good guy senator thinker, and not the wolves, to show, hey Logar, you can still be a thinker type and still conquer worlds. I bet you Gilman would have been a moderating voice in the discussion about how to deal with these culty weirdos.
The whole Empire Secundus is kinda funky, but considering that other loyalist had no idea what to do, let alone make a plan, its a not THAT bad. the Lion and the Kahn were just sorta doing their own thing, with out any sort of government controls in place to moderate the power of the astartes. Gillman saw the need for the space marines to serve a greater organization, and with out one in place, then they are just basically rouge elements, only serving their own commands. Gillmans empire was made to give a clear goal and boarders to defend, instead of roving bands of marines picking and choosing when are were to fight, they had to defend all the basic silly human planets.
I guaranty you some of the the more 'rough' legions would just skip planets that they didn't have a good traitor legion target on them, only out for revenge stuff.
and besides, its Fulgrim who is heretic number 3, that guy was scheming like crazy to make all kinds of trouble totally different then what Horus was doing.
(Fists still best codex army)
So, step by step :
1) "His bombing of Logar's perfect city is the trigger event of the whole heresy."
And it was organized by the Emperor in person - you know, the guy who concealed pretty much every information that could have prevented the betrayal of the Primarchs - the Ultramarines were just here as 'exemplars' of how quickly and (relatively) peacefully conquest could be achieved. Actually Rowboat himself thought that shaming Lorgar this way was a really, really bad move and blamed the Emperor for that.
2) "Pretty much ever other Primarch did more in the Crusade."
No. Depending on the sources you refer to, the Ultramarines may be the first, second or third ranking Legion in terms of liberated/conquered worlds. And Guilliman was probably the one carring the most about political integration into the Imperium.
3) "Set up his own Empire."
Still better than doing nothing but wait since he was trapped in Ultramar by the Ruinstorm. What is true however is that Guilliman didn't work for the Emperor - he didn't consider Him as his father anyway - but for Mankind. Ultramar had its own pseudo-Astronomican, a solid political, economical and military organization, and Robby had control on what was happening inside his realm. Plus, the few news he get from the outside were really bad : half the Legions turning traitors, the supposed total destruction of 3 loyal Legions, the vanishing of the Blood Angels... It was far safer to defend Ultramar than risking all his remaining force across the storm without ANY intelligence about what was waiting them. Sad for the Emperor, but I can deal with it honestly.
4)"Didn't defend Terra."
As the Space Wolves and Dark Angels didn't. And the DA had a device allowing them to navigate through the Ruinstorm. All three were on their way for Terra during the siege anyway.
5) "Only moved his forces into play after the majority of the fighting was done."
And said forces did most of the dirty work during the Scouring (or so the Imperial history says). That's redeeming IMHO, because saving Terra is useless if the whole Imperium keeps falling apart.
6) "Set up a puppet regime. "
Probable, but the first millenium after the Scouring was the Golden Age of the Imperium nonetheless, so is it worse than the High Lords murdering each others during the Beheading or Vandire turning the Empire into a hellpit ? Guilliman's dictatorship was not that bad if you look at what was to come after him...
7) "Garrisoned the Empire with his troops and ensured his troops are the prime source of reinforcements."
The Ultramarines were simply the most numerous.
So was Guilliman a heretic ? Yes. At least if you take the stricter mean of 'heresie'. The Greek word 'haíresis' (αἵρεσις) simply designates an individual, peculiar way of thinking, a personal dogma or choice. Guilliman was not a traitor, an usurpator or a dissident, but he had a singular and unorthodox vision of how to save and rebuild the Emperor's dream. Sure, he was egocentric and patronising, but he did the job nevertheless. The guy was rough, but who among the Primachs had a real experience about governing a state ?
That said, we don't need Guilliman to be a perfect guy or flawless saviour, that's not why a like the character. The thing is, most Primarchs betrayed the Emperor because He gave no s*** about their personal aspirations and visions of Mankind. That's the true grimdark of 30k : the Primarchs were tools and nothing more, their dreams were relevant only as long as they could be used to steer them. It's highly logical for Guilliman to become the most borderline loyalist of the setting, because his aptitude for efficient empire-building is the very reason whe was one of the most useful Primarchs for the Emperor. It's all about irony, cynicism and grimdarkness.
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